CHAPTER THREE: Draw the Curtain

Mac gently handed Bonnie a steaming bowl on a tray. "Here ya go, lass. A nice hot bowl of chicken noodle soup."
She smiled as she sat down on the floor of Hangar Three and rested her back against the enormous tires of the Blue Earth. "Thanks, Mac. Now here's hoping I can actually eat it."

Maggie waved her finger in the air while bending forward into a box of tools. "Of course you can, Bunny. I made it myself!"

The young woman took a spoonful and slowly lifted it to her lips. Quietly she slurped it up and gnashed her teeth together as she swallowed hard. A sharp wrenching sensation shot up from the pit of her stomach and she did her best not to complain.
She took another slurp and finished the whole bowl one tiny spoonful at a time.

Stretching, she leaned her head back into her shoulders and stared up at the ship that rested behind her. It was beautiful.

Maggie pulled out a few wrenches and went to a box of mechanical parts across the hangar. "I wonder where Ringo is? Has he come back yet?"

Bonnie shook her head. "No, not that I know of. He should be back by now, though. Hmm. Maybe he's in bed?"
"Maybe."
Bonnie closed her red eyes. "You know, he hardly ever gets to see his family anymore."

Maggie took a small alternator out of the box and walked over to her workbench on the opposite wall. "Oh I know. How about you, Bonnie? Have you heard from yours lately?"
Bonnie winced at the mention of family. "Oh yeah." Her voice flattened, "I ran into my brother just the other day…" She supposed his amnesia was more of a blessing than a curse.

The red haired mechanic smiled as she pulled out a screwdriver. "That's great! You know—it's funny sometimes when the ones you love pop up suddenly."
"Speaking of funny and loved ones—I heard from the Dingo—who woulda guessed Vitani was married to Balzac?"

Maggie's smile quickly washed into a frown. "Yeah, I know. With the way she treated him while he was here, I wouldn't have thought it. Not in a million years."
Bonnie shuddered. "I don't blame her; he was uglier than hell. And another thing: Vitani had been with us for months and months—spying right under our noses! How could Commander Jamison not have noticed?"
"She's sneaky." The other woman answered with a shake of her head.

"Vitani Saint Jacques: nothing more than an unimportant spy for General Gault. It still blows me away."

Maggie sighed heavily in response and loosened her shoulders as her head hung. "None of that matters now. Haven't you heard? Balzac went up to the Space Ring to train some troops and they ran into trouble. Poor Vitani was forced to watch her husband fight a losing battle with Saber…"

Bonnie cringed at the name.

"…She pleaded with Gault to order his retreat, but he wouldn't budge. So, when Saber…" Maggie paused with another sigh and formed her next words carefully and lowered her voice a few notches. "When Saber killed him, Vitani was stricken with so much grief that she attacked the general."

Bonnie straightened and leaned forward with wide eyes. "Vitani attacked Gault?"

"She was sent back to her old base in NYC and put in solitary confinement. He's charging her with insubordination and attempted murder."

Another stone weighted Bonnie's stomach and she settled back down. "She'll be put to death…"

"And on public television, no less."
"Poor Vitani! She may have been a bit catty at times and a spy for the military, but—"
"—she was still our friend," Maggie finished with a nod.
"Isn't there anything we can do?"
"Unfortunately, no."

Maggie went back to work; Bonnie swallowed hard and sat in silence while still trying to soak it in.

Ringo ground his teeth. "You bastard." He snarled as he tried to break free from his restraints. "I'm gonna make you pay for what you did to her…"

The dark haired man raised an uninterested eyebrow as he peered down the vast ravine below. The sun was setting; soon the desert would be blanketed in darkness. "Say what you want." He said in a laugh. "It won't matter in a few minutes, anyway."

The blonde blinked away the thick blood that spilled into them from a gash on his forehead. Even the snot beaten out of him couldn't keep his big mouth shut. He grunted and tried to pull his bound wrists apart.
"I'll kill you." He spat.

Cain glanced over at the sorry excuse for a human and sighed. He shook his head sadly. "I don't think so. The only ones who are to die are Bonnie and Blade."

Bonnie. The word rolled strangely on his tongue.

"What's your beef with her, anyway? Wha'd she ever do to you?"
He snickered and slowly walked over to where his captive sat, undaunted by the piercing glare that was returned to him. "And, you're going to do it. Then the Earth shall be ours."

"On a cold day in hell." Ringo responded.

Cain bent over and stuck his face in his to match gazes. "You're not in much a position to talk, are you?"

Ringo's mere reply was to spit in his face.

Cain swung back up to a standing position. "Still spirited, I see." He took in a fistful of hair near his captive's scalp and pulled hard. "That's a shame. For you, at least—it just makes my job more amusing." With that he threw his key to victory off the edge of the cliff, and into the deep ravine below.

The next morning…

Bonnie slowly walked down the halls towards the infirmary. Life was a lot harder when you didn't have someone to carry you everywhere you wanted to go. Ringo hadn't come to wake her up this morning, the chore assigned to him after she was discharged.
She sighed. Maybe he really was sick and tired of having to go through such a big hassle. She really wouldn't blame him, though.
"Ringo, where are you?" She wondered silently to herself. "Did you make it back ok? If so, how come you didn't even stop to say hello? Did something happen yesterday? Maybe he's really depressed. Maybe I should stop by his room and check…"

Stopping to clear her lungs with another bark, she turned around and headed in the other direction. Breakfast could wait. As if on queue, he happened to turn the corner. She stopped dead in her tracks and just stared. His clothes were covered in dust; she could see dried blood in his hair.

"Ringo, you're back! What happened? You look terrible."
Ringo looked down at her with cold, unfeeling eyes. "Nothing." He answered sharply.
Bonnie gazed back at him, confused. Slowly she stumbled forward and grabbed hold of the arm at his side. "I was just thinking about you…"

His body was tense and rigid.

He yanked out of her grasp; she tumbled forward, legs too weak to catch her balance. Without even turning around to see if she was all right, he walked off to take a shower.
Bonnie tried to get back up, but she hadn't the strength.
"Ringo…" She called. "I-I'm kinda stuck…"

He merely ignored her.

"What happened to you? Is Rachel okay? How about your brother Randy? Is he even alive? I'll try to talk to him later, after he's cooled off." She scratched her head as she sat there in the middle of the hallway. "Is it just me, or did his eyes seem a little off? Like, the blue isn't right, or something...?" She scoffed at such a silly thing. "Don't be silly, Bunny. It's just your hunger getting to you." Her stomach growled in agreement.

Another person turned the corner. "Commander Jamison…?"
He stopped and looked down at her in bewilderment. Bonnie smiled up at him sheepishly.
"Sir, I'm sorry, but…could you…?"
"Bonnie, how on Earth did you end up down there?" He bent over and got her standing again. "Thank you, Sir." She answered. "I lost my balance and fell."
He remained looking at her with a puzzled expression. "What are you doing out of bed?"

She picked at the ends of her hair. "Well, I was on my way to the infirmary…the doctor was kinda angry at me last night, for not eating my soup where he could see me."
"Wasn't someone there to help you?" He asked.
Bonnie shook her head. "No Sir. Ringo isn't feeling well. And you know that we all have work to do…I didn't want to pull anyone away from anything important."

Commander Jamison took her arm. "Nonsense. Come on, I'll help you."
Bonnie looked up at him gratefully. "Aren't you busy? I-I can do it if I go slowly…"
Jamison chuckled softly. "By the time you'd get there on your own it would be dinnertime. My research can wait a few minutes."
Her heart swelled. "Thank you so much, Sir. I really appreciate you going out of your way to help me."
He shook his head. "Don't worry about it."

"So, Ringo's not feeling good…" He began.
Bonnie nodded, taking the hint of, "do tell". "Yeah. He went to visit his sister…I think something bad happened…"
Jamison gave a slight rise of his head. "So that explains it."
She looked back up at him as they walked down the hallway arm in arm. "Sir?"

"Commander chewed Ringo out for coming back late, and Ringo didn't even try to make up an excuse! All he said was, 'Yes, Sir. I'm sorry. It won't happen again.'" Tina piped up from behind them.
"Strange…" Bonnie replied.

"I finished up that report you wanted, Sir." Tina said, pulling a disk out of her pocket.
"Thank you. Put it by my computer."
She nodded. "Yes, Sir."

Ringo got into bed and shut his eyes. He needed sleep. His body still ached from the beating, but he didn't mind. His thoughts focused in on his new objectives in life:
Follow orders
Report anything that might be important in the future back to Saber
Stay underfoot
And finally,

Destroy the Tekkaman named Lightsabre before she could become a nuisance.

He shut his eyes. According to Saber, objective number four was top priority. He snickered slightly as his mind conjured up numerous creative ways to do her in.

A/N: 3/15/11: The inability to use indentation is driving me up a tree. At least there are borders I can use to break up the passages for the different characters.