OPERATION CHEESECAKE - PART 1

“Hey, Dunny...wassup?” Tasia gives me a slight smile as she enters the sitting room. I shrug and return my attention to the radio in front of me.

“Not much, Tasia. An’ ye?”

She shrugs and frowns a little. “Another quiet day at the castle. And other than the little discrepancy I found out about earlier today, everything’s fine.” She sighs and sits down nearby to watch me solder a wire into place.

“Discrepancy, d’ ye say? What sort o’ discrepancy?”

“Uneven treatment,” she replies. “I thought we were all supposed to be equals around here. But that’s definitely not the case.”

Alan and Galen enter the room a few moments later, Alan wearing his trademark smile.

“Afternoon, everyone,” Alan says. “Another fine day.”

“I don’t know what’s so fine about it,” Tasia says. Not today, anyway.”

Galen arches an eyebrow. “What’s the matter, Tasia?”

“Team One is going on another picnic,” she announces flatly.

“So? It’s their turn this time around. We get our turn next week.”

“I know, but listen to this. Did you know that Nanny packs them a completely different picnic lunch than the one we get?”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Alan says. “Even if she has known them a lot longer, Keith has pointed out time and again that no one plays favorites around here. We’re all bonifide members of the Voltron Force.”

Tasia folds her arms. “Says you. But they get special treatment. I know because I’ve seen it. Pidge was bragging about it, even.”

I touch the iron to the trace to heat it up and apply the wire to melt the solder. “So what have they got that we haven’t been gettin’, then?”

“One word,” Tasia replies. “Cheesecake.”

“Cheesecake?” Says Galen.

Alan blinks. “Cheesecake?”

I look up at her. “Cheescake, didya say?”

She nods. “Cheesecake. Nanny packs it in their basket each and every time. And this time it’s a blueberry one, too.”

“Blueberry...ooh,” Galen smiles. “That’s a good one.”

“But what’s the big deal?” Alan says. “We get it for dessert at dinner, same as everyone else.”

“Dinner, yes. But not at our picnics. Never our picnics.” She gets to her feet. “That’s discrimination! We fly the same Lions, we take the same risks, why don’t we get the cheesecake too?”

Alan, Galen and I exchange glances. Alan rubs his chin thoughtfully.

“What if we take this to the Captain, then?”

“Forget the Captain,” Tasia says. “You know how Dexter is. He’ll say maybe Nanny just forgot, or make up some other excuse to defend them. If we’re going to get our fair share, then we have to take matters in our own hands. Besides, he’s on duty at Castle Control, so he’s busy. We can resolve this matter ourselves before the day is out.” She looks around at all of us. “You guys with me or not?”

“Hmmm,” Alan rubs his chin again. “I don’t know about this. Awful lot of fuss to be making over cheesecake...”

“This is more than just about cheesecake, Alan. It’s about our rights, our fair share of the perks around here.”

“But we do get our fair share of the perks. We each have our own vehicles, our own condos, big-screen TV’s, six-channel stereo systems. I can’t think of anything else we’ve been shorted on. What’s a cheesecake after all that?”

“Aww, come on, Alan. It is blueberry,” Galen says.

I peel off the vinyl gloves and set them aside. “I’m with ye, Tasia. Let me go wash me hands.” Tasia and Galen look at Alan as I get up to go.

“Well, Alan...?” Tasia asks.

“For better or worse, I’m part of the team,” he says finally. “Count me in.”

“Good man.”

“Okay Lance - we got everything loaded up?”

Lance gives me a thumbs-up. “It’s all good to go, Cap’n.”

“Wait,” Pidge says. “Where’s the Frisbee?”

“It might be under the picnic baskets...” Allura begins to search through the back of the van.

“I think I left it in the sitting room,” Pidge says. “I’ll go get it.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” I say to him. “You’ll come back with the laptop too.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“’Cause you’ll wind up sitting under a tree with it all day instead of relaxing like you should, squirt,” Hunk says. Pidge frowns at him.

“Playing with my laptop does help me to relax, thank you.”

“Forget it Pidge,” Lance says. “Today, we go fishing.”

“Hope the Princess brought the heavy-duty first aid kit then, so we can pull the hook out of your butt like we had to last time.”

Lance glares at Pidge. Hunk gives me a thumbs-up. “Go ahead and get the Frisbee, Chief. We’ll be right here.”

“You know Hunk will stay here, ‘cause this is where the picnic baskets are at!” Pidge teases.

“Ha, ha, Squirt, very funny.”

“Fight nicely, guys. I’ll be right back.” I set off at a half jog across the vehicle bay and make the right turn to head down the hall. The big meathook of a hand that slaps over my mouth and yanks me into a shadowy corner is entirely unexpected. Dunkirk pins my arms with his free one as Tasia, Alan and Galen advance out of the shadows toward me.

“Doef somne haf an efplantion for thif?” I demand of them through Dunkirk’s fingers.

Tasia puts her hands on her hips and smiles sweetly as Galen raises a small Super Soaker to my left temple. It reeks of women’s perfume. I corner my eyes at it briefly before I return my attention to her.

“Why, yes we do have an explanation for it, my good Captain Keith,” she says. “You are our hostage, and will remain so until our demands are fully complied with.”

“Hoftage? What th hell? I haf a picnic to go to! Now knock thif off and le’ go of me!”

“You may be going to the picnic, Keith, but your cheesecake isn’t. Not unless your friends don’t mind you smelling like Eau de Femme de les Fleurs for the next three or four days.” She nods toward Galen’s squirt gun, then points down the hall. “Take him away, boys.”

Alan reaches down to grab my feet, and I’m carried off down the corridor.

“What’s taking Keith so long?” Lance frowns at his watch for the third time in as many minutes. “He should have been back by now.”

“Pit stop, maybe?” Hunk says.

“We all did that already, Hunk,” I remind him.

“Maybe he’s playing with my laptop then. I got about three dozen new maze levels for my copy of Depths Below.”

“Hang on, I’ll go look for him.” I open the door and get out of the van. Lance grins at me.

“And if you’re both gone for a real long time, Princess, then we’ll know what that’s all about.”

“Cute,” I say to him and shut the door of the van firmly before I turn to leave. On arriving at the sitting room I find the Frisbee lying on the coffee table with a folded note taped to it. It reads:

ATTENTION TEAM ONE. WE HAVE YOUR CAPTAIN. SURRENDER THE BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE OR HE WILL BE VERY SORRY. WE WILL CONTACT YOU IN THE SITTING ROOM WITH FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS ON WHERE TO LEAVE THE RANSOM SHORTLY. SINCERELY, TEAM TWO.

What in the world...?

I hurry back to the vehicle bay. “Everyone, something’s up here! Look at this!”

They all lean out of the windows to look at me. I hand the note to Lance. He reads it aloud, then looks around at the rest of us.

“So they want the chessecake, do they?” His eyes narrow. “I’ll give them cheesecake, all right.”

“But they have Keith,” I say to him. “They’re threatening to do - well, I don’t know what - if we don’t part with the cheesecake.”

“Well, there’s really only so much they could do to him, Princess,” Pidge replies. “I doubt they’ll hurt him - maybe shave all his hair off or something like that, but they wouldn’t hurt him.”

“Shave his hair? They can’t do that! I want his hair to stay the way it is! Would they really do that?”

“Dat depends on how badly dey vant da cheesecake,” Sven says. “Desperate people are capable of anyting.”

“Oh, no...well, there’s at least one more left in the pantry. We can part with this one and settle it now.”

Lance frowns. “No can do, Princess. This is war, and they started it.” He looks at Hunk, Sven and Pidge. “They took our Captain, guys. It’s time to level the playing field.”

“How do we do that?” Pidge asks.

“Simple,” Lance replies. “We’ll take theirs.”

Two more hours to go, then I can activate the automatic alert system. Thank goodness. This has been a really lousy day. I don’t think I filled in one log report right today. Feels like I’m all thumbs. I’ll just blame it on being blonde.

I hear people entering the control center, and I turn to look. Lance is strolling briskly toward the platform with Hunk, Pidge and Sven right behind him.

“Hey, guys.” I glance at the time display. “Umm, aren’t you supposed to be picnicing right about now?”

Lance stops short and points a finger at me. “Get him.”

Hunk, Sven and Pidge break up to flank me on all sides. I blink at Lance.

“Lance...what’s the problem here?”

“Quiet, prisoner,” he snaps. “Just surrender peacefully so we don’t have to hurt you.”

“What?” I start to get to my feet and Hunk helps me up the rest of the way by the back of my shirt. He holds me in place while Sven twists my arms behind me and claps handcuffs on my wrists. “What are you - what’s the meaning of this?”

“The meaning of this, Dexter,” Lance replies, “is that the cheesecake is ours, and we have no intentions of surrendering it.”

“Cheesecake? What cheesecake? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t try to play the dumb blonde. You’re probably planning to get the Captain’s share of the take.” He takes a roll of duct tape out of his pocket and rips a piece off to put over my mouth. “But no one threatens our cheesecake. Not you, not anyone.”

Hunk picks me up then and slings me over his shoulder like a bag of laundry. Lance leads the way out of the control room.

To Operation cheesecake: Part 2