| To Operation Cheesecake: Part 3 |
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To Operation Cheesecake: Part 5 |
As the secondary Captain of the Voltron Force, I have expected to wind up in some unusual places. It pretty much comes with the territory. I never imagined being gagged and handcuffed and tossed behind some trunks with a purple stuffed pig as company as being one of them, though. It’s not the arrangement itself that bothers me so much as the fact that I was so rudely unseated from my position on duty. What if I’m accused of being AWOL? What if an actual emergency does come up?
What if I have to use the bathroom?
I need to work these cuffs off somehow. I know there’s some sort of technique where one can relax the muscles in the hands and make them pliable enough to slip right through. I do know some breathing techniques that may help me get into the right state. I take a deep breath, release it...
A loud scraping sound hits my ears, shattering my concentration. What in the world could that be? I thought I was the only one locked up in this room. It can’t be anyone coming in to check on me, because the lights are still off. I hold absolutely still and strain to listen in the quiet darkness around me.
The sound comes again, something heavy and wooden dragging along the floor. My mind, having all the free time in the world to conjure up terrors for me, settles upon the idea of a corpse struggling free of its coffin as the reason for the sound. My quivering, tightly-clenched stomach promptly rejects the idea as absurd. The brain refuses to give up on the concept of nasty things going bump in the dark, however, and envisions a rat of the appropriate size needed to push a heavy wooden object along. This argument is accepted by both the stomach and my heart, which begins to pump frantically in alarm. Maybe I’ll be lucky and it’s a giant white rat, Cheddar’s great-great-grandpa or something like that.
The large heavy wooden thing falls to the floor with a crash so loud that I almost don’t have to worry about the bathroom dilemma. Then I hear footsteps shuffling amid the junk, a bump, a thud and a cuss that sounds suspiciously like my Captain-Captain. There’s another round of shuffling, bumping and cussing before the lights in the room snap on.
“Dexter, where are you?” Keith calls out. I promptly kick at the stuffed pig to knock it to the floor. A few moments later Keith arrives and pokes his head around the stack of trunks.
“You okay?”
I nod my head and he comes over to pull me to my feet and help me up and out from my hiding place. He unfastens the gag from my mouth.
“Keith, I’m sorry I’m not at my post, but as you can see, I got a little tied up.”
He frowns a little. “I know. They really had no business pulling you from duty, cheesecake or no.” He moves behind me to loosen the cuffs from my wrists.
“Well, Tasia shouldn’t have interrupted your leave time, either. We both know how important that can be after being cooped up in the castle for so long. But in the meantime, what are we going to do about this whole cheesecake thing?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. It’s probably some sort of mistake on the request forms, whether it’s accidental or deliberate. But first things first. I think both sides need to taught a lesson about priorities.”
“I agree. What do you have in mind?”
He looks around at the junk scattered throughout the room. “Give me a minute to think about it.” His gaze falls on the overturned puppet booth. “Sorry about the noise, by the way. I was just trying to get leverage to work my hand out of the cuffs, and I kicked the booth by accident.”
I smirk at him. “S’okay, Keith, you didn’t scare me too terribly badly.” I think I’ll avoid mentioning that I thought he was a giant rat, though. “So you know the relaxation thing, huh?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” He holds up his left arm and removes the handcuffs. “Sven’s the one who taught me.”
“You’re saying Sven spends a lot of time getting out of handcuffs? Where does Princess Romelle fit into the equation?”
He arches an eyebrow at me. “Since when are you so concerned about what goes on with Sven and Romelle?”
“It’s my duty as a Sv’elleie to know.”
Keith blinks. “A what?”
“A Sv’elleie. I’m a member of the Sven-Romelle Union Society.”
He makes a face. “Get the heck out of here.”
“Nope, I’m not kidding. There are thousands of people on Pollux who think they should get married. We even have our own web page, and I’m on friendly terms with the President.”
“And who would that be?”
“Guess.”
“Bandor?”
“Yep.”
“Does Sven know anything about this?”
“Are you kidding? He’d probably deck me if he knew.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“Oh come on, Keith. Sven is a big hero on my home world. There’s nothing wrong with a little wishful thinking. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some group out there somewhere that has the same attitude toward you and Princess Allura.”
“What, you mean some sort of fan club?”
I shrug at him. “Could be. You never know.”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right. All these nice people happily wishing for me to get together with the Princess.”
“Well, sure, why not? It could be like that one Terran song...what is it?” I snap my fingers. “Love Train - that’s it. You could gather up all your fans on this big train and travel all over Arus, making stops at every city. All aboard the Keith-Allura Express...!”
“Are you quite through yet?”
“There could be this big red heart on the engine, with the letters ‘K’ and ‘A’ in gold on the heart -”
“Dexter...”
“I bet the Princess would think it was cute.”
“I have an idea for the lesson,” he replies, changing the subject completely. “Go check those trunks. There’s a pair of uniforms in particular that we’ll need.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Doom soldier outfits. Lance and I saved a pair from an infiltration attempt we made awhile back. Should be two complete sets around here somewhere.”
“Right.” I open a trunk to begin the search. “Okay, so maybe not the big red heart. But you could still have a train with just the letters -”
“Dexter, where in the world did you get a crazy idea like that?”
I grin at him. “A secret space mouse suggested it to me. You shouldn’t be so stuffy about it, you know. Every lion needs a lioness.”
“You sure you aren’t coming down with the flu or something?”
“Might be. Maybe I need a few days off, too.”
Keith doesn’t reply. After recovering the uniforms and a few other props of his choosing, we stuff them all into bags and leave the room.
| To Operation Cheesecake: Part 3 |
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To Operation Cheesecake: Part 5 |