The Pilot and the Mechanic (Part II)
They hadn’t been gone nearly long enough for the job to have gone smoothly. The ship had been planted in a nondescript area of the small planet so the captain could take a select bunch of morons out for a simple trade-off of cargo and credits. Simple enough that even a bunch of morons should have been fine. Alexa had expected at least an hour of uninterrupted time to sit on the bridge and brood quietly, as was her custom.
Which made it all the more surprising (and annoying) when the captain radioed that they were coming back and that Alexa should be ready to get them the hell off this moon.
Naturally, Alexa made quick work of preparing the ship for launch. It only took her a minute or two to get the old girl up and running, and then she just had to wait for the captain and his goons to return. It took maybe another five minutes before the shuttle was zooming back to the ship and docking onto its side like a sucker fish hitching a ride on a whale. The moment the shuttle was locked on, Alexa wasted no time in getting the ship off the ground and into the sky. Regardless of how terribly the job must have gone, Alexa preferred being in the sky anyway, so she wasn’t complaining.
The ship was flying at a comfortable speed (the size and age of the ship assured that quick getaways were not very quick at all) up through the planet’s atmosphere by the time the door to the bridge was pulled open, admitting the captain and the three thugs he had taken with him on the little expedition.
One glance over her shoulder let Alexa know the job had been a bust. The captain was beat to hell. Alexa didn’t actually know what species Ghax-Rac Brukov was, just that he was not particularly nice to look at even on the average day: short and squat, built like a brick shithouse, with angry red skin and pure black eyes, like a devil incarnate. Except now he was not only ugly but injured and pissed off as well. Black blood seeped from a gash on his cheek, and his square face was contorted into an irritated mask. “********’ backstabbers,” he spat as soon as he got onto the bridge, his voice as deep and guttural as it always was, tinted with something very similar to a Terran Russian accent.
Alexa’s mask of neutrality had been carefully cultivated over her twenty years of life, so despite the situation, seemed almost bored as she faced forward, focusing on steering the cumbersome ship. “Did we get paid at all,” she asked-but-didn’t, the question practically answered by the grumbling that broke out among the three thugs milling around behind her. No payment.
The captain answered anyway: “No.” He didn’t sound happy with her, like just the pilot asking such a thing was undermining him. Actually, he didn’t particularly like the pilot anyway; her skill with violence was too honed for her age, her blank face too unsettling, her eyes too piercing. Something was off about the girl. Brukov lifted one rectangular hand and wiped at some of the blood leaking down his face, which only succeeded in smearing the tar-like blood over his angular jaw. This seemed to annoy him further. “Even had to leave the ********’ mechanic behind. Now I’ve got to find a new one.”
Now that got Alexa’s attention. Her turn toward Brukov was too quick, and when her eyes fixed on him, her gaze was even more intense than usual. “Mickey,” she said, probably the closest thing to a question she had ever spoken to the captain.
He took it as such, giving her a brief look that was more confused than it was annoyed, though it was also annoyed. “Yeah. The idiot insisted that he go with us. s**t went south, we got separated, left him back there.”
One of the thugs piped up in what sounded like an amused tone, “Kid’s gotta be toast by now.”
Despite Alexa’s countenance staying entirely unmoved, she could not deny the small knot into which her insides had tied themselves. Why the hell was she so alarmed at the prospect of the mechanic being left behind? She had only met him about a month ago, and it had only been about three weeks since he had shown up — uninvited and unannounced — on the bridge, a pack of cold beer in one hand and a grin on his face. Admittedly, since that night, Mickey basically had not left Alexa alone. He would constantly show up on the bridge, sometimes to actually check something mechanical, but most times to just sit with her and chat for hours, him doing the chatting and not seeming to mind the lack of replies. By now, Alexa was even starting to find it odd whenever Mickey didn’t show up at least for a few minutes a day.
Alexa turned back to the pilot controls and got to work.
As soon as Brukov caught on to how the ship was turning around, however, his agitation flared back up, and he stepped with both threat and caution toward the pilot seat. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded of the stony-faced girl driving his ship.
“We’re going back for him,” was all Alexa said.
It took a moment for the act of defiance to actually process through Brukov’s brain. Once it did, he huffed a breath so heavy and angry that it made him sound like a bull about to charge, and the twisted expression he wore matched the illusion perfectly. “Like hell we are! Turn this ship around and get us out of here! Now!”
No reply from Alexa. No movement to turn the ship around as ordered.
With a frustrated growl, Brukov clabbered a blocky hand to his belt, where a sawed-off shotgun hung at his side. The gun was his pride and joy, his baby, probably the only thing in the world he actually liked; he called it Susan. Currently, he lifted Susan, leveling the roughly sawn barrel at Alexa Sinclair. “Turn us forward,” he ordered.
The air in the room had grown abruptly tense. Even the thick-skulled thugs in the room could feel the weight of the situation unfolding, and they all stood stock still, watching as the captain aimed his shotgun at the petite brunette that none of them had ever really trusted in the first place. And in the pilot seat, Alexa stayed aimed forward, impressively expressionless considering that there was a shotgun about six inches away from her head. She slowed the ship to hover in the air rather than speed back toward the planet — but she did not turn it around. Still, she knew that if she did not obey the red man behind her, he would not hesitate to blast her full of buckshot. The two options here were to leave Mickey behind, or get shot in the head.
Neither option sounded optimal. So she would create a third.
Her movements happened in a short, swift burst, like the pounce of a black cat. In one smooth motion, she had leapt to her feet, swivelled to grab the barrel of Brukov’s shotgun, and jerked it upwards in a quick twist. This made two things happen simultaneously: the gun was wrenched from Brukov’s hands while at the same time coming up to smack him hard on the nose. By the time his three backup brutes had managed to draw their weapons, Alexa was already standing behind the small captain, just barely shorter than he was but expertly using him as a shield, his own shotgun pressed snugly against his temple. Her slender finger rested comfortably on the trigger; the movement of but one or two of the pilot’s muscles would send the man’s brains flying across the bridge walls. And through it all, Alexa’s face barely moved, her eerie calm beyond unshakable. Even her eyes were cold, calculating, almost clinical.
Brukov knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this girl would kill him and feel nothing for doing it. Not that he would have felt anything for killing her, but he wasn’t used to being on the other end of such a situation, especially when the situation was his own gun. Not that this stopped him from gasping, “You b***h!” Beyond any traces of fear, the main thing filling his chest was raw fury. Not only had this runt kidnapped Susan, but it felt like she had broken his nose in the process; black blood dripped steadily down over his thin, tight lips.
“Tell them to put their guns down,” was what Alexa’s voice said near his ear, her tone as cold and smooth as a silk sheet.
“******** you,” spat Brukov, only to snarl a bit when he felt the cold metal of his gun’s barrel nudge his head a bit. Sure, if the girl shot him, his crew would kill her in moments — but he would still be dead. And he didn’t want to be dead. “Guns down,” he ordered the boys, and there was only a minimal amount of grumbling and glaring before all drawn guns were being reluctantly lowered.
Alexa had a firm grip on the back of Brukov’s coat, and she used this to pull him toward the door. “Tell them to stay,” was what she murmured to him, her breath ghosting over his large ears.
And he did, because what else could he do? He knew as well as she did that one blast from his gun would blow his head clean off. He liked living too much to risk it. The pilot guided him with measured steps to the bridge door, keeping him at all times in between herself and the tensed thugs. As soon as they were off the bridge, she let go of his coat only so she could reach and pull the bridge door shut. It was just a hulk of sliding metal, no security to sabotage to keep the thugs inside. Fine. She didn’t have time to rig up anything besides.
With a shove to Brukov’s back, Alexa sent him stumbling forward, and by the time he glanced back at her, she was already holding the gun up, the barrel levelled steadily at him. Brukov could not [******** believe this. How had this tiny, cold b***h gotten the jump on him? After a scoff, he asked, sneering, “Where to now?”
Minutes later, they were in the engine room. Alexa had almost led them right to the shuttle, but she knew that as soon as she was off the ship, the captain would set the ship following her. The shuttle being stolen wouldn’t even bother him; he would track Alexa down and possibly kill her just for besting him in front of his crew. She had to ensure they couldn’t follow, not right away.
Brukov seemed to understand Alexa’s intention in bringing them there, too. “I swear to God, Sinclair, if you do anything to my ship, I’ll—”
The butt of the shotgun handle came down on the back of his head with a dull, heavy thud, and down the red man went, landing heavily on the rusty floor of the engine room. In truth, Alexa wouldn’t have thought twice about killing him. It would actually have made her life much easier, knowing he wouldn’t be coming after her once this was over. Really, the only thing holding her back was time and practicality; knocking him out was just quicker and less messy.
Stepping uncaringly over the motionless body, Alexa crossed to the beat-down engine. Now she was regretting never coming to the engine room whenever Mickey had invited her to visit him back here; perhaps if she had taken him up on that, she would know anything about what she was looking at. She didn’t want to make the ship explode — at least not while she was on it — but she didn’t have the first clue on what mechanism would slow the ship, make it unable to be driven, or anything else that would slow down the thugs’ pursuit.
After a few moments of staring at the indecipherable engine, impatience tugging at the back of her mind, she gave up. Except her version of ‘giving up’ was raising the gun in her hands and blowing a hole in the damn engine, the gunshot blast was deafening in the small space, making Alexa’s ears ring painfully.
The ship rocked a bit, and for a brief moment, Alexa thought the mass of metal would start plummeting to the ground. It didn’t, simply rocking a bit and then staying hanging in the air. She didn’t know if that would work, but the engine at least wasn’t running smoothly like it had been a few moments ago. A myriad of small holes from the shotgun pellet ammo now decorated various hunks of metal in the engine. That would hopefully be enough for now.
Not that she had time to do anything else. The gunshot from Susan had been loud and distinct enough that Alexa heard shouts from across the ship, followed by the thudding of footsteps. The thugs had heard the gunshot, felt the rocking of the ship, and were not content to stay anymore on the bridge and wait for further instructions. They were coming for her.
Alexa didn’t think twice before she started running, leaping over the captain’s limp body and then sprinting down the hall toward the shuttle dock.
_____
Meanwhile, on the dusty planet below, the job had… not gone well.
Mickey hadn’t thought for a moment that the one job he finally insisted he go on would be a job that went bad so quick. The simple trade-off had crumbled into chaos when the person who should have been paying the captain decided instead to try and double-cross Ghax-Rac Brukov. A poor decision; Brukov’s temper was even uglier than his face.
Soon it had devolved to an outright gunfight. This had been particularly bad news for Mickey, who was only armed with the wrench hanging at his hip. And as everyone knew, there was no sense bringing a wrench to a gunfight.
He had dodged away from the fight as soon as humanly possible, opting to hide rather than fight. How would he even have gone about it? Throwing rocks at the people shooting him? Finding shelter behind a outcropping of rocks, Mickey crouched and just decided to wait it out. Brukov and his men weren’t smart and definitely weren’t nice, but they were good fighters. Mickey was certain that they could take care of this, that it all would blow over soon.
Except the only thing that blew over was the shuttle blowing past his head as Brukov and the others bailed, leaving their poor mechanic behind to fend for himself.
Mickey had spent the last twenty minutes ducking behind various boulders. He got the impression that these jerks were using him as target practice. Every time he would rush to a different bunch of rocks to try and distance himself from the angry guys with guns, a few shots would ping off rocks far too close to his head, and as he crouched and caught his breath, he would hear the men laughing.
This was getting old.
“Why don’t you come on out now, little boy?” called one of the men, accompanied by a chorus of chuckles from his companions. Apparently, they were getting tired of toying with him.
Gasping heavy breaths, Mickey scrambled his brain trying to come up with a reason that they shouldn’t kill him. Sure, he had plenty of reasons, but none he thought would sway the four or five men now wanting to put him out of his misery. He swallowed hard. “Listen,” he called hoarsely, “we can talk about this, a’right? Y’don’t wanna kill me! Do, uh, ya have any ships that need taken care of? ‘Cause I’m a crack hand at fixin’ engines. I swear!”
Another round of deep laughter, then, “Nice try, kid. We don’t need another mouth to feed.”
“I’m pretty thin!” called Mickey. “I don’t eat much! Drink more’n I eat, really!
“Just get out here.” Okay, now the guy was sounding more impatient than amused.
A long moment. Mickey had caught his breath, but his heartbeat was still thudding in his ears. He thought of his family. His parents, his little sister, his little brother. They didn’t even know where in the galaxy he was today; would they know he was dead? He thought of Alexa, his new friend that he wouldn’t ever see again. He hadn’t even told her he was going on this job. Now here he was, about to die alone on some backwater planet.
But all these thoughts were only prolonging the inevitable. If he didn’t stand up, they would come around the rocks and shoot him where he sat in the dust. Swallowing once more, he climbed slowly to his feet, turning equally as slowly, his hands upheld. He surveyed the group of armed men, one of them — the one with the best beard — standing slightly in front of the group. Mickey let out a heavy sigh. “Just… not the face,” he requested and then shut his eyes, bracing for the gunshot that would be coming in moments.
The bearded leader lifted his gun and smiled a smile bearing several broken teeth. He was going to enjoy this.
A light whooshing, getting louder. It was enough to catch the attention of the gang of thugs, it was enough even to make Mickey open one eye just a squint. Just in time to see the five men’s eyes widen as they turned to aim their guns at the source of the approaching noise.
Too late. Moments later, the shuttle was colliding with the group, sending the men flying like bowling pins.
And the shuttle was amazingly able to come to a tight stop exactly where the men had just been standing. Mickey’s feet were moving almost before he registered it as the shuttle from Brukov’s ship, and in moments, he had reached the shuttle, opened the door, and thrown himself inside.
The shuttle was off the ground and moving as soon as Mickey’s feet had touched the metal floor. It was zooming away from the wounded (or possibly dead) thugs scattered across the ground, moving up and away from this dusty death moon, moving quickly enough that Mickey had to struggle to stay on his feet and shut the door. Only once he accomplished it did he turn to profusely thank whoever had saved him, and—
“Lex!” The name spilled so freely and easily from his mouth that it seemed like he had been calling her the name for years, despite it being the first time he had ever used it on her.
Sitting in the pilot seat, Alexa half considered telling him not to call her that… but he sounded so genuine and relieved that she couldn’t bring herself to correct him. Then again, she also couldn’t bring herself to turn around, to offer a smile, even to offer a friendly word. It went so against everything she knew that any show of friendliness or familiarity would be out of the question even if she wanted to do it. The most friendly thing she could possibly say was, “Sit down and strap in.”
Mickey would do no such thing, not without gushing more appreciation first. “Aw hell, it’s no wonder the captain would send ya to get me!” he laughed happily as he stepped across the shuttle toward her seat. “Crack pilot comin’ ta get the crack mechanic, right?” As Alexa guided the shuttle in zooming forward above the brown, rocky landscape, Mickey glanced around and asked, “Where’s the ship? Where are we meetin’—“
“We aren’t going back to the ship.”
The words were a bit too quick, a bit too sharp. Mickey (by then standing by Alexa’s chair) looked down at her, his eyebrows arched high. “Hey, what?” she asked, but when he looked away from her stony, blank face, he got his answer: there was a gun laying in her lap, a sawed-off shotgun. “Holy s**t,” choked Mickey, pointing at it, “is that Susan?”
Alexa only answered by throwing him the briefest of glances, saying nothing even as she turned forward to focus on flying.
And as much of an idiot as Mickey could be, it only took him a few moments before all the puzzle pieces clicked into place in his mind. The revelation was evidenced by his sudden, wide-eyed glance around the shuttle. “Holy s**t!” he repeated again, this time more of a disbelieving laugh. “You stole the shuttle!” Because there was absolutely no way that Alexa would have been able to get the captain’s gun without a fight. Looking back at Alexa, he asked, now somewhat alarmed, “Did ya kill Brukov?”
“Probably not,” said Alexa, sounding unconcerned. She wouldn’t mind if he hadn’t survived that whack on the head; if he was still alive, he wouldn’t rest until he got back the shotgun currently resting on her knees. Still, she didn’t look up at Mickey. If anyone would be upset with her for potentially killing someone, it would probably be the mechanic. She had learned two things about him in the last few weeks: he was smarter than he looked, and he was a good person, so unlike herself.
So there was a long, tense moment where Alexa thought Mickey would lecture her. But when he did not do that, when he laughed and lunged forward to wrap his arms around her instead, she almost wished he had gone for the lecture.
“Ya crazy, wonderful, beautiful woman! Ya came back f’r me! I can’t thank ya enough, Lex, I just can’t!” declared Mickey, still laughing and still squeezing his friend in a tight hug. He didn’t seem to care if this would impede Alexa’s flying at all — but he absolutely cared as soon as he noticed how tense she was in his arms. Alexa had gone still as a board, every muscle pulled tight under her skin, like a small animal caught in a trap. Then Mickey stopped squeezing her quite so tight, lifting his head from her shoulder so he could look at her. Oh, this was something he should have already known about her, something he should have been able to figure out. “You, uh… don’t like to be touched, do ya?” he finally guessed.
She turned her face toward his, and because their faces were only a few inches apart, he really had the change to appreciate the duality of iciness and fire in her unique eyes. “Get off me,” she said, voice painfully dry.
Yet Mickey had to laugh even at that, even as he was letting her go. “Anythin’ for my hero!” he told her with a sunny grin as he planted himself on an empty space of the console near her. They flew over the desert landscape below, and Mickey stared out of the glass before them. After a few moments, something hit him, and he clicked his tongue. “Didn’t have time to grab my whiskey from the ship,” he noted sadly.
_____
Because Alexa had stolen a shuttle and not an actual ship, they could not exactly fly it halfway across the galaxy, as Alexa would have preferred. The farthest it would go was only one or two planet distances away. Alexa found the biggest, most populated planet possible; the more places there were to hide, the less likely that Brukov and his men could find them.
Once they had settled in a nice, out-of-the-way shipyard, surrounded by other, bigger ships to give them some cover, she and Mickey ventured out for some provisions (which ended up being a scant bit of food and several bottles of alcohol).
A couple hours later, they would be back in their pilfered shuttle, camped out there for the night. Mickey was sprawled on the floor, so tall and gangly that he took up almost the entire floor space of the small craft. Alexa was propped up against the wall nearby. Somewhere close was their first bottle of whiskey, already drained dry, and their second bottle sat between them, within both of their arms’ reach. Alexa would have called this second bottle already half-empty; Mickey would have called it still half-full.
But they weren’t talking about the whiskey bottle. Really, they weren’t talking about much. Mickey had already told a story or two and then just chatted away about nothing in particular, but even the chatty mechanic had eventually lapsed into a silence that was far too comfortable for two people who had just met a month ago. Both of them were at a good level of intoxication and thus under a pleasant haze, and both of them were perfectly fine with sitting in silence with one another in the dark shuttle.
Finally, Alexa spoke, for the first time in what seemed like hours. “We’ll have to find a different ship.” Her words were slurred a bit, but somehow, her voice retained its control. She reached out, grabbed the bottle of whiskey, took a swig from it, and then set it back between them. “Brukov will find us if we can’t put distance between us and him.”
Mickey lifted one hand, waving it lazily through the air as if swatting away that topic. “We’ll think about that t’morr’w.” Like Alexa’s words, his own were slurred as well, but rather than controlled, his voice was light and carefree and warm.
Alexa didn’t exactly like putting off finding an escape route, as escaping was so frequent in her life that it was almost a full time job. But she was drunk, and Mickey was drunk, and the dark of the shuttle and Mickey’s presence were actually surprisingly relaxing, so she didn’t argue.
It was Mickey’s turn to take a drink of whiskey, though it was a bit harder for him considering he was horizontal; he had to maneuver a bit to get his head upright enough so the booze wouldn’t go all over him. As soon as he was able to drink and then place the bottle back on the floor, he smacked his lips a few times and then said, “Hey, Lex, thanks again f’r comin’ ta get me. Ya saved my life.”
Despite the shuttle being dark, Alexa only shrugged in reply. ‘You’re welcome’ was not a phrase she said, in addition to similar phrases like ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’. Such niceties seemed not to be in her vocabulary.
Mickey didn’t mind. In fact, Mickey seemed to understand. He took her silence in stride and simply continued speaking: “It’s a good thing yer madly in love with me.”
Now that got a reaction from Alexa. She lifted her head away from the wall against which it had been resting, and her eyebrows lifted in a rare show of surprise. “How do you figure.” It was not a question because nothing ever was, but it did sound mildly curious.
In the very minimal light of the shuttle, Alexa saw Mickey roll onto his side so he could look over at her, propping up his head with one hand. She sensed more than saw the wide grin on his face. “Why else would ya have come back f’r me?” he drawled, voice so slurred and Southern and affable.
And actually… Alexa didn’t know that answer. Or maybe she did.
To Alexa Sinclair, everyone was either a threat or entirely useless. There were no compromises and no in-betweens. Even Elizander Rhone, while not antagonistic to her, had been threatening to her existence simply by being who he was, by operating as he did.
But Mickey Webb was different. Mickey was neither a threat nor useless. So what was he?
The answer came even quicker than the question: Mickey was the best friend she had ever had. That was not anything sappy. Alexa didn’t deal in sappy; she dealt in facts. Mickey being the best friend she had ever had was a simple fact. Alexa was not entirely excited about using words like ‘friend’, but because she wasn’t entirely against the idea either when it came to Mickey, she assumed that there was some truth to the word. Mickey was… apparently her friend. Weird.
As she thought about all this, she had turned her head to peer out the glass, watching the stars far above them, much farther away than she preferred herself to be from the stars. But finally she turned again to look at Mickey, though she was not entirely sure what she was going to say.
Not that she needed to say anything. Mickey was out like a light. His head was resting on his arm, and light snores came from him on occasion. Even in the dark, Alexa could see that he was so calm, so at peace, so content, and Alexa was once again hit by how utterly uncommon Mickey was: a friendly, pleasant, trusting person who ran with people like Brukov.
And now ran with a person like Alexa.
Shaking her head a bit, she allowed a smirk to tug at her lips, only due to the shielding of the dark and the drunkenness. She reached out and grabbed the remaining whiskey, then leaned back and settled comfortably against the wall once more. She wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, but she would be drinking. And that was okay.
