RavensDagger

  Chapter Seventeen - Pirl

  The process of undog a ship to a station or small p was simir, in many ways, to the process of an aircraft taking off oh.

  That is to say, it was exceptionally plicated, and the average idiot still thought that if they were put behind the pilot's yoke, they'd mao figure it out.

  There was a knock at Ivil's door, and she gnced up from her casual reading to stare. The weight and feel of the person oher side meant that there was really only one person it could be. Twenty-Six.

  Standing, Ivil discarded the tablet she'd been pig through and moved to the door to open it. "Yes?" she asked.

  Twenty-Six gnced up a her eyes, then grinned. "Hey! Just wao let you know, ermission to take off in ten."

  "Oh?" Ivil asked. "Thank you for letting me know. Is there anything I should do?"

  Twenty-Six nodded. "Stow away anything loose. And I do mean anything. If you o use the washroom, now's the time. There are plenty of horror stories of someone using the head when their ship o gh manoeuvres. Uh, we'll also be out of Ceres' gravity well pretty soon after we leave. With our initial acceleration, you might feel like you're being pulled in two dires, so that might be a little fusing. her of those dires will be towards the floor, which makes it worse."

  "Thank you," Ivil said. "I think I'll manage."

  Twenty-Six smiled, showing off two rows of very slightly crooked teeth. "No problem. We'll be slipping out of Ceres' gravity well, then accelerating. I think the captain wants to go for a hard burn, so everyone will have to meet up in the cockpit."

  Ivil nodded. A ship of this size couldn't afford multiple crash seats for everyone. In that case, it only made seo trate them all in one pce.

  Twenty-Six squirmed a little, and Ivil paused. "Is something wrong?"

  "Oh? No, I was just ting. I'm going to have to be the odd-o."

  "What do you mean?" Ivil asked.

  "There are only so mas in the cockpit, so I'll be in the engineering bay's crash seat. It's silly, but I don't like being alone for so long."

  Ivil sidered it. "Is it the only seat in engineering?" she asked.

  "Ah, no?"

  "Well then, I don't see why I 't apany you."

  This, of course, served two purposes. The first was simplest. She... wasn't enamoured with Twenty-Six, but the young woman was attractive, eid definitely cute. Ivil wouldn't miing to know her better. The sed purpose had more to do with Ivil's rea to high-G manoeuvres. Which was to say, she didn't have one.

  The kind of sudden ge in movement that a ship, even the fastest of space fighters, could do was so little that it didn't really affect Ivil. She would have to make a scious effort to pretend to be impacted.

  Fewer people around would mean fewer ces that anyone would notice her if she slipped.

  "I'm a little curious about this ship as well. Most of the time when dug Astro Archeology, we work with a wrecks. This ship is older than some case-study vessels a's still flying."

  Twenty-Six's eyes lit up. "I'd love to show you around. If it's old-old stuff you want, there's a lot to show you."

  Ivil smiled right back. "Let me put things away. It'll just take a moment."

  It really didn't take long. She hadn't unpacked much, so all she o do was secure her few belongings in one of the cubbies and then she was done. "I'm all yours," she said.

  Twenty-Six blihen ughed. "Alright. e on! I don't think you've seen engineeri."

  They slipped out of Ivil's room, and almost immediately ran into Aurora exiting her own room. "Hello, Lady Aurora," Ivil said.

  "Miss Ville," Aurora returned. She gnced over at Twenty-Six. "Miss... Six?"

  "Hah! Actually, Twenty-Six is my full name. I don't really have a first or family one? Uh, but Miss Six is fine?"

  "Five me, then," Aurora said. "I'm heading to the bridge to prep for manoeuvres. Are you doing the same?"

  "We're going to crash in engineering," Twenty-Six said. "I wao show Evelyn some of the Held Together that no oo see!"

  "I... see," Aurora said. She gave Ivil a look that Ivil had no hopes of deciphering. "Well, you two enjoy yourselves."

  "We will!" Twenty-Six said.

  Ivil slid to the side to let Aurora pass. She had the impression that there was some degree of misunicatiohat she hadn't caught on to. Ivil supposed that was the price to pay for not being as dired cise with her wants as she usually was.

  Twenty-Six reached bad grabbed Ivil's hand before pulling her forwards. "It's this way," she said.

  At the end of the corridor, towards the rearmost se of the ship, was a small dder leading upwards with padded rungs. Twenty-Six scampered up and into a small dark passageway, with Ivil following at a more sedate pace.

  "We have interior access to all three primary drive engines here, and two of the fuel bunkers," Twenty-Six said. "And I have a small engineering room, of course. It's basically where I spend most of the day."

  "It's a little tight," Ivil said as she squeezed past some pipework.

  "Oh, yeah. That's from the retrofit. The engines aren't designed for this kind of ship, so their access aerior es run right through some of the bulkheads. They're smaller than the old engines, but a lot more plicated. It means I'm never out of work to do."

  "Job security by means inefficy? I think I sympathise."

  Twenty-Six half-turned and bli Ivil. "Your job has that kind of problem too?"

  "You'd be surprised," Ivil said.

  She followed Twenty-Six up to a door. The meic shoved it open then froze at the threshold.

  There was a room here, and it did indeed have two crash couches. One of them had its belts ed around a few packages, the chair was a ft surfad had therefore been turned into temporary ste, as chairs often were. The rest of the room was... a bit of a mess. Everything was shoved into grated cubbies or locked up in toolboxes, but there were still plenty of things that needed s. A rack at the back had weights, and there were a few tools ying on the ground.

  What caught Ivil's eye the most, however, were the very many nearly-undressed women on the posters c the rusty walls.

  "One sec!" Twenty-Six said as she slipped in, then smmed the door in Ivil's face.

  Ivil waited. It took siderably more than one sed, but after a retively short pause, Twenty-Six reopehe door. She was holding a small psti to her side, with rolls of paper stig out. Her face was notably red.

  "What was that?"

  "Nothing."

  "And the things you ripped from the walls?"

  "You saw that? Uh, I mean. They were... diagrams. Top secret ship diagrams. For maintewenty-Six lied.

  "Diagrams of female anatomy?"

  Twenty-Six's face burned hotter.

  "For maintenance?" Ivil tinued.

  Twenty-Six's face burned so hot that it made the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her and out noticeably.

  "Was one of them wearing a dog colr and nothing else?" Ivil asked.

  "... we pretend that you didn't see?" she asked in a small voice.

  "I think I do that," Ivil said. "Though I might ask that you return the favour one day."

  "With... your own posters?"

  Ivil stared. "No. Not with posters of what looked like bootleg Miss Mars merdise." Ivil didn't do posters of half-naked women. Or praphy in general. She much preferred literature of the erotic sort. That wasn't praphy.

  It was art.

  "A-anyway, let me clear out the sed couch. It works, I promise," Twenty-Six said.

  There was a two-toned noise over the ship inters.

  "Ah, two minute warning," Twenty-Six said. "We'll probably be fio still be standing for a while. The captain is a really good pilot. And Missy's better. She make this old dy soar."

  "Have you known the captain, and Missy, long?" Ivil asked as she watched Twenty-Six sort through her things.

  "Yup! My dad khe captain's dad, way, way ba the day. This is the first ship I've worked on, though. Uh, it's better thaations bae. The Held Together has more charm."

  "I see that," Ivil said. This tiny engineering room, which was far too close to the engines, far too warm, and far too small, did have a lot of character, even stripped of its... more iing artistic elements. "Was Missy with the captain already? Hawke and Donny as well?"

  "Hmm? No, Donny's the , though he's been with us for a year or so now. Hawke was here already. And Missy... eh, she came maybe five years ago? She was..." Twenty-Six paused. "She took some time to get used to."

  "I see. That's an iing crew dynamic. Thank you."

  "Is it that iing?" Twenty-Six asked.

  "Of course. All too often, in my field, all I know about a ship is what we could get from its bck box. And that's often sanitised to the point of uselessness. It's iing to see what some of those lost crews might have been like."

  ***

  RavensDagger

  I am... an artiste! Some of my stories are on TopWebFi!-amon Bun-Stray Cat Strut-Lever A-Dead Tired-Heart of Dorkness-SpeddonVoting makes Broccoli smile!

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