Let The Wrong Word Slip - [OPEN]

[Anonymous]

"Ah, I don't know how I'll ever live this one down," Tali leaned back in his chair, pressed the back of his head to his forehead.  "Does this mean I need to start growing my hair out?

The asteroids bouncing off each other reminded Tali of the old browser game Asteroid Pop.  Maybe hard mode, with a hack that turned the brightly coloured asteroids into normal greys, browns and rusts.  The big one spiraling away from them now would be a good Starter.  Angle it the right way and they could pop all the asteroids between them and the bug.

And stare at it.  They were both out of range.  

There wasn't much they could do but wait until they go backup.  With any luck the bug was roaming away from any buddies.  Just had to keep an eye on the black and keep cool while they waited.  Tali patted the 1903's console.  The ship was going to be in repair for a while, which meant there would be plenty of sims in Vin and his immediate future.  More practice.  At least Tali was confident that they could have suffered worse damage.  There was more to being a good captain than coming back from every mission unscathed.  Many times, the best angle for the gunner was the best angle for whatever bugs or eddies they were shooting at.

A good gunner didn't miss a shot.  A good captain brought them both home at the end of the mission.

That was more than enough reassuring himself.  There were better things he could do to occupy himself while he watched what was left of their instruments and scanned the ether for any sign of the bug making a strike, or a swarm coming down on them.  No need to think so much with two other people on the ship.

"Anyone got a story to..."  Tali cocked his head.  "Tally eleven o'clock."  The bug was half behind an asteroid ahead of them, peeking out at them.  At least it confirmed the bug's systems were bent.  Or maybe it was trying to lure them forward.  Tali didn't touch the controls.

"Guess he's up for a few more rounds," Tali laughed.  "Stubborn little fucker."

[Anonymous]

How could they think this was funny? Dart sat indignantly between their joking, partially resenting them and partially envying them. He’d have no part in this- he was sure there was something useful he could do in the meantime. He might just snap if he didn't find something soon.

“Copy Shoe. Wilco .You, Chick and Figjam hang tight,” Tanaris responded. Even she seemed to have a cool voice, though he supposed it’d be easier for her not actually being here. Dart followed the space pirate as tally was called again. His eyebrows furrowed. Why bother hanging around when they were so disabled? 1903 had more firepower presently. Something wasn’t quite right. They had some motivation for staying here. That implied planned objectives. Could he therefore assume that they were here for the drop and that their lingering was because they were waiting for it? How important was it?

Dart reached for his controls and began tapping. It was slow work, tapping into the pirate’s internal com. He hadn’t practised signals intelligence for a while; he rarely needed it. There were a few blocks in place that slowed him further, but it wasn’t above the usual. It was all fairly standard procedure, close to the examples they were given in training. After a few minutes of work, faint voices crackled over his headset. He then linked it up so they’d all hear it.

“Three working small phasors. That’s shit man.”

“Reckon we should call?”

“He’ll be pissed if we do.”

“Even more pissed if we don’t get that drop.”

Pause.

“Oi! This is Wyrm to Icarus. Can we get some backup? The authorities are here.”

Crackle.

“Twenty minutes!?”

That’s all he needed to hear and that alone put him in a renewed state of panic. The Icarus was a well armed pirate cruiser. So there was some sort of relation between the Wyrm and the larger ship. Was there a syndicate forming without them knowing? A new pirate fleet? However, more importantly, a fresh ship was coming to meet them. And they’d be annihilated if their own backup didn’t turn up soon.

“Fuck. We’re going to be screwed in twenty minutes. Fuck,” he muttered into the headset. Surely he couldn’t be the only one panicking at this stage. And with panic came a new restlessness.

“Chick to Mummy. How long?”

“Hard to say.”

Not good. “L-less than twenty minutes?”

“I think we’ll be hard pressed.”

“C-copy,” Dart ended his communications. Then over the internal com- “We’re going to die. Oh gods, this is actually it.”

[Anonymous]

Vin listened carefully to the pirates' communication, brow furrowed.  It impressed him a little that the tacky had stepped up and taken some initiative.  Not that he'd really expected the 77s would get an incompetent tacky, but this one had been awfully nervy so far.  Nice to know he didn't really suck.

Okay, he was still definitely high-strung.  Vin would take him down with the power of banter.  

"How many times have we definitely almost died, Tali?" Vin said, with all due nonchalance.  "That said."  He clicked into base com and cleared his throat.  "Mummy, tacky forgot to tell you we're gonna get swarmed in about twenty.  So put in a call to any friendlies around, 'specially if they have wipers or shields, 'kay?"

"Copy Shoe, I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks.  We'll be standing by."  Click off.  

Vin shot a glance at Tali, eyebrows raised, and then focused on the readout racing over his headset.  He checked systems and his guns, and found most of those in working order, their main crystal still fully configured.  

Vin wasn't the best at this, the planning thing, and he knew that.  He had at his disposal a narrow array of possible options, but he focused on them because he knew them well.  If they got the right angle, they could hide behind the asteroids and let what remained of their shields take a few hits and maybe knock out both ships.  They'd faced worse odds before.  Maybe not with a broke thruster, but they'd managed.  Tali flew like a drunk flamingo already, and Vin knew however he teased him about that it meant he had some skill to spare.  And that he might be able to handle the 1903 decently even without the thruster.

He kept running over the split-second scenarios in his head, finger twitching over the trigger button.  It wasn't a matter of strategy for him, anyway, it was all about the reaction, the gut, and he stayed ready by staying relaxed.  

"... seriously, it's like what, fifty" neglecting to mention it was mostly in training "and I just can't get ridda this guy, the shiny head deflects phasor fire or somethin'."

[Anonymous]

That wasn't good.  Some lizard survival instinct wanted to grab hold of the controls again and barrel them helter-skelter through the asteroids.  Put as many miles of black and metal asteroids as they could between them and the incoming Icarus.  In theory it had it's merits.  In practice, he might end up losing control and flattening them against an asteroid too large for them to get around in time.  Death by monstrous bug after a prolonged space battle was a much better death for a TOPZ crew and certainly beat death by collapsing mountains of paperwork, over-caffeination, old age or whatever it was that tacky's were supposed to die from.

"Fifty sounds about right," Tali leaned back, tapped a hand against his knee to keep it from drumming the controls.  "We've even got a whole wing this time."  The other hand hovered over to a timer nestled among the other instruments, entered 00:19:00 and started the count down.  No need to panic, wondering when Icarus was going to come around.

It was a shame there weren't any big asteroids passing between them and the bug.  With a big enough asteroid as a shield he could start frogging between them.  Make the little bug lose track of their position so the big bug would need a few seconds to aim its scanners in the right spot.  If they could see the Icarus before she saw them, a few well placed shots might turn her from a monster made of pure BOHIC (who wouldn't need the A if she had her way) to a big, blind target.

There were no asteroids big enough to hide them rolling their way.  Shooting one would draw too much attention to the asteroid.  

All they could do was stare at the bug, like a couple characters in a cartoon.  Giving each other a good old glare while their hands hovered over their weapons, fingers wriggling.

Tali began tapping a different tone out on his knee, shifting a little in his seat.  "Next time we go on a mission I'm bringing a cigar," actually, wouldn't that strain the air filters a bit?  Oh well, if they were going to die anyway they didn't need to worry about losing oxygen.  "It'd be a damn shame to die without a last smoke."

[Anonymous]

Vin...

Aryte bit her lip,

And Tally...

She swallowed.

And oh yeah, the new Tacky.

Aryte was the first one to respond to the calling by the Lt. Her and one Gunner, Aryte knew Melinda briefly but she wasn't from the 77s but Aryte had been through a couple classes with her. She was an acceptable Gunner, but not anything like flying with Will would be. However it was a matter of time not so much skill. At least that's what she was telling herself for the meantime.

Damn Bugs.

Aryte was breathing unevenly as she was running to the Docks with Melinda at her side. It would be weird flying with a lady, she hadn't ever done that. It would be different hopefully she liked video games or else she might not be able to understand Aryte. That's generally how she knew she could function with partners if they understood video game logic.

She sighed at she laid her hand on Mitty for a moment and felt some of her unease disappear. There was just something about the big black waiting for you and wanting. She cracked her knuckles and went about putting on her suit and crawling in Mitty. Eye scan and critical checks later both of them were strapped in.

"Mummy. Heading out now. Running sys check and rolling to take off."

Mitty started rolling forward as she and the Gunner were clicking buttons preparing for take off. Nothing set her off about Melinda yet. She seemed like she was doing pretty well. Not compared to Will of course. There was so no one better. The thrusters fires and Mitty took off into the air. Hopefully others would follow soon. They might need more than her.

One bug, more often than not meant several more.

[Anonymous]

Dart calmed down only when he convinced himself that by ignoring Tali and Vin he would be taking a superior frame of mind. If he was going to die then he should detach himself from material things and a bloody get used to it- oh no. That made things worse. That was a horrific thought. Nothingness. No senses. Nothing. No identity. No self-

His breathing was shallow again. He checked himself. Took deep even breaths. Nope. He was better that this. Why couldn’t he be like Vin and Tali? He hated fear. It was so crippling. How he would like to be unaffected, not be betrayed by his body and mind. He should be able to do something productive right now. He wasn’t going to try and ignore his morbid thoughts. His demise was inevitable right now, therefore such thoughts were unavoidable.

Maybe he should think up his epitaph. Something poignant and deep and memorable. He looked at the numbers steadily counting down from when Tali set the timer.  Eighteen minutes and forty-two seconds. Poetry should occur to him in that time.

“No response yet. Dispatched help from base. Wings is on her way.,” Tanaris’s voice reappeared in their headsets. She sounded more frantic then she had. A warble in her voice, like she was pretending everything was fine. But it really wasn’t. “I’ll keep trying.” She wasn’t even using terminology to mask her intentions from eavesdroppers. It was all very open. “Take care of yourselves. Please. Hang on. Don’t you dare do anything heroic.”

No help yet. Really was doomed. Oh no. Hush. He should think about his epitaph. Nothing funny. He couldn’t pull it off. Even if he could, when living memory of him passed, people who looked at the message would thing he was a douche.  Something sad and solemn. Something that would be remembered. He didn’t want to be forgotten. He would loathe that- to work so hard for so long only to find that all his attainments were victims of time just as he was.

Wisdom comes with winters. He liked that. It made sense. It sounded nice. It even had freaking alliteration. That was good. Something nice to be remembered by-

Except who was going to hear it to write it down somewhere?

The thought was too much. He fell into a pit of despair. He was going to be forgotten. No one was going to remember him at all. It wasn’t even a blaze of fire- they were crippled. They were easy shots. It was nothing glorious. He hadn’t even completed his objective in the process of dying. It was all so pointless it was-

He let out a mangled groan that sounded like it had the potential to be a cry of anguish. His eyes unfortunately crossed the digits on the timer. He’d lost a precious three minutes. Fifteen.

[Anonymous]

Vin had kept his hand clenched around his joystick while the first five of the twenty minutes clicked their way down.  He let go when he heard the tacky's anguished exhalation and glanced at the display Tali had lit up.  The sound reminded him of Beri, again, maybe just because he and their tacky had the same hair, maybe because he felt bad for the guy with them.  He didn't seem to have grasped that death was a risk every time they went out on mission.

Of course, Vin tried not to grasp that too often himself.

15:01

14:59

Tali would do that shit, counting down, marking time, making things orderly, typical captain.  They never thought outside the box.  At the moment he loved Tali for his steadiness, without which Vin wouldn't have been able to keep his own, and hated him for his calm.  Vin himself had been infused with the tingling burst of energy he always got in crisis situations, and the need to do something.  He wasn't gonna let one bug get them.

"'Kay, screw this," Vin said under his breath, shaking free of his headset.  "Hey, tacky."

The kid was still vibrating faintly, lip trembling, breathing hard, staring at nothing.  Vin could tell even in the blue starlit gloom of the 1903's interior that his pupils had dilated.  He whacked him on the shoulder.

"Hey.  Tacky.  Did they teach you to shoot in tacky school?  Yeah?"  

Dart turned to stare at him blankly, and Vin pounded him on the shoulder again.  "They teach you to--"

"Yeah," said Dart.  He still looked dazed and despondent.  It helped Vin to feel like he had to take care of someone else, it kept him from panicking.

"Good man."  Vin pressed the button that sent his buckles sliding back into the seat, and clicked on his helmet.  It shut, and up snapped the data display, areas of damage marked clearly in blinking orange.  He pushed the button that gave control of the guns to Dart.  "Congrats, you're promoted to gunny.  I'm gonna go try to fix the thruster."  He shot a glance at Tali and gave him a silent, quick salute.  

He realized his own breath had been speeding up and slowed it consciously; it sounded louder inside the helmet.  He edged into the airlock and let the inner door shut.  Three, two, one.  The outer door opened and he was outside, attached to the ship by cable, hanging onto the side with one hand.  He knew the 1903 inside and out, he could fix it... he had to believe he could.  With a grunt, he swung himself into the side of the ship and grabbed for holds.

He now clung to the outside of their zipship, feet in the braces and hands anchored on the handles set in along the side.  His body moved weightlessly.  Sidestep.  Sidestep.  He stopped beside the broken thruster and stared back toward the front of the ship.  He couldn't see past the asteroid.  He scanned the area, searching for metal, trying to make sure the pirates couldn't see him.  They hadn't shot him yet, so he supposed--the headset hadn't picked up metal--that they couldn't.  Thank God.  His breath came slow, fast, and then slow again inside his helmet.  The skin of the tail had been busted open.  He ran a gloved hand over exposed wire.

"I can get this, Figjam," he said into his microphone.  "Crank the thruster to three o'clock so I can hook this thing up."  

I can get this.

He tried not to think about the stupid numbers blipping their way down to 00:00.

[Anonymous]

The tacky seemed to sure they were going to die that it started to affect Tali.  Just a little bit, motivating the rational corner that fretted and doubted and knew when something crossed the line between rationality and madness.  The one he tried to ignore when they heard about 'ol Icky.  This wasn't the first time he started having flashes of damning common sense.  He made it through all of those times.

He'd make it through this too.

Just had to keep his head on his shoulders.  Panicking might heighten his senses, but he'd be jerky and might waste time responding to things that weren't important.  Back up was on its way.  They still had a chance to get a few shots at the Icarus if it didn't creep up behind them.

Tali tapped his thigh, trying not base the rhythm around the seconds on the countdown.  No need to fray tacky's nerves even more than they were.  He had to do something with that hand while he was watching the scanners, and the black itself.

Then Vin.  Tali stopped drumming, head tilted around to catch what he was saying.

That's right, a gunny would know their way around a ship from their days as an ensign.  Sometimes it was hard to think of gunnys being similar to the countless ensigns that swarmed the docking stations and battleships.  They were elite, yes, but there was one point in their career that they hauled bolts, turned wrenches and other little ensign tasks.

Tali returned the salute, a quick, crisp snap of his wrist, and nodded.  The good thinking nod, he liked to think he was old enough to know better than to presume to order gunnys to do what they already planned on doing.

"Hey Dart, hang in there.  I won't swing us around too wildly while Vin's out there, but if Icky gets to us before he's done I'll do what I can to get her in your sites."

Now that Vin was outside, Tali had a hard time tearing his eyes away from the timer.  There were a lot of asteroids, Icarus might lose some time working around them.  That should give Vin a little wiggle room and keep tacky's eyes peeled for Icarus.  As long as he didn't freak out and fill the air with little markers pointing out where they were...

"Copy Shoe, wilco,"  Tali went easy on the thruster, moved it a little smoother than the sudden wrenching it was used to.  It wouldn't have been possible to bat Vin aside with the thruster, he knew well enough to stay out of its range when it was moving.  Was well out of the way when Tali dared to glance back at him when his eyes swept over that camera feed.  It was because the thruster was bent, he needed to be nice.

The cameras were a lot more enticing than the timer now.  Tali lingered over them when he wasn't checking the instruments and tried to focus on the black beyond Vin instead of eyeballing the gunny at work on the thruster.  The danger wasn't that he would screw up the thruster, it was him being out of the ship, an attractive target to any hot shot bugs on the smaller craft or Icarus, once she dragged herself over.

The timer started tempting him again though.  Despite his best efforts to watch the cameras and the instruments.  Less than ten minutes.  Tap-tap-tap-tap.  Tali grunted and put his hands back on the controls, tightened his fingers around them and stared down the button to open the interior airlock.

[Anonymous]

"Hotel Alpha," She paused swallowing for a second, "...wilco."

Aryte was pushing Mitty faster than she had in quite a long time. She could almost imagine the ships muscles stretching to move faster. The seat underneath her had a smooth easy vibration going through it. Almost indetectable to someone who might have been new in the craft. Aryte knew it meant she was working harder. A sudden movement to the side of her made her eyes drift slightly to her right. The Gunner was starting to look a little green around the gills.

"You better knock that pucker factor down a little Red," Aryte knocked some reserve power back to the thrusters and pushed the controls forward hard doing a couple dips to avoid some space trash. "...it's gonna get worse before it gets better." Aryte's fingers gripped harder onto the controls letting fear seep in just slightly, it pushed the adrenaline faster making everything become clearer. Mitty jumped forward quickly.

Her boys would not be drifting out there for long. She wouldn't allow it. Not in a million years, and definitely not now. She pushed the craft harder imagining how they would just be sitting, a Bug across from them. Fear, they'd be making jokes though of course that was the way they worked. The way they all did. She grinned feeling more of a vibration in the craft as she pushed it harder.

I'm coming boys.

[Anonymous]

What? Guns? Him? But he didn’t protest when the controls were given to him. He stared at them for a while. He might as well- it wasn’t like things could get any worse. At least when the Icarus turned up he’d be able to focus his negativity in on something. And this was a little more of a glorious way to die. At the guns. Although Vin had it best. Valiantly trying to restore the ship’s mobility. Risking his life. Show off. Or maybe he should have a little more faith. Both Tali and Vin were so damn calm and that confidence must have an anchor in something real. Maybe Vin could do it. Maybe he wouldn’t die. Maybe he shouldn’t get his hopes up. Just take one moment at a time. Don’t see the big picture. Leave that to the other. If he viewed all the possible branches, the morbid ones would bring on his anxiety even worse. He nodded once in response to Tali’s reassurance, but they didn’t dive very far into his conscious.

Vin could get it. Vin might get it. Don’t get your hopes up Dart. Having hope was worse. He’d prefer knowing he was definitely going to die. This was all the more agonising now. Being tempted by life, and now he didn’t want to die even more. He couldn’t prepare for it adequately. And the damn clock. Seconds were falling faster than they were meant to, his was sure of it. Time wasn’t meant to slip away so quickly when he was watching.

Try concentrating on the present. Yes the Icarus was coming. But it wasn’t here yet. Leave worry until it was. Yes, Vin was stuck outside, but he was still alive. Mortal peril should the ship arrive but- no no, that was the future. Not here yet. Not definite. He didn’t like thinking like this. It sounded ridiculous- like it wasn’t him, instead he had been hijacked by an obnoxious optimist.  

He refrained from getting too aggravated. He was at the guns now. Out of curiosity, he let his psychic sense branch out a little. How was Tali feeling? It wasn’t apparent. Or maybe Dart was just too distracted to concentrate on feelings other than his own tumultuous ones.

“Mummy here. Status,” Tanaris asked again, checking in on them.

“Thruster’s still bent. Shoe attempting repairs.”

A long, disapproving silence from her end. “Oh gods,” she murmured afterwards. “He had better be careful. Please be careful. Wing’s not far. Distress call is still out. You might get something yet.”

And she receded once again. Dart’s eyes moved over the counter again. The numbers had morphed while he had been looking away. Seven minutes.

[Anonymous]

Vin, at work on the thruster, only half-heard Ese's disapproval.  He dismissed it immediately.  How much more danger was he in out here than he would be waiting in the 1903?  Less, if he fixed the thruster.  It made sense to be out here.  He realized he had taken his tongue between his teeth and had been chewing at it in tandem with his fiddling inside the thruster.  He worked largely off of physical memory.  How many times had he fixed thrusters?  Never one this bent, but he knew what connected where.  Mostly.  What he couldn't precisely recall he searched on his headset.

Oh, shit.  

He tugged free the charred remains of the main capacitor.  That was the problem.  He couldn't fix that, but... he squinted at it carefully.  Not completely gone.  He used one of his blasters to fuse wire and metal, tamping the thing into place, and refused to think of the time.  It bobbed into his head anyway, like an irritating subtitle, and made his chest constrict in annoyed denial.  

05:49

05:48

"Tali, shunt half power away from this thruster."

Vin hesitated over the last wire he was soldering into place.  If he did this wrong, he could fry the whole circuit, a bad idea.  He had done thruster repair before and there was some way to rig it if you didn't have full power... he envisioned it as pouring water, the way he had to envision electricity, because he didn't fully understand the nitty-gritty of how it worked.  Half power.  They wouldn't be able to go nearly as fast as they ought to.  Still.  Half was better than nothing.  Vin could do these kinds of calculations.  The common sense kinds.    

He turned the melting heat of his blaster on the join and breathed out when the blaring orange he saw on his headset schematic blinked to a more complacent yellow.  Still bent.  But less bent.  At this point he didn't know if it would work or not, he wouldn't until Tali tested it.  He didn't bother closing up the skin.  They couldn't afford the seconds.  Damn, Vin wished he had thought to go out and fix this earlier.  A few minutes had started to seem precious.

"Test her."  He tried not to sound too frantic, because panic only wasted time.  He kicked his feet free of the braces they'd been wedged into and pulled his weightless body away from the thruster, along the side of the ship.  Tali couldn't test the thrust until he had gotten free.

04:22

04:21

Vin clung to the 1903 with both hands.  He felt hot inside his suit, but he could feel the press of space's empty cold around him.  The 1903 looked dirty with soot, beat up, dented.  "Don't lecture me, Mummy," he said, to kill the edge of his anxiety.  He could see Aryte on his link to the scanners now... he could see the Icarus, too.  

It was closer.

"Mummy here," he heard Ese tell Aryte, all communication on their channel, "Status?"

"Better have your wipers out," Vin said.  He felt close to relief.  And close to something more hysterical.  If the thruster didn't work now, and he had to fiddle further, he wouldn't be able to get back inside the craft in time.

[Anonymous]

Tali hesitated when Vin told him to test the thruster.  Vin knew better than to stick around with his down the thruster while it was firing, that wasn't holding him back.  It was that cheery yellow blip on the bent thruster.  It may have been fixed solid or it could be hanging on by a hair.  Either way, it was bent and needed to be treated gently.

Gently wasn't a word most people used to describe Tali's flying.

They'd need everything they could get from the thruster once Icarus was more than a little blip on their scanner.  If Wing wasn't that far off, they wouldn't need any serious power from the thruster.  They could flip and roll around to keep from being zapped by Icarus... and crash into an asteroid in the process.

Stupid asteroids.  Stupid thruster.  Stupid Vin staying outside where he could be dinged by asteroid bits if he told Dart to open fire on the asteroids instead of accepting the progress he made and coming in.
Stupid. Bug.  Tali couldn't blame the asteroids on it without getting surreal, but everything else happened in some part because of the bug.

He really should test that thruster.  To know what he was working with once Icarus was on them.  Tali tightened his hands around the controls, gritted his teeth and glared at the screen that showed Vin the most.  

"Shoe," it was hard to talk legibly when his teeth were practically grinding themselves down.  Stop.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Go.  "Get your ass in here.  It's showtime."

[Anonymous]

As Vin stayed outside, the probability of death occurring was decreasing. Down from certain to most likely. Dart supposed the Furies fancied those odds. He made the move from fatalism to grim determination. He’d probably die. But he might not. So do the best he can in order to try and not die. He had the guns. He needed to focus. He had the guns.

… oh shit. He had the guns.

He could shoot. Just not when he was moving. He’d forgotten that detail. It was OK, just shoot, just try. He might hit the target for all her knew. He might also hit an asteroid. If he hit an asteroid, he’d probably kill Vin. But no big- Ah! He could kill someone.

3:45

“Get the fuck in here! I can’t do your job for you,” he added. He could feel the pulse of irritation around the craft now, amplified uncomfortably by his senses. It was coming from Tali. It in turn aggravated him. Things were closing in. Everything was critical. He did not want to be trusted with something he would most probably fail at during a critical moment. He’d look awful. He wanted to do something good. Be good at something here.

But he couldn’t hack or do anything until the Icarus was in sight.

His brain caught up. His lagging memory recalled a hit that went unanswered-. “And what the hell do you mean I got promoted. Smartarse little-”

“Hey! Keep it together in there!” Ese yelled.

3:29

[Anonymous]

Red, the gunner, was still silent, scared of how Aryte was driving.

"You know Wings maybe you should slow..." Aryte only growled in response. She could see the Gunner looking green around the gills and really hoped that Red wasn't going to puke it Mitty. That would be inexcusable...just inexcusable. She couldn't help but smile just a smidge. She prided herself on making Librans sick with her driving. Blowyer was just to used to  it. Of course the added bonus of adrenaline pumping through her veins made her slightly giddy.

She was silent as well listening to the chatter over hte radio. Vin going out on the side of their ship. Her teeth bit into her lip.

Oh god why, why would he, of all the basic...

That fear reared its head again smirking at her. She was going to give Vin a giant hug when she knew he was going to be alright, then maybe smack him for making her worry so much.

"Shoe, I've always got my wipers." She tried to maintain the speed on the ship running diagnostics and everything else to make sure she could stay topped out and be alright. Mitty was a heck of a ship, but sometimes even pieces of art could be pushed too hard. Everything returned alright. Worry still clouded her, then she let out a snort hearing the tacky yelling at Vin. Of course, who else could piss off a Tacky like that. The gunner next to her actually let one corner of her mouth twist up into a half smile.

"You better be nice to the Tacky shoe, otherwise he might get you with your own gun. Pew, Pew." Laughing in the face of death, joking was her favorite way to cope, though wasn't it always for military personnel?

[Anonymous]

Vin went instinctively to muffle laughter against his shirt-collar and only succeeded in fogging his helmet with a helpless spray of moisture.  They didn't have time to joke around right now, so he didn't say anything to Dart or Aryte, just kept edging sideways, getting clear of the thruster so Tali could try it.  He was clear enough already to be safe, but Tali hesitated for some reason.  Why?  Because he thought Vin didn't have time to do anything else.  Well--

2:57

blipped by on his headset, then readjusted itself with its new scan of the incoming Icarus's location.

3:05

He breathed out.  Okay.  Better.  But Tali needed to see if the thrust was working, Vin knew he had time, he'd started the job and he had to take care of it. Damn fool officers.

"Test it," he barked into his headset.  He could fix the thing, he just needed to know if it was working.  And the monitors on the thruster had gone sketchy along with the rest of the apparatus.  A scan wouldn't be able to tell them how it worked with any great reliability.  Shit shit shit.

They'd all been so fixated on the approaching Icarus, and the thruster, that they hadn't noticed the crippled Wyrm edging its way out from behind the asteroid.  Vin, hanging on to the side of the 1903 and squinting into his headset, caught the flash of metal and the much, much less happy flash of a phasor blast.  

It didn't hit the 1903--it hit an asteroid nearby.  Vin watched as it broke into pieces with that strange slowness with which things seemed to move in space.  Chunks of rock, twisted and melted from the heat and impact, shot off in all directions.  

Vin had enough presence of mind to shut both hands as tightly as he could on the holds set into the sides of the ship, and then

WHAM.

For a second he felt nothing but white light, and then it registered as impact--pressure--on the left side of his body, digging him into the ship's hull before the asteroid and ship sent each other gliding in opposite directions.  His suit absorbed some of the collision's energy, but it still jostled him, and even inside the helmet his head jerked sideways enough that he saw momentary stars.  His left shoulder and arm hurt, he noticed, and his hand had  been jolted off the hold, but he couldn't tell how bad the damage was.  The ship--shit--he tried to check the system on his headset, but it responded fuzzily, data bits scrambled.

Shit.  Shit.  No.  It blinked back on, slower than usual.  The first thing he saw was the numbers, counting down.

1:32

"--Shoe here, gotta admit you were right, luh--"  His tongue tangled.  "--lemme back in--"

He wasn't 100% sure he could get back in, come to think of it.  He hung onto the outside of the ship with his right hand, feet dug into the braces, stars dancing around the edges of his field of vision.

[Anonymous]

"Calm down," Tali growled.  There was too much going on now for Tacky to lose his shit over a joke.

There was no way in all the various hells Tali was going to touch that thruster without Vin being back in the 1903.  Sure they needed their thruster working to have a better chance, but Tali liked their chances a lot better with Vin alive.  If they were going to die, they might as well die fighting.  Instead of being picked off as they tried to limp to some hiding place.

Tali's shoulders tensed when he saw a glimmer out of the corner of his eye that could only have been from the damn bug.  It didn't hit them, but if it hit the right asteroids it wouldn't need to touch them with the phasor.  The rocks wouldn't take the 1903 out, but they couldn't have been aiming for the 1903.  

The damn bug just didn't seem as threatening as Icarus gliding in and Vin being outside.  

Those two things must have put a little oil on their fire.  It sure would have pumped him up if he were in the bug's place.  He'd have been hollering at Vin to open fire, if he wasn't already aiming, and the other captain would have been sitting fuming in their cockpit wondering how they could let themselves get careless enough to give the bad guy an opening.

Tali took a deep breath, pounding the control panel wouldn't do anything productive, and looked over the instruments.  Cameras first.  The ones he wanted were all out.  The thruster was flickering orange again.  It'd be way to damn far a stretch to think Vin was able to weasel his way clear of all that.

Crazier things happened though.

Tali wiped his forehead with his forearm, took another deep breath that felt like it got stuck in his lungs and pressed the talk button.

"shoe?  status?"

Too soft.  Vin might not have heard him over his breathing.  Or it came out muffled.  Or he wasn't going to reply immediately because he wasn't some damn button that reacted as soon as it was prodded.

"Shoe here," quit grinning like a doped up kid, Tacky can probably see that...
"gotta admit you were right, luh"  Of... what?  That didn't sound like the communicator feedback.  Tali ground his teeth.
"lemme back in"

Tali wasn't going to think about why Vin sounded like that, because there were too many other things to focus on.

Icarus was still coming.
Wings was on her way.
Vin was alive.

"Opening outer airlock Shoe," Tali's fingers worked while he talked.  The airlock didn't seem to open fast enough.  It was way too damn obvious.  A big moving part.  A shadow.  Someone outside making their way towards it.  It was too tempting a target.  Could Vin even get to the airlock?  "Shoe, status?"

Tali drummed his fingers against the controls of his bent ship, tried not to look at the bent cameras or pay too much attention to the bug that bent them in case he missed the bigger bug that would possibly smash them.

He had to get some cigars into the 1903 once it was rebuilt.  A good smoke would keep him from considering dumb schemes.

Like telling Tacky to put his helmet on because he was going to go out and drag Vin back into the ship.  Because there was something big headed towards them that wasn't an asteroid.  Because it was too symmetrical.

Because he'd been staring at zeroes on the countdown since he opened the outer airlock.

[Anonymous]

The ship jarred and Dart shuddered with it. The gunner was out and- he was here. What could he do? He didn’t want to be the reason why they would eventually get killed. Because when it came down to it, he wouldn’t be confident his crucial shot would find its mark. And then that’d be it.

Vin was still alive. He calmed down a little. Took one measly step back away from the edge. Hurry up and get back in. He hoped he could still get back in. Hopefully wouldn’t get sniped off.  He should have been watching the Wyrm, waiting for it, firing off a shot. He would have missed. He would have shattered an asteroid and exactly the same thing would have happened. Why was here? Why did stupid Vin put him on the phasors and stupidly go out into space to stupidly try and fix the stupid bent thruster-

0:00

It blinked at him. It carried an awful finality. Finality and fatality looked similar, when the words hung for a moment in his head. Damn. Damn.

“Hurry up, Shoe. I don’t want to be here.”

He wanted to be back, fine, doing good, and very much alive.

The shape of the Icarus seemed to have jumped into being. No longer just on the scanner. Harsh contours filled out by distant lights. Dart wanted to do his real job, abandon the phasors to hack. But he was plagued by indecision and fear and hell, it felt like everything at the moment- Anxious. That he’d miss, that he really needed the toilet-

Just fuck the phasors. He wanted to do something right.

He could just about tune in. He furiously played with the variables, defining, polishing sounds and then- voices over their headsets.

“Icarus to Wyrm. Fall back. Pick up the drop-”

“Captain, there’s an unidentified incoming vessel.”

“Wyrm, get the drop. We’ve got the cripple.”

“Roger.”

They’d lose the drop. Wings, whoever that was, would have to save them when she turned up. And the Wyrm would be edging closer to the drop. Or it would take a while to find. The only details they had was that it was in geocentric orbit-

He kept them connected as Dart reverted to the phasor controls. Didn’t matter if they got caught. They probably wouldn’t. The Icarus would be too trained upon either shooting them or their help. But help was nearby. He should feel good about that. Near wasn’t good enough.

“Which one first?”

A laugh. “The easy one.”

“Target practice boys. Nearly in range.”

“Ten points for the dude on the outside.”

His hands kept slipping in on the controls as he tried to train the crosshairs. It kept jittering. And he still didn’t want to pull the trigger- “For fuck sake, Vin. Hurry the fuck up!”

[Anonymous]

Aryte listened to them over the headphones as Tacky got twitchy, and then more twitchy. She was itching to be there already. She was close, just hopefully she would be close enough to do something. Sweat was trickling down her temple from stress. Her top teeth biting onto her bottom lip. She could feel the pump of her blood and the stress of her muscles. Then, she was there.

It felt like suddenly everything was clear. There was Vin, on the outside of the ship, the Tacky and Tali inside. A distance from them were the bugs.

Fucking bugs.

Her eyes narrowed.

"The ladies are here boys. Red, I'm gonna get you a shot, try to hit their weapons....Yes the big one. On my signal." Aryte gritted her teeth as she saw Vin looking helpless out there in his suit. She wanted to swing by and grab him put him in Mitty, just so she knew he would be alright. She wove the ship around the asteroids. Damn things just had to make this even more difficult than before.

She tilted the ship around several asteroids, her speed slowing. She came close to the other 77s and checked the different scanners. Her hands gripped tighter onto the controls. She was sure there would be outlines of her exact fingers when she was done.

"Tally, Red." She said spotting the bug in the targeting system information crawling over her screens." She heard the talk over the radio for the 77s, the pirates were talking about Vin. She gritted her teeth again.

"Tango Hotel Red. Show me your stuff." She got herself ready to move at a moments notice so that she could evade or move to get a better shot. The bugs picked the wrong people to mess with today.

[Anonymous]

"Chill out, tacky," Vin muttered under his breath, moving sideways along the ship's outside hull as fast as he could.  It wasn't easy.  He was jostled by the ship's movement.  Tali, blessedly, kept them weaving around behind the asteroid, which made Vin--still a target--but at least a moving one.  

His left shoulder and upper arm felt really wrong, but he ignored it, stretching the joint nearly to full extension.  Sweat stood out on his forehead and cheeks.  Some slid down the lines around his mouth, and he tasted salt in his teeth.  "Gotta be fair to the bugs, with me inside they won't have a chance."

He punctuated the weak bit of bragadoccio with a final lunge sideways.  He grabbed at the handhold set inside the airlock and felt his body slam into the airlock door.  

"Shut it shut it shut it--"  He clawed his way in, wrenched open the portal to the inside of the vessel, and immediately slammed into the tacky as the vessel reeled under another phasor blast.  Another streaked by outside while Vin tried to push himself back into his own seat.  Aryte's gunner had scored a hit on the Icarus.

Vin struggled, at last, back into the gunner's seat.  He tried reaching for the left-positioned joystick, but his hand wasn't obeying him.  The fingers opened very slowly, spasmed into a fist... and stayed.  "Shit," he muttered, grabbing for the joystick on the right.  He could shoot with his right hand; hell, he was better with his off hand than most people were full stop.  Yeah.

His teeth were still clenched.  He pried them apart to speak.

"Tali, get us to where I can zap some freakin' bug."

[Anonymous]

Just ten points?  That was something to laugh about later.  Tali began easing the 1903 backwards, slowly spinning it around so Vin was out of their sights.  Wings was close now, the Mitty showed up on the scan, so he could ask a little more out of the thruster.  They wouldn't be stranded out in space, but they couldn't sit around and let the Icarus light them up like a brothel when a mothership docked after a long tour.

"Good to see you gals, we'll be right behind you once I roll Vin back into the ship."  Tali tipped the ship back just a little.  It put them that much further behind the asteroid and maybe Vin could move a little better if he just needed to push himself down instead of pulling himself down.

Whether or not that was the case, Vin was back.  Tali closed the outer airlock, opening the inner as soon as he could once the outer airlock was sealed.  Then the 1903 was struck again.  It was starting to piss Tali off.  Which was ridiculous.  A good gunner would hit just about any target, no matter how erratic their movements were and they were trudging slowly through space.  Even Tacky could have lit them up.

"Shoe sta-" he started to ask, but Vin seemed ready to start fighting back.  Tali stole a quick look at him, long enough to see him using one hand.  Just short enough to worry about missing some small sign of distress.  That was what Tacky was here for though.  He was paid to notice things.  

Now Vin and he had to do what they were paid to do, swat some bugs.

Tali finally pushed the 1903, flinging them at the bug in a wobbly path that would get them in range of a bulge that looked like it could be the bridge.  The bent thruster shuddered, soon becoming more orange with the occasional yellow flicker.  Once they were in range of the Icarus, they were greeted with a rain of phasor fire.

The thruster didn't like the quick jerk upward to dodge most of the blasts.  The good wing was grazed by the top most shots.  Nothing serious enough to impair the ship even further, but pulling most of the work moving the 1903 would eventually start bending the good wing.  If it wasn't hit dead on.  The asteroids around them were too small to deflect much of anything and the ones that were big enough to give them cover wouldn't give Vin good enough targets.

Good enough targets in his book, at least.  Any part of a ship was a good part to shoot at.  The Mitty was already shooting at their batteries, so why shouldn't they try to snuff out the bridge?  A bug ship that couldn't fire and couldn't move was a bug ship ripe for getting captives from - if they didn't have emergency escape crafts.  Tali tightened his grip on the controls, feeling the sweat in his gloves.  His head felt like it was starting to bead up too, but now wasn't the time to reach for a towel to sop it up.