So again, this starts at the tail end of another scene. It's really about three pages, but who's counting.... It starts off with Skylar and Tarik talking about Raena. This happens before the scene you read previously. Skylar isn't human, and he's worried about Raena's xenophobic up-bringing. He's also worried that the ship is effectively dead in the water. There might be three different scene changes in this--the double drops. And also the POV changes as many times as well..... So...Welcome to my Brain. Um, don't touch anything. You don't know what it attached to.
Finally
when he couldn’t stand the feeling of Tarik’s disappointment sting the air
around him, Skylar said, “Why doncha get something to eat? I got the rest of
this.”
The kid
left with no further comment. How, after everything this galaxy had thrown at
him, could Tarik still be so young? Skylar sighed. He hated that he might have
to be the one to break all that. But he would do what he had to. Better Terik
be disillusioned than dead.
Skylar
tried to let the work ease his mind. The Panacea was a rust bucket that barely
limped at the best of times. But Skylar loved her. Almost as much as Doc and Tarik.
But she
wasn’t co-operating just now. Skylar knew the only way they would be safe was
to put a jump between them and the Noose’s debris field. If he couldn’t get the
Panacea moving again they were dead.
The
bypass wiring was easy. Skylar finished what Tarik had started, and within
minutes had the atmo cycling at one hundred percent again, and rerouted power
to the com. But the jump drive was the real problem. He turned away from the
circuit panel and scrunched himself farther into the engine compartment. Fixing
the drive was hands on, and everything down here was made for much smaller
hands.
He
squirmed his way passed the (repulsor thingie, or something) to the cradle the
drive sat in. Skylar felt dread creep along the ridge of his spine. The smell
of metal that was too hot to touch separated itself from the sharp of the burnt
wiring. This was bad. (I need some help with the hardware here!) This was
damage that he couldn’t fix or patch with his spanner. They needed replacement
parts, and even a short detour was going to take too long now. Skylar stayed
where he was, looking at the melted hunk of junk that was had been the thing
that was going to save them, until he heard Doc’s boots on the deck above him.
“So.”
She began. “Is this a good news/bad news situation?”
Skylar
untangled himself from the machinery and ducked his head up from the hole. She
looked down with a faint half smile on her face. She held a bottle of ambersi
in one hand and two plasteel tumblers in the other. He tilted his head and
flashed one fang to return the expression. Doc had been a spacer for too long
to hope for the good, and he knew it. “Nope.”
She
laughed, “Drink, then?”
“We must
be desperate, if you’re sharin’.” Skylar levered himself up onto the deck to
join her. “The jump’s fried.” And so are we, he thought.
She
nodded. “How far are we to help?”
He gave
a shrug and sat in the pilot’s seat, swiveling in so he could face her when she
took the passenger’s. “There’s Gallherger brother’s, on (one of the planets).
They maybe got what we need. At real time, that’s….” The rough calculation clicked in his head.
“Thirty hours?”
“Not
bad.” Doc handed him the tumblers and cracked the seal on the bottle. “Then
we’re not desperate at all. Just movin’ at cruise speed for a day or so, yeah?”
“We’re…..”
He paused as she poured. “We’re as good as drifting until we get patched up.
Anyone can find us out here.”
Doc took
a drink and said, “Not much different from any other day, now is it?”
“Except…”
Skylar didn’t finish.
“There’s
something else, isn’t there? Besides the diplomat. It’s the girl herself.” Doc
narrowed her eyes. “What are you not telling me?”
A soft
growl escaped him. He looked down at the ambersi but didn’t drink it.
“You
can’t think she’s still working for him.” Doc protested. “She’s been running
from him all across the Border Worlds. It’d be hard to believe how many times
she’s escaped, if for the damage recorded on her body. She’s serious about not
wanting to be put back in his hands.”
Skylar
didn’t dispute that. Instead he pulled the medallion from his vest pocket. He
held it out for Doc to see.
“Human’s
First?” She lifted her lip in her version of a snarl. “You don’t know it’s
hers.”
“It’s
got a recording on it, calls her by name.”
That
seemed to slow Doc’s defense. She took a drink. “Sky, she’s so young. Maybe she
started with them, but she’s seen enough of the rest of the galaxy to know how
misguided they are.”
“They’re
terrorisst.” He countered flatly. “And where’d she learn any different? From
Thallian? Because he’s such a proponent of live and let live?”
“If
you’re afraid of her--”
“It’s
not that.” He growled. “It’s Tarik. He doesn’t need her puttin’ that poison in
his head.”
Doc
laughed. “I don’t think you gotta worry about that. Maybe you don’t remember
being fifteen, but I’m pretty sure Raena’s the first girl Terik’s never even
seen sleeping. It’s possible he hasn’t heard anything she’s said to him yet.”
Skylar
looked at his drink. Wasted on him. It didn’t do a damn bit of good. “I
don’t want her talkin’ to him.”
He took
the bottle from where Doc had set it on the com, uncapped it again and
carefully pored his back in. “You need to save that. We got parts to buy, so
the budget’s gonna be tight around here.”
“You
don’t think Tarik would listen to any of that shit.” Doc said. “You know that
boy thinks of you as his father. You’re lookin’ at this wrong. Maybe he can take some of the poison out of her
head.”
“Just
keep an eye on him, then.” Skylar pushed to his feet. “I’m going to gonna grab some
sleep. Wake me for lunch.”
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