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Ouchies
S'more notes. There's more to the idea, but I've not written it yet, and I want to go to bed. :P
He put out a hand and halted her on the ramp. “Something’s not right here,” he observed, softly. “Go back on board.”
“What?” She sounded slightly outraged. “You just dragged me all the way here just to tell me I’m going to have to still get dragged about by you? No, I want off, like you said I would be! I don’t even want to be stuck out here, let alone-”
“Stop your inane barking and get back on board!” he interrupted, and there was a flash of genuine irritation in his manner – which strongly suggested he was serious, given his usual offhand devil-may-care attitude.
She set her jaw, peeved, but went back on board, obediently. Rather than leave, however, she lurked in the antechamber, just inside the doorway formed by the open hatch. She fully intended to simply lurk here until he was out of her line of sight, then slink away, as soft-footed and as silent as all her kind could be – that’d teach him that she wasn’t just some stupid pet to be ordered about…!
They came out of nowhere while his back was turned – three of them, a pair of Usurian and a Yurra, silent and fast, from three angles, and caught him off-guard. A single shattering blow to the back of his neck from a long sharp-edged metal stake – looked like an old support beam – and he was down.
Eri sucked in a horrified breath and ducked back into the shadows. She waited for the angry noises, and righteous retribution, but there was nothing - only the three thugs talking among themselves.
“You weren’t supposed to kill the damn budgie, Ul’z,” one observed, but he didn’t sound too upset. “Just clobber it a good one.”
“Knock it out, kill it, where’s the difference?” a heavier, thicker voice asked – sounded like it was probably the Yurra. Maybe Ul’z? Eri wondered.
“Will you two shut up squabbling and take a look of this?” a higher voice interrupted – it was a lighter voice, feminine, probably the Usurian female Eri thought she’d seen. “This thing ain’t a budgie - look at that where Ul’ze clobbered it.”
Ulcer, Eri mused, and couldn’t help but smile, darkly. It suited the ugly bastard. But that was sounding less and less good – they must have worked out he was more than he looked from the outside.
“Wow,” the second Usurian agreed. “That’s some fancy replacement surgery going on there-”
“Don’t be an idiot,” the female cut in, sharply. “Joint replacement? That’s a freaking machine, that’s what that is. Come on, get it aboard, quick-”
Ohhh dear mother of Holies, Eri exhaled softly and wondered frantically where she could hide. They’re coming aboard-…
There was the sound of something heavy being hauled around, then grunts of effort and the tread of heavy feet on the entry ramp as Iios’ three attackers invited themselves on board. Eri watched from her hiding place behind the crates in the storage hold as they carried him in – his eyes were open and staring, and his head lolled slackly backwards. He looked like a doll, inanimate and helpless, slung by knees and wrists between the two powerful males – they simply dropped him in the hold, and his neck twisted around at a grotesquely broken angle.
“So what you want it for to start with, Meili?” the male Usurian groused, stretching his back and pulling a face, then poking Iios’ snout with his foot – the sleek green head rolled the opposite way. “It’s broken. Useless.”
“Use a bit of common sense, Nank,” she scolded. “Think what the cybernetics institutes will pay for a fancy bit of kit like this.”
Ul’ze nodded, slowly, and his heavy dreadlocks swung like ponderous tentacles. “Rich,” he said, savouring the word. “We can take a year out from educatin’ tourists on why outer rim stations isn’t on the usual list of cruise destinations.”
“Come on – least we can do is go looksee if he’s got anything edible on this pretty barge. Bet you there’s something up in the fancy suites upstairs, if nothin’ else – place stinks of Vul, gotta have been doing entertaining at some point…”
You don’t smell so fragrant yourself, love, Eri thought, sourly, and watched as they vanished out of the hold. The Yurra palmed the door controls and the door hissed softly closed behind them, and the lights went out from standard to dimmed.
Eri crawled out from her hiding place; she might have been mostly colour blind but her night-vision was sharp.
“Eri?” he asked, and she promptly jumped hard and fell over backwards.
“Holy Mother of all-…!” she exclaimed, landing hard on her rump. “I thought you were dead!”
“Pfft,” he sounded unimpressed at the idea. “Damaged, yes; dead, no. I’m not about to let on about that to them though.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“A lucky blow caught my motor trunk in just the right way,” he observed, darkly. “Partially severed it. Until my nanites can repair the damage I’ll remain paralysed.”
“Such a delicate creature you are,” she joked, halfheartedly – that splintering blow would have probably taken a biological being’s head right off.
“We have to lock them out of the computer before they can leave the station,” he observed. “Here, on the station, it’s at least a modicum of ‘safe’.”
“Excuse me,” Eri put in, delicately. “But where did this ‘we’ come from?”
He was silent for a full few heartbeats. “My nanites will not reverse the damage fast enough for me to deal with them before they do anything… untoward.”
“I understand that point,” she agreed. “I don’t understand why you think I should help you.”
“Because I can’t do it on my own?”
“Yes, I got that point, too. Still doesn’t answer my question. You brought me here and were going to just abandon me, and now you think I’ll just turn around and help you?”
“All right,” he said, at last, and the dead flat-ness had gone from his voice; he instead sounded tired, almost beaten. “If you help me, I’ll take you home.”
She hooked her hands under his arms and dragged him backwards; his head slumped forwards, and she tried hard not to think of it like a completely broken neck. “Sweet Alopeia, I never considered you’d be such a lead weight,” she panted, sinking back to her rump on a crate to catch her breath once she’d got him as far as the wall and propped him up between a crate and an old-fashioned fire-extinguisher. “Now what?”
“See the terminal?”
“Yes,” the terminal in question glowed a murky green, half-hidden behind a crate of engine spares. “What do I do with it?”
“There should be a port beneath it.”
“Um…”
“Feel around – flush with the wall, a circular indentation.”
“Got it-”
“There’s an uplink cable inside it.”
The “uplink cable” was more of a spiderweb of fine glittering spaghetti. “Um, I think it’s broken.”
“It’s supposed to look like that,” he assured her. “I may look lazy at times, to you, but I do carry out ship maintenance on a regular basis. Bring it over-… eh, please.”
She touched the tool to his scalp, and cringed back in distaste as three long dark breaks appeared in his skin, right around his hairline. “That’s just… grim.”
“Stop judging everything by how it would look on a biological being,” he scolded. “This is perfectly natural for my ‘species’ – how else would I do maintenance? Remove the covering plate and let the uplink mesh in.”
She winced and pulled a disgusted face as she peeled back the edges of his skin and lifted it away; it sagged loosely in her hands like a strip of bristly old leather. His cortex housing glittered sullenly beneath, unfriendly dark plates; she spread the tendrils of uplink mesh over the back of his head and watched as it moved all of its own accord, sucked close to his naked skull and began to glow in a faint nimbus of blue.
“Now what?” she asked, faintly, sinking to the floor in front of him.
“We wait,” he replied, softly.
“What if they come back-?”
“They can’t get in. Or rather,” a sly smile spread over his features. “I won’t let them. With this I have full symbiosis with my ship; she and I are one. We’re not going to be going anywhere for a while.”
He put out a hand and halted her on the ramp. “Something’s not right here,” he observed, softly. “Go back on board.”
“What?” She sounded slightly outraged. “You just dragged me all the way here just to tell me I’m going to have to still get dragged about by you? No, I want off, like you said I would be! I don’t even want to be stuck out here, let alone-”
“Stop your inane barking and get back on board!” he interrupted, and there was a flash of genuine irritation in his manner – which strongly suggested he was serious, given his usual offhand devil-may-care attitude.
She set her jaw, peeved, but went back on board, obediently. Rather than leave, however, she lurked in the antechamber, just inside the doorway formed by the open hatch. She fully intended to simply lurk here until he was out of her line of sight, then slink away, as soft-footed and as silent as all her kind could be – that’d teach him that she wasn’t just some stupid pet to be ordered about…!
They came out of nowhere while his back was turned – three of them, a pair of Usurian and a Yurra, silent and fast, from three angles, and caught him off-guard. A single shattering blow to the back of his neck from a long sharp-edged metal stake – looked like an old support beam – and he was down.
Eri sucked in a horrified breath and ducked back into the shadows. She waited for the angry noises, and righteous retribution, but there was nothing - only the three thugs talking among themselves.
“You weren’t supposed to kill the damn budgie, Ul’z,” one observed, but he didn’t sound too upset. “Just clobber it a good one.”
“Knock it out, kill it, where’s the difference?” a heavier, thicker voice asked – sounded like it was probably the Yurra. Maybe Ul’z? Eri wondered.
“Will you two shut up squabbling and take a look of this?” a higher voice interrupted – it was a lighter voice, feminine, probably the Usurian female Eri thought she’d seen. “This thing ain’t a budgie - look at that where Ul’ze clobbered it.”
Ulcer, Eri mused, and couldn’t help but smile, darkly. It suited the ugly bastard. But that was sounding less and less good – they must have worked out he was more than he looked from the outside.
“Wow,” the second Usurian agreed. “That’s some fancy replacement surgery going on there-”
“Don’t be an idiot,” the female cut in, sharply. “Joint replacement? That’s a freaking machine, that’s what that is. Come on, get it aboard, quick-”
Ohhh dear mother of Holies, Eri exhaled softly and wondered frantically where she could hide. They’re coming aboard-…
There was the sound of something heavy being hauled around, then grunts of effort and the tread of heavy feet on the entry ramp as Iios’ three attackers invited themselves on board. Eri watched from her hiding place behind the crates in the storage hold as they carried him in – his eyes were open and staring, and his head lolled slackly backwards. He looked like a doll, inanimate and helpless, slung by knees and wrists between the two powerful males – they simply dropped him in the hold, and his neck twisted around at a grotesquely broken angle.
“So what you want it for to start with, Meili?” the male Usurian groused, stretching his back and pulling a face, then poking Iios’ snout with his foot – the sleek green head rolled the opposite way. “It’s broken. Useless.”
“Use a bit of common sense, Nank,” she scolded. “Think what the cybernetics institutes will pay for a fancy bit of kit like this.”
Ul’ze nodded, slowly, and his heavy dreadlocks swung like ponderous tentacles. “Rich,” he said, savouring the word. “We can take a year out from educatin’ tourists on why outer rim stations isn’t on the usual list of cruise destinations.”
“Come on – least we can do is go looksee if he’s got anything edible on this pretty barge. Bet you there’s something up in the fancy suites upstairs, if nothin’ else – place stinks of Vul, gotta have been doing entertaining at some point…”
You don’t smell so fragrant yourself, love, Eri thought, sourly, and watched as they vanished out of the hold. The Yurra palmed the door controls and the door hissed softly closed behind them, and the lights went out from standard to dimmed.
Eri crawled out from her hiding place; she might have been mostly colour blind but her night-vision was sharp.
“Eri?” he asked, and she promptly jumped hard and fell over backwards.
“Holy Mother of all-…!” she exclaimed, landing hard on her rump. “I thought you were dead!”
“Pfft,” he sounded unimpressed at the idea. “Damaged, yes; dead, no. I’m not about to let on about that to them though.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“A lucky blow caught my motor trunk in just the right way,” he observed, darkly. “Partially severed it. Until my nanites can repair the damage I’ll remain paralysed.”
“Such a delicate creature you are,” she joked, halfheartedly – that splintering blow would have probably taken a biological being’s head right off.
“We have to lock them out of the computer before they can leave the station,” he observed. “Here, on the station, it’s at least a modicum of ‘safe’.”
“Excuse me,” Eri put in, delicately. “But where did this ‘we’ come from?”
He was silent for a full few heartbeats. “My nanites will not reverse the damage fast enough for me to deal with them before they do anything… untoward.”
“I understand that point,” she agreed. “I don’t understand why you think I should help you.”
“Because I can’t do it on my own?”
“Yes, I got that point, too. Still doesn’t answer my question. You brought me here and were going to just abandon me, and now you think I’ll just turn around and help you?”
“All right,” he said, at last, and the dead flat-ness had gone from his voice; he instead sounded tired, almost beaten. “If you help me, I’ll take you home.”
She hooked her hands under his arms and dragged him backwards; his head slumped forwards, and she tried hard not to think of it like a completely broken neck. “Sweet Alopeia, I never considered you’d be such a lead weight,” she panted, sinking back to her rump on a crate to catch her breath once she’d got him as far as the wall and propped him up between a crate and an old-fashioned fire-extinguisher. “Now what?”
“See the terminal?”
“Yes,” the terminal in question glowed a murky green, half-hidden behind a crate of engine spares. “What do I do with it?”
“There should be a port beneath it.”
“Um…”
“Feel around – flush with the wall, a circular indentation.”
“Got it-”
“There’s an uplink cable inside it.”
The “uplink cable” was more of a spiderweb of fine glittering spaghetti. “Um, I think it’s broken.”
“It’s supposed to look like that,” he assured her. “I may look lazy at times, to you, but I do carry out ship maintenance on a regular basis. Bring it over-… eh, please.”
She touched the tool to his scalp, and cringed back in distaste as three long dark breaks appeared in his skin, right around his hairline. “That’s just… grim.”
“Stop judging everything by how it would look on a biological being,” he scolded. “This is perfectly natural for my ‘species’ – how else would I do maintenance? Remove the covering plate and let the uplink mesh in.”
She winced and pulled a disgusted face as she peeled back the edges of his skin and lifted it away; it sagged loosely in her hands like a strip of bristly old leather. His cortex housing glittered sullenly beneath, unfriendly dark plates; she spread the tendrils of uplink mesh over the back of his head and watched as it moved all of its own accord, sucked close to his naked skull and began to glow in a faint nimbus of blue.
“Now what?” she asked, faintly, sinking to the floor in front of him.
“We wait,” he replied, softly.
“What if they come back-?”
“They can’t get in. Or rather,” a sly smile spread over his features. “I won’t let them. With this I have full symbiosis with my ship; she and I are one. We’re not going to be going anywhere for a while.”