Piece Activity
Disclaimer: Twiknham
doesn’t own any rights to Last Exile.
Those belong to Geneon, and Chiaki Koichi, Tamioka Katsuhiro, and
Yamashita Tomohiro. I’m just using
these awesome characters to tell a story.
Enjoy.
Neither of them appeared on the bridge at the same time over
the next two days. As the day to start
the monitoring of the Grand Stream dawned, Sophia decided that something had to
be done. Gathering her courage, and double-checking
to make sure her hair was tightly coiffured, she knocked on his door.
“Come in.” The deep
gravelly voice sent a shiver down her spine.
Ruthlessly quashing it, she opened the door and stepped into his
domain. He didn’t look up from the map
he was perusing.
“Tatiana is suiting up to head into the Grand Stream.” She glanced at her watch. “At Oh Nine Hundred Hours, the fighter ship
will leave the hanger.” She turned to
leave.
“I’ll be there.”
She stepped through the door.
“Sophia…”
She froze.
“There will be no repeat of my actions the other day.”
She nodded once and left, leaving the door open. She made it as far as her cabin before a
tear silently slid down her cheek.
Closing the door to her cabin, she walked over to the mirror and used a
towel to wipe her cheeks and get herself back in proper presentation.
ssssss
Tatiana was already out in the fighter ship before Alex made
his appearance. As he walked onto the
bridge, Sophia was studying the map and determining the best way to quadrangle
the search. He invaded her personal
space and leaned forward to almost randomly put his finger down. “Here.”
She looked up at him. “We need
to search here.”
Sophia leaned back over the map. “How do you know?”
His eyes lit up for the first time in a week. “I’ve been in the Grand Stream, remember?”
She scowled at him.
“Are we looking for Dissith, or are we heading after Maestro Delphine?”
“We’re looking for Dissith; but if we run into the bitch, we
won’t pass up the opportunity.” He
backed away and stood looking off into an invisible space.
The rest of Tatiana’s recon was spent barking and following
commands. Day one yielded no results.
ssssss
Tatiana slung her gloves against the seat of her ship and
jumped down, disregarding the ladder that was placed there for her safety. “Damn you Alister, you almost got us killed
out there!”
Alister had just removed her mask and was pulling her braid
around to the front with shaky hands.
“I’m sorry Tatiana, I was trying to compensate for the sudden influx of
turbulent pressure by lowering the Claudia and slowing us down.” Her grey eyes looked at the floor of the
ship.
“Well, you didn’t leave me enough power to get out of the
stall. If I hadn’t been such a crack
pilot, we both would have died.” She
walked away and stopped, her back to Alister.
“Do you understand that we BOTH would have become two more lost souls in
the Grand Stream?”
Alister looked at the back of her best friend and flying
partner. “Yes ma’am.”
“Fine.” Tatiana
walked off, leaving Alister still sitting in her seat.
Gale and Giese walked over.
“Tough break Miss Agrew.” Gale
held up his wrench while Giese put a hand up to help her down.
Grasping his offering with her shaking hand, she put a foot
down on the top rung. Just as she put
her weight on it, the adrenaline left her body and she lost all the strength to
her legs. Toppling over the edge of the
cockpit, she was sure her next stop would be the floor. When two strong arms caught her mid-falter,
she looked up into deep eyes that accentuated a tough face.
She blushed, than stammered…“Uh, thank you!” When his arms tightened, she tilted her head
in confusion.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll carry you across the floor
here. We’ve just finished changing oil
in one of these beauties, and you’ve already had one near miss.” Giese walked over to the lifts and gently
set her down, taking a moment to brush her wayward hair out of her eyes. Saluting smartly, he turned on his heel and
walked briskly back to her ship.
Alister watched him walk away. As he reached Gale, she shook her head and wondered at her sudden
impetuousness. Stepping back into the
shadows, she had an instant flicker of understanding why some people liked
living in the shade.
ssssss
Giese had to undergo two days of ribbing from Gale. Luckily for him, Gale was intelligent enough
to realize the truth behind his actions, and kept the episode to himself. If Godwin had gotten hold of that
information, he NEVER would have lived it down. As it was, the next two days were horrible. Every time Tatiana told them to prepare the
ship, Giese would hold his breath and pray that the beautiful two would make it
back unscathed.
The third day out, their cable broke. It took everything Tatiana had to maneuver them
back to the ship. Cussing every bad
thought and evil word she could think, she wrestled the controls. Alister was amazing, she followed every
command in the instant Tatiana barked it.
Tatiana knew it was because Alister finally realized that any slip would
result in their deaths. Just as she
felt her arms were being ripped from their sockets, and her teeth were
chattering so hard that she was afraid she’d cracked a molar, the Silverna
appeared like an island out of the mist.
As they landed, everyone in the hanger ran over and helped
them out of the cockpit. Tatiana was
furious. “Who the HELL didn’t check the
cable connections?” Gale could almost
swear he saw foam around her mouth.
Godwin walked over, holding the split end of the cable. “Ma’am, the cable connections were
fine. It appears that something hit the
cable and broke it.” She marched over
and looked at it. Sure enough, there
were no frayed ends. The cable had been
cut, it had not snapped. “If you want
my opinion, I think you need to tell the commander about this.”
Lost in thought, Tatiana walked to the lift, Alister
following silently behind her.
ssssss
Although Tatiana never told Alex about the cable, the next
morning the cables had been reinforced with guide-wires. Godwin thought that two wires would have
been preferable to a single wire, but he also understood there had to be a
tradeoff between safety and lightness.
Watching the two fly out into the chaos that was the Grand Stream, Godwin
hoped they made it back safely. Seeing
something in his peripheral, he turned to watch XO Forrester walk around a
post.
“Will the new rigging work?”
“Yes ma’am, within limitations.”
“And those limitations would be…”
“They still need to be light enough to fly.”
“You think they need two wires.” She turned to look at him, taking in his unkempt appearance and
dirty hands without any reaction.
“Yes ma’am.” She
made him feel distinctly uncomfortable sometimes. Her perfect coiffure, her unblemished appearance. It was almost as if she wasn’t human. She’d never shown any type of reaction to
their appearances, but he wished he could be more…Alex-like around her.
Suddenly, she leaned over and gently laid a hand on his
shoulder. “You’re a good man
Godwin. I’m glad you’re on our
staff.” Turning, she headed back to the
lift. “Keep me updated on anything that
affects our pilots.”
“Yes Ma’am!” He
watched her disappear into the shadows, than went back to work on one of the
spare ships.
ssssss
Alex was sitting on the couch in his quarters and playing a
dangerous game of illusion. It involved
having Maestro Delfine’s ship appear out of the mist, and the Silverna blasting
it to Hell. Since his ship wasn’t ready
to battle the Bitch, he opened his eyes and decided to check on how their recon
was coming. Just as he entered the
bridge area, a cry came out over the intercom system.
“Dissith fleet at 3:00.
There are…three, no seven, over ten now.”
“Get our vanship out of there!” His bark caused Sophia to turn.
“Tatiana, come back in.
You’ve done a good job!”
“Yes Ma’am.” Static
covered the line again as they switched off the ship-to-ship communiqué.
Alex’s deep voice murmured in Sophia’s left ear. “Contact the Urbanis. Tell them that we’re heading to Walker’s to
pick up a dozen shipments.”
She nodded before turning towards Campbell. Alex headed downstairs to make sure his two
best flyers made it back on board safely.
