Chapter 16

Maintaining near zero momentum near The Rockpig, Payum system

Timestamp 5 / 5 / 2296 14:40 Sol standard time

A little while after the Sumpter with Pri and Kazlaena had departed from the Astral Feather, Jack met up with Spurius in front of the hangar service bays where his Scapa was located. The Scapa had the look of an elongated arrow with swept wings. The pilot sat at the fore, in a cockpit that had a retractable armored covering. A pair of wings, currently folded back, could extend for better maneuverability, or retract for better speed in an atmosphere. In the bay next to his Scapa sat the Clyde, the Astral Feather’s own Sumpter. Two bays were used to store cargo from various deliveries, leaving two free bays should the Astral Feather’s voidcraft complement ever expand.

“Alrighty, Jack,” Spurius guided him over to the nose of the Scapa, “Thanks for stopping by. Need some input from you.”

“Ok,” Jack nodded. “Lay it on me, big guy.”

“Your lidar and radar have been calibrated successfully.” He pointed to a small sensor on the nose cone, “However, I should replace your forward viewcam. It’s got some bad wiring and if you need to drop your armored covering over the cockpit, you might be flying blind on the forward facing.”

“Sure,” Jack nodded. “Thanks for checking.”

“It’s what I do,” He shrugged. “Woulda been hard to see that wiring issue. Likely why you might have missed it on your preflight.”

“Er, yeah,” Jack said sheepishly. “I uh, actually didn’t check that, so it’s something I gotta make a better habit of.”

“It doesn’t look too bad, but better to be safe,” Spurius reassured him. “Well, I got you some compression cannon ammo. Enough to top your hopper up but if you find yourself needing more, you’ll need to procure it somehow. What’s the capacity?”

“Five hundred rounds.” Jack opened the access panel to the hopper on the side of the Scapa’s nose.

He saw the spiral cylinder that held the 20mm round balls, forcing them into the chamber of the compression cannon by an electronic feeder. Behind the ammo hopper sat the tank that held compressed CO2 as the propellant in the gun. Using air to propel the steel projectiles to over four thousand meters a second in a half second burst of twenty-five rounds, the compression cannon was a deadly tool in space. However, it was almost useless in an atmosphere where gravity and air pressure significantly reduced the gun’s effectiveness. Scapas that fought in an atmosphere usually replaced the compression cannon with a chemical propellant gun or equipped such a gun on one or more of the wing hardpoints.

“Your engine cowlings are getting rough, and your air vector nozzles are going to need a good soak to clean the buildup accumulating inside.” Spurius tapped the side of the wing a couple of times.

Jack pulled himself up onto the top of the Scapa and had a look at the cowlings.

“Damn, was hoping they’d last a bit longer.”

“They’ll last, just don’t know when they might fail and leave a part of the engine exposed.”

“Void craft maintenance, good times.?” Jack said.

“Lots to deal with in craft that operate as both void and atmospheric.” Spurius held one hand on the wing and looked at the rubber tires of the landing gear. “The more systems, the more that can go foul. Your tires are gonna need to be replaced too, got no tread on them which is no good for a runway.”

“Those were already on the replacement list, at least,” Jack replied as he looked over the flaps and the ailerons. “Flight control surfaces looked ok to you?”

“They did.” Spurius replied.

“I didn’t notice anything irregular myself, but a second opinion is always welcome.”

“Most of this stuff will be a non-issue if you keep to the void, but if you go atmospheric, things will start to take a turn for the worse.”

“Any of this you’re willing to fix?” Jack asked.

“Could do all of it, but need the materials first, as well as the go ahead from the Cap to do this on her time.”

“If you’re willing to do it on your time, I’ll front you overtime pay in addition to whatever you want for the labor. Since it’s my fighter, not the company’s, shouldn’t be doing it on her time. I’ll get the go ahead from the Cap first about hiring one of her crew for personal reasons. That way there’s no issues with moonlighting.”

Spurius nodded. “Alright, get back to me on it when you can. I imagine the Cap will be ok with it since you use the craft as an employee.”

“Ok, thanks.” Jack was silent for a moment. “You doing ok?”

Spurius looked at him a little uncomfortably. “Day to day, Jack.”

“You gotta do what you need to do,” Jack remarked. “If you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

“Thanks for your concern,” Spurius gave him a nod. “Been talking to the Cap and a couple of others from time to time. Just gotta come to terms with this new reality and the way things are now.”

“I’ve found that you heal, but never completely,” Jack looked down. “For me, at least.”

“For all of our technical marvels, death still comes a knockin,” Spurius said a little grimly.

Jack agreed with the sentiment and sighed.

“It’s pretty rough, the last couple months when someone’s going through that kinda disease.” Spurius said and looked at the floor. “I don’t know if she was really present those last weeks. The pain medications made her so spacey and delirious. You wish you could be the hero, fight the bad guy and save the day. How do you beat the bad guy when it’s something like that? How do you hold to your union vows when you can’t even fight for them?”

“I can’t begin to imagine.” Jack said quietly. “There’s nothing you can do when your only weapon is medications.”

“I hate that memory Jack,” Spurius frowned. “I try to see her when we were younger, when she was at her best. All I can picture is her worst and it eats at me inside.”

“Because you wish and hope there was anything you could do,” Jack replied and saw him nod.

They stood in silence for a few moments before Spurius took a deep breath. “Ah, hope Kaz and Pri are having a good time.”

“I expect they are, bein with Valeria and all.” Jack said.” I mean, in all hon-”

The door to the crew entrance opened and Andor Frenon stepped inside the hangar. He saw Jack and gave him a halfhearted grin as he came walking over in his lazy gait. Andor was light skinned, blonde haired, brown eyed with sharp features including a beaked nose and a narrow chin. He often tried to grow a beard, but it always came out as a bit of a scraggly looking affair.

“Oh, oh, oh boy,” He kinda laughed. “There goes the ship.”

“Andor,” Jack extended his hand and Andor took it limply.

“Yer back now huh?”

“Yeah,” Jack replied. “Back for the foreseeable future.”

“Gotta get on the Caps nerves huh?”

“Sorta,” Jack kept a straight face.

“Ah well. I heard we got a drop of some copper wire.” Andor faced Spurius.

“Yeah, over there,” Spurius gestured to the recently received pallet.

“Alright, I’m going to sign out a few meters. Need to make a couple of cables for Nyka so she can carry out her repairs.”

Spurius nodded, watched Andor head over to the pallet for a moment, then looked back at Jack who gave him a flat expression.

“Maybe I’ll finally get to first base with Nyka if I get these things made fast, ha, ha, ha.” Andor joked as he cut off a decent length of copper cable.

Spurius shook his head in disapproval as Jack gave him a less than satisfactory expression.

“What can I say, I like’em tall.” Andor wrapped the cable over his shoulder and headed for the door.

“That’s what it’s all about?” Jack scowled.

“Ok, ok, guess you have a thing for her. I’ll back off.” Andor gave him a sharp look.

“That’s just plain inappropriate.” Jack replied.

“What part?”

“The whole idea. You really ought to stop playin at the Casanova thing,” Jack said and watched as Andor shrugged and headed out of the hangar.

“Seriously, guy needs to think before he speaks.” Spurius muttered.

“Has he been making advances toward Nyka?” Jack asked.

“Nothing persistent. I think he’s tried offering her a drink or two but she don’t drink.” Spurius answered. “He don’t put enough effort into finding that stuff out though. Maybe he’s tried other advances.”

“He ought to know better, that Lexos don’t do what he’s after. They hold a deep affection built over many years before they do that.” Jack remarked. “Makes it hard for them to look into relationships as exiles, I’d imagine.”

“Possible,” Spurius said. “I think Rusu might have an interest in Kazo.”

“Yeah, I think you might be right,” Jack nodded, not sure if he wanted to reveal the truth before Rusu. “Nyka’s almost impossible to read though. I think she buries herself in her hobbies and her work.”

“Poor girl. You’d think being exiled for causing a fire in a lab would be enough punishment. With no way to choose if you want a family or love interest outside of finding another exiled Lexo, that makes things pretty lonely.” Spurius spoke sympathetically.

“I hope she can find something if that’s what she desires.” Jack said.

“She may find another or develop an inter species relationship. That would make the field wider. Means no kids though but maybe she don’t want no kids.” Spurius shrugged.

“Yeah, maybe.” Jack thought about that for a moment.

“There was something else you were going to say before the Frenon showed up?” Spurius inquired.

“There was?”

“You were talkin bout Kaz and Pri with Valeria and then got interrupted by the walking dong in overalls.”

“Oh,” Jack frowned. “I don’t remember, I think there was but I full screw forgot it.”

“Mind fucked by the Frenon?”

“Andored to the head.” Jack said.

“Well, if it comes back.”

“I’ll get back in touch,” Jack shook Spurius’ hand, then pulled him in for a hug. “I’m here big guy,” He said quietly and turned to head out of the hangar before stopping midstride, “Oh yeah, we’re stopping at Junkers Refuge for a supply check. Want anything from the mini-mart?”

“Brandy, barrels of it if you get so lucky.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Jack gave Spurius a quick smile and caught the briefest glimmer of one in return.

Jack entered the machine shop of the Astral Feather and caught sight of Saito working at a bench. He was cleaning a release valve from some sort of pipework on the vessel.

“Hey Jack, you came by,” Saito gave him a wave. “Good, Good.”

“How’s it going?” Jack nodded to the valve.

“Alright, Jack, just a maintenance clean on the C deck fire system,” Saito went back to work, running a steel brush around the inside of the valve. “Valve was getting hard to open on tests. Kejeh was concerned should the thing become stuck. Not good for the fire suppression system.”

“No doubt,” Jack nodded. “Everything else been easy to maintain?”

“Has been. I keep on top of it religiously. Get slack and it can just get harder to deal with.”

“Can agree to that,” Jack nodded. “I got a fat stack of paperwork to take care of. I swear some of it was from before I left, the rest has gotta be breeding with itself.”

Saito laughed well at that, pausing in his cleaning routine to steady himself.

“What?” Jack grinned.

“I have heard jokes Jack, jokes about you and your paperwork.”

“Eh, fack paypa wurrrk.” Jack remarked.

“There’s that Coralane tone I missed,” Saito smiled, then looked around to make sure the coast was clear, despite being the only one in the shop at this hour. “Gotta watch for the Frenon. If he sees, I’ll be in big trouble. “Saito spoke with serious sincerity.

Jack watched him slide a box out from under the workbench.