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Angel Wings Chapter 8: Europan Jip
Posted By: Neil Yudsponwy<mark_price@hotmail.co.uk>
Date: 5 November 2008, 1:32 pm
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Submitted for the "HBOff: You're doing it Write." Child's Play charity drive by Phaedrus.
We break Europan airspace and the Aspis hull remains solid, even with a Leech stuck to our wing.
I'd discovered –much to my amusement, that all three pirates had crammed themselves into a single Leech pod.
Looks like even the Jovian racketeers are feeling the economic pinch that's crippling the Solar System's outer circles.
It was clear that Hal had been the meat in their little intimate sandwich and it was obviously the kind of sandwich that he prefers.
Patching one Leech pod hole was still going to take them the best part of an hour, so I made plans to scour the Valhalla while they were doing all the donkey work.
Connie remained quiet throughout our descent, just giving out basic information and responding to my commands with simple replies, not at all being her usual talkative self. I figured she couldn't wait to be rid of our would-be ship-jackers.
The two buffoons on the other hand, were happy to be alive and Jeff even gave me stick until I told him that he'd be going outside to fix my ship without a coat; that shut him up for a while.
Connie sets us down and the ramp opens up to the pristine glittery white-out palace that is Europa, the Solar System's ice box. Pure water is one of the most precious commodities in any galaxy now Earth seems to have spent the last few thousand years squandering hers, and Europa has it held in a state that's excellent for transport: ice.
Once regarded with fear and trepidation, now a sacred cash cow, Europa is being milked dry. There are cutting plants every few hundred miles across her surface, freighters hopping and bopping all day and night to the sweet rustling tune of untraceable credit slips. Not all of it's legit, but it's all happening and the only loser is the tourist industry's beautiful skyline. Their ideal PR cumshots are hard to come by when you got ships and plants coughing and spluttering into every postcard's view.
We vacate my baby's warm embrace and head out for her tampered wing.
Flipper Hal tips his head to the only dead casualty still onboard my ship. An idiot so comical, I was expecting his suddenly visible breathe to be green.
"What are you gonna do with Boone?"
"He's meat." I bark without a hint of flippancy.
Hal looks at my arms, as if he knows that I'm not just physically deformed underneath, but a bit of a fruit-loop to go with it.
"You're a cannibal?" He exclaims.
"Nope, but I know folks that pay top dollar for prime beef-cake like your friend in there. On Earth, I wouldn't get my fuel costs back, but where I'm going, his sacrifice will keep me in the lifestyle I'm accustomed to. Out there..."
I gaze up into the unimaginable, encroaching black abyss with a look of faux terror.
"…There's an insatiable demand for human flesh. We're like caviar to these things."
Little gay Hal shudders at the thought of the untapped market:
"Eurgh!"
He's probably disgusted, thinking of all that filthy lucre he's jettisoned out the cargo bays of hijacked ships.
I turn to Jeff the limping smoker.
"Now hop to it." I cock the hammer of my Trident hand-cannon. "Otherwise, they'll be getting lead-filleted seconds."
"You're an asshole, you know that?" He banters rhetorically.
"I haven't passed the exam but I reckon I qualify from extensive experience." I shrug and grimly retort as I push him up the wing. "Now, c'mon."
"I'm in agony here." He says as he clambers up onto the Aspis wing. "Can't you see that?"
If there's one thing I've picked up on in my time on television, it's that people like to dramatise their emotions, and if there's one thing I despise: it's boohoo amateur dramatics.
"You're not in agony." I say. "If you were in agony, you wouldn't be able to say you were 'in agony'."
"But I–"
I reach up and grip him around the calf muscle, giving it a good hard squeeze and sending his brain the clear signal of what agony actually feels like. His face contorts into a myriad of non-vogue poses, all with their eyes tightly shut and the mouth as wide as it will go without breaking off the jaw.
Though he is unable to scream, he is able to show the desire to scream; a side effect of serious pain and within touching distance of those ethereal plains known to man as 'agony'.
I let go of his leg and watch him catching his breathe with a hate-filled look in his eye, elaborating on the immediate difference.
"Y'see." I note with a self-assured grin. "That's what agony feels like; now you're fine, now you're just a little sore."
Now he has regained control of his voice, he lets me know his feelings on what agony felt like with a boisterous shout.
"You fucking Goddamn motherfucker!"
Jeff winces and tentatively strokes his blood-soaked leg.
Hearing the low whine of the Valhalla's engines as Connie puts it down behind us, I gloss over our sadistic little drama lesson.
"Gentlemen, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I'm afraid you only have one hour to patch my ship and make her slipspace worthy. Connie's gonna keep an eye on you two, to make sure you do a professional job." I say sternly, glancing over my shoulder towards the landing Valhalla.
"But it took us an hour just to cut through the hull of this thing." Hal explains.
"This 'thing' has a name and that's not my problem, bad-breathe." I spit the insult over the side of my baby so as not to taint her perfection –even though she's got a gaping air hole where it needn't be.
"But if it's not done for when I come back…" I descend and jump clear of the wing, training my sights and glaring back at him.
"…You will be."
I strut some way along the icy white surface of Europa, before turning back to rub Jeff up the wrong way some more. For some reason, I've taken a shine to giving jip and scratching irritable assholes.
"Oh, and don't go running off."
Jeff shouts some obscenities regarding the scatological practices of edible faeces, but I pay the insults no attention.
"Time's a ticking and that's not getting my ship fixed, pal."
That seems to shut him up and once again I feel on top of the world, putting the hi-jinx of the hijack behind me, putting lame-brains in their place and ticking all the witty reply boxes…
Shaped like the midsection of a UNSC Cruiser and looking about as graceful, the Valkyrie VX-1 is not a pretty ship by any stretch of the imagination, but in her heyday, the Valhalla could run rings around gas giants and really dance among the stars; tearing ribbons off the competition.
Valkyrie's biggest mistake was going up against a resurgent C709 Longsword design for UNSC funding; a ship perfectly suited to the age old adage that 'little money's why, lame ships fly'. A highly economical (read cheap-ass) design that despite its many flaws, was brought in well behind schedule and punching two belts below the Covenant counterpart's weight: the Seraph, more commonly known as the 'Cobra' or 'teardrop', for its close resemblance to the hood of a King Cobra snake when it executes an aggressive 180 turn in a chasing ship's direction. That's also the last thing most pilots in the situation ever see, right before he soils his pants as the ship's main 'fangs' –four plasma cannons, clusterfuck his blubbering ass to Kingdom Come.
The Seraph Starfighter had gone into production four years earlier and possessed far superior dog-fighting skills, sporting unknown tech and being slippier than my Jewish lawyer; it's second only to Krohlm technology in the who's who of frightening vessels to avoid.
I wouldn't like to say what would happen between Connie and a Cobra, but I know neither ship would come out unscathed.
Admittedly, the UNSC knows the problem (in truth they've always known, they just wanted to try the cheap 'bury your head in the sand and pretend nothing mean's coming' short-term plan before spending any real cash). Now they're busy updating their ageing fleet with something more of an offensive structure.
The Rapier-class Shotel was unveiled last year in the summer of 2583, hopefully it'll make up for its predecessor's battle record.
But none of that stuff could save the Valkyrie Company from going under in Mother's belt tightening reverb of two-five-sixty.
These days they either stand proud in a collector's hangar, or rot in space-yards, being picked apart for their easy-on convergent metals and wares that work well on pretty much any ship.
I guess I better break the bad news. The ship sits looking dirty and meek amongst its pure white surroundings, waiting to be told of its fate.
The vessel seems oddly bald with something amiss.
"Those bastards took the Helen." I say aloud and staring in disbelief at the unanimity of the thieving Spartans scalp job.
The He13 Neutraliser was an armament to strand a thousand ships.
Mounted on modified track runners along the Valhalla's stub nose, the cannon gave the ship an aerodynamic shape –and more importantly, dealt suppression via Gamma pulse bursts to a target ship's engines; cutting thrust, dampening slipspace entry and scuppering any getaway plans the mark might have had.
Making acquisitions that little bit easier and without the impedance of damaging any profit from a sellable vessel.
Candy may not have been a connoisseur of fine weaponry, but even she saw the potential benefits of owning one. And since I was getting myself a Krohlm-built Aspis–a lethal shark amongst the shrimp laity in terms of maritime population, I didn't need to hamper a ship's legs to stop it running; I could bite them clean off.
We'd always been friends and Candy wanted the big gun badly to keep her in the bounty game, but because the He13n was designed for newer models –including my own ship, I had to scour the galaxy for a mechanic smart enough to fix it to her ship.
She didn't care none for the cost though, when Candy got something into her head that she wanted, she was getting it.
I take a second look at the Valhalla's flat nose and whimper at the horrific scars that'll crop some feathery layers of cash off the final asking price.
"They even took the modified track runners!"
Modified track runners I personally had made to fit the ageing rust-pot. Those Spartans were certainly thorough in their evaluation of anything worth salvaging; I'm surprised the damn thing's still got an engine so it can get in the air.
I manually open the bay ramp and step into the belly of the beast; might as well see the extent of the damage those greedy big green tics have wreaked upon her.
"How you doing, old gal?"
Some people talk to plants, some people talk to their pets, my vice is talking to ships; even ones without Constructs.
Her metal innards groan from the incoming cold that blows in behind me.
It's a sad thought, that when a ship groans and no-one's around to hear it: does it really groan?
I slap the bay door button to close it and consolingly pat the wall beside. The two of us alone.
"I miss them too, sweetie.
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