“PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!” I shouted as I covered my eyes. I was not going to be labeled a pervert for something stupid she did. She wiped her eyes and spoke in a almost garbled way. “But I read last night that boys like when girls cook for them in just an apron! Waaaaa.” She jumped on my still more or less prone body, trying to get me excited. She was still a little teary eyed, but it was just crocodile tears. “Look, I get that you’re trying to cheer me up, but for the love of all the deities of old earth put some clothes on so you’re not degrading yourself! You know, B-E-H-A-V-E.” Moments of struggling later and I finally had her in a shirt, albeit one of mine, but still better than just an apron. And we lay there for what felt like an eternity. But the clock told us it was just a half hour. “Are you going to be okay?” her whispers tickle my ear. “Yeah, I’ll live.” I breathe on her hair as she moves her head to my chest. She listened to my heart beating for a moment before she said anything else. “Gramps gave me a message for you, for if we ever reached this point.” I squeezed her shoulder, “Don’t say anything, you’ll ruin the moment.”
I lay there wondering if we could be like this for too much longer, or would life kick us harder than ever and force us to change course. Eventually I heard her lightly snoring, and I knew she’d fallen asleep. I knew she felt twice my pain, and seeing her like this really was making me distraught. I wondered if it was weakness kicking in, or maybe my aloof apathy was fading away. Whatever it was, I knew it would be dangerous. But in that moment I didn’t care.
Roughly a week later everything was back to normal, which translates to boring. So, as per my usual, I went and found a napping spot on school grounds instead of going to class. Today’s venue was the mechanic’s courses labs, they were out on a trip today, so it was quiet. Now any student can ditch class and sleep, and most can sleep in the classroom and just fail, but I couldn’t. I had to escape, and unfortunately, I think this is why everything went down hill. I mean it, everything spiraled out of control because I chose not to be in class.
A loud boom and a fair amount of shaking made me fall from my napping spot. Now I was lucky that my landing spot was cushy and chair shaped, but I was effectively upside down. There were flashing lights, a monitor, some joysticks, and foot pedals. A car? No, cars are completely different. Then what? Then I noticed that it was much more cramped than any car as well, and later I found out that it was about 6 stories bigger than a car. Alarms started to blare and the hatch above me began to close. Just before it shut too far, a body flew in and landed bottom first on my chest. Looking up between the legs near my head I made eye contact with the pilot of this mechanized monstrosity. I’m positive that shock covered both of our faces as Rina and I gazed at one another. Now you remember how she’s kind of perverted? Well this was not a happy pervert face, this was an angry face now. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE DAMNIT? YOU ARE MOST CERTAINLY NOT ALLOWED TO BE HERE! NOT NOW, NOT EVER, YOU ARE NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS!” As she trailed off with repeated “Oh God”s, I determined I would rather not have my head between her knees at this time.
Righting yourself in a really small space when you’ve been sat upon is very difficult. Not to mention my companion kept making noises as I got myself reconfigured and slightly more comfortable. The end result of all that was I became upright, she was upright, and nobody was happy. “So, giant secret thingy. When did we plan to explain this one?” I decided I wanted some answers. A sharp elbow to my ribs told me pretty much everything. Then an even louder boom shook the workshop. “We going to get moving here or what?” I asked, just to be a pain in the behind. Yes, I’m a prick; no I’m not sorry; others were likely in trouble too. Flipping switches, hitting buttons, and grabbing the joysticks, Rina got us up and running. We got out of the workshop just in the nick of time too, a large pillar of light hit it just seconds after we got clear.
We tilted the camera outside up to see what exactly was firing at us, and let me say, this thing was ugly with a capital ugh. It was probably just a ship, but it looked alive, and it looked like it wasn’t made by humans. “Aliens? Really?! Why is it always aliens? And why do they always seem to want us dead? Sonofa-!” I was cut off as we jerked out of the way before another pillar hit the ground near us. “Don’t jerk us around like that without warning me unless you plan on me groping you.” I opened my threats as I checked for any damage; although, in retrospect, I don’t think it was so much a threat as an open invitation to her. “You wouldn’t-“ “Try me.”
As tense as the atmosphere became, we both knew that we needed to work together. Rina got us up in the air and moved us on a course to what I assumed was a rendezvous point. Now either we were getting orders or weapons at this spot, and I really hoped for the latter. I was rewarded upon arrival with the sight of a huge robot and a massive box. “Please let those be weapons for this rig.” I whispered as we got closed. Inside the box was a massive pistol (or the giant robot equivalent I guess), and a massive blade. Our robot picked up the weapons, oddly enough the robot matched Rina’s left-handedness with the equipment set laid out before us. The blade was on the left, the gun on the right, and we picked them up to get prepared.
A sharp female voice came over the radio, “Eliminate the enemy ship, leave no trace. Capture any enemy units possible, any others are to be slain. Use extreme prejudice. That is all.” And we moved, fast. We also were about 30-40 feet off the ground before I realized it. Thrusters? No, too smooth. Wings? Unlikely, not enough push. Combination of the two? Or maybe the cockpit is in a rotary liquid to reduce shaking? My thoughts ran wild about how we were flying, but soon were halted by a violent force shaking us. Rina violently pitched forward in my arms, and I felt us lose our upward thrust. Oh please be awake, now is not the time for getting knocked out. Nope, I was not that lucky. Rina was out cold, and I had to take over some giant thing that I had no training in. I don’t even like driving, and that’s a million times less complicated than this!
I reacted. I grabbed the controls, moved Rina’s feet, and hit the pedals. Glaring at the screen, I took note of all the important information here. My left arm and the weapon associated with it were gone, my propulsion was shot to all hell, and I had exactly six shots in the pistol. Well, I better make them count. I eased forward on my joystick, and the arm responded with a forward motion. I clicked my trigger, and the gun fired a round just slightly wide of my target. Their lock-on unit was trash, so I relied on my basic sight and the monitor output to calculate a firing line. Since we had traveled upward about a thousand or so feet, I had just under a minute and thirty seconds before impacting on the ground. I took my time aiming, and I pulled my trigger five times. Mere seconds later I saw a massive light and then a loud crunch noise was heard. A massive explosion erupted and we were shot faster toward the ground. I heard a heavy crash and I blacked out.
Coming back to reality from the heavy darkness of sleep, I hear voices shooting back and forth above my head. Hazily, I fought my way back to the world of the living. Consciousness returning, I see a world of colorful lights and I blinked to clear my vision. “YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT THIS PATHETIC IDIOT FLEW YOUR MECH WITHOUT ANY TRAINING, DESTROYED THE SHIP WITHOUT THE CUSTOM LOCK-ON, AND THEN PROCEEDED TO CRASH SAID MECH! WHAT BULLSHIT ARE YOU SPOUTING?” And this voice proceeded to activate the smartassery that powers on before I’m even awake. “First of all, it’s genius, not idiot. And second of all, that robot was a shoddy piece of garbage.” I spoke and tried to sit up, and good grief that was not smart. The wave of nausea and a tide of pain hit and forced me back down. “I’ll assume the pain in my head is just from the landing, and not from miss screaming twat over here.”
I blinked my eyes to clear the haze of pain, and then began the one thing I didn’t need right then; the inquisition! “Where do you get off calling our Multi-billion dollar war machine, which you wrecked by the way, a shoddy piece of garbage?” I could tell this female was going to try and kill me, and Rina held her back as best she could. “Sorry, I misspoke, it’s not even standard garbage, it’s rubbish.” I sat up after that, and I could see Rina pleading with me not to say anything else that could get me in trouble. I ached all over and I still felt some vertigo, but I stabilized quickly enough. Taking in my surroundings, I saw it seemed to just be the standard military medbay that was on all of our ships and in all of our bases. So, we’re probably in space since the colony doesn’t have any bases on its surface.
“I’m inclined to believe I missed a major plot point here, is there anyone willing to summarize our current predicament? Or at the very least tell me where we are?” I thought I deserved at least some answers, not many mind you, but some. Rina released the girl and looked at the floor sheepishly. The other girl (the leader I guess) looked at her with a scowl and then looked at me with a fair amount of anger. Then both of them looked behind me and snapped to attention. I turned and saw an even more intimidating female, which is why I fell off the medical bed. This new woman (the real leader?) looked furious, maybe it was all the estrogen in the room getting too built up?
“Agent, are you telling me that this sad excuse for a male is the one who piloted your craft? You’re playing me right? MALES CANNOT PILOT ANY OF OUR MACHINES! The genetics would have prevented any movement.” I looked up at the offending party to see so complete a hatred in her gaze that I just smiled widely and let my smart mouth take over. Or would have, but then I received a heavy kick from behind. “He was the only other living existence in the cockpit when I blacked out ma’am. I can only speculate that it was in fact he who moved the mech.” Rina snapped off the quickest explanation of what happened that I’d heard so far. And being that I was stuck “invisible” here on the floor, I stood up.
“Look, lady, I just saved all of your assed. Now I want some answers, vague or otherwise. Had you not wanted to answer these questions you should have dropped me at home and played it off. Now start talking!” I admit my little tantrum there was uncool, but I was tired of being ignored. Everyone in the room looked at me and blinked, it was almost like… “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me! Not one of you had the brains to suggest such a simple plan? Rina, I know you’re smarter than that!” I turned and pointed ant her. She blushed violently and turned around. What the hell happened to her? She’s not normally this shy…
I rubbed my temples with my fingers before continuing speaking. “Okay, never mind. Just get me home, I want to forget this all happened. Hell, leave me at school or the park, or the center of the ruddy colony, I don’t even care right now. I’m out.” I sat back on the bed and watched as everyone dispersed. About an hour later I was home again. I made myself something light and went to bed since Rina never showed up. Before falling asleep I checked my terminal, and sure enough, a message had come in stating that school was closed for the rest of the week. Better yet, I had planned to skip anyway. Everything would feel right tomorrow, I hoped.
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