“Stop fidgeting, Zoya.”
Zoya detached her fingers from tugging at each other nervously, before relaxing her arms to hang limply at her sides. There was a restless energy in her chest that wasn’t disappearing, and in just a minute she realised her fingers had intertwined again, seemingly requiring no conscious effort on her part.
“For crying out loud,” Ildar sighed and exhaled all the air in his lungs out at once. “You look like you’re about to pass out, pull yourself together. Aren’t you a bit old to act like a grade schooler?”
“But this is the first time we’re piloting with an operator,” Zoya replied and stole a glance towards her brother from the corner of her eye. The base had wanted photos of them. She wondered how they turned out, what the black and white had captured of them. Pale skin, certainly, and sharp features. Dark shadows at cheekbones and under their eyes.
What it failed to capture was the way their hair was a pale hue of green rather than blonde. The minerals from the copper mines had long ago seeped into the waters of their home, and after years of exposure the colour was what she had learned to associate with both home and family.
“Aren’t you nervous about the kind of person it will be?” She left her question hanging in the air when Ildar remained silent. Ildar let out a low scoff.
“Of course not. They want us to ride with an operator, so that’s what we’ll do. No need to get nervous over something you can’t help.” He was right and she nodded, but she also knew him well enough to realise his arms were folded over his chest to conceal the trembling of his hands and the shallow breathing. How he hid in the roll of his shoulders the occasional deep sighs someone else would have taken as a sign of impatience. She knew better.
He was just as nervous as she was.
She drew a deep sigh and forced her fingers apart from each other, sliding them in her pockets instead.
Not more than a minute later they were fidgeting around her dog tags.
“Zoya, stop.” Ildar’s fingers curled around her shoulder and shook her lightly. Zoya felt his fingers shaking and she wanted to explain that she was trying, but the words caught in her throat like thistle or sandpaper, so she looked down and tried to calm down enough to let the words flow out on their own, tried to let them go, tried…
“You two must be Ildar and Zoya.”
Zoya saw Ildar freeze like a deer in the headlights, then felt him turn around at the same time she did. A man with auburn-colored hair eyes approached them with a bright smile, a data pad tucked under one arm. He stopped right in front of them, cast a quick overall look on both and then extended his hand.
“My name is Kieran. I will be working with you as your operator from this day onwards. I will also be in charge of showing you around, so if you have any questions or grievances, bring them up with me - I’ll do my best to make sure you will feel right at home here.”
He gave a wink at Zoya, and the words coiled around her throat suddenly stopped struggling to come out and just melted out of existence.
“Actually, we do have one question right away,” Ildar said and let go of Zoya. “Where is Interceptor? We dropped by the Hangar earlier; it was still there, but not at the spot that was designated as ours. Has there been a miscommunication?”
“No miscommunication,” Kieran replied and pulled out the datapad. “I took the liberty of seeing to it that you could receive a backup model. Your Interceptor is, how to put it, kind of old. Some of the newer models could certainly---”
“No.”
The steel in Ildar’s voice was absolute.
“I understand that you are probably used to piloting Interceptor,” Kieran started again, calmly and patiently, but Ildar waved his words away.
“It’s not about what we’re used to, it’s about the newer models. To be frank, it’s not me who has personal grievances about new things, but we’ve tried newer models. All of them slow her down.”
He pointed his thumb towards Zoya as he spoke, and Zoya gave a brief nod to punctuate his words. Kieran’s eyes landed on her, and she offered a reconciliatory smile at him.
“Look, we’ll see how it goes, but my task here is to keep the two of you safe and alive. I’m not sure if Interceptor is the best tool for that,” Kieran noted, eyes lingering on Zoya for one more moment before they drifted back to Ildar.
“You haven’t seen us in action. Wait until that, you’ll see.” Ildar's words were impatient in a way that implied frustration; concepts that were difficult to put to words, that were easier and faster to show. Kieran kept his eyes on Ildar, fingers tapping at the data pad thoughtfully.
“And, with all due respect, we’ve been doing an excellent job at staying alive without any kind of outsider interference. We’ll do your simulations with newer models if you really insist, but we won’t go outside those in anything but Interceptor.” Ildar had recognized Kieran’s thoughtful stare for the challenge it was.
“I’m sure the simulations will give us data on whether or not it’s necessary,” Kieran noted mildly, but as he put the tablet away, Zoya saw a flicker of irritation in his expression.
“And if the data of the simulations is as good as with the initial diagnostics, there won’t be an issue, I’m guessing.” Without waiting for a response, Ildar turned to Zoya and added: “I’m going to talk to the mechanics, making sure they won’t actually dispose of Interceptor or something. You check out our room with him, let me know later where it is.”
Zoya blinked and nodded at Ildar reflexively, then turned towards Kieran as Ildar walked past him with brisk steps.
“I take it your brother isn’t the type who actually waits to be dismissed,” Kieran observed with a light chuckle.
“I’m sorry,” Zoya said meekly and lowered her head a bit. “He - we are used to working in a different environment. Different setting. But we will both do our best to get used to how things are done here.” She kept her eyes to the ground until she felt a slight brush of the tablet under her chin, tilting her face to look up.
Kieran was looking at her with a curious smile. Zoya felt heat climbing to her cheeks and coldness settling into her stomach, a feeling that was familiar to her - being the centre of attention, being around people other than Ildar. She took a step back and smiled nervously.
She wanted to go see Interceptor with Ildar. She wanted to climb to the cockpit and feel the familiarity of the handles and technology around her, the sounds of whirrs and beeps and clicks, a world which made sense.
A world where she didn’t feel like she was completely disconnected from everyone else around her.
“You don’t really strike me as the type of person who has three years of combat experience and not a single scrape in their mech,” Kieran noted as he pulled the tablet back and tucked it under his arm. Zoya let out a laugh that sounded awkward even to her own ears. It wasn’t a bubbling brook, it was a fox trying to vocally brush two coarse pieces of fabric together.
The mental image was uninvited, and it made her even more anxious, and the more nervous she felt, the harder it got to keep the laughter inside.
“Sorry,” she finally managed, forcing the simmering nervousness back underneath the surface. “I get that a lot. Ildar is the one who actually…”
“Does most of the fighting?” Zoya winced at Kieran’s guess.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, and gestured vaguely towards Kieran. “He usually handles the, uh, talking. If we need to. When we need to. You know. I’m more of a pilot.”
“And I’m saying you really don’t strike me as one,” Kieran repeated with a soft, friendly tone. It occurred to Zoya that perhaps she had misinterpreted it as kindness.
“I’m not trying to scold you here, believe me. I just have this thought - perhaps you would indulge me in hearing it and letting that zero-poker face of yours tell me if I got it correct?”
Zoya hadn’t wanted an operator. She had gotten used to the idea because it was what Ildar wanted to do, but now she was no longer sure if she liked the thought at all.
“What I think is that for some reason your brother is attached to that piece of crap, and is using you as an excuse to not get a newer model.” Kieran’s eyes shifted playfully at the light delivery of the words. They were intended to be conspiratorial, Zoya could tell as much; it’s okay, it’s just you and me. You can tell me the truth.
Her fingers had started to fiddle with her dog tags again. She frowned and looked down.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she muttered, now without a smile. “I… they ran diagnostics on us, they said they would send those to you. Didn’t you receive them?”
“I did, as a matter of fact.” Kieran opened a file on the data pad and set it between the two of them. “It does say that the two of you have really good results together, I’m not trying to debase any of that. But don’t you think your brother would get better results and be safer in a newer model? A junkyard mecha like this might do well in slums, but in an actual combat situation--”
“In an actual combat situation we’ll get killed if we can’t move,” Zoya snapped, startled at how loud her own voice sounded and startled at the anxiety gripping at her chest. Kieran blinked at the sudden interjection. Zoya wrapped her fingers tightly around her dog tags and felt the metal edges pressing in her skin. Her heart was beating uncomfortably loud and fast.
“The initial diagnostics,” she finally said when Kieran made nothing to fill the silence. “You will run new diagnostics for us here, right? That’s what they told us at the -- back at the home. Where we come from.”
“Yes,” Kieran replied calmly and closed the tablet screen. “Not that we’re doubting the data, nor your results. It’s more of an analyst thing. They like to compare…”
“Then, look at the test results we will give you with Interceptor,” Zoya interjected and forced herself to hold eye contact. Kieran sighed and Zoya caught a flash of him starting to roll his eyes before he caught himself.
“Look, Zoya, was it? I don’t really feel like writing another death report two weeks from now, so why don’t you tell your brother what I said so he can think about it?” She had ignored the constant underlying insistence that Ildar was a pilot and Zoya was a tag-along, but this time she hoped she would be as quick in conversations as Ildar was so she could say something back.
That Interceptor wasn’t Ildar’s. Interceptor was hers.
“I don’t,” she started, but caught herself as her hands started to shake. She looked down. “I’d like you to just show me our room now. And after the initial diagnostics are over and you have the data, then… Please, talk to Ildar about this.” She didn’t hear Kieran’s response over the pounding of blood in her ears, but as Kieran started to walk away, she took it as a yes.
She tried her best to imprint the route to her memory as Kieran walked her through the base. Ildar had told her they would have an operator, so she’d adapt. It didn’t mean she had to like the operator. Ildar could handle it.
When they walked past the canteen, Kieran stopped abruptly. Zoya looked up and saw that his path was blocked by a wheelchair. It was occupied by a man slightly younger than Kieran wearing a wide grin and a tousled brown hair, but what captured Zoya’s attention were his hands.
From elbow down they were metal, a beautiful marriage of steel, rubber, plastic and lights. It was the most intricate assembly Zoya had ever seen, and her eyes immediately swept through every joint to see them working perfectly.
Her heart picked up speed again, but this time the sensation wasn't anxious. She had never seen anything like it, and couldn't stop herself from staring.
“Hey, Lonan,” Kieran greeted the man with a familiar grin.
“Hey, man. Who’s this? A new recruit?” Lonan had a ragged, warm voice, and Zoya pulled her attention away from the prosthetics in favour of noticing the rest of him. Kieran pointed a tablet towards her, then to him.
“Pilot Zoya Tkach, meet analyst Lonan Basri. A former operator, second lieutenant, and a smart-ass all the way to the core.”
“A pleasure,” Lonan greeted her and extended a hand for Zoya to shake. “Kieran is my brother, don’t let him bully you too much.” The grasp of the mechanical fingers was tight, but not overbearingly so. Zoya felt soft pads at fingertips and at the hollow of his hand.
“A pleasure,” she echoed, finally letting go. “I like… you have nice hands.” Lonan laughed heartily at her words.
“Real pieces of art. Sadly cannot operate a mech anymore with them, but at least I get to be a walking technological marvel.” ‘Walking’ drew a warm, playful grin to Lonan’s lips. Zoya glanced briefly at his wheelchair and nodded.
“Good timing, actually,” Kieran interjected and opened his tablet. “I need the analysts to prepare simulations for all the current models we have at our usage. How fast do you think this can be done?” Zoya stared at Kieran, but Kieran kept his eyes on the tablet. Lonan made a pondering sound.
“All of them? So like, five or six? Simultaneously or for one pair of pilots?”
“One pair of pilots,” Kieran confirmed and finally looked up from the tablet, meeting Zoya’s imperative stare. He sighed and turned to look at Lonan. “Oh, and include one older model as well. Interceptor.”
“Interceptor? Nobody pilots that shit anymore,” Lonan sneered.
“I do,” Zoya said with a heavy exhale. Lonan’s expression changed, and he turned slightly from him to give Kieran a look - raised eyebrows, one corner of his mouth hitched slightly higher than the other, head slowly cocking from one side to another. It was one of those looks Zoya knew would only mean something to people close enough to him, so she didn’t even try to interpret it.
“I’ll give you the details later,” Kieran said and turned to make notes on the tablet. “We do have a simulation for Interceptor too, right? Just include it.”
“Will do, lieutenant,” Lonan replied and gave a salute so half-hearted it was almost offensive. Kieran didn’t seem to mind. “Well, I’d better get to work, then. How urgently do you need those simulations?”
“How urgently do we need new pilots on the field?” Kieran asked, now with a hint of impatience that suggested that the actual question was how quickly can it be done.
“I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Seven simulations is a lot, but shouldn’t take more than a day to get those up and running, then another day to clear the schedules of analysts. Do you want me to be there?” Lonan’s voice was so clearly hopeful even Zoya could detect it, but either Kieran missed it or ignored it.
“No, I already got an analyst for that. Tell Caspian to clear his schedule for that day.” Lonan’s shoulders slumped in a disappointed manner, but Kieran had already given him a nod and started to walk onwards. Zoya cast one more appreciative look on Lonan’s hands, before following.
She wanted to get back to piloting as soon as possible. And if simulations would clear her way there, she hoped Lonan would arrange it sooner rather than later.
Comments (0)
See all