RavensDagger

  Chapter Sixty-Three - Passion

  There were few things as hot as a passionate person seeing the very epitome of the thing they're passionate about. An art oisseur finally allowed in a room with an inal Picasso, a musi with the perfect seats to a full orchestra of professionals, a meic starship fanatic seeing what might very well be one of the hottest spacecraft ever designed pulling into a shield-gapped dock.

  "Oh my god," Twenty-Six said. It came out as a gasp, the kind of susurrated word that sent shivers of delight down Ivil's back. Whey-Six said those three little words, they'd e from deep inside of her.

  "Oh, oh my god," she repeated.

  o Ivil, Aurora adjusted the neck of her blouse. "Are you... well, Twenty-Six?"

  Twenty-Six looked like she might be a little weak in the knees.

  Ahead of them, in the closed-off enviro of the dock, ixie's fighter craft. It was long and sleek, a flying dart with multiple wings cealing heavy guns and missile pods. It had an underslung cockpit, inch-thick sapphire ptes made entirely non-reflective by a high-tech coating. It matched the rest of the ship's darker than bck paint.

  "Look at her," Twenty-Six said. "I mean, look at her. Look at that ewenty-Six fanned her face, and Ivil took a moment to really eye the young woman.

  "Are y?"

  " I touch her?" she asked Ivil.

  "Yes," Ivil said. What she saw iy-Six's eyes was love. Ivil just wasn't sure if it was aimed at her in that moment.

  They followed Twenty-Six who left the observation room in a hurry and pulled herself down along the side of a tuo the lower floor where the dock was located. There was a security checkpoint, but it was entirely unmanned. Ivil made short work of the automated security system, sh it out even before Twenty-Six had reached it.

  And so they were allowed into the dock itself where the bottom rear of the ship ening up and where a familiar figure ulling herself out of the ship.

  Pixie had been cute as a button in her little summer dress the st time Ivil had seen her. Now she was somethiirely different in a form-fitting spacefighter's suit. It hugged her tiny form close, from her feet all the way to her neck. Her head was covered in a small, tight helmet with several ports on the side.

  She paused as she saw them all slipping into the room. The far wall en to space, except for the thin film of an active shield. The room had repressurized after her ship moved in, but Ivil could tell that the air was thin.

  There were several yers of such shields, and as the ship passed through them, it created a gap in their ce. Some air had slipped out into the space between shields, and it would o be re-equalized. Ivil decided to fix that, subtly pulling some air from a slight pocket dimension she'd long ago stuffed full of detly filtered air. Just in case.

  It wouldn't do for ao suffer some mild hypoxia.

  "Hi!" Twenty-Six said as she came to a stop a few steps from Pixie. Her boots--far te for her- ked against the deg and their mags held her tight to the ground. "You are sexy."

  "Uh," Pixie said.

  "Please give Twenty-Six a ce," Ivil said as she came up behind Twenty-Six and pced a hand on her shoulder. "She's overwhelmed right now."

  Twenty-Six turned a dangerous pout towards Ivil. "I'm not... okay, maybe a little. Sorry, I'll stop being weird."

  "Please don't," Ivil said. In fact, if anything, she wished to enable her weird little tug boat.

  "No no, it's okay," Twenty-Six said. "Hi, you're Miss Pixie?" She extended a hand towards Pixie.

  "Yeah, that's me," Pixie said. She extended a hand and grabbed Twenty-Six's. "It's o--whoa!"

  Twenty-Six pulled Pixie closer. She towered over the smaller woman. "I will have your babies if you let me look at your ship."

  "No, Twenty-Six, you're sg her," Ivil said as she carefully pulled Twenty-Six back. Her little tug boat could push around all the boats she wanted as long as Ivil approved of them, and Ivil wasn't sure about Pixie yet.

  Twenty-Six swallowed a go of Pixie's hand. "Sorry. I'm just joking, but really, your ship is geous. She's incredible."

  "Ah, yeah, an early model 501 Corvus," Pixie said.

  "No," Twenty-Six said. "The wings at the front, that's from the D series, no? The extra man thruster set. I mean, those are one-hundred pert aftermarket, but I think the pt is from the D-series."

  Pixie blinked. "I mean, yeah, but she started as a 501b. She was nearly stock, aside from the usual parts that are able, you know, radiators, filters, spark iors, batteries..."

  "Baffles, and nding gear pistons, ss, the entire ejector clutch assembly, all the seals and gaskets," Twenty-six tinued. She started to hover closer to the ship, and Ivil and Pixie followed. "Oh, these are not stogines."

  "From a Merlin 587," Pixie said. "Had the inal engines fail ohey were not reliable at all. These babies are."

  "So expewenty-Six gasped. "They must have cost a fortune!"

  "I know nothing about ship engines," Aurora admitted as she came closer. "What do you mean?"

  "Are they twins?" Twenty-Six asked Pixie, and at a nod, she tinued. "Merlins are top-tier Martian-made ehey're a league above even their military-issue stuff. It's the pany that makes the engines for their Super Dreadnoughts. They do limited runs of speciality-ehe engineers are insane. Literally ihey lost their minds to their cores, but they design eo spec. Eae of these is probably worth more thaire inal ship."

  "Mhm!" Pixie said. "And they were specifically desigo fit in this chassis and have normal market ables. plete nightmare to disassemble and repy seals or any of the more fiddly parts. I o order repts in from Mars every nine months or so, but it's worth it. The Nightstalker is one of the zippiest ships you've ever id eyes on. I'm pretty sure I could give the average system-racer a run for their money."

  "That good?" Ivil asked.

  "If we stripped all of her ons and the non-essentials, yeah, probably," Pixie said. "That'd be stupid though. No one brings a rag ship to a dogfight. Speed is a luxury in those, but manoeuvrability is king."

  Twenty-Six made a squeeing hat was several decibels higher than Ivil would have expected from her. "Look at that wi up. Are those unfolding ons?"

  "Yup!" Pixie said with obvious pride. "Rotating ons bays. Basically spped on a pair of on bays oside where there weren't any. The normal one is meant to roll out of the chassis, but now it rolls out to repce this fixed one. I had a lot of size straints to work with on that project, so it's all ons that o be manually reloaded. It's a pain to deal with, but I have six more single-shot ons and a pair of seeker unchers. There's a lot of value in being able to unch thirty-six surprise missiles that you shouldn't by any right have at some pirate's face."

  "And the single-shot guns?" Twenty-Six asked. She reached up and gingerly touched o was a fixed barrel about twice as long as she was tall.

  "One-oh-five millimetre guns with smart ammo. I either o pick what I'm going with before a mission starts rab something that'll be generally useful. I tend to mix it up. Two cluster rounds, two discarding sabot armour peing darts, and a pair of low-yield on the heat."

  "You are awesome," Twenty-Six said.

  "Ah, uh, thanks," Pixie said. She ged a bit at the attention. "It's why I get paid the big bucks. Otherwise, she's mostly got some switched up ons. Early war models had a det loadout, so I just kept that and sidegraded a few things. Better cooling on some guns, lots of firmware updates ooloaders, a few bits needed repg over the years, but the stock loadout is easy enough to e by."

  "Why not aim for better?" Aurora asked.

  "Ammo costs," Pixie replied easily. "When you're firing six thousand rounds a minute, you 't afford a hundred dolrs more a round."

  Twenty-Six spun around and stared right at Ivil. " she be part of our fleet? Please?"

  "I think you'd have to seduce her first," Ivil replied easily. Holy, she mostly wao see Twenty-Six try.

  "Hmm? What's this about a fleet?" Pixie asked.

  "Nevermind that," Aurora said. "It's nothing to worry about. I'm happy to have such a talented pilot with us for the part of our journey. I'm sure your presence will make everything run smoother."

  ***

  RavensDagger

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