Wild Thargoid Chase: Good Help Is Hard To Find
09 Jul 2018Lilly Terranova
Preston Williams slid the shot glass across the small table as his companion arrived. She accepted, downed it in one, and dropped into the seat across from him. "Alyse, glad you could make it," he said with a smile and clink of his own drink against the empty glass she'd set down. He drained his glass.
"Well, you said you had work for me, and I'm well sick of flying freighters and station tugs," she said, tossing her short blonde hair from her face.
Preston shifted his weight, the metal legs of his chair scraping across the cantina's grated deck plates. The Grease Pit sat a few dozen meters below the repair deck of the hangar of Xhen Dock, and the faintly muted sounds of the machine shop above provided a muffled background music that pilots and mechanics found familiar and comforting. Once in a great while, a shower of sparks lent a bit of illumination to the dim compartment.
"Ah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I actually don't have anything for you."
Alyse's green eyes narrowed in fury. "You called me out here just to buy me a drink? You insufferable little--"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Preston interjected, holding up both hands. "No, no. I said I don't have work for you. But I know someone who does. A friend is looking for an extra set of hands. Commander, needs a pilot to fly with her."
"I don't have a ship of my own, as you damn well know," she growled, leaning forward and narrowing her eyes.
Preston leaned back in his chair, hands out in what he knew would be a vain attempt to placate the fiery-tempered pilot.
"I know, I know. She's a Pilot's Federation commander. Looking for an extra pilot to fly with her. Fighters. Backup pilot if she's off ship. Things like that."
Alyse's lips pursed, but she settled back in her seat.
"Never flown with one of them."
"Well, this is your chance. She's no freighter pilot, and you'll get to go back to that suicidal, devil-may-care flying you love so much," he said, gesturing vaguely with his glass.
"I'm not flying with a pirate, and bounty hunting isn't really my thing."
"Hers either."
Alyse raised a thin brow. "Okay...so, what is? Military?"
He shook his head.
"What, then?"
"She's a bug hunter."
It was Alyse's turn to lean back. "Well, that's...uh...wow. And you thought of me?"
Her surprise was written across her face, but she hadn't turned pale and left the cantina as he'd half-expected. Most anyone with any sense did everything they could to avoid the Thargoids, a policy Preston heartily endorsed himself. Alyse was, however, one of the only pilots he knew who was crazy enough to take on a job that dangerous, and more than that, had the requisite ice water for blood to keep calm when, say, a Thargoid ship was floating half a kilometer above her while she was grounded, and her commander was telling her to do the hardest thing of all in a situation like that: Nothing.
Lilly wasn't the best at working with others, and that made it...difficult for her to find the right kind of help. Their brush with death out in the Pleiades Sector had driven that point home for Preston, and knowing that Lilly was going to be in need of a new pilot, he thought it best to help ensure her next pick was a better one. She was a cold, heartless chore of a woman, but she was his friend, and it wouldn't do for her to die because she had the wrong person watching her back.
"I did," he said. "She needs someone to mind the ship while she's surface side conducting...whatever insane research she does, and she needs a fighter pilot for when she's insane enough to actually engage the damned things."
Alyse regarded him for a long moment. "Research? You want me to spy on her?" she asked, her tone saying nothing of how she might feel about such a task.
"No," Preston said quickly.
"That was...fast," she observed.
"No," he repeated. "I don't want you spying on her. If she thought you were spying on her, she'd kill us both."
"What? Is she some kind of spook?" Alyse asked, sitting upright.
"I don't know for sure, but I think so, yeah."
"Federal?" she asked suspiciously.
"Don't think so. She's ex-Federation Navy, but scuttlebutt is she was born somewhere in Achenar, though. Capitol, maybe. I wouldn't ask about it if I were you."
Alyse considered this. "She got a boner for the Federation Navy?"
He shook his head. "No. Look, the main point is, you'd be working for her, not me. I'd just have the satisfaction of knowing that she's got a half-skilled pilot who won't lose it at the first sign of danger flying with her. She'll pay you fair, and keep her word where she gives it."
"Better than a lot of jobs I've had," she conceded.
"She's not friendly, or easy to get along with. But she's also not going to care about what drummed you out of the Federal Navy," he said.
Alyse's face hardened. "So that's what this is. No one would work with her except the person with no options."
Preston saw no reason to lie. "In part. You won't like her. At least not at first. That may change. It may not. But it gets you doing what you like to do, makes you money, and gives her someone trustworthy watching her back. Everyone wins."
The frown slowly melted from Alyse's face. She tapped her foot on the deck thoughtfully, and Preston smiled to himself. Tapping her foot was a particular tell of Alyse's; she only did it when she was about to agree to something risky.
"All right," she said slowly. "Where do I meet her?"
"She used to operate out of this station, so it's her favored place to come and look for help. In fact..."
"Preston," she cut in. "You already told her I agreed, didn't you?"
"Well, you did agree. I didn't tell her anything. I just had your CV attached with some other files in a data delivery to her, and mentioned you'd be in the station's crew lounge at about..." he checked his watch. "Two minutes ago."
Alyse growled angrily, getting to her feet, turning on her heel, and taking off at a run with a backward cry of, "You're still an ass, Preston!"
Heavy boots pounded the deck as she raced for the elevator, doing her best to adjust her short and spiky mass of blond hair. This was so typical of Preston. Toss her into the deep end and then let her know there were sharks in the water. Then chum it. The trip up to the crew lounge was, fortunately, a quick one. She was not, however, dressed to impress, as she'd just come from a hauling job and was still wearing a grease-stained jumpsuit.
As the elevator doors opened, Alyse darted down the corridor to the crew lounge, throwing the hatch open and nearly stumbling over a short, slender woman. She mumbled an apology and slipped down into one of the empty seats, slipping her ID card into the slot beside the seat, which activated a display of her credentials.
The woman she'd bumped into regarded her for a moment, the glanced at the display. Alyse noticed the glint of cybernetic eyes, a faint red-brown glow gleaming as mechanical irises rotated. Alyse's heart sank. She wore the jumpsuit of a Pilots Federation commander, and from the way she was staring at the display...
All doubt left Alyse when the woman, who must be the pilot Preston mentioned, stepped up to the chair opposite hers. She did not sit.
"You are Alyse Hines," she said. It didn't come out sounding like a question.
Alyse's mouth opened, but no response came out. The woman's voice was completely digital, and not a particularly good one at that. She'd heard of the implants given to those either born mute or injured in such a way as to be made so, but had thought that modern versions were significantly better. This voice carried no emotion at all, and the grating digital quality to it made it sound anything but human.
She nodded. "Ah, yeah. That's me."
Up close, Alyse could see the ugly scar that ran across her neck from just under the right side of her jaw down across her throat, swallowed up by the neck of her jumpsuit. So, she probably hadn't been born mute. No surgeon left a scar like that anymore. A moment later she realized she was staring, and swallowed nervously.
"I understand you are looking for employment," she said in that lifeless mechanical monotone. Alyse had heard friendlier-sounding COVAS voices.
"Yes... That is, yes, I am."
"I am Lilly Terranova," she said. "You sent your CV to me in answer to an inquiry I made at this station?"
So, Preston had sent her CV under her own name. Of course he had. "Yes, that's right. I heard you were looking for someone to help with operating combat and research missions?" It was about as professional of a response as she could manage, though it was impossible to read in the woman's wooden face whether she approved of it or not.
"Curious," she said simply.
Alyse stared at her for a moment, trying not to squirm under that thoughtful gaze. The silence drew out, and Alyse wondered if Lilly was waiting for her to say something, expecting something from her. Unsure what she should say, Alyse shifted in her seat, leaning back and beginning to understand what Preston meant about not liking the woman to begin with. She was lightyears from friendly.
"Well, were you looking for a pilot?" Alyse finally asked.
Lilly gave a single nod. "Yes," she said.
Preston, she thought. What did you get me into?