Eagle X, Mission 21: CTRL

Part 22: Liam

A notification trilled from one of the engineer's consoles and he looked back at the captain of the Song Brother's freighter. The raiel shook his head and gestured for the engineer to handle it. Crewmen were dispatched to the failing system. The damage from the croabarbos breacher ships had been internal as well as external. The hull hadn't been the only system compromised. Raiel ships are designed to intertwine like that of an organic organism. One single nervous system, pulling from various organs. The damaged systems were causing other sub-systems to fail.

They'd been doing emergency repairs ever since they left the battlezone.

Hitman gave Liam a bleak look. "I'll be honest. I'm surprised we've made it this far."

Liam gave Scott a sidelong look, but kept his thoughts to himself. They were on a tight timetable and, despite The Songs begging for forty-eight hours to perform much-need repairs, Scott refused to accept any more delays. Liam couldn't blame him, but with each new system failure it was starting to look like they'd be dead in the water before they reached the rendezvous point. They'd left Raiel Space with a jarring passage through the sound barrier, and had successfully avoided detection by The EC's Third Fleet. Aborting the mission at this point in the plan could prove catastrophic.

Liam wasn't ready to give up just yet.

With a sigh he turned to Scott and signaled for his partner to meet him in the hall. The team watched them leave with mild curiosity. After fighting the toads, a bond had formed between them born of shared adversity. They trusted his leadership now, but both Nubia and Hitman were used to working alone and it would take a little while still before they stopped wanting input on the big decisions. Liam wasn't sure he wanted them to lose that skepticism. There were still scenarios where it would come in handy.

In the hallway, Scott leaned against a wall, fingering the hilt of his plasmatic edge. Despite his cool exterior, Liam realized his partner was anxious.

"What's going on, Spider?" he growled. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"What am I looking at? I just noticed you look—"

"If you compare me to one of those stupid little house cats, I'm gonna—"

"Stupid? They're adorable," Liam countered. "I think they used to be called 'human's best friend'. Even prehistoric earthers recognized the sacred nature of cat cuddles."

"Liam, I'm about to put you through this bulkhead."

"Aww, you're so cute."

Scott growled and closed the distance between them. Liam placed his hands on the big felarnian's chest.

"I yield, brother. I'm just jerking your chain." Having already wound up the big man, it was time to dive into his argument. "I think we need to let them stop for repairs."

Scott glared down at him for a few moments then pushed away, nearly knocking Liam off his feet.

"You're probably right," he snarled. "This hunk of junk is about to fall apart... we're gonna be late."

"Maybe we can make up time once they get those holes patched up." Liam made an effort to stay optimistic under the weight of the felarnian's pessimistic gaze. "We have a window of five standard earth days. If you give them forty-eight hours, we could still make the tail end."

"You hope. This isn't some shit we can aim blindly for and hope for the best. Don't treat it like one of your reckless plans."

"Not my plan, remember?" Liam pushed past Scott, mildly stung by the backhanded comment. "Besides, I hardly miss, kitty."

Scott was on him before he could react. He slipped out of the headlock and drove an elbow into the bigger man's side. Barely slowed, Scott hoisted him into the air and tossed Liam down the hall as if he were merely a beefy child. The wall made a reverberating sound when he hit and Liam fell to the floor laughing. Scott rushed forward, but stopped just shy of arm's reach. His look of rage became confusion, confusion became apprehension.