SECOND DRAFT: Hard Bank Left

43

"You should have seen her, Graham. I didn't know she was capable of pulling a stunt like that. Stunts like that. She took out two fighters. And Ero! Did you see what she did to Ero?"

Graham let out a massive sigh of relief as Krys entered the pilotry chattering excitedly.

"Yes," he said, "we saw what became of Ero."

"I blew her up!" Jarreth called from below.

Graham ignored him. "For a second I was worried it might have been you... or that maybe the mass driver had thrown you off. The shock wave sent us out to the middle of nowhere..."

"Why, Graham, were you worried about me?"

"No," he shot back in mock defense. "I was just concerned. With Celeste gone who's gonna fly the ship?"

"You can, you dummy. You designed her." Arguing with her was hopeless. Couldn't she just let him cover his ass in peace? Did she really have to rub it in his face every time he cared?

"Well, with aircover taken care of, we just need to find a safe place to land and hoof it in."

"I know the plan, love."

"I was using you as a verbal checklist."

"As opposed to using me as a written checklist?"

He glowered at her. The woman was too keyed up to talk to in any serious manner. "You need to stop. We need to focus."

"Understood."

Krys dropped the gun she'd been carrying on the ground near the door. He recognized the over-the-shoulder design, though he couldn't peg from where until the voice in his ear reminded him that it was his design. The voice also chimed in that the weapon was Krys' personal favorite.

"The core is completely burnt out. We're going to need to replace it."

"Well, I could--"

"No. You aren't touching anything with a mind to change it until we're done here." She cut in before she had the chance for him even offer to simply replace the core with a spare. "And besides, I have an arsenal."

She left before Graham could say another word to contradict her. This, however, did not stop Graham from attempting to do so. He followed her out, bringing the gun with him, fully intent on replacing the power core of her favorite gun before she could protest again. He stopped when he saw her standing in her room, eying her weapons rack, deep in thought.

It wasn't her form that caught his attention, or the way the moonlight caught her face, but rather the expression on it that caught his attention. She looked worried, no, scared. The woman with nerves of steel looked scared.

He stepped quietly into the doorway, leaning her gun against the wall. She didn't acknowledge him, at least not at first, and so he watched her, analyzed her, all while waiting patiently for her acknowledgement.

With a cache of weapons both in her room and in the pilotry, Krys had never been accused of being unprepared for a fight. She stood there, in front of her open gun safe in knee-high, waterproof boots designed to support her as she ran through the battlefield, as casually as one stood while picking fruit at the market. A set of holsters strapped a handgun and an over-large knife to her thighs.

Over her tight, flexible camisole, she wore a second harness, one equipped with a pair of electrically charged mini-canons designed for a solid one shot with a long recharge. The concept involved not missing in exchange for blowing a person's head clean off. Krys used them mostly in close-quarters after she took down an opponent as a means of making sure her opponent could never get up again. Over this she wore a cropped, maroon, military jacket with a high collar. To Graham she seemed an odd amalgamation of sweet and deadly. The woman at the market picking fruit... if the fruit were a gun that could take your whole arm off or cut you in two.