The Iron Skeleton

Chapter 30

Aaron sighed contentedly and stepped into the Sand Dollar's cockpit. He sniffed his freshly-cleaned hands and savored the lavender aroma as he marched to his seat. Sila awaited him in the copilot's chair, while Keira and Wendy sat in the two passenger seats. Both girls more or less enthusiastically grinned at him as he passed by, and he returned the same indiscriminate smirk to both. 

"Alright, time to get this show on the road, or actually, off the road." Aaron remarked lightheartedly, "Sila, did you initiate flight prep?" 

"Yes." 

"Awesome. That cuts our work in half. Fuel tank full?" 

"Obviously." 

"Engine on standby, no issues?" 

"Check." 

"Air-lock initiated?" 

"Affirmative." 

"Alright, then, I'm taking the engine off standby mode." 

"Okay." 

A thunderous crescendo filled the cockpit before giving way to a metallic stutter, grating in sound and inconsistent in rhythm. Aaron frowned and glanced over his control panel. He scratched his head. 

"Anything weird over there, Sila?" 

"Nothing." 

Aaron's hand moved to scratch his head again, but then at the sound of his communicator beeping, it dropped down to attend to the device. "Hey, what's up?" 

"Something's weird over here." the Butterfly's pilot mumbled through the communicator's speaker, "Engine's stuttering." 

"We've got the same issue over here." Aaron said, leaping to his feet. "Really odd. I'm going down to check it out. Shut everything down." 

"Will do. Over and out." 

Aaron exchanged a puzzled glance with Keira and Wendy in turns. Then he waved Sila forward. "If it's not one thing, it's somethin' else." he muttered as they walked over to the spiral staircase leading out of the cockpit. 

"Vexing." Sila declared. 

"You're tellin' me." 

Aaron bolted down the hallway, his lips tightened to a thin line. Sila's metallic footsteps rang behind him as it robotically dashed to keep pace. The two came to the exit hatch and descended simultaneously, Aaron by descending the rope and Sila by a gravity-assisted shortcut. 

Aaron stretched his back after landing. Then he glanced at the ground, and his eyes widened. Nine puddles of fuel sprawled out on the snow underneath the Sand Dollar. When another droplet plummeted into one of the larger pools, he looked up. 

"Oh my goodness. Look at this, Sila." he said, pointing at a narrow, oblong perforation on the underside of a fuel pipe. 

"Wow." 

"Wow's right. I'll bet each of these puddles has a bloody hole of its own." 

Sila followed as Aaron trudged several paces down the pipeline. "Probably." 

"Yep, another here." the brawny engineer muttered, swiping his index finger over the edge of the cut. "The edges are raised. Like a blister. Huh, it's like it got cut and burnt at once!" 

"Sabotage." 

Aaron snorted. "Yeah, obviously, but who?" 

"Saboteur." 

"Okay, how about you be useful for a sec, buddy?" he asked with a sigh, "Check the Butterfly's lines." 

"Brilliant."