Conflagration

Matty Moss

That evening, all but two of the pirates piled into the steam barge along with much of the gear they'd unloaded earlier from the troopship. From snatches of eavesdropped conversations, Lyssa had gathered that they planned to keep a garrison encamped near the village in case their enemies tried to launch another assault on said village. The two guys they left on the service platform were there to stand guard over the precious hardpointer for the night.

"Hey, Fangs!" Scalps shouted from the other side of the platform, "I hope you don't think I trust you to stay with the plane all night. Get your ass on the boat."

Fuck this guy. "Yes, Sergeant." Lyssa was actually glad to be ordered onto the boat. Even though she was in no hurry to be anywhere near those creepy Fourthers again, she really wanted to know if Erin was okay. Also, part of her really wanted to see how that steam engine worked up close.

On this last point, Lyssa was doomed to be disappointed. The pirates made her sit at the front of the barge, well away from the steam engine. They were suspicious of her interest in the machine and didn't want her anywhere near it. So, Lyssa just worked on her data pad as the boat chug-chug-chug-ed towards the dim lights of the distant village.

She was working out the least efficient repair schedule for the plane she could think of. If Lyssa Ruiz had anything to say about it, this repair work would take as long as possible and cost the pirates as much as possible. Not that she had some great plan to thwart them, but more just out of spite.

She was actually surprised they let her keep her data pad, but it wasn't like she could really cause any trouble with it. She couldn't get it onto the exnet, since this planet didn't boast anything as modern as a quantum exchange station. All she could really do with the data pad was plan the repair schedule for 788NC. And plan it she did, very inefficiently.

At some point between the service platform and the shore, the data pad flickered a couple times and then went dead. Lyssa sighed as several of the pirates around her chuckled.

"Ya first time planetside, love?" one of the pirates asked her. He was a skinny kid who looked barely old enough to shave. He had a skinny neck with an Adam's apple that bobbed up and down as he talked. Lyssa didn't recognize his accent, but she definitely recognized his body armor. It was an Estrellan police officer's body armor. She'd gotten into enough trouble with the cops on Ciudad Estrella during her teenage years that she knew that particular uniform very well. Whatever name had once been painted on the chest plate was now painted over with the word MOSS in all caps.

Lyssa answered his question with one of her own. "That's real nice armor you got there. Did you kill some poor Estrellan cop to get it?"

"Nah. Won it a dice game."

"Really?"

"Nah. Just joshin' ya. Found it a dumpster. But dice game sound much cooler." The guy was speaking Gonian, but just barely. Clearly, it wasn't his first language any more than it was Lyssa's. "Name Matty Moss." He held out his hand for Lyssa to shake, but quickly pulled it back as his comrades began to hoot and taunt him.

Lyssa snorted at him. She didn't want to make friends with any of these guys. "They call me Fangs. 'Cause I bite dick nibblers that get too close to me. Ask that one over there." She nodded in the direction of the one called Pvt. Haynes, whose forearm was still wrapped in a bandage. Lyssa hoped it would get infected.

"Yeah..." Moss said. He tapped her dead data pad. "You know that? That call tenebricite shadow, love."

"Call me 'love' again. I dare ya."

"Call ya 'Fangs' then. That call tenebricite shadow, Fangs. Lake get shallow here. Bottom get closer. EM field stronger make electronics go dark."

She really wished this idiot would shut up. She was a spaceplane mechanic. Did he think she was stupid? She knew how the tenebricite shadow worked. "Thanks for letting me know." She hoped he would hear the note of sarcasm in her voice.