Chapter Four Hundred and Sixteen - Talking Shop

My friends and I decided to help.

It wasn’t that big of a discussion, but it was a discussion, and I was pretty happy with that. Recently, I’d been feeling... well, not bad, exactly, but a bit conflicted.

Was I being the best friend I could be?

Well, no.

I don’t think it was entirely possible to be the very best at something, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t try. That trying meant listening, and talking, and making sure that my friends were happy with whatever came down.

So we talked, weighed the pros and the cons, then decided to help Abraham with his latest adventure.

On some level, I think we all knew that he was sort of humoring us. But he seemed thrilled to have us along, so I didn't think we were really imposing.

Amaryllis and Calamity had gone off to secure the Beaver’s stay for the next couple of days, and to make sure that there was a watch set up. It was important to keep the ship safe, especially in a place that could be so troublesome. I was sure we’d manage though, and we had a massive boogeyman to scare off any evildoers, otherwise known as Abraham.

That left Caprica, Awen, and I with Abraham and the Shady Lady.

Caprica was probably the last of my friends that I would have expected to get along with Abraham (he was a bit much, even as cuddly as he was) but she was sitting on a tank of some sort down below while Abraham regaled her with a story that needed to be told at high volume and with lots of arm waving and gesticulating.

While she kept Abraham and herself entertained, Awen and I went over the Shady Lady.

Mostly that was Awen. I was her tool bunny for the moment, carrying a small toolbox in both hands and a few more in some belts that I’d looped around my neck.

“How is she?” I asked.

All I could see of Awen right then were her legs and behind sticking out of the ship’s engine bay. The Shady Lady’s engineering section was inside the hull, but the hull was so small that there wasn’t really room for anyone ‘inside’ the ship, except for the cabin at the rear, and that’s not where the engine was.

“She’s... not that bad, but not as great as she could be,” Awen said. She grunted, then pulled herself out along with a large metal thing with a gear sticking out of one end and some wires on the other.

“Is that important?” I asked.

Awen blinked, then looked down at the thing she was holding. “Yes?”

“Okay,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

Awen smiled, then held it up to me. “This is the starter. It... well, it starts the engine. See this gear? It gets the engine turning, and once it’s turning, it can sustain itself. But look at this part, here.”

“Uh,” I said as I followed her gaze. “It’s metal?”

“Yeah, bare metal. No grease, and you can see some gouges along the shaft here. This isn’t the original starter, and it’s not meant for this model of engine.”

“Oh,” I said. “So it shouldn’t work?”

She shrugged. “I’m sure it does, but it’s not meant to be fitted in there. Then again, nothing is. The Shady Lady has been rebuilt a lot, you know? And a lot of the rebuilds were kind of ... improvised. I said the starter doesn't go with this model of engine, right? Well, that's true of everything in here." She gestured vaguely into the engine bay. "When you're out on the edge of civilization, it can be hard enough to find spare parts for a new engine. So, Uncle used whatever he could find to get moving again. The current engine is secondhand, but the exhaust manifold is brand new - except it's for a different model so someone beat it with a hammer to make it fit. The driveshaft looks like some kind of Sylphfree military castoff; they cut it down to size and ground the ends to fit. Each part of the hydraulic system was manufactured by a different group, even the main reservoir, which is a two-hundred-year-old whiskey cask. The wiring is a customised patchwork. Half the gears are worn down. The propeller is unbalanced, and I am pretty sure it was looted from pirates."

I blinked. That was a lot from Awen all at once. "How can you tell?"

"Mostly the graffiti. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is: there's a lot of room for improvement." She smiled and held up the starter, can you clean this? I’ll see if I can’t find a replacement for the cam on this and then I’ll fit it back into place after greasing it up.”

“Alright.” I said, happy that I could do something to help. A quick application of Cleaning magic was all it took to scour the old grease off the starter. It revealed a crack along the metal casing that Awen glared at for a while before sighing.

“If this was on the Beaver I’d insist on replacing it once we got to port,” she said. “Not that I let things get this far. I swear, Uncle does not take care of his stuff. This is probably half the reason he keeps needing to replace things.” She muttered a little more as she disassembled the starter with surprising ease while sitting on the ship’s railing. The parts she undid went on the floor, laid out in a big semi-circle.

“Can you fix it?” I asked.

“I’m a mechanic, not a machinist,” she said. “But... maybe if I had the right tools? I don’t have much experience making things from scratch, especially not metal.”

I shrugged. I really didn’t know much about it. As far as I was concerned, Awen was doing some sort of machine magic to keep things working. “So, what do we do?”

“With this? Find a replacement, make sure it works with the engine. I can maybe switch the gears out to make sure a replacement works. Then... well, I barely looked at things before finding this problem, so I bet there’s a lot more down there.”

“Oh, shoot,” I said. “So, the Shady Lady isn’t ready for racing, is she?”

Awen frowned, then shrugged a shoulder. “Not as ready as I’d like. But she can probably still fly. Uncle has brought the Shady back in pretty bad shape before. There are lots of problems with a ship this old, but she’s tough-tough.”

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“That she is,” someone said from behind me.

I spun around with a gasp to find a grenoil gentleman standing on the deck. It took me a split second to recognize him.

“Raynold!” I jumped forward and hugged the slim grenoil. He chuckled, returning the hug with gusto. “You’re here too?”

“I could hardly leave Abraham on his own. World knows what sort of trouble he’d get into without someone to keep an eye on him!” Raynold said as the hug ended. “Awen! It’s wonderful to see you as well.”

“Uncle Raynold,” Awen said, a lot calmer than I’d been, but she was still smiling and after setting down a last couple parts down, she raised her arms to give him a hug too. “It’s nice to see you.”

“And you as well.” Raynold gave Awen a final squeeze, then settled back down with a grunt. Raynold wasn’t the youngest frog around. There were a few wrinkles around the edges of his eyes and mouth that I didn’t remember, and he seemed just a little more stooped, but he still carried himself like a proper gentleman in his vest and cleanly pressed slacks. Only the aviator goggles hanging around his neck hinted at him maybe being somewhat mechanically inclined. “You know, your family...”

“I, ah, don’t know if I want to hear about them,” Awen said.

He nodded. “That’s fair enough. I’m glad to see you, in anycase. And glad to have someone else around to help me wrangle Abraham. He’s been getting particularly excited about this race, which... is concerning.”

“Concerning?” I asked.

Raynold nodded, which was a big gesture for a grenoil to make. “The participants aren’t all pirates and criminals and ruffians, but they definitely make up the majority. The rest are airship companies that want to tailor to them. We’re standing out for being so... dare I say, normal?”

“So the locals don’t like you?” That was concerning. Someone might try something with Abraham, or the Shady Lady. Or they might fly unfairly during the race.

“It’s not all that bad. We balance out the distaste with a respectable amount of fear,” Raynold said with a rueful grin. He fished out a small pipe from a pocket on his vest. “Abraham’s a powerful man, and I’m not so shabby myself. It’s still just the two of us, however.”

“That must be lonely,” I said.

Raynold laughed, shaking his head all the while. “No, nothing of the sort. There’s no time to be lonely with Abraham around. Now, I have to know, why do you have the engine’s starter in pieces?”

“Ah, there’s a crack in the casing,” Awen said. “And the cam is worn out.”

“Hmm, didn’t know about the cam,” Raynold said. “But the casing’s been cracked since before we installed it, so that’s nothing new.”

“Isn’t that... concerning?” Awen asked. “The crack might grow?”

“You do things a bit more by the book than we do,” Raynold said. “But I suppose there’s no harm in that, especially not just before the big race. I have a few spare parts below that I was going to swap out, maybe you could give me a hand with that? I’ll need a bit of time to source a new starter.”

Awen glanced down at the open engine bay. “I think we might have to replace more than just that,” she said. “I didn’t have time to look at much down there.”

"A fair assessment." Raynold rubbed his chin. "You definitely know what you're doing. So long as you're here, the Shady Lady could certainly stand to have a bit of maintenance done. I’ll help you remove the rest of the engine’s covering, and we can unbolt the cowling while we’re at it. Miss Bunch, I recall you having Cleaning magic?”

“Yup!” I chirped.

“Then I’d appreciate your help here too,” he said. “We’ll want to slather some grease on everything once we’re done, but clearing it off should help see what needs our attention more. Do you know anything about tuning, Awen?”

“Not really, not beyond getting the timing right on the Beaver,” Awen said. She didn't seem upset about her own lack of knowledge. If anything, she seemed a little excited to learn something new.

Raynold nodded along. “In that case, let me show you an old trick or two. I did pick up a handy third class just to keep this old bird afloat.”

So we got to work, and by we, I mostly mean Raynold and Awen. I got to stand on the side and feel a bit useless while I watched them take things apart and chat between each other. My translation power made sure that I understood the words they were using, but not necessarily what they were talking about, which was kind of annoying.

Still, I got to pass them tools and Awen at least seemed to be having a blast, so I didn’t complain.

“Ah, Broccoli, can you clean this part here?” Awen asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Do you want me to just blast the entire engine?”

“No, there might be a few corners where there’s accumulated oil that we won’t easily be able to replace. And since those places are hard to reach, we want to leave the oil there because if they start to rust apart,” Raynold said.

“Okay,” I said. It seemed a little weird to me to want to keep something dirty, but the logic did make some sense, so I decided not to question it too hard. “So, are you sure you’ll be okay, just you and Abraham?”

Raynold hummed a deep, throaty note. “I’m not worried. Or maybe I am? I’m not worried that the locals could really harm us. Sure, there are more violent ruffians than I’d like around these parts, but most of them are common thugs that bully others and rely too much on their own brawn. It’s rare to find a thug that’s brave enough to delve a dungeon in search of a second class, and fewer still make it to a third. On the other hand, Abraham has a nose for danger, and he tends to go running towards it rather than away.”

“That does sound like Uncle,” Awen said.

I went quiet for a while as Awen and Raynold continued to work. Sometimes, I felt like maybe I was a tiny bit like Abraham myself. Not the big rotundness and the glorious moustache, but the attitude towards adventure and fun.

Was I making my friends worry too?

Then again, Raynold seemed to love Abraham, regardless of his nose for adventure. Or maybe even because of it.

I sighed. Introspection was so tiring.

***