Chapter Sixty-Three - Passion

There were few things as hot as a passionate person seeing the very epitome of the thing they're passionate about. An art connoisseur finally allowed in a room with an original Picasso, a musician with the perfect seats to a full orchestra of professionals, a mechanic starship fanatic seeing what might very well be one of the hottest spacecraft ever designed pulling into a shield-gapped dock.

"Oh my god," Twenty-Six said. It came out as a gasp, the kind of susurrated word that sent shivers of delight down Ivil's back. When Twenty-Six said those three little words, they'd come from deep inside of her.

"Oh, oh my god," she repeated.

Next to Ivil, Aurora adjusted the neck of her blouse. "Are you... well, Twenty-Six?"

Twenty-Six looked like she might be a little weak in the knees.

Ahead of them, in the closed-off environment of the dock, was Pixie's fighter craft. It was long and sleek, a flying dart with multiple wings concealing heavy guns and missile pods. It had an underslung cockpit, inch-thick sapphire plates made entirely non-reflective by a high-tech coating. It matched the rest of the ship's darker than black paint.

"Look at her," Twenty-Six said. "I mean, look at her. Look at that engine." Twenty-Six fanned her face, and Ivil took a moment to really eye the young woman.

"Are you crying?"

"Can I touch her?" she asked Ivil.

"Yes," Ivil said. What she saw in Twenty-Six's eyes was love. Ivil just wasn't sure if it was aimed at her in that moment.

They followed Twenty-Six who left the observation room in a hurry and pulled herself down along the side of a tunnel to the lower floor where the dock was located. There was a security checkpoint, but it was entirely unmanned. Ivil made short work of the automated security system, shorting it out even before Twenty-Six had reached it.

And so they were allowed into the dock itself where the bottom rear of the ship was opening up and where a familiar figure was pulling herself out of the ship.

Pixie had been cute as a button in her little summer dress the last time Ivil had seen her. Now she was something entirely different in a form-fitting spacefighter's suit. It hugged her tiny form close, from her feet all the way to her neck. Her head was covered in a small, tight helmet with several ports on the side.

She paused as she saw them all slipping into the room. The far wall was open to space, except for the thin film of an active shield. The room had repressurized after her ship moved in, but Ivil could tell that the air was thin.

There were several layers of such shields, and as the ship passed through them, it created a gap in their coverage. Some air had slipped out into the space between shields, and it would need to be re-equalized. Ivil decided to fix that, subtly pulling some air from a slight pocket dimension she'd long ago stuffed full of decently filtered air. Just in case.

It wouldn't do for anyone to suffer some mild hypoxia.

"Hi!" Twenty-Six said as she came to a stop a few steps from Pixie. Her boots--far too large for her- clunked against the decking and their magnets held her tight to the ground. "You are sexy."

"Uh," Pixie said.

"Please give Twenty-Six a chance," Ivil said as she came up behind Twenty-Six and placed a hand on her shoulder. "She's overwhelmed right now."

Twenty-Six turned a dangerous pout towards Ivil. "I'm not... okay, maybe a little. Sorry, I'll stop being weird."

"Please don't," Ivil said. In fact, if anything, she wished to enable her weird little tug boat.

"No no, it's okay," Twenty-Six said. "Hi, you're Miss Pixie?" She extended a hand towards Pixie.

"Yeah, that's me," Pixie said. She extended a hand and grabbed Twenty-Six's. "It's nice to--whoa!"

Twenty-Six pulled Pixie closer. She towered over the smaller woman. "I will have your babies if you let me look at your ship."

"No, Twenty-Six, you're scaring her," Ivil said as she carefully pulled Twenty-Six back. Her little tug boat could push around all the boats she wanted as long as Ivil approved of them, and Ivil wasn't sure about Pixie yet.

Twenty-Six swallowed and let go of Pixie's hand. "Sorry. I'm just joking, but really, your ship is gorgeous. She's incredible."

"Ah, yeah, an early model 501 Corvus," Pixie said.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"No," Twenty-Six said. "The wings at the front, that's from the D series, no? The extra manoeuvring thruster set. I mean, those are one-hundred percent aftermarket, but I think the placement is from the D-series."

Pixie blinked. "I mean, yeah, but she started as a 501b. She was nearly stock, aside from the usual parts that are consumable, you know, radiators, filters, spark injectors, batteries..."

"Baffles, and landing gear pistons, screens, the entire ejector clutch assembly, all the seals and gaskets," Twenty-six continued. She started to hover closer to the ship, and Ivil and Pixie followed. "Oh, these are not stock engines."

"From a Merlin 587," Pixie said. "Had the original engines fail on me. They were not reliable at all. These babies are."

"So expensive!" Twenty-Six gasped. "They must have cost a fortune!"

"I know nothing about ship engines," Aurora admitted as she came closer. "What do you mean?"

"Are they twins?" Twenty-Six asked Pixie, and at a nod, she continued. "Merlins are top-tier Martian-made engines. They're a league above even their military-issue stuff. It's the company that makes the engines for their Super Dreadnoughts. They do limited runs of speciality-engines. The engineers are insane. Literally insane. They lost their minds to their cores, but they design engines to spec. Each one of these is probably worth more than the entire original ship."

"Mhm!" Pixie said. "And they were specifically designed to fit in this chassis and have normal market consumables. Complete nightmare to disassemble and replace any seals or any of the more fiddly parts. I need to order replacements in from Mars every nine months or so, but it's worth it. The Nightstalker is one of the zippiest ships you've ever laid eyes on. I'm pretty sure I could give the average system-racer a run for their money."

"That good?" Ivil asked.

"If we stripped all of her weapons and the non-essentials, yeah, probably," Pixie said. "That'd be stupid though. No one brings a racing ship to a dogfight. Speed is a luxury in those, but manoeuvrability is king."

Twenty-Six made a squeeing noise that was several decibels higher than Ivil would have expected from her. "Look at that wing set up. Are those unfolding weapons?"

"Yup!" Pixie said with obvious pride. "Rotating weapons bays. Basically slapped on a pair of weapon bays on the outside where there weren't any. The normal one is meant to roll out of the chassis, but now it rolls out to replace this fixed one. I had a lot of size constraints to work with on that project, so it's all weapons that need to be manually reloaded. It's a pain to deal with, but I have six more single-shot cannons and a pair of seeker launchers. There's a lot of value in being able to launch thirty-six surprise missiles that you shouldn't by any right have at some pirate's face."

"And the single-shot guns?" Twenty-Six asked. She reached up and gingerly touched one. It was a fixed barrel about twice as long as she was tall.

"One-oh-five millimetre guns with smart ammo. I either need to pick what I'm going with before a mission starts or grab something that'll be generally useful. I tend to mix it up. Two cluster rounds, two discarding sabot armour penetrating darts, and a pair of low-yield nukes to bring on the heat."

"You are awesome," Twenty-Six said.

"Ah, uh, thanks," Pixie said. She cringed a bit at the attention. "It's why I get paid the big bucks. Otherwise, she's mostly got some switched up weapons. Early war models had a decent loadout, so I just kept that and sidegraded a few things. Better cooling on some guns, lots of firmware updates on the autoloaders, a few bits needed replacing over the years, but the stock loadout is easy enough to come by."

"Why not aim for better?" Aurora asked.

"Ammo costs," Pixie replied easily. "When you're firing six thousand rounds a minute, you can't afford a hundred dollars more a round."

Twenty-Six spun around and stared right at Ivil. "Can she be part of our fleet? Please?"

"I think you'd have to seduce her first," Ivil replied easily. Honestly, she mostly wanted to see Twenty-Six try.

"Hmm? What's this about a fleet?" Pixie asked.

"Nevermind that," Aurora said. "It's nothing to worry about. I'm happy to have such a talented pilot with us for the next part of our journey. I'm sure your presence will make everything run smoother."

***