Chapter 69: Service

Rudy's mecha was a mess. It couldn't even stand in the Magpie's mecha bay. It slumped against the wall like a drunken man, or a corpse. Its weapons were gone, discarded or destroyed. Its wings were shattered, its chestplate only still on because its shards had fused together from the telekinetic force it had absorbed. Its arms seemed locked into an unnatural angle, shoulders almost hunched forward. Its hull leaked acrid coolant to the floor and spilled polymers like artificial viscera.

Chloe doubted she'd ever seen a more joyous sight.

The mecha was battered, broken, bowed –

And unbeaten.

Rudy was alive.

He'd kept his promise.

Chloe ran down the catwalk and unfolded a ramp to his cockpit door. It swung open.

Rudy climbed out.

Chloe was on him before he'd even reached the ramp. They stumbled backwards into the cockpit. The reactive gel chair cushioned their fall.

Rudy grinned up at her. “Now that's what I call a welcome.”

She glanced down. She'd managed to land in his lap, or he'd managed to twist as they fell to ensure she did.

She started to sputter and clamber from the cockpit. Stopped.

“There's no denying it this time,” she said, and lightly kissed the top of his head. “You earned your welcome, Crimson Phoenix.”

She looked down at him. He'd slid lower in the chair than he was meant to sit, leaving her straddling his stomach instead of his lap. “Isn't this uncomfortable?”

He shook his head. “I'm plenty limber. We can shut the hatch and still have room –”

Chloe stood up.

Rudy sighed, but she was pretty sure it was for appearances sake. Mostly.

She helped him to his feet, and he didn't offer any further complaints or suggestions. Which was for the best. They clambered from the cockpit together. Chloe started up the ramp, but Rudy leaned against his mecha's head and looked down at it, wincing.

“Are you okay?” she whispered.

“I'll live. A few bumps and bruises, not that my brain remembers it that way.”

“When Stephan got hurt fighting Admiral Avalon,” Chloe said, “he seemed to feel it a long time afterwards.”

“Stephan lied. As usual. It hurts like hell when you get hit, but after the signal fades, there aren't any lingering effects.”

“I'm glad,” she said. She wasn't sure she believed him, though. His wince looked more than remembered to her.

And I went and jumped on him, she thought. What an awful thing to do!

Not that he'd seemed to mind.

Thinking about his not minding reminded her that she hadn't, either, and those were dangerous thoughts to have. A change of subject seemed safer. “Is Stephan... did you have to kill him?”

Rudy shook his head. “He got the idea.”

“Milissa will be very happy to hear that.”

“Don't mention that I left him on that station without a working mecha, then,” Rudy said.

Chloe drew back, hand at her throat. “You left him to suffocate? That's worse than killing him yourself!”

“He won't suffocate, Clo,” Rudy said. He sighed again; she didn't doubt this one was genuine, because he leaned even more against his mecha's head. “He'll just have to sweat it out a little before his boys come to pick him up.”

“Will they be in time?”

“What if they weren't?”

“Then,” Chloe said without a moment's hesitation, “we'd have to get him and take him back to the surface.”

“You really are crazy, you know that?”

“Can they reach him in time, or not? Be honest, Rudy.”

“Damn, girl! I just got back from saving us all in what, if I may say so myself – and I may – was the finest piece of mechaneering I've ever done, and all you can think about is whether the guy who threatened to kill us is gonna have a long and pacific pattern to his days.”

“I can think about lots of other things,” Chloe said, “but right now, I am thinking about this. And about our friend Milissa, who, last I checked, is the only reason we got away in the first place. The 'guy who threatened to kill us' happens to be her big brother, and Principle help her, she does love him.”

“I guess I can sympathize with her,” Rudy said. “And yes, Stephan's men will reach him in time. His mecha's head should have a day's worth of atmosphere and the station's only twenty minutes' burn from the surface.”

“You strung me along like that for nothing?” Chloe turned, shaking her head. “Principle!”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Rudy spun her until she faced him again, his arm around her waist. “I strung you along like that because you're cute when you're angry.”

“This sets a terrible precedent, Rudy.”

“I'm good at that.” He winked.

She felt more charitable toward his wink than she had in a long time.

She kissed him again. “I'm glad you're okay.”

“I love you too, Chloe.”

She closed her eyes and soaked up the words. Then they sunk home and she looked up, startled. “That's, um, I mean, it's not what I said, it's –”

“I translated,” Rudy said.

She nuzzled her nose against his. “You're a really good translator.”

“I took a class.”

“First time for everything.”

“It was a required course.”

Chloe laughed.

Rudy's eyebrow quirked up. “Shouldn't you be telling me to be serious?”

“Am I really that much of a nag?”

He made a show of considering the question. With a weight most men would have reserved for a speech of historical import, he pronounced, “Hell yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“It's okay. You're cute when you nag, too.”

“Rudy...”

“Yeah, Clo?”

“Be serious,” she said, seriously.

His eyes twinkled. With the same gravity, he said, “Give me one good reason why I should.”

“Because your legs are shaky and I really want to let you hug me, and it would be absurd for us to get killed by falling from here right after you beat Stephan?”

“You make a persuasive argument.” He let her slip from his arms. For a wonder, he also let her brace him as she led him up the ramp and onto the catwalk. She wondered if he was hurt worse than he'd let on, or if he was flying on some kind of painkiller that affected his balance.

She lowered him to the railing and he gladly propped himself against it. She knelt beside him. “Are you sure you're okay, Rudy?”

“I could use a breather,” he admitted. “My muscles are all sore from tensing up when the neural feedback told them they'd gotten torn apart.”

“Will they get better on their own?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I hear a good massage does wonders, though.”

“I don't know how to do that,” Chloe said.

“Wanna figure it out?”

“Yes.”

Rudy blinked.

Chloe blinked back. “I mean...” She gulped. “I mean, 'yes.' I would love to figure it out.”

“If I didn't know better, Chloe, I'd say you were putting the moves on me.”

“It would be wonderfully responsible of you to stop me, then,” she said. “Please?”

“You're kidding, right?”

She shook her head. “Any help would be much appreciated. Considering our luck, I kind of figured Milissa would have run in here proclaiming a crisis by now.”

“Let me get this straight, Chloe,” Rudy said. “You're saying you actually are propositioning me, but you want me to say no?”

Chloe clasped her hands in her lap and tried to concentrate on holding them tightly together. It was supposed to be some kind of mental exercise. It didn't work. She shoved them to her sides instead, not that it helped. She said, “I want you to distract me or something. That is, I should want you to. I don't. You get what I'm saying?”

“No,” Rudy said. “I think you're completely nuts.”

“Probably right,” she said.

He sighed for the third time since his return, took her hands and clasped them together inside his. “Don't you want to know how I beat Stephan?”

Chloe stared.

She gripped his hands tightly. Almost as tightly as her voice seemed lodged in her throat. After a moment, she took a deep breath and whispered, “You're the best, Rudy.”

“Don't credit me,” he said. “Your crazy is contagious.”

“Thanks,” she said. “And yes, I would love to know how you beat Stephan.”

His face fell. “You mean that wasn't a test? I figured you'd be so grateful I'd get laid now.”

“Rudy!” She could have slapped him. At least, she told herself she could have slapped him.

She told herself she'd honestly wanted him to stop her, too.

Self-deception, she reflected, was an amazing thing.

Rudy propped himself up on the railing and glanced back at his shattered mecha. “Damn,” he muttered.

“What?”

He chuckled. “Looking back on it, I'm wondering how I beat him, too.”

“You seemed awfully confident when you went out there.”

“I had a hunch of my own,” he said.

“Why couldn't you tell me?”

“Because Stephan could read your mind,” Rudy said. “Milissa managed it, and she's admitted she's not exactly the mightiest psychic to ever soar between the stars.”

“Wait, you're saying he couldn't read yours?”

Rudy nodded. “Couldn't read, write or do arithmetic on me. Or geometry, either, since I imagine he'd have loved to fold me up into something triangular.

“It all starts with Milissa and the bandersnatch,” he continued. “See, she told me she summoned it.”

Chloe drew back. “Why would she do that?”

“She thought I had a damsel in distress complex.”

“Don't you?”

“Not the point,” Rudy said. “What is the point, is that she planned on having it come around, growl a bit, then either chase us slowly enough we could get away or seem to get spooked and run off after I took a swing at it. Instead, the minute I stepped between her and it, she lost control.”

“Why?”

“At the time, I thought it was Stephan's doing.”

“You thought he'd risk his own sister's life?” Chloe shook her head. “Even he wouldn't go so far.”

“I figured that out when he didn't kill us on the transport. We were sitting ducks, and he was trying to cut a deal. Since he'd already treated you like crap, it only made sense it was for Milissa's sake. So on the one hand, I had a nob's powers failing her when she thought she was in complete control, and on the other hand, I had the only other nob around showing he didn't plan on sacrificing her.”

“I still don't understand what happened,” Chloe said.

“Remember when I fought Steph back at the estate?” Rudy asked.

Chloe nodded.

“When I was on the ground, he tried to freeze me or crush my heart or something like that. It didn't work, and he looked at you like he thought you'd stopped it.”

“I wish I could say that was true,” Chloe said, “but I haven't been any help to you at all.”

“Not true,” Rudy said, “but not the point, either.”

“What is the point, Rudy?”

“The point is, this is my power:

“The power,” he finished, “to take away yours.”