bandombigbang 10: Part V
Part IV - Part VI
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Matt wakes up on another floor. He’s really getting sick of waking up on floors. He takes a moment to catalogue his aches and pains - his entire body is one large, throbbing ache, but he doesn’t have any actual bruises, breaks or cuts. Thankfully. Then he climbs to his feet, using his chair as leverage, groaning at the way the emergency sensor lights are still throbbing above his head.
Everyone else is slowly climbing to their feet as well. He sees Pete pull Patrick to his feet and straight into a kiss, Joe standing at their shoulders, his arms slung over both of them. Matt looks away quickly, eyes bouncing over Kyle, Ryan and Stu, noting that they seem as stiff as he is but otherwise fine.
“Andy?” Matt asks. He turns automatically to the main view screen, sure that Andy isn’t likely to appear in his holographic form quite so soon. “You okay, dude?”
“I think it would be best if we left before I do something they’ll regret,” Andy says. His face is on the main view screen, like Matt had thought, and he looks about as far from pleased as Matt has ever seen him. “Also, I still feel like ass.”
“Good to know,” Matt says. He hops into his chair and pulls the straps on. “Patrick, man, stop making out with Pete and get your probe. Andy’s not the only one getting anxious here.”
Pete flips Matt off when Patrick pulls away to wave his datapad in the air. “Mixon, all the information from the probe has been sent to me. We can leave anytime.”
“Excellent!” Matt says. He punches in their return coordinates. Patrick had altered them so they will fly closer to Barataria then any of them really feel comfortable about, but he had a point when he’d said, “Better close to an occupied planet, then to the dark should anything go wrong.”
“Everyone strap in, and we’ll get gone,” Matt says. Andy’s already brought the engines online, and now Matt just needs to turn them around.
“We’re all strapped in, Matt,” Ryan says a few minutes later. “What’s the hold up?”
“Um, this is going to sound like a stupid question,” Matt says.
“Like that’s unusual for you,” Stu says.
“Fuck off,” Matt says easily. “But does anyone know how to turn a ship around when there is nothing to push off against?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Kyle asks.
“Like Andy said, there’s nothing out there,” Matt says. He waves his hand vaguely towards the outside of the ship. “Do I really have to explain basic physics to you?”
“Mixon, just take us into hyperspace,” Patrick sighs.
“But…”
“Trust me, Matt,” Patrick says. “This is the Edge - the Beginning and the End of this Universe. It’s all cyclical.”
Matt blinks. Then he shrugs. “Okay then.” He drops into the Trance. We all set, Andy?
Just waiting on you to catch up, Matt. Andy’s sounds like he’s only mildly concentrating on Matt. The sooner the better, seriously.
Fine, fine. You’re so impatient lately, dear. You really need a vacation. Matt grins when he feels Andy’s grumbling more than hears it. But then he looks out at the bright spot on the line - right in front of them - and together they reach, pull, and go.
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The return jump takes even less time that the outgoing one. Andy’s sure Matt isn’t the least surprised at the speed. Andy is surprised that Matt hadn’t thought to comment on it. Matt isn’t really one to just let things slide once they have his attention.
Though, considering the past day and a half, Andy is sure Matt’s attention is firmly focused on the task at hand - getting the fuck away from the crazies - and less on the whys and how. Those usually come once they have a chance to hole up somewhere safe.
Andy, however, has too much to think about to push his thoughts away. He could, of course, delegate the thoughts to a lesser portion of his consciousness to ponder over and report back, but. Honestly, Andy has a minor worry of what he’d do if he didn’t keep himself occupied. It isn’t like the scenery is going to keep him distracted.
First in his thoughts are the people of the Ethereal Plains. Deities Pete had called them. Andy is quite certain that no matter what powers those people possess or the length of their lives, they are not gods. They seemed too much like too powerful children for him to believe otherwise.
Well, except for Henric. Andy would stake his life on Henric being their leader. Andy is choosing to be thankful that Henric liked Patrick and the rest of them by extension. And that is far as his thoughts on that matter would go.
Second in his thoughts is his time spent in a human body. It was confusing and uncomfortable, and Andy now knows just why Matt always bitches when he falls asleep in his pilot’s chair. Waking up with a stiff neck, no matter how comfortable the sleep had been, isn’t an experience Andy wishes to repeat.
And that thought just leads him to thoughts of Matt. How solid he is, not only in personality Andy now knows, but also in body. Andy knows that his crew, every last one of them, are strong and fit beings, ready to take on anything that comes up against them. To know and now to acknowledge with actually feelings. It’s weird.
It’s also a little disturbing to have to acknowledge, at least to himself, that it wasn’t any of the others that Andy had been most worried about in the Ethereal Plains. No, all of his worry was (is) settled firmly on Matt. Andy has had a dozen different crews in his years of service - good men and women, even during his tour within Republic control for the most part, but none of them have captured as much of Andy’s attention as Matthew Mixon. The thought of flying without him in the pilot’s chair makes his systems glitch for a nanosecond.
Human emotions are a very confusing concept without having to deal with them outside of the abstract. Andy is quite ready to never go through that again.
Andy pushes his thoughts away. He checks in on Matt - humming some song that Ryan had been pumping through the comms the week before - and turns his attention to the rest of the crew.
Ryan and Kyle are in the main Maintenance Bay, working on replicating the teleportation device they had almost finished prior to the trial. They aren’t likely to blow themselves or the section up at the moment, so Andy turns his attention to Stu, who is loading up the Nirvana with the weapons and miscellaneous equipment Kyle hadn’t yet put back. Andy had actually expected Stu to head to the storage room behind the dead plant, but he appreciates Stu’s caution. Until they are well into the Uncharted, Andy isn’t willing to let his guard down in regards to a surprise attack, and Stu seems to share his thoughts, if the amount of weaponry he’s packing is any indication.
Patrick, Pete, and Joe are all back in Patrick’s and Pete’s quarters, and Andy only has his temperature sensors to go on, but the energy spikes are enough to make him happy that Joe has more decorum than either Pete or Patrick. Or maybe Joe and Patrick combined were enough to drive Pete towards more civilized behavior. Either way, Andy doesn’t have another video to sear from his memory banks, and he is thankful.
Dude, are you being a peeping tom again? I’ve talked to you about that.
And his attention is brought back to Matt. I was running a sweep, Matt. How about you focus on your job and leave mine to me?
Matt scoffs and demands distraction. Andy grants it, considering he that he really doesn’t have anything better to do.
Outside his hull, he continues to follow a line only Matt can see, towards a bright spot that will take both of them to breech.
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They come out of hyperspace two planets distance from Barataria. However, their proximity to the Space Pirate homeworld isn’t Matt’s main concern at the moment. The winner of that title is the way the entire ship is shaking around him. It’s so bad that when he unbuckles himself, he’s almost thrown straight to the floor.
“Note to self, don’t disengage safety features prematurely,” he mutters to himself as he clings to the arms of his chair for the duration of a particularly violent shudder. The emergency sensors are blaring and blinking again, and he risks letting go with one hand to swat at his computer to try and shut them off. “Andy, what the fuck!”
Andy appears momentarily on the view screen before the image goes fuzzy, then fades completely. “I have no idea, Mixon, but I don’t feel so hot. I’ve lost sensors on Levels Five and Six, and the rest are periodically flashing in and out.” Matt sure they are; Andy’s voice is doing the same thing.
“Guys, are we under attack or something?” Kyle asks over the comm. “Not to interrupt you two, or anything, but it’d be appreciated if you’d give us a heads up.”
“We’re not under outside attack,” Andy says. “I’m broadcasting the same jamming code that I always do when we drop out of a jump. This is something internal, but I’m having difficulties running the proper programs.”
“In the mean time, Ryan, would it be possible for you to shut those damn alarms off?” Matt asks. “I’m having absolutely no luck up here.”
“Yes, Matt, because that is currently the best use of my skills,” Ryan says.
“Hey, the sooner it’s quiet, the sooner we can all think straight,” Matt says. He punches in his authorization code and his override, but all his computer does is beep nastily at him.
“I’m headed up to the bridge,” Stu says. “The lifts are down, so Andy, please don’t fry me as I climb, okay?”
“I’ll do my best, Rossman,” Andy snaps.
Another violent shudder almost throws Matt to the floor. He grabs at this computer station for balance, but hits a wrong button, and the latest Serenity single blares over top of the alarms. He slaps at the button again to shut it off. “Fucking shit.”
“I think I know what is going on,” Patrick says. His voice is a little wrecked, low and rough, and Matt definitely does not think about why that could possibly be. “Andy, do you feel like you’re losing control of your minor motor functions and secondary systems?”
It’s a moment before Andy answers. “Yes. What the fuck is going on, Stump?”
“Yeah, I definitely know what this is,” Patrick sighs. “Look, you’re going to want to head to the nearest habitable planet so we can land. It’d be best if you didn’t change mid-flight.”
“What the fuck?” Andy repeats.
“You’re changing, Andy. Your species probably wasn’t meant to hold this form indefinitely,” Patrick says. “Spending some time in the Edge and the Ethereal Plains probably exasperated the issue, so now you’re experiencing the need to shift to your human form. Being planetside would be best. Unless you can withstand the vacuum of space unprotected.”
“You’ve seen others like me?” Andy asks. Matt’s sure he would have sounded surprised if he didn’t sound so fuzzy. Matt grabs a hold of his chair straps and buckles back in as he pulls up the coordinates to Barataria. “Mixon, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Getting us somewhere relatively safe, dear. You heard the scientist,” Matt says. He brings up a map of Barataria, locating a suitable landing space on the northern continent. There is a hundred mile wide plain in the northeastern section of the continent that butts up against a mountain range that’s about three times the plain’s size. “How about you concentrate on staying together until we land.”
“Anything else?” Andy bites out.
“Yeah, can you boost that jamming code? It’d be awesome if we landed without a greeting party,” Matt says. He turns the ship in the right direction. It’ll only take them twenty minutes before they’re in atmo, and he still has to figure out the right entry sequence. He needs Andy a little distracted. “Stump, you’ve seen this before?”
“Not exactly, no,” Patrick says. There’s the sound of packing going on beyond his voice, and Matt catches snippets of Joe and Pete talking. “I didn’t really leave the Plains all that often, honestly, and Andy is the first Living Ship I’ve met. But there are certainly precedents. Also, everyone should probably pack up what they need. I’m not really sure what’s actually going to happen to everything once Andy shifts.”
“That’s awesome,” Stu says. “All right, the Nirvana is loaded up with basic supplies that’ll keep us for at least a week. Everyone grab your personal shit and meet up in the hanger. That goes for you, too, Mixon.”
“Not a chance in the twenty-seven hells, Ross,” Matt answers. He manhandles the ship around a small moon, sensors too off to keep them outside of the affects of its minor gravity pull. “I’m not leaving Andy to fly us in when he’s like this. If you could grab my duffle from my quarters though?”
Stu curses but doesn’t argue. Matt really isn’t all that surprised. Then he stops thinking about anything but his entry sequence as another shudder slams through the bridge.
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The trip through Barataria’s atmosphere isn’t the worst Andy’s ever taken, but it’s definitely up there. The Nirvana, with everyone but Matt inside, departs the hanger as soon as they’ve passed through the worst of it. They’ll follow Andy and Matt to the landing site. And then they’ll wait.
“You’re an idiot,” Andy says again. He’s tried to put his face on one of the monitors, any of them, any at all, but he’s having no luck. He thinks Matt might be a little less freaked out if he could see Andy’s face. “If I blow up and you die, I’m going to blame you.”
“First, you’re not going to blow up,” Matt says. He rolls his eyes at the closest camera. “And second, there is no possible way this could be my fault, so you can’t blame me.”
“Try me,” Andy says. Then he tries another tactic. “As soon as I land, you are leaving. No arguments, Mixon. If Stump is right, I don’t think we want anyone inside when it happens.”
Matt makes a face at that. “Yeah, that definitely sounds like something completely not fun. Though it’d make for an interesting bar story. ‘No, seriously! He went from Ship to human, and I was all up inside of him!’ Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.”
“Mixon, no. Entire worlds of no,” Andy says. “Shut up, and do your job.”
Matt laughs at him. But he lands them as close to the mountain range as he can with the sensors fucking up around them. Then he sits in his chair, eyes closed, head down.
“Mixon, I’m serious,” Andy says. Another tremor shudders through him, and he can feel…something happening. Not good. “Matt, it’s happening. Go!”
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Matt’s hands fly to the straps at Andy’s shout. They make quick work of the buckles, and then he’s on his feet taking one last look around the bridge he’s spent the last ten years working, living on. “Andy…”
“Matt, I’m seriously going to shoot you in the head if you don’t get gone,” Andy snaps. His face flickers briefly on the main view screen. He’s glaring. Of course he’s glaring. “I trust Patrick; I’ll be with you in a few.”
Matt’s breath catches in his throat and he blinks. Then he nods. “Right. I’ll catch you on the flipside, dude.”
Andy’s, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mixon,” follows him out of the bridge and to the emergency escape hatch near the main entrance of Weaponry.
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Five minutes later, Matt’s climbing out of the lifepod with a little help from Stu. They’re about twenty yards from the Nirvana, and if the Nirvana had landed any closer to Fuck City, the two ships would have merged. Everyone except for Ryan is outside and leaning against the side of the Nirvana, watching Fuck City.
“You okay, man?” Stu asks. His voice is quiet, so it won’t carry anywhere. As soon as Matt’s steady on his feet, Stu hands him his hipshooters and holster.
“Yeah, I’m cool. Thanks,” Matt says. He straps his weapons on, and then he stoops to grab the emergency kit from the pod. There isn’t much in there, but a little is better than nothing. “Ryan monitoring the transmitter?”
“Yeah,” Stu says. “Barataria, man. He’s freaking out a little.”
“Yeah, he’s not the only one,” Matt admits as they start back towards the others. “Space Pirates, dude.”
“Eh, they’re not that bad,” Stu says.
Matt raises an eyebrow at him. “What happened to your ‘Fuck, no! Space Pirates are total cannibals! If you ever find yourself on Barataria, you’re fucked.’ speech?”
Stu shrugs. “My old man’s stories were mostly just stories, you know that right?”
“There’s always some truth to the fiction, dude,” Matt says. “Mark my words.”
When they reach the others, just as Matt’s tossing the emergency kit into the open hatch of the ship, a buzzing sound starts up. It’s coming from Fuck City, and is growing steadily in volume and intensity.
Patrick nods at Matt. “It’s starting.”
“How long?”
Patrick shrugs. “Don’t know. I don’t think it’ll be too long, though. Ten minutes, max.”
Matt nods and leans back against the hull of the ship, eyes pinned to Fuck City. He reaches up and rubs at his ear; the buzzing has stopped growing louder, but the intensity is still increasing, pressing in on his ear drums. “Figures something like this would happen in the most annoying way possible.”
Kyle reaches over and slaps the back of his head. “Yes, Matt. Andy’s doing this just to annoy you.”
“Of course he’s not,” Matt says. “But if he were, it would be just like him to do it in the most annoying possible way he could.” He smiles cheekily at Kyle, who rolls his eyes and goes back to leaning against the Nirvana with a huff.
It is a beautiful day on the plains of Barataria’s northern continent. The skies are open and clear of clouds, and the temperature is comfortably warm. Matt idly contemplates the possibility of spending a few days just relaxing here, maybe closer to a stream or something, because this place is just perfect for a camping trip. There aren’t even any annoying bugs to swat away. The only real drawback of the place is the Space Pirates, and there isn’t a one of them in sight.
“Andy has stopped broadcasting,” Ryan says over their shortwave comms. His voice is tight. “And he isn’t answering.”
“It’s okay,” Patrick says. He’s the only one of them that looks one hundred percent calm and unruffled. Even Pete and Joe are wearing pinched looks as the intensity of the buzzing grows and grows. “It won’t be long now.”
“I’m not particularly worried about that, Stump,” Ryan says. “Andy is Andy, he’s pulled out of more shit than I can list if I had a lifetime worth of time to waste. However, he’s stopped broadcasting the jamming code, and there is no way the Nirvana can boost a signal powerful enough to cover the whole of Fuck City, even if that fucking buzzing wasn’t screwing with my instruments.”
“Not much we can do about that now, Ryan,” Matt says. He shifts on his feet, wincing as his eardrums start to throb in time the buzzing. “Keep an eye out on the radar, too.”
“Yes, Mixon. Of course, Mixon,” Ryan says. “Who the hell made you king and commander?”
Matt doesn’t bother to reply. Granted, that’s less because he knew the question was rhetorical, and more because the buzzing comes to a sharp crescendo, making everyone grab at their heads and duck away. It lasts for what feels like an eternity, but is really only about a minute according to his watch, and then it stops as suddenly as it had started. It takes Matt a minute to realize there is silence around the ringing in his ears, and he jerks himself upright.
Fuck City is gone. There is nothing in front of him. Then he looks down forty feet and there’s Andy standing in the middle of the grass flattened by his much larger Ship form. He’s wearing the clothes he’d annoyed Buckley with, and between one moment and the next he sort of collapses in on himself. Matt is running to him before his knees hit the ground, Stu and Kyle right behind him.
“Andy!” Matt doesn’t know why he’s shouting as he runs up to Andy, sliding the last foot on his knees in his rush to get to his friend. The corner of his mind that was thinking of Barataria as an excellent vacation spot is reeling over the ink on Andy’s arms, designs that perfectly match the designs that lined Fuck City’s wings. Matt wants to see if the rest of Fuck City is inked on the corresponding portions of Andy’s body; he’d bet Stu’s lifetime supply of pop that they do.
Andy doesn’t look up at Matt’s shout, and he falls into Matt’s arms when Matt tugs on him. He’s breathing, for values of breathing that include hyperventilating. Matt runs the hand that isn’t holding the curve of Andy’s body to his up and down Andy’s back. “Dude, chill. This is really weird, but we've got you.”
“Matt, is he?” Kyle asks as he and Stu stop just short of the two of them.
“He’s okay,” Matt says. Andy’s sort of clinging to him, but he lets up as his breathing syncs up with Matt’s and he calms down. “I think. He’s a little out of it.”
“Your mom is out of it,” Andy mutters sluggishly into Matt’s shoulder. Then, “You smell like ass, Mixon.”
Matt laughs and hugs Andy so tightly he squeaks. “Fuck you, man. Leave my mother out of it.”
Stu snorts. “You two are fucking ridiculous.” He’s shaking his head at them when Matt looks up.
“How’re you feeling, Andy?” Kyle asks. He leans down and pulls Andy to his feet while Stu does the same with Matt. Matt doesn’t miss the way Kyle’s hands trail over Andy’s shoulders and arms. “You going to be sick?”
“I’m dizzy, exhausted, and my head is pounding,” Andy snaps. He shakes their hands off of him, and almost falls again before Matt can get his arm around his waist again. “I’m fine. Seriously.”
“We need to get you back to the shuttle so Ryan can do some scans,” Stu says. But he isn’t looking at them. He’s staring off to the west, squinting into the late afternoon sun. “I think we should find some cover, too.”
“Yeah, it’ll be easier to hide in the mountains with Andy as tiny as he is now,” Matt says as he helps Andy walk towards the shuttle. It takes about twenty steps before Andy can move easily on his own, and then he’s shoving Matt off of him again. “Seriously, dude. You’re fucking tiny.”
“Shut up, Mixon,” Andy says. He sounds more like himself, which is basically a little annoyed and a whole lot grumpy. “Stump better have a good explanation for all this shit.”
“Um, guys?” Ryan says over the comms. “You need to get your asses on the shuttle now. We have company.” Patrick, Joe and Pete are already disappearing into the shuttle.
As they start to run, Matt’s head turns to where Stu had been looking before. There are definitely shapes on the horizon. Shapes that look more and more like ships as the seconds pass. “Shit. I hope that’s a welcoming committee and not an armada.”
“Your futile optimism amuses me,” Ryan says. “They’ve already broadcasted the standard ‘disarm and surrender’ wave. So the sooner we’re in the air…”
“The sooner we’re still breathing,” Kyle finishes. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
It takes them less than that once Stu and Matt grab and hoist a stumbling Andy into the air between them. “Sorry, dude, but the indignity is worth not becoming Space Pirate goo,” Stu says when Andy squawks in protest.
They put Andy back on his feet as soon as they’re inside the shuttle. Matt would like to stop and make sure that Andy is all right, but Stu’s at his back pushing him to the front of the shuttle with a quiet, “Get us out of here first, Mixon, then you can make out with your now-human boyfriend.”
“You are ever so funny, Rossman.” Matt flips him off as he shoves past Ryan and Pete to take his seat, throwing his straps on even as he runs through the fastest pre-flight he’s done since Kentucky. “Everyone find a place to strap in or something to hold onto. This is probably going to get ugly.”
As he finishes getting them ready to lift off again, he hears Andy sort of whisper-yelling at Patrick. “What the fuck, Stump! I want an explanation. I’m not supposed to be human!”
“Sorry, Andy, I don’t really have one,” Patrick says. He does sound sorry, but there’s an under layer of excitement to his voice. Definitely a scientist. “You’re definitely human, and yes, your race did shift. I think. Like I said earlier, I didn’t have any contact with Living Ships before you, but everything I’ve ever been told or heard suggested this might be possible. Makes sense, considering the Living Ships were at their height as a race when humans first started exploring the Universe. If they could shift back and forth between Ship and Human, that’d explain how humans colonized so much of the Universe so quickly. Huh. This is really fascinating.”
Andy growls. “Stump, I ought to…”
“Andy!” Joe interrupts. “Now probably isn’t the time to threaten Patrick. Don’t you think Matt needs your help?”
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Trohman,” Andy says. Then he stomps up to the forward compartment and grabs a hold of Matt’s chair. Matt knows because the chair tilts backwards a little and he can feel Andy’s breath on his neck. Which is weird. He’s used to Andy in his peripheral, but the breath on the neck thing is new. New but definitely something he’s going to have to give more thought to later. “Are you going to take off sometime today, Mixon?”
Matt rolls his eyes, and launches the ship into the air. “This isn’t like flying with your mind, dude.”
“We have an entire armada bearing down on us,” Stu says. He’s at the weapons console, prepping their defense. “ETA: three minutes.”
“Shit,” Matt says. Even at top speed, the mountains are a good ten minutes away; Andy’s sensors had really, really, really been off. “Seriously, people, strap in. This is going to be rough.”
“How much time do we need?” Stu asks.
“We’re ten minutes out,” Matt says. “We’re definitely going to need your expert skills, Rossman.”
“We always do,” Stu says.
Behind them, Kyle is fake-gagging. “Oh, for the love of little pixie children, we’re doomed.”
The comm buzzes with a message from the Space Pirates. Matt slaps the comm off. They really don’t need to hear the usual ‘surrender or die’ messages.
They’re still five minutes outside of the mountains when the armada catches up to them. The first shot comes at their port side, but Matt is already pulling a loop de loop to drive them straight back into the Space Pirates. He’s weaving in and out of the paths of the first three ships when Stu starts firing.
“Ha!” Matt crows when the first of Stu’s shots hits its target. “Take that fuckers! Oh, shit.” Then Matt’s too busy dodging enemy ships and enemy fire to gloat.
|-|
Andy’s sure that he should sit down and strap in before he loses his balance and cracks his head open, but he can’t get his hands to let go of Matt’s chair. Even when Matt starts utilizing evasive maneuvers that should rightly only apply to a human body and not a machine, Andy keeps clinging and trying to blow the pirates out of the sky with only his mind.
“Fucking figures I couldn’t get telekinesis with the body change, no, that’d be too fucking helpful,” Andy mutters to himself as he’s forced to shift hard to his left to compensate for Matt’s throwing them to the right. Behind him, the others are muttering and cursing, and he hears Ryan quietly suggest that he sit down before Ryan has to fix him, but Andy keeps standing and keeps cursing, “Die, fuckers, die,” in time with Stu’s weapons fire.
Then Matt takes a turn too sharp and sudden for Andy to compensate. Andy falls against the chair, one hand slipping off the back and onto Matt’s arm. Andy’s doesn’t even have a chance to process that - he’s too busy wishing the ship in front of them a fiery, explosive death - and then the ship experiences fiery, explosive death.
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Matt barely registers Andy’s hand falling and clutching on his shoulder, because he’s too busy dealing with the ship that had, one, just appeared in front of him that, two, just exploded into a thousand tiny pieces of fiery death. “Fucking shit!”
He has no choice but to fly through the explosion - it’s too sudden and too there for any fancy maneuverings. Kyle had done an awesome job souping up the Nirvana, but it’ll never have the wingtip turning abilities that Fuck City had. Matt’s cursing the whole way through it. There’s no way they can come through this cleanly - shield technology is still in its baby shoes, and not even Fuck City had had one worthy of the old school science fiction fantasies.
Alarms start blaring before they’re halfway though the flames, coinciding with the thud and screech of metal against metal along the starboard side, and Matt is suddenly fighting to keep the ship in the air with only half of the previous responsiveness from the controls. Then they’re clear, and Matt lets the ship drop. He’s hoping that the pirates will see the fall and the damage and back off a little; that they’ll be more interested in keeping the ship intact then in destroying them.
“Ryan, shit, turn those damn alarms off!” Matt shouts over the noise as he throws his whole body into pulling them up before they hit dirt. He just barely manages. They’re skimming over the increasingly rocky ground, and his sensors have to be fucking wrong. There is no fucking way for that many ships to be dropping out of the sky. “Stu, what the fuck?”
“That isn’t all me, man. I’m just as confused as you are,” Stu says. “They’re dropping like fucking flies.”
“We’re just about out of weapons range,” Matt says. “Can someone find me a place to set down - I’m a little tied up at the moment.” A definite understatement as he’s having a hard time keeping them in the air. The ship has started shaking, on top of all the other shit going wrong. “Andy, man, can you ease up on my shoulder? I’m starting to lose feeling, and I need that arm.”
“Right, right. Sorry,” Andy says absently. He lets up enough for circulation to return to Matt’s hand but doesn’t remove his hand.
The alarms shut off abruptly. “There,” Ryan says. “They’re off. And there’s a clearing under that cliff face two hundred meters ahead and to our port side, Mixon. Can you get us there?”
“Do I have a choice?” Matt asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. He’s already turning in that direction. The dip under the cliff face gives him the most trouble (read: almost pulls his damn arm from its socket), but two minutes later, they’re tucked up against the backside of the cliff, well hidden by the overhang.
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Andy only let’s go of Matt’s shoulder because Matt stands up to climb out of the chair, and Andy can’t really reach it comfortably anymore. He’s freaking out a little - did he really? Seriously? - but then Matt is dragging him outside along with everyone else, and he’s too busy gapping at the destruction riddling the plains to think out how it happened.
“The entire armada just. What?” Kyle asks. He has a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and he’s leaning forward so sharply that if Ryan moves even a millimeter to the side, he’s going to land flat on his face.
“It blew up,” Joe says.
“Totally blew up,” Pete agrees.
There is a strip of burning metal, ten miles across and thirty miles deep, extending from about three miles out of their hiding spot. Occasionally a secondary explosion occurs, drawing out an approving sound from Joe.
“Nice shooting, Ross,” Patrick says a couple of minutes later.
But Stu shakes his head. “That wasn’t me. Not all of it anyway. There was some odd fire from the mountains, but. That still doesn’t explain this.”
“Huh,” Matt says. “That’s weird.”
Yeah, no shit. Andy shifts from one foot to the other, which incidentally presses him closer to Matt’s side, because Matt won’t move his arm from Andy’s shoulders. “There was fire from the mountains, Ross?”
Stu nods absently. “Yeah.”
“These mountains?” Andy asks, gesturing to the range they’re smack dab in the middle of. He doesn’t know why he bothers - it isn’t like anyone is looking away from the destruction.
Stu nods again. “Yep.” Then he blinks and stands up straighter. “Shit.”
Andy nods. “Yeah. Could you tell if they were firing on us or not?”
“I don’t think they were,” Stu says. Which. Well, it isn’t comforting.
“Right, we need to fix the ship,” Andy says. “Now.”
“First things first, dude,” Pete says. “How the hell did you blow up an entire Space Pirate armada? And don’t try to deny it - even with someone firing from the mountains, there’s no way we could have destroyed all of those ships. No way.”
Everyone turns to look at Andy. Mostly they look a little awed - Patrick looking at him like he’s a science experiment that just fell willy-nilly into his lap, Joe is considering and smug, and Matt looks especially proud, a look that comes with an accompanying, crushing hug.
“Dude! You are awesome!” Matt says. He even kisses the top of Andy’s head. Andy doesn’t bother trying to squirm away - he’s seen Matt pull that on the others enough times that he knows he doesn’t stand a chance at successfully getting away. “You are the best Living Ship ever!”
Andy sighs. “I’m the only Living Ship you know, Mixon, and possibly the only one left. Also, not really a Ship anymore.”
“Eh, details, man. Details,” Matt scoffs. He hugs Andy again and only pulls away because Andy applies his elbow directly to his ribs. “Ow.”
“Stop squishing me, Mixon, and go look at my shuttle,” Andy orders. “I don’t think we want to be here when the pirates come looking for their missing armada.”
Matt rolls his eyes, but he lets Andy go so he can go over the damages with Kyle and Stu.
Andy would have followed them if Ryan and Patrick hadn’t latched onto his arms - one to each. “What?”
“You aren’t going anywhere until I have a chance to scan you, Andy,” Ryan says. “You need a medical check, and I am not taking no for an answer.”
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Part IV - Part VI