(no subject)
The Shephard household had a rule when Adrian was growing up, and that rule was: whatever money you made at a job outside the home, you shared some of that with the family. Made sense, really. Wasn't a lot of money to go 'round at the time, between one thing and another (which is to say, between five children, three of them born within two years). If everybody chipped in, nobody had to cough up too much. Easier all 'round, really. Of course, it made for a few problems, one of which was that 'old enough to work' and 'old enough to drive' tended to overlap a bunch. There might've been guys in the county who made enough money on their own to buy cars before they graduated, but Adrian wasn't one of 'em. The best he could manage was a rusting-out hulk of an old Buell motorcycle that a man at the church in Terra Alta was trying to get rid of, and then, one by one, the parts to get the thing working. For a year and a half, if he wasn't at school, he was busting his ass at the sporting goods store on Main Street, and if he wasn't there he was in the garage, battling the thing into working condition.
That kind of experience leaves a mark. Shephard's a country boy, there's no denying it, but he's also got a deep and abiding fondness for garages and things with motors that dates to that part of his life. That's why he's in the Milliways garage now, wandering up and down the aisles full of more cars than he's ever seen in one place in his life, and thinking. They're going back soon, deploying to active duty. Which, not a problem. He'd be in the wrong line of work if he wasn't willing to deploy on a moment's notice. The problem is what they've got him doing. If the Resistance has a helicopter pilot who isn't him, nobody's told him about it.
There's a total of three things in this world that Shephard's afraid of, and flying's one of 'em.
Some men are born pilots. Shephard's known guys like that. Two of them died when the original Goose-7 Osprey got shot down over Black Mesa. He's never understood guys like that, just stood back and watched from afar while they worked their miracles in the cockpit. Having to do their job, now, and do it better than they did... yeah, that's not reassuring at all. There's got to've been a mistake somewhere. Something's got to be wrong. This can't be what he's supposed to be doing.
If Alyx Vance were one of his commanding officers in the Corps he'd've found a way to ask respectfully if there weren't someone better suited to the job, but he can't do that under the circumstances. He already knows what the answer'd be. There's someone else he reckons he can ask, though, and the way he sees it, the good Lord's just as likely to hear him down here among the machines he knows as He is anywhere else that Shephard might be. Which is why Shephard stops with his fingers just barely touching the hood of an Aston-Martin (probably cost someone more than all the cars in Rowlesburg combined) and closes his eyes a moment.
Lord, You know what You're doing. I don't. I think we're both pretty clear on that. I need to ask You a favor, and I'm really sorry for that, since I know I've asked a whole lot of You lately. I'm gonna keep it down, I promise. There's just something I need to know before we go on any further. I'm not real comfortable with this whole 'pilot' thing. I'll do it if I have to, though. That's what I need to know, Lord. Would You mind just letting me know, just a little, whether this is really what You want me doing? I don't even care how, just give me some kind of hint or sign or something whether I really need to be in that cockpit or not? It's not much of a prayer by his standards, but it'll have to do. He lifts his hand away and keeps going, and at the next intersection of aisles in the garage, he turns left instead of right.
There are a lot of different vehicles under Milliways, it happens. Mal Reynolds could tell you not all of them have wheels- but not all of them have starship engines, either. Rotors'll do quite a lot of 'em just fine.
The first shape Shephard makes out for certain in the semidarkness is a great hulking blue-black beast with a minigun's barrels protruding from the front end; he half expects to catch sight of Roy Scheider in the cockpit. The second is far slenderer, with a severely plain black paint job (save for the word Tiger painted in white on the left-hand side) that reminds him briefly of the hunter-chopper he and Chell stole. And as for the third, it's all smooth lines and curves where the others are angles, dark above and pale below like a sea fish. He'd know it anywhere-
Shit my fuckin' ass, Lord, but is that one on the end Airwolf?!
There's a pause.
... sorry, sir, You know how I get. Guess that's my sign. Thank You, sir. Amen.
He might be down here a while.
That kind of experience leaves a mark. Shephard's a country boy, there's no denying it, but he's also got a deep and abiding fondness for garages and things with motors that dates to that part of his life. That's why he's in the Milliways garage now, wandering up and down the aisles full of more cars than he's ever seen in one place in his life, and thinking. They're going back soon, deploying to active duty. Which, not a problem. He'd be in the wrong line of work if he wasn't willing to deploy on a moment's notice. The problem is what they've got him doing. If the Resistance has a helicopter pilot who isn't him, nobody's told him about it.
There's a total of three things in this world that Shephard's afraid of, and flying's one of 'em.
Some men are born pilots. Shephard's known guys like that. Two of them died when the original Goose-7 Osprey got shot down over Black Mesa. He's never understood guys like that, just stood back and watched from afar while they worked their miracles in the cockpit. Having to do their job, now, and do it better than they did... yeah, that's not reassuring at all. There's got to've been a mistake somewhere. Something's got to be wrong. This can't be what he's supposed to be doing.
If Alyx Vance were one of his commanding officers in the Corps he'd've found a way to ask respectfully if there weren't someone better suited to the job, but he can't do that under the circumstances. He already knows what the answer'd be. There's someone else he reckons he can ask, though, and the way he sees it, the good Lord's just as likely to hear him down here among the machines he knows as He is anywhere else that Shephard might be. Which is why Shephard stops with his fingers just barely touching the hood of an Aston-Martin (probably cost someone more than all the cars in Rowlesburg combined) and closes his eyes a moment.
Lord, You know what You're doing. I don't. I think we're both pretty clear on that. I need to ask You a favor, and I'm really sorry for that, since I know I've asked a whole lot of You lately. I'm gonna keep it down, I promise. There's just something I need to know before we go on any further. I'm not real comfortable with this whole 'pilot' thing. I'll do it if I have to, though. That's what I need to know, Lord. Would You mind just letting me know, just a little, whether this is really what You want me doing? I don't even care how, just give me some kind of hint or sign or something whether I really need to be in that cockpit or not? It's not much of a prayer by his standards, but it'll have to do. He lifts his hand away and keeps going, and at the next intersection of aisles in the garage, he turns left instead of right.
There are a lot of different vehicles under Milliways, it happens. Mal Reynolds could tell you not all of them have wheels- but not all of them have starship engines, either. Rotors'll do quite a lot of 'em just fine.
The first shape Shephard makes out for certain in the semidarkness is a great hulking blue-black beast with a minigun's barrels protruding from the front end; he half expects to catch sight of Roy Scheider in the cockpit. The second is far slenderer, with a severely plain black paint job (save for the word Tiger painted in white on the left-hand side) that reminds him briefly of the hunter-chopper he and Chell stole. And as for the third, it's all smooth lines and curves where the others are angles, dark above and pale below like a sea fish. He'd know it anywhere-
Shit my fuckin' ass, Lord, but is that one on the end Airwolf?!
There's a pause.
... sorry, sir, You know how I get. Guess that's my sign. Thank You, sir. Amen.
He might be down here a while.