The smell of grease and something she’d been told was ozone — whatever that was — filled the air, surpassing the underlying tang of metal. Charlie twisted her hand, as well as the tool that she gripped with raw fingertips, tightening the bolt a final time.
Satisfied, she wriggled backward, thankful for the trousers Kallina had recommended, even if they still felt strange. She was free, even while darting in dark places; dark places that rested themselves temporarily within the four-dimensional coordinates of spacetime as the ship transited by the grace of stardust and mechanical good fortune.
“Oh, you fixed it already?” The voice of the woman in question rang with a hollow echo down the metal shaft. “Good, I’m too stiff and fat to fit down that tunnel properly these days, and I just don’t trust the bots to get it right either.” She sighed. “I’m getting too old to pilot alone.”
“Mechanical work is satisfying,” Charlie replied, and winced at the echo before kicking her feet free and onto the bridge. She pulled her head out, nodded to her mentor, and used the free end of her bandana to wipe the grease from her hands. “It’s practical, not to mention it’s certainly making me more useful than I’ve ever been so far.”
It wasn’t the first time Kallina had indicated there was a place for her aboard the Wyvern, Charlie thought later. She sat on her bunk, dangling the hypnotape headphones from her sore fingertips. It wouldn’t be a bad life, at least from what she’d seen so far, especially since Kallina was well established as a trader. Eventually, she would presumably move beyond mechanical repair to take the lead.
It was a good path, she knew. A safe option.
Charlie laid back, rested her head on the thin pillow, and began her next lesson.
***
I really should have restarted this draft by looking at what I’d actually written approximately five million years ago…but hey, thanks to Parrish Baker, it continues again this week! My prompt went to nother Mike; check everything out, over at MOTE!
