Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Suicide Is Stainless ❯ Fly Away From Here ( Chapter 3 )

3) Fly Away From Here

Spike leaned up against the hard, metal body of the Swordfish and stared out of the open hangar to the world beyond. Night was closing in quickly. The air in the hangar had cooled noticeably in the time he had been waiting, and the soft lapping of the calm waters could be heard as they gently licked the hull of the Bebop. The ship itself was rocking slightly, its weary hull purring with pleasure at the cool caress of the water. At the horizon, a narrow section of sky was rendered in a deep pink, which was blended at its edge with a band of purple, followed by deep blue, and finally pitch black as the last of the sun's light ran from the firmament like wet water colours.

Spike rubbed his forehead with his left hand. He wasn't used to the high oxygen content of the air here, having known only the ship's processed atmosphere, and first and second hand cigarette smoke for much of the past couple of months. As a result, he was feeling a little light headed, even nauseous. Add to that a touch of agoraphobia, brought on by weeks spent in a confined space, and one was left with a bounty hunter that was not too keen on venturing forth into the great wide world.

Closing his eyes, and pinching the bridge of his nose, Spike muttered to himself,

"I really don't feel like this."

"You say something?" a familiar voice came.

Spike looked up, and glanced over his shoulder. There he saw Jet clambering down from the cockpit of the Redtail. He had just finished prepping Faye's ship for take-off, something that she herself had neglected to do. The Redtail was now queuing patiently behind the Swordfish, ready to take flight.

"Who, me?" Spike replied evenly. "I didn't say anything."

"Well that's weird," Jet said as his boots struck the floor. "because I could have sworn I heard something."

Spike turned and looked back out to sea.

"Must've been the wind." he said.

Jet murmured contemplatively, then began to approach Spike.

"So, is the Swordfish ready to go?" he asked.

"It's been ready to go for an hour and a half." Grumbled Spike. "And I've been ready for a half hour more."

Jet sighed, and ran the cool palm of his prosthetic hand across the top of his head.

"She said she'd be ready in an hour." he said.

"That was two hours ago." Spike muttered. "That woman needs more maintenance time than a whole fleet of star ships."

Jet looked up at the Swordfish, which was stood at his side displaying somewhat more patience than its pilot.

"Well that's women for you." he mused. "If they spent half as much time working as they do pampering themselves then us guys would really be in trouble."

"You said it." Spike concurred.

"Said what?" there came a third voice.

Both men looked back over their respective shoulders. There, in the doorway at the top of the stairs, was stood Faye. She was dressed in a figure hugging, angle length dress sewn from lustrous black velvet. The neckline plunged so low that the garment was on the cusp of falling in half, and a slit down the left side revealed more leg than was legal in some parts of the solar system.

The three exchanged stares in silence for a few seconds. Faye took the quiet response as a compliment.

"Ah, you like?" she said, gently prodding at her hair bun. "I picked it up on our last trip to Ganymede."

"Not bad." Spike said, finally tearing his gaze away from Faye. "Pretty appropriate I'd say."

"Really? You think?" Faye said, surprised at Spike's approval.

"Yeah," Spike said. "because there's not enough of that dress to wreck."

Faye mumbled a profanity under her breath. She then gathered herself, and began to stride elegantly across the metal gangway and on down the stairs, her heels striking out a regular beat as she went.

Jet, who had yet to pull his eyes from Faye, had instead put his efforts into generating an angry cast.

"You know, you didn't have to rush on our account." he said ironically.

"I know." Faye replied.

Jet grumbled under his breath and turned back to the Redtail just as Faye's leading foot met with the floor of the hangar.

"The Redtail is ready to go." he informed her. "You should try and get ready a little quicker next time, because I'm not doing this for you again."

"That's what you said the last time." Mumbled Spike.

Almost instantly, Spike could sense Jet's piercing glare drilling a hole in his back.

"Yeah, yeah." Faye replied to Jet as she began to make her way into the cockpit of her craft; a task made all the more difficult by the close fitting nature of her dress.

Jet sighed deeply. He seemed to get almost no respect from his colleagues, even though he was the most senior of the ships five inhabitants.

Spike took Faye's climbing aboard the Redtail as his cue to mount his own steed. Looking away from the weakly lit horizon, he began to hoist himself up the ladder that was leaned against the Swordfish. As he did so he stole a glance across at Faye, who was now trying to manoeuvre her closely wrapped person into the close quarters of her ship. He smiled slightly to himself, and then continued up the ladder. Faye might have been a pain in the ass, but even Spike had to admit she was a very attractive pain in the ass.

"I knew there was a reason we kept her around." he said to himself.

Reaching the top of the ladder, Spike put his hands against the hull, swung his legs over the side and dropped deftly into the pilot's position. Briefly he surveyed the plethora of displays and controls that were sprawled across the console before him. Quickly surmising that everything was in order, he reached out with his right index finger and depressed a solitary, yellow button that stood alone at the right hand side of the dash. No sooner had the button sprung back out of its housing, a mechanical whirring reverberated through the hull as the tinted, translucent shell of the pilot's pod began to close over the cockpit. There was then a loud thump, followed by a brief hiss as the lid closed and an air seal was established.

Spike sat back, and looked down at the floor beside him. There lay a pair of tan driving gloves, looking rather the worse for their considerable wear. Spike reached down and plucked them from their resting place. Just as he had begun pulling the first glove over his right hand, a shrill beeping arose from the console. Reaching out with his still naked left hand, he prodded a flashing red icon on the screen at the centre of the dash. This caused a window, with Jet's stern face framed within, to leap into the foreground.

"Are you two all set?" Jet's voice came over the speaker.

Within a moment of this question being asked, a small inset appeared at the top right corner of the window, which contained Faye's likeness.

"Ready when you are." Faye replied.

"Ditto." Spike added.

"Okay." Jet acknowledged. "Now, you both remember the plan, right?"

Faye sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Yes, we remember the plan, Jet." she said. "We watch the fight then go backstage afterwards and catch Steele while he's still tired. It's not exactly rocket science."

"Alright, alright." Jet placated. "It's just real important that we don't screw this one up."

"You know, I still don't think this is a good idea." Spike intervened. "If this fight is anything like the ones I used to watch, then Stainless won't even break a sweat, let alone get tired."

"Yes, Spike, we all know what *you* think." Faye sniped. "All you've done is complain ever since we decided to chase this one up."

"I'm only complaining because I'm right." Spike protested.

"Well, Right or not, we still need to take in this bounty." said Jet. "That's unless you were planning to settle down on Earth."

Spike groaned, as he was defeated once again; something that was made all the more difficult to swallow by Faye's gloating expression. Reaching out for the screen once more, he tapped on a sequence of icons, causing the inset that contained Faye's likeness to rapidly reduce in size before vanishing all together.

"Hey!" Faye barked over the speaker as her visual link with the Swordfish was cut. "Oh, that's real mature, Spike."

"Cut it out you two." Jet commanded. "Now listen up. The Dudek warehouses are in the Eastern quarter of old Warsaw. Just look out for the. . . ships . . . in . . ."

The last of Jet's sentenced was lost as the both the audio and visual feeds were consumed by interference. Spike looked on in puzzlement as a rolling grey snow occupied his display. It appeared that the ships communications were acting up again. In response to this, Spike raised his right hand and drove his palm down upon the top of the console. The display blinked and shuddered as Spike repeatedly applied a healing hand to the ailing system.

Just as he was about to strike the console for the half-dozenth time, the snow that had filled the comm. window began to clear. The grey haze dissipated slowly, revealing a set of large, amber eyes. The eyes stared at Spike intently for several seconds. They then blinked twice, and pulled away rapidly from the screen.

"Faye-Faye!" Ed cried out as her whole face became visible in the window.

Apparently, she had no interest in speaking to Spike, not that this worried Spike a great deal.

Faye sighed loudly, which allowed Spike to hear her displeasure clearly over the speaker.

"What is it, Ed?" she asked.

"Faye-Faye," Ed began, making the biggest, saddest eyes she could. "can Edward play with Faye-Faye's toy while Faye-Faye is away?"

"No, Ed!" Faye replied angrily.

Spike smirked with amusement. He hadn't realised that Faye was still being made to pay for his antics of earlier on.

"Awww, please Faye-Faye." Ed begged. "Ed won't break it. And besides, you're not using it."

Spike closed his eyes and shook his head. This was getting funnier by the second.

"Ed, I said no." Faye stated. "And I already told you, it's not a toy."

"But it must be." Ed argued. "It has batteries and everything."

"Well it's not." said Faye.

Ed's expression of longing transformed to one of bemusement in a time that would put a schizophrenic to shame. Scratching her head, she asked,

"Well, if it's not a toy, then what is it?"

Spike's ears pricked up. He just had to hear Faye's response to this.

"Erm. . ." Faye floundered. "It's. . . it's. . . it's a donut warmer!"

In a moment of weakness, Spike let slip the slightest of chuckles. This was greeted by a pause in the conversation. Then Faye spoke.

"Spike? Spike, are you still there?"

"No." Spike replied.

Before Faye could chastise Spike further, a grainy, distinctly irate voice became audible over the speakers.

"Ed!" Jet barked. "How many times do I have to tell you not to hack into the communications system?"

Ed grinned as only she could.

"Four hundred and thirty eight?" she hazarded.

"Ed, get off the line!" roared Jet.

"Ed is sorry." Ed cried out in typically overdramatic fashion. "Please, forgive me, for I know not what I do!"

And with that, Ed's unnaturally pliable face disappeared from the communication window. There was a brief intermission filled with dancing lines of static before Jet's weary face reappeared.

"You should consider yourselves lucky that you get to leave for a while." he confided in his two adult colleagues. "Now, what was I saying?"

"You were about to tell us where we're going, for the thousandth time." Faye grumbled.

"Oh, right." said Jet as his memory was refreshed. "Just head for the East side of town and keep an eye out for a lot of ships `n' cars. These events are pretty popular and usually pull in a big crowd."

"Great." Faye said. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah, get outta here." Jet sighed.

With that, another loud thump resonated through the hull of the Swordfish as the docking clamps were released. The ship then began to shudder as it lurched forwards on its landing gears.

Spike made one last cursory check of the various readouts, then leaned forwards and grasped firmly the throttle handles. Glancing down at the screen, he granted his morose looking partner a half-smile.

"Catch you later, Jet." he said.

Jet grunted his acknowledgement, and cut the transmission.

Spike looked up and cast his gaze forwards. Beyond the yellow tinged glass of the cockpit, he could see the now completely darkened sky, which was separated from the calm seas by an immeasurably thin red line. The darkness was strewn with miniscule shards of starlight, and the small waves that travelled silently across the waters' surface glittered in the mournful glare of the moon as the day went to its death with a quiet dignity. The scene, framed by the doorway of the hangar, was soothing indeed.

Maybe a little trip out wouldn't be so bad after all.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Faye looked away from the console's various readouts, and peered down and to her right. Looking through the tinted class bubble of the Redtail's cockpit, she scanned the ground below. Or at least, she was fairly sure it was the ground. The fact was it was too dark to tell.

In the past couple of hours Faye and Spike had covered a lot of ground, so much in fact, that they had long since left behind the illuminating glow of the moon. Now all she had to distinguish between the Earth and the heavens was the milk-white starlight that soaked the sky, and which gave way to a complete darkness as it spilled over the horizon. Occasionally, the odd source of artificial light would streak past beneath her. However, at the speed she was going, Faye had no way to tell whether it was a house, or a boat, or something else entirely.

Faye sighed wearily, and looked up and out the front of the soundproofed pod. About a hundred meters ahead, and a few meters the left, she could see the brilliant glare of the Swordfish's engine. The flawless white glow accentuated the ship's sleek, ruby-red contours as it cruised silently and unswervingly through the night sky.

Since the instant that they had departed the Bebop, Spike had led the way. Of course, Faye was quite content to allow her travelling companion to ride shotgun, as it saved her the chore of having to navigate for herself. The two had flown in near single file for some hours, maintaining a complete communications silence. Not that this silence had been part of the plan. It was just that, after Spike's behaviour of earlier that day, Faye simply didn't have anything to say to him. That is, nothing that she would care to say over a comm. signal that a child, i.e. Ed, could be listening in on.

Just as Faye was resigning herself to yet another hour of uneventful travel, she detected a faint vibration travelling through the hull of her ship. She cocked an eyebrow quizzically as the resonance became gradually more intense, causing the Redtail's more loosely applied components to rattle about at their stations.

In an instant, the Redtail began shake and reel violently as the source of the disturbance thundered past at supersonic speed. Three blinding flashes of light filled the cockpit one after the other as a trio of blurred forms streaked past the ship, catching the little craft in their turbulent wake.

Scarcely able to keep her rear in her seat, Faye fought to regain control of the ship. Frantically she flicked switches and pounded buttons as she struggled to subdue the bucking Redtail. Finally, after several seconds of panicked, almost random kicks from the manoeuvring thrusters, Faye managed to calm her steed.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she peered through the window once more. In the distance, she could see three bright points of light moving subtly against the backdrop of stars, distinguishable from the throng of celestial bodies only by their motion. Slowly, the distant trio of false stars faded from view.

"Assholes!" Faye snapped at the receding ships.

She then hoisted the displaced left shoulder strap of her dress back into position and began to feel around the back of her head to ensure that her hairdo was still intact. As she did so, a shrill beeping filled the cockpit. Glancing down she saw a small, red, circular icon flashing urgently at the lower right-hand corner of the screen on her console.

"What now?" she sighed, and then struck the icon with a little more force than was necessary.

A window, about half the size of the screen, flashed up containing Spike's expressionless face.

"Oh, it's you." Faye droned.

"Nice to see you, too." Spike replied. "You still alive back there?"

"Just about." Faye said, finishing off the adjustments to her coiffure.

It was then that she noticed that Spike did not look at all flustered by the close flyby, which he too must surely have felt. But then, a little brush with death was rarely enough to perturb Spike. It was typical. Put him in a room full of armed syndicate flunkies with nothing but a wet bean shoot to defend himself and he wouldn't break a sweat. But, if you were to take his favourite chair. . .

"Don't tell me you didn't see that coming." said Spike.

"What am I, a clairvoyant?" Faye rasped. "No, I didn't see that coming. A heads up would have been nice."

"Or, you could have just checked your radar." Spike retorted.

And he was right. Faye glanced across to the circular, green display set into the dash just to the right of the screen. Sure enough there were three bright green dots, locked in tight formation, heading slowly towards the uppermost boundary of the display.

"You should pay a little more attention, Faye." Spike said smugly. "`Vigilant eyes make for safer skies.'"

"Shut up, Spike." Faye replied, betraying her embarrassment. "Listen. Are we there yet, because this whole road-trip thing is wearing a little thin."

Spike dropped the smug smirk, and glanced at his own radar screen.

"Well, those ships are moving pretty fast." he mused.

"And?" Faye asked impatiently.

"Ships that quick don't come cheap." Spike continued. "Not many people on Earth would be able afford them save ranking syndicate members."

"So we can't be far then, right?" Faye speculated.

Spike shrugged.

"Less than an hour, give or take."

"Yeah, well we'd better get there soon." Faye informed him. "The event started over an hour ago."

"Don't worry." Spike reassured her. "Stainless Steele is a main event fighter. He won't be up until the very end of the night. I reckon we still have a couple of hours to work with."

"Still, I'd feel better if we could go a little faster." Faye complained.

"Feel free." said Spike. "But if you don't want to run out of fuel and fall out of the sky then I suggest you take it easy."

Faye scowled. Their chronic fuel shortage had once again come round to bite them in the behind.

"Call me when we get there." she growled, and then summarily cut the transmission.

Looking out the window, Faye glared scornfully at the rear of the Swordfish. The ship was still holding a perfectly steady course, its engines still putting out an unwavering blue-white glare. Its blasé manner, like that of its pilot, seemed to gloat at her from across the blackened sky.

"What are you looking at?" she snarled.

Faye then looked away from the Swordfish, and stole a discrete glance at her radar screen.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

There was a loud thump as the Swordfish dropped to the ground, followed by a grinding of metal on metal as the ship sank slightly into its suspension. Spike released the left handlebar, and flicked a pair of switches on the left of the dash into the up position. This relieved the manoeuvring thrusters of duty, and allowed the ship to relax lazily into its landing gears. Releasing the throttle, he cut the engines and granted the Swordfish some well-earned rest.

Spike leaned away from the controls, and stretched out his stiffened back. The Swordfish was a mono-racer, a sprinter that was not built for the long haul. This was something that was all too obvious to Spike, who had just spent the best part of three hours hunched over the ship's controls.

Clasping his hands above his head, Spike cracked his knuckles and yawned loudly. He then lowered his arms and set about removing the driving gloves from his hands. As he did so, he looked out through the glass bubble that surrounded him. It was too dark for any details of his surroundings to be apparent, but he could see the flakes of snow that had only just begun to drift to earth. The tiny fragments of heaven settled silently against the translucent dome, then quickly melted away in the warmth the ship was exuding.

As Faye had asked, Spike had informed her of their arrival at the site of the event, a derelict warehouse complex in a particularly rundown area of Warsaw. As such, it was likely that she was only moments behind him in landing her ship. He had toyed with the idea of trying to loose Faye in the night skies over Poland, but had thought better of it. He was damned if he was going to do all the work himself.

Dropping the gloves to the floor, Spike reached out and hit the solitary yellow button, which glowed sombrely in the dim lit light of the cockpit. There was a thump and a hiss as the pressure seal was released and the air seal lost. At that moment, the cockpit was flooded by a torrent of freezing cold air.

"Shit." Spike hissed. "I should have put on a sweater."

The dome was drawn back, and the full extent of the frigid conditions came to bear.

"Shit." Spike repeated, his word crystallising in the cold air. "I should have put on three sweaters."

Without further complaint, Spike stood up from the pilot position and placed his hands on the still warm exterior of the ship. He lingered for a moment, allowing the fading warmth to enter his hands and climb up his shivering arms, and then hauled himself out of the cockpit and began to make his way down the set of rungs that were bolted the flank of the Swordfish.

Reaching the last rung, Spike allowed himself to drop the last few feet to the ground. His feet met the thin layer of fresh snow with a satisfying crunch. Then, reaching into his jacket, he removed a small rectangular handset that housed a few well-worn buttons. He pointed the aerial that topped the set directly at the Swordfish and depressed a large, garishly lit red button. This resulted first in the grinding of more anonymous mechanisms, and ultimately in the pod doors closing over. This was followed by a series of three beeps as the ship informed Spike that its security system had been activated.

Turning away, Spike surveyed his surroundings. He had set down in the midst of the warehouse complex, in a clear area that perhaps had once been a car park. The spotlights on the underbelly of the Swordfish were still emitting a sharp, downwardly directed light, the glare from which was reflecting from the snow and illuminating the area in an eerie, ethereal glow. All around, large, damaged buildings were sprawled out in the snow like discarded and rotting corpses, their shattered windows staring lifelessly into oblivion. This chilling scene was scored by the mournful howl of the wind as it meandered restlessly amid the carnage.

There were, however, some signs of life. Nearby were parked a couple of other ships. Each of the ships were of a sporty design, and likely much too pricey for the run-of-the-mill Earthling plebeians. As such, Spike felt sure he had the right place.

Spike's attention was caught by a sound emanating from the darkness. It was an intermittent, unsteady hissing that was coming from beyond the decaying buildings that lay behind him. He turned in time to see the relatively well-lit Redtail as it emerged from behind one of the warehouses, drawing out a strangely erratic course. The shipped weaved around as its thrusters cut in and out at random, making very slow progress to towards where Spike was standing. Finally it halted, hovered unsteadily about five meters from the ground, and drew in armaments as it prepared to land, like a boxer bracing for an opponents blow.

There was then a loud whine as if the ship was crying out in pain, and the Redtail descended just a little too quickly to the ground. A deafening thud, and the metallic rattling of its jarred components, heralded the Redtail's landing. Its engines cut out with a final, unhealthy cough, and the lament of the freezing wind filled the area once more.

Spike could just about see Faye through the tinted glass pod of the Redtail, which had come to rest ten meters away. Though he couldn't make out her face through the glass, her body language as she prepared to disembark spoke volumes for her mood.

The door of the pilot pod reared up with an angry hiss and Faye emerged. Clambering down to the ground, she slipped about momentarily on the fine snow, then regained her footing and thumped a control panel on the side of the Redtail. There was a mechanical whirring as the open door of the ship began shuddered in its hinges. Faye growled loudly, and pounded the panel several more times before the door finally began to close. The mechanism whined and moaned at its chore as it fought against its own temperature-warped components, but the door did eventually shut. Faye then began to storm towards Spike.

"Having problems?" Spike enquired.

"Every fucking system on that ship is frozen solid." Faye replied, almost slipping in the snow once again.

Spike peered past Faye to the Redtail.

"Sounds to me like your running short on anti-freeze." he said.

"What?!" Faye barked upon reaching Spike. "But Jet said he'd prepped the Redtail himself."

Spike turned in the direction he was intending to head, and slid his hands into his trouser pockets. As he glanced over his shoulder at Faye, the corner of his mouth turned up into an awkward smile.

"Guess it must've slipped through the net."

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jet sat back on the sitting-room couch with his legs stretched out in front of him and his left arm draped across the top of the backrest. Sighing restfully, he examined the cylindrical glass container he held in his right hand. The container was capped at both ends by metal discs, and held about a litre and a half of viscous blue fluid.

Jet swilled the liquid around in its jar. As he contemplated its laboured motions and the film that it left clinging to the glass, he smiled to himself.

"Maybe next time she'll prep her *own* ship."