Home, Sweet Home

By Magus732

Several days of unrelenting combat had finally convinced Aerrow to set down for repairs. The others sighed with relief; they'd been battling Cyclonians almost non-stop for about 3 days. They were tired, hungry, and worst of all, low on supplies.

"Okay, guys... let's get a list goin'..." Piper said, almost cheerfully, as she directed from the front of the supply room. As she looked around, she noticed Stork was absent.

"Check off 'engine crystal spares', Piper..." Junko reported after searching an open crate next to him. Nearby, Finn ransacked an almost empty crate labeled "Nuts and Bolts".

"If we're gonna fix the Condor, we're gonna need more nuts..." Finn said boldly. The others turned to stare at him, mouths twisted into grimaces. He smiled sheepishly as he looked up, then held out the item in question. The others quickly offered embarrassed apologies and returned to their work. Finn sighed loudly.

"And I'm the one with no class..." He said mockingly. Aerrow rolled his eyes.

"Finn, this'll go faster if we don't complain about every little-"

"Guys, the radio knob's loose again, and I can't find my screwdriver!!" Stork yelled through the intercom. The others groaned; this was going to take a while.

...

Finally, after about 3 hours of looking through what they had, Piper'd completed her list.

"Okay, that's 367 nuts, 3 loaves of banana bread, 2 cans of lubricant-" She heard Finn snicker in the background. "- 6 cans of paint; 2 red, 1 blue, and 3 green-" Stork suddenly interrupted, reading from his own list as he began to think out loud. A bit too loud.

"1239 yards of cable, 6 extra-heavy-duty 189-Z6 batteries, 247 FL-712 display panels, 3 tons Zaractian steel-"

"Um, Stork, we don't need any of that!" Piper finally shouted, irritated by both the interruption and his insane list of supplies.

"We do if we want to fix our problems forever..." He said eerily. The other Storm Hawks gave him questioning looks, and he sighed.

"I'm installing the brand new, state-of-the-art Mother Brain XS-225! The latest and greatest in carrier automation!" He triumphantly held up an advertisement for said device in his four-finger hands. The others read it over, and as Aerrow looked back up, he raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

"Aren't you afraid it'll go crazy, take over the ship while we sleep, and try and kill us off one-by-one?" He said worriedly. The others stared at him. He didn't seem to notice their concern, as he took the ad from Stork and began reading it silently.

"Aerrow, you okay? That's not something you'd normally ask..." Piper said as she reached out her hand to touch his shoulder. The Sky Knight screamed in panic as she made contact, jumping high enough to hit his head on the low ceiling, which stunned him for a few moments.

"Have a bad experience with robots, dude?" Finn said jokingly. Stork rolled his eyes.

"Trust me; I've been on automated ships before. They're perfectly safe." He said excitedly. Piper shook her head, but looked at the ad again.

"Well, I guess we could give it a try... I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"