AN: Hot damn, it's been a while since I posted anything here.

Motorous 5

The sky was an off blue. Really, it was more of a green than a blue, not that it mattered right now, seeing as dark clouds obscured the sky from the inhabitants of the planet below. The wind and the far off scream of a thunderhead promised rain, and rain meant mud.

Eva hated mud.

She pulled her leather jacket a little closer around her body and shivered as the wind stole her warmth and ruffled her black hair.

The city smelt like motor oil and acid rain; the buildings were tall and dark—surprisingly run down for how new they all were. It had been thrown together quickly, a trading town for the purpose of housing merchants who came to sell their goods to the Earth Coalition. Despite the fact that the atmosphere was quite similar to Earth's, and the humans that scuttled all around, Eva would never be able to shake the alien feeling that she got when she stared up at the green sky.

Motorous 5 was a small Earth colony settled for the sole purpose of trade. Unlike many of the larger settlements, which sported multiple cities, and agriculture as far as the eye could see, Motorous 5 only had one city, and no plant life to speak of. It was not the most hospitable of planets—the ground was too rocky for planting, and the weather unpredictable, with storms so fierce that inhabitants would be stuck in their homes for days. But that didn't stop trade.

During the busy months, the city was alive with species from up to twenty different planets. Most didn't come to sell, but rather to deliver, Motorous 5 being the first pit stop within the Earth Coalition's vast territory—it was a place to rest before heading off to other colonies or Earth itself. Many ships often needed repairs or upgrades before going deeper into Earth territory, and as such, it was no surprise that it was an easy place for a mechanic to make a living.

But that wasn't why Eva was here.

She was twenty-three years old, and still feeling quite lost in the world. She had gone through college, and later gotten a job at a rather prestigious company that worked designing and building top-notch star-racers. She had her own apartment in the city. She was saving up to buy her own star-racer. She was getting ever closer to convincing Don to let her join him at Wei Racing—only this time, as a pilot instead of a mechanic. She thought she had everything under control.

Then Don died.

He was supposed to live much longer. Be around until Eva was in her late forties at least—make up for the lost time. He was supposed to walk her down the aisle. He was supposed to see her give birth to her first child. He was supposed to be there for her. But then one drunk idiot had run a red light. It just took one man. And Eva was alone again. The irony of it all was that now she had lost both her parents to motor vehicles.

Eva had lost herself. She stopped going to work. She stopped saving for a star-racer. She stopped even wanting to race again. She wondered if this is how her father felt when her mother had died.

Thankfully though, Eva had two people to pull her back to reality. She hadn't been dating anyone since college, and didn't have a lot of close friends. However, she had kept in contact with Stan and Koji. She hadn't heard from Rick since she had last said goodbye to him on Alwas, and of course Jordan was too busy being the Avatar to visit. Aikka had never kept his promise. But the two mechanics regularly checked up on her. Sometimes they would go a whole year without talking—only conversing once to wish each other a "Merry Christmas," or a "Happy Thanksgiving." But when Don died, Koji had practically taken Eva under his wing. He was determined to see her recover, or at least be a strong support for her. But when four months had passed, and Eva was jobless, sleeping on Stan and Koji's couch, and still just as depressed as she had been the day Don died, Koji decided it was time for a drastic change.

"Molly, we're going to set up a shop on one of the colonies." The Asian American had broken dinner's usual silence with the sort of blunt sentence that was normally attributed to Stan. Despite knowing her real name, he and Stan continued to call her Molly—it was a sort of nickname, a reminder of their time together during the Great Race.

"Oh." Eva looked up at him with dull red eyes that were almost hidden beneath her black hair. It had been too long since she had last gotten a haircut.

"All of us." Koji explained, sending a stern look in Molly's direction. He and Stan had agreed earlier that a change of scenery might be what Eva needed, that and the two mechanics had always wanted to set up their own shop on the colonies. It meant the chance to deal with and repair alien technologies, and hopefully higher pay which would allow them to spend more time on their own projects.

It took almost a half of a year, but Koji managed to secure a decent sized hanger on Motorous 5, and they already had a decent amount of business. For the last month, it had just been Koji and Eva, as Stan had stayed back on Earth to make sure their previous shop actually sold. Koji missed him terribly.

But the Earth shop had finally sold, and Stan was on his way to Motorous 5. Koji had a job he needed to finish, so Eva had been sent to the Space Port to pick him up. She shivered again in her jacket; there was no getting accustomed to this cold. Hopefully Stan's ship would arrive before the storm hit so they wouldn't be stuck at the port. Eva really did not want to spend the next two days sitting on her butt space ship hanger, waiting for the rain to let up. Plus, she wanted to help Koji with his current project.

The Space Port was quieter than usual—most likely on account of the looming storm. From above, it looked like a giant runway with hangers owned by various companies and planets scattered along the sides. These hangers were less worn down than the buildings in town, but they were caked with the red-brown Motorous 5 earth in a way that made them look unmistakably dirty. Eva's destination was one of smaller hangers—an outpost for the only commercial ship line that actually brought passengers as far as Motorous 5. The metal siding that made up the walls of the hanger had been foolishly painted white when it was first erected, and as a result it seemed to show more of the dirt than any of the hangers. It was almost brown.

Inside wasn't as dirty, but it was still painfully dull. There were a few benches for waiting along one side, and an area for bag processing, but otherwise all the space was reserved for parking the massive space ships. Currently the hanger was devoid of ships and people aside from her and a few employees. She had barely sat down when one of said employees wandered over, apparently eager to talk to her. He was about a head taller than her, with messy blond hair and an angular face. He was decked out a uniform that comprised up a white button up, ugly blue-black slacks, and working gloves. His name tag read "Devin" and he made it his business to know everyone else' business.

Ever since Eva had first set foot on Motorous 5, with long black bangs that almost covered her forlorn eyes, Devin had taken a keen interest in her. He loved to hang out around the Mechanic Shop and chat with Koji on his days off. It would have irritated both Koji and Eva to no end if it weren't for the fact that Koji was lonely without Stan to talk to, and the fact that Devin actually knew a thing or two about mechanics and wouldn't hesitate to help out.

"So Stan is flying in today, huh?" Devin asked casually, not even bothering to look at Eva as he leaned against the wall next to her bench.

"Yup," Eva replied. She hated his "cool guy" attitude, and wanted to keep the conversation as short as possible. Perhaps the Molly from the days of the Great Race would have appreciated Devin, with his cocky grin and obvious interest in her, but the Eva of now just found it irritating. A sudden gust of wind rushed into the hanger, and Eva prayed that the rain would wait until Stan and her were safely home.

"That's just fantastic! It seems like Koji has really missed him." Devin's grin was huge.

Eva grumpily hoped that Stan's return meant that Koji would stop being lonely and thus stop letting Devin loaf around the hanger.

The Space Ship chose that moment to glide into the runway, and Eva was spared from taking the effort to reply to Devin.

The ship rolled in a few minutes later and a small group of tired looking passengers exited. Stan looked just as haggard as the rest of them; Molly wondered if he had been able to sleep at all on the trip over. The first thing he did was crush her in a tight hug.

"Molly! You're a sight for sore eyes."

"Haha, I'm missed you too, Stan," Eva smiled a little and hugged him back. "Koji has been missing you so badly. He would be here right now if it weren't for a job he had to finish."

Stan let go and smiled at her. "I'm assuming that means that work is plentiful."

"Yeah, we've been pretty busy."

"That's great. It means I didn't waste all that time selling our old shop just to come to this dump. Does it get any prettier then what I saw flying in?" Stan's eyes glanced out the hanger doors to where the sky was growing darker outside.

"I'm afraid not," Eva replied with an apologetic smile. The small pleasantries continued as the two walked over to retrieve Stan's luggage from the bag handler. There were a few boxes and the odd suitcase—the only things they had left behind on Earth when they had relocated the shop to Motorous 5.

"Aww man, we can't carry all this home." The scowl was audible in Eva's voice. So far her and Koji had been able to manage the shop without any sort of vehicle: larger parts for ships were delivered directly to the shop, and smaller ones could easily be salvaged and bought from ship yards nearby. Even the grocery shop was close, no more than a five minute walk. But times like these, when Eva stared at the six or seven boxes and the large suitcase, that Eva wished they owned even a simple car.

"Allow me to help~" Devin all but cooed. "Our shuttle service can take you and your belongings home." Eva's face twitched in annoyance, but Stan was more than happy to accept the help. In no time at all, the boxes were loaded into the back of a small roofless jeep. It was a bit of a tight fit with all three of them in the front, which seemed to please Devin far too much.

Eva's eyes fluttered to the sky line as Devin drove the jeep out of the hanger. It looked like they were leaving just in time—the clouds had begun to dump their contents just a mile or so out of town. At this rate, they would just make it back to the shop in time. Hopefully Devin would find somewhere to take shelter, since Eva didn't want to be stuck with him any longer than necessary.

There was a sudden gust of air and Eva felt her head instinctively turned skyward. Even over the grind of the jeep's gears, and the soft hiss of the storm in the distance, Eva could hear it—the faint hum of a star-racer. Just like all the evenings she had spent on the roof of her dorm back at the Stern Boarding School, Eva swore for a moment that she saw a star-racer overhead. But this time it wasn't her mother's ship flying proudly, it was a flaming heap, just like it had been the fated day of her crash. For the moment it took a gasp to escape her parted lips, Eva's eyes refocused.

It was not a star-racer at all, but a space ship. And a Nourasian space ship at that.