Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. I make no profits.

Spike leaned against the delivery truck, smoking one of the cigarettes he'd found in the pocket of his used uniform. Xing Mao, some brand he'd never heard of. They tasted like ass, but he'd gone from twenty cigarettes to twelve, to two in the week since he'd started smoking them. For now, they were just a way to calm his nerves, but he wondered if it would become an addiction when this was all over.

The phone in his pocket went off, startling him so badly he dropped the cigarette into the sand. "Shit!" He quickly forgot about it, anxiously pressing the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"Yo kid, I got in touch with Doohan, and he's free this afternoon," Reggie's voice crackled over the speaker. "Go over there between three and four and he'll talk to you or whatever."

"Thanks a lot," Spike replied quickly, and hung up. With trembling fingers he fished in his pocket for the last cigarette, put it to his lips and fumbled with the lighter. When it lit he took a long drag, slumping back against the truck. What he was planning was serious business, not like the minor thefts he'd been involved with back on Mars. This was a world-renowned monoracer, and he was just going to lift it. People would definitely notice. But at least no one would be able to catch him, he mused.

Two-thirty hit and Spike snuffed his cig on the side of the truck. He quickly changed out of his ratty uniform and back into his own clothes, so that if he died trying to pull this off, he'd at least go looking somewhat respectable.

Like Reggie's, Doohan's place was in the middle of nowhere, and Spike nearly got lost three times on the way. He just couldn't concentrate on the road, so it seemed. Not while he had a grand theft auto to work out. He still wasn't a hundred percent sure what he was going to do, but he always had his gun in case things got nasty. This was one of those cases where Morgan's favorite saying seemed appropriate. Whatever happens, happens.

Spike knew he was nearing Doohan's even from miles away. The place was well-kept up, with a monstrous, whitewashed hangar, but all around it, as far as the eye could see, was an airplane graveyard. Spike slowed down as he approched the building, eyeing all the old, proud relics. Saab J-35 Draken, de Havilland Vampire, SR-71 Blackbird, Douglas DC-3… Spike recognized many of the planes from the models he'd built back when his family could afford that kind of thing. He would have given a nut just to be able to sit in the cockpit of one of those beasts.

"Ho-lee shit." None of them, however, compared to the Swordfish. There she was, paint job glinting in the sunlight. The undercarriage had been repaired, by the looks of it, and Spike would have been none the wiser that anything had ever happened to the plane. He parked the truck at a distance and climbed out, enamored by its sleek silhouette. She was so much more beautiful in person. Spike advanced slowly, then with steady fingers, reached out to lay a hand on one beautiful wingtip.

"Pretty little gal, isn't she?"

"Wah!" Spike leapt backwards and nearly lost his balance. Standing behind him was Doohan, much dirtier and greasier than he'd appeared on TV, holding a wrench in his hand. He looked like a wild man, gray hair poking out in every direction around his welding goggles. "Yeah," Spike breathed, trying to calm his racing heart. "She really is."

He must have looked guilty. Doohan pushed his goggles up and gave him a piercing, searching look, and like a slug under salt, Spike felt his confidence shriveling away. A discreet brush of his hand against the gun under his shirt, though, was enough to bring it back.

"Why did you say you wanted to see me?" Doohan asked. "You're not here for just a tour, are you?" He tapped the wrench against his palm, as if trying to put his finger on just where Spike's motives lay. Smart man. He wasn't falling for this.

Spike took a deep breath and closed his fingers around the cool polymer grip of the pistol. "I'm taking your ship."

"And just how do you plan on—" He promptly closed his mouth when Spike drew the gun. He raised an eyebrow, followed by his hands. "Ah. Not the delicate type, are we?"

Spike smirked. "Not at all. Keys." He kept the gun trained on Doohan's head as the man reached under his belt for a large keyring and tossed it Spike's way. "Is she fueled?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Shut your trap, old man!" Spike threatened, starting to feel giddy. This was easier than taking candy from a baby. Or a decrepit old man, as it were.

"Listen—"

"Shut up!" He snatched the keys from the dust and fired a round into the ground five inches from Doohan's left foot. The man hunkered down with his hands over his head, and Spike took the opportunity to run for it.

He vaulted onto the craft's wing, searching for the cockpit pod's release catch. It opened with a satisfying hiss and Spike slipped down into the seat, feverish excitement making his nerves thrum and sing. This would take some concentration, since the vehicle was quite a step up from any of the shitty zip crafts he'd flown prior.

"Let's see… ignition." That was the easy part. The correct key was obvious, nestled among tiny building keys. Spike stuck it in the ignition, gave it a twist, and the monocomputer flickered on. "Yes!" He was in business. The throttle was just to the right, and he pushed it forward. The rocket engine roared to life, vibrating right up through the floorboards and the pilot seat. Beautiful.

"Taxi, taxi…" Spike pushed the throttle further still, and a great plume of blue afterburn shot out, making the dust swirl all around. He lost Doohan in the vortex, but it was okay, because the Swordfish was moving forward. He was gonna get away with this! He eased his hands over the side-mounted joysticks and his feet found the pedals for controlling yaw. This wasn't so hard… The spacecraft gained speed, jerking a bit when the landing gear left the ground. Spike crowed in jubilation as the earth and Doohan's shop fell away. He was airborne.

If only Doohan were seeing this. Spike shot up to a nice altitude, banking left and circling the whole complex in wide, lazy loops. The craft handled like a dream. But no, he didn't see Doohan down there among the plane skeletons. Odd… Where was the old codger? His heart caught in his throat when one of the planes on the ground began to move. The J-35 Draken. "Oh, fucksticks."

Spike remembered enough about the Draken as an aircraft to realize that Doohan had every kind of advantage there was here. The jet was fast, maneuverable, and armed. The Swordfish wasn't. Fast, for sure, but designed more for space flight than atmospheric.

And there were the technical difficulties the Swordfish had been having since the race. Of course his boneheaded self had interrupted Doohan's warning. Doohan cursed. The thieving brat would find out soon enough—when he ran Doohan's work of art into the ground. This was going to be very bad.

Spike pulled out of his circling loop, tearing west in the direction opposite the city. The city was where the cops were. And even if Doohan couldn't stop him, there was a chance the cops could. Instead, he trimmed the flaps, nosing the craft higher. Toward the stars. Tijuana was sounding pretty good, actually.

A ping on the radar caught Spike's attention and he glanced down. "Well, shit." The Draken had taken off, and was slowly but steadily gaining on him. He pushed the throttle further forward, soaring ever higher. His advantage lay in the fact that Doohan's craft had a service ceiling, past which he couldn't follow, since there was no oxygen for its turbojet to combust. Swordfish had no such limitation.

However, Doohan was desperate. He quickly climbed to the Swordfish's altitude, pushing his afterburners for all they were worth. Spike cursed and brought himself around in a tight loop. If he couldn't shoot Doohan, he'd have to outmaneuver him. But the Draken followed, pulling an even tighter loop. Damn, that plane was maneuverable. Spike dropped, determined to put the old man to the test. The Draken dived after him, and Doohan cut the afterburners to save on fuel. Hah! Spike used the slow in Doohan's momentum to jet ahead, rocketing upward toward the stars once more.

A blinking light on the control panel caught Spike's attention, and he glanced down at it. It was a CB transmission. "Huh?" He reached down and adjusted the band until he heard a crackling voice.

"—You fucking idiot, come back!"

Spike growled, ready to cut the radio off, but Doohan's next words captured his attention.

"You'll crash if you don't come back!" Interference created static over the rest, but Spike made out, "Malfunction—monocomputer!"

He looped around, catching a glimpse of Doohan, a tiny speck almost ten thousand feet below. Spike was already above Doohan's service ceiling, where the air was too thin for his jet. Was this a trick?

Just then, at seventy thousand feet above sea level, the interface flashed an ominous red. "Warning, monocomputer mal—" And then, it simply cut off.

"Goddammit!"

"I tried to tell you, you stubborn little shit!" came Doohan's panicked, exasperated cry. "But no, you had to go off and be a cocky little wiseass. Now I'm gonna lose my ship!"

And it certainly seemed that way. No ship had been built after 2010 without some kind of guidance computer to make up for pilot error, especially with a ship as aerodynamically unstable as this. But without the monocomputer running a trillion computations a second and correcting his errors, the craft began dropping like a stone.

"Oh, God." Spike called on everything he knew about flying. The first instinct for most pilots in an uncontrolled dive was to cut the thrusters. Spike knew better. He rammed them forward, switching the failsafe toward manual control. He turned the flaps up and the craft pulled out of the dive and began to level off, albeit unsteadily.

"Holy… Impressive," he heard Doohan mutter. He'd caught up to Spike, and was flanking him, watching his every move with an eager eye. Spike scoffed at having to have an audience, but he had no choice. It was in both of their best interests for Spike to stay alive. He was fine at level flight, but he'd have to descend someday. He held his breath, said a short prayer to Hashem and nosed downward.

"Look out—"

The Swordfish immediately swerved, yawing right so hard that Spike heard the airframe creak. "Oh shit, oh shit!"

"Dutch roll! Pilot induced oscillation."

"English, please?!" Spike called frantically as another swerve and roll in the opposite direction flung him against the side of the pod. The ship couldn't take much more of this.

"Look, just try—compensate, or you'll break up. You gotta—sist what the stick wants to do, and make the ship d—what you want to do instead. Got it?"

"Got it," Spike replied more confidently. Doohan sighed and brought a hand up to his temple. He could already see the Swordfish crashing and burning into a charred pile of oblivion. And as much as he'd like to see that happen to the kid, he didn't think it was worth his ship.

"Hey, I got it!"

"Huh?" Doohan jerked his gaze from his instrument panel and back toward the kid. It was… true? "Whoa, whaa—it's a miracle!" He jerked the flaps of the Draken back, sending it into a spectacular vertical acrobatic maneuver. An aerial gesture of triumph. Swordfish jerked and shimmied all the way back down to earth, but within a few minutes the landing gear were touching the sweet, sweet ground near the back entrance of Doohan's compound.

"Waaahahaha!" Doohan crowed as he tumbled out of the Draken and tossed his helmet down. "Kid, that was—that was… hot damn." He jogged over to where Spike was just sliding out of the cockpit.

Spike's feet hit the ground, and though he thought he was alright, his knees nearly gave out. He was shaking, although at the time he hadn't given much thought to what would happen if he died. It really had been a close call. He saw Doohan approaching him with a jubilant grin, and relaxed a bit. Big mistake.

WHAM! Doohan's fist connected so hard with the side of Spike's skull that he saw white. The horizon suddenly shifted, and he hit the ground hard. Doohan brushed his hands off, dropping his gloves on Spike's back.

"That was some amazing flying, kiddo. There are trained pilots who couldn't do that. But if you EVER come near my ship again, I will gut you. Eviscerate you. Intestines all over the floor."

Somehow, Spike didn't doubt that. He'd really underestimated the old guy, "You… gonna call the cops?" Spike groaned, propping himself on one elbow, his head hung in acceptance. This would be prison time for sure.

"Doohan seemed to ponder the question, then scooped down and pulled the gun out of Spike's waistband to weak protest. "I've got a better idea." He held the gun in his hand, turning it over and trying it out. "Up, slave boy."

"Huh?" Spike shook his head indignantly. "What do you mean?"

"I'll cut you a deal, mop-head." He examined the gun carefully, maintaining a cool detachment. "I need an assistant, you see. Work gets hard around here. So I don't call the cops on you, and you work for me."

"No fucking wa—"

"You work for me long enough to pay off all the parts I'll need to fix the Swordfish. Then you can go, free as a bird." He fluttered a hand in exaggerated demonstration.

"You're crazy if you think I'll work for you," Spike growled, rolling slowly back onto his feet.

"What's your alternative?" Doohan grinned.

Spike stilled, thinking about that one for a moment. Prison certainly didn't sound very appealing. And, well, Doohan was pointing his own gun at him. He sighed in resignation, holding his hands out. "Alright. But I'm not your fucking 'slave boy', you got that?"

"Right."

Thus did Spike learn the importance of not being a blockhead. Not that he remembered it.

A/N: Can you tell I like airplanes?

I'm anal about details, so my reasoning behind this chapter is as follows: Spike says in Session 1 that he's had the Swordfish for ten years, meaning he got it when he was seventeen. Then, in Session 19, he mentions that he's flown the Swordfish sans monosystem once before. Doohan tells him, "I didn't give you the Swordfish for nothing." Then Spike remarks about Doohan being so grumpy that he'll scare off another assistant. I began thinking, what if Spike was the other assistant once? How would he impress Doohan so much that he'd give him Swordfish? And under what circumstances did he first pilot it with no monosystem? I strung the answers to those questions together in this chapter.

Dedicated to Kimi The Great, whose story Future Blues you should definitely check out!