Author's Note:

Thank you for the editing my awesome beta: Whisperwings.

Enjoy.

Chapter 10: Programming

It was later on that night, still dark as ever, but two of the Snow Burst inn's patrons weren't sleeping while sharing the same room. Morph and Jim were asleep, but Ariah and Silver were both still awake. Uneasiness coated the air between them, and Ariah was curious because she wanted to know something from Silver.

"Why in the Etherium would you take a rain check on dinner?" She whispered loudly enough so Silver could hear her, but softly enough to avoid waking Morph and Jim.

"What's it teh yeh?" Silver grumbled, sitting back and pretending to drift off to sleep.

"You're up to something." Ariah narrowed her eyes in the thick blackness of the room. "I know it. And it has something to do with Jim."

"An'?" Silver ended bluntly, easing back into the large pillows of the queen-sized bed.

"You want me to get together with Jim." Ariah spat venomously. "Don't you?"

"Can't blame me for tryin'." Silver rolled his eyes; his mechanical one gleamed with its inner laser.

"But...why?" Ariah curled her legs under herself and glared at Silver's bed, where she remembered it to be when the lights were on.

"Yeh need someone, darling." Silver stated as-a-matter-of-factly. "An' Jimbo's the smartest lad we've seen in a long time. He's worthy of yeh, Ariah."

"But I'm not worthy of him." Ariah looked to Jim's bed, as she remembered. "He's got a future ready for him; he's got everything planned out and just look at me." She scoffed at herself. "I'm a sailor whose only means of income is adventures and tinkering."

Ariah sighed miserably, looking down at herself in shame, although she couldn't actually see anything due to the complete darkness of the planet.

"He's got something in store for him, me…" She paused and leaned back in her velvety lounge chair. "I have no idea if I'm going to be abandoned the next morning or if something will happen to us." She gnawed at her bottom lip. "I've no idea, and I've got to look out for everyone. Especially myself. I can't trust many people, and-."

Ariah was lost for words, something that rarely happened to her. She huffed in exasperation, finally closing her mouth with no other comments. The young woman sat silently on the cushions of her lounge chair.

"Ariah." Silver scolded her softly with concern. "Yer bein' too hard on yourself." He shook his head. "Jimbo's a fine lad. I can tell he likes yeh an' -although yeh seem teh doubt it- I can tell yeh like him too." The cyborg chuckled. "Jim doesn't 'ave a very high set of expectations." Silver paused and smiled. "He's not like other guys when he's 'round yeh."

"Yeah…" Ariah sighed. "I know."

There was a calm silence through the room. Silver leaned back with his hands behind his head, engulfed in the plush pillows. Ariah curled up under the duvet she had located under her lounge chair.

"Silver?" Ariah asked in a small voice.

"Aye?" Silver yawned, trying to stay awake to hear Ariah out.

"When we get back onto the ship." Ariah asked through a long yawn. "Can you tell me one of those stories where you and your best friend go on another adventure?" She was drifting off to sleep. "Where you have to get them out of trouble… and you fight big monsters?" She added drowsily.

"Sure Ariah." Silver smirked lightly, closing his eyes. "Yeh like those stories don't yeh?"

Ariah didn't answer; she had fallen fast asleep once more. Silver smiled genuinely at that and tugged the blankets back over himself. He allowed himself to get caught in the dreams of his own stories.

Something awoke Ariah in the morning. It was eerie, and strange. Not a loud and obnoxious wake up call, not a banging of the pot to say that breakfast was ready, and not an alarm tolling their demise. It was something natural, something warm.

Ariah opened her copper-brown eyes, and squinted. Light, it was natural light. Not the kind that burned under the oil lamps' wick… it was something that peered through the window. It was filtered through the thin, lacy curtains and it brightened the room.

Sunlight. The eclipse was finally over.

Ariah rose to her feet, leaving her duvet in a pile at the end of her lounge chair as she pulled on her dried boots and winter coat. She stood up, basking in the warm, golden sunlight as she opened the curtains widely.

Two groans indicated that her fellow roommates were now awake. Ariah turned to their blinking eyes; her face displayed a full smile.

The two male humans weakly grinned back, slightly confused with early morning grogginess. Morph zipped from his pillow form on the ground to snuggle against Ariah's face affectionately. She tangled her fingers in Morph's body in a good morning greeting.

The blob giggled and zoomed over to Jim, prodding him until he would get up.

"What…" Jim mumbled. "What is it?" He asked grumpily.

"The eclipse is over." Ariah stated. She grabbed her duffel bag and shouldered it. "Which means that we need to get back to the Legacy, to repair that generator."

"Oh yeah." Jim yawned loudly and rubbed the sleep from his pale blue eyes. He kicked the covers off of himself and hopped out of the comfy bed.

The brunette teenager slugged to the side of his bed and limply tugged on his boots. He then slowly followed both Silver and Ariah out of the exquisite room, wishing to return to his bed for at least another few minutes of sleep.

The man at the desk of the Snow Burst Inn was sleeping with his face plastered to the counter. His snores were loud enough to make the windowpanes in the lobby quiver.

Ariah pulled out the room's key from her coat pocket and she plopped it on the counter forcefully beside a small bag of coins.

"Let's go." Ariah led to way out of the inn.

They ordered a hastened breakfast at the restaurant, deciding to take it with them to eat along their few hours of walking. Then the quartet left the outskirts of Gyrogga, slowly making there way back to the RLS Legacy. The tall beacons of light that Ariah had planted the night before could be seen shining in the dimness of the morning air.

Not only was the beacons' main purpose to light a pathway, but also near the base of the beacon's shaft there was a laser that emitted a beam of heat between beacons, which would keep the snow melted in order for a decent trail to remain.

There were many shadowy characters following the heat-carved path to the landed tall ship, undoubtedly their crew and commanders.

The four travellers bundled up and followed the previously trudged pathway. The snow banks from the night's snowfall rose far over their heads and tiny snowflakes were beginning to descend from the heavens.

"I hate re-programming this thing." An unusually cheerful singsong chanted in the inner workings of the RLS Legacy. "La, La, La…" It echoed through the metal walls, bouncing through the pipes. "Wanna take a swing at why?" The singsong asked impishly.

"Because it takes way too long to do the easiest of things." A lower sarcastic version of the singsong replied.

"Precisely!" The singsong sung out in an opera tone.

The two owners of the singsong voices laughed cheerfully at the silliness of the matter as they got back to work.

It was Ariah and Jim, of all of the people. Silver was busy testing the stoves that they were supposed to be re-booting via an elongated series of codes that had to be entered into to RLS Legacy's system to actually make the physical repairs they had made work.

The stoves themselves were fine; it had taken them a good hour per stove to get them back into working shape.

It was just the simple matter of reprogramming the stoves to cooperate with the Legacy's system, or the ship wouldn't likely get off the ground without one of the laser canons exploding. And such a case wouldn't be good.

Ariah had been entering the code into the main computer, while trying to teach Jim the code; that way she wouldn't be the only programmer in the crew if anything like this should ever happen again. Jim, however, had much more fun drumming a pair of monkey wrenches against the pipes of the Legacy and so starting the musical.

The female sailor groaned, saving the code for the billionth time and hitting the signal button to tell Silver to test the stoves. The computer buzzed a bit as it processed the information being sent up to Silver.

After a few minutes of crossed fingers they had no luck, another error message was sent down, stating that the vents overhead of the stoves weren't working properly, but everything else was.

Ariah grumbled turning a page in the Legacy's systematic manual, to the galley's venting system requirements, as she typed away at the small keyboard.

"I'm no help, am I?" Jim leaned forward to watch Ariah type.

"Not unless you're absorbing this." Ariah kept typing, thinking over the conditions and solutions in her head.

"Then why does Silver have me with you?" Jim inquired, raising his eyebrows in interest.

"Great question…" Ariah stated flatly. "The likeliest assumption would be so I can talk to someone without him being concerned that I've gone completely insane." Ariah offered, still vigorously entering the system's code.

"No, really." Jim looked her in the eyes, a playful smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I have a feeling that you know, Miss Clarke."

"It works!" Ariah ignored Jim's comment and her eyes widened with joy at the triumph.

"What?" Jim looked at the screen in bewilderment; there were no error reports.

"Finally!" Ariah proclaimed joyfully.

Ariah locked the Legacy's manual of system beside the miniature computer and then closed the panel into the wall of the Legacy's lower decks with the monkey wrenches.

"But why does he have me here with you?" Jim implored, jogging to keep up with her as she hopped up the stairs to the upper deck. "Can't you tell me?"

She sighed a bit, and then took a deep breath, something stirred at the bottom of her heart at that tone of plea in his voice. It was something that she couldn't ignore. She stopped at the second to last step and turned on Jim, looking deeply at the begging look in his water blue eyes. Her mind said that he was worth the trouble.

Jim looked up to her. Perhaps he shouldn't have intervened with the matter; after all he was just a cabin boy and she a sailor. She and Silver seemed to know each other for a far longer time than he had known either of them.

The brunette teenager was about to part his lips to apologize for intruding on Ariah's business when Ariah suddenly spoke out.

"All right, here's why." She stated simply, grabbing Jim's face and crushing their lips together. She released him and smirked at his shocked expression. Ariah then exited the lower deck without another word.

Jim touched his lips lightly, unable to stop the smile that came. They felt… tingly.

Author's Note:

Thanks to the reviews I've received, my beta (Whisperwings) and to me. (I got to thank myself every once in a while...)

Oh and a big thanks to the people at Disney who made Treasure Planet possible. (Big smile and thumbs up)

And to the fabulous author, who wrote Treasure Island, thus giving something for Treasure Planet to be based on. (Huge smile)

…My Face hurts now...

MG#6