Who: Not so bebe Don & crew
When: Just prior to the completion of the the Iron Vulture.
What: Unahppiness.

Don tugged on his own ear, tired and grease streaked, but the sad fact of the matter was they'd outgrown the ductwork that work crew 7 had been initially detailed for. Maybe not Mad Dog, he stayed a skinny little thing, but the rest of them were large...

...er than allowed. "No help for it," the head engineer sighed. "I'll have to cycle you guys out."

"No, NO! We need to see her finished..." Don yelped, worried.

"You will boy," the engineer snapped. "Everyone will, it's a monster, this thing," he sighed. "Can't miss it once she's airborne."

"A monster?" he blinked, pausing as he wiped grease from his fur. "Look at this skeleton, this will be beautiful, huge! A home for planes in the sky!"

"Heh," the man chuckled, "you're a dreamer boy." A solid dreamer, strange in this town, ah, but he was young wasn't he? "Look, I don't want to lose you either but your skills..."

"Welding! We will learn welding!" Don sighed, trying to look trustworthy.

"Don't give me the big eyes," he snorted. "Welders, yes. Welding, line laying, she'll need it all. But you want my opinion boy?"

Don considered a moment, he didn't like others making decisions for his crew but..."yes?" Wisdom was useful?

"You're a good lad," the man chuckled. "You, anyone you think can learn it in your crew? Learn piloting. A thing like this will need pilots. Even if you can't finish her out, you could be part of her crew if you nail those flying certs."

"Pilots," Don mused, rubbing his chin as he thought that over. Piloting was for fancy schools and military men, even in the free islands. "Test pilots..." testers for the planes in development here maybe?

"There you go," he smiled. "Always need more idiots strapped to tests."

"WE ARE NOT IDIOTS!" He would not stand for someone insulting his crew (even if he called them dumb himself at times).

"You are young," the man laughed. "Young and idealistic, which leads to idiocy, but not all idiocy is bad boy. It gives you drive against common sense and what people tell you should be. Use it."

Use it. Like it was ever that easy. They were old enough not to be in the orphanage anymore, so they rented a workhouse, just the crew, no cheerful younger kids making breakfast so one of them had to be up to make sure everyone ate. Being older was harder, honestly, even if it meant people took them more seriously. Use it indeed.

He got his crew into welding.

Into line laying.

And he sent the boys home at night but stayed in the yards to pester the test pilots for lessons. Learning everything. They all needed to learn it, so what he learned he relayed and drilled into the boys over and over and over Always lessons that made the boys whine, though Sadie got sent into first aid training, and Ratchet apprenticed out to the engineers themselves...

...still the whining. Like adulthood was suppose to be easy or something.

And one day he wanted back to the bay they'd laid lines in and found the head engineer sitting at a table and staring balefully up at the twisted iron skeleton that was starting to fill out. "We have been learning," he noted.

"Good." The engineer coughed wetly, spitting to the side with annoyance. "Learn everything you can boy. Take it from me."

"Always learning learning learning," he sighed. "They complain so much."

"Young men always do. Always. Seen my fair share."

Don sighed, plopping himself on the ground beside the rickety table. "What do I do? It is not...the life we thought."

"And what did you think you were going to be boy?" the engineer laughed.

Ah, well, "I promised them better," he admitted quietly. "Like what we heard on the radio. Adventure, and free skies..." How stupid was that? How had he failed them so deeply? Was there nothing but this? The harsh grind of waking before dawn and returning far past what most would consider dinner? Giving their sweat and blood into things they'd never touch themselves?

"No you get it," the man laughed until he coughed again. "We're just pieces here. Just pieces. Always were. The dirty little secret of prettier places like that damn Cape Suzette where our lord and master Kahn industries lives...

"Cape Suzette?" he asked, glancing up at the man.

"Oh it's a pretty place I'm told. All nestled in a deep harbor protected by big guns, full of people who don't like like we do," the engineer sounded wistful, sad even. Not something he had ever heard before. "A nice place."

A nice place huh? "Sounds rich."

"I'm sure it is."

"Well...let's go there!" His boys could be a work crew in a nice place if they cleaned up a bit! They'd learned everything else after all!

"We'd never afford a lunch there boy, much less a place to live. They use real money, not the coupons we get for the stores here. That's how they keep us here, tucked away."

Money. Real money. He'd never considered that really. They all got their alotents from working, no one starved, they say Khan medics..."how do we get that? We could go out like the radio shows, find treasure..."

"No boy, there are no treasures in this world." No, none. ""Anything out there is owned by someone else. Someone strong."

Well, that wasn't..."then we take it," Don noted quietly.

"How? The strong own whole islands. Eve this great hulking beast here, though we know her inside and out, isn't ours. She just sits like some great vulture forged in iron counting out the days of our lives. She'll see me die you know, hacking my lungs out to get her finished."

Don shifted to stare at that, trying to determine if that was some terrible joke but..."you are dying?"

"The Freedom will be my last project boy. I've the cough. Medics can't fix me anymore.

Oh. Oh no. "No. No that is not allowed."

"Are you the god of death now boy?" The laughter was terrible and wet, jaded. That was definitely jaded. He hadn't understood the term before but...

"No, but I can be a pirate! Like the radio shows! We could take you and go! TO a better place, a nice place!"

"With what plane boy? What plane?"

...

...

"This one. We will take her when she is done, we just need you to finish her! She will be your Iron Vulture, and you will tame her!"

"I can't fly boy."

Oh. "I can. My crew can. We can all fly now, even Dumptruck."

"Ah, your simple boy, you got him to understand?"

"He's not simple sir, I get frustrated with him yes, yes yes, but he is a hero and he saved us. He got hurt saving us and he can save you too."

"No one stops time, Don my lad. No one. But if you want to take this great hulking thing when she's done you've my blessing. Don't get caught."

Don't get caught.

The crew was sent back to work on 'The Freedom' a few weeks later, with their flexibility they were an ideal crew. They learned the bird inside and out, from her plane bays to her captain's cabin and beyond. And the Engineer, well, Dumptruck was assigned as the old man's aide. Whether the boy had to carry him around or ensure he ate lunch, given a task, Dumptruck was a solid member of any crew.

Their engineer lived longer than expected given there was someone dedicated to listening to the sound of each laborious breath. He still missed the launch of 'The Freedom' by several months, with only Don's crew there to mourn as the withered body was fed to the flames at the morgue.

"Her name," Don gritted to his crew as that night bled into dawn. "Is the Iron Vulture. And we are taking her."

"Okay boss."