Pain coursed through the old man's body, the unexpected pain that a child might experience when toying with the unknown. At first, he didn't know where he was or exactly how he got there, but it wasn't home. It wasn't murky or cold enough to be home. On top of the strange, golden glow that soaked the muggy room, in itself out of the ordinary, was the odd heat that slowly toasted his body. His clothes were soaked, and when wiped his forehead with his hand, a thin layer of sweat coated his palm.
He couldn't remember a single moment when he had actually been hot.
Jet forced himself into a seated position and rubbed his eyes. This was a place he couldn't recognize, a world he didn't know. Even so, as his eyes cleared, it became increasingly obvious that this was a familiar place after all. In fact, he knew it very well. This was his home.
He was on the Bebop. But there was something terribly wrong. It had never been so incredibly bright on his ship. Shaking his head, Jet reached for the comm. He pressed a button. "Spike?" There was no response. "Damnit. What is it now?" He pressed down on the switch again. "Hey, Spike, pick up your damn radio! Where the hell are you?"
Still no response. Jet forced himself out of his seat to explore.
The old man worked his way toward the source of the golden light. He soon found it, and his heart sank into the deepest pit of despair at his discovery. There, in the side of his ship, was the kind of gaping hole a piece of paper might procure if the tip of a dull blade was dragged against it. Jet lay a hand on his head as a splitting headache worked its way up his spine. The hull was torn to shreds and the wiring was mutilated.
This wasn't going to be easy to repair. He looked to the edge of the destruction, where the jagged exterior met the outside realm that had caused the breach. There, the innards of the ship had been spilt out into golden sand.
"What the hell?" Jet muttered. He worked his way to the breach and peer to the outside world. As he had feared, there was nothing but sand for as far as the eye could see. He had managed to crash the Bebop out in the middle of a barren plain. There was nothing else. Of all places, Jet had managed to crash his ship out in the middle of a desolate wasteland. "Oh no!" He groaned and slapped his prosthetic hand against his forehead. "Why me? Why always me?"
----------
"Ugh. I'm gonna have a headache."
The damage was worse than he'd expected. The Bebop had no power, and without power there wasn't a hell of a lot that he could do. He could hear the bitching now. Faye and Spike were the galaxy's ultimate whiners, able to bitch their way into and out of the most difficult situations known to man. Faye especially would be at his throat until she could have a nice hot shower. The bitch was like that sometimes. Hell, most times.
He crashed down onto his couch and fished out a cigarette. Jet figured a shower was out of the question. The ship's water supply had been depleted as it was, and they'd have to have something to drink. Faye would just have to stink up the place the same as the rest of them. The old man lit his cigarette. Hell, everything else's fucked up, he mused.
Jet leaned back and sighed. "What the hell am I supposed to do," he wondered aloud. "We're in the middle of nowhere."
Behind him, a familiar set of feet trudged loudly into the room.
"Geez, what the hell did you do, Jet?" Spike muttered as he peered about the Bebop living area. "I lay down for an hour and you crash the ship? Damn, I thought it was just a dream."
Jet grunted. "A nightmare, more like it."
"Where the hell are we?"
"Earth, I think."
Spike stared at him. "Earth? I thought we were going to Venus."
The old man glared hard at his partner. The need to strangle the younger man surged through him, but he forced it down to the bottom of his "need-to-do" list. There were a ton of things piling on right now, and he didn't have time for Spike's shit.
Jet sighed and forced all his anger to the back to the pit of his stomach. "I don't know exactly what happened. One minute we're flying through hyperspace on out way to Venus. Next thing I know I'm picking myself out of the remains of the pilot's chair." He folded his arms over his chest, heaving a fresh lungful of smoke into the muggy air. A thousand things that he could tell his partner came to mind, but he decided he should cut the shit and get right down to the nitty-gritty. "We crashed in the middle of the desert, and there's no way to fix the Bebop. Hate to admit it, but I think we're stranded."
He didn't think there was any way possible that one of the smaller ships could have survived the crash. Even if they did, there wasn't much fuel at all, either in their tanks or in the emergency tank of the Bebop. It was discouraging to say the least.
"No food. We've got a little water but not much." He stretched his sore muscles and flicked the excess ashes from his smoke. "We should find Ed and Faye. Just in case they're hurt."
Spike turned to his friend; his jaw nearly fell to the steel floor of the ship as he stared. "Just hold on a second. You're telling me you plotted our hyperspace route directly into a desert planet?"
Jet fumed but remained silent.
"Great."
And then he was gone. Jet flicked the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray, shaking his head. For a time, the bounty hunter stared at the ceiling, grumbling to himself. "Damn ingrate. Did he ever consider asking about me? I can't remember a thing, yet all he can think about is accusing me of shit."
He rose and headed off to find the shrew. Faye'd be pretty ticked if no one showed her concern. Besides, he needed to find some sense of reason to counter Spike's egotism, or at least someone worse who might cancel him out. Faye was just as bad as Spike. If nothing else, maybe if those two were at each other's throats he could find some sort of peace to contemplate a remedy for this whole ugly predicament. Maybe he could send them out to find help, if there was any help on this Godforsaken rock.
Soon he made his way to Faye's quarters. The door was as gnarled and bent as the rest of the ship. He shook his head with a heavy sigh and knocked, but there was no answer from within. With all his strength, he leaned against the damaged door and pushed it open. Tentatively, he peered into the jumbled mess within.
"Hey, Faye? You in here? Everything all right?"
She wasn't there. Jet cursed to himself and slammed the door.
----------
A low, mournful groan echoed through the darkened corridors of the Bebop. Ed thought it was kind of humorous, listening to herself moan in pain. It didn't change the fact that her entire body ached. While she didn't know exactly where she was, she vaguely recalled making her way to the bathroom before blacking out. Maybe that was where the smell came from.
"Oh…Edward sore," she murmured to herself, and finally leaned forward to sit Indian style in the middle of the corridor, slowly rocking from side-to-side.
Her eyes were crossed and glazed over, though she could still make out Tomato resting nearby, somehow unscathed.
"Where is Edward?" she asked the laptop.
And then she fell back, her legs pointed straight to the ceiling above.
"Mayday, payday! Bebop down! Requesting immediate assistance from all available spacecraft and starbuggies…"
In the moment to follow, Edward drifted off to sleep.
----------
Jet eventually found Faye in the main room, staring blankly out the window. One hand pushed hair away from her face while the other hung limply at her side. At first, she didn't acknowledge him, caught firmly between the prospect of their disposition and her curiosity toward the desolate land that stretched out before her. She smirked when she saw his reflection in the mirror. "Nice driving. I'm impressed."
He snorted. Fuck you, too. He didn't say so much with words. "Great. Glad you approve. You're in one piece, too, I see." The old man limped over to the couch and crashed down, groaning. He placed his hands against his throbbing temples. "Where the hell are the others? We need to come up with a contingency plan."
Faye watched him limp away with a frown, and followed him to the couch. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked.
"Fine, thanks," he muttered. He sighed and softened his tone. "Faye, could you go find the others and get them back here? I don't think the radios are working."
She actually smiled.
"Sure thing, big guy. You just relax and rest your leg."
And then, thankfully, blissfully, she was gone.
Jet sighed and lay back, closing his eyes.