There was an ugly grinding sound from underneath the cockpit. Kadaj yelled for Loz, who was gone before Cid could even blink, and he was left alone with Yazoo as the other two sounded like they were trying to get the Highwind running by breaking things until she gave in and flew.

This was his chance—he could take just one of them.

It wasn't hard to get a little driveshaft grease on the cord around his wrists; would have been hard not to. He wriggled the knots around to the palm side of his hands, where he could get a good dig on them. This was going to be easier than he thought: the skinny one wasn't even looking at him. The trick was not to look suspicious. Play it off all casual.

"Nice weather for being a real bastard," he observed. Smooth.

Yazoo didn't answer. Didn't look at him, either. He was watching the open door to the cockpit like it was a movie or something. So far so good.

"You nasty little 'bosuckers bring anything to eat? It's lunch time."

His cunning subterfuge was working perfectly, Yazoo was paying him no attention at all. He stared ahead of him, concentrating hard on the knots. It felt like one was getting looser, he'd have it off in just a second and then hell was gonna rain down on 'em but good, with blood and pain and bones sticking out—

Click.

"Don't."

...There was a gun in his ear. He cranked his eyes to the side; Yazoo still wasn't looking at him. The gun was, though. Fuck.

The engine screeched again, caught, and turned over. Somehow the freaks in the cockpit had busted the right things in the right order. He hadn't even told them about the choke gauge—small wonder she hadn't just ground her siphon alternator to hell while they tried to get her going.

"What now?" asked Yazoo. The damn gun was still poking Cid in the ear, and it didn't make him feel a bit more like detailing the rest of the Highwind's takeoff procedure.

"Nothin'."

"Nothing?"

"Yup. She's running, sure enough. Guess you smart guys can take it from here, huh?"

Cid felt the gun twitch upwards, away from his head. He knew he was pushing it and that pushing it was stupid with anybody who had eyes like that, but the Highwind wasn't built for skinny little bitchcakes who didn't know what they were doing. He'd rather get beat into a flan than live with the knowledge that his girl had a cancer like these three inside her.

Yazoo tapped the end of his gun on the driveshaft in front of his nose, which throbbed but at least had stopped bleeding. "Remind me why I won't shoot you," he suggested mildly.

"'Cause I'm so damn fancy." He was going to add some choice remarks about frilly underthings, but didn't have time before Yazoo nearly knocked his bean off with the gun again.

"Another clever answer, and Loz will do that instead." Yazoo stowed the gun. "Now, what else do we need to do to fly the ship?"

"Look, damn it—ow. OW." Cid reflexively tried to raise a hand to rub the rising lump of bruise on his head and remembered he'd never actually managed to undo the knots on his wrists. "She's vapor-locked right now anyway, you'd need a crowbar and a torch to break the seal on the first head down to the flywheel—"

"Thank you. Kadaj!"

The kid's head poked out of the cockpit. "Is he talking? Just kill him."

"We need a crowbar and a torch, he says."

Cid suffered a short, nasty vision of what the Highwind's undercarriage would look like if any of them got down there and started waving a crowbar and a torch around. She'd never fly again. She'd be hideous. They'd mutilate her.

"Ey," he said. "No torches, all right? There's, uh, there's lots of flammable things down there. Might blow the ship."

"You're right," Kadaj agreed. "Loz, get a crowbar."

"…or you could just pull the second lever on the right of the console to release the goddamn 'dragorashit flywheel brake."

Yazoo rested one hand on Cid's head and drummed a few fingers on the bruise inflating above his ear. "And then what?"

"And then you go straight to hell and sit on three matching fucking ant hills, that's wha—look, do not hit me with that thing again, I'm warning you—"

CRACK. Dark.

Kadaj disappeared back behind the cockpit bulkhead, and Yazoo heard a clank of metal and a hiss before a faint vibration passed through the ship—that was the flywheel coming up to speed, no doubt. He set his weapon down across the pilot's back; no sense in holstering it again when the man required so much bludgeoning.

"When he wakes up," Kadaj ordered him through the door, "ask him what we're supposed to do about the stupid turbines."