Disclaimer: Red vs. Blue belongs to Rooster Teeth, not me. I make no profit from this, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Seven
Awhile later, Brennan was blearily talking Sister through landing the ship on the next planet they had cargo for. It hadn't been much further away than the one they had left.
"I can't go to the hospital, Brennan," Sister said as they powered down the ship. "I'm technically a runaway. If I'm identified –"
"It's okay kiddo. I know a doctor we can go to – anonymously. He tends to help out smugglers and the like." Sister raised her eyebrows at Brennan skeptically. "What? You know the jobs I take are legit. I met him at a poker game."
"Uh huh, sure." Sister helped Brennan up and grimaces a little as he put his arm across her back.
"What's wrong? Is your back hurt too?"
Sister grinned. "Nah, I got a tattoo with the spending money you gave me. It's still a little tender."
"What did you get?"
"Wouldn't you like to know." Sister was not in an accommodating mood.
It only took a few minutes to reach the doctor's office. Well, "office" was a generous term. Unsurprisingly, since Brennan had told Sister the man tended criminals, the place looked the part of a smuggler's den.
However, once Sister was in the exam room it was very like a regular doctor's visit: clean, bright, and sterile.
"I'll need to do a full body x-ray to check for fractures from your fall, as well as a check to see if there is any deep tissue damage from the burn. Electrical burns can be more than skin deep, you know."
"Okay. You don't seem like a criminal," Sister said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Sorry, Brennan said you help smugglers and stuff, but you don't look like a criminal."
The man smiled. "That's because I'm not. I simply treat my patients anonymously. Not all who come here are avoiding the law. I simply believe that care should be provided no matter the person's situation. I've even treated a few Sangheli in my travels. They are a fascinating people."
"You sympathize with their cause?" Sister asked sharply.
"Not the Covenant's cause, no. One could hardly wish for the annihilation of one's own species. But the Sangheli were not always part of the Covenant. Perhaps they will not always be. Alliances come and go. Regimes do no last forever. Enemies and friends can be transient, ever changing. Do not assume everything is as the authority figures say."
"Are you an Insurrectionist?" Sister blurted out. The man smiled again.
"Sometimes it is best not to choose a side, my dear. I am a scientist and a doctor. I follow nothing but my calling. And that is why you find me here – practicing medicine and researching in peace, where biased colleagues cannot judge my beliefs. Perhaps someday I will rejoin them, but for now – this is my place." Sister pondered this for a while as the doctor did his exam and redressed the wound on her hand more neatly.
"It must be nice," she said finally. "To have a calling I mean. I wish I was so – smart about what I think about things, I guess. My brother always griped at me for not thinking – being too impulsive. I don't really know what I want to do with my life like you."
The doctor chuckled. "You are young yet, my dear. Just keep your mind open, and your heart. You'll find your way." He finished wrapping her hand. "All done here. You've no permanent damage. You'll be good as new in a few days. Just make sure to stretch you hand everyday to maintain your range of motion, and keep it clean."
"Thanks." Sister stepped back out of the exam room. "How much do we owe you?"
"Mr. Wiley has already settled up. All you owe me dear is the promise to keep learning about the world and what you think about it. Too few people stop and think." He handed her a leather bound journal. "You may enjoy reading this. It is always good to expand one's knowledge base."
"Um, thanks. I guess I'll see you around."
"Yes, you might indeed," the doctor said as Sister walked away.
%
Later, Sister thought about what the doctor had said as she and Brennan installed the new parts they had acquired before Brennan's drunken adventure.
"Why are you a cargo ship pilot?" Sister asked Brennan.
"Huh? I just am. My grandad was. My dad was. I am. I just … am."
"But why? And why is your sister in the military? You could have done anything, really."
"I like being in space. It's what I know. And Krista … she has her reasons."
"What reasons? And what if you knew something besides space and flying and running a cargo ship? Then what would you do?"
"You've been listening to that doctor rambling on. He does that – always waxing philosophical, confusing people. It's best if you don't listen to him."
"I dunno, I heard him tell you to stop drinking. Seems like a good thing to listen to to me," Sister said grouchily. "I think it's a good question though – why are any of us here instead of there? I mean, you flew this ship alone until I showed up. Surely you don't want to always be alone. Why not have a crew? Or run a passenger transport instead of cargo?"
"Never you mind," Brennan said.
"I'm just saying I never thought of it before."
"Of what?"
"Of what motivates people, I guess."
"Little Bit, you are finding new ways of giving me headaches everyday." Brennan threw down his tools and stalked off, leaving Sister twirling a wrench in her fingers.
Sister thought about all Brennan had said when he was drunk, and about how he only ever mentioned his Sister, and her rarely. She thought about his "family business" without any family and about the fact (that he didn't know) she knew all that kept them flying some days was the money his sister sent him. She thought about Brennan's excessive gambling and drinking.
"Guilt," she decided. "Brennan is motivated by guilt. He sucks at this job and keeps doing it for no reason when he could do a hundred other things." And then Sister sat down and wondered why, and if she was safe here at all. Then she sighed. "Of course I'm not safe. I'm purposefully flying into a war zone to find my brother. I guess that's what I'm motivated by, family."
She looked up at her calendar and realized the date. It was her birthday. She put her tools away, showered, and changed into the cutest outfit she had brought with her. Then she searched the ship, but Brennan wasn't there. She sighed again, went into the galley, and prepared herself a package of freeze dried cookies.
If she was home with Grif they'd be grilling and having cake and surfing at the beach. Rory and Tom would come over, and they'd light sparklers and drive up and down the main drag in town, singing the obnoxious girly punk/pop she liked, in Grif's jeep.
Sister flicked a lighter on. "Happy 14th birthday to me," she whispered, and blew it out. Then she went to bed in her hammock, but it took a very long time to fall asleep when she was missing the sounds of Grif's snores.
%
After that Sister nagged Brennan about them likely dying in a fiery crash due to his drinking until he actually taught her to fly the albatross. She'd read all the theory, but it was quite difficult in practice, even for a Grif with natural talent. After all, it was a really big ship. Brennan wasn't really much of a teacher, either. He could tell her how to do something, but she had to practice it herself. It was easy enough to take off and land, and fly in a straight line, but that wasn't good enough for Sister, so Brennan took her to a small meteor field to practice.
"Okay, Little Bit. Got for it. Try not to kill us," He'd said. He might have regretted it a bit. Sister grinned gleefully and took the ship in. If it hadn't been a former military vessel with armor, it would have resulted in many dents and scratches. As it was, only Brennan seemed the worse for wear after a whole day of being tossed about. It was well worth it though. Small bursts of learning had never done Sister much good. She'd always preferred diving into the deep end and staying there until she got the hang of something. It was how she'd learned to swim, and surf, and read, and drive, and pretty much everything. She was competitive, and she'd never let her brother or her friends know something that she didn't for long.
Brennan watched her slaloming between meteors, impressed. "My dad told me when I was a boy that every person has their own style of flying, as unique as a fingerprint or handwriting. I'm no expert – just good enough to get by, really. He was a slow and steady kind of flier. I can already tell you're more aggressive and intuitive."
"What happened to your dad? Where is he now I mean?" Sister looked over at Brennan. That guilty look washed over his face again.
"Covies," he said, "Covies got him." Sister looked away, worrying for Grif, as she often did.
"Why do they want to kill us so badly? Why can't we all just get along?" Sister whispered sadly.
"Covies!" Brennan whispered stiffly.
"That's not a reason," Sister said without looking up from what she was doing.
"No, Covies. Look!" Brennan hissed. Sister looked up and gasped. There was a Covenant ship coming slowly in their direction.
"Have they seen us?"
"Not sure. We need to run. Now."
"Their ships are faster than ours, you idiot! They'll catch us." Sister began typing some commands into the ship's computer.
"What are you doing?" Asked Brennan, alarmed.
"Deleting the hard drives. Haven't you heard of the Cole Protocol?"
"I have, but that's because my sister told me. How do you know about it? It's supposedly restricted information."
"Isn't it amazing what you can find on the internet?" Sister smirked. "We're too close to human colonies. If they haven't found them yet we can't risk leading them back there."
"Are you insane kid? You can't just delete our hard drive – all our maps!"
Sister just glared at him, and then hit delete.
"I guess now you get to prove if you have all your destinations' coordinates memorized like you always claim. Now, are there any guns on this ship?" Brennan stared at Sister, incredulous. Sister stared back. There was a momentary battle of wills, but Brennan threw up his hands.
"Albatrosses aren't equipped with guns … but I may be able to figure something out." He ran off to get to work.
"Okay, time to do what I do best," Sister thought. "Thoroughly confuse and freak people out." She pushed the albatross forward, straight toward the Covenant ship. There was no way they hadn't been spotted now. Sister could see their guns warming up, preparing to fire. She kept going. Brennan came over the coms, "What the hell are you doing?"
"Haven't you ever played chicken?" she replied. She searched the com frequencies until she found the the one the Covenant would hear her on, and she kept heading straight for them. She dove the moment before she collided with the ship and screamed into the radio, "Aloha, bitches! Come and get us!" Then she headed straight into the heart of the meteor field. It took only a few moments for the Covenant ship to turn around and give chase.
"Sister, do you really think provoking them was a good idea when we don't have a way to fight back?!" Brennan shouted at her over the coms.
"Try harder!"
"There is nothing on this ship we can use as weapons!"
"Don't give me excuses Brennan!" Sister screeched. She was barely managing to maneuver the albatross through the asteroids, and the Covenant ship was gaining.
"Okay, okay, okay." Sister said to herself breathlessly. "What would Grif do?" and then she smiled to herself, inspired. She hit the controls she needed to try a stunt her brother had told her about once. She had no idea if this ship could even do it. As they approached the next meteor Sister dove beneath it, hugging the surface as closely as she could. She pulled up, circling the asteroid like she was doing a loop on a roller coaster, and rolled over the meteor's back. When they came back around they were behind the Covenant ship.
"Sister, we've got nothing!"
"They don't know that! " Sister positioned her self behind the ship as if she was targeting them. She watched as the Covenant ship swerved wildly to avoid being hit by her non-existent weapons. One side of the ship smashed into a small meteor. After that, the it jumped to warp and was gone.
"Sister! Sister, what happened?" Brennan ran back in behind her.
"They ran. Their ship hit a meteor and was damaged. It wouldn't have been able to out fly us anymore. So they jumped to slipspace before I could fire at them."
"You wouldn't have been able to fire at them."
"Like I said, they didn't know that."
"Wow. Just … wow. How did you do that? You've been flying for less than a week!"
"Like I said when we met. This stuff just sort of runs in the family."
"I guess … I guess we can go to our next cargo drop now."
"Assuming you memorized the coordinates like you usually do."
"Uh …"
"God damn it Brennan! I knew you were lying when you said you did that! I knew you weren't that smart!"
"Hey! I've been under a lot of pressure lately!"
"That is such bullshit! People think I'm dumb, but at least I remember things when I try to! Now we're stranded here and we're gonna starve to death after I was just a total bad ass hero!"
"Will you relax? There is a planet near here I know. We can download all our maps from the server there. We'll be fine." Brennan fidgeted nervously.
"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?"
"..." More fidgeting.
"Brennan," Sister's voice was beginning to sound dangerous.
"It's not a particularly savory place, okay." Brennan wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Well, we don't really have any option, do we?" Sister practically growled. "I'm not going to sit here and starve or freeze because you're too coward to go to a shady sort of planet."
"All right, all right." Brennan punched in the coordinates. "Promise me you'll stay on the ship when we get there though."
"Only if you promise not to be a drunken idiot."
Brennan sighed,"I am sorry, Sister. But you still have to promise me."
"Okay, but so do you."
"Okay."
%
They had re-downloaded all the of the ship's data from the back up matrix available in all commercial ports as soon as they arrived. Then Brennan had taken off to pick up a handful of supplies, once again eliciting a promise from Sister to stay on the ship.
Sister bounced on the balls of her feet, watching the rain from the cover of the cargo bay. She had seen the city as they flew over before landing, and she longed to explore it. It was a dry planet for the most part, with many adobe style buildings, with a short intense rainy season that they had landed in the middle of.
The main drag in the city was a year round open air market, spanning for miles, and it was open despite the rain. Sister was craving fresh fruit fiercely, and she was also fairly sure she could find an adapter she suspected she needed for the capacitor thingy she'd won in the poker game a while back. She wondered how long it would take Brennan to get back, and whether she could convince him to take her through the market. She knew she wouldn't get back before him if she went on her own. She always got lost, and besides, she wasn't in the habit of breaking promises. She she paced, and tinkered in her engine room, and paced some more.
She had come back out to stare at the rain again when she spotted Brennan hurrying toward her with a strained look on his face.
"What's wrong?" She asked. He dumped the bag of supplies on the floor.
"We need to leave, right now."
"What? Why? I'm rewiring half the engine room, and I need an adapter for my capacitor."
"We have to go."
"Well, it'll take at least half an hour to get her squared away." Sister was trying not to panic, as it looked like that was what Brennan was doing. "Brennan, just tell me what's wrong."
"There are these people I owe some money. They don't take kindly to late payments. That's why I had planned to avoid this planet."
"What do these people do to people who don't pay?"
"They take their payment – in any way they see fit."
"They're coming now?"
Brennan nodded. Sister ran to the controls and closed the bay doors.
"I'll get her ready as soon as I can." She headed for the engine room, but turned back when she heard the bay doors grind to a halt. Something was jamming them. Sister watched in shock as several overly muscled men climbed in through the partially open doors. She had no weapons, no way to fight.
Hot angry tears filled her eyes as two of the thugs cornered Brennan and the third lowered the ramps again. More men filed in. They hadn't noticed her on the stairs yet. She could hide – find a way to escape.
"Get the hell off my ship!" Sister screeched. Brennan looked up at her, terror in his eyes. The thugs were all staring at her now, and a man in a suit stepped out from behind them, shaking the rain off his umbrella.
"Well, well Mr. Wiley. I hadn't even thought we'd get much more from you than a pound of flesh. But this is a treat." And that was when Sister realized that maybe they weren't here for the ship.
"You have no right to be here!" Sister shouted angrily, trying not to let her fear show as the thugs edged toward her.
"I have a right to take what I'm owed," leered the man in the suit. He motioned to the thugs and they headed for Sister, not bothering trying to be subtle anymore.
"Leave – leave her be." Brennan was trying to sound brave, and failing. "She's just – just a passenger. People will come looking. Her brother's in the military."
"Oh? Is he an officer? We could get a nice ransom. No? Well then, I doubt it will be much trouble. After all, your sister is special ops isn't she? And look at all she's done to keep big brother out of trouble." The man sneered at Brennan. "No, I think it will be fine. And you won't say a word." During this conversation Sister had been trying to figure out a way to escape, but the thugs were blocking the exits.
"Screw it. I may as well try." Sister leapt over the stair railing deftly and rolled as she hit the ground..
"Stop her." The men who were already on the stairs were too slow reacting, and half of the men were at the other two ramps. She dodged one's fist, dove between another's legs, and was at the exit – and had the butt of a rifle slamming into her face. Everything went white and Sister hit the ground.
When Sister came to, she wasn't sure how long it had been, but she guessed not long. She tried not to make a sound, but she wanted to curl up and whimper in pain. Brennan was on his knees next to her, and it looked like they'd beaten up on him some. Sister tried to move and realized her hands were cuffed. She glared at the man in the suit as he was chattering on to Brennan. Something about running a business and reputations. He didn't pay her any mind as she began to roll to her knees and then regain her feet.
Sister was perfectly aware that it was a foolish and pointless gesture, but she didn't care. She lunged at the man, screaming like a mountain lion. One of the thugs snatched her up instantly, and Sister was left wriggling futilely against his massive chest. She managed to sink her teeth into his arm and he cried out and let go. She took the opportunity to spit blood from her busted lip into the suited man's face before the muscle knocked her to the ground painfully.
"Now, now, don't damage the merchandise," he said cooly as he wiped his face with handkerchief.
"Fuck. You." Sister breathed heavily at him. Brennan tried to reach for her, and was kicked back. The man chuckled, but Sister saw what he had not. On the ground in front of her was a key. She had no idea where Brennan had gotten it, but thanked the gods the man wasn't completely useless.
"Well, I think out business here is concluded. Pleasure seeing you again, Mr. Wiley." The man in the suit turned away and the thug made to grab Sister and follow his boss, but Sister kicked at him. She lost her balance and threw out her hands to catch herself – and they landed directly on the key. Sister had to fight not to grin. She tried to make eye contact with Brennan, but one of the thugs hit him again. Sister tried to break away as two of the men gripped her arms – she could hear the dull thuds of fists hitting flesh as they pulled her away.
"Brennan!" she called to him, trying to turn and see him. "Brennan!" She thought she heard the crunch of bone. "BRENNAN!" she screamed. She felt a sharp sting in her arm and looked down to see the thug had injected her with something. She grew drowsy. "No, I can't let go of the key to the cuffs." She stumbled and managed to let the key drop down the leg of her boot. Then everything faded to black.