Mickey's fairly certain that someone in the universe is out to get him.
It's the only explanation for the ridiculous chain of events that's landed them here, stuck out in the reaches of the galaxy with a ship that's useless for the next few hours at least, a prisoner who has to be the most stubborn jackass he's ever had the misfortune to run into, and a jump-induced headache that feels like his brain might just pulse hard enough to crack his skull.
The former, Mandy has assured him, is being dealt with as they speak. She hates the engines being inoperative as much as he does, although not really for the same reason, and even in his least generous state of mind—which he's rapidly approaching—he trusts her judgment on this enough to accept their current situation, even if that means that they're effectively a sitting duck if anyone else happens to come along. Nifty manoeuvring has always been the best—hell, the only—line of defence they have, and with the engines powered down and cold they're entirely out of other options.
The headache he knows, from painful and unpleasant experience, will wear off in the next day or so, a fact which is little comfort right now. The last time he had drunk himself into a stupor while the ache pounded itself out, but the only liquor he has is the bottle of expensive honeyed whiskey he's had stashed in his bunk for the best part of a year. He's been saving it for a special occasion, and this really doesn't count.
The prisoner problem is the one that's really demanding his attention right now, and it's also the one that Mickey's coming up blanks on in terms of a solution. He's been throwing questions at the guy for over an hour, and so far there's not been even a flicker of a reaction, despite the fact that the soldier's clearly suffering the same after-effects of the jump as Mickey is. It's incredible actually, that the more Mickey yells at him, throws questions at him, threatens him, the more the soldier seems determined not to react, and now they're at an impasse, Mickey barely containing his frustration, the soldier sitting deathly still, his chin jutted out defiantly with the barest hint of a smirk playing on his lips.
If Mickey learned one thing from his time under his father's boot, it's that everyone talks eventually. Everyone gives up. You just have to apply the right leverage, push in the right places. Of course, in Terry's language leverage actually meant pain, and sometimes it seemed to Mickey like his father enjoyed the pain part just as much as the getting them to talk part. Probably more, in fact.
Terry would have killed this guy by now. Hell, Terry would have killed him before his boots even hit the floor. Taking prisoners was never his first choice.
Mickey Milkovich is not his father. Mickey's violent by necessity, rather than by nature, and these days he limits that necessity wherever possible.
He used to think of it as a flaw, that he could never be like him, never be as calculating or as ruthless, that no matter what he did Terry would always go that step further and so Mickey would never ever be good enough in comparison. Of course, then Terry had gone way too far and Mickey had realised that not being his father was what made him worth saving.
He's not sure how far he'd go to protect his siblings though, and the thought is terrifying.
He accepts defeat, temporarily at least, and heads back out into the corridor to call Mandy. She sounds way too cheerful when she answers, and it takes a whole lot of control for him not to just hang up.
"How's the repair coming?" he asks instead, and he can almost hear the eye roll in response.
"About half an hour further along than when you asked half an hour ago," she says drily. "A hell of a lot quicker if you'd stop calling for updates."
"I need a favour," he says. "Need you to go check out that Alliance ship. See if you can anything I can use on him."
"Like what? You hoping for holos of his friends and family? I don't think they do feelings Mick."
She's got a point. He's not sure what he's expecting from the ship either, only that if he goes much longer without a reaction he's going to lose his temper and he's not eager to find out what happens as a result.
"I don't fucking know, just something. Anything. Dude's like a robot, he's not even flinching."
"All right," she says. "Just let me finish up here and I'll run some diagnostics while I'm playing detective."
"Get Iggy down there to help," Mickey adds. It's not like their brother's busy anyway. Probably holed up in his bunk cleaning his guns. Mickey's fairly certain Iggy's given them names. "Keep an eye on the comms though."
"Sure," Mandy says, her voice dangerous. "You want me to stick a mech-sweeper up my ass while I'm at it?"
"Depends how clean this guy keeps his ship," Mickey retorts, but the joke falls flat and he's met with a tense silence.
"Hey Mandy," he says suddenly. "Um, thanks."
There's an awkward moment as Mandy takes in the rare acknowledgement.
"Whatever," she says eventually. "Shithead."
Mickey hangs up, and then gives his comm the finger for good measure. He paces up and down the corridor for a moment, trying to figure out what his next move should be. He hates it down here, finds it somehow darker, even more claustrophobic than the rest of the ship. It's worse than usual just now, the deafening sound of the engines that's usually unavoidable down here replaced with an eerie, still silence that sets his teeth on edge. It's the perfect place to hold a prisoner though, or at least as near as they're gonna get, away from all essential function and their own living space, limiting the amount of knowledge that can be picked up about them while he's trying to get all he can out of the soldier.
He's really wishing they hadn't taken that damn job.
He takes a deep breath, swipes his hand over his face, and then pushes back into the room to continue the questioning.
Mandy reckons this room was the captain's office back when the ship had more than the bare bones of a skeleton crew, and that the rooms back here were the crew's quarters, allowing the larger and better equipped rooms at the front of the ship to be used by paying passengers. That was a business idea that had never taken off once the Milkovich siblings had commandeered the ship, and so they'd taken the nicer quarters for themselves and left the ones back here fading into disrepair.
There's a desk in the far corner of the room, bolted to the floor with a chair either side, and the soldier's bound to it using a roll of electrical tape that Mickey had found on a shelf, probably left there by Mandy on one of her attempts at patching up broken bits of the ship. The soldier's obviously been taking a breather too, his face not quite as composed as it had been when Mickey had left the room, but as Mickey comes closer he manages to pull together a cold and unblinking stare which he unleashes full force on Mickey.
The first thing that had struck Mickey about the soldier, once he'd got him secured down here earlier, and strangely what strikes him again now even as he tries so clearly to intimidate Mickey, is how young he actually is.
He's not sure what he was expecting really—he's never seen one of them without a helmet before—but it certainly wasn't this; certainly wasn't someone who's barely more than a kid, barely older than Mandy.
(Of course, barely older than Mandy translates to barely younger than Mickey, but Mickey doesn't follow that thought through. It's been a long time since he thought of himself as young, and he's pretty sure he's never really been a kid. Terry had seen to that.)
Somehow that youth makes the soldier all the more disconcerting. It seems so incompatible with the emotionless expression on his face, his complete control over every tiny movement of his body, the way that even his breathing, almost unnoticeable, seems like it's more choice than bodily instinct, like each inhalation of breath is borne out of a conscious decision to stay alive. Like if he chose differently, he would have such strength of will to stop living, just like that.
Mickey almost envies him for it.
"Let's try this again," he says harshly. "You tell me what I want to know, and I won't have to hurt you."
The soldier doesn't even blink, green eyes boring holes into Mickey as if he can see right through him. Mickey's spine prickles.
"Have it your way," he says, his voice soft and menacing. His fist clenches at his side, and he wants to do it, he wants to.
Mickey Milkovich is not his father.
He makes it three paces down the corridor before he punches the wall.
Iggy's already down in the docking bay when Mandy gets there, apparently inspecting the gunship's weapons capacity.
"Took you long enough," he says when he spots her coming in.
"Fuck off," she responds, her voice scathing. "Some of us have got actual work to do."
Iggy shrugs. "I was working."
"Cleaning your stupid guns is a hobby, Ig. It's not work."
He shrugs again, grinning good naturedly. "You won't be saying that when they're saving your ass. You'll be thanking me for due diligence or whatever."
"Or whatever," she agrees. "C'mon, let's get this done. I got shit to be doing."
It's tight inside the ship, a space clearly designed for a pilot and not much else. She's not sure what Mickey's hoping they'll find in here, and it's no clearer for seeing the ship first hand. The tiny control deck, such as it is, is immaculate, and there's no immediate signs of any kind of personal items or any personality at all. Maybe Mickey was closer than he thought when he suggested the guy was a robot.
"This is weird," Iggy says from behind her. "Way too clean."
She nods her agreement, and turns her attention to the control panels. It's not immediately obvious what most of the functions are, and she carefully avoids touching anything. This thing could be capable of all sorts of shit.
"I don't even know why we're doing this," Iggy continues. "I say we just kill him."
Mandy barely looks up in response to Iggy's statement. "You think we should kill everyone," she says absently, focused on what she's pretty sure are the navigational controls. She pulls at the handle on the casing underneath, cursing when she yanks the flap down and all she finds are a mish mash of electrical wires leading into the front nose of the ship.
"I'm serious," Iggy insists, reaching out to hold the flap steady. "Shoot him in the head, float him out an air vent, we pick his ship for scraps and no one's any the wiser."
"That's sick," she informs him, pulling out her wire cutters. She adjusts the setting on the laser, and then pulls the wires out of the way of the casing at the back of the compartment. Iggy reaches in to take them out of her hand, and she guides his hand. "No, hold it like this or I'll take your hand off."
He moves his hand as instructed, continuing the conversation undeterred. "How's it sick? Not like he'd give any of us a chance in our position is it?"
"Because that's the standard we should be holding ourselves to," Mandy says drily, as she starts cutting into the metal. "It's a person," she continues. "Don't you care about that at all?"
"No," Iggy says bluntly. "That's not a person, Mandy, it's a threat. You can cry about it all you like, but sooner or later one of us is gonna need to put a bullet in him. I just don't see much point in waiting around for it."
Mandy stops, pulling back from under the control panel, and looks Iggy in the eye. "You really think you could do that? Just kill a guy in cold blood and be ok with it?"
"I know I can," Iggy says with surety. "I have."
Mandy's stomach turns. "Well, do you think Mickey can?"
That shuts him up. Iggy's face is suddenly serious, his mouth a thin, tense line.
"Because you know that's how it'll be," she presses. "That if he decides to kill him, he'll see it as on him. You think he can be ok with that, after everything?"
There's a moment of quiet as they both think back a few years, back to Terry and the resistance and escalating violence. Back to when Iggy killed people without blinking and was almost…someone else.
"Ok," Iggy says gruffly, breaking the silence. "Well if we're not going to kill him, what do you suggest? All hold hands and make friends?"
"No," she retorts, rolling her eyes and dragging the o sound out to make it clear that that much should be obvious. "Let's just wait and see what Mickey comes up with first. Shit." The last word comes as she finishes disconnecting the wires. The result leaves her none the wiser as to what any of them do, and certainly doesn't throw any light on their prisoner.
"This one's weapons I think," Iggy says from above her, and she pulls her head back out of the navigational array and looks at where he's pointing.
"Yeah I'd say so," she agrees. "Not sure that helps though." She's pretty sure intel isn't the reason Iggy's so interested in the weapons panel, and half of her's starting to think that maybe them having a defensive capability isn't such a bad plan. It had been a close call today, and she can feel the anxiety seeping out of both of her brothers as a result.
Mandy's caught herself thinking before that out of all of them, Iggy got the better end of the deal. He'd always seemed so comfortable in Terry's wake, so unaffected by everything. It's times like this that she realises it's the opposite, that Terry got to Iggy first out of all of them and that so many times he had taken on much more than his fair share of Terry's expectation and with it so much more of the consequences too. She's seen the scars, from the prison camp, the adult one that Mickey never had to endure. She's seen the scars from Terry too, even though those ones are much harder to pick out. Something in the way Iggy moves sometimes. The way his hand shakes, just a little. The way he's all too happy to take orders from Mickey.
The way he values his guns above all else.
"I can look into some defences, if you want," she says suddenly. "I'm not promising anything, the ship wasn't really designed for—"
"Thanks," Iggy says quietly, running his hands lightly over the panel. "It's cool though. I know we're supposed to be low profile."
"Maybe a shield though? This ship might have something I could work from."
His trademark grin slots back in place. "Yeah. I bet you can Mands. I wonder if—"
He's cut off by a sudden alarm on the left hand panel, shrill and constant with accompanying red lights.
Iggy curses, and Mandy waves her hand at him.
"Shh," she hisses, her eyes flicking over what she'd already assumed would be the comms display. "It's some sort of tracking beacon." She grabs her hand-held out of her bag, and taps in a few commands. Her heart sinks. "It's on all channels," she says flatly. "Everyone can see it. It must be set to go off automatically when the ship's been out of contact for too long."
"I don't give a shit why it's going off," Iggy interjects. "We need get that thing turned off before they come looking."
"You got any bright ideas?" she shoots back. "Didn't think so. If it's an auto-response, then the beacon itself gotta be hidden somewhere on the ship. There's no way we can find it in time." Her mind's moving too fast for her words to keep up, matching solutions with problems and then new solutions and then— Of course.
"Well," she says. "Let's just hope Mickey didn't kill him yet."
"Ok," Mickey says when Mandy tells him.
"Ok? You think you can get him to—"
"I'll make it work," he says, although he's got no idea how. He hasn't been back in there since he punched the wall, having opted instead to wait until Mandy got back to him with something tangible he could use as leverage.
This wasn't what he'd been hoping for, but that doesn't mean it's useless either. He flexes his fist, uses the pain throbbing through his knuckles to focus his thoughts away from the pain in his head.
"Right then," she says. "Just make it quick."
"Never mind me," he retorts. "Just get the damn engines on."
"Already on it," she says sweetly, and then she hangs up. Mickey mutters something uncharitable under his breath, and then stalks back towards the office, pulling his plan together as he goes.
"Well then," he says when he re-enters the room. "Looks like you got yourself a little problem."
Nothing. The soldier doesn't even acknowledge Mickey's presence in the room.
"See, that ship of yours is making a little call home. Reckon they don't like their toys being out of reach for too long."
Still nothing.
Mickey perseveres. He's got his angle, and he's going to work it to its conclusion. "Now, see the trouble is that out here, it's not your people who are gonna come looking. That thing's out on all channels, so before you know it, there's gonna be bounty hunters fighting over that ship. And over you."
There's a flicker on the soldier's face. Barely there, but there all the same.
"And see, I reckon that it's not gonna look all too good if you end up going home in a bounty hunter's brig. I think there's a word for people that happens to. Bet they won't think too much of you then."
The soldier swallows, and then he blinks, and Mickey feels a little jolt of triumph.
"Now, I'm willing to do you a deal. I'm a nice guy like that. You go back down to that docking bay, and you disarm that tracker. And then you tell us what we need to know. And in return, you can come along with us until we find a place to drop you off."
There's a moment of quiet, and Mickey almost folds, almost declares the whole thing a lost cause. And then, the soldier speaks for the first time.
"If I don't?"
His voice isn't quite what Mickey expected. It has all the trademarks of the few Alliance soldiers he's dealt with in the past—the careful, deliberate placement of words, as if each one's a choice with potential consequences; the slightly mocking, superior edge to the tone like the whole thing's a waste of his energy—but there's something else there this time. A hint of uncertainty, vulnerability even. As if Mickey's somehow finally struck a nerve.
"If you don't," he says, trying to keep his own voice just as careful and calm, "then we cripple your ship and strip it for parts, and we leave it and you out here for the bounty hunters to find." He shrugs. "Makes no odds to me."
It's a lie, or half a one at least.
There's another moment, and then—
"I'll do it."