Chapter 5: Nitty Gritty
A/N: Finally, we can get to the nitty gritty in Oblivia (emphasis on gritty). Speedy suffers yet more environmental abuse and unwanted grabbing.
Swears, and more EXTREME skell geekery. Sorry, it's mostly Alexa's head, that really is all there is to offer. More comfortable than Doug's, right?
All the really wonderful stuff belongs to the geniuses of MONOLITHSOFT.
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Sylvalum was perfection itself. The rising energy mist hit just as they arrived, and Alexa was gratified to see the fuel levels push back towards full. As far as she could measure it, Speedy refueled just as quickly as other skells of its weight class. Even when she pushed it to true maximum speed, it still gained, although only fractionally. Brilliant. The client would be pleased, the dev team would be pleased, and more importantly, she wouldn't have to run home for refueling until mid morning. The remains of the night were still hers to play in.
And Doug's, she supposed. He'd been quite a good sport about all the repeated dead drops from flight. He'd even cracked a joke. Not a great one, but she was willing to give it some respect. Not quite a joke, because she really did want to see if Speedy could fly in anything but the regulation position. Which, however, she was not going to try, at least not right now. There was a list of tests yet to run, and no matter how shiny the new idea was, she had to get through the regular old tests. Regular old fun fun FUN tests, which made it easier to bear.
She'd mostly practiced more land speed on the silvery white territory of Sylvalum. Both on ground and Lake Ciel. That last part was a little nerve racking. Alexa knew how tender some of the lake indigens were about proximity. And if she wasn't aware of it, Doug was awake now, and ready to reel out encounter rates and average damage. She tuned him out. No need to convince her to be careful about what she was steering toward, around, and most often away from. The last thing she needed was a coronid stomping on them with their abnormally tiny hooves. Well, tiny for a thing that out-sized and possibly out-weighed a milesaur.
She ran and re-ran Speedy through the list. Start, check. Brake, check. Right, left, checkity check. Still did that weird pirouette when shifting from really fast to normal while making a sharp turn. Didn't that surprise Dougie!
Finally, she opened up the throttle for as long a stretch as she could manage, up and down the gentle dunes, and was pleased that the fuel consumption was barely noticeable. That was it for the list. She needed to pause to make some more notes in her log. She parked Speedy on a fairly safe outcropping, and settled in to responding to all the checkpoints.
Doug kept silent. At times, she thought he dozed off again, but, no, every time she checked, he was awake. After she finished her log, he finally spoke.
"Can we go home now?"
Alexa sighed. Wow, he really was as boring as his date had said. "Really? You are in the fastest skell on Mira, and you want to go home?"
"I could use some sleep before I have to go out on today's missions."
"You can sleep some more in the skell."
"I'm awake now."
"You'll be awake if we go home."
"Maybe not if I could, I dunno, actually go to bed. In an actual bed."
"Whiney whine whine, Doug. I'll get you home for breakfast. I should be able to find somebody else by then." She smiled at Doug, and patted his arm. He shrugged.
"So, I guess Cauldros is next, right?"
Alexa laughed. "Buzz. Man, Doug, you win the trifecta of so-wrong-prizes."
"Not Cauldros?" For once, he sounded almost cheerful.
"Definitely not. This darling is super weak to all things thermal. The developers know it, Sakuraba knows it, we all know it. Let's not accidentally melt it to test that."
"Not much good if it's that weak."
"Speedy is awesome," she said defensively. "It's just not ready for that kind of challenge. Just like I am not going up against a coronid in it."
"Ugh. Evil headless monster reindeers."
"Exactly. I don't need to prove anything against lava, Doug. They'll work on the armor once they're satisfied with the engine. Personally, I am very satisfied. Mmmmmmm so good."
"Sheesh, stop drooling, Alexa. So, back to Primordia?" he asked hopefully.
"Can Harriers not count? One two four five! What did I skip?"
Doug shifted uncomfortably in the cramped seat. "Fine, but is there a chance we can stop and let me stretch my legs? I swear I can't feel my feet."
"I know a great spot. Just hang on."
She shifted into flight, lifting first straight and then smoothly towards Oblivia. Speedy responded just as willingly as it had all night long. She checked the fuel and decided to go big. She'd floor it until they reached their destination, a little look-out spot that thrilled her whenever she had a chance to visit. Safe, too, so Doug could get out and stomp around a bit without looking over his shoulder.
Speedy ate up the distance between the two continents, and she could see the beaches of Oblivia rushing towards them. She kept the skell low at first, enjoying skimming over the waves. When they hit land, she noticed how smoothly Speedy transitioned to rolling form, but she didn't keep it that way for long. She let the skell rise up, at a gentle angle, but only a little, because she was determined to shoot straight through the Big Arch. Through, not over.
That she did. Then, because she couldn't help but show off a little, she curved along the nameless river towards the falls. "Watch this," she said to Doug.
Straight into the water (condensation be damned), then a sharp and dramatic shot upwards, through the cascades, bursting into the sky at the top. The vicious patrolling thingies, the ones that looked like tiny planes (for the life of her, Alexa could never remember their name), did not know what had just flashed past them.
"Sweet, right?"
"Yup. Now let's put down at Dorian Caravan."
But Alexa wasn't settling for half measures. She twirled with the skell higher and higher, looping in shifting circles. She wanted to see sunrise from Mount Edge Peak, because her first night with Speedy merited that kind of conclusion.
"Alexa. Put down at the Caravan. Do that cannonball thing, and let's land."
She shook her head. Doug didn't know what she had in store, or he'd never argue. She ignored him.
"Alexa. We need to land. Now." His voice had shifted from mildly whining to coldly insistent. Alexa finally paid a fraction of attention.
"Doug, it'll be worth it. Just hold on a minute or so more…"
He wasn't wasting words. "On your right. Sandstorm. Big, bad, fast. Set it down."
She turned in the indicated direction, and saw it. She knew that Sylvalum could be lost under blizzards, but the sandstorms of Oblivia were more like annoying and gritty fog. Except this one was different. A solid wall of sand, reaching above the Giant Ring, already eating up most of the Aaroy Plain. Around them, the pre-dawn light was dimming, and the wind was making sharp squeaks.
There wasn't time to climb all the way to the peak, and the lower areas were fairly sheer. Luckily, she was looping wide enough that there was another option. She steered out further from the lake, from the peak, towards Floating Reef.
"What are you doing, Alexa?" Doug sounded truly worried.
"We've got enough time. We can outrun it. I think."
"You think?" Doug was twisting in the seat to keep an eye on the storm. "It's moving faster than you realize."
"Speedy can do it, can't you, baby?" She pushed the skell forward, but she was beginning to fear that Doug was right. She kept her gaze focused on the floating island, with its dangling scarf of waterfall and several sheltered platforms.
Then Speedy coughed.
Their velocity dropped almost instantly to normal. Fast normal, but still normal. Not the kind of speed they'd need to escape the storm. Speedy was still handling correctly, but the increased wind and weight of sand was making that not quite good enough. And visibility was definitely reduced, to put it mildly. Oh lord, they were going to slam into the side of the reef if she couldn't manage it better.
"Down! Now!" shouted Doug.
"Wait…"
Doug didn't wait. He reached over, grabbed her hands, and forced the controls into descent. She saw the tip of the reef flash by them on the left, then they plowed into the edge of a pool. Success! Until they went over the edge, and Speedy started Death Spiral: The Oblivia Edition.
She put Speedy in and out of cannonball, and as soon as she did, Doug shoved the controls forward and slightly to the right. He'd never actually let go of her hands during this disaster. She'd be really angry about this, later. Right now, she decided not to fight, to see what he intended.
The skell slammed into another level, partially hidden by the waterfall, slid off that edge as well, partly because of momentum, partly because of the ever rising wind, and then landed, for good, on a third, rather small open space, well tucked beneath the bulk of the reef.
Alexa didn't need a hint. She popped Speedy into slow, then park, then shut the darling down. The cab would have been silent except for the slight ticking of the engine and the solid whistling of the wind.
She twisted in her seat to glare at Doug. "What was that?"
"Me getting us down. You're welcome."
"I could kill you."
"Yeah, well, you have that chance now. I repeat, you're welcome."
Alexa turned back to the control panel. She turned on minimal power, and took as many readings as were available. There were a lot of them. She started her log again, listing them off, describing the way Speedy had handled, and most importantly marking the exact time Speedy had failed. To the second. Because, yes, she had made a note of it.
"I'm done. Do you want to get out now?"
"Still mad at me?"
"Yup. So, do you want to get out?"
"Sure."
They exited the skell. Alexa was glad to. She didn't like being that close to someone she was that angry at, and besides with the engine shut down the cab was getting a little stuffy. Outside, they landed on moist mossy green. A few saltat danced and preened over by the edge of the shelf, but they weren't too interested in the humans. The area was almost dark from the storm.
Doug stomped around, shaking his legs. He looked wobbly and uncomfortable. "Can't feel them for beans. Why the hell is there no jump seat?"
"You couldn't have been all macho hero grabby control guy from a jump seat."
"I've flown in these storms. I know to get down. And I have NEVER seen something this bad. Well, the good news is, the worse it is, the shorter it lasts."
Alexa shrugged.
"Now what?" Doug asked her.
"Why are you asking me?"
"This is your party."
"Hmmph. My party is fun fun flying around, not stuck on an impossible island. Which is what we are."
"Stuck? Do you mean it?" Doug looked genuinely worried. "So, are we going to need to put up a flare?" He did not sound happy at all about that option.
"Well, I'm not putting Speedy up until I get a real good look at the engine, and I'm not doing that until this storm is over. Just what I need, open the hood and have a couple liters of sand blow into it."
"So temporarily stuck."
"I'm going to take a nap."
"What?"
Alexa was already up in the cab, rummaging around for the tiny emergency pack. Bingo, shiny space blanket, oooh so modern. She slid down from the skell and curled up at its feet. "Wake me when it's clear," she ordered Doug, and instantly fell asleep. She didn't even notice when, a few minutes later, Doug slumped down next to her and fell asleep too.