Author's Note:

And now for a serving of action with a side of plot (Would you like fries with that?)

Chapter 16: Hotter than Hell

Silver sat down with his serving of dinner in the mess hall. He predicted that it would only be moments before someone demanded that he should tell one of his tales.

But something was a little out of place in the mess hall. He examined the tables and found the source.

Ariah and Jim were sitting side by side at their table. For once Ariah looked like she was enjoying herself. Usually she sulked in the corner, half-asleep until he began telling one of his stories. Jim too was bright-eyed and merry, something that Silver hadn't seen during the entire voyage.

Lastly, from what John Silver could tell, aside from the odd absence of a certain crimson arachnid, was that Ariah and Jim were acting unusually close. Not the same closeness between the two teenagers as friends, but something a little closer.

"Oi Silver!" Birdbrain Mary screeched across the mess hall. "How 'bout another tale, to keep us up and at 'em?" She demanded, narrowing her bright black eyes.

Silver smirked, finished the last bit of his dinner, and stood up from the bench.

After dinner and Silver's energetically performed tale, the crew filed out of the mess hall to head off to bed.

Ariah stayed behind to give a helping hand around the galley before Silver casually shooed her out, stating that she wasn't letting Jim have his share of work.

The young sailor laughed at the cyborg's comment and reluctantly left the mess hall, but not without merrily a wishing the two men a good night. Ariah climbed out of the lower decks, taking a little nightly stroll among the stars.

The female sailor gently stretched her arms in front of her and walked up to the bow of the RLS Legacy. She leaning against the wooden railing before the bow's netting and calmly looked out at the vast galaxies surrounding her.

A gentle breeze circulated the upper deck, cooling down the atmosphere of the ship, until it was almost sleepy-like. The millions of stars around the Legacy twinkled brilliantly.

While in near-meditation, Ariah didn't notice two burning, golden eyes behind her narrow and focus on her as a dark shadow soundlessly crept up to the main deck.

She didn't notice anything -except the calm environment she stood in- until it was ripped from her by a pair of crimson pincers as Scroop pulled her back into the shadows by her bare shoulders.

"Jimbo..." Silver carved the skin off a vegetable and placed it in a storage barrel.

"Yeah, Silver?" Jim looked up from the tableware he was tediously washing.

"I don't mean teh impose on yer own business…" Silver rubbed the back of his neck with his human hand. "But," Silver paused and looked over Jim. "Is there somethin' goin' on between yeh an' Ariah?"

Jim shrugged his shoulders. "Define 'something'." He stated.

Silver chuckled. "Oh, I reckon yeh know what I mean by somethin', Jimbo." His eyes twinkled daringly.

"Well." Jim stacked the plate he had finished drying on the counter behind him. "I guess you could call it that." He shrugged.

Silver raised an eyebrow suspiciously.

"Now, it's nothing that serious." Jim waved his hands in front of him. "It's just-" Jim was a little lost of words. He smiled weakly and nonchalantly rubbed the back of his neck.

Silver calmly rose to his feet. "Jimbo…" He looked down at the brunette teenager frankly. "Ariah trusts yeh." He stated. "I can tell 'cause I've known her so long." He sighed. "But she hasn't tried lettin' herself trust anyone since-" He looked away gravely.

"Since when?" Jim enquired.

The older sailor cleared his throat. "Never yeh mind, Jimbo." Silver lumbered down the aisle between tables in the mess hall, towards the steps leading to the upper deck.

"Since…" Jim glanced up at the cyborg's back. "The Smarmy Jerk?" Jim asked quietly.

Silver stopped at the base of the steps. "She told yeh 'bout Ortona?" He asked, surprised.

"Uh." Jim stood from his dishwashing stool. "She… didn't give me a name."

"Aye." Silver turned around. "I can see why." He rubbed his chin. "She never did like sayin' his real name, after what he did teh her."

"What did he do to her?" Jim asked, looking up at Silver with concerned curiosity.

Just as Silver was about to answer, the two men heard a familiar yelp of pain coming from the upper deck. It was Ariah.

"Damn that hurt." Ariah cursed as she wiped her bleeding cheek. Scroop's pincers were much sharper than most would anticipate, and they had sliced through he skin easily.

The arachnid grasped Ariah from behind and threw her against the mainmast. Ariah's bare right shoulder smashed against the wood of the mainmast and she tried to steady herself back onto her feet. Before she could do anything, Scroop grasped her by the neck and bashed her already injured shoulder against the mainmast a choice few times.

Ariah desperately fought for the ability to breath, trying not to show weakness against her opponent. She managed to prop her elbow against the mainmast, giving her a concrete stance, and then she let her other fist come down hard on the inside of Scroop's elbow.

The enraged arachnid released Ariah immediately, allowing her to fall quite the distance to the main deck while he reeled back. Ariah hit the deck with a loud crash, and let out a short gasp as pain shot up the side upon which she had landed.

The young woman fought between the choice of: retreating and screaming for help, or fighting and getting more injuries than she already had. Ariah had little time to decide once she pulled herself to her feet.

Scroop lunged himself at Ariah from the shadows, pinning her back first against the railing of the ship. The female sailor cried out in pain. Scroop knew exactly where to hit, because he knew where her most tender wounds were.

Ariah elbowed Scroop in the side of the head as hard as she could, though it was difficult as she was still pinned against the railing.

The crimson alien screeched and rolled away from the female sailor, back into the seclusion of the shadows. Ariah panted from exhaustion, stepping away from the railing.

It was one thing to fight anyone by daylight; but it was quite another thing to fight a considerably stronger, angrier, and faster alien -in the dark- on the main deck of a moving ship. Ariah straightened up and listened closely through the unnerving darkness. She was in much pain from the fight, and was trying to keep her eyes from watering so she wouldn't be caught unguarded.

Without warning, Scroop pounced at Ariah once more, but the young woman was ready and managed to leap out of the way.

Scroop flew past her, almost soaring overboard the RLS Legacy. But the crimson arachnid grasped the railing agilely with his pincers, spun around and launched himself at the suddenly unprepared sailor.

Ariah was pinned to the deck by the enraged alien's weight, the breath knocked out of her lungs by the force of the hit. Scroop's body pinned down Ariah's torso while his slim red and black legs closed around her in a cage-like manner. The young woman felt utterly trapped and was trying to struggle for freedom.

"Ariah and Cabin Boy." Scroop spat viciously. The tips of his red pincers pointed threateningly at Ariah's throat. "Ariah and Cabin Boy." His bulging golden eyes glowed in fury, and Ariah froze up in terror for a moment.

The young sailor had never seen her best friend consumed by such anger ever before. A passing thought flew by in her mind; she was going to die… her best friend was going to kill her, here and now.

Determined not to go down without a proper fight, Ariah yelled and kicked Scroop as hard as she could. The toe of her dark leather boot hit mostly thick black and red exoskeleton –unlikely doing much damage to the enraged alien- but she managed to throw Scroop off of her. The red arachnid stumbled back a few steps before preparing to hurdle himself at Ariah.

The black-haired teenager quickly got up onto her feet and grabbed something that was poking her from the back pocket of her trousers. She pulled it out and pointed it threateningly at Scroop's torso.

It was a laser pistol. Scroop froze where he stood.

Ariah panted, scared out of her wits and still brandishing the pistol.

"What's going on up here?" A sharp voice demanded from the aft.

Ariah and Scroop looked over and seen the entire crew looking at them. Captain Amelia and Mister Arrow stood at the front of the crowd, both holding out laser pistols at Ariah.

"Miss Clarke." Mister Arrow said in a cautioned tone. "You've been already warned that there is no brawling permitted on this ship." He paused and aimed the large barrel of his gun at her. "And of the consequences of failing to adhere to these regulations."

Ariah sighed and lowered her laser pistol from its aim at Scroop's torso.

"Miss Clarke." Captain Amelia frowned. "Disarm yourself or I won't hesitate to end your occupation as a sailor on my ship." The feline spacer narrowed her light blue eyes dangerously. She meant business.

Ariah cast her copper-brown eyes at the laser pistol. She took a deep breath and loosened her death grip on the weapon. Ariah turned off the ammunition charger on the laser pistol and dropped it to the deck.

The metal of the laser pistol clattered as it contacted the wood of the deck, then Ariah kicked the weapon aside with a quick sweep of her boot.

Ariah looked back up at her two superiors, who had cautiously put their pistols back into their belt's holsters.

"Come along, Miss Clarke." Mister Arrow beckoned to the female teenager.

Ariah half-heartedly shuffled beside the two commanders. She couldn't meet their eyes, much less any of her crewmember's eyes. She walked down to the lower decks, to the confines of the RLS Legacy's brig...

Captain Amelia sighed. "I'm truly disappointed in you Miss Clarke." She closed the barred door and locked Ariah's cell in the brig. "I was dearly hoping that you would be different from the rest of your crewmembers." She put away the cell's key in a pocket of her blue coat and walked back to her personal quarters.

"Yeah… so was I." Ariah stated bluntly. She turned away from the barred door and sat down on the small bench attached to the cell's wooden wall. Even the brig was shiny, much like the rest of the ship.

A small barred window filtered the starlight's gentle evening rays down on her from the ceiling of the cell, which was the main deck above her.

The caged sailor lightly touched her hand against the wall of the cell. It was damp from condensation. She looked around the cell and notice the entrance to the boiler room just a few doors down the narrow hallway of the lower deck.

Ariah sighed, wiping the last drops of dried blood from her cheek. Tomorrow, it'll be hotter than hell in here, she speculated.

Suddenly the young sailor groaned, her hands balling into fists as a painful spasm overcame her body.

Since the adrenaline rush from fighting Scroop had warn off, all of the pain that she had hardly felt during the battle, coursed through her body.

The tears that she had been holding back, of pain and fear, slipped from her copper-brown eyes and descended down her cheeks.

She wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and cry her self to sleep… and that's just what she did.

Author's Note:

Thanks again to Whisperwings for betaing this chapter in such short time.

MG#6