Feb. 7th, 2286(Mid-2182 CE)
Milky Way, Exodus Cluster, Asgard System, Terra Nova.
Bryan Wilkes had long ago learned that if you were to have weight with the dames, you needed to project a constant and ever-present image of excellence. A girl wasn't going to be swept off her feet by humility, nor by small displays of charm. You needed to overwhelm them with your best and never, ever let them know of your worst. Sure, a girl wouldn't find anything wrong with you if you were quiet and unassuming; but she would never find anything right with you, either.
And to sweep a girl off her feet, to woe her, particularly with speed, you needed to take every good characteristic you had and cram it directly down her throat. Maybe even add a few qualities you didn't have for good measure. Preferably in a way that didn't make it look like you were deliberately showing off.
Women liked their man's charm and confidence to be effortless. It was a profoundly difficult blend of subtlety and audacity that took years to master. 'And if women really wanted men to tell the truth, they wouldn't make it so damn hard,' was his and Sticky's motto when pursuing the fairer sex.
Bryan knew all of this. Had excepted it as gospel truth. His unwitting success with Sally had been one of the few breaks from that never-ending line that he could look back and track through every single one of his relationships: If you wanted to get the girl, you needed to give one-hundred and ten percent and never slack off. Never break the spell you cast.
Probably, that was why he found her so special. With her, the happiness was effortless. She made it easy for him to be the best he could be. With her, the effort he put in was because he wanted to and not because she demanded it as a toll before he could have what he truly wanted.
But he still tried his best to project an image that he could be proud of. Old habits die hard. Which was why he was currently slouched into the leather seats of the Falcon dropship, make-believing to the outside world that he was as calm and collected as a cucumber, while Sally threw the aircraft through the sky like a child with a toy airplane.
The orange glow of re-entry had only just faded from the front visor of the Falcon as Sally put it into a steep dive through the clouds, weaving through the thick haze as if they were obstacles on a race-course, sending the advanced aircraft through sharp turns and gut-wrenching banking swoops that made him feel like his genitals were retracting into his body to protect themselves from imminent danger.
Inside, he was screaming like a little girl.
Outside, he cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice level as he made conversation.
"You handle her like a professional!"
There was no need to shout. The both of them had headsets on, connected to the brand-new Pip-Boys that were strapped to their wrists. Everything they said was transmitted direct into one another's ears. But shouting was the only way he could keep his voice from squeaking like a mouse confronted with the all-important reality of the cat.
"Thanks, Bryan! That's sweet!"
Sally smiled sideways at him as she banked to the side in order to avoid a flight of winged reptiles that burst from the cloud cover to their right, almost plastering themselves on the outside of their aircraft.
Bryan's stomach did flip-flops in his boots.
A Vertibird, he could handle. This, however?
"She seems to handle different from a Vertibird!" He said in a raised, yet conversational voice over the comms.
"I know, right?!" Sally exclaimed, now looking at him almost as much as she did the outside world.
Bryan suddenly deeply regretted opening his mouth, despite his internal drive to keep pressing home his advantage, to keep her entertained with a constant barrage of compliments, flirtatious exchanges and witty remarks, so that she wouldn't grow bored of him and find someone with a little less baggage to shack-up with.
He gulped internally as she started pressing down on the flight controls, sending them down in a gradual vertical dive that was growing steeper by the second.
"The Zeta always handles like a giant tub, kinda floating in water, you know? Everything is splashy because of the vacuum of space and the size of the ship. The Recon Craft are more or less like throwing a frisbee. At least when you take her into atmo. Point it and let go, but don't expect to move in tight turns. And don't even get me started on Vertibirds. They're like flying a locomotive. See these?"
She took her hands off the controls of the aircraft, making his eyes almost bug out of his skull as she pulled back her jumpsuit sleeves to show him her arms, admittedly more muscular and defined than most women her age. He could only barely appreciate them, so concerned was he with the fact that they were pointed nose down to the ground splayed out in miniature far below them, while the controls were left momentarily unattended.
"These are just from test-flying Vertibirds. Keeping those VTOLs steady up here is like wrestling mutants."
His rational mind wanted to scream at her to take the controls and stop being so damn cavalier.
His dick told him to shut the fuck up and not ruin their chances with this girl.
As always, he listened to his dick.
"I bet you're a wizard with all of them; none of the pilots we have in the Tunnel Snakes handle these quite like you do."
And he was telling the truth. Only the best Brotherhood pilots, men and women who had been around when the Lone Wanderer first destroyed Raven Rock and seized control of the stores of Vertibirds stored on the makeshift landing pads around the precious facility, could boast of being better. But not by much.
Sally had benefitted from having aerial experience with a number of wildly differing platforms. And from an age where her brain had still been developing and could easily adapt and pick up new skills. She had grown into an almost savant-like proficiency with anything with wings, rotors or jet engines.
Or whatever this Falcon dropship had. It was hard to tell.
"Ohh, stop it," she waved him off, blushing a deep cherry red underneath her open-faced flight helmet.
She finally pulled them leisurely out of the dive, banking hard right towards the opposite end of the valley. The Falcon came around at speed, pulling a substantial amount of g-force that slammed Bryan back in his seat. His eyes, outwardly unconcerned, but inwardly fearing for his life and that of his girl, paid attention to her oddly fixed expression and the deep breaths that she purposefully took to keep her blood/oxygen levels high in the face of crushing pressure.
As the nose of the Falcon came around and the forces eased off, her breathing became easier, less obviously pre-planned and structured. She stretched herself minutely, as much as her flight harness would allow, to get her blood flowing to her lower extremities again.
"I love that feeling," Sally commented. Not in her typical, sweetly enthusiastic fashion, but with a straight-faced seriousness that conveyed to Bryan that, of all things he could take away from their conversations together, he best remember this particular sentiment.
Sally loved flying. As fervently as Letters loved his son Luke. Or Latchkey loved explosions. Or Sarge loved Jazz and Blues music. It was a passion. The kind that was so consuming that it shaped a person's life around it, rather than be shaped by the will of them who experienced it.
The two humans spied the billowing clouds on the horizon at around the same time, peering through the windscreen at the moving wall of fury, crackling with electricity and boiling like a whirlpool.
"Zeta, this is Falcon One. Come in, Zeta. I've made entry to the atmosphere," Sally called into her transmitter as she set her nose away from the cloudbank on the far horizon and set course for their destination.
"I see the storm front moving in from the south-west. Listen, have the team at the Bunker locked the place down? That stormfront is going to reach them any second if I read my instruments right."
"Falcon One, this is Zeta Control," the sonorous voice of Jason Bright answered them through the comms channel.
As the closest thing to a leader that the ghoul astronauts who had volunteered to accompany the Zeta Expedition had, it was he who took on the role of director of flight operations and thus, kept an ever-watchful eye on the business of his pilots.
Sally was the only pilot of his that wasn't one of his followers, and while this might have meant a certain amount of distance should have built up between her and the rest of her fellow pilots, it had not been the case. All four of them had bonded over their love of aeronautics like old friends.
"I have enquired the same of the Lone Wanderer. They have the matter well in hand, young one. Focus on picking up our fellow followers of the Journey from the other end of the valley. They were conducting some manner of weapons testing, so they will have cargo to load into the Falcon."
"How many passengers, Mr. Jason?"
"Thirteen."
Sally whistled, "Thirteen, plus three crew and cargo? I haven't done a flight with that many before. Are these birds good for it?"
"Augustine says they are and he would be the one most willing to find the limits of what Christopher's creations are capable of. Do not worry, Sally. You will be fine. Tell me when you touch down and take back off. Stay safe. Zeta Control, out."
The pilot sucked her lower lip for a moment, then proceeded forwards with her task. She was talented and competent, but young and rightly afraid of failure. It showed in the set of her shoulders, the tightness of her jaw.
"Hey, Captain Cosmos."
She looked sideways at Bryan, who gave her a self-assured nod, still outwardly unconcerned with the entire situation. "You fly a spaceship, Sal. You got this."
Sally smiled and straightened up in her seat, her dirty-blonde hair sneaking out from under her flight helmet. She flashed him a confident smile, "Of course I got this. But the first time is always awkward, you know?"
"Sure," he said.
She caught the toneless lack of inflection that he used and smiled at him with a mock-scandalised expression, "Not like that! God, your mind is always down in the gutter, isn't it?"
"Hey, I didn't say squat," he chuckled with a knowing look, "You went there first."
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Don't listen to him, Sal. I taught him that tone of voice. He's leading you into it," Sticky said from the back of the Falcon.
They had almost forgotten about him in the descent from the orbiting Zeta, so quiet was he. Bryan felt momentarily guilty, knowing that the bulkhead hatchway between the pilots cabin and the cargo hold of the Falcon was seal shut. Sticky was all alone back there, suffering through the feelings of isolation and withdrawal that Tunnel Snakes went through when they were separated from others of their kind.
"Bullshit," he reposted, "I taught you that move."
"You sure?" Sticky said in the same toneless voice.
"Hell yeah, I taught you that move. I had more game at fourteen than you have now, bub. Never forget, I know where you really got that nickname 'Sticky'; and it weren't because you steal a few caps here and there, either."
"Ohh, really?"
"Yeah," Bryan said with the self-assurance of a far older man.
"You the man?"
"I am the man!"
"You the playboy, stacking bodies and breaking hearts?"
"Most definitely!"
"Say it louder so your girlfriend can hear!"
Bryan opened his mouth, then paled as he realised how that exchange might sound to the girl he was currently in love with. He realised, right then, that he had been played.
"Ouff," Sticky heckled from the back row of the Falcon, "The student has surpassed the master. Whose teaching who again?"
Bryan chanced a contrite, cautious look at Sally from out the corner of his eyes. She seemed somewhat crestfallen to have something that she somewhat suspected about Bryan already, be confirmed in such a blunt, open-handed manner.
"Hey," Bryan said softly, "I'm done with all that. You're the last girl I ever want to be with."
Sally looked at him and seemed to gaze right through his manufactured image of confidence and self-assurance to what lay beneath. He had no idea how what she saw in him made her feel. He did know that his soul squirmed under her gaze. He felt smaller when she looked at him like that.
"Hey, Wilkes! Do me a favour and check your pockets!"
Bryan blinked at Sticky's sudden request and felt inside his two front pockets, coming up with only the usual number of knick-knacks and tools that he habitually carried with him. His switchblade, his new DOPE book that Boone had advised him to carry, his pencil nubs and eraser…
"Left leg, lower front pouch," Sticky advised him. How he knew that Bryan wasn't already looking in that pocket was another one of the mysteries that Sticky deliberately cultivated around himself, in order to keep his image fresh and interesting. Bryan didn't question how he knew, as that would only make Sticky more insufferable.
Instead, he checked the pocket and pulled out a slip of paper covered in crossed out words and cobbled sentences. He instantly recognised what it was and made to hide it back in his pocket.
"Don't let him hide that piece of paper, doll. You need to see it!"
Sally glanced sideways in shock at Sticky's sudden declaration, the urgency in his voice. She reached for the paper, her pilots reflexes bringing her fingers within a hair's breadth of the crumpled sheet; but Bryan was a sniper and had his own set of finely tuned reaction times, lying in wait for a moment of sudden, urgent need.
The fact that he was genetically enhanced didn't hurt, either.
When the paper vanished back into his pocket with his hand jammed on top, Sally resorted to blackmail.
"Let me see that, Bryan."
"No way, no how, doll."
"Let me see it or no cuddling for a month."
Bryan looked truly crestfallen at the prospect but held his ground with grim certainty. In the face of a man who had known death and destruction on a truly great scale since his early, pre-pubescent years, Sally brought out the big guns without hesitation.
"I will crash this thing into the ground and kill all three of us, Bryan," Sally stated firmly, edging the flight-stick forwards and to the ground, the nose of the aircraft tilting alarmingly towards the floor of the heavily wooded forest below.
"Okay! Okay, it isn't what you think."
Bryan hastily pulled out the sheet and flattened it out against his leg. Sally snatched it and held it out in front of her, not yet bothering to reverse their sudden and rapid descent towards the ground.
She looked at the sheet and tried to make sense of the heavily edited and crossed out contents. It looked like the kind of scribbling that she had done in pre-school before the Great War.
There were words, frequently misspelled in atrociously bad handwriting, that she could make out.
Badly utilised similes and nonsensical metaphors to do with open skies and glittering stars, love and flying free like a bird. Some vague allisions to marksmanship and gun maintenance, the writer had attempted to play with before abandoning it to be replaced by several crossed out references to killing for the sake of one another.
It was all incredibly disjointed. Sally peered at it as Bryan sat frozen in the seat, trying not to look out the front windscreen at the tops of the trees, coming ever closer.
"It's little Bryan's first attempt at poetry. Let me tell you this, Sal: If anyone had told me a month ago that Bryan would spend two hours sitting at a desk, failing to write poetry for some girl, I would have laughed in their face. He knows he can't write poetry. But last night, he spent two hours chicken-scratching that travesty on a scrap of the Lettersman's spare requisition forms."
Sally stared at the paper, entranced by the thought that Bryan spent so long trying to learn something that he was so blatantly awful at, just to make her happy. Because, truly, she was no fitting judge but his attempts at poetry were an offense to the institution of literature.
"You did this?" She asked Bryan cautiously.
"Look," he said with a resigned air with a latent edge of panic underneath, "I know I'm no good at it. I wasn't going to show it to you. I just asked Letters what he did for his wife, Angela, when they were still married. And he said he used to write for her. Poetry and that jazz. Sal, doll, pull up the damn plane!"
Sally hauled back on the flight-stick, bringing the dropship level with the ground in a manoeuvre that knocked a thick shower of leaves from the heads of the trees with the strength of the Falcon's backwash. Sally reoriented them on their course, gliding confidently through the air, no longer in danger of ploughing nose-first into the ground like a tent peg.
Then she sat looking at Bryan with a severe frown on her face. Mulling something over, no doubt.
"Look," Bryan said after contemplating his own thoughts on the situation, "I did what I did in the past. I didn't think it would ever matter. I thought I'd be dead by now. I didn't know that I'd be alive and with the girlfriend who'd stick around for long enough that anything I had done would matter. And things like sleeping around mattered less and less the longer time went on. The more times a guy and me sighted down on one another and I pulled my trigger faster than him…."
He met her eyes and said with all conviction and certainty, "If I had known you'd be waiting for me here and now, I wouldn't have done any of it, Sal. I love…"
He was forced to stop talking in his own defence when she leant over and kissed him, forcefully, on the mouth. The kiss lasted for just long enough for him to get over his surprise and return the gesture, but she pulled away and continued to stare at him.
"I take it from the sound of you two lovebirds sucking face that everything is working out?" Sticky enquired through the comms.
"Uhh," Bryan said intelligently. Sally spoke up in his stead.
"Ohh, I'm still pissed with you. But no-one ever tried to write me poetry before, so…"
Sally began banking the Falcon over the landing zone below, circling around to gain the most advantageous angle of descent. "We will so be talking about this later. And you don't get to pull one of your sneaky exits. We're not ditching each other that easily."
"And once again, the valiant Sticky Hand Jack fulfils his mission! To bring love, peace and happiness to the mentally challenged marksman and his lovely girlfriend. Whose relationship was doomed to failure, 'cause he's half a mook and she's way outta his league. Sticky Hand Jack continues his thankless quest to make everybody else stop being idiots."
"Thank you, Sticky," Sally laughed sincerely as Bryan adjusted his sidearm, wondering if he could open the bulkhead hatch and draw a bead on Sticky before the slippery Tunnel Snake parachuted out the back and made his way back to the surface Base Camp on foot.
"Yeah, thanks Sticky," Bryan grumbled.
"For what? Letting the girl know that you a hoe without breaking off the relationship? For turning the awkward reveal into a touching moment with my amazing talent."
"Yeah," Wilkes ground out, "That."
"No problem, brother. I got your back. But no need to thank me, really. I already lifted those cigars you got off Bobby the Tits last rotation through DC Central when I was planting your dumb poetry sheet last night. Consider it a service charge."
"Sticky. You make it very difficult for me to like you sometimes."
"Please," Sticky scoffed from the back compartment, strapped happily into his seat and running the length of a long cigar under his nose to savour the scent of packed tobacco and marijuana, "I'm Sticky Hand Jack. Everyone loves Sticky Hand Jack!"
"Ain't that the truth," Sally snorted.
"Don't you take his side!"
The storm was becoming more visible on the horizon as the Falcon came into land, landing gear deploying along the underside as the back cargo bay doors folded out alongside them. Sticky hid his newly won cigars in a pocket of his chestrig, knowing that if Sarge saw them, they'd be discussions about contraband and sanctioned drug use to suffer through before he could enjoy his new stash of stogies. Once the cigar was properly concealed and the Falcon was fully grounded, he unstrapped himself and walk towards the cargo doors.
Out of the swirling leaves that the Falcon kicked up upon landing, Jericho and Sarge both came out of the swirling mass of orange and brown, carrying a crate each. Jericho held his in front of him, his strength enhanced by his new synth-muscle suit, while Sarge carried his on his shoulder like a man might carry a sack of straw.
"Sticky! Front and centre! More cargo to come, help Latchkey with loading it. And be careful! These boxes are stuffed with weaponry and munitions. Enough to send us all to kingdom come if you ain't careful with it! You get me, Snake?"
"Got you, Sarge!"
The rest of the thirteen passengers piled in after Sarge and Jericho, the two old ex-raiders and mercs leading the way with their heavy burdens. The two friends stowed the cargo while Latchkey and Sticky exchanged greetings and the wily Snake filled in their demolitions man on the latest gossip with ample embellishment of his role in the proceedings.
The Three Unwise Men plodded on after them, locked in conversation to the exclusion of all else, and the engineers that had been involved in the live fire presentation carried the more sensitive equipment in themselves, rather than trust it to the ground-pounders.
Somah broke away from the rest, leaving the limping form of Scott Wollinski behind with Paulson and Haversam in order to jog up to Sticky.
"Hey, Tunnel Snake! Yeah, you! I remember you," she pointed at him with casual recollection, "Didn't you and your friend hit on me that one time in Rivet City?"
Sticky peered at her with a grin that bordered the line somewhere between charming and lecherous, eyes twinkling under his short brown hair. "Sure did, doll. You still spoken for? My friend is unfortunately off the market now, but I am still very much willing to make your night."
"What, you going to offer to buy me a drink like last time, kid?"
"Nah, doll. I was planning to buy you breakfast."
Somah snorted and waved him off.
"You wish. You're filling in as flight crew on this tub, right?"
"Sure am, doll."
"Who's the pilot? Is it Sally?"
Sticky raised an eyebrow and leaned forward with a quizzical look on his brow.
"I ain't been around the whole ship yet, so I don't know everyone yet. Whose asking?"
"Somah," the engineer said with an answering, questioning look. "I'm her stepmother."
Alarm bells couldn't have rung harder in Sticky's head if they had been playing through a megaphone. He didn't let it show on his face, however.
"Yeah, she's the pilot, doll. Don't much matter, though. Rules are that the only ones who enter the pilot's cabin during flight-ops are flight crew and pilots."
He gave her a grin and waggled his eyebrows, "But I can keep you company here until we're back aboard the Zeta, yeah? Then you can probably catch her when everyone offloads."
"I can talk with her now. Trust me, buddy."
"Hey, rules are rules," Sticky said casually, but firmly.
"Listen, kid, I worked on these flying tubs in R&D while they were still just white lines on blue paper. See that guy over there?"
She pointed over her shoulder at Christopher Haversam, who helped Paulson lug Scott's limping form up the ramp of the dropship.
"He's the Head Engineer for the Zeta and the man who designed the Falcon. He can vouch that I can have clearance to enter the cockpit while we're grounded. Now, if you'll excuse me?"
She didn't wait for him to excuse her, just headed straight for the cockpit hatch as Sticky frantically tapped the screen of his Pip-Boy, while Sarge and Latchkey shouted at him to stop playing around and help load the cargo.
Within the pilot's cabin, Bryan and Sally were seated in silent, albeit somewhat handsy contemplation of one another, separating from a kiss where each of them had a gentle hand upon the cheek of the other. Bryan's Pip-Boy chimed and vibrated on his wrist, notifying him of a message from one of the other Tunnel Snakes. But he was so occupied with the emotion-laden moment that he was currently enjoying with his girl, that he didn't even bother to read the blurb that popped up onscreen.
Then the hatch lock disengaged as Somah entered in her Engineers override code and popped the seal. Bryan and Sally removed each other's hands and separated just enough for it to seem decent. They expected to see Sticky come in through the hatch, but were greeted by the face of Somah, who stuck her head in and greeted Sally with a bright-teethed grin that shone all the brighter in contrast with her darker complexion.
"Sally! Just thought I'd come say hi. How are you finding the Falcon? I had Chris make some alterations to design to up the top speed for you. You know, to keep you on your toes and make it a bit more of a challenge for you, flygirl."
Bryan stared at the newcomer, contemplating her face as he wondered why she seemed so familiar to him. Had he seen her around the Zeta?
"It's great, Somah! Its miles better than any of the other stuff I've flown. I gotta talk with you alone sometime, see if I can talk with you and Chris about a few changes."
Somah clicked her tongue and leaned up against the hatchway with an indulgent smile. "Sure, baby. But we might talk without Chris, and I'll pass the ideas onto him. I told you how ornery he can be. I doubt he'll want anyone outside the R&D department suggesting changes. He gets territorial with his designs."
She looked sideways to the occupant of the second flight chair and saw the face of the second flight crewman. Her expression hardened somewhat.
"Ohh, great. The other one. You better not have been hitting on Sally, you hear?"
Upon mention of hitting on Sally, Bryan displayed no outward sign of emotion, his poker face being as good as they came. But the bottom dropped out of his stomach as he realised where he recalled her face from. Sally, meanwhile, blinked and looked between the two of them in confusion.
"Uhm, Somah? This is my boyfriend, Bryan. You remember, I told you Elliott about him last week?"
There was a frozen moment, during which Somah's face went granite still.
Bryan's light complexion went a few shades darker as the blood rushed to his cheeks in extreme embarrassment at what he knew was about to happen.
Sally noticed the change in both and glanced quizzically between them.
"So, what? You and your buddy hit on me and strike out, so you go for Sally instead?"
Somah glared at Bryan, who sat stock still in the headlights of an approaching vehicle, like a Radstag who was about to be introduced to an Old-World semi-truck. He tried to think of something clever to say, that would disarm the tense situation before it could get out of control.
But unfortunately, all his snappy comebacks and one-liners were for flirting. And somehow, he didn't think that would go over all that well.
"Wait! You hit on Somah?! She's already got a boyfriend!" Sally looked at him, askance.
"I didn't know that. Sticky and me saw her in Rivet City and thought she looked attractive! So, we just went up and flirted a bit. I swear, she was a total stranger!"
Pausing, he played that last bit back in his head and sighed heavily.
"That doesn't make it sound any better, does it?"
"Nah, not by much," Sticky said, his head poking out from behind Somah with the expression of a man watching a disaster play out in slow motion, "But keep talking, Bryan. I shouldn't find this funny, but I'll try real hard, just for you."
"Bryan!"
The voice of Butch DeLoria echoed through the cargo bay of the dropship as their Bosses footfalls echoed in the background. "That panic I'm feeling right now best not be you getting in trouble for cheating on some girl again, or so help me Christ, I'll smack the ever-loving hell outta you!"
At this, Sticky couldn't help but chuckle.
Disaster eventually reached the point where any reasonable man would give up and laugh.