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#the routes on his legs in my mind also light up in little blips running up and down the pathways but uh medi was fucked by this point

caffeinated-mendes · 4 years

Text

Failed Mission - Peter Parker & OC - Chapter 4

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synopsis: Eliza Brooks, an eighteen-year-old Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and friend to Tony Stark is given a mission after Tony’s death: Attend Midtown Tech and keep an eye on Peter Parker. With the use of her mysterious powers, Eliza had never slipped up on her assignment. That is until Peter’s life is in danger, and she has to save him. The cost of her exposing her identity could very nearly mean the end of her mission, and the ending of her chance to become an Avenger.

word count: 2.4k

a/n: Hi guys! It's been a little bit since I updated, but hopefully they'll get more frequent on this fic once summer comes. Thank you for reading! Comments, likes, and reblogs are always appreciated <3

warnings: none

*if you prefer, you can read this on my ao3 instead of here

“Eli! I’m coming! Eliza?” Peter scrambled off the top of the cathedral, ignoring the shocked screams and gasps of the people sitting in the town square. He dropped himself next to the bench with the flashdrive on it, and snatched it up before someone came to collect it. Turning back around, he bolted into the cathedral. Everything was silent as he ran down the pews, no one in sight. “Eliza?” Peter looked down at his feet, and grasped the black and blue mask at his feet. Great, he thought, I’ve let Eliza get kidnapped, not only screwing up her chance at becoming a part of SHIELD, but I also have increased her chances of dying!

Peter took a deep breath, and ran back out of the cathedral, mask in hand as he webbed himself up unto a balcony. “Karen?” He asked, and suddenly a ring sounded through his ears.

A familiar, automated voice replied, “Yes, Peter?”

“Can you do a scan for any underground tunnels within a hundred-mile radius of this point?”

“Sure, Peter.” Peter watched before his eyes as his vision turned black, now illuminated with a visual blueprint of the town’s sewer system. The electric blue lines surrounded himself, a tiny dot on the map. “There is a hollowed out tunnel that is five miles from here that leads into a bigger cavern. The tunnel spans across the whole city, and an entrance is within thirty feet of you.”

“Where is it?” Peter turned his head, but his vision was still blocked from the map.

Karen responded, “Under that fountain. I’ve scanned the carvings in the marble. If you press the eye of the figure on the top, it should open and lead you to the entrance.”

“I knew it. Wait till I shove it in her face. It’s exactly like Harry Potter! Thanks, Karen.”

“Happy to help, Peter.” Peter’s vision turned back to normal. He vaulted himself over the balcony, and landed right next to the fountain. Every civilian had cleared out of the square after they saw Peter jump down and run into the cathedral, so he stepped into the water, soaking his clothed feet. He was suddenly very glad that his suit had warmers that could dry him up. Peter was met face to face with a lion, spewing water from the top of the fountain.

Peter pushed his right eye, and it glowed an eerie shade of green before the entire column that held the lion folded in on itself, and fell into the middle of the fountain, revealing an enclosed tunnel with rungs of a ladder. The rungs led to the bottom of another space Peter couldn’t see.

Stepping carefully down each rung, Peter made it to the bottom. He turned around, and saw an endless expanse of concrete tunnel, almost like a sewage pipe (minus the sewage). From what he saw on the map, he had to go straight for four miles. Then, he’d ask Karen to lead him down the winding path into the scary enemy lair. Sadly, the spidey suit didn’t have super speed, so he’d have to go at a light jog for a bit and take some breaks to make sure he could save Eliza and not be completely exhausted. Peter wished he could be like Eliza, and turn into a mountain lion, or some other animal that was fast.

Peter suspected Eliza wasn’t awake, because she would have escaped already and would’ve contacted Peter or SHIELD. It was easy to turn something small and run away, Peter knew that. The radio connection was cut off from Eliza because she left her mask behind, so he was entirely on his own. Taking a deep breath, Peter started to jog down the tunnel, leaving his mind to wander on its own.

At around a mile and a half in, Peter heard clunking noises from above himself. It must’ve been construction, still, it scared him. He’d tried to contact Happy while he was running, but the metal all around him had cut off his connection. Wheezing for breath, Peter stopped at two miles to walk for a bit. He couldn’t believe that Black Widow had trained Eliza. It made sense: her skill at self-defense and a ton of other martial arts Peter couldn’t name explained that. He’d seen her teacher on the battlefield, once in Germany and right before the blip. That was the last time he saw her, but it made Peter wonder, when was the last time Eliza saw her?

There were a lot of things about Eliza that Peter questioned. Where were her parents, if they were alive? How did Tony find her? Did SHIELD get Black Widow to train her? What were those scars on her neck? What happened to her parents, if they were dead? The questions never really stopped, but Peter somehow knew he could trust her. Maybe his trust meant nothing. Nevertheless, he couldn’t let her die.

After jogging some more, Peter asked Karen where to go next. “Take your first right, then walk for .4 miles.” Peter followed her directions, and was faced with another cement tunnel, with four openings on each side. “I detect a threat in the tunnel that leads the quickest way to the cavern. You can take another route, but it will reroute you, and you will have to walk another three miles.”

“Can you detect what the threat is, Karen?” Peter asked, hearing his voice quiver.

“A human, he is armed.” Peter saw an x-ray vision down the first tunnel on his left. He could see the gun the man was holding and his body heat on the thermal scanner. He seemed to be guarding the door to the cavern. Peter nodded, and turned left, going at a run. He followed the tunnel as it curved, and saw the man with the gun, who was caught off guard screaming in Portuguese. Peter tapped his web shooter, pulling the gun with his arm. It clattered to the ground. The guard ran at him, pulling a knife from his belt.

The LED lights above Peter flickered, and at the very last second, he jumped through the legs of the guard, catching him off guard again. Peter grinned to himself, feeling way more confident. Maybe he did have a chance at beating Eliza when they would spar, he thought as he dodged the jabs of the guard’s knife.

He disarmed the guard with a simple kick to his arm, and he rammed his foot into the guard’s chest, watching the man hit the concrete hard. The guard’s eyes lolled to the back of his head, and his head fell back with a plunk on the concrete. Once Peter saw that his chest was rising, and he was breathing normally, he looked back to the door that led to the cavern. It was bolted into the cement across every inch of the doorframe, and it had a small device next to the rodded handle that looked like an entry for a passcode.

Peter walked back to the unconscious guard and checked his pockets for any slip of paper that had a code. Hopefully, the man had a bad memory. After scouring the front pockets, Peter grabbed at his back pockets and threw out a used tissue in disgust. Then, he realized the tissue wasn’t used, and that black ink was visible through the fabric. Peter plucked it off the ground, and almost jumping up and down in excitement, saw the six-digit code for the door.

After every number was pressed, the door clicked, and Peter was able to swing it open with ease. The door led to another hollowed out tunnel that looked almost like a cave system. Peter was really starting to get tired of tunnels. He shook his head and exhaled, carefully stepping on the gravelly floor. Karen directed him down the tunnel for another five minutes when it finally began to open up. No one seemed to be close to him, as all he could hear were his feet shuffling on the ground.

Peter neared the cavern, and from the tunnel, looked to see wisps of blonde hair on the ground. He ducked his head, and saw Eliza, her eyes closed and her arms sprawled about as if someone just dropped her and left her on the floor for later. Peter scrambled to her side, laying her head in his lap, checking her pulse. He pulled his mask off, his face hit with a musty smell. Eliza seemed to be unscathed, so Peter began shaking her. “Eli, Eli, wake up.” He lowered his voice as much as possible. After a few more shakes, Eliza’s eyelids fluttered open, and Peter got a feeling of deja vu as her pale blue eyes glowed again, an electric blue that paralyzed Peter the same way he had felt before.

The glowing subsided, and Eliza moaned, “What happened?” She pushed herself off of Peter and sat up, looking pale.

“I don’t know. You were screaming for me but when I came into the cathedral you were gone.” Peter watched as she looked around the gray cavern. Oil lamps illuminated the humid area. “Your eyes glowed again.”

Eliza gulped, and tightened her ponytail. “Why does that keep happening?”

Peter shrugged, “You tell me,” He handed Eliza her mask, “Let’s see what we can find in this place. I have the flashdrive, but I want to look for more information.”

“Okay,” Eliza put on her mask, and Peter did the same, “Have your AI system scan your surroundings.”

“Her name’s Karen.” Peter felt a grin tug at his lips. He could almost see Eliza roll her eyes.

“Fine, have Karen scan our surroundings. They’ve got to have a computer, files, something that gives us an idea of their plans.” Eliza spoke to her AI system, trying to call Happy.

Karen pulled up another scan, and Peter saw other shapes past the rocky walls, “It won’t work. I’ve got no signal down here. It’s the metal from the pipes.”

“Pipes?”

“Yeah, I had to run four miles of tunnel before I got here. And guess what? The entrance was in the fountain. Just like Harry Potter!” Peter laughed.

Eliza shook her head and snorted, “I guess you proved me wrong. Feels good, huh?” Peter walked closer to the wall, running his hands along the surface, looking for another secret door of sorts. “Hey, thank you.”

Peter turned back around at Eliza. “Yeah, of course. I couldn’t let you get hurt.” The two of them jumped as they heard a creak close by. Eliza disappeared from Peter’s sight, and Peter scream-whispered, “What do we do?”

“Hide!” Eliza scream-whispered back. Peter looked at his surroundings. There was absolutely nothing he could hide behind. The cavern was empty. Thinking quickly, Peter shot a web above his head, and pulled himself up, sticking every limb to the top of the cavern wall.

Peter held his breath. The same man that Peter and Eliza had seen from the town square came into the room. When he saw that Eliza was missing, he ran back through the entrance. The two of them could hear him howling orders in Portuguese to other people. He exhaled and took another breath after the man was gone for a minute or two.

He dropped down onto the floor, and Eliza reappeared. She whispered. “My AI found a room. It’s right below us, but we can’t walk out of here to get there.”

“What do we do?” Peter said hoarsely. He had said that a lot today.

Eliza pulled something from her belt. Peter realized that it looked very similar to Natasha Romanoff’s. It was a ballpoint pen, but when Eliza uncapped it, a red laser burst out of it noiselessly. In less than twenty seconds, Eliza cut a hole through the floor of the cavern, and a crash of rock hit the tiled floor peering through the hole. “Let’s go.” Eli instructed, dropping through the opening. Peter followed her, and when he hit the ground, he instinctively dropped to a squat, his hand touching the floor.

Bright lights blinded him for a second. Peter blinked a few times, his eyes adjusting. The room around them looked like a normal office. Desks were pushed to the walls with ancient-looking computers on them. The walls themselves were a beige color, cracks in each corner. Peter felt a tingle run down his spine as he saw dust and cobwebs coating the overhead lights. Eliza parked herself right in front of one of the computers, and groaned as Peter watched her realized there was a password on it. “Hand me the flashdrive and watch the door.” Peter did as he was told, and heard Eliza clacking away on the keyboard behind him.

“Did you, like, go to a hacking class at SHIELD along with training lessons?” Peter folded his arms, bouncing between his feet as he observed the chipped wood of the door.

Eliza’s eyes scanned back and forth on the monitor, “Kinda,” she began to open multiple files that looked like detailed floor plans, “I begged my parents to let me be an agent like them. They talked to Hill about it, and she taught me code while Nat taught me basically anything that had to do with fighting.”

Peter was surprised. He meant his question to be a joke. “Oh. So, you were basically an assassin from the age of…”

“Nine.” He saw Eliza huff out a breath, and with a tap of the finger, he watched as something began to upload onto the flashdrive. He guessed they would open everything later.

Peter wrung his hands together, “Right.” All of a sudden, screams burst out from above them, and Peter realized that it would be pretty obvious if there was a hole in the cavern floor. In a panicked voice, he said, “We gotta go.”

Luckily, the computer finished uploading the files just as he said it. Eliza ripped the flashdrive out of the computer, pushing Peter to get him to open the door. “Uh huh,” She said, obviously worried as Peter pulled the creaky door open, “Run.”

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frankchurchillsaysrelax · 5 years

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build a bridge to my heart and lead the way

part one

Alex has never been a huge fan of metaphors. He’s always preferred a more straightforward approach to the world, even more so since he’s been back home.

But there has never been anything straightforward about his feelings for Michael. So here he is, alone in his bed comparing their relationship to his missing leg. That afternoon in the tool shed, a lifetime ago and yet all too recent in his mind, had injured them irrevocably. The tentative possibility of something more was dealt a blow at the hands of his father.

For a decade they’d avoided the issue, letting the pain fester in the prolonged periods of separation. Sex had been their crutch, had kept the connection between them from falling apart for all those years without ever having to talk or heal.

Now they are here, finally building a foundation and standing on their own, adjusting to their new normal as friends. He tells himself not to push them too fast, knowing from his actual leg that rushing the process just leaves you laid out on your ass and hurting.

Days like today make the temptation to take that next step unbearable. Closing his eyes he can perfectly see the way the sunlight caught the hidden golden highlights in Michael’s hair and the column of his throat enticingly exposed whenever his head was thrown back in laughter, something Alex is proud to say was often.

Walking through town at the latest alien themed festival, avoiding Isobel and her eagerness to put them to work, had felt natural and innocuous. The day had been warmer than normal for the time of year and Michael’s bare arm had brushed against his as they walked close together even in less crowded areas. Skin electrified under the slightest touch, Alex had needed to remind himself not to grab his hand.

Michael had stepped away whenever they were approached by one of his father’s friends, always staying close and ready to rejoin him after he’d fulfilled his dutiful politeness. At one point while talking about his plans for retirement, he’d watched peripherally as Liz and Maria had cornered him by one of the booths. Michael had brushed it off when he’d asked and Alex hoped they hadn’t moved onto harassing him about the status of their relationship. They had already been bothering Alex for weeks.

Giving up on the prospect of sleep, he sits up and pauses before making his decision. He pulls on the sock and fastens the prosthetic into place before grabbing a jacket and his keys and walking out the front door. Suddenly the cabin is too secluded, too remote.

He’s halfway there before he’s aware of where his mind has taken him on autopilot. He isn’t really surprised, but he is wary. It’s after two in the morning and he wouldn’t blame him for turning him away. He follows the familiar route back to where Michael parks his airstream. The headlights track the graveyard of broken vehicles, markers leading him to his destination.

He turns the lights off as soon as he sees them gleam off the side of the trailer, staying put while he tries to make a plan. He is just exiting the car when the door to the swings open revealing Michael wearing nothing but boxers, rubbing the side of his face in a listless gesture. Alex takes a few steps closer so he is more easily visible.

“Alex?” He moves down onto the top step. “You ok?”

Alex opens his mouth but still doesn’t have the words to explain his presence. He offers an unhelpful shrug.

Michael glances down at his mostly naked body before taking a step back inside. He gestures toward the fire pit. “Get a fire started, I’ll be right out.”

Happy to have a task, Alex makes quick work of following orders. He has claimed his favorite lawn chair, the one he knows is most comfortable to get up from on his leg, when the door swings open again. It’s a long moment before Michael reappears, holding two mugs and closing the door behind him with his mind.

He sits in the chair closest to Alex before passing him one of the mugs. He offers the black one with a little green alien and Alex smiles, humming in happiness when the smell of chocolate hits his nose.

“Thanks.”

Michael nods with a tired smile and Alex feels guilty for waking him. They sit in silence, Michael shifting in his seat trying to get comfortable and Alex blowing on his too hot drink wondering if he should just leave. He steals a glance at Michael, now fully covered in a long sleeve shirt and jeans but no less beautiful to Alex.

This is what he wants. Quiet nights spent in each other’s company with nothing but nature’s soundtrack and a warm fire surrounding them. But he knows they’re not quite there yet.

“Twenty questions.”

“Light as a feather stiff as a board.” Michael laughs at the confused look on Alex’s face. “Oh, sorry, are we not randomly naming middle school sleepover games?”

Alex rolls his eyes and brings his mug closer to his face hiding his flushing cheeks behind the steam. He’s not sure where the idea came from but it’s growing on him. “Humor me, Guerin.”

Michael takes a sip from his own mug, lips quirking into a teasing smile.

“Liz and Deluca put you up to this? Did they dare you?” He shakes his head in mock sympathy. “You shoulda picked truth man.”

Alex ignores the gibe. “What do you mean did they put me up to it?”

Michael waves a hand, his eyes focused on the fire. “They were just being annoying earlier. Thought maybe they’d cornered you too.” He doesn’t elaborate, evading the topic as he had this afternoon, but Alex can guess the kinds of things the girls had said to him. He's starting to wonder if they have money on this.

Silence falls between them as they absorb the warmth of the flames and the hot cocoa. Michael has added some kind of spice, nutmeg, he thinks. Alex has no clue where he’d found it in the airstream but he’s glad he’d thought of it.

“Ok ok, I’ll play along.” Alex startles and then settles back into his seat feeling smug. Michael is just too easy sometimes.

“Favorite movie?”

Michael looks down into his mug like it holds the secrets to the universe.The firefight casts shadows across his face but Alex would wager a guess that he is blushing. “October Sky. Favorite song?”

“You’re a sadist.” Michael looks up with a surprised laugh and can’t hide his smile. Alex groans. “Ok, um,” he pauses, thumbs tapping against his mug while he tries to narrow down his choice. “First Day of My Life. Bright Eyes.”

“Random.” Michael tilts his head to the side, not judging just taking the information in. “I like it.”

They go back and forth like that for a while, asking trivial things and laughing as the fire slowly burns down. Without asking, Michael adds some more wood when it gets too low, wordlessly telling Alex to stay.

Alex flounders for his next question. Mug long since emptied and set to the side, his hands start tapping out a beat on his legs. He will never run out of things he wants to know about Michael, he’s sure of that, but he’s getting tired and also trying to avoid anything too deep. Tonight isn’t the night for those conversations.

“How did you know about light as a feather stiff as a board?” Maria had made him and Liz play it once when they were kids. She’d been so upset when it didn’t work.

Michael’s content smile turns mischievous and he looks up at him from beneath his eyelashes. Alex probably shouldn’t be as attracted to him as he is right now.

“Max and I would sneak down into the Evans’ basement to spy on Izzy and her friends sometimes. One time we came down and one of the girls was laying there with her eyes closed while the others surrounded her. Max thought they were doing some kind of ritualistic sacrifice.” He snorts, shaking his head fondly at the happy memory of his brother.

“When they started chanting I caught on and I used my powers to lift her, just a couple of inches. Oh man, did they freak.” Alex loves seeing the unbridled joy on Michael’s face as he loses himself in the memory of a time when he and his siblings could just be kids. He knows how rare moments like that were for him.

“So you’ve always been a menace to society,” he quips.

Michael throws him a wink, looking way too proud of himself. “If there wasn’t proof I came from the stars, you’d think I’d popped up straight outta hell.”

Still smiling, his right hand absentmindedly moves to rub at the inside of his left forearm. It’s something he’s seen Michael do a handful of times over the years but he's never been able to figure out what triggers it or if he even knows he is doing it. He files it away as one of the more serious questions he’ll ask when he’s feeling brave.

“Wait.” Something clicks in his tired brain and he glares at Michael. “Was Maria there?”

Michael’s eyes squint as he drifts back into the memory. “Maybe? It’s possible, there was that brief blip where she and Is actually liked each other.” His eyes widen as Alex glares harder. “What?”

“She couldn’t get it to work with me. I had to buy her ice cream so she wouldn’t cry!”

Michael shakes his head, grin wider than before. “I’ll buy you an ice cream to make up for it, huh?”

His smile radiates and the waves roll onto Alex forcing him to drop the charade. “Well it’s the least you can do.”

Michael’s laugh is consumed by a yawn he tries to hide by turning his head, but reality crashes down around Alex and he remembers where they are. He’s imposing and although Michael won’t say it he knows he’s stayed too long.

“I should let you get back to sleep.” He stands before Michael can say anything, but he doesn’t even try, just looks up at Alex from behind drooping eyelids. Alex wants to kiss him goodbye. He wants to kiss him good night and he wants to kiss him good morning. He really needs to leave.

Walking towards his car, he stops and turns back when Michael calls his name.

Michael’s head tilts to one side as his eyes rake over him from head to toe sending a shiver down Alex’s spine and a burst of warmth to his gut at the same time.

“You sure you’re ok?”

“I am now.” With a small wave he turns quickly and practically jumps into his car.

Driving in the opposite direction, his eyes barely stray from the mirror where Michael’s figure grows smaller and further away until he extinguishes the fire, disappearing into the darkness.

#my fic #malex #malex fic #roswell new mexico #i’ve discovered my brand is hurting michael and making alex pine like a christmas tree #i hope it’s not too late to post this

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coruscantexpat · 5 years

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Bonds Unbroken - Chapter 5: Into the Depths

The further Meetra descended toward the mining tunnels, the more accurate Atton's warning about the heat became. A long ladder connected the escape hatch to - presumably, as she still couldn't see it - the floor of the mining tunnels, and even halfway down, the temperature had risen to a level that registered as uncomfortable even through the thin undergarment. She paused to rest for a moment, the air beginning to burn nearly as much as her muscles were. Between the fights with the droids and the long climb, her body was beginning to feel the decade's dearth of upkeep.

A burst of white noise in her ear nearly startled her off the ladder before it gradually resolved into Atton's voice. "Can you read me?" The transmission was tinny and shot through with static.

Meetra wrapped an arm around the rung in front of her, freeing a hand to touch the commlink in her ear. "Barely - there's a lot of interference."

"Probably caused by that explosion." A brief pause accompanied by the faint clicking of keys. "Looks like there's a route down to the fuel depot. Well, if the passages haven't collapsed. That explosion knocked out most of the sensors."

"Oh, good. I was thinking this wouldn't be a challenge."

"What would the fun be in that?" Atton chuckled. "There should be an emergency crate near the bottom of the shaft; you might be able to find something useful in there. And watch yourself. There's a lot of droid broadcasts in that area, but I can't pin them down."

Meetra glanced down, squinting in the low lighting. She could just make out the faint blip of the beacon at the top of her staff, presumably lying on solid ground. She'd tossed it from the top of the shaft earlier, both to test the distance and out of an inability to carry it with her. There didn't appear to be anything else down there with it. "Thanks for the warning. If you detect anything, signal me."

"Will do - and be careful down there." The static cut off sharply, leaving behind an echoing silence. Meetra continued to climb down, forcing herself to ignore both the rising temperature and her screaming muscles. Several long, almost agonizing minutes later, the ladder rungs ended and her feet found the floor of the shaft. With her eyes fully adjusted to the darkness, she scanned her surroundings, but for the moment, she appeared to be alone. Scooping up her staff, she moved forward until she reached a door, cycled it, and stepped through.

For a moment, everything was white, her vision blinded by the change in lighting. Meetra dropped into a defensive crouch, staff held protectively in front of her, but she neither heard or sensed anything nearby. Gradually, her sight returned, revealing a room similar to the ones she had passed through previously: sterile chrome and ceramic with little aesthetic design. In the corner stood a lone crate; no doubt the emergency supplies Atton had mentioned. She opened it, pulling out more medpacs, a headband and harness of some sort, a few energy shields, two handheld mining blasters, and an actual vibroblade. Setting these aside, she dug deeper in the canister, coming up with a swath of blue and gold fabric.

The commlink crackled to life. "Find the supplies?"

"Right where you said," Meetra replied, unzipping and stepping into the mining uniform. It wasn't quite her size - it hung loosely on her frame and the sleeves fell past her wrists - but it provided a welcome layer of protection... and decency. "I found some weapons and mining equipment. A uniform, too."

"Dammit." Meetra paused in the act of zipping up the suit, mouth curving up into a half-smile of bemusement at Atton's exhalation. He began to backpedal, as if only just realizing what he had said. "Uh... I mean, good - good to hear it. No sense in you running around half-naked, it's distracting.... you know, for the droids." She smothered her laughter and didn't reply, choosing instead to let him wallow in the faux pas. "A-anyway, what kind of gear did you find?"

"There's a harness; looks like it goes around my waist and shoulders." As she spoke, Meetra pulled it on over the mining uniform. "I also found some kind of headband. There's sensors on either side."

"Survey gear," he replied. "It's designed to spot and protect you against sonic mines. The safety harness will be helpful if you try to disarm them. Not that I'd advise it." Meetra filed the information away. She had experience disarming mines during the Mandalorian Wars, but she kept silent. She didn't want to make Atton any more distrustful of her than he already was, or give him a reason to become a threat. She slipped the headband on, allowing it to rest just above her ears. The sensors projected an overlay in front of her, though nothing registered at the moment. "Did you find any mining shields?"

"A few. Are they different from regular energy shields?"

"Not much. They're designed to protect the miners against lasers and heat. Should work against the droids. You still want to be careful, though. They're not as durable, and they won't last more than a few hits."

Meetra strapped one of the shields over her left wrist, slipping the others into one of the pouches on the safety harness, along with the handful of medkits. "Understood. Anything else?"

"Uh, just one more thing." The was uneasiness in Atton's voice. "I've narrowed down some of the ID signals. If the numbers are right... you're sharing those tunnels with a battalion of mining droids." Meetra groaned inwardly, muscles twinging at just the thought of more fighting. "They rely on thermal sensors to get around, and that explosion down there kicked up so much heat and steam that it may blind them a bit.. but not much. You could try to sneak past them, but it'll be risky."

"And if they do spot me?"

"That's why you took the big stick." It was easy to hear the smirk in his words and she smiled despite herself. Crass and full of himself Atton might be, but when he showed confidence, it was infectious. "Actually, there's got to be some central controller down there. Look for a terminal by the main access shaft; that'd be the governing intelligence. If you can reach that, you may be able to shut the droids down, or at least get them back on their original programming."

"I'll keep an eye out. Let me know if anything changes." Meetra tapped the commlink, cutting the broadcast. As much as Atton's chattering put her at ease, it would be harder to focus with him talking in her ear. She unbuckled the harness briefly and slid the mining blasters onto one of the straps, triple checking the safeties for her own peace of mind. The vibroblade she attached to the uniform's belt. Retrieving her staff, she headed out into the tunnels, the steam and heat causing a sheen of sweat to form instantly on her brow.

Before long, the metal hallways gave way to proper stone tunnels, fissures of steam bursting out of cracks in the rocks. Just ahead, Meetra could make out a few droids milling about. They hadn't spotted her yet, and she hugged the tunnel wall as she passed them, hiding her body heat in the steam. Further in, the corridor opened up into a wide room, effectively making it impossible for her to sneak past. Three droids patrolled the area, spidery legs creating an unholy cacophony against the stone floor. Meetra crouched at the entrance to the room, scanning their movements. When the nearest droid turned toward her, she lunged forward, making a sweeping motion with her hand as she ran. The Force answered as readily as it had before, and the droid flew forward, smashing into the rock wall. She was upon it before it could recover, bringing the staff down in a sharp strike and caving in the droid's faceplate. It twitched, spindly legs flailing, and she struck it again, the time with the spike.

The droid went still, but the commotion had attracted the other two. They clattered forward, raising their blasters, and Meetra slapped the energy shield on her wrist before rolling to the side. The shield hummed to life, a barrier rising around her. One of the droid's bolts struck it, fizzling out against the opposing energy. Though she was unharmed, the impact still sent Meetra stumbling, forcing her to plant her staff against the ground to steady herself. Another bolt glanced off the shield, causing it to flicker. Footing regained, she darted forward underneath the nearer droid's guard and levered her staff beneath it, flipping it onto its side between her and the remaining droid. Spinning the beacon, she stabbed its point into the prone droid, putting it out of commission before it could right itself.

The last droid scuttled from side to side, trying to get a clear shot around her makeshift cover. Keeping low, Meetra focused on a pile of rubble, reaching out with the Force. It still weak and small, nothing compared to the torrent it had been over a decade ago. It felt different, as well; before, the Force had flowed through her, a natural extension of her will. Now, it felt like it was echoing, ricocheting and distorting within her. Part of her was too relieved that she could use the Force again to care, while another part was terrified it meant that her returning control was only temporary. She managed to lift one of the bigger rocks, sending it slamming into the droid and crushing two of its legs. It struggled to pull itself free and Meetra leaped over the broken droid, slamming her staff into its trapped compatriot. She brought her staff down twice more before it stopped moving.

Leaving the droid massacre behind, she continued forward, coming to a sharp halt when a translucent dome appeared on her survey gear's overlay. As if on cue, a crackle of static preceded Atton's voice on the commlink. "Watch your step - I'm picking up a lot of sonic mines down there. Don't run unless you have to. Makes them harder to spot."

"You have impeccable timing; I'm looking at one now." She glanced down the hallway, frowning when more signals appeared. "Make that several. Why are there so many mines down here?"

"The droids," Atton explained. "They're designed to set and arm charges for mining. If they set the charges after they went rogue, they may have used them to try and kill the miners..." There was a long pause, and Meetra could guess his next words. "Probably might try to use them to kill you, too. Some of the droids, the excavators mainly, may try to use any undeployed charges as projectiles, so... yeah.” He cleared his throat, as if delivering bad news physically pained him. “Also, the super-heated steam I mentioned earlier? I’m reading pockets with temperatures ahead of you high enough to cook the skin off your bones.”

Meetra grimaced. “Thank you for that image.”

“Hey, would you rather me be honest or pleasant?”

”Point taken.”

Full chapter available on AO3 and FFN.

#kotor 2 #kotor fanfic #the jedi exile #female exile #atton rand #atton x exile #fanfic

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qaftsiel · 7 years

Text

The Night Watch

(Trying a new thing-- posting the fic itself here. It’s also on AO3 and FF dot net!)

It's 3984 CE and Dean is the Night Watch engineer aboard an RK-NGL high-γ cruiser. It's a run-of-the-mill transit until it isn't. (Hard science fiction AU. Slow burn Destiel, a lot of space travel feelings, some plot, and a sprinkling of posthumanism. Currently rated T, but might go up.)

“Went out on the mass drivers today, Sammy,” Dean says as he shucks the skintight underlayer of the exosuit. The magnetized gauntlets, kneepads, and boots of the external components are already neatly tucked away in their cubby by the airlock. “Another eighteen months, another three point five tee. She’s holdin’ up like a champ, though-- these new-fangled cruisers are somethin’ else.”

Sammy, his clunky second-generation berth not so much ‘nestled’ as ‘crammed’ in between the RK-NGL’s cutting-edge, almost miniature creches, doesn’t reply. The berth’s LS unit emits the same, soft, green blink it has every minute of every year that’s passed.

“Knew you’d agree, bud,” Dean hums. Always the nerdy one of the two of them, his Sammy-- if it isn’t planetary law, it’s starliners or Pre-Diaspora history or biology or whatever other topic that’s caught his attention and imagination. Dean’s always hard-pressed to keep up so Sammy won’t ever be bored or without someone to talk to. “You’re gonna flip when you hear about these new ablation shields. Slicker than fuckin’ BAM, man, and just as hard-- you’ll say she looks like crap, but she’s a damn tank, Sammy. Shit’s unbelievable.”

Blink.

“Naw, you just wait,” Dean says, finally extricating himself from the last of the underlayer. “I’ll tell you all about it, dude. Give you the grand tour and everything, I promise.” He lays a gentle hand over the thick, chilly window in the berth’s insulated metal shell. “You sleep good, okay? I gotta go check up on the forward arrays, and then it’s my turn for a break; I’ll get back to you when I start my next shift.”

Blink, goes the LS unit.

Dean takes a moment to gaze down at his brother’s quiet face through the berth’s porthole, and then makes his way inward through the payload ring.

The RK-NGL, like all high-γ cruisers, doesn’t look a damn thing like the ships in Pre-Diaspora movies. As stardrives had been built and then improved upon, humanity had discovered that the not-quite-vacuum of space became very hostile very quickly as one’s velocity increased-- even the sparsest regions of the interstellar medium would blast away a poorly-designed craft’s hull in very little time at an appreciable percentage of the speed of light . Changing course mid-transit, yet another pre-Diaspora science fiction favourite, had led to several well-known explosive disasters due to catastrophic structural failures. Excess mass and pretty-but-useless bulk had rendered the earliest starliners so fuel-hungry and slow that humanity had very nearly abandoned space travel on the basis of cost-- when even a team of multinational corporate CEOs couldn’t foot the bill for something, it was far, far too expensive.

Eventually, though, humanity had shed its dreams of gleaming, frog-legged saucers, beringed pyramids, and ominous wedges. Leaving the system permanently had become less and less of an option with the way the War Between Worlds had continued to spark bigger and bigger satellite conflicts, and wishful, nostalgic frivolity had quickly been discarded in favour of relentless survivalism.

Within decades, intrasystem cruisers and starliners had dumped mass, shed cubic meterage, and stripped out all unnecessary components. Elegantly curved routes weaving from star to star had been abandoned and redrawn for straight, unwavering lines: Point A to Point B, no frills, no stops. Fins, wings, and rings had been scuttled, thrown to the blast furnaces, and re-forged with only brutal efficiency in mind.

Now, almost fifteen hundred years after the first ship had departed Earth for Proxima A, starliners are starkly different animals when compared to their imagined forbears, and the RK-NGL is no exception. She’s a child’s stacking toy stretched to almost twenty-five times the diameter of her base-- a rigid carbyne-tungsten spine capped at one end by a bouquet of cutting-edge Chevy-AkoSi mass drivers, tipped at the other by the nosecone and ablative shielding, and ringed throughout the rest by reactor, fuel, and payload toroids. From the outside she looks like nothing so much as a half-polished missile from pre-Colonial history, and except for the fact that she’s meant to stop and not explode, she might as well be one.

She’d be considered ugly by pre-Diaspora standards, sure, but that’s nothing new for starliners, and she’s one hell of a lot cooler than some of the other bags of bolts Dean’s worked on. Built around tech mecca Orla B, she’s hot off the anvil and bristling with technology so advanced that he’d had to study pre-release schematics for years on top of the data dump in order to win his position as the Night Watch crew. He even gets his own space within the Watch toroid-- not that it’s much, given that the toroid’s sandwiched between the payload ring and the nosecone, but it’s more than anyone had ever afforded him in the past.

He shares the squished little Watch toroid with two maintenance mechs, GG4-BE and B3N-N1. Dean hates unit numbers for mechs as a matter of principle, so he calls the two Gabe and Benny, respectively; in the year of prepwork before their AIs had gone into hibernation for the transit, they’d been pretty happy about it. They’re quiet now, of course, but they still respond to the nicknames as well as their actual designations, and Gabe still plays games with Dean during its downtime to help keep him from getting too bored.

Gabe still kicks his ass at Go every time.

Dean kinda misses the way the mech used to lord it over him.

“Fifteen and a half down, nine and change to go,” he assures no one in particular as he lets himself onto the spine goway.

The quickest way to get from point A to point B on the ship, the goway is the cylindrical, two-meter-wide space between the inner surfaces of the toroids and the heavy-duty strutwork of the RK-NGL’s spine. Once upon a time, he would have found it scary as fuck-- it is a kilometer-long, pitch black tunnel shot through by support braces and anchor points, after all-- but after dozens of Watch gigs on similar (if smaller) craft, it’s just a larger variation on a familiar theme.

At least, it’s familiar on most trips. Something’s a little off as Dean makes his way noseward-- there’s a glow coming from behind the hatch into the nosecone and the forward array banks. It’s pretty blue, but the area around it doesn’t register as temperature-hot, thank fuck. Still, Dean’s whole frame prickles with high alert. There shouldn’t be light from that part of the ship. End of.

By the time he’s a meter or so from the hatch and its little window, the light is so bright that he can see his own hands and arms as he gently redirects his careful drift up the goway. Their unnatural gleam is even weirder in the eerie, blue glow.

Slowly, cautiously, Dean throws the analog lock on the hatch and swings it open.

Nothing happens.

Floating in front of the open hatch, Dean’s skin prickles and buzzes anyway-- no matter the number of modifications or years, the old lizard brain’s reflexes still resurface from time to time. Scoffing at his animal ridiculousness, he shakes it off and gently propels himself into the array bank.

The glow, he realizes, is nothing more than his handlight-- the one he’d been looking for since the last full check-in he’d done of the ship. “God dammit,” he grumps aloud, and snatches up the device. He glares at the feathery afterimages of the array bank after switching the handlight off. “Gotta get some fuckin’ rest.”

Once he’s given himself just enough time for a satisfactory sulk, he plugs into the output jack, switches video inputs, and looks over the last month of data from the array. Except for a cluster of blips in the 450 nm range a few days ago, the readouts all look pretty normal-- just the usual bunch of Doppler-shifted noise from stars and regular pings from navigation posts along the RK-NGL’s route. Even the blips aren’t anything huge, really. Dean’s seen others like them, especially on that one supremely fucked-up trip from Landung to Dàodá that, among other things, had involved passing through a (distant) pulsar’s jet range. Those peaks had been literally off the fuckin chart; these were just… well, blips. Kinda dinky, actually, like they ran over a messy smudge of blue somewhere along the way.

Or maybe crossed the path of some dumb kid’s toy laser. Dean’s seen that before, too. Either way, it’s nothing worth freaking out over. He archives the readouts along with the rest, closes up shop in the fore array, and grabs the Watch toroid’s hatch with an easy swing.

Gabe’s docked and in full dormancy when Dean drifts in; Benny, on the other hand, is just coming out of standby. <Greetings, Dean,> they send as they run their startup routines. Dean watches, and wonders if it’ll ever not be jarring to see all that servo motion and not hear a bit of it.

<Hey, Benny. Good rest?>

<Charge is at 100% and all systems are running within optimal parameters,> Benny reports out, which is about as close to a “yeah, man, like a baby” as Dean is going to get in transit. He waits while Benny pulls the archived array readouts and the walkover reports from Dean’s shift. Shortly thereafter, an update appears in the RK-NGL’s log-- Benny’s agreed with Dean’s reports, and has signed off on handing over the shift without further action needed. <The Takaoka-REST has completed startup and is prepared for use.>

<Thanks, dude,> Dean replies, and opens the hatch to his pod. <See you in eighteen.>

Like every other mech Dean’s been in transit with, Benny doesn’t respond to the small talk. Dean’ll get a ‘thank you’ for it at the end, though, and that’s enough to keep him doing it throughout the trip.

Pressing his legs together with a soundless click, Dean levers himself feet-first into the open Takaoka-REST pod that’s been his home sweet home since leaving Orla. Except for the missing atmo panel, the high-gauge standby lines, and the heavy-duty power line, it’s exactly like every other hotel pod Dean’s ever been in-- a bit over a meter wide, a little under a meter and a half tall, two and a half meters deep, and plushly cushioned on every wall but that of the hatch. It’s probably the most unnecessary thing on the whole damn ship, given that Dean could do just as well with a run-of-the-mill standby dock like Benny and Gabe use, but he’s not about to argue if his employers want him to have a few creature comforts.

After a few minutes of fiddling with the standby jacks and wrestling with the power line (someday he’s gonna get around to reprogramming so he’ll have that piece of shit power port somewhere logical, not the middle of his fucking back), Dean queues his sleep routines and closes his eyes.

When he wakes, they’ll be another year and two point three trillion kilometers closer.

It’s good progress.

***

Dean stands and watches as the stasis technicians swarm around Sam’s berth; next to him, there is a man with scruffy hair and blue eyes. Dean doesn’t remember the man, but he remembers this moment like it happened mere minutes ago, and not… then. He remembers all too well the unresponsive LS unit, with no indications of where the error might be. He remembers the engineers announcing that there was no way to crack the unit open to run diagnostics without a catastrophic stasis failure.

He remembers realizing that his baby brother wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon.

That terrible moment in time, pivotal and agonizing, replays in front of him like a Netflix show.

The man tilts his head and watches as the swarming technicians slow, shake their heads, and then steadily disperse. As he had before, Dean falls to his knees.

The scene shifts. It’s Dean’s first Watch gig, aboard an intrasystem shuttle. Sam’s berth matches the ones around it pretty closely.

The flight engineer’s mouth is moving behind his faceplate, but the words come to Dean as if through water. ‘You’re joking, right? Until you’re sucking oxygen like the rest of us, Tin Man, you’re just another mech to babysit. Go play with your robot buddies and leave us real people the fuck alone.’

The man is there again. He and Dean watch the flight engineer throw the lock on the mech hangar as he leaves.

The scene blips. A vidscreen in a hospital room that resembles a nanofactory more than a medical ward streams ProximaNewsNow on mute; closed captioning flickers across the bottom of the screen. A 2967 Chevy Impala is barely recognizable onscreen, its sturdy carbon fiber frame turned to flinders beneath the shattered bulk of a freight canister. Two nearby lumps are covered with white sheets. The thing the emergency crews extricate from the wreckage doesn’t look like a body, and doesn’t get much better even after they’ve dunked it into an emergency stasis creche and sent an ambulance racing away with it.

Dean stares up at the screen from the hospital bed. Near the door of the room, a bald man and a bearded, dark-haired man face each other down, red-faced and shouting and pointing fingers. A younger, floppy-haired man-- Sammy-- sits in a chair beside the bed, hands clapped over his ears and tears filling his eyes. Lying in the bed, Dean closes his eyes and listens to the soft whine of servos as he flexes his new hands-- open, closed. Open, closed.

Sticking out from the hospital gown, Dean’s new legs gleam steely blue under translucent sensory-polymer skin. He watches the fibers twitch as he raises one knee, then the other.

More blips, faster this time. Dean re-learning to walk, Dean picking up egg after egg after egg until he’s finally able to do it reliably without cracking the shells. Dean re-learning to write. To speak. To sleep.

Dean staring down at the rejection from the MIT-Proxima Bouchet School of Physics, where he had been only been months away from his doctorate-- ‘intellect’ is a term valid only for those with organic brains, it seems.

Dean going to live with Sammy, who’s always there, alway his ally, until the day Dean learns he won’t wake up.

They’re in front of Sammy’s creche again.

The man’s eyes are very, very blue.

Continued here.

#my writing #fanfiction #Supernatural #science fiction AU #destiel #slow burn #rating: T #may go up

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