Scarlet Steel

“You alright?” Exa asks gently.

“Yeah. I just had to get that out.” I reach for a bottle of water and quickly down it. “I’m ok. Do we need to help Juno?” I reach out towards the console and check Hoppy’s status. She’s going to need a lot of work. A few bullets made it through her armor, and numerous internal parts have entirely failed. That sounds worse than it is, nearly every part inside an Old Earth Designs mech has at least one backup mechanism. She did exactly what she was supposed to do.

“You think you can still fight?” Exa asks.

“I’d rather fight than let her be in trouble.” I know that’s dumb.

“Luckily they’re not. They’ve already exited the compound and are away from danger. We just need to take a wide berth around the compound.”

“Good.” I let out a sigh of relief. “I probably shouldn’t get out of Hoppy and work, should I?”

“Not until we’re out of the AO.”

Is there anything I can work on in here? A few electronics are reporting errors. I grab my toolbox and pop off the console’s front panel.

“Oh.” Liquid metal splatter is covering some of the internal electronics. I thought Exa was being excessive when she insisted that all electronics be covered with non-conductive material. “How close was I to being shot?” The panels are bullet resistant, and they aren’t even dented.

“Not even close.” Exa confirms. “It’s just splatter, nothing solid made it into my console.”

“Right.” The metal is probably just shorting a few wires. That’s going to be a deep fix, not something I can do right now. Instead, I put away my tools and start taking pictures with my phone, making notes about what needs to be cleaned.

I glance up at the screens as I work, watching our progress. It’s not long before the ship begins to slow, and once again descend into the forest. Two doors open up, and Juno and Janus filter in behind us. The second they’re locked in, the ship begins to ascend into orbit.

Janus’ mech has a few deep gouges in it, but nothing substantial. Juno’s Rhino, on the other hand, looks to have taken the brunt of the fire. Even with the bunkers being destroyed before she approached, her armor is still burnt and pockmarked. It’s not nearly as bad as what Hoppy took, but it’s fine.

“Good op, everyone.” Juno says. “Comms free, day’s yours. Start repairs tomorrow.”

We’re safe. I grab my toolbox, climb out, and head to the front of Hoppy.

She hasn’t looked this bad in years. I can’t quite see the engine from out here, but it’s not far off. I start removing panels, and Exa joins me wordlessly, checking out Hoppy’s innards, but not beginning repairs yet. She takes control of Spidey, who crawls in and gives her a better view. 

I hear footsteps behind me, and don’t even need to turn around to know it’s Juno.

“I didn’t expect you to take this much fire.” Her voice is dripping with regret. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I say. “This is normal, right? I need to get used to it.”

“That was the goal,” she admits, “I wanted you to experience getting shot at, not as much as you did, and didn't want you to have to fight back. It won’t happen again.”

“I’m alright, I can do this.” A few parts came unplugged. I slot the cords back into the port and check my phone. They're still working. I’ll need to reinforce these plugs.

“Are you convincing me? Or yourself?” Juno asks.

I shrug. I’m not sure it even matters. I’m not giving up, I’m not going home. Yet. I’m not going home yet.

“I could handle this. I can keep handling it. You don’t need to baby me.”

“I’ll keep you where you’re useful.” She promises.

“Thank you.” I shouldn’t get too far into repairs, I don’t want to force Exa to carry all the armor I take off again. Instead, I sit on Hoppy’s foot and pull out my phone to begin composing another letter.

Hey, it’s Scarlet. I hope my previous message gets to you first. Or, no actually, I hope this one arrives first. Either way, the mission was a success. Nobody was injured, although Hoppy needs some repairs, both internally and externally. I was never in any real danger though! My escape system would have pulled me out if needed, and surrendering is always an option.

I glance up at Exa before continuing.

“Do you think Tera would be worried if I attached a picture of the damage?”

“Probably.” She nods. “And I doubt the quantums would even pass along a file that large. I can create a schematic of what repairs are needed if you want to let her pour over it. It’ll look less bad.”

“Do it.”

Exa is attaching the blueprints of what we need to work on if you want to take a look. This is honestly my favorite part of the job. 

So, yeah! Just wanted to let you know I’m doing fine, hope to hear from you soon.

“Can you send that when you finish the blueprints?” I ask.

“Sure.”

“Thanks.” I drop my phone back into my pocket and wait.

“Hmm.” Exa mumbles to herself. “Juno! You want a scout? Or are you looking to stick Scarlet in your spare Rhino?”

“We’re missing parts?” She guesses. “Andromeda, add a stop at the nearest Old Earth Designs dealership on our route. Schedule a meeting as well.”

“Confirmed. Route set, attempting to make connection through the quantum switchboards.”

Oh, that’s going to be expensive.

“If we stop by a junkyard-”

“No.” Juno doesn’t even let me finish my offer. “In the meantime, slot in your old scavenged parts, I want Hoppy running, even if she’s not perfect. And get me a list of stock you need, I want spares in storage.”

“Alright.” I lean back against Hoppy’s leg, close my eyes, and wait. I did good today, I can relax for a minute. I’ll work on Hoppy as soon as we’re docked.

“How do you feel?” Juno crouches down next to me.

“Tired.” I answer. “I didn’t hold myself back when we docked. I think that helped.”

“Good. Sounds like you’re crashing as the adrenaline leaves, that’s normal.” She stands up and taps me on my shoulder. “And I’m glad you’ve found a way to cope. Just maybe remember to mail your mom occasionally too.”

“Shit!” I scramble for my phone and it jumps out of my hand, skidding across the floor. I hurry to pick it back up, making a fool of myself the whole way. I’ve never actually sent anything to her, I hope the address I have saved still works.

Hey Mom! I’m doing good! I’ve been on two missions, neither of which were dangerous! Everyone's been great, and I’m really fitting in, and Exa’s keeping a close eye on me.

I take a deep breath and let it out. It’s mail, there’s no need to panic.

How have things been at home? I hope you haven’t been too bored, and I hope you weren’t waiting to hear from me. Things just move so quickly here, it’s not like the junkyard. I’ve spent every minute working on Hoppy or training in the simulator. We had to undo basically all our work on her, replacing everything that’s less than perfect. It took Exa and I a few hundred combined hours to do. If you get too bored at home, maybe you could join us! You and Exa are the only two people I’d want to help me repair Hoppy.

I’m sorry I didn’t send a message before now, I’ll try to do better.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Exa interrupts my writing. “I’ve been keeping Lyra updated.”

“What? And you didn’t remind me to message her?”

“I was going to eventually, but you didn’t need that stress piled on you before now.”

“I could handle it.” I insist.

“I’m sure you could have!” Exa quickly lifts up her hands. “That doesn’t mean you should have to.”

“Yeah, alright.” That makes sense. I get back to writing. Should I tell her about Tera? No, definitely not. I don’t want to tell her before I’m sure I’m not making everything up.

I’ll be sure to write more often, before and after each mission. It’ll be a little bit before you get my next letter though, we have to stop for repairs. I’ll talk to you again soon!

I hit the send button, slip my phone back into my pocket, and rest again on Hoppy’s leg. I stay there until docking is complete, move Hoppy into her warm bay, and start on repairs.

I naturally take care of Hoppy first while Exa works on the others. We start with armor repairs, cutting, filling, and annealing for hours. The liquid armor can’t set in zero g, we have to finish everything before Exa can grab my old parts.

I know that there’s no rush, that we have a long while before Hoppy and I are going back out, and that we’ll just have to undo everything we put in after we finish shopping, but I sleep in Hoppy regardless. It just takes so much time to walk from the warehouse to my room, and also, if I sleep in my comfortable bed I might not want to leave in the mornings.

“The hardest thing for Niel was sleeping in the field.” Exa notes as I head down the ramp, still wiping sleep from my eyes. “He never could get used to sleeping in the harness.”

“Really?” From what I heard, he spent most of his time in a Skipper, a four legged scout mech. The cockpit is actually identical between it and my Hopper, he would have slept in the exact same harness I do. “It’s pretty comfortable compared to the scrapyard.” Sure, resting my head on my toolbox took some getting used to, but it’s not that bad.

“More comfortable than most military cots I saw too.” She shrugs. “But he had no problem sleeping on those.”

“Was it the tension? Xenia mentioned that once, that he wasn’t comfortable when he wasn’t being shot at.”

“I’m sure that was part of it, but even beyond that. I think it was the lack of a blanket, but he’d never admit it. There was one night,” a sad smile finds its home on her face. “He broke into his memory cache. Pulled your childhood blanket out of it and was out like a light.”

I smile as well.

“I wish I knew him better.” I say quietly.

“He did too. He held onto every letter he got from your mom.”

“Did he blame himself for not being around?” I ask.

“No.” Exa shakes her head. “He thought you'd understand one day, or if you didn’t, he could live with you being safe.”

“Good.” That’s actually a relief. I understand what he did, why he couldn’t leave. I’d do the same, I’m doing the same. “What’s first?” Exa already has a few tables spread out, with a small pile of my old parts piled on top of them, and a tablet waiting for me. I pick it up and absorb the information.

“Take your pick.” Exa answers and gets to work.

She could have easily had all this done last night, there’s not actually that much work to do, at least not compared to Hoppy’s first overhaul. Exa could have finished all of this last night, but I’m glad she waited for me to wake up.

Exa takes Hoppy apart, and I replace the broken components with slightly less broken versions. They’re rusty, corroded, cracked, but functional.

“How the hell did I even get Hoppy running with these?” I ask.

“You tell me.”

The two of us work for a few hours, and end up with a mech that I absolutely cannot pilot. I can’t believe I was disappointed when I got new parts for her the first time. In an emergency though, she’ll work. 

“What now?” Exa asks.

“Simulator?”

“You’re still not sick of work?” She checks.

“Nope!”

“Alright. Janus is starting it up now.”

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