Snippet #1786712

In the midst of the darkened flight deck, no illumination but the consistent sparking of a torch in the night, Jason Miecyzslawa was hard at work on his babies. The portable music player he had dragged with him, a model that was nearly fifteen years old and sported burn marks, duct tape, and indents, threw heavy rock music that was equally out of date around the large area, the cranky deck chief’s soldering gun hissing and spitting almost in time to the music. In the dark space, his boots began tapping against the floor, making clomping sounds to the heavy riffs whining out from tiny speakers.

Music had always helped him relax and focus, in equal measures, so it was almost as necessary a tool as his own physical equipment. Because of the hardship and time spent thrown together in the deep space, behind enemy lines, the crew had learned to trust each other implicitly, both for sanity’s sake and for practical reasons. Digger trusted his guys to know their positions, and they in turn trusted him to be able to fix every problem that came their way. It was an unbalanced relationship, but Digger had a gift with machines and mechanics, a gift that hadn’t taken long to come to the surface and make itself known around the Atlas. Now, along with the regular and demanding repairs of equipment and fliers, Digger found himself walking the halls where needed, fixing a heater here and an electronic gurney there.

He did everything he could, worked himself dead, and passed out without dreaming. It was the only way to stay sane, nowadays.

With a groan, he slipped out from underneath the Angel on the maintenance roller, an official name that hadn’t made it past the airlock. On the flight deck, they were simply known as skateboards. Sitting up, he flipped the protective shielding that covered his face and neck, now dotted with solder and copper strands, to wipe at tired eyes and stare into space for a few minutes, allowing the music and thumping to fill the cracks within his brain.

A woman standing at the bottom of the entrance ramp as he boarded the Atlas, nothing but three sets of clothes, toiletries, and his standard uniform in a duffel bag hanging off of his right arm. His set of legs, various equipment, and staff manifests were already on board, packed into trunks and set inside his bunk. He took the time to look back at her, a reassuring smile on his face. He was leaving her, with nothing, with no one.

He wasn’t concerned.

“I’ll never leave you, Jason.”

Sure you won’t.

With a sigh, he sat up, stretching skyward and listening to his back pop and crack under the motion. When he released himself from the strain, he felt ten years younger, as he always did after solving a few problems. With a flick of his wrist, he grabbed up his personal recorder and began to speak, walking around the Angel as he did so.

“Stephanie took a plasma bolt from an unknown source, scorching the undercarriage with expected damage output, but nothing external was knocked around too badly. However, the instrument panel wasn’t working correctly according to our dear Commander Morrow, so I popped her open and rifled through her innards. Most of the automatic circuitry was fried, and her lock-on mechanism wasn’t fully responding, so I had to completely replace the wiring in several areas. The lock-on is still giving me trouble, so I’m hoping to have that completely worked out tomorrow, around 0800, before Morrow is sent out again.” He paused, the recorder halfway to his lips, shaking his head slightly. How much longer could the man hold out? The strain was slowly ebbing at him, sucking his life force away. Even the banter they shared, always a highlight to his day, seemed off as of late, and the outburst after the two men had discovered the damage to Stephanie was merely the tip of the ice burg.

Something had to give.

He shook his head violently, dislodging the thought. The Commander was one of the few people he saw on a regular basis, and he didn’t wish to see him snap. He needed to hold it together. For all of their sake.

“Now, Marissa, on the other hand, is a completely different ballgame. I don’t know what the good lieutenant did that was any different than what the good Commander did, but Marissa seemed a little worse for wear. The entire motherboard under the hood, the one that controls all instrumentals, is completely fried. I replaced it with one I had from Noelle, rest her soul, but I have my doubts as to whether or not she’ll be truly flightworthy. I’ll need to see Hawkins sometime tomorrow, to take her for a flight to stretch her wings, so to speak. Iron out any kinks. But Marissa’s always been a bit more delicate than Stephanie. Steph’s a tough old bird, for sure. Still, I’ll have to make a note of getting both pilots down here to take flight.”

He leaned his forehead against Marissa’s cool metal, imagining her shivering, terrified of going back outside where she could be hurt again. With a calloused hand, he stroked her serial markings, to reassure the poor girl. The metal under his hand warmed quickly. “Easy, girl,” he whispered, smiling.

He turned away from his baby, moving back towards the center of the room, the recorder still hanging near his lips. “All in all, not a bad day. No deaths, and two moderately banged up birds. We’ve certainly earned a break, haven’t we, little man in the recorder?”

He clicked the off switch, and scrubbed his hands with his face, tossing the recorder into a leather pocket at his belt. With a rush, he remembered the last time he was recording dialogue, in his quarters, staring into a camera while stuttering and stumbling through an apology, Amanda’s face on the other screen. She looked so broken, so tired, so angry with him and his being so far away. He remembered feeling heartbroken that he couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear, and feeling even worse when she gave him the bad news.

You said you’d never leave me.

You left me, Jason. You left me.

A bitter chuckle escaped him, and he moved out of the flight deck, yanking the chord for his music station out of the wall as he did so. The rock and roll, so prevalent in the dark and huge room, cut short in the midst of a drum solo. He hit the few lights left on as he exited, bone-tired, to his bunk.

He’d probably stare at the ceiling until he passed out, a ritual that was becoming more and more frequent.

I’ll never leave you, Jason.

I’ll never leave…