Con Air: In Space

[Spectre of the Fade]

Malcolm opened his mouth to correct Angel's assumption that he was a hostage, that Malcolm actually cared what he did at this point, but closed it before he even began to speak the words. This situation could be easily turned to his advantage, why throw away that opportunity for the sake of apathy? Besides, engineers tended to be useful. Even mouthy ones. But the job offers could wait till he was off this fucking ship, if this guy made it that far.

"How about you open this door, I get my limbs, you get me off this ship, then I let you go?" he offered with a raise of one red eyebrow and an intentionally suggestive shift of the gun on his shoulder. Not that he would actually waste charge on killing Angel, mind. The trick was making it look like he would.

 

[King]

The shift of the gun caught Angel's wide eyes, maybe if he did as he was told, nobody would get hurt, "Uh, sounds fair." Angel swallowed, finally looking to Malcolm before turning to the door. "Well, security are gonna be here soon so.." He mumbled to himself, walking over to the door. He scanned in his hand print quickly before typing in the code. Because of the system failure, it didn't work, "Oh, shit." He hissed, trying to figure out how to open it.

The sound of marching men worried Angel, so in a panic, he ripped off the interface to reveal a ton of wires, "Just gotta, cut there..." He mumbled to himself, not wanting to be caught helping an inmate. Without hesitation, Angel ripped at the correct coloured wires, hearing the click in the door. "Okay, go." Angel pushed at the door, opening it up just enough for them both to squeeze through.

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

Angel's voice tore Malcolm's attention away from watching the area around them for hostiles, and he turned around to find the tiny little gap Angel had opened. His expression darkened almost immediately. Right. Yeah. Just "go", like it wasn't squeezing between a stationary wall and a very fucking large metal door that could potentially crush him before he was on the other side.

Malcolm really only had the opportunity to glare darkly at the gap between the vault door and the wall for only a second or two before the sound of an alarming number of boots running down the hall got him moving. As per usual, there was no time for caution or regard for safety. So he squeezed himself through the gap, holding the laser rifle to his side and muttering curses in a fashion that might have been funny if the situation was less serious. The vault itself was an impressive size, likely taking up a large portion of the nose of the ship. Only a small area was designed to be walked on, however; just a few square meters of metal grate serving as the floor, which was lined by guard rails to keep idiots from falling off the edge onto the rows and rows of containers below. A computer sat in the center of the walking space, purely for operating the vault's systems, and a small walkway extended out into the empty space of the rest of the room, likely to allow one to access a summoned container.

It was pleasing to find that security on the computer was nearly nonexistent, likely thanks to overconfidence in the vault door's ability to keep unauthorized people out. It was simple enough to locate the container with the date-stamp of when he arrived on the ship and pull it up. A mechanical arm, stretching from the ceiling, reached down to the selection of containers and pulled up the one he'd specified. Sure enough, the arm lined up the container with the walkway. "Do you want this?" Malcolm asked Angel once the whole process had stopped, meaning the gun in his hands. "There's bound to be a few more in there."

 

[King]

Angel managed to slip his slim body through the gap before pushing the door as shut as he could. He could hear the marching footsteps of security, then the screams and yells of rioting prisoners. Angel huffed a breath, cursing himself for managing to get caught up in this. He grabbed the railing and looked down to the vault storage, seeing various bits and pieces stored.

The engineer watched the claw carefully collecting the container, assuming that was what Malcolm was after. It wasn't a big box, so Angel assumed his arm wasn't like some sort of grenade launcher. The question caught Angel off guard, "Uh-" Angel nearly never shot guns, he was awful at it and couldn't aim for his life. But the sound of marching footsteps and riots outside told him it might ensure him some safety, "Might aswell." He huffed, taking the rifle by the barrel. He examined it, figuring out what to push. He'd fixed a couple of these before.

"Right so, put your limbs on then, let me go..?" Angel asked, raising his eyebrows. If Malcolm answered, Angel didn't hear. The security had been sent down to the vault, and were banging on the door, "The two criminals exit now!" A man's voice muffled by the door. Angel made a face, "Uh, hi, I'm not a criminal." He said back, leaning towards to door to make his voice closer. "Angel Cove is listed as an accomplice to violation of seven codes-" The man began to list his and Malcolm's wrongdoings. "Great." Angel rubbed his face, so now he had two choices- Give himself up then get put into the prison he built, or escape and get dragged around by this fool. Angel groaned, "Nevermind..."

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

After handing off the gun to Angel, Malcolm walked into the large container, glancing around at the bins lining the racks inside it. It was going to take forever to search through this by hand. Good thing he didn't have to. Raising a hand to his right temple, he held the small button hidden under his skin there down. The switch in the vision of his right eye was instantaneous and painful in a shocking fashion. The eye was artificial and capable of an alternate sight mode that showed electromagentic fields in a visual fashion, but it was painful and costly power-wise. He scowled deeply as he closed his left eye and glanced around, searching for the signatures of his arm and leg. Both had large batteries; it wasn't all that difficult to locate them.

"I'd suppose I'm stuck with you, then," Malcolm noted to the engineer after walking out of the container, a pistol he'd found in a different box in one hand and the arm and leg he'd been looking for under his other arm. The pistol was another projectile weapon, but at least this one had full charge. The announcement from the men outside was both concerning and surprising; concerning in that there were fucking guards outside and surprising in that they labeled Angel a criminal instead of a hostage. "Given that, any ideas as to how we leave without getting shot?"

 

[King]

"Fucking great." Angel sighed, this was not how he exactly wanted to go down in history. Yet here he was. He could hear the sounds of the mechanics he had trained trying to break into the door. He bought the pair a little time by completely breaking the wires, so hopefully they'd have to actually break through the door.

"Okay, uh.." Angel wiped his forehead, his other hand on his hip, the gun pressed against his hip. Non of the doors would work, since he practically ripped out the wires from the front. He walked over to the bars, gripping them as he looked down. "So, this is gonna be a little old school..." Angel sighed, not believing he was actually gonna suggest this, "We'd fit through the vent system." Angel shrugged, "Then I guess we can get to the dock, because I'm guessing we're not staying on the ship." Angel sighed, scared for his life. He didn't have any more time to think of something else, since he heard the electric saw hit the door, "Shit."

Angel decided he'd begin running anyway. There were stairs, spiraling and un-steady that they could climb down til they found a shaft. The vents weren't big enough to stand in, but the men could kneel comfortably. As chief engineer, the vent map was imprinted into his brain. Angel begin to jog down the steps, spiraling until he found a metal grid. "Here we go then..."

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

The vent system. The vent system? No, definitely not the vent system, that was the sort of stunt pulled in terrible action vids and by amateurs who prioritized looking dramatic over actual strategy. Malcolm opened his mouth to complain about the pure idiocy of this plan but was interrupted by the sound of engineers outside cutting through the door. It appeared he lacked a choice. Waiting for the prison staff to break through the vault door would be suicide, given the extreme lack of cover in this room, so he followed Angel down to the entrance of the vent shaft.

"For the record," he snapped, staring at the tunnel he was going to be crawling through shortly with an uncomfortable expression, "I think this is a stupid plan." He could spent a few minutes listing all the reasons why. Weak sections. The risk of being followed by guards. Getting lost. Getting stuck. But again, there was no better option, unless he wanted to get torn apart. Not that he was going to admit he lacked a better plan to Angel.

 

[King]

Angel slid the gun along next to him as he crawled along, hearing Malcolm behind him. Having his backside exposed to him was a little embarrassing, but he had other worries, "Oh yeah, and the better plan was to wait for those guards-" Angel rolled his eyes as he thought about the route, knowing they had to crawl for a couple of minutes before getting to the dock, "Hey Mr. Officer, don't shoot just let us out and we'll leave you be." Angel mocked Malcolm's voice before finding himself crawling along a little faster, realizing it was a little bit of a death wish to do so.

After a couple more turns, Angel recognized they were practically at the docking station. Angel looked down though a gritted section of the floor to see the pain spacecrafts they had ready to fly off. "So, it's a bit of a jump..." Angel said quietly, eyeing around the dock, seeing that the alarm had sent staff to their rooms until it stopped. "We're gonna have to be quick though." Angel began to back up so he could take off the grid.

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

"Your impression of me is horrible," Malcolm said, grinding his teeth at the engineer's slow pace. Dragging around the nearly one hundred kilos of metal that made up his attachments was neither fun or easy, even with the enhancements to his muscles he'd gotten. The replacement limbs were far heavier than flesh, so augmentations were necessary to move around with the same ease he had before being altered. So, he bore the weight better than an unaltered person, but that didn't mean they were any less of a pain to carry around in such a small space. The slow speed of the man ahead of him only made that worse. "Hurry up," he snapped while waiting for Angel to open up the grate. "I'm tired of staring at your ass." It wasn't an unpleasant ass to look at, really. It was the man the ass belonged to that was the issue.

After the grate was opened and Malcolm had enough space to get out, he did without hesitation. The craft around them were small shuttles designed for ship to ship or ship to planet transport, which was perfectly fine for his purposes. He collected his gun and attachments then made for a shuttle that was ready to fly, then turned toward Angel. "At this point, you have two options. One is taking another one of these craft, then you can try to get as far as you can away from this ship in it. Odds are you will be captured, arrested, and placed into this very prison. The second option is coming with me. I have a ship, crewed by my band of mercenaries, that is waiting to pick me up. You would join the group, your job being to keep my ship in working order. No combat, you're far too useless at that, just fixing what's broken. I'd pay you well, but I doubt you consider that an incentive. Choice is yours." An oddly serious speech, coming from a man in prison clothes with a ratty beard. He punctuated the statement by spinning on his heel and walking into the shuttle he'd selected, attachments and weapon in his arm.

 

[King]

Angel dropped down his gun before shimming through the gap on the venting and jumping down onto the ground, hitting it on his side. His legs crumbled and he fell on his face, "Fuck!" He yelped before groaning and standing up. This was embarrassing. When Malcolm landed next to him he grabbed his gun and looked around. Maybe Malcolm could drop him off at the nearest colony and leave him be?

When Malcolm started talking, Angel watched him as he attempted to get his breath back from all the crawling. The idea of having to work for scraggly criminals like Malcolm made Angel cringe. But what other alternative did he have? He didn't even know how to use any of the shuttles or navigate his way around the galaxy. And he really didn't feel like staying on this ship and being locked up by his once co-workers...

"Fine! Fine. Whatever, I'll join your group or whatever lets just go." Angel hurried him with his hands, looking around at the large, steel door which opened into space. Angel looked over at the shuttles. "The 6-10 is the fastest..." He pointed out, before looking around for the door into the dock, "They're probably gonna check in here soon..."

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

It was quite obvious what decision Angel had made, obvious enough he didn't bother glancing back to confirm it. The noise coming from his mouth was quite indicative. "You really just do not shut up, do you?" he observed, setting both the limbs he'd retrieved from the vault and the gun in the seat the co pilot was supposed to take before turning his attention to the shuttle's holographic control system. He didn't care for its lime green coloring. Not that he had time to tweak the settings.

It didn't take him more than a few minutes to get the shuttle out of its docking clamps and into the open blackness of space. A few minutes was long enough for the prison ship's main guns to charge, however, and judging by the fact they were firing at the shuttle the moment it cleared the great steel doors, the pair's escape through the vents had not gone unnoticed.

"Fuck. Fuck!" Malcolm manipulated the shuttle's controls, doing his damnedest to avoid taking more hits to the shuttle's weak shield. Non-essential power was automatically redirected to the shields, cutting everything from the lights to the craft's artificial gravity. Malcolm was unaffected by both of those things, strapped into the pilot's chair with nothing to look at but the holographic control systems, but everything else in the cabin was going to feel every single twist and roll he performed while dodging the prison ship's guns.

Those twists and rolls did get the craft safely out of the ship's range, however. Well. 'Safely' was a subjective label, but the shuttle sustained no critical damage. By the time the prison ship turned about and began pursuing them, the little craft would be long gone. Malcolm would count that as a getaway. It only occurred to him after that there was in fact another person in the shuttle with him. A person who might have never experienced real intertia before. This ought to be entertaining.

"How was that?" he asked, a note of amusement in his voice and a tiny smirk on his lips. As he spoke, he killed the shuttle's shields and directed its power to the systems that had been shut off. Like gravity. Would there be a crash as Angel fell to the floor? Ooh, he hoped there would be a crash.

 

[King]

As soon as Malcolm climbed into the plane, it didn't take long for Angel to follow, out of fear of being caught. The stamping boots of security marched down the halls, so Angel looked into the shuttle. Malcolm had placed his gun in the passenger seat. Rude. Instead of arguing, Angel clambered into the storage area behind the seats.

"Uh, where are the belts?" Angel looked around, he had only ever traveled in self-driven spacecrafts. This all very new to him. He scrambled through boxes in hope to hold onto something. Before he could strap himself down into the aircraft, it had flew into space. Just after, everything turned off. "Oh shit!" Angel shouted when he heard guns, floating in mid air. It wasn't until Malcolm began spinning around in space that Angel was thrown against the ceiling.

Angel was gonna chuck. He had never experienced flight like that and for sure he was gonna chuck. He didn't wanna throw up in this shuttle and get it everywhere. "Lord." He hissed before the shuttle slowed down. As soon as it did, Angel floated for a moment, rubbing his head in pain. It was one moment before the gravity switched on again, having Angel collapse onto the floor. A grunt was heard as he hit the floor, another followed when his rifle landed on top of him.

"How about.. We keep the gravity on next time..." He mumbled, feeling queasy. As he sat up, he saw a crack, "Oh fuck." He took off his glasses, seeing a large crack in the right lens. He knew he should of got the laser surgery when it was offered.

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

Malcolm made a series of noises that sounded suspiciously like chuckling, quickly pressing the back of his flesh-and-bone hand to his lips as an attempt to muffle the sound and cover the smile that spread across his face. He only resumed plotting a course for the shuttle after the expression was gone. After locking in the course and flicking on the auto-pilot, the mercenary detangled himself from the straps and got up.

"I'll assume that was your first experience with inertia?" he asked in a weirdly casual fashion, collecting his own gun and the two attachments he'd left in the copilot's seat. He continued speaking as he sat on the floor and began putting his own attachments back on. "I will say I was surprised. You reacted better than I expected you to."

Replacing his own robotic limbs was an easy enough procedure, just not something that should be done while in the middle of escaping a prison. Permanent nodes of metal were fused into the flesh of his right arm and left hip, where he had lost his arm and his leg respectively. The nodes served to lock the robotic replacement for the limb into place, so all he had to do was unlock the shitty attatchments, remove them, connect some wires, and slide on then lock in his custom set. The custom arm was darkly colored, shiny like metal, and clearly designed to do something beyond what an ordinary robotic hand could. Its four fingers were wider than the fingers of an actual hand, but the sophistication of the finger joints and the palm suggested that it was more flexible than an actual hand. The custom leg was more difficult to look at, as its workings were hidden under a layer of black fabric that served as armor for the delicate mechanisms inside. It didn't have distinct toes, however.

Malcolm had to remove his trousers to replace the leg he'd been assigned by the prison. As with the gravity thing, he gave no warning before doing so, instead just standing up and removing the prison orange pants before sitting back down to continue his work as if nothing had happened.

 

[King]

Angel sat cross-legged on the floor, wiping uselessly at the broken lens with his sleeve. He pouted as he put them back on. Angel couldn't see shit without them, now he was gonna have to deal with a giant crack down one eye. "What do you think? I'm an engineer not a pilot." Angel hissed, watching Malcolm fiddle with all his metal.

"Ugh, my glasses." Angel moaned as he took them off again, rubbing his eyes. How did this happen to him? He was doing his job happily, until this asshole appeared, "You're an asshole..." He muttered with that thought. He put the glasses back on again to watch Malcolm do his wires.

When he took off his pants, Angel looked at his broken body, "...What got you made up with all the metal then?" He asked with curiosity. He didn't know much about any of the prisoners, but this guy must of been in a fair amount of fights to end up like this. Maybe he was a gangster? He certainly looked the type. Or maybe a corrupt warrior? Angel watched with his face on his hand.

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

"The arm was voluntary," Malcolm responded after a moment, looking up from the work he was doing on his leg to meet Angel's eyes. Complete honesty was the best policy; after all, he wanted to recruit this man. That didn't make it any less uncomfortable for Malcolm. He was unused to answering questions about himself or his past or his attachments honestly, far more comfortable with giving those who sought his services the answers they wanted to hear and the people he paid a warning not to ask about such things. "I had it replaced with an attachment after enlisting with the military. While I was working on my engineering certifications, to be precise. The leg had to be removed after an injury I sustained to it got infected." His tone on the last sentence suggested he was not going to willingly discuss it further.

"What about you?" he asked after a pause, looking back down and returning to his work. "You could have your eyes fixed. You could choose not to dress like a shitty twenty first century lumberjack. Why do you?"

 

[King]

Angel nodded as he listened, trying to watch Malcolm's hand through the cracked glass. He wanted to ask more questions, but Malcolm's tone suggested it was safer not to. Military, Angel could imagine that. This guy seemed like he could be a soldier. His entire way he was seemed warrior-like. Then how did he end up in prison? Angel wanted to be so nosy, but that might get him punched.

When asked, Angel asked. "It's comfy." He shrugged. Plus, he was too lazy to change his ways. "I don't know, It's not like the prison was fitted with the modern fashion, the non-important staff get to wear whatever twentieth century shit they find." He rested his head on his other hand. He preferred comfort to anything really.

After a pause, Angel sat up with a sigh, craning his head to see if he could see outside from his seat, "When do we reach wherever?" He asked, being impatient.

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

Excuses, excuses. It was a prison ship, not some desolate waste. Decent clothes could be requisitioned. Decent clothes could also be comfortable. Malcolm opened his mouth to point these things out to Angel, but closed it again before he'd even begun to speak the words. He really didn't have much room to say anything; not with the ghastly thing covering his face that was more wild animal than beard and definitely not with the prison clothes he was wearing. That was something argue later. After he'd had a shave and a decent shower. For now, he settled with a loud noise of disgust and a glare in Angel's direction.

"We'll reach wherever when we're there," he said instead, standing up and dusting himself off. He pulled his pants back on for the sake of propriety, then settled back in the pilots chair and started fiddling with the communication systems.

Their destination was Pinnacle Station, technically. An old and absolutely massive space station constructed many years before. It was stationed near an asteroid belt in the inner system, originally made to collect and mine said asteroids, but it had been abandoned when the company that ran it fell to bankruptcy. Decades later, it served as a rest stop for pirates and mercenaries and all manner of unlawful types...along with entrepreneurial businessfolk who don't particularly care where the supplies they need came from. It was a good enough place to meet a client or acquire some goods, and it was also the place where Malcolm's ship was waiting.

They were about twenty minutes from it, but Malcolm sure as hell wasn't telling Angel that.

 

[King]

The sarcastic response just made Angel snort and roll his eyes. How did he even manage to get stuck with this asshole?

Angel also stood up, putting his hands into his pockets and looked over the control deck. "Do you actually know how to fly these things or are you winging it?" He asked, looking at all of the buttons. He then walked back and started looking through the boxes, rifling through random boxes that had hit him before in the non-gravity. He sat down in front of one crate and opened it. Inside was a dusty old ray-gun. Angel picked it up and admired the crafty handiwork before putting it down and putting his hand back into the box.

"FUCK." Angel pulled his hand out of the box quickly, his hand bloody. He hissed as he looked into the box to see a large isopod hissing back in the box. He groaned and gripped his hand tightly, pressing it against his white shirt. "I thought the prison wasn't allowed fucking animals. How old is this fucking thing?!" He growled with annoyance. This was just his luck, now he had to meet all of his supposedly new crew mates with a big nasty bite on his hand.

"...These things aren't poisonous are they?"

 

[Spectre of the Fade]

"Of course, I'm improvising," Malcolm responded without so much as a glance away from interface, his tone dry enough to be mistaken for seriousness. "You have seen straight through my brilliant plan to 'wing it' right into the side of-"

He was cut off by the sharp exclamation from the engineer, head snapping toward the noise, years of reacting to sudden loud noises as signals of danger making him unable to ignore it. The sight of blood was what got him out of the chair, though. Malcolm bent down to peer into the box containing the critter that bit Angel, making a soft 'tsk'ing noise once he spotted it. "Out of all the boxes in this damn shuttle," he began, moving to stand up and look around for some form of medical kit, "you had to stick your hand in the one that had the giant bug in it. Also, the word you are looking for is venomous. We'll just have to wait and see." It only took a few seconds for him to find a kit and pry it off the panel it was hooked to. After doing so, he went to Angel and extended his left hand, an offer to clean and perhaps bandage the bite. The offer contrasted with the words continuing to come out of Malcolm's mouth. "I'm genuinely impressed you made it into your-what, thirties?"

He didn't really concern himself with whatever the critter was doing. If it wanted to try and bite his ankle, he would introduce it to the heel of his metal foot.

 

[King]

Angel sat down onto the floor and grimaced, his hand throbbing. The entire situation was the worst, Angel was wanting to go home now. Malcolm made Angel roll his eyes extravagantly, "Vemonous, Poisonous... If there's a difference I don't fucking care. It'll still kill me." He hissed as he pressed his hand against his dirty shirt, the white material soaking up his blood. His fingers were shaking a little, the creature had bit pretty deep. Malcolm's skepticism kind of worried Angel, because he certainly didn't wanna die via giant bug.

"I'm impressed nobody around you has killed you yet." Angel muttered under his breath before he passed over his bloody hand. Malcolm was annoying and patronizing. As he touched Angel's hand, he whined, pouting as it stung. "Fuck sake." He whined. The box shook as Angel watched it from the corner of his eye. He just woke up the bug and now it was pretty mad.

"I hate everything..." He grumbled, wincing again when his hand touched Malcolm.