My Homemade Spaceship 8 by Douglas Michaels

Author:Douglas Michaels [Michaels, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

At first, I thought the female creature standing before us was a child. She was only about three feet tall and leaned on one leg while the other stuck out to the side. She had metallic skin that almost looked like snakeskin, though it was black and glistened like coals in the light. Her eyes glowed, and not like Rayne’s out of beauty, but light literally shone out of them, which had to be convenient when working on fiddly, shadowy spaceship engines. It also made it tricky to maintain eye contact, but when I squinted, I could just about look at her without feeling like my eyes were being scalded.

A light layer of grease covered her exposed limbs and clothes, and there was a heavier smudge of it on her nose from where she’d rubbed it. She wore basic, navy-blue clothes that had holes burned into them, but clothing was always going to get caught in the crossfire as a mechanic. It came with the territory, as I’d learned firsthand during my own impromptu stints as a spaceship mechanic.

Her hair protruded from her scalp like wires, and she kept it short probably so it wouldn’t turn into a hazard. Her four arms were folded across her petite chest defiantly, but not in a confrontational way. It was almost a rehearsed look of defiance. I could imagine she got a lot of looks like the one I was trying to conceal beneath my smile. It was a look that questioned her expertise and her ability to actually do the job I had been told she was masterful at, and I hated the fact that I knew I’d shown my doubt for a few moments when I’d first seen her. She had probably experienced a lifetime of being underestimated, and I’d accidentally fallen into the same category of customer who thought she wasn’t worth the money.

Fortunately, Rayne grinned at her approvingly, so the mechanic seemed to warm to her a lot faster. The two nodded in recognition, like long-lost sisters who didn’t want to get too emotional in front of the boys.

“I’m assuming you’re Bissy?” Rayne asked.

“Are you the smart one?” the mechanic snorted.

“I am,” Rayne replied.

“Hey,” I grunted, and that seemed to confirm Rayne’s response.

“Are you done looking at me like I might shatter?” Bissy asked as she turned to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just surprised by--”

“How I look?” she sighed. “How short I am? Been there, done that, heard it all before about a million times. You know, I’ve been doing this for a century, and I can lift ten times my own body weight.”

“I’m sorry--” I tried again.

“I’ll get over it,” she replied with a smirk. “I know I don’t look too impressive, so I let my work speak for itself. Now, what are you after?”

I knew she was trying to wind me up, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure what to say to apologize for doubting her. So, awkward greetings completed, we moved on to the reason we’d come to Giert in the first place.

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