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themannclann · 6 months ago

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(part 4/4)

Light exploded inside as Icarus swung the door open, sun baking their skin in seconds. Icarus caught their moth-eaten hat as the sudden gust of wind threatened to blow them off their feet.

Slag was a cursed planet. A molten radioactive rock, to put it lightly. The ground was no less than sixty degrees at any time of day and the dust storms choked any life from the earth. Icarus took one step out the door and raised their neckerchief to cover their mouth. The town of Antares was in the caldera of a dead volcano, so even though the noon sun cooked the town to charcoal, the geography escaped much of the planet's toxic sulphur clouds. Across from the bar was the shipyard, a hopeless run-down structure more akin to a factory than a repair shop. Icarus made their way over, each step jingling with the spurs strapped to their boots, exact replicas of something they saw in a poster at one point and decided were cool.

The door to the garage was sheltered under a ragged awning. The buzzer was covered as well by a hard plastic canopy so Icarus could push it safe from the harsh sun. The buzz echoed through the workshop, and Icarus could hear the rattle and banging as something clambered across tools and equipment.

The garage door rolled up with a slam to reveal a kid, no older than fourteen, covered in soot and oil. The kid was Ghuur, a short, stout species with skin of chitinous plates. Over their mouth was a metal filtered mask painted to look like shark teeth. Even away from the thicker sulphur clouds, everyone in town wore masks to filter out the toxins baked out of the earth. Everyone except Icarus, that is, whose nose had filtered membranes, absorbing the oxygen and nitrogen from the air and leaving the debris and inoculum.

“You the A-frame, ninety tonne… Perigee Engine?” he hissed impatiently, filter crackling.

“That’s my girl,” Icarus’ voice whirred faintly, the vestige of their all but mechanical lungs.

“You're late,” the kid turned back towards the shop and gestured for Icarus to follow. Inside was a jungle of wires, vehicle frames, and recycled engines.

Icarus’ eyes widened like a kid in a candy store. They stepped over an ion pulse splitter, “is that a Praetorium turret mount?” and pushed aside a curtain of hoses, before pointing excitedly at a wide hollow cylinder two metres in diameter, “That's a stellaphage fuel cylinder! Thought those were discontinued… how’d you get your claws on all this?”

The boy's next words were cold and he suddenly sounded as if he had more years behind him than in front.

“Pa was good at cards.”

Oblivious, responding almost by instinct, Icarus mumbled thoughtlessly. “I could beat ‘em.”

“You’re through here.”

Out the other side of the workshop beside a crumbling hangar, on a service platform propped up by wrought iron struts and no small portion of hope, was a ship. But not just any ship, the Phoenix was an electric blue A-Frame light carrier. In the joints one could see the characteristic Sekuri construction, kitbashed from other salvaged vessels and streamlined into something entirely unique. It was built like an ‘A’, hence the name, and resembled what a species - spacefaring by nature - might think a bird in flight looked like. The Phoenix looked straight up and was built vertically. Its nose reached for the sky, as if yearning for freedom. An angel with clipped wings clawing for the heavens.

“So what did we agree on, chuck,” Icarus smirked, “six power cells?”

“Twelve. I should make it twenty for how damaged your couplings were.”

“What's a fried coupling or two between friends, huh? Why don't we call it an even ten and I'll throw in a good word next spaceport I'm in.”

The kid eyed Icarus up and down, a membrane retracting from his eyes to take in more light as they focused on a spot on Icarus’ chest.

“You one of them duelists?” It was as much a statement as it was a question. Icarus glanced down at one of the many pins and badges lining their poncho, one of which was a skull with smoking barrels for eyes and three stars underneath indicating rank.

“That's a ‘slinger to you, chuck. And I'm a Marshall.” Icarus tapped the badge with pride, ignoring the fact someone else’s name was etched on the underside.

“You think a quick tongue and a quicker gun will get you anywhere?” another half question. “I hope for your sake Slag spits you out. Not a gravedigger left on this rock that works for free.”

Icarus was silent. They had nothing. No quip. No witty remark. They turned on a heel and walked up to the ship and opened up the cargo crane with a hiss as the hold depressurised. Icarus fixed their foot into the crane hook and lifted themselves into the opening room.

A few minutes later they lowered down a pallet of three crates. Each crate held four industrial power cells. It was nothing grand, but each cell would keep the lights on for a week or so. They parted without a word. Icarus closed and repressurised the cargo bay. The moment the doors sealed the Tether disconnected, retracting back up their side and back into its port in the back of their neck. Icarus ignored it and stepped onto the single person platform lift that went up to the next level.

The galley was a livelier room, with streamers and wire lights hanging from the walls and ceiling. It was a compact home, with tools dangling with the pots and pans above the table that doubled as a workbench. The open kitchen was a mess with half-finished meals they never bothered to dispose of. A radio was mounted into the wall crackling local music; a harsh mix of vocals and overenthusiastic drumming. Hammocks were wrapped up on the ceiling, ready to be dropped down. A corkboard was mounted to another wall with pictures of Icarus with friends they had made on their adventures. They had met plenty of different Humans, Ghuur, even Omphiad. There were plenty of pictures, though the same people rarely made multiple appearances. From the galley, two doors went off into engineering rooms in the wings of the Phoenix, and another lift went up into the cockpit.

The ship began a low and constant rumble and Icarus caught themselves on a cabinet handle. The Phoenix was being transported from service platform to launch pad via a system of conveyors and pulleys. Icarus pushed a button on the kitchen counter console and a cylinder raised from the flat surface, revealing a rack of chilled beverages. Icarus took a bottle of some mineral-rich drink much resembling milk and closed the cooler. Drink in hand they returned to the lift.

Continuing to the cockpit, it was as lived in as the mess hall. A triangular room with lights and consoles mounted on the ceiling above with panels of circuitry on all sides. Three chairs sat in the centre of the room mounted to mechanical arms hooked into the ceiling. The middle chair was Icarus’ with their name embroidered in the upholstery and a fluffy pillow and footrest adjusted perfectly. The other two were blank.

Icarus slotted the bottle into a cup holder beside the chair and took their seat. On the underside of the arm rest, Icarus pushed a lever forward and the mechanical arm contracted, raising the chair up towards the consoles. The cupholder stabilised on a gyroscope, and remained perfectly level. As Icarus reached the consoles, a new Tether was made. Out of their central neck aperture came a thicker cable, about an inch in diameter, that snaked up and fitted into a similar neural socket on the centre console. Icarus’ pupils turned to pinpricks. To interface with a gun was light work for any Sekuri. To interface with an entire ship was mesmerising. To some, it would be overwhelming to have a whole ship's subsystems tapped directly into their nervous system, but Icarus was built for it, and coughed once as they adjusted to the new awareness.

“What's new, Sparks?” Icarus groaned in an attempt at a soothing tone. The rumbling stopped and one of many overhead lights blinked on. The final coupling had been detached and the ship was ready to launch. Icarus sent a signal back to start the assisted launch. The Phoenix was fast and reliable, but weak sub-orbit and even weaker sat still on the surface. With a mental push, Icarus pushed the Phoenix into gear. The entire ship rumbled and shook, excluding their drink, as primary thrusters came to life.

The feeling started in their ears. Then behind their eyes. A tug pulling them in opposite directions ever so slightly. The launchpad's magnetic launch assist was gearing up. The ship groaned as the pull intensified. For Icarus, it became a sharp pain that coursed like an electric shock every second and a half. It always gave them the worst brain fog, the magnetic waves scrambling their thoughts until they could barely concentrate on the smear of coloured lights in front of them. In another second, it was over. The launch pad fired and the Phoenix was launched into the air. With a connected nervous system, Icarus' and the Phoenix's gyroscopic sensors became one. Even if Icarus' head was still spinning they could feel the ship, and the ship knew it was falling. A burst of thought and intent and the main thrusters fired at once. Icarus was thrown backwards in their seat, their hands gripping the armrest while the tether did the heavy lifting. To an untrained eye, Icarus was barely conscious; staring blankly through the thick front window. To Icarus, however, every sensor on the ship became sensory input. It was like the memory of feeling, with the knowledge of every sensation but without the nerve endings to feel it. Even with a neural interface a machine could not process data the way an eye or ear can. Even still, Icarus could all but feel the wind buffeting around them, hear the roaring engines as they chewed through fuel in the dense atmosphere... And smell the ozone.

While the sulphuric weather got caught on the volcanic brim, a thicker layer of atmosphere rolled over the top like oil and water. The Phoenix spun to avoid two wisps of charged sulphur cloud the atmosphere ceiling had scraped off colliding, sending a cascade of lightning down to the town below. Leaving the atmosphere was a game of navigation and manoeuvrability. Larger ships could punch straight through the wall of oxygen, but little crafts like the Phoenix had to "run the ceiling" or glide just underneath it to find where it was weakest and slip through the seam. Icarus was locked in a silent, unflinching dance with the planet itself. And there it was. A pinprick of sunlight through the ozone canopy. Icarus took a moment to gather themselves. They held up their hand to hide a cough. Launching always gave them the worst sea sickness, no matter how often they did it. They took a swig of their drink. It tasted like copper.

As their thoughts slowly became clearer, Icarus adjusted course and shot full speed, fixing to break through the weak point like diving into water. They was aimed for the stars, and they were never going to stop.

Fic Fin

WORLDSHIP: Dreaming of Glass

Character Introduction: Icarus

...

The thing hummed to life like a beast rousing from slumber. Its resonance, both synthetic and intangible, so perfectly resembled that natural vigour that refused to be ignored or mistaken for the drone of lesser machinery.

That thing, profane by the very nature of its artifice, was unmistakably organic. It had all the parts — arms, legs, ears, nose, and all — despite being so perfectly still one might mistake it for an art piece. Its features were androgynous and exactly symmetrical, broken only by a nasty gouge on the chin and split eyebrow. It had deep blue skin so smooth it was closer to marble.

And then it breathed. Lungs expanding with a whir. Six eyes snapped open. A cracked tongue wet parched lips. In an instant, inexplicably, that godless creation became a person. A person with a splitting headache and a groaning stomach.

#icarus #worldship #dreaming of glass #oc fic #original character

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