Empyrean Iris

Chapter 39

 Chalan sat in the rocking darkness of the sky taxi bouncing back and forth as they moved slowly through the outside traffic. The inside of the little hover shuttle was dim, and dilapidated, lit only by a glowing white screen on the far end showing nothing but static. Exposed wires and cables hung down from the ceiling and towards the floor.

Across from her, Captain Vir sat slumped back against his seat exhausted, his arms hanging limply at his sides, and to her surprise she found herself worried about any injuries he might have obtained pulling that stunt back at the bridge....

She said that like it was a bad thing.

And not like he had saved her life.... twice.

He groaned and leaned over, pulling up his right pant leg and taking a look at his mutilated mechanical leg. Their little adventure had done a number on the piece of hardware, and both of the joints – at the knee and at the ankle—were having trouble bending. It was partially the leg's fault they had decided to take a sky taxi, since his organic human gate had turned into a sort of lopsided hobble once both the ankle and the knee joint locked up.

It, once again, reminded her of the strange dichotomy of humanity. One moment he was saving the two of them from certain death, and the next moment he could barely walk on his own.

Across from her, Captain Vir slammed his palm into the knee joint, cursing it as it had locked into a sitting position and refused to move out.

She watched for a second struggling internally with herself before she scooted forward, kneeling on the rattling floor of the taxi before him to motion at his leg, "May I?"

He looked down at her, pausing with his single eye fixed on her own.

For a moment she expected to see the flash of hatred she had become so familiar with, but as she looked into his face, she did not see any trace of that expected hatred. He looked tired, yes, run ragged, certainly, but there was no hatred. This particular human wasn't very good at sustaining hatred,

Time dragged on to the point where she thought he was going to reject her offer, but finally he motioned her down, "Go ahead, you're the engineer, not me."

The taxi bounced a little on the unstable air, and she had to reach out to steady herself against the wall before sitting back on her haunches leaning forward to get a better look. The leg was a disaster. The non-metallic material that had been used to encase the joints had been completely shattered, and at some point, the inner bearings of the knee and the ankle had been warped by pressure, causing the smooth gliding surface of the rounded bearings to grind against the socket causing his issues.

"Can you fix it/" He asked, though from his voice he didn't seem to have much hope.

"I can probably fix it up enough to last until we get back to the ship, but otherwise..... I think you are going to need a replacement."

He sighed and leaned back in his seat, "I was worried you were going to say that."

She took a few moments to try and bend the sockets open a bit more, and with a little work she managed to get him partially mobile. He bent his leg slowly back and then forth, looking up at her as she sat back to admire her handywork.

"Not bad for a teck-less heathen."

She looked up, expecting that to be an insult, but found that he was smiling. She blinked, unsure of how to respond to his teasing, and surprised to be receiving it from him. Humans were like Drev in the way that they tended to tease their friends more so than they teased their enemies.