"Hello." I smiled in return, He was definitely nicer than the last one. "Would you happen to have connector clamps?" I asked him.
"Of course." He nodded and reached down pulling out a bag of clamps and set them on the counter. "50 credits please." He smiled. I reached for my pouch and realized I had forgotten that I gave it to Mando.
"Hold on a second." I headed toward the door. I saw Mando. "Money pouch." I called to him. He took it off his belt and tossed it toward me, but someone else caught it and ran off. "Son of a bitch, I'm sorry I'll be right back." I told the shop owner and ran out of the door. Mando had already taking off toward the guy as I stood there helpless. I reached up and touched the com dot. "Lane?" I spoke, "Lane, come in."
"What the hell do you want?" I heard.
"Come get this wire, we're right down the street from the hatch door."
"Why don't you bring it here yourself?"
"Just come and get it and hurry up, someone stole my money pouch." I heard her chuckling as she turned off the com. I stood there impatiently waiting for her to show up. "Hurry up!" I growled at her as she walked casually toward me. "Grab the clamps from that shop right there." I pointed it out and headed off in the same direction that Mando had gone. I reached up and touched the com dot again. "Mando?" I hit a T intersection not knowing which way he had gone. "Press the com on your neck." I told him looking down both directions sporadically.
"Yes?" I heard his voice over the com.
"Which way did you go?" I was still waiting and getting frustrated as I stood there not knowing. My heart was beating in my chest.
"I've got it handled." He answered.
"Just tell me which way you went at this T intersection." I stated.
"To the right." He answered, I turned toward the right and there he was walking back holding the money pouch. He stopped in front of me and handed it to me.
"I could've helped you know." I attached it to my belt and then pressed the com dot to turn it off.
"I had it." I couldn't see his face, but I bet he was grinning under that helmet. We headed back toward the street where Lane was leaning up against the lift with her arms crossed in front of her.
"Did you get it back?" She moved away from it when it started moving again.
"Yeah." I answered as we walked behind it. "Why didn't you take this back like I asked you too?"
"We are taking it back." She smiled. I shook my head at her and we headed back to the bay. Once there we got the wire into the repair bay as carefully as we could without dropping it off of the lift. Rassen stepped out of Mando's ship dropping a pile of wire off to the side.
"Perfect. Did you get everything I had on the list?" He walked over to inspect the lift checking every spool that was on it. Then saw the chimes and lifted them up "What is this?"
"A gift." I took the chimes from his hands and walked inside the ship where Temen usually sat on his pillow. I reached up and hung them next to his seat. He wasn't anywhere to be found at the moment and neither was Sprocket. I figured Temen had taken into the cargo bay to play around for a while. So I headed to my room and went inside, there on the desk was the jar with rings in it. I dumped them out and searched through the silver ornate rings until I found one I liked. I slipped it on my thumb and put the rest back into the jar. I then headed back outside as I took off my jacket and laid it across the ramp.
"Alright, let's get busy." I told Rassen who had been moving a piece of equipment over near the ship. I could only assume it was this wire spooling thing he had been talking about. It was huge and looked like a thread spooler, where you place the wire spool on vertically and it would feed the wire to you. At first Mando tried to lift the spool but it was far too heavy for him to do it. I didn't want to laugh at his struggles, but I found myself snickering a bit. Dulkin had been standing off to the side watching as well, before he walked over.
"I can help you with that." He smiled.
"Sure, if you want." I nodded and got Mando by the arm moving him back. "He's got this."
"How is he going to lift those, if I couldn't?" He turned toward me. I grinned at him and laced my arms across my chest.
"Just watch." I whispered. Dulkin grunted for a few seconds, then his body started to pop out of shape. His arms snapped and grew thicker, his back spread like a cobra, rippling with muscles. Dulkin was moaning from the transformation, but kept going. Two more arms sprouted out of the sides of his body just as thick with muscles as the first pair. His legs swelled and popped out as well and he grew bigger and taller. When he was done he stretched and tensed up his muscles. He turned and grinned at me. I returned the grin. "Thanks for the help." I nodded toward Dulkin. Then looked over at Mando "He's a Bangalore." I explained. "I knew he was one from his reddish skin color and the deep red tribal markings along his face and arms." I watched as Dulkin lifted the spool up as though it were nothing and set it onto the machine. He then grabbed another and added it as well toward the back. "I've fought one before, that's how I knew he could do what he just did."
"You fought one of them before?" He was confused. I nodded as I glanced at Mando as Rassen came out of the ship and saw Dulkin, sighed and then shook his head. He grabbed the end of the wire pulling it back into the ship behind him.
"It was a little bigger than that one, but yeah, a long time ago." I grinned. "I kicked it in the um...well, lets just say I kicked it and leave it at that." I headed up the ramp into Mando's ship looking at Rassen. "Okay, so what do you need us to do?"
"Keep grabbing wire, measure it along this wall and clip it, then add the connector clamps at the ends. I'll go through and connect it all together. Try to keep it flat if you can and don't cross them." He told us.
"How do I know where the wire goes?"
"Thicker wire through the wider holes, thinner wire through the smaller holes." He pointed them out for me to see. "Use these." He picked up one of the connector clamps and showed it to me. "Add it here between the wires to keep them separated." He handed it to me and reached in the other bag for the end clamps. "Put these on the ends and clamp them down." He showed it to me and then handed it to me. "Got it?"
"I think so." I nodded and set the clamps back down, as Rassen clipped one long wire and I took the end pulling it back into the ship, fed it through the holes and pulled it through to the end. Mando clipped it off and added an end clamp as I added one to my end. Lane was attaching the separator clamps to the inside of the wall, snapping them into the premade slots. So all we had to do was move the wire into place and lock it down after we clipped it to fit. Rassen was moving along, pulling off the end bits and re-welding them into control boxes. Or snapping the ends into other power boxes, testing them and them moving to another spot, as Lane moved the panel back into it spot and bolted it into place.
It took us a few hours working together to get the whole back of the ship wired and all the panels bolted back on. Mando was walking through checking things to make sure for himself. Rassen had let him know that he could test things out if he wanted to, just to make sure they worked properly. I watched as he pressed a few buttons along the wall near the ladder and the weapon storage locker behind us opened. I looked inside surprised to see so many interesting weapons. I only had the one and I've been using it since day one. But here was a locker full of different types of weapons.
"Wow." I nodded. "Really nice collection."
"Weapons are my religion."
"Chocolate is my religion." I joked as one of the rifles caught my eye and I reached for it, but stopped. "Oh, Sorry." I cleared my throat knowing I shouldn't be touching other people's things, especially weapons. Shame on me. He reached in and took the one I was looking at out and handed it to me. I felt it in my hands, it wasn't as heavy as I thought it would be or as bulky. I raised it up and looked through the scope seeing that it really brought the images in close. Then brought it back down and looked it over for a few seconds. "Really sweet, thanks." I offered it back to him.
"Go ahead and keep it." He shut the locker back by pressing the switch on his wrist bracer.
"You just said weapons were your religion, why would you give this to me?" I asked.
"I'm sure you'll be able to use it." He headed toward the ladder and went up into the control room. I watched him, then sighed as I looked at it again. Lane stepped up taking a quick glance up the ladder as she leaned in toward me.
"He really likes you." She grinned as she whispered.
"Stop it." I took another glance to make sure he couldn't hear us.
"Why else would he give you a weapon?"
"Maybe because it's his way of saying thank you for helping him out? I'm sure there's plenty of reasons." I pointed out.
"No, it's because he likes you." She grinned again. "And I bet he's really gorgeous under that helmet, he does have one sexy voice." Before I could say anything she nudge me and moved her head in the direction of the ladder as she saw that he was heading back down. I watched as he dropped down onto the metal flooring. She grinned again and started singing the lyrics to All My Life again:
And all my life I prayed for someone like you
And I thank God that I, that I finally found you
All my life I prayed for someone like you
And I hope that you feel the same way too
Yes, I pray that you do love me too
I turned beet red from embarrassment and glanced at Mando. "Excuse me, I need to kill someone." I spoke as I walked away from him heading for Lane as she ran out of the ship still singing. I set the rifle down and grabbed her as I lightly choked her, she was still singing in a choked voice and started laughing so I let her go. "You're a shit." I whispered. I Turned toward Dulkin who was taking the rest of the wire off of the lift. "Thanks for the help Dulkin, I really do appreciate it." I told him. He smiled at me.
"Not a problem." He answered. "Would you like for me to take the lift back?"
"No, the owners gunna come get it tomorrow." Lane leaned on the ramp next to me.
"So does it hurt when you transform like that?" She stood next to me looking up at him.
"No." He answered shaking his head.
"Then how come you don't stay like this all the time?"
"I wouldn't fit in my house if I did." He grinned toward her.
"Good point." She nodded as I shook my head at her, giving her a face for her to stop. But of course she didn't. "So how long do you stay in this form?"
"A few hours and then it wears off." she nodded then took a deep breath and looked at me.
"Wait, didn't you say you took on a guy like him before? During the challenge?" she asked grinning.
"A long time ago." I nodded in return looking at her making another face as if to say 'what the hell?'
"You were in the challenge?" He asked shocked as he looked at me.
"A long time ago." I repeated.
"Then you're the one that fought Creet and won." He smiled.
"Maybe?" I worried a bit. "He's not a friend of yours is he?"
"No, of course not, he was dishonored for what he did. He is an outcast of my people." He turned when Mando came out of the ship followed by Rassen who walked past and up the ramp of my ship going inside. Mando stopped in front of us.
"He said it's time to take a break and eat." He spoke. I grinned as did Lane who moved away from me and started to sing again, this time it was 'Africa' by ToTo:
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had, oh oh
"Oh my God, Knock it off!" I snapped as she chuckle and headed up into the ship dancing.
Mando turned toward Dulkin and just by looking at the size comparison between the two was astounding.
"Thank you for your help." Dulkin was twice his height so he had to tilt his head up to look at him. He slightly bowed as he smiled at him and walked away.
A/N This might be the last chapter for a while, this is all I had written down :( So you get a break for a until I write some more. The image is mine, I made it using a photo reference. The back ground belongs to a friend named Haltenny (Fun fact, he was responsible for all the cool fractal images that were in GOtG 2) :) Hope you enjoy the chapter. Now to go back and finish editing the previous ones that need it.
2396W