"You're one of the new gen fours? That's sick. That neuro shit sounds super advanced." She gestures with her cup toward the blocky green machine behind her. "Me? This thing's older than dirt! Been used for decades. Still has a cassette deck actually." After a moment of mental calculation and a glance at the boisterous woman beside you it becomes clear that unless she had started her career when she was younger even than you were when you were drafted, the mecha must have been in the hands of several pilots before she took over. That seems crazy to you. Each of the new Dancers was crafted specifically for the pilot that trained for it, and they installed an entire additional power core in each one for self-destruction, to protect the new neural tech from being reverse engineered by the enemy Alloy Corps.
Falta looks back toward the mass of steel, then turns around with a grin on her face. "Never failed me though. The mecha that is. Not the cassette deck. WSO says I shouldn't use it, puts radio on the fritz."
You stare down at your cylindrical container of Nutrient Salve, the lid removed to expose the green material. You brace yourself and raise it to your lips and take a sip - well, 'sip' is generous. The salve is so thick that you have to use your lips to pull a mouthful away when it reaches the lip of the cup. You almost grimace at the taste, but you've long since figured out that holding your breath while you consume the heavy liquid mitigates its cloying smell and taste. You rest the container back between your thighs again and glance over at Falta's tray, its brown metal obscured by partially eaten portions of bread, colorful fruits, and an oversized pile of green vegetables. You're not quite curious about the food per se, all the bright colors and portion sizes seem gratuitous, and you certainly wouldn't try any of it if it were offered, but you have to admit that it definitely smells better than your own sustenance.
The tall woman pauses her diatribe to return to her food, taking hefty bites of each of her foods in a circuit and taking time to chew thoroughly. She completes the round and takes a hearty swig of her frothy beverage before continuing. "Good way to spend a lunch though! Crack the canopy, put on some tunes, hope the tape don't skip, and take your time with a sandwich or two. The big guy may be old, but that seat's comfier than the bench in any maintenance stop I've ever been to." She pats the bench between you idly, then adjusts the position of her butt on the cold steel. "I paint him myself, you know! He was just grey when I first leased him, but I bought some "woodland green" to slap on Marky, y'know, like one of those old diesel transports with the wheels? The ones from the old vids." Falta looks at you pointedly, addressing you with deliberate focus and expecting a response for the first time since sitting down. "What color's your Dancer?"
Red. The thought calls to mind an image of your advanced mecha, its clamshell curves sleek and concise around the powerful machinery underneath, cockpit ensconced deep in the safety of its chest and raised ten meters off the ground by lithe legs. The interior is black and grey with dozens of scattered white lights from readouts. Grey is the color it really is in your mind, though you do see flashes of red as its nimble arms move in your view as you fight with a precision laser rifle or beam saber. You reflect on how its shapes feel so much more natural than that of your body, squishy under your pilot jumpsuit, the circular neural connection ports the only expression of the metallic self that you properly become when you're wired in and feeling 'real' again. You turn bodily toward Falta and past her, your torso twisting 120 degrees to allow you a view with your good eye of the mecha that the other woman called 'Marky'. 'He' (the idea of calling a mecha anything other than 'it' is still strange to you) certainly matches the look of 'his' pilot much better. Stocky, durable, tenacious, with big hips and a set of lights under the reinforced glass of the cockpit that are probably the only thing that could light up this dim maintenance stop as brightly as its owner's face lights up when she talks.
Your eyes drift back and catch on Falta's face, still poised and staring at you. It takes you a moment before you realize why - you hadn't actually spoken your response to her question out loud; your subconscious had expected the reply in your thoughts to be heard over your neural link. "Oh, uh… red I guess. It's red." Falta grins and slaps you on the shoulder, the force not painful, but still overtly pushing you toward the table a few degrees. "Nice! I bet she's a beauty." There it is again, 'she' instead of it.
Though the excess of physical conversation is a bit overwhelming, you have to admit that the hand on your shoulder feels nice and reassuring, and you almost miss the contact when Falta pulls her hand away to press one side of her headset closer to her ear. She listens intently for half a minute, then holds a button and replies to the chatter in her ear. "Yeah boss, back on the dusty trail tomorrow. That is, if John leaves the tech alone long enough for him to actually get some work done!" She listens for another moment, murmurs an agreement to whatever her boss tells her over the radio, then she relaxes and finishes half her remaining food. Though so much of the interaction has felt foreign to you so far, you find yourself trying to find something to continue the conversation with. In the end you can only think of the question that popped into your mind as soon as you heard her say someone else's name: "Do you, are you here with someone else?"
"Mm-hmm!" Falta nods emphatically. "Stomped in yesterday with my partner. We're waiting on John's boy to get cleaned up, hydraulics partially failed in the right leg six klicks from the end of the delivery. Probably still got another day or two before we march on. You probably heard, but John's like a momma bird circling around his mecha any time someone else has to get their greasy mitts on him."
You ask "What's, uh what's it like to be in a transport caravan? With someone else all the time?" Falta raises an eyebrow. "Y'all work alone or somethin'? Sounds lonely as all get-out." Your head tilts to the side, then dips back toward the table to ease away from the pressure of her stare. Falta returns to your question. "He's a good guy. We eat, sleep, laugh and talk shit all day." She pauses for a few moments while you think. The idea of deploying with someone like this and talking all the time sounds kind of oppressive, but when you think about the warm feeling and slight pressure in your chest that you've felt since the enthusiastic woman, and how it compares to how flat your life feels when you're out of the cockpit, it does feel like maybe you are kind of lonely.
Falta repeats herself. "Gotta be awful lonely, out there by yourself all the time, nobody to chat with in the field. They really send you out all alone?"
Yeah, I guess. You give a half-hearted nod, and it feels like your ribs are constricting around your heart. After a moment you realize that your thought had failed to translate into words properly again. "Yeah… most of the time… since…" You trail off, your breath feeling like the quiet whisper of a ghost.
Falta doesn't seem to pick up on the echo of suppressed emotion in your tone. "Ah, uh, you've at least got your uh… not a CO, a uh, what is it, a handler to talk to, right?"
You've found that it's been getting easier to talk as the minutes go by, and the distraction of the conversation is feeling more welcome as you become accustomed to the interaction. "We've got both. The CO on the radio and the handler on the neurolink, but that one's a… one-way connection. When we're plugged in the handler's just connected to keep an eye on us, they're not really there to 'chat'."
"Does sound lonely. Well, I'm happy to chat!" She gestures toward you with her fork. "You at least see any exciting action lately? That strap over your eye looks badass!" You pause, heart heavy, but the warming sensation of talking to this woman, so wildly different from you, helps the words release from your chest. "There was, uh… the last time I deployed…" You look up, Falta's big, warm brown eyes intent on your own and totally fixated on whatever you're about to say next. Telling her more almost feels like doing her a disservice, with her clear expectation of hearing an 'exciting' story, rather than the one that you realize is about to tumble out of you before you can stop it.
You're surprised by how solid your voice is once you start. "We don't always deploy alone. The last sortie I went out with a partner, Kaylee. Bravo-Two. She was my bunkmate. She got ambushed at the bottom of a canyon, I was a kilometer back at the top. There were twelve old outdated Analog mechas around her, but I had to deal with an enemy Dancer up on the edge of the canyon before it could fire missile pods down at her. I took a minute too long to take it down, and I was thirty seconds out from reinforcing Bravo-Two when she went down. Command… they blew her secondary core just before I got to her."
Your eyes lift from the table to see the jovial smile slide right off of Falta's face and her shoulders drop. "I, uh…" She purses her lips, at a loss for what to say. "Ah, c'mere." She scoots closer on the bench and pulls you into a big hug. You shy away from the unfamiliar contact at first, the experience feeling strange after not being hugged since before you started training at fifteen. You can hear Bravo-Two's last words echo in your mind, fear suffusing her tone even as she called out enemy positions and armaments around her with impressive coherence. Your throat chokes up and you shiver, but then Falta pulls you closer, and her soft warmth helps quiet the pain in your mind. You take a deep breath and relax your airway, then lean into the embrace and rest your head on her shoulder. Your headset and helmet prevent direct contact, but you can't help but be thankful for the kindness from this boisterous transport pilot that doesn't even know you. After another five seconds she pulls away, but rests one hand on your shoulder. "You know, we've still got some time before dark. You wanna hear some classics on the old tape deck?" She gives you a small but warm smile, and after a moment's hesitation you give a small nod.
You replace the lid on your cup and set it down on the table, then follow Falta over to Marky. She climbs up and opens the cockpit to lean inside, then you hear a quiet electronic buzz sizzle in the air as she engages the battery. She fiddles with the controls on the cassette player for a minute, then turns up the volume to the maximum and climbs up to sit on the broad, flat surface of one of the mecha's shoulders. She leans over past the upraised cockpit hatch and pats the other shoulder, indicating for you to join her. You use the big forklift arm as a brace to climb up after her and settle a few feet beside her, and turn your focus to the slightly scratchy sound of the heartfelt notes of a guitar crooning over an understated set of drums. You both sit back and enjoy the music, the acoustic strings pulling your mind to different places than the heavy machinery noises of your hangar or the constant electronic pings and vague buzzing of your own cockpit.
A breeze washes over you and your companion, the scent of oil light on the air. The song comes to a close, and Falta comments "John Cappareyo. He really came into his own a few years before the end of his career, I think." You make a sound of acknowledgement, and let the next song play without speaking. Once it ends, your companion twists around to look behind the both of you at the setting sun, then says "Hey, I've got an idea." She swings around to land her boots on the edge of the cockpit, then reaches in to grab a nylon tether with a clip on the end. She leans up and reaches around behind you, her hand brushing against your hip and giving your brain a little tingle. She clips one end of the tether to the back of your harness, then the other side to a handle on the top of the mecha. You start to ask what she's doing, but before you can get more than a word out, she swings back into the seat of the cockpit and your question is drowned out by the heavy thunk of the vehicle's engine kicking on and vibrations in the metal below you. Within moments Falta has the mech stomping out of the lot of the maintenance stop and around a nearby copse of trees, and you quickly grab onto the handle tightly to keep yourself stable.
Within five minutes the two of you reach a gap in the treeline, and Falta guides Marky up to the top of a small hill. The sunset before you is dazzling, a beautiful tinge of orange highlighting a purple sky. There's a modest little town in the valley below; not smoking and abandoned, like the ones you often find yourself fighting in and inadvertently destroying, but intact. Little lights in buildings, not from fires, but from people living their lives. Quietly, simply. There's the floodlights of transport mechas like the one you're seated on, bouncing with each of the vehicles' steps as they make their way through the concrete streets, heavy loads balanced on forks and prongs at the ends of their arms. You can almost make out people walking those same streets, but at your distance it's hard to really tell.
An arm protrudes from the cockpit holding two tapes toward you. "More John, or something more brassy?" Though you're curious about the 'brassy' option, the other tape had been very relaxing, and that feels perfect for this serene moment. You reach out and take the tapes, read the labels to find the one with the appropriate name, then hand it back before setting the other beside you on the broad shoulder of the mecha. Falta switches the tape, then you can hear her harness unclip and see her boots kick out over the rim of the cockpit, legs resting on top of the control panel. You sit like that for a long time with her, watching the sun dip lower and lower over the horizon and listening to another album together. Finally the floodlights below you click on automatically, and your companion hits stop on the tape deck.
Before she can say anything, you call out "Hey… thanks. For this. For talking to me." Falta climbs out of the cockpit and leans around the open hatch to look at you. She grabs the tape next to you and tosses it back onto the pilot's seat, then rests her hand on your thigh and gives it a slight squeeze. "'Course, hon'. You looked like you really needed it." You nod at her and consider placing your hand over hers on your leg, but uncertainty at the right protocol for the moment holds you back. She nods back. "I know you've got wars to win and dances to tango, but if you're ever in the quadrant again, gimme a shout and I'll buy you some real grub." She finishes with a wink and another squeeze of your thigh, then climbs back into the cockpit. Past the flood of lights beside you, you can still see the little town below, now lit up by white street lights and little specks of brightness in the windows. You wonder what it would be like to live there, like that, in peace. Without the fear, the adrenaline, all the stress.
But, in the end, you have no idea what that would be like, and your mind finds no material for the fantasy. Combat is all you've ever known, and it feels like it's all you ever will. But at least now, when you wake up in the dorms, alone above the now empty bed of your former bunkmate, you can at least think back to this peaceful moment, and to Falta and the kindness that she showed you today.
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