back to Ben and Ribecka
Ribecka brings the Chariot to a stop on the tarmac and leans back, taking a deep breath. She pulls off her helmet and leans over, looking past the open hatch that leads back to the cargo area of the hovercraft. The two armored men stand imposingly beside the prisoners, glaring at them through armored helmets. The paint schemes on the armor did nothing to lessen the intimidation. What she found interesting, however was how the two men went through all the trouble to make their suits look so ominous, yet the prisoners were obviously more afraid of the unmasked hateful and murderous glares coming from the jump infantry sitting across from them with rifles trained. More than one threat was given to the prisoners and she could see by the injuries on their bare arms legs and faces that more than one threat had been carried out. One pilot in particular was getting the most of it, only gaining more when he disrespectfully spit out a glob of blood and possibly teeth onto the floor of the Chariot. She was pretty sure he was the pilot of the Jenner. From what she understood, the one responcible for her pickup being one third less lively. That reminded her of the remains of Second Squad sitting in the back hold. She saw the bodies, or at least what counted for bodies, when they were loading them up, the men insisting the stop to get the bodies before returning to base. The laser that killed them was hot enough to turn their skin into ash almost instantly on the side that got hit, but charred flesh and melted equipment still remained on the halves of the bodies that were turned away from the blast. The laser wasn't hot enough, however, to burn the bones. While keeping her eyes out for enemy patrols she made the mistake of locking eyes with the burnt-out sockets of one of the men. The blackened skull looked back at her, a grin, no a grimace of eternal pain etched on its face, the skinless chin hung open in a silent scream. The tongue was still inside the mouth, blackened and shriveled. She shuddered and wiped the sweat from her forehead and face.
A knock on the door sounded and she released the side hatch so the prisoners could be off loaded. They were roughly snatched from their seats and shoved, arms on the back of their heads, fingers laced together as ordered, out of the hovercraft into the cool night air.
Benjamin rolls his fighter to a stop in front of the hanger and gets out. "I'll be back Betty. Don't let them do anything until then." He trots away, barely hearing the acknowledgement, and stops in front of the Blizzard holding the prisoners just as they are brought out. He stops in the path they are being led on looks at them for a moment before looking at the infantry non-gently carrying them.
"Don't hurt them," he says nastily. "We don't want them to look all beat up during the trial." He pauses a moment, smiling cruely. "Just remember that they willfully and purposefully violated the Ares Conventions. And with the Star League restored, those conventions are LAW again." The soldiers holding the prisoners exchange glances in shock before smiling back at Ben evilly. Ben steps aside and the group continues on towards the holding area, the prisoners being treated very gently now.
Ribecka heard someone snap at the men handling the prisoners and recognized the voice. Benjamin, she thought. She undid her harness and finished her shut down of the transport when she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Dallas. "Nice driving, kiddo. You saved our tails a few times out there." He smiled at her, a genuine smile, not a forced one like the one she had to give him back.
"Thanks."
He squinted his eyes in thought and seemed about to say something when someone outside called him. He pursed his lips, still looking at her, and nodded. She wasn't sure if it was to her or himself. "You did good, Becka. Did what you had to." He turned and left.
Taking another deep breath of the hot, stale, and
very sweat-laden air inside the Chariot, she stood and stooped a bit to get out
the hatch. Kyle's helmet was off and he looked at her across the cargo
hold. His hair was matted down with sweat and there were marks on his face
from straps or electronics or something that were pressed against him while in
the suit. He still stood almost eight feet tall, not yet out of the
suit. She realized under normal circumstances she might have considered
him attractive, almost like one of those hard working men magazines where all
the models look like they've just finished a long day on the job. At the
moment however there was only one person that she wanted to see and her
commanding officer wasn't him. He spoke, quietly, in his painful-sounding
voice. Somehow, he manages to be heard over the distance and ambient
noise, even with that voice. I wonder if it hurts when he talks, she idly
wondered.
"You OK?" he asked.
She nodded numbly.
"Hey, you did a damn fine job out there, both of you did," he said, refering to Dallas. "The Chariot isn't damaged, we're damn near the only unit that didn't blow up a goddam building, and you didn't flinch. I haven't ever seen as fine a pilot as you are, under fire or not. I'm very proud of you right now...Ribecka." He paused just slightly before saying her name, like he had to remember it for a moment. She could tell he meant what he said and the pride behind how the majority of his unit performed was obvious. It made her feel only slightly better, although she had to admit she was proud of her piloting. She just didn't feel much like celebrating. "Was that your first time in combat?" She shook her head. It wasn't. "Well, you did great. I'm privalaged to have you on my team. Go ahead and get freshened up and meet us at the debrief, if you think you can handle it. I'll make an excuse for you if you can't. And I'll make sure the Chariot is taken care of."
She forced another smile (it wasn't as hard this time, though) and thanked him. She could feel the cool air outside and her body, now used to the heat of the hovercraft and sweaty, shuddered again. She wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself. "My jacket's in my locker there, if you need it." Kyle motioned towards his locker. It was obvious that if he wasn't covered in armor, he wouldn't give her a choice and would have wrapped it around her no matter what she said in a fatherly way. But he was covered in armor and thus the choice was hers. She shook her head and thanked him, going out the door before he could protest. The cold air chilling her sweat would hopefully clear her head, if it didn't get her sick.
She glanced around the scene outside the Chariot and stood there for a moment until her eyes were used to the various light sources and strobes from passing and parked vehicles.
His eyes follow the group until he sees Ribecka step out of her Blizzard. He turns away from the prisoners and walks up to her. He and holds his hands out in front of her, palms up, as a small but genuine smile lights her face. She grasped his hands, whether or not that was his intention, with her thumbs in his palms and leaned forward to speak over the din around them.
"I'm glad you made it back," he says trying to meet her gaze.
She smiles at his concerned comment, a real smile. She practically basks in his care but she still doesn't have the energy to say very much, and she knows that if Kyle could tell she wasn't OK, Ben would see it with no problem. She looks back at Betty and the techs hovering around it, for some reason not yet working on her. She must be in a bad mood or something, Becka thinks. Then she notices some damage and looks back suddenly, re-meeting the gaze they held a moment before. "Are you OK?" she spurts with concern, then looks him up and down quickly. She realizes he's alright and feels a flood of releif a moment before the embarassment. Of course he's OK, idiot, if he wasn't he wouldn't be standing here now, he'd be in the infirmary. She looks back into his eyes... Very pretty eyes, she realizes, but says nothing and looks away, to his right shoulder. She wants to embrace him right there and let what little energy she has left drain out of her feet into the ground and allow him to support her. She knows she can't however and that just seems to drain her even more. Her small smile fades, she doesn't have the resources to maintain it right now. She leans closer so he can hear her, but her eyes stay locked on his shoulder. "Can we meet later, when we get a chance...if we get a chance? I need...I just...I need...company," she says, for lack of a better word.
Kyle, unsuited and in fatigues stands in the doorway of the Blizzard behind Ribecka. He watches the proceedings carefully and when Ribecka looks away and frees up Benjamin's eyes he locks glares with the young pilot and holds it for many seconds while Ribecka says something to him. What is going on in his head isn't clear, but after the long tense moments he mouths something to Benjamin. Take care of her. His eyes are full of concern for her, but in a fatherly way, no other. He walks away, saying nothing to them, making sure Ribecka didn't know he was even there.
Ben looks back at Ribecka and leans forward so their forheads touch gently.
"Ah....Betty got hit pretty bad," he says softly. "Don't know how long it'll take to fix her. I don't think anything got through the armor, but there wasn't much left so who knows. I need to make sure she's ready if any baddies come back. If I ain't done by...oh...nine...just come on over. I could use someone to talk to." He shudders slightly, a half laugh escaping him.
The large thud of a battlemech approaches the small group on the tarmac. Looking up Ben and Ribecka see the Major's Black Knight come to a halt and the hatch open. The Major climbs out and down to the tarmac. Scratching his goatee and popping a cigarello in his mouth he walks past Ben and Ribecka giving them a nod, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
They smile at the major's nod before looking back at each other as he moves off to talk to Mathis.
Becka's voice is soft, matching Ben's. "Alright, I'll see you then. But if you get done early and have a chance to see me, let me know, OK? You aren't the only one that might need some...company." She pulls her forehead away from his just quick enough to give him a kiss on the cheek, one that is so quick she wonders if it actually happened. Her burning cheeks tell her yes, it did. She doubts anyone else in the action around them would have even noticed. She quickly lowers her gaze and shuffles away to finish the post-op activities.
The Major's fading comment to Mathis catches Ben's ear as
Ribecka turns away. "Now comes the hard part. Facing those who homes we
couldn't protect."
Henderson pops the cigarello back
into his mouth and heads over to the mech bay.
Sirens can be heard as the resuce teams begin to put out the fires raging over the city. At the same time the refugees, those whose homes were destroyed in the fighting, being to trickle into the base. Bringing with them thier wounded. One man, blood flowing freely from a gash on forehead cradles a small child in his arms. He screams out to any soldier within earshot, "Look what you've done! This is your fault! Why did you not protect us! Look at what you've done!"
Ben watches Ribecka walk away for a moment until his attention is caught by the approaching crowd. He glances back at her and then walks over to the people. He stops in front of the man holding the child and meets his gaze sadly. "I'm sorry we couldn't save all of you." He turns to point towards the Blizzard as the dead infantry are unloaded. "But it looks like we will have empty bunks tonight." He turns his head back to the man and looks into his eyes again. "You can have mine." He shakes his head and looks at his fighter. "I won't need it." Ben meets the man's gaze a last time and then turns to walk back to his fighter.
Ribecka takes back her ID card from the infantryman-turned-security guard and nods her thanks as the man grins and winks back. Oh brother... She puts her card back in her pocket and adjusts her gunbelt. The thing, even without the weapon, is akward, but with the 6 pound weapon on her right hip, it's very uncomfortable. Unfortunatly common sense in addition to running orders mandate the pistol. The lights on the base come mostly from the buildings, the main walk and road lights shut down to diswade possible air strikes. She enjoys the shadows and keeps out of the pools of light. The darkness in base lets her see the lights glowing in the city. At least this time fires aren't causing the glow, but rather the bright work lights of the rescue teams she and the Chariot were just relieved by.
While there aren't fires, there's still smoke marring an otherwise beautiful knight sky. The thought of smoke reminds her of earlier that day and the images she saw. The smell of the dead men fill her nostrils even though there is no smoke, especially that type of smoke, anywhere near the base. She knows it's mental, but it doesn't keep her eyes from wattering. She steels herself and makes her way to the hanger.
As she rounds a corner, the hanger comes into
view. The soft white light is spilling out of the open doors. The
sounds from inside can be hear from even this distance.
Squinting
heavily to maintain comfort, she enters the hanger. It is nearly empty
save the two fighters. The only light in the hanger comes from portable
work lights, bright as day, positioned around Ben's craft. She slowly
moves up to the fighter, watching the five blurs of motion move around.
She stands in place for a moment while her eyes adjust to the light and she can
see now that the blurs were three men in tech uniforms, one in a flight uniform,
and the last, Ben, in a white tank top and green fatigue pants. She slowly
approaches them, each of the techs busy on their own tasks while the two pilots
are together, removing armor, pointing and nodding. She walks under the
wing, hunched over and lightly running the fingertips of her right hand over the
underside of the airfoil as she draws closer. She stops well out of their
way and waits to be noticed.
Ben and Hiroshi finish ripping off the last of the damaged armor and sigh tiredly. "Tech work ain't all fun and games is it?" Hiroshi nods wordlessly at Ben's comment and they pick the mangled armor up and move over onto a pile of equally damaged plates. Sweat soaks through their cloathing and glistens on their foreheads as they turn back around to see the side of Ben's now-stripped fighter. "Thank goodness nothin' broke through. That would be a LOT harder to fix then this. This is just grunt work." Ben glanced over at Hiroshi and saw the greese stains on his field uniform. "I SAID you should take off your uniform."
Hiroshi glanced down at his uniform calmly then returned Ben's gaze. "What was the purpose of this?"
"Well....you want to learn tech skills. If you can't pull the armor off a fighter, you can't get inside to fix her systems. You just learned how to do step one of fighter maintenaince. Now lets see just how they are doing over on the other side with step two." Ben starts off towards the nose of his fighter, Hiroshi following. As they walk by the cockpit Betty's voice drifts down to them, muttering explictatives Ben didn't know were in her vocabulary.
"What's wrong with her?"
Ben turns to look back at Hiroshi and his eyes glance up to the cockpit. "She's naked and strange men are working on her," he mutters in response. Hiroshi's eyes bug out and he clamps a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. "Sometimes it's a real joy having a smart fighter," Ben continues ruefully.
"I heard that Ben!" The shout filters down from the cockpit before degenerating into another round of explicatives even nastier then the first. Ben releases a breath pensively and catches Hiroshi's eyes. "I've GOT to work on that vocabulary."
Hiroshi nodds vigourously as they go around the nose of the fighter to see the three techs working on putting armor onto the side of the fighter. Ben stops dead for a moment then hurries forward towards the techs shouting at the top of his lungs.
"NO NO NO!" He gestures at pieces of
armor and locations of the craft as he continues yelling.
"THAT
goes THERE! And THIS goes over THERE! We've GOT to make sure the
basic aerodynamic principles are FOLLOWED here! My god! If you put
that plate there it will increase my drag coefficiant by nearly ONE
PERCENT! You don't want to KNOW what that will do to my top SPEED, and you
don't even want me to THINK about what that will do to my FUEL
consumption! Now TAKE that thing off and put it over HERE." He
finishes hollaring, pointing at the uncovered frame right next to where the
armored plate is lightly attached. The three techs glare at him silently
for a moment, then start taking it off.
Ben walks away towards the back of his fighter shaking his head at the sloppily done job. He runs his fingers alone the joints and makes disgusted sounds. He glances over at Hiroshi, still following and grumps. "I don't believe this job. I can see being this sloppy on some kind of TRACK SLACK but this is a precision fighter. These seams are full MILLIMETERS off. And look at THIS." He rubs his hand in another seam. "They only put in THREE millimeters of sealent. It's SUPPOSED to be FOUR!. Amateurs." His last muttered comment comes out in a tone of voice usually reserved for questioning someone's parentage.
Ribecka watches the scene unfold from under the wing, the display from Betty and then Ben amusing her enough that the thoughts in her head during the walk over dissapeared and were replaced with a smile that was threatening to turn into a laugh.
He reaches the back of the fighter and turns to walk
around it, then stops suddenly. Hiroshi nearly
runs into him and looks
to see what surpised Ben. Ben turns around and looks under the wing
finally noticing Ribecka.
"Hey!" Ben's voice is instantly changed to a friendly tone as he starts walking towards her. He and Hiroshi meet Ribecka under the wing and Ben introduces them. "I've told you about Ribecka right?" At Hiroshi's nod he turns to her. "Ribecka...this is my commanding officer, Hiroshi." He watches as she bows her head slightly and smiles at Hiroshi, letting him take her hand.
"I hope he told you the good things about me." She smiles again and then grins as Ben shoos Hiroshi off. "Go over and make sure they don't do anything stupid ok?" Ben says to his commander.
"Ah....I will not know what to look for."
"Oh....well LOOK like you know what your looking at then." Hiroshi shrugs and turns away and Ben and looks back at Ribecka. "So.....hows it going?"
"Did I come at a bad time?"
"No....not a bad time." He looks over at Hiroshi as he pulls a dour expression over his face, watching the techs at work. His face turns to look at Ben out of the corner of his eye and Ben gives him a thumbs up. Ben turns to look back at Ribecka. "Gotta keep these techs under a tight leash or they start getting sloppy though."
He rubs his eyes tiredly. "But to tell the truth, even PERFORMANCE figures are starting to slide around in my head. I was berating the techs over a misplaced armor plate....didn't realize the number I gave them was off by two decimal places off until I'd said it." He shakes his head ruefully. "Not that I'm going to TELL them that though," he finishes with a wink.
A klang rings throughout the hanger and Ben turns sharply to see an armor plate vibrating against the floor beside the fighter. "Not again," he mutters tiredly and holds out his left hand for Ribecka to grab.
They walk out from beneath the wing where Ben is instantly caught in the glare of the three techs. He looks from them to Hiroshi to the still-vibrating armor plate and back to the techs. "Don't scratch the paint," is all he says and then turns around to Hiroshi. "Lets get to work putting armor on the other side. Could you help us make sure we don't put anything together wrong?" he asks Ribecka. He walks over to a nearby coffee stand, Ribecka followin, and grabs a cup. He sips it and recoils in disgust.
"Ugh this stuff tastes terrible," he says with suddenly clear eyes. "But it shore do wake a man up."
Seeing his reaction, she grins and takes the cup for herself and samples a sip. She smacks her lips a few times and looks back up at him. "A lightweight, I see. I'm used to recycling the Chariot's drained oil in the coffee grinds." She grins happily and hands him back his cup.
Ben shakes his head and nods to Hiroshi and they grab an armor plate.
She watches the goings-ons for a moment. "I can try to help, but my area of expertise is probably centuries behind Betty." Besides instantly noticing a miss-aligned plate that might, just might, shave a tenth of a second of Ben's reaction time, she waits, watches, and learns. All the while sticking close to Ben, often brushing up against him. Not directly leaning on him, but definetly sharing personal space. She matches his number of cups of coffee, suggesting once that maybe he should water it down or add a flavoring or sweetener so he doesn't ruin his delicate palate. Everything is said with a smile. The activities of the day and the current ones keep the coffee she's drinking at bay, a raging battle inside of her pitting her weariness against the caffine. So far the battle is a dead heat; she is tired, but not sleepy and not quite wired. She is also blissfully ignorant that the activities are taking her mind off of the images and sounds of the battle and cleanup earlier in the day.
Hours passed as Ben and Hiroshi slowly place the armor plates into position, with Ribecka standing close when safe. She and Ben stole glances when able but exhaustion set in as the night went on into morning. The techs left as the sky brightened, muttering beneath their collective breaths, but Hiroshi and Ben continued doggedly, now realigning the badly placed armor plates that was the techs' handimark.
They took a short break to look at Hiroshi's fighter and relaxed in kata before returning to work and Ben's face softened as he saw Ribecka asleep against the near wall. They finished another section easily before stopping as exhaustion crept up again. Hiroshi bowed his head shakily and crawled into his cockpit for some shut-eye as Ben slowly walked over to Ribecka and sat down next to her.
He gently wrapped his right arm around her and leaned his head against the wall. He fell asleep before his eyes finished closing.