Chapter One
“Hey, uh, Nat, could you come to the back?” The intercom spoke through Natasha’s dark and crowded room.
She was lying sideways on her bed with her arm draped over her eyes. She groaned as the engineer finished speaking and plopped her arm beside her.
“Be there in a minute, Jack.”
“Thank you.”
The intercom beeped off and she threw her arm back over her face, not wanting to get up or interact with anybody this morning. Her room was dark as hell, exactly how she liked it, even the small window that looked out over the void as they passed by it at incredible speeds was covered up with a makeshift curtain.
Around the bed there were tables of varying sizes and materials, from metal to wood, on each table was a mess of panels, bot pieces, and wires, strewn across each surface in no particular order or organization.
It took her several minutes but eventually she drooped her body upwards and rubbed her face, looking around at the dim surroundings that her eyes had already adjusted to.
She stood up and stretched, she was wearing an oversized white shirt and a black vest with pockets for tools and materials. Her pants were grey and comfortable with the same large pockets that matched her vest. All her clothes were old and worn except for her wide boots that looked military issued.
Her bright red hair was long and pulled back haphazardly in a makeshift bun, keeping only parts of her hair out of her face, the rest was flying all over her face and ears.
She yawned and glanced around before pawing blindly through the mess on the tables, she threw wires and panels around, some of them falling on the floor or clanking against other pieces of equipment.
Eventually she moved a large panel and she felt the tools that she was looking for, she grabbed them and dropped them into one of her vest pockets. She reached behind her and grabbed onto a small piece of cloth, sticking it into her pants pocket. The last thing that she did before she headed out the door was to find a small knife next to her bed and slip it carefully into the side of her left boot.
She cringed as the door opened and the brightly lit hallway burned her eyes, she grumbled and stumbled to the right down the hall.
It was 2:00 in the fucking morning and she had just gotten back to bed a half an hour ago. Jack knew that and that was probably why they acted so hesitant when they called her up a few minutes ago.
Living on “The Righteous Man” there was no time for sleep it seemed, at least for Natasha Romanov. She was on the bottom of the rung in the crew, a simple mechanic that handled everything from malfunctioning engineering bots to lost cats. Nothing was ever terribly hard to do but the assignments never stopped and she lived on the bottom floors of one of the greatest pirate ships ever to move through the void.
She was grateful, she really was, when Captain Nick Fury found her trying to sneak onto his ship running away from the orphanage she was in, he could have just as easily killed her, turned her into the authorities, left her, or taken her to sell as a slave, but instead he gave her a disappointed look, shook his head, and said “You’re going to have to do better next time, kid.”
He had given her a room and told her that she was going to have to earn her keep on the ship, threatening that he would drop her off at the nearest planet if she did not work.
After that, she had never seen him again, he worked on the bridge along with the rest of his crew and she stayed down below, working as a laborer for just about everyone. When he had let her stay she had been looking forward to living the rest of her life as a grand adventure, a cutthroat pirate, and yes, since she had come aboard they had been in many battles and done many disrupting things but she had always barely been apart of it.
The only person of high rank on the ship that she worked with on a regular basis was the engineer, Jack Roth, an agender, eccentric and brilliant criminal straight from the prisons of Venus. They proudly sported a bright purple Mohawk, and had to be told many times a day to put on more clothes. Natasha had wondered before how someone like Nick Fury put up with Jack, but despite their eccentric nature, Roth always got the job done. Something that she realized was more important to Fury than anything else in a person.
But even then, she only saw Jack in passing and they usually just relayed a job or a need to her and then went back to work. But at least the engineer gave her the time of day, asked her how she was or how big her work load was before dashing off to handle another crisis.
It seemed like, although she felt she had a lot of potential, she never had an opportunity to prove it, especially to Fury or even his second in command, Maria Hill. These days she didn’t even like to look out the windows because they made her long for a different life.
She made her way through the lower parts of the Righteous man, not really the magnificent parts like the floors above them. The engine and needed supports took up several floors, not to mention the experimentation rooms that Fury kept just to continually improve his ship.
She could make this walk in her sleep, through the chaos that was the lower engine area. Around her people were running around, yelling various things, mostly from the engineers who worked with experimentation and scientific knowledge, she saw one guy on fire and another who fell from one of the upper consoles, plopping down with a grunt and then standing up and brushing herself off before heading back up to the console she was working on.
She strolled into one of the back rooms lazily, Jack was talking to a group of crewmembers, they looked up as she approached.
“Finally, I called you, like—Gertrude, go and check on 22HP&Y65 of the propulsion systems.” Jack looked back at Natasha, “Yes?”
She sighed, “You called me, Jack.”
He put a hand up, “Right, yes, I did…” Their eyes wondered again and Natasha snapped her fingers in front of their face. Jack jumped and shook their head, they said in a rushed voice, “Tiffany’s arm is fucked up again, and can you help her?”
Before she had a chance to say anything, Jack was rushing away yelling something about proper turbine care. Natasha sighed and walked to the back. Sure enough, one of the androids that worked in engineering was sitting patiently on a chair. Her arm was split down the wrist and wires were poking out dangerously.
Natasha cringed; it looked painful even though she knew that androids didn’t have pain receptors. It hurt her more to look at it than it did Tiff. She looked up as the mechanic walked up and began setting her tools down on the table.
“Again, Tiffany, you know, one of these days your arm is just going to come off and I won’t be able to fix that as easily.”
She smiled, she was a well made, next generation android which meant that she tended to conform more to humanities standards as to what an android should act like, but luckily, she still had her own personality. Her skin was dark and she had a small, well trimmed afro, her teeth were straight and perfectly white.
“I guess I am just a sucker for helping. And I am able to do things that biological organisms are not able to do” She said, holding her arm up as Natasha pulled a piece of her skin away from the damaged area.
“They have bots for putting limbs into fans and oil traps. Next time, send one of those in.” A piece of the android’s arm sparked and Natasha jumped back.
“They are not as intelligent as an android, you know this Natasha.”
The red head rolled her eyes, “You know, the self sacrificial nature of you next gens aren’t always for the best, despite what you think. You could have used the bots and even if they were destroyed, it wouldn’t have been as big of an issue to fix.”
Tiffany sighed, “I hate when you refer to us as ‘next gens’.”
“I know, sorry, force of habit. I just worry about you guys, and especially you. This is the third time I’ve have to repair an entire limb for you this month. I’m just saying, take it easy.”
“I just injured my wrist this time?”
Natasha looked up and switched tools, “No, I’m going to have to work on your arm here too, the damage goes up to your shoulder. I hope you don’t have anything to do in the next two hours.”
Tiffany smiled, “I do not. And although your concerns are misguided, I do thank you for your concern over my well being.”
“Misguided?” Natasha raised an eyebrow.
“You do not understand the importance of personal touch when it comes to running this ship.
“You mean, because I think the bots should take over for you, sometimes?” Natasha asked skeptically.
“No, because you would be willing to send in a dull bot to handle an issue within the engine rather than a being who, not only cares about the well being of the ship, but also has the ability to detect added issues in the area. We are where we are today because of personal commitment and sacrifice.”
Natasha frowned, “Self sacrifice to what exactly?”
“To the ship and her mission, of course.” Tiffany said as if it were obvious.
“You mean, to Fury and his personal agenda, right?”
“Dedication to a captain is highly underrated; to succeed we have to have a leader worth following.”
Natasha sighed and wiped her forehead, she shook her head trying to wake herself up so that she could focus better, “I mean, whatever, self sacrifice for a person is great and all but, no one is worth dying over. It’s survival of the fittest and yeah, Fury has definitely thrived but not without the help of this massive crew.”
“No one is worth dying for?”
Natasha groaned, “No, they're not.”
“Not even someone you love?”
The mechanic glanced up at the android, “Love is for children. Let’s change the subject, yeah? I can’t do philosophical with two hours of sleep.”
Tiffany agreed and then she proceeded to converse lightly with the mechanic as she worked diligently on her arm. As she said, she was not able to fix the wrist alone and she ended up having to work her way up the android’s arm, fixing what burned out and even replacing a few receptors.
The entire operation took about two hours and twenty minutes. The whole time they chatted idly about various current events happening in the universe at that time.
Tiffany had just left, thanking Natasha and giving her a very stiff hug. The redhead began putting her supplies back into her pockets when Jack practically jumped through the door. She barely looked up, this was usual for their behavior. Natasha just wanted to get back to her room so that she could go to sleep.
“Nat! Guess what?” They turned their head and the many gold earrings clattered with the movement.
She sighed, “What?” She asked, barely registering what they were talking about.
“Cap’n’s got a new job, he’s giving me a team this time.” They grinned, “And I want you on it.”
Her eyes widened and she looked at Jack as her interest was peaked, “What? Why?”
He shrugged, “ ‘Cause I’m sick of you complaining; ‘Cause I know you’re good for it, does it really matter? You coming?”
She felt overwhelmed, “Um-- I mean, yeah, of course. A real misson!”
Jack chuckled, “Then suit up.” They turned and walked down the engineering annex.
Natasha threw her tools down and ran after them, “Wait, you mean now?!”
“Of course I mean now, we’ll be there in an hour.” They continued to walk, glancing at everything as they passed.
“You mean Fury just up and decided to do a job with no warning?”
Jack looked back, “I mean, no, not really, he’s been planning this one for a few months but -- Uh-- I forgot, so-- Yeah” They pulled out a hand held and began scanning a panel, when the light turned green they continued to move.
Natasha stopped in the middle of the floor and looked down, trying to process this information. Jack finally looked back at her and sighed, apparently feeling guilty, “Hey, don’t worry, this is going to be a piece of cake.”
“Yeah?”
They smiled, “Yeah, unless there are booby traps, or we can’t hold the item and it consumes us and dematerializes us from the inside out...”
Natasha’s face dropped,
“But I think we should be fine, I probably have the right stuff..”
After that, she didn’t ask anymore questions.
She was exhausted but soon she realized that she was the only member of the crew that Jack had invited on this mission and a half an hour later she and Jack were the only ones standing on the transport pad.
Her heart was pounding in her chest and Jack put a reassuring hand on her shoulder with a wide grin, "Hey, don't be nervous, this may be the greatest thing to happen to you, your first real mission. The start of something great."
She chuckled stiffly, "When I imagined my first time in the field I though I would have more than two hours of sleep."
Jack tilted their head, "You've had sleep?"
Natasha took a breath and stared at the blank wall in front of them. She was definitely going to die out there.