The Mockingbird
“Oh my god, are those showers!?” Darcy moved past everyone and dramatically flung herself against the door to the shower/ Decontamination room.
Morse smirked and gave a sideways glance at the shorter woman, “Stuck there for a while were you?” Natasha shrugged.
“What did I say? No more strays! We’ve got to be at the planet in a few hours now what are we going to do?” The British man from over the comm Barged in, his face flustered and his eyes wide.
He was a rather ordinary looking man with a square face and scruff around his jaw. Compared to Morse he looked more like the Chihuahua companion to a golden retriever. He was beginning to sound like one as well, the way his voice went higher as he spoke.
Morse paid no head to his worries; she dropped her gun and her duffle bag onto the chair next to them and stripped off her vest. “Relax, Lance, I told you, she’s the one who helped Birdie. We owe her something.”
Lance made a loud “Uungh!” sound and drooped his shoulders; he addressed Natasha for a moment, “Thank you for the Birdie thing.” And then he turned back to Morse who had lounged on the couch, “But, now we’ve got to bring this one along too. We’ve got to many strays already, Bobbie.”
Bobbie held up two fingers.
“What?” He asked, his face scrunched in confusion.
She repeated the gesture and nodded toward the decontamination chamber. He turned around just in time to see Darcy peaking out of the door, looking around. Her hair was dripping wet and she was naked as far as everyone could tell. “Do you guys have a towel or something?”
“Push the little green button to your right.” Morse explained calmly.
Darcy’s head disappeared for a moment, “Ah, thank you!”
“Oh, bloody hell!”
“Would you calm down? They can help us, it won’t hurt to have a bigger crew for a little while.”
“Ugh, fine. Fine. But don’t get attached, you know what happened last time.” He walked off back to the bridge of the average sized ship.
Natasha sat down across from their rescuer, “What happened the last time.”
“You don’t want to know.” She said with a chuckle. “And what happened to you two? How’d you get stuck all the way out here?”
“You don’t want to know.”
.
.
.
“You failed?” The domineering voice boomed from underneath the grey tunic on the screen.
Ward sneered, “No, I just haven’t finished yet. There were unknown variables that I was not informed of.”
In front of him were a delegation of around six people, all wearing matching tunics that hid their faces disguised their voices. In deals such as this one, anonymity was always the best choice. Off to the side of the main group a woman in a delicately made purple dress stood with her head down and her arms in front of her.
Upon hearing this news she looked up at the O’Nahn man on the screen. Her heart fluttered and she took a step forward, although she knew that it was dangerous to do such a thing. She was the late queen’s sister and she was kept alive only on certain conditions.
“She was with someone. I was not informed that she would be protected.”
“Protected? Who was it?” The royal lady walked toward the screen and the delegation hissed.
Ward glanced at her but ignored her and instead continued to speak to his employers, “I will have your princess soon enough, but a delay should be expected and an increase in price.”
“Who has she sided with?” The woman at the front inquired.
“An unknown. She has not been on any warrants or rosters. I do not know if she is new or just incredible at keeping her identity a secret.”
The woman sighed and put her face in her hands, exhaling as she realized that her niece may have a chance at life after all.
“We expect that you keep to your promise and if you will, we will pay your fee. If you bring in the unknown as well, it will be doubled.”
Ward’s face perked up and he gave a toothy grin, “It will be done.”
.
.
.
“Birdie!” Natasha held her arms out and smiled.
An android, who immediately recognized her and ran to greet her. He was the oldest possible model and was probably stolen from a junk yard. He was built in the typical fashion of the older eras and he looked more like a squarish robot that someone tried but failed to place synthetic skin over.
He was mostly covered with a thick jumpsuit that kept his body contained but didn’t help the lumpy and pokey shape of his body. He gave a lopsided and robotic smile, a part of his head whirred loudly at the increase in emotion which older models just couldn’t handle which was why they were discontinued in the first place.
He had one synthetic ear but the other one had fallen off and left a hole where his wires and circuits were visible. If it wasn’t for the sweet and strained smile and bright eyes, he would look almost scary.
He embraced the pirate and made a little squeaking noise, Natasha laughed and patted his back gently. “I’m glad that you remember me.”
He pointed to his eyes and nodded. He looked over at Morse who was incredibly amused by this little reunion, and made a bopping sound with his mouth which didn’t moved properly over the sounds.
“Is his voice box working?” The redhead asked critically, studying the outside of his circuits.
Bobbie shrugged, “It was, I think he can still talk but he just chooses not to. Sometimes he speaks a little but of German once in a while.”
“Huh, maybe his translator is fried?”
“Older models usually start speaking in binary code when that happens, don’t they?”
“Yeah, usually. But Birdie’s not your usual android either.” She said with a wink that the little android reciprocated.
They heard a little gasp and turned around; Darcy was standing in the door way, freshly showered a clean. She was staring at Birdie in apprehension.
Natasha smiled and gestured for her to come closer, “Come here, I’d like you to meet someone.” Darcy moved a little closer, “Birdie, this is Darcy. Darcy, this is an old friend of mine, Birdie.”
The android made a “Whoo-woo.” Sound and held out a clamp like hand. Darcy took it nervously and shook his hand.
She looked sideways at Natasha and said in a low voice, “I’ve never met an android that looks like this one.” She said honestly.
Natasha put a proud arm around Birdie and smirked, “That’s because he’s one of a kind, right?”
“Dah Hah.” The android said pleasantly.
“One time when we were at port with The Righteous Man, Natasha was so intrigued with seeing him that she offered to fix him for free. He’s been working smoothly ever since.” Morse explained to the confused princess.
“Aww. Nat, I didn’t know you had such a nostalgic side to you.”
The pirate looked away, hiding a small smile, then she shrugged, “I can’t help it, you never get to see these old androids outside of museums or junkyards.”
She and Darcy stared at each other for a moment until Morse spoke again and pushed them forward, “Right. I’ll show you around and let you get some sleep, we’ll need your help with something in a few hours. I’m assuming that you want to share a room?” She grinned and Natasha looked away, a little blush creeping up her cheeks.
Darcy nodded, not fully understanding the question and instead just excited to see the rest of the ship.
“The Mockingbird” Itself wasn’t a massive power house but it was a nice ship and it was obvious that Morse and Hunter had put a lot of time and effort into making the interior comfortable.
The walls and the floors were a comforting cream color and the chairs and carpet were fluffy and soft. The bottoms of the walls were padded as well, which, Natasha wasn’t entirely sure why that was but it added to the comfy if not slightly posh environment.
Bobbie led them down a little hall and into the bridge of the ship, it was the most expansive area of the ship, with rounded ceilings and wide walls. Hunter was sitting in the middle chair with his feet up on the console. Next to him was a third generation Bot, one of the home prototypes that came from home designs. She was tall and made of triangular designs with a blocky and metal face. She apparently had only one function.
“No, I don’t want any bloody waffles, Maple. Leave me be. Shoo, shoo!” The bots hands were simply square waffle makers and she was currently standing above Hunter with her hands out expectantly.
“Go on, I don’t want any.” The bot clapped her hands together with a clunk and a threatening sizzle. It was enough to make Hunter put his hands up and change his tone, “Alright, alright, easy. I’ll take one waffle.”
Maple tapped her hands together happily and rolled away loudly, he watcher her go “ONE waffle, please!” When he realized that she wasn’t listening he laid back in his chair.
“Out of my chair, Lance.” Bobbie ordered and her second mate jumped slightly.
“Jeez, don’t scare me like that.” But he got up and moved to the other chair anyway.
Morse turned away from him then and gestured for the guests to follow her, “This is the bridge, Ladies and this, since you haven’t been properly introduced, is my only biological crew member and a testament to the reliability of machines.” She quipped.
“Oy, I slept in ONE time. You can’t hold that against me.” He retorted.
“We got boarded by Tuz’Muffs; It took us six months to get rid of those things.”
“Yeah, and where were you, miss perfect?”
She threw her hands up “I was getting supplies! I left for two hours! When I got back I had to pull Tuz’Muffs out of our compressor because the ship was about to explode!”
“Hey, everything happens for a reason. If I hadn’t of slept through that migration, we would never have gotten Lulu and you know it.” He pointed to the corner where a particularly fat tuz’muff was slobbering all over what looked like volcanic rock. It’s eerily large mouth and huge eyes were the only thing visible underneath the layers and layers of orange and purple fur. About the size of a Pomeranian, it didn’t take up much room but in groups they were incredibly detrimental.
“Can I pet her?” Darcy was mesmerized by the drooling and fluffy creature. Lance looked pleased with himself as if he had won the argument.
“Be my guest.” Morse rolled her eyes and Lance stuck his tongue out. Darcy immediately went to greet the drooling creature. It didn’t do anything as she ran her fingers through its long hair, except roll it’s uncomfortably large eyes.
Natasha turned toward Morse and lowered her voice, “What are you transporting on this thing?”
“What do you mean?” Morse asked, pretending to be oblivious but the shorter pirate looked straight through and she sighed, giving in. “Refugees, mostly. That’s why it looks this way—“ She gestured to the comfortable environment “I got a really good deal. I know that most of us are trying to avoid taking active sides on the Oh’Nahn crisis but it was too good to pass up.”
“Do you have any refugees on board right now?” Natasha asked, concerned because if they did then they were already in more danger than she wanted to be in.
“No, we just dropped off about twenty people to the Strao system so we’re clean right now.” Bobbie’s face was strained.
“You know that the Oh’Nahn alliance is going to come down hard on anyone caught helping the rebels.”
Bobbie changed her facial expression then, “And since when has a little bit of danger ever stopped us?” She patted the shorter woman on the back with a grin, “But don’t worry, we won’t even be anywhere near Oh’Nah. What we’re doing next, is our own personal con. And you two are going to help.”
“And why would we do that?” Natasha asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Because, you owe me and I think you ladies deserve a night out.” The captain grinned and winked before turning back and gesturing to the hallway. “C’mon, I’ll show you to your quarters.”
Darcy stood up and followed them, wiping drool off of her hand and onto her pants. They got onto a lift and Bobbie manually punched in the floor number.
“What happened to your AI?” Natasha inquired.
Morse turned to her, “she and Hunter got into a fight and he muted her. When she comes back she’s going to be pissed as hell so don’t expect any favors.”
Morse dropped them off at a rather comfortable looking room that matched the rest of the ship in terms of décor. Darcy, the second that Bobbie left them, plopped face first into the mattress while Natasha sat down hesitantly.
“I thought I’d never be on a real bed again!”
“We were only stuck for one week.”
Darcy lifted her head and looked at the pirate, “Exactly. Forever.” Darcy giggled and rolled over onto her back, leaning on her elbows with a smirk.
“How long do we have until we get to go on the little trip?” Darcy asked, twirling her fingers idly on the blanket.
“About ten hours or so? And it’s not a trip, It’s a literal con mission, so let’s just try not to get killed down there.”
“You know this whole thing is so exciting I almost forgot about the stone—“ Darcy moved to her side, watching the redhead closely, “But we’ll get to that when it happens, right?”
Natasha nodded.
Darcy smiled and put a hand next to the other woman, a moment later she wrapped the hand around Nat’s waist and pulled her onto the bed next to her. Natasha struggled for a moment but then let herself be rolled onto the mattress.
“You know.. Ten hours is a long time..” Darcy started suggestively.
“Are you going to sleep?” She asked, as Natasha’s head lulled back and she closed her eyes.
“Hhmm..” She hummed in response.
Darcy sighed in disappointment but then plopped down and curled herself next to the other woman. She glanced up at the sleeping woman, her face neutral and smooth. Darcy thought she had never seen such a beautiful face. She then closed her eyes and let her self go limp in the pirate’s arms.