[100prompts] #014 - Echo

[darjeeling]

Title: Pretense
Fandom: Storm Hawks
Prompt: #014 - Echo
Character(s): Stork, Aerrow
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2248
Summary: While studying for his Sky Knight trial, Aerrow has some doubts about his newly chosen path, and Stork wants to make sure their leader gets back on course.
Author Notes: Pre-series, takes place approximately three months prior to "Age of Heroes". Crossposts to AO3 and FF.net accounts.

"You're the last descendant of Lightning Strike. That means by right, you take leadership of the Storm Hawks. Aerrow, you're a Sky Knight!"

Pretense

The door to the bridge whiss-thunked open to admit him, and Aerrow rubbed the back of his neck to ease the tension knot there from hours of bending over his books. Despite the Condor's moored state for the night, Stork had yet to leave the bridge, and the helmsman was kneeling next to the helm's service panel, the protective metal grate already removed. He looked up at the redhead's entrance, one ear cocking curiously at the teen.

"Hey," Aerrow said. "Do you mind if I study up here for a while? The others are playing a game of Guess The Species down in the common room, and it's pretty distracting."

"Finn doing his impression of a Dread-Snot giantess is usually more horrifying than distracting," Stork replied blithely, pulling his toolkit closer and turning to lay on his back so he could work his upper body into the small space inside the junction box. He waved an absent four-fingered hand in Aerrow's direction and the bridge's navigation table, the metal distorting his answer into a hollow echo. "Knock yourself out, man, I'm going to be at this for a while."

Aerrow sniggered a little at the remark, pulled up a chair and opened the book to where he'd left off. All right, where was I? So if one skimmer is travelling at 75 tics per hour and covers 19 leagues, and a second skimmer traveling in the opposite direction goes 110 tics per hour and covers 40 leagues, at what point will…

He worked on the problems for over an hour, the steady sounds of Stork's mechanical work melding with the rumblings of metal stresses when the Condor swayed against the night breeze. Finally he laid aside the book and stood, stretching his arms over his head until they gave a satisfying pop. Approaching the junction box, he crouched down next to what was visible of his pilot's lower half. "Whatcha working on in there?"

"Helm hydraulics," Stork answered promptly, patting his hand along the deck plate near his left hip and locating the angle clamp he'd set down earlier. "I've been meaning to rerun all the lines for weeks, but it's not something I wanted to try when there's a good chance we'd be shot at without notice."

A wry grin quirked the Sky Knight hopeful's mouth. "Occupational hazard?" he offered, and then gave an outright laugh when Stork gave a full-body twitch in response. "Were the hydraulics not working?" he added, having not noticed any degradation in the ship's handling.

"They were... usable," the merb allowed, followed by a grumble as a bolt refused to tighten properly, and he shifted to point in the general direction of his toolkit. "But they were almost on their last legs already, I just spliced together the best pieces as I pulled them out of the second helm when I was rebuilding her. Hand me that dial caliper?"

"Second helm?" Aerrow blinked, looking up at the steering handlebars in puzzlement. He hesitated only a moment before choosing the tool and settling it into the outstretched green hand.

"Thanks," Stork said, and used it to cap off the line he'd been working on. Deciding that the conversation was a good enough reason for a break, he leveraged his shoulders back out of the junction and then sat up. He had a smear of grease on one side of his face, unnoticed. "Cirrus-class carriers were originally built with dual helms," he continued, nodding to a welded-over piece of decking a dozen feet away, opposite the helm he was working on. "It might not seem like it now in comparison to the huge cruisers that've been built in recent decades, but a century ago? The Condor was a big carrier, and she's heavy. Having two helms with separate hydraulic systems made her both easier to fly, and safer if one was damaged."

"Makes sense," Aerrow allowed. "Guess I've just gotten used to the way you fly her, that's all." Stork made a pleased noise that he tried and failed to disguise as a harrumph, which the redhead pretended not to notice as he continued, "So why'd you pull the second one out, if it can still fly with just one?"

"I needed the parts," Stork shrugged. "And I didn't figure I'd need a double helm when I expected to be flying her alone. It's the same reason I routed the primary blaster array through the helm as well, instead of the gunner's bulk."

Giving a singular pilot a way to simultaneously steer the ship and defend itself at the same time, Aerrow thought; Stork really had anticipated leaving the Wastelands with the Condor by himself all those years he'd been stuck down there. The teen didn't like that train of thought, so he reached for a clean-ish rag from the toolbox and offered it to his helmsman. "You've got something on your face, buddy. New cruisers use a different type of system, right? You ever thought about changing it over? I mean... eventually we'll have enough money for better parts for you to work with."

Stork took the proffered cloth and scrubbed absently at his cheek -- completely missing the grease spot -- and tossed the rag back into the toolbox. "Liquefied crystal," he agreed. "It's able to withstand a lot more heat, so you have to replace it maybe once or twice in the entire lifespan of a carrier. But if you spring a leak, the entire system de-pressurizes instantly... not much of a problem on a vacation cruiser, way more of a problem in the middle of a battle. A liqui-crystal system isn't as responsive by almost a full second. Even if I had the parts, I wouldn't change the Condor's hydraulics over... I like her the way she is."

Aerrow just shook his head, amused at the passionate defense of the carrier before standing and offering Stork a hand, then pulling the pilot upright as well. "Well, no one knows the Condor better than you do, so whatever you think is best. Have you got a minute to check the work I did?"

"Sure. Read them out to me while I wash up?"

Aerrow did so, going through the problems one by one, giving the numbers and then waiting for Stork to calculate them and give him the answer, usually in less than a minute. Piper had tried to explain why Stork was able to do math like this in his head without seeing the numbers -- something about Merbian math being based on 4's instead of 10's -- but it still made Aerrow baffle at the pilot's ability to do so.

"How about you take the Sky Knight trial," the teen had grumped in pure frustration after consistently getting every question wrong, one morning a few weeks prior, shortly after his study materials had arrived from Atmosia.

"Because," Stork had deadpanned back, without missing a beat. "I'm not the one the shape-changers came looking for with cryptic prophecies. And if I'm the best candidate for Sky Knight we've got--" He'd given a dramatic, tragic sigh of defeat. "We'd all be better off just surrendering to Cyclonia."

The theatrics had derailed Aerrow's frustration effectively; he'd laughed, gone back to his studying, and only after the fact by several hours realized that had probably been the intent.

He'd gotten better since then however, and when he'd finished reading this set, it turned out he's gotten the majority of questions right. The few that he'd missed were simple calculation error, as much a fault of the late hour as anything. "Thanks, Stork. I feel like this is taking me forever to learn. I've never had to… think this much about how stuff works. I always just kind of... did it."

The green helmsman shook his head disbelievingly. "Slow? Most hopefuls train for years before they're able to take their trial, Aerrow-- and you're doing yours in less than six months. Your definition of slow is a little short of zero bank."

"It's not the book stuff I'm worried about," Aerrow replied, settling his hand to the back of his neck in what Stork had come to recognize as a gesture of uncertainty and nerves. "It's the stuff I can't study for that's making me..."

"Like what, the combat challenge? You and Piper have been sparring every day."

"Like..."

The leader dropped back into his chair and looked up at Stork, who waited expectantly without interrupting, until Aerrow groaned heavily at having to put his thoughts into words. "Like having to demonstrate a special move, for starters. I still haven't done one successfully, and I'm running out of time before the trials. What if... they figure out who I'm-- what if they expect me to be like Lightning Strike, and what if I'm not? And there's probably going to be people there who lost teammates in the battle ten years ago, so what if they blame me for... for something, I don't know."

The teen lapsed into silence with a frustrated clench of his fist, while the only sound on the bridge was the quiet rush of the wind outside against the glass. Finally he forced out, "What if no one wants the Storm Hawks back?"

"You're probably right."

The casual agreement was enough to startle Aerrow into silence, and for a moment he was certain he'd heard that incorrectly, except for the expression on the merb's face that confirmed he hadn't. "Well, uh... I am?"

"Being a Sky Knight is a terrible job," Stork shook his head, pacing back and forth, gesturing at the clouds beyond the bridge. "Highest probability of losing life and limb in the whole Atmos, and not necessarily in that order. Likelihood of dying before you turn thirty? Over sixty-five percent-- maimed is over seventy-five percent! Dying in an accident involving a poorly functioning Nimbus afterburner on your skimmer? One in 17.5 deployments. Assuming you ride your skimmer twice day, you'll last about two and a half weeks. And sure, some squads get treated like celebrities on their home terras, but most of the time, they might as well just paint a target on their backs and fly around Cyclonian airspace with a big sign. There are a lot easier ways to chase fame, Aerrow."

"I'm not chasing fame!" the redhead protested, baffled and caught off guard by the slew of negativity from the pilot. "I just want to protect other terras, the way we were protecting our home on Neverlandis."

"You could protect other terras by developing a better microbe scrub, there's a shortage in the whole eastern region. People would definitely appreciate that more than a group of teenagers flying around. I can show you germination reports from the last five years, it's getting absolutely plaguelike over there."

"That's not what I--"

"Or a bog-howler anti-chewing repellent test subject." Stork pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Of course, that doesn't get you out of the whole losing limbs problem..."

"Uh, pass. I just thought that--"

"Sky Knighthood is a thankless career. You'd be better off becoming a used skimmer salesman."

"I'm not doing it for thanks," Aerrow snapped. "Would you knock it off, Stork? You're acting like I care what other people think of me!"

The pilot held up three fingers, and lowered one, followed by the second, and just as he was about to do the same with the third, Aerrow's realization came. The angry tension he hadn't even realized that was gathering across the line of his shoulders dissipated, leaving him feeling surprisingly light. An exasperated laugh whooshed out of him, and he shook his head wryly.

"Okay, okay, I get it. But really, bog-howler repellent tester? You just made that up to make your point, right?"

"Clearly you've never been on a terra where bog howlers are a serious problem," Stork answered, bending to collect his toolkit from the floor. He set it on the table and looked at the teen. "This is one of those areas where you are better off doing instead of thinking, Aerrow. Who cares what people are going to think of you becoming a Sky Knight, or putting the Storm Hawks back together? You're not doing it for them."

"I'm doing it for the Atmos, but... it's because I want to protect all of us here on the Condor... this team, right here. I can't do that if I'm worrying about what other people are thinking."

The merb nodded, glad that the leader had cleared his head, and it was that kind of dedication that allowed Stork to think of Aerrow as a leader, even though he was several years younger. It was something that Stork hadn't had a lot of experience with, because of the social structure of his home terra, followed by years of solitude in the Wastelands. Yet he was finding he didn't mind... just as long as Aerrow didn't lose sight of his even keel.

"Think there's any dessert left?" the redhead asked, gathering his books and jerking a finger over his shoulder in the direction of the common area, where he realized that the commotion from the guessing game had died down. "You coming?"

Stork demurred, wanting to clean up first, and Aerrow left the bridge a moment later, his step noticeably lighter on the deck plates than it had been when he'd come in. As the bridge door closed behind him, the pilot just shook his head bemusedly, and dimmed the lights for the night.

---

Zero bank - A flight dynamic that refers to an aircraft on a "flat" or horizontal level, where the normal force is vertically upwards.