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Chickadee: Part 2
🕑 Added 2022-03-24 20:21:23 +0000 UTCForgive me if the quality is rough on this one. I am writing this short quickly and I am learning that I am really rusty at writing 3rd person POV.
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‘God damn it.’ Jun curses silently as he catches sight of a few trembling whiskers poking out from behind the leg opposite the corner of the walker he and Remus were approaching from. There was a survivor here after all, a small one based on how well it was huddled behind the vehicle’s metal leg. There wouldn’t be one for long once his shipmate spotted them. Because Remus had begun to circle to the right, and his greater height, he hadn’t caught sight of it yet, though he’d likely be picking up the scent through the smell of burnt oil any moment now. Jun circles the opposite direction, his pistol hand at the ready, as he thinks. ‘Whoever the hell you are, please don’t do anything stupid.’
Just then scampering through the legs of the walker darts a mottled brown mouse. She was a petite curvaceous woman who wore sturdy black military issue boots, rugged olive cargo pants, and an oil stained green denim jacket with at least a half a dozen pockets sewn onto it. Around her thick hips hung a work belt with various tools dangling from it and, most strangely of all, held in her tail she dragged along behind her a small yellow and blue robot that appeared to made out of the cobbled together parts of at least three different models. Jun’s hope for her not doing anything foolish is dashed as he then sees clutched in her delicate fingered paws a small two-barrel pistol, currently aimed at his head.
The woman had chosen her moment perfectly. Remus and Jun had just broken sight line of each other as they circled opposite directions so one could not see what was happening with the other. And by staying beneath walker she ensured she had some sort of cover around her, her small size also made it easy for her to move around down there.
Jun’s life flashes before him as he sees a frantic desperation in the mouses inky black eyes. This was a woman at the end of her rope and with nothing left to lose. As he sees her trigger finger begin to tighten he does what he always does when things look bleakest…he starts to talk.
“Hey!” He says cheerfully, his casual chipper tone confusing the woman just enough to pause her shot. “Would you look at that? A lovely little lady. We were hoping there’d be a survivor. We thought the worst when we spotted your rig.” He speaks eloquently and without pause. “And judging by that tool belt you are a mechanic. You are a mechanic, aren’t you?”
This threw the mouse for a loop. She hadn’t expected to be addressed like that. She keeps the pistol trained on him as she nervous glances over her shoulder to see what the other was doing. “Um…”
Pushing the advantage he keeps talking. “Wouldn’t you know it, we just happened to lose our engineer last month.” Jun flashes her his most charming grin. “Drunk old bastard fell right out the bay door. He wasn’t much of an engineer really but he grew on us, ya know.”
By this point Remus had knelt down to spot the survivor beneath vehicle. When he sees what she was doing his protective pack instinct kicks in and a deep savage growl rolls up from his thick barrel chest. “Rrrr!”
Little did the mouse know that the only thing holding the wolf back was that she had her gun trained on his best friend. Panicking she clambers away from the wolf and turns her gun back toward him. It was over from there. Remus dashes under the hauler in chase sending the mouse into full retreat. Leaving the robot behind in hopes of slowing Remus down she runs out into the open. She attempts to spin her aim back toward the fox but in the twitch of a whisker his six-shooter was in his hand and trained steady on her heart.
“Stop.” Jun orders.
Her hands tremble in impotent fear before she throws the pistol down into the sandy soil in frustration and lifts her hands above her head. “Okay, you got me.”
An instant later an huge furry hand encircles her throat and effortlessly lifts her clear off the ground. With her at just over four and half feet tall and the enraged Remus pushing eight his hulking arm looks nearly as big as her entire body as he hoists her high into the evening air. Her black eyes bulge as the powerful hand begins to SQUEEZE! She grabs his wrist in both hands and struggles helplessly, her long nimble tail whipping and slapping at his face in a feeble effort to fight for her life.
“Remus.” Jun says. “Big man, put her down. Let’s talk.”
The great wolf just bares his sharp fangs and snarls.
“GLLGH!” Already weakening the mouse attempts to wrap her tail around the wolf’s thick neck to choke him back. He doesn’t even acknowledge it as his yellow eyes narrow and his hand tightens.
“Remus, please.” Jun begs. “She didn’t do anything to us. She tried, but she didn’t. I’m okay. See. I’m okay. Remus, Remus…REMUS!”
Just then from out under the walker waddles the robot. “Release Miss Posey!” It crackles as loud as its tinny speaker would go. “Release Miss Posey!”
Jun’s ears cock to the side as he tilts his head curiously at the little bot’s emergence. Remus pays it no mind, with a kill so close the natural born hunter ignores it to finish the job at hand. The tail around the wolf’s neck slackens and the grip at his wrists goes loose as he chokes the very life from the woman who threatened his friend and lover.
“Enemy! Enemy! Enemy!” The humanoid robot then blares as its limbs extend to bring it to its maximum of three and half foot tall while it’s body contracts down to hide its more vulnerable areas to give the once blocky bot the odd appearance of a flattened egg with spindly oddly mismatched limbs extending from it. As part of that bodily contraction its head collapses down to turtle into its shoulders and a thick clear visor snaps over the bot’s glass lens eyes.
Cutting through Remus’ lethal focus his attention is grabbed when hears the click-clack of a compartment opening up and sound of the tiny robot charging. In an instant he drops the now unconscious mouse to land in a heap at his feet and spins, bringing his hammer to the ready. In an instant he assesses the threat…and what he sees leaves him perplexed.
“What in the hells?” Jun tilts his head the other direction as his ears cock opposite.
Advancing on Remus the bot had opened a chamber in the lower center of its torso to reveal not a knife or gun or bolt thrower or drill or stunner or flame thrower or even a lance, but a tool designed for a different kind of stabbing. Thrusting and vibrating from out of the little robot’s crotch is a slender pink six inch dildo! With no time to ponder Remus deftly spins his hammer to bring the pepperbox shotgun side to bear and double clicks the hidden button in the shaft.
BOOM!
The hammer bucks as all five shots fire at once, a lesser wielder would have been sent spinning to their ass at the blast but the mighty wolf handles it with ease. Dust and smoke fly and sparks of ricocheting pellets careen out from the bot’s body and the rear of the hauler as a hail of death is unleashed. Hit point blank the small bot’s body is sent careening far back, right past the walker and beyond.
There is a long moment of silence as dust slowly drifts away with the arid breeze.
“I think it wanted to rape you.” Jun quips with a smirk. “You don’t see that everyday.”
“Hrrf!” Remus snorts.
Before his buddy could finish the job Jun holsters his gun and springs to the unconscious body of the mouse. He kneels over her and strokes his hand along the oily fur of her cheek. Through the blackened soot there was a striking young woman, more cute than gorgeous but beautiful nonetheless. “She’s still alive.”
“Not for long.”
“Remus! God damn it…”
The words die in his throat as all at once a creeping crimson shadow spreads across the badlands. Both fox and wolf snap their heads westward to see near the horizon a great bank of dark red clouds had blotted out the direct sunlight. Dusk had come early.
“That’s not good.”
“Blood storm. Fuck!” Remus curses. “We gotta go.”
The sudden dimming of the light this close to natural dusk combined with the deafening racket they’d just made meant that the ravenous Critters would soon be emerging. Jun scoops up this Miss Posey into his arms.
“Leave her.” Remus orders.
“We’ll talk later.” Jun says as he starts for the Chickadee.
“JUN!”
“We’ll talk!” Jun yaps back. “We can always toss her from the hold later. She won’t be any more or less dead in the end, might as well at least learn who she is first.”
“Rrrr!” Remus snaps his teeth. The pair would have words about this later…followed by makeup sex of course, the very best kind. As his ear catches the distant chitter and clicks of the awakening insectoid horrors that would soon swarm this land he turns to the walker and thinks of what to do. They hadn’t the time to properly search the walker to say nothing of a real salvage job. The quickest, riskiest, and most profitable option would be to take the whole damned thing and just hope the Dee could lift it. She’d never let them down yet. “Get the winch ready!” He calls after his pilot.
“On it.”
Jun pads swiftly across scrubby ground, the woman cradled close to his chest.
“Are you an angel?” Comes a soft slurred voice. Looking down Jun sees the hazy eyed mouse smiling woozily up at him.
“Angel? That’s a first.” He chuckles, before he says more grimly. “I might just be your angel of death little lady.” Hopping up onto the open cargo bay door/ramp that hovered just a couple of feet off of the ground he carries the woman inside and gently lays her down at the side of the bay. He rests a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t have time to explain. Just…please, don’t do anything stupid.” He smiles his dashing smile. “Hmm?” With a rascally wink he is up and heading to back of the hold to ready the winch.
She blinks and brings a hand to her sore neck as the memory of where she was and who he was filter back into her cloudy mind.
Meanwhile outside Remus has his hammer in its harness across his back and was dealing with walker. He had the underhood closed up and was currently folding the folding down the swiveling taxiing wheels when he catches another click-clack sound, this one much closer. Baring his teeth he turns toward it, ready to go toe to toe with a crit if necessary, and watches in amazement as the robot he’d just blasted into oblivion with all five rounds of his hammer stands up! The dildo was a bit chewed up but the rest of it had barely a scratch! It was a tough little bastard.
It scans the landscape for its master and when it does not see her focuses back on her attacker. “Enemy! Enemy! Enemy!” It’s speaker squeals at maximum volume, it’s shrill voice ringing out across the land as good as a siren designed to let the crits know their precise location.
“Quiet you little fool!” Remus growls as his eyes scan for emerging Critters. In far the distance…he sees them! One, two, four, a dozen, a hundred, countless, all crawling up out of one of the nearer burrows. In every direction he could see the appearance of more the beasties coming up from other holes. “RRRR!”
Deciding a three foot tall bot with mismatched limbs and a dildo as a ‘weapon’ was no threat Remus hurries to lower the last two wheels. The bot slams into his leg, punching and scratching and thrusting its vibrating tool against his fur and doing absolutely zero damage. He kicks the damn thing off about ten meters and moves to the front to lean his shoulder into the nose. His muscles heave and wheels squeak and soon the hauler begins to slowly roll its way toward the Chickadee, thankfully beyond a few rocks and shrubs the hard baked earth was flat here. At his leg the robot had returned though proves to be nothing more than a nuisance to the huge wolf. The bot could take a lickin but it was piss poor for offense.
Down from the bay hops Jun with the hooked end of the winch cable in his hand. He lets out a laugh when he sees the robot flailing impotently against his shipmate’s shaggy leg but that laugh quickly dies. His green eyes go wide as he sees dark scurrying shapes pouring up onto the flat blood hued landscape. They were lucky that the nearest burrow was a ways away but the crits were closing that distance fast.
“Shoot! We’re actually taking it still?” Jun calls, the worry coming out in his high effeminate voice.
“Ya said ya wanted to.”
“Err.” Jun looks across the eerie scarlet soaked landscape to the spreading inky blackness of certain death. “You said it was too risky.”
“I changed my mind. We ain’t leavin empty pawed. We got time if we hurry.” Remus huffs, his powerful legs pumping as the rolling walker picks up speed. “Get Dee ready.”
Jun nods and springs into practiced efficient action, this was hardly the first close call the pair had tried. High risk-high reward chances like this made the hours and days and weeks of slow cruising and searching worth it. He drops the hook to the dirt where he stood. As he pulls the ramp extender down to ground level he says into the bay. “If you could call off your bot Ma’am. Things just got hairy and we don’t have time for distraction.” Without waiting for a response he springs back into the ship and leaps up onto the ladder to take him up through the hatch to the main deck level where his cockpit was.
Peeking out around the side of the bay Posey gasps as she sees the dire seriousness of their situation. “Oh my God! Scraps!” She croaks. “Stop attacking that man.” Instantly Scraps discontinues his assault, his combat form folding back up into the more humanoid normal form. Catching sight of her pistol in the dirt she points. “Bring me my gun!”
“Oh no ya don’t” Remus tries to kick the robot away but he was far too occupied pushing over a thousand kilos of hauler to connect. Jogging back Scraps scoops up the pistol and spins back to rush toward his master as quick as his clanking legs would take him. “GRMM!” Remus grunts as he watches it run back past him and onto the Dee. The woman he nearly killed, the stranger that he did not trust, was now inside of their ship with her gun back. He’d have to deal with that later. Surely she wouldn’t be fool enough to try something with the crits bearing down. The far off din of a thousand chitinous legs and hissing maws could now be heard and was rapidly growing louder, getting the fuck off the ground was their only priority now.
After what seemed an eternity he rolls the walker in behind the ramp and clips on the hook that had been left for him onto the steel tow shackle at the front of the vehicle. He turns and lopes into the ship to find the mouse huddled back in the far corner with her robot at her side and her pistol held out in front of her. She glares, both frightened and furious at the huge wolf that nearly ended her.
He had no time for this. “You shoot, you die.” He says as he gets to the winch. With a pull of the lever the motor whines and the steel cable begins to slowly pull into the spool. Remus points at her and gives her a hard stare. “You stay! Don’t fuckin move a whisker.”
With that he hurries back to hauler to help guide it up the ramp. The moment the front wheels start up the ramp the Chickadee lurches and the hard chugging engine begins to shake the whole ship.
“She’s breathing heavy big man.” Jun calls from above.
“Dee’ll take it.” Remus shouts back, before adding beneath his breath. “She’s got to.” Pulling the front of the hauler to help it along he spares a moment to shoot a piercing stare back to their unwelcome passenger. He could see her mind working frantically as her eyes dart back and forth between himself, the winch, and the walker being hauled into the bay. Releasing one hand from the pistol she lays it flat on the floor and feels the shudder rattling through the old bird. She looks back to him, her eyes narrow…before she darts for the ladder. “Hey!” His anger builds and his regret at not finishing her off grows as he watches her scurry up and disappear through the ceiling. “She’s loose!” He warns his partner.
Jun however was far too busy keeping the Chickadee afloat to worry about Miss Posey. Using every trick he knew to wring the most out of the ship his hand are a blur across the controls. He spares a glance out the window and calls back. “They’re close!”
“Lift off!” Remus shouts as the back wheels at last roll up onto the ramp. He slams his fist into a nearby button to retract the anchor. Outside he could see the red of the dying light glimmering off of globular compound eyes. “GO!”
Jun punches it and a deafening POP quakes the ship. “What in the hells was that!?” The Chickadee begins to slowly glide forward…but fails to gain any altitude!
“GO!” Remus roars.
“I’m trying!” Jun yips.
Remus folds out the steel knuckles from his bracers and moves in behind the crawling hauler to protect the open cargo bay. In the knick of time too as the closest Critter, a five foot long monstrosity that looked part ant and part spiny cricket, leaps forward. Remus sends it back out as fast as it came in with a well place punch square in the center of hits head. It lands on the dirt, the exoskeleton of its forehead shattered and stone dead. But there were countless more where that one came from.
“She’s acting funny.” Jun yells and he heaves back on the wheel as more popping noises ring out and rattling wheeze emanates from the engines. Despite his best efforts they were now losing altitude as well, and they only had a few feet to play with. “This isn’t normal! She’s never done this. Come on baby, what’s wrong with you?”
“The woman!” Shouts Remus as he boots one Critter off the ramp and crushes the head of another between his bare hands, it’s yellow-black ichor spattering across his snarling face. “Crazy bitch has sabotaged us! Get her!”
“I let go of Dee and her beak is in the dirt.”
“RRRRR!” The swarming bugs were coming at a rate of one every couple seconds. At his feet a line skittering along the ground snapped at the end of the ramp. Crack, crunch, splortch, Remus kills another and another and another. It was all he could do to keep them out now, he couldn’t even spare a second to close the bay doors never mind hunt down a suicidal mouse. That fucking mouse! She was going to be the end of them. CRUNCH! He tears the mandible of one in his powerful jaws, his sharp teeth crushing through the shell. “Rahhh!” He barks as one clamps onto his calf. He kicks it out into the rushing throng chasing the Dee. More came, and more, and more. He slays them as fast as his feral rage could slay them but still they came with relentless numbers. The time for regrets or plans or contingencies were past. He would soon be overwhelmed. All he could do now was buy time. And so he fights! He fights for himself and his ship and, most of all, his hot foxy lover and best friend.
Just then a coughing sputter shakes the Chickadee…followed by a sudden surge of power.
“Wahoooo!” Jun howls as the airship picks up speed and begins to climb, the shuddering that had been shaking his bones soon smoothing out.
The battling wolf staggers at the unexpected upward tilt and burst of speed and nearly tumbles out the door, only just catching himself by clutching the rearmost roof cargo anchor. Holding himself with one hand his feet momentarily leave the deck as the Dee climbs at full throttle and he watches the mass of crawling death pull away beneath them. The next thing he knew he had a robot clinging to his tail for dear life. “Get offa me!” He bellows and tries to wag it away. The stubborn bot held on tight though.
Up in the cockpit Jun was stroking his controls. “I never doubted you Dee baby. Ha ha haaa! You’ve never let us down.” His jubilation is short-lived as he feels the two-barreled muzzle of a pistol press against his temple.
“Alright flyboy.” Comes a soft squeaky voice. “Let’s talk.”
