"Should our only engineer really be outside doing repairs?" Severn's voice sounded hollow over the comms. Alek scowled. He would've shut the comms off, but they were his only link to the ship...and the bubble of life inside.
"What about your only pilot?" he said as he watched Tink crab walk along the hull beside him.
Kandi's voice replaced Severn's. "If you want to be the one left in here with her, while someone else goes and messes with her ship, be my guest," she answered, ignoring Alek's comment entirely. "In that scenario, I'd rather be out there with nothing between me and cold, empty death but a thin spacesuit."
Alek couldn't say he agreed with her. He'd rather deal with a hellacious Tink than be spacewalking. He swallowed the lump in his throat and focused on the hull of the ship to combat the nausea that always threatened whenever he had to be out surrounded by the endless vacuum.
"Haha. Very funny." Tink caught up to him, and he could see her eyes roll behind her faceplate. Her helmet light illuminated her face, a beacon in the blackness. He hadn't noticed the freckles scattered like stars across her cheeks before. She flashed him a half grimace, half smile as she responded to their two minders. "Would you pay attention to our vitals, please?"
"We've been paying attention to your vitals for an hour," Kandi said. "I'm bored."
"What, you've cleaned all your weapons already?" Tink responded, shuffling closer, forcing Alek to edge further along the jackline.
"'Haha' back at you." Kandi's words were flat.
"Yes, she has," Severn said. "Are you almost done? You must be getting cold."
"It's starting to seep through, yeah." Alek flexed the fingers of one hand, keeping hold of the jackline with the other.
Tink crept closer to him. "Cass, are we almost done?"
"The sensors indicate one more stress point." Cass' voice was calm, as always. "I can't determine the extent. It might be fine if you postpone fixing it, or it might be where the ship breaks apart."
"Great." Alek smiled at Tink, who actually smiled back, causing the corners of her eyes to crinkle.
"The panel is five metres to your right," the AI said.
Tink sidled over until she was nestled beside him.
"So why aren't the bots doing this?" he asked, making the mistake of glancing over her shoulder at the empty black beyond the tail. A bit of bile rose in his throat. He swallowed; if there was one rule of spacewalking, it was don't vomit. He forced his eyes back to her face.
Her suit shifted. He imagined her shrugging a shoulder. Even in a helmet, a wayward curl had escaped the cap and was plastered to her cheek.
"They're broken. I haven't gotten around to..." She stopped. "I need parts to fix them, and we hired you all instead of getting them."
"Oh." He glanced down at his gloved hand, the one gripping the jackline. "Sorry."
"We needed a pilot." Her shoulder shifted again, then her leg. She threw it over his thigh, jostling him and testing his hold on the line. "Excuse me," she said as their helmets bumped. Her brown eyes met his.
"Nothing to excuse." He gave a lopsided grin. He thought about saying she could wrap her legs around him anytime, just to drive home the sexist boar persona, but the words stuck in his throat.
"No, I need to get around you. Panel's on your other side."
"Oh right." He shifted, letting her crawl over him, feeding her safety line out. As she got to work on the patch, the line in his hand caught his attention. He glanced at her, so focused on her task. Their only engineer. The only one who understood the inner workings of the defense systems, of their few weapons. He looked back at the line and frowned.
"Okay, that should do it," she said. "Cass?"
"Sensors indicate the panel is sealed."
Alek watched as Tink crab walked back to him, one hand resting on the hull of the ship, rather than the jackline, while the other tucked a tool in her belt. The ship lurched, the line jerking.
"Cass?" Alek hated that his voice was pitched higher than normal. "Kandi?"
"Ish?" Tink said, her voice normal as she continued towards him.
"Just a pocket of dirty space," Ish said from the bridge. "Nothing to worry about. Correcting now."
The ship shifted again, and Tink with it. Her boot slipped on the thin lip of metal they'd been following around the hull.
"Whoa," she said with a laugh, her arms going wide. Alek lunged out to grab her. His fingers barely caught around her tool belt.
"Jacks!" He hauled her back towards him, wrapping his free arm tight around her waist, while the other gripped the jackline so tight his fingers went numb. Her helmet bumped his again.
"What?" A big grin formed dimples on her cheeks. "You big scaredy cat. It's fine. My safety line would have stopped me."
He swallowed, taking her hand and placing it on the jackline. His hand free again, he pulled her safety line. "No, I don't think it would have." He lifted the frayed end to where she could see it in her visor's field of view.
The grin froze on her face, then fell. "It wasn't like that during the pre-walk checks." Her eyes glanced up to meet his.
"No, it wasn't."