Scavenge for the Future

by Evilhumour

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Scratched Wrench let out a groan as someone started to shake her, pressing herself into Aerostorm’s side.

“Come on, I know you’re up,” Zaat said, shaking her some more. “I did my six hours now it’s yours.”

“But comfy,” Scratched whined, scrunching her eyes tighter.

“Yeah, don’t care,” Zaat said as he ran a finger down her spine, causing the pegasus’s eyes to snap open. She turned her head to glare at the parrot who simply gave her a pat on the side. “Good, you’re awake. Now go take the controls, I’m bushed.” Dusting off his vest, he left the room, heading for his own bunk across the hall.

Grumbling under her breath, keeping it quiet as not to wake Aerostorm, Scratched looked around their room. It was a cozy room with actual carpeting across the floor, their bed against one wall with two nightstands on either side and their dresser directly across with a monitor above. On Scratched’s side of the bed was the door to the bathroom with the door to the ship on Aerostorm’s side. It was as nice as their room back home, only larger but without their knicknacks, pictures and other junk they’d gotten since they had been together.

Speaking of the griffon, Aerostorm was laying on her side, the blanket pushed off. Smiling as she listened to her girlfriend snore, Scratched risked waking her up by placing a kiss on her forehead while she covered the griffon up.

Stifling a yawn, Scratched left their room and walked down to the small area at the back of the Excelsior that they had turned into their eating room and made herself a cup of caf before walking back down past the bunks and into the cockpit, stealing a look to make sure Aerostorm was still asleep and seeing how Zaat was doing. Both were asleep with the parrot having shed his vest and snoring on his bed.

Pushing the panel to shut their doors, Scratched continued her way into the cockpit and moved into the pilot’s chair, sitting down and doing her best to get comfy - something that wasn’t easy when both Zaat and Aerostorm were bulkier than her. Setting her caf in its holder, Scratched turned her attention to the monitors to see how the ship was doing. While it was high-day and she couldn’t switch to the real-time view due to the likelihood that the glare of the sand would blind her, Scratched found herself missing the whole experience. It was oddly soothing to see the sand just pass by and more than once her friends had found her just sitting and watching it.

Shaking her head as she lifted the cup to her lips, Scratched reached over to turn on the news band.

“nd another five worlds have left the Lhat’kan Federation, with only four solar systems left. Their demands for independence against the corruption of the government was approved by a coalition of-

Scratched clicked it off, wincing as she shook her head. While many would be happy for those people who’d gotten their independence, her mother had taught her that all these free worlds were actually a bad sign. They more than likely wouldn’t be able to handle their populations and hadn’t actually been granted independence, instead just being written off as losses. And since it was happening more and more often, it was a sign that a civilization collapse was imminent. Something about the cycles of empire and how almost every galactic nation was on the verge of going belly up. The only things holding the entire galaxy together were that Hesturland was still stable with Equuis supporting them and no nation had decided to go out in a blaze of glory by declaring a war to drag everyone else down with them. Scratched winced again at the thought - while some scavengers she knew might have said that war was good for business, she preferred peace overall. It was more stable and less bloody.

“And less ships blown up means more we can pull up intact,” Scratched muttered to herself. “And that means more credits for us and maybe we can actually leave.” Scratched then took another sip of her caf, keeping an eye on the screen. “Then again, where could we go?” She let out a sigh. Maybe a few thousand standard years ago, it would have been good to explore the galaxy and make it on their own but now it was actually safer and more profitable to stay put. Hesturland was the obvious answer but it was so far away.

Maybe they could go to one of the archive worlds, and help out there? It was one of the last true wonders of the old intergalactic alliance; the notion was that since a galactic collapse of civilization was going to happen it would be best to store all the knowledge on multiple planets for the next generation to use. There was one being worked on a couple systems over and they could always offer their help for a price. If not that, maybe they could find something else.

Holding back a sigh, Scratched pulled up the diagnostics of her ship’s system on her armband mini computer again and began to go through everything, making notes to overhaul the shield generators, fix the issue with the hopper feeding ammunation to their solitary weapon post and take care of the loose floorboards in the spare bunkroom along with the other issues with Excelsior. Once, before it had made what most had said was its final landing, the modified star yacht had been a prize vessel, and Scratched Wrench had sworn to see it back to full functionality, if not better. She had managed to get it to the point where people would recognize the broad, triangular shape, softened by the gentle down-curve of the wings, of the model. She still needed to finish the remaining internal repairs, something she always enjoyed doing as proven when she got her cutie mark by fixing the toaster’s heating coils.

But that was for later. Now, she had her shift at watch.

---

Four hours into her shift, Scratched heard the clicking of someone walking into the cockpit behind her. Tilting her head backwards, she saw Aerostorm leaning over her before she felt her girlfriend place a kiss on her neck. Smiling, the pegasus shifted upwards and pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“Hey love, what are you doing up?” she said softly, staring up into those blue eyes.

“Missed you,” Aerostorm said, cooing into her ear before wrapping a wing tight around her with Scratched leaning into the hug. After a few moments passed, they broke the hug with Aerostorm looking at the monitors showing the desert sand. “Anything happen?”

“Nope,” Scratched said with a bit of a yawn. “Starting to see a bit of the other scavenge sites though, so the engines are working a bit harder than they should be.”

“Anything we should be worried about?” Aerostorm asked with all due seriousness, eyes scrutinizing the feed to their engines powering their ship.

“Don’t think so, but we could take a look at it once we get back home,” Scratched said with another yawn before frowning. “Also note to self, fix coffee machine. The caf ain’t working.”

“Or you could just be tired,” Aerostorm said with a smirk before giving her a frown that was mitigated by a cough. “Wait, how many cups did you have?” she asked once her throat was clear.

“Two or three,” Scratched replied. “And I think I got gypped. The guy who grows ‘em swears one cup should keep you awake through a Gratetan performance of a Lhat’kan opera.”

“You definitely got gypped then,” Aerostorm replied. “Besides, caf that strong’s supposed to be considered a controlled substance.”

“If the proposed regulation had passed, it would have been,” Scratched retorted. “But government staffers live on caf that strong, so the one attempt never made it beyond the first committee meeting, from what I heard.”

“Why am I not surprised.” Aerostorm shook her head, covering her mouth as she coughed. “Still, we know that we should go back to our regular guy and not trust some offlander.”

“Yeah,” Scratched nodded her head and stretched out her wings. “Though it did help that the poor sod hadn’t properly adjusted to Zeehale’s time and was completely clonked when I went to buy the beans from him. Got it for a steal.”

“Maybe that’s why you got gypped because you were trying to gyp him?” Aerostorm said with a grin on her face.

“More like he was trying to scam me all along, but was too tired to realize he wasn’t charging what he planned,” Scratched said. “It’s actually decent enough, just nowhere near as strong as I wanted for a six hour shift.”

“We can take care of that when we get home,” Aerostorm said as she sat down in Zaat’s chair. “Now you’ve got two more hours in my chair before you got to go.”

“And if I don’t get up, whatcha going to do?” Scratched with a suggestive smirk.

“Well, I could just sit on you,” Aerostorm said, making it a point to count with her talons. “I could pick you up and place to you to the side, or on my lap or better yet,” she leaned in close to Scratched face, breathing close in her face. “I can put you back to bed as you’re ready to drop.”

“With-” Scratched said hopefully.

“I need to fly, silly,” Aerostorm giggled, booping her nose and laughing louder at Scratched’s pouting. “Maybe later when we get home, okay? It’s been as long for me as it’s been for you, you know.”

“I know,” Scratched whined, looking back to the monitors to make sure they were still on track before yawning. “While you’re here, can ya please get me some more caf?” she asked, holding out her cup.

“Only because I love you,” Aerostorm told her, taking the cup from her and purposely swatting her in the face with her tail.

Scratched chuckled. “You’re lucky I was too tired or I’d be biting that tail!” she called over her shoulder.

“Oi!” Zaat leaned out of the doorway to his bunkroom. “Some of us are trying to sleep here!”

“Sorry, Zaat,” they both said to their huffing friend, blushing and trying not to giggle .

---

The closer they got to Zeehale Habitation Zone Alpha, the more dump sites they spotted with other crews working on them. Due to Zeehale’s size and the fact that most harvester sites were charging an insane amount of credits to haul with not that much credits being paid back, most people simply set their ships to crash into the sands instead.

Sitting in her chair to the left of Aerostorm, Scratched was going over the costs for what repairs they would need while Zaat was monitoring the news band, keeping an ear out for any trouble in the area. At one point, he rolled his eyes, which caught Scratched’s attention.

“Something we should know about?” she asked.

“Nothing too serious,” Zaat replied. “It’s pretty quiet, except for a little excitement at the Space Barn a few hours ago. Some guy broke one of the Big Man’s three platinum rules and got tossed out on his ear.”

Aerostorm shook her head. “They never learn, do they? So which one did he break?”

“No intoxicants,” Zaat replied. “They caught him with a flask of Terakian ale.”

“Ouch.” Scratched shuddered. “No wonder the guy was thrown out - anyone dumb enough to drink that stuff in the first place deserves to get caught.”

“No kidding.” Zaat rolled his eyes again and turned back to the band controller and begin to dial in the control tower. “Can’t wait to get back home and rest my claws on proper ground.” He then slipped the mic attached to his headset back towards his mouth.

“Same,” Aerostorm said as she flew over Choohall Hill and then down the gulf to Zeehale Habitation Zone Alpha. Like most settlements on Zeehale, it had a large spaceport near the surface, while the majority of the residential and business sections were located in the warrens some distance below, designed to protect the inhabitants from Zeehale’s temperature extremes.

Angling the ship to the residential hanger’s doors, Zaat was signaling to Aerostorm to wait as he spoke into the mic before the doors opened up and they flew inside and towards their landing site. Flying over the other ships at one tenth the power level per the law, Aerostorm was about to bring the ship down for a landing when the alarms started to blare with the rumbling of an incoming ship roaring towards them with a Terakian ship hovering above their spot, flaring its lights at them. Before they could properly react, Zaat threw off his headband in pain as someone started to yell at them.

“Hey, move that piece of junk, I’m trying to land here!” the pilot, male by the sound of the voice, called out.

Zaat went to grab the mic, ready to blast the other flier. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here‽ This is-”

“I don’t care what you’ve got to say, bub, but move your damn ship now!” the other person shouted.

“You’re the one that needs to move their damn ship!” Zaat shouted back, trying to be heard over the alarms.

“I was here first!” he continued to argue with them as several security shuttles began to zoom towards them. “Now move on before I need to get security involved!”

“You’re an idiot if you think they’ll side with you,” Zaat grumbled over the mic as he signalled to Aerostorm to put the ship in low hover with the idiot landing in their spot. Before he could spout out anymore stupidity, Zaat turned off the mic and stood up from his chair along with Scratched and Aerostorm before making their way to the ramp and hopping off onto the floor of the hanger to stand before the security officers with security captain Tough Sentence standing in front of the ship of the offlander.

Taking the speaker from one of his officers, Sentence began to shout. “Sir, please leave the ship immediately. We need to take your statement to deal with these kids.” He gave them a quick wink, alerting Scratched, Aerostorm and Zaat that he was pulling one of the oldest tricks in the book to deal with these types of people.

“About time someone in law got here,” the voice grumbled loudly before the engines on the ship shut down and the ramp was extended. What came out was a surly looking Terakian unicorn being twice the size of Scratched with a bruised red coat and dark blue eyes. He was wearing a vest over his bulk with the butt of some gun tucked inside a pocket. “I want these kids arrested for harassing me as well as flying that piece of junk around. Must be some sort of law against flying something that hideous.”

Scratched, Aerostorm and Zaat all shot him dirty looks, but it was Tough Sentence who spoke first. “Sir, despite your complaints, there are no laws regarding starship appearances. If there were, all Uglies would have been outlawed years ago.”

Scratched barely bit back a snicker. Uglies were, of course, any type of vessel, usually starfighters, that had been cobbled together out of scrap and ex-military surplus. They were mainly used by pirates, smugglers and other outlaws, and for the most part, no two were alike in terms of capabilities. She did recall hearing about one long-defunct mercenary gang that had made their Uglies based on a standardized set of schematics, and another military group who’d developed a different but still standardized Ugly design, then put it to use in defending their homeworld from hostiles, but they were exceptions rather than the rule.

“And speaking of complaints, we have several for you,” Tough Sentence gestured with his wings to his officers while using his horn to keep the stallion in place. “For starters, you are in the residential section of the hangers and we would have had your ship towed away if not for the other thing. Destruction of property is a very serious matter, especially as it was one of our hanger doors!” he snapped as the officers slapped cuffs on the pilot and began to drag him away despite all the protesting he was doing.

The alicorn then turned around and gave Scratched a look and she briefly wondered what a real one was like but they only existed in Equuis and were princesses. The ones they got were not immortal beings with unimaginable power, thankfully or they’d be in trouble with Sentence a lot more often. “Scratched, I’m aware you just got in, but I would like it if you can come with me to see what we can do about the damages he did with his gravity gun.”

“I would love to but we do need to check in our scavenge haul…” she said, a bit hopefully while batting her eyes.

“Zaat can do that and as it is an emergency, I will ignore that little attempt of bribery,” he glared at her with the pegasus sighing as she and Aerostorm climbed in the shuttle with the captain sitting in the driver’s seat before taking off.

Clutching the sides, Scratched gave Aerostorm a look as if to ask her if they should bring up the almost certainly illegal speeds he was going with the griffon shaking her head. Before long, they pulled up to one of the hanger door or where it should have been. Instead both of the large metal doors were on the ground in warped shapes while the people there were trying to set up portable shields to cover the wide gap before late-day was over and low-night began.

Scratched didn’t bother to wait for the shuttle to come to a complete halt before flying over the doors which already had teams examining them and removing panels as best as they could. “Oh by the stars, this is ugly,” she muttered as she pulled one panel up and dropped it to the side and looked inside. “Very, very, ugly.” She began to feel the bent and cracked inner mechanics before she threw herself as flat as she could on the doorframe, trying to stick her head into the the hole she made to get more vision to the damages before Aerostorm pulled her back out with a bemused look on her face.

“This is going to be a lot of work,” Scratched said, eyeing the other door before looking at Sentence. “We will need to remove all the panels, buff them out and completely rehaul the inner machines for the doors as I don’t know how much we can save.”

“We can pay you twenty credits an hour for your work Scratched,” Sentence said with a sigh. “We don't have that big a budget to pay you more but that should be reasonable enough.”

Scratched gave Aerostorm a look before nodding her head. “That’s fine but I’d like to get home first, have some food with my parents and rest; is that okay?”

“Of course,” Sentence said as the offlander who did this ship was being towed near them to a special holding spot for trouble makers. “See you in five, eight hours?”

The two of them nodded at this with Sentence dismissing them. Spreading their wings, both of started to fly back to the Excelsior where Zaat was talking to the lead scavenge manager as all the stuff they gathered today was sitting outside the ship.

“Hey Zaat,” Scratched called out as they landed in front of him. “You got this under control?”

“Don’t I always?” he smirked before he slapped a hand against the wing they found. “I’m going to keep this one, seems a bit too good to sell without learning more.”

“Seems smart,” Aerostorm said as she examined the serial code on the wing. “Four eight one five one six two three four two,” she said with a frown. “That sounds familiar…” She looked at Scratched who was already searching in her mini computer.

“Those were winning lotto numbers for some guy,” Scratched said with a smirk. “Hey, maybe we will get lucky because of them?”

“Maybe,” Aerostorm said, slapping a wing around Scratched. “But I’m lucky already ‘cause I got you.”

Scratched gave a snort before shaking her head at the griffon. “That was beyond corny, Aero,” she teased before giving her girlfriend a kiss on the cheek. “Come, let’s get home, see mom and dad, get some good food in us and then hit the hay.”

“Just the hay?” Aerostorm gave her a grin as she whispered into her ear as they started to walk to the elevators. “Who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?”

Scratched blushed and giggled at this, trying to come up with something to fire back but nothing came to her as they rode down to the residential sections of Zeehale Habitation Zone Alpha. She settled for a pout and a hip bump which only got Aerostorm to smirk wider as they walked down the hallway before they stood in front of a door 503 and knocked on it.

“Is that you, girls?” Check Mark called out.

“Yes mom,” they both said, leaning into each other as Scratched placed her hoof onto the door scanner opposed to using her keys. Unsurprisingly as the door scanner was never ever fixed, the door remained shut with Scratched muttering a curse under her breath as she started to fish for her keys.

“Better not be swearing Scratched,” Steady Aim called out from inside with Scratched flinching guilty. “Just give me a moment, I’ll get the door for you.”

“I’ve got it Dad,” Scratched said, digging deeper into her bag before finally pulling out the key. Before she could actually unlock the door, Steady Aim opened the door and flashed them both a grin.

“I told you I got it girls,” Steady Aim waved them with his wings with Aerostorm snickering as Scratched pouted and put her key back away. “So how did it go?” he asked, already dressed in his security officer uniform even though he wasn’t due in for a few hours.

“Fairly well,” Scratched said as the two of them unloaded their stuff into the bench marked Stuff ‘N’ Junk that Scratched had made when she was younger.

“We found a good number of stuff we can sell,” Aerostorm said as she floated over to Check Mark to help her in the kitchen. It was fairly well standard apartment with living room, kitchen, bathroom, two bedrooms and a master bedroom with its own private bathroom. Thankfully, Scratched’s bedroom had been big enough to hold both she and Aerostorm comfortably when Aerostorm had first moved in, so they hadn’t needed to break down a wall.

“That’s nice dears,” Check Mark said as she worked on the meal, slapping her talon with a spatula when Aerostorm tried to peek into the cooking pan.

“Ow!” Aerostorm said, holding her talon to her chest in pain with Scratched snickering.

“You know better to do try and sneak something, love,” Scratched said, leaning in to kiss her girlfriend’s cheek when her mom’s wing slapped the back of her head. “Ow, mom!”

“No one likes a smartass, Scratch,” her mom said as she continued to work on the meal before pointing to the bathroom. “Go wash up and set the table,” she waved them away with her wing as they left to do exactly that with Aerostorm sliding into the bathroom first, a talon over her mouth as she coughed before she closed the door behind her.

“So Scratch,” Steady Aim said as he began to set the table with Scratch washing up at the kitchen sink. “There was a lot of commotion a while back, any idea what that was?”

“Eh it was nothing,” Aerostorm said through the wall before she opened the door with a wing over her mouth. “Some idiot broke in.”

“...how?” Steady Aim asked with narrow eyes.

“With a ship gravity gun, dad,” Scratched said easily enough.

“A ship gravity gun‽” he practically shouted, causing everyone to stare at him in surprise.

“...yeah, that’s what Scratched said,” Aerostorm said slowly, looking at Scratched with concern.

“That’s a highly illegal weapon for any ship or person to have!” he said, slamming his wings open.

“Well, yeah,” Scratched said trying to understand what her father was getting at. Sure everyone knew that they outlawed in every region in space and any who had it was dangerous but- “Dad, your nose is bleeding!”

Raising a hoof to his bleeding nose that was now gushing, Check Mark dropped her spatula in surprise as everyone rushed to help him. “Scratch, get some towels to block his nose, Aero, the coagulant injector!” Check Mark snapped as she helped him into his seat as the two of them raced through the apartment to get what they were told.

Pulling out the towels and passing them to her mom, Scratched waited for Aerostorm to bring back the injector. It didn’t take the griffon long; stumbling as she brought in the med box in and pulled out the proper injector for Steady Aim.

After a few seconds, his nose had stopped bleeding and Check Mark had got a clean towel to clean his face, Steady Aim looked at Scratched. “Thanks girls, I’m better now.” He then gave Scratched a look. “What were we talking about?”

“That guy who broke in with the gravity gun,” Scratched told him.

“Well, I’m sure Sentence has him locked up, right?” he asked as he tossed bloody cloth into the hamper.

“Yeah; he was pretty steamed up when he got there and had the idiot shipped off to holding. Scratch got a job to fix up the doors he broke though so there’s that.” Aerostorm said as she went to help Check Mark serve out the food. “Ooo, some nice trout; thanks mom!” Aerostorm gave her a kiss on the cheek with the three year old pegasus giggling and shooing her away playfully before placing the plates down on the table for everyone to eat. It was a short meal as Steady Aim had to go to his shift and Check Mark had to go grade some tests, leaving the two of them alone.

After taking care of the dishes and the small water fight that followed, the two of them went to Scratched’s bedroom for a nice nap, each of them falling asleep in the other’s feathery embrace.

Comments

[kajisora]

Huh, that guy was in a hurry.
Either he's running from something, or he's just plain stupid.
Could see either one, but it takes a special kind of determined stupidity to blast open the doors of the place you're trying to dock at

[Evilhumour]

9325325

It's a good question to why.

[Asolem2]

The alicorn then turned around and gave Scratched a look and she briefly wondered what a real one was like but they only existed in Equuis and were princesses. The ones they got were not immortal beings with unimaginable power, thankfully or they’d be in trouble with Sentence a lot more often.

Well, there should be one exception in your universe and i do hope you run into her

Pulling out the towels and passing them to her mom, Scratched waited for Aerostorm to bring back the injector. It didn’t take the griffon long; stumbling as she brought in the med box in and pulled out the proper injector for Steady Aim.

And not i'm curious about what's wrong with him and if he is affected by one of the things Spliced created... it wouldn't be too strange believe that a few people flew under the goverment's radar back then

[FortunateKitsune]

I notice they're all two or three years old, despite obviously being adults. Is that due to an unusually long orbit?

[Evilhumour]

10062392

You got it