Cohost writing prompt: @Making-up-Mech-Pilots — Mech Pilot who found something bigger, faster, and more slobbery to work with
"No, thank you," she says coldly. "I found another copilot."
"You—" your heart seizes. "What?"
"I found another copilot. Someone who listens to me. Someone loyal."
"That's not fair. That's not fair, Aspen." You cling to the bottom of the cockpit ladder, dizzy. "I know I have things to apologise for, but I can't unless you let me—"
"I don't need you," she says, and you don't get a hand over your mouth in time to muffle the gasp it wrenches out of you.
There's a silence over comms, as if that tactical strike has wiped you both out.
"Just — tell me who's along with you, then," you say eventually, each word a cold hook under your ribs, peeling you slowly open for the final extraction of what little's left of your soul. "Tell me so I know they're good enough to keep you alive out there. Tell me I can trust them to do that."
She starts to say something, and there's a weird clatter up in the background, and then her mic crackles and burrs like somebody put their hand round it. "Hey," she says, not to you, "hey. No."
Jasper groans at her dismissively, and your head snaps up to look toward the cockpit, not that you can see into it from here. Your knees actually give way, and you slide down the ladder onto them.
"The dog? You have the dog in there?"
She slams open the side hatch and shoves her head out, and the husky gleefully tries to shove his out alongside and lick her in the ear.
"There is no other copilot!" she yells furiously. "Is that what you want? Is that what you want to hear? Nobody's as good as you. There's nobody else I fucking want!" and all you can do is cling, arms around the ladder, prostrate.
"Please," you say, "please, Aspen, please—"
She's crying. She's been crying.
"Go and get some dog treats and the cherry picker," she says, dashing at her eyes angrily. "I don't think I can get this little shit back out of here on my own—"