Cohost writing prompt: @make-up-a-starship-pilot — Starship pilot who dropped their glasses
"Oh my fucking—"
Instead of switching out of altitude lock and into active grav-drive, half the cockpit board lights up red.
"What the hell!"
"I don't know, Wake, I'm working on it — shit."
"What," Wake demands, clutching the grab rail that stops idiots from falling down the bridge gangway because they won't sit down when switching out of altitude lock, and Casta buries her hands in her own hair and throws her a look of wincing horror.
"Well the good news," she says, "the good news is that I don't think anything's broken. Per se."
"Then why the fuck aren't we going!"
"Well you know how we were admiring all the native-strain avians living off this lovely ocean we're parked over?"
They look at the hullcam view, which just has coverage of the dorsal stationkeeping cyclorotor, which can't retract because some fucking local boid has shoved a twig somewhere that makes the mechanism assume it's stuck. If they take off with the cyclorotor out, it'll probably rip off the hull, so the ship rightly Says No.
"When's the next crew due through here?" Wake says.
"Five weeks."
"That's a hell of a dent in our schedule."
They look at it.
"So," Casta says. "You're not going to like this—"
Wake doesn't like it at all, watching from the open airlock with pursed lips as Casta, safety line clipped to an inspection rail, clambers up the footholds to the dorsal hull plane.
It's not a long way, or a hard climb. If the ship isn't parked at airliner altitude over an alien ocean. It's not a strong breeze; if you're standing on safe ground. The hull is wet from atmospheric condensation, maybe a little rain, and that's fine, if the slightest slip doesn't carry the risk of killing you.
"Go indoors, Wake," Casta calls back over her shoulder. "Monitor for any incoming weather fronts, would you?"
Wake knows that's mostly just to stop her from standing right here frowning the whole time. She goes anyway, reluctantly, because on balance the threat of a storm sweeping in by surprise while Casta's outside plays enough on her fears that she'd rather assuage them than stand uselessly in the cold.
"Okay," Casta says over the radio. "I'm at the topside inspection hardpoint, where I have to switch the harness to the top rail. Switching now." Wake grits her teeth against the mental image of a sudden gust of wind bullying her unclipped colleague away from the safety rail. "There, switched. I'm making my way aft past the cyclorotor."
"Careful," Wake says through her teeth, knowing Casta doesn't need to be told don't get too near it, careful of moving parts, careful of air eddies—
"Chill, Wake." Casta sounds amused, and slightly exerted; it's just breathing and bootsteps on hull, for a bit. "Oh. Dang—"
"What?"
"You know how one of these safety harness models has a line that's, like, twenty centies shorter?" Casta says thoughtfully. "I can't quite—"
"Come back in," Wake says immediately. "We'll check for a longer line. We'll dig out a tool you can reach with. Don't—"
"I mean," Casta says, "I can see rain coming in. And I don't fancy spending another hour back and forth, and doing this in the wet. Thirty seconds off-line—"
"Don't you dare," Wake says. "Casta. Casta."
There's only a dull clunk that sounds a lot like a safety carabiner, and some rustling. Casta mutters something the mic doesn't pick up well, something about fuckin' boids.
"There," she says more distinctly, and there are a couple of footfalls. "So I'm just gonna—" and there's the squeak of a wet sole on wet hull, sliding; a yelp; the thud and white noise spike of impact and jostling.
"Casta!" She's up and running, back down from the cockpit, ten steps aft, up the other gangway to the maintenance hub, frantically cycling back into the airlock like she can even do anything, like it won't take half an hour to get out there on her own line and stare at the spot where she used to have a copilot—
"M'fine," Casta wheezes. She doesn't sound it. She sounds knocked about and in pain and scared. "Just — I'm fine." The rapid jangling of a carabiner, in a shaking hand, rattling against the rail before snapping shut. "Clipped. Don't, don't come out, I'm fine, I'm heading back in."
It takes about forever for Casta to haltingly step back across the hull, switch safety rails while Wake painfully grinds her molars, and awkwardly climb back down to the lock. Wake grabs her as soon as she's within reach, like having hands on her makes her safer than the line alone, fists balled in her jumpsuit while she staggers in, grabs a handbar, unclips from the rail with the other so she can reel her line in and they can close the outer hatch.
"I'm in, I'm safe," Casta says, when the lock's shut and Wake hasn't let go yet.
"You stupid fucking dumbass," Wake says violently, and somehow their mouths are slotted together, the exact way that's been tormenting Wake's imagination since they got posted together on this bucket six months ago.
"Oh," Casta sighs, eyes closed, when Wake surfaces. "Thought you were too professional to ever go for it. If I'd known all I had to do was fall over—"
"You could have gone head-first in the rotor, or blown off the hull!" Wake spits, and shakes her a little.
"Ow," Casta says. "ow, I think I pulled my shoulder. Be gentle with me," she adds, opening her eyes and giving Wake a melting look.
"Where are your glasses," Wake says angrily, properly registering that Casta went out with them on, and came back with her face naked.
"I've got a spare pair," Casta says. "That was very stupid out there, sorry — but even I get sense at some point, and baby, those are gone."
"I am going to first aid your stupid ass," Wake says, trying not to notice that her hands shake when she lets her go.