Nyx

Nyx walked down the hall, her comm-unit beeping like crazy. Yanking off her flight gloves she shoved them into her bag. "Bloody Hell!" she cursed, looking at the analog clock mounted on the metalic wall, breaking into a frantic run, her boots clanging on the grated floor. She was tall, dressed in a tight black jumpsuit, covered in functionless zippers. She kept her comm-unit on a thick chain around her neck, and now she lifted it, looking at the small id screen. She grumbled but pushed the talk button anyways.
"Dammit Gee, what do you want?" A chuckle came back over. Gee liked to bother Nyx. “Just to talk to you honey.” His big voice came through fuzzy, distorted through the aluminum walls of the base station. “Screw off Gee! I’m late for my CCM, Johnson’s not gonna approve me for shuttle duty if I’m not there by 0300!” She skidded to a stop in front of another hall, sending red sparks flying into the air, and sprinted down to the third door, and slammed it open. The man at the desk looked up at her, a haughty look smeared on his pockmarked face. Her comm-unit was hanging from its chain, somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach, Gee’s voice sounding in soft tones, the words indistinguishable. Nyx glanced up at the clock; it turned just as the looked at it. She flipped off her comm-unit, dropped her bag, and collapsed down in the chair in front of the big steel desk, breathing rather heavily.
Johnson shuffled some papers on his desk; papers that Nyx noted with a smirk were blank. “Well, good to see you’re *ahem* punctual.” She rolled her eyes, and said in a falsely serene and submissive voice; “Why don’t we just get this over with, hmmm?”
“Nyx Roschowe, 19, originally from Virginia, U.S. Graduated from high school at 13, 74 minor offenses, at fifteen, youngest student accepted into Plutonian Spatial Academy, would have made corps captain first year, but for matters of…” and he smirked again. “Behavior.”
Nyx flashed a sarcastic smile. “Yes. That’s me; the delinquent prodigy. Would you please just give me the forms so we can get this over with? I have other things I could be doing.”
He handed her a data disk labeled Commerce and Communication Exit Form. She looked at it rather unhappily, noting the megabytes, but then shrugged. “Anything to get me off this freezing hell hole of a planet.” She said getting up, swinging her bag over her shoulders, and leaving. “No cursing on campus! That’ll be an extra hour added on to your already growing bank.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. I’m getting out of here. I’ll bring you the forms when they’re done.” And she walked out the door. “God! I hate that guy!” she exclaimed. “I heard that!” he called through the door. She smiled, leaning back to see him. “Good, that was the point.”
She sauntered down the hall, picking up her comm-unit, and flipped the switched it to talk. “Hey, Gee, ya out there?” After a short pause, he answered. “Yo! How bad’d Johnson bitch at ya?”
“Aw, not too bad. He gave me a shit-load of paperwork though. I really hate that guy.”
“You shouldn’t rag on him so much. He’d probably give you a good recommendation, and stop busting you so bad for every little thing.” Gee told her.
“Yeah, I know. You at the shop?”
“Yeah. Why? Your skimmer need some work?”
“No, I feel the need to slam a heavy hammer into something I can imagine is Johnson’s face.”
“Hehe. You come one over here, I got some old shield plates and a sharpie; you can have a ball till curfew.”
Gee’s laughter made Nyx smile, lifted her from the perpetual bad mood that had been biting at her heels ever since Johnson got hired as her campus’s manager, and immediately took a disliking to her.
“Thanks Gee. Let’s hope he hasn’t taken away my flight privileges.”

Nyx had met Gee back on earth, right after her graduation day. She had been hitchhiking, and Gee was an old biker type who stopped at her thumb. She didn’t care where she was going, as long as it involved getting off earth. Gee, who had the same goal, and a mind for engineering. Finding a promising apprentice, he grabbed her and headed for Utah, where laid the launch site of the most high-tech interplanetary ships built in the 26th century. Gee bought two tickets to Pluto. On Pluto was the biggest flight and interplanetary engineering schools, and the last safe haven and gas stop before you are out on your own. Or at least it was. Since then—2741—two more planetary colonies had been founded farther out, on Gyurka, the first planet devoted entirely to farming; Marenki, a planet of stone, home to many new mining colonies. Further out, a twelfth planet, Erin, named for its green color, it remained unexplored.

The ship hangar was full of beautiful student ships and skimmers, all painted with elaborate murals in free time, just like Nyx’s current skimmer. Nyx had a talent for anything she put her mind to, and had found a liking to building and modifying ships. So, whenever she didn’t have classes at the Academy, she spent her time a Gee’s shop, building small RC’s, skimmers, anything.
Nyx slammed her fist into the keypad on her skimmer, making it beep as if in alarm. She grinned and punched in a short code, and the hatch slid up and open. She hopped inside and it slid shut with a hiss. She pushed her pilot chair around. It spun several times, and she threw her data disk and bag on it, and snapped her comm-unit into a little port in the control console. She heard a loud audio crack in the sound system, and smiled. She leaned over the keyboard and popped in a few commands, and loud heavy metal rock music came over the speakers she had installed in all four rooms of her skimmer. She chewed on her lip and pulled laptop like item out of her bag, picked up the data disk and slid it in the port. The screen blinked white, black, and green, then showed the first page of forms. She had programmed and built the computer console herself, needing a more portable way to complete her homework than the wall mounted campus computers offered.
She started typing in the required info, and got almost halfway done, when her music stopped. She looked up, surprised, even more so when Gee’s voice replaced it.
“Where ya be, girlchild?”
She didn’t answer, but pushed her chair over to the console, and pushed the talk button on her comm-unit.
“Filling out these stupid forms.”
“Well, come on out to the shop, I need your mind. Or… mostly another pair of hands.”
“Okie-dokie, be there in five.”
“Ten; you need to fly slower.”
“Yes, mommy.”

Gee stood in his shop, welding a seam on an old ships hull. He’s rather tall, husky, dressed in a brown leather apron, blue jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off. His long green beard was braided into two tails and tucked in his shirt.
He cut off his torch, and sat it down, flipped off his mask, and waited for Nyx’s ship to come tearing around the airlock into his shop so he could berate her. If she broke the airlock, she would have to hang around in a pressure suit to fix it.
As expected, the first door of the airlock hissed open, shortly followed by the second and the third. Nyx’s skimmer was a beautiful piece of machinery, with a powerful, quiet, and efficient engine, designed and built by Gee and Nyx.
She descended over the launch pad and got out. “Don’t even start.” She said holding her hands out, turning to hook up a power hose to the small port on the underside of the right curve. (The ships shaped like a big U, except wider. Maybe a half moon would be a better description. Hmmm…) Gee shook his head, and answered. “Alright. Just get your butt over here and start handing me things.”

Nyx sniffed and tapped Gee on the shoulder. “Hey, bud, its eleven thirty. I want to go to sleep now.” He looked up at the large clock hung crookedly on the wall, shut off his torch and said; “Well, that was fun. Goodnight.” And walked away towards a door under a loft full of metal scraps and broken equipment.
Nyx shook her head and turned to enter her skimmer. She picked up her laptop and started working on the forms again.

Gee woke up to a loud clanging. He crawled out of his bed, walking to the door, it slid open inaudibly; he kept his shop in good condition. He walked out from under the loft, into the open space, looking for the source of the noise. Glancing up, he found it.
Nyx was digging through heap upon heap of metal, throwing pieces behind her after a close inspection, those that passed into a growing heap on the ground floor, right by where Gee was standing. He ducked right as a shiny toaster flew right where his head had previously been. "What the HELL are you doing!?"
Nyx looked up, and tossed a ball of old wire at him. "My turn today. You do what I say." She stuck her tongue out at him, and turned back to her sorting. "Well? What do you say for me to do?" She turned back to him one more time, and sniffed. "Take a shower." She waved her hand in front of her face as he walked back into his rooms. "Stinky."

Nyx pulled her welding mask off. "Not too bad." Gee murmured, inspecting her work with one gloved hand. She rolled her eyes. "You're just saying that because I wouldn't let you do it." The old man shrugged. "So?"
"Touche. Well, whaddya think, should we juice it up?" Gee glanced at it. "I dont know. It looks a little... useless?" Nyx laughed. "Thats just the acutal engine. I still have to design a computer. A powerful one." She grew quiet, and hooked her laptop to the