Thief who is actively trying not to get crushed by a Mech Pilot
Samara glanced at her slate.
Still nothing.
Well, that should be expected, really; it was 3am.
Andra did say she was called out for a shift, though. Surely she'd have had a break by now? Whatever, maybe she just does a better job than Samara at separating her work and personal time. She just needed to be patient.
Besides, the inside of a vent was not the place to be thinking about this.
Samara sat at the bar, nursing a beer and pretending to languidly scroll through the net on her slate, focusing instead on the reflection of the patrons behind her.
Personnel from the evening shift were starting to filter in, and she started looking for a target. A hangar tech would be good. Maybe a mechanic? Perfect, though, would be—
A mech pilot dropped onto the stool beside her and greeted the bartender with a nod. Well, that settled that.
"You waiting on someone?"
"Hmm? Me?" asked Samara, pretending to only just notice her.
"Yeah, you. You look bored and that drink looks old. Can I buy you another?"
"Oh, eh, not waiting on anyone," said Samara. "Sure."
The pilot waved to the bartender and held up two fingers, pointing to Samara's drink with her other hand.
"Not seen you around here before. You new?"
"Yeah, just transferred in this week," lied Samara. She'd come up with a basic persona, but it wouldn't hold up to too much scrutiny. "What about you? Been here long?"
"Couple years now. Got transferred after that mess on Iberrus."
"Oof, must've been rough."
Everyone knew Ibberus had been won, but it had come at a significant cost, and only vague details had made their way to civilians. Best not to dwell on the subject.
"Yeahhh..." said the Pilot, word fading into a sigh. "The less said the better."
Well that was easy.
"Anyway," she said, eagle eyes watching as their drinks were placed in front of them, "Name's Andra."
Samara swiped her hand past Andra's badge as she reached for her drink.
"Samara."
There was hardly a creak as Samara dropped onto the upper catwalk of the hangar and darted along the wall, making her way to a ladder under a broken light.
The lower catwalk was where things got tricky, and she had to move from cover to cover, sometimes sneaking to avoid people nearby, sometimes risking a confident, casual, "I'm meant to be here" walk when observers were further away.
She had stopped behind a pillar to survey the next step — a particularly long stretch over to the mech bays — when someone called out.
"Hey, what're you doing here?"
Samara held her breath. If she was caught here, she was fucked.
"Shit, Malek!" came a second voice, delighted recognition ringing clear, "I didn't know you were here!"
The two voices drew closer, until they met up and stopped right in Samara's path. From the sounds of it, they were old friends, at the very least; technicians that got whisked out of each other's lives by the bureaucratic shuffle.
Well, shit. She could be stuck here for a while.
She glanced at her slate. Still plenty of time.
She glanced again.
No messages.
"Stop it!" she whispered, her self-admonishment lost in the background thrum and drum of the hangar. It's not like she could actually hook up with Andra. Once she'd got her prize, she had to be out of here as soon as possible. Any time spent hanging around was just more time to get caught.
Although, if she could manage to swipe credentials from one of these technicians as they parted, she could at least avoid getting Andra in trouble...
No, too risky. And it's not like she even knew her that well; it had barely even been an hour!
So why was she feeling guilty?
Samara watched as their glasses were taken away, replaced with new ones at Andra's insistence.
She'd meant to excuse herself a few minutes after getting the credentials, but... Okay, she didn't have a good excuse, but it was fine, right? She had a couple hours to kill before the hangar was at its emptiest anyway, and Andra was fun. No reason she couldn't enjoy herself while she waited.
Andra pulled her slate from her pocket, and gave it a dismayed look.
"Ah shit, really?"
She looked up at Samara with a resigned smile.
"I gotta go. Another pilot got injured and I've gotta cover."
"Aw, just when we got new drinks," said Samara, unexpectedly-genuine disappointment crossing her face.
"Yeah, I know, sorry.
Andra hopped off the stool, patted her pockets down to check her belongings, and paused.
"Hey," she said, a little less confident than previously. "This was fun. Any chance I could get your number?"
Downloading the mech's combat mind had taken longer than planned. She'd had to resort to using the debug port under the maintenance panel instead of getting actually inside using the pilot creds. Stupid!
Still no messages.
Why did she even care? It's like she was trying to get her heart broken.
She argued with herself as she made her way methodically back across the floor, up the catwalks, and into the vents, continuing until she got to an intersection where she could sit upright against the wall to take a breather.
She pulled out her slate absentmindedly; normally a useful tool to clear her mind during moments of downtime on the job.
1 new message.
"Hey! I got a friend to cover. If you're still awake, do you wanna grab that drink?"
Samara smiled as she read it.
Shit.