Lesson Five is on Repeat

Sequel to Lesson Four Comes Before Lesson One (Sometimes)

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“So let's run through this again,” said Lyri, gesturing across the table with her spoon at Cavan. He groaned at that and next to her Marik smothered a laugh in his sleeve before focusing intently on his plate. The pilot gave the teenage apprentice a brief glower then looked at the blue-haired mechanic with a pleading gaze.

Cavan wheedled, “Can I not eat breakfast in peace just this once, Illyri?”

Lyri frowned and tapped the edge of her spoon against the surface of the table in a slow, rhythmic pattern. After a moment she drawled, “Not when you're about to take my baby into battle again after two months on the off-duty roster.”

“Your baby?!”

“Yeah, mine. I'm the one that's pieced her back together every time you've tore her apart these past six years. You want to argue with me on that, Cavan?”

He met her gray eyes, flicked his gaze up to her slightly arched eyebrows, then lowered his gaze back to his food. Grumpily he pushed potatoes around on his plate with his fork before he grumbled, “No.”

“Good,” said Lyri with a brief scowl. She ceased tapping her spoon against the table then and reached across the table to flick him across the nose with it. As he yelped and batted it away, she repeated, “So let's run through this again. Lesson Five is repetition, repetition, repetition, remember?”

With a frown and a roll of his eyes, Cavan sat down his fork then pushed his plate away so he could fold his arms along the edge of the table. He knew well enough by now that when she started demanding rote and roll from him that he wasn't about to get anything else to eat. “So what first, Battlemaster?”

That earned him another flick across the nose and a snarl of, “Don't call me that.”

As Lyri settled back into her seat, she flicked Marik on the ear and scolded, “And don't snicker at him. You'll make him think he's actually funny.”

“Oy!” exclaimed Cavan. “I'll have you know I am quite funny!”

“Well it's not your towering sense of humor that I'm after,” she shot back. “I want to hear how you're going to take care of my baby.”

“Fine, fine...gods, don't hit me again! I'm about to start talking, woman!”

Lyri smiled serenely as she leaned back in her seat, lowering the spoon she'd been about to flick him with again to the table, and waited. Cavan scowled at her then closed his eyes and let out a breath as he settled his mind. When he opened his eyes again, his thoughts were completely focused and his expression had gone starkly serious.

“System start-up with my code followed by checking that all systems are working. After that I can bring up the loadouts to make sure the armor is set right, limbs aren't sticking, and everything's in the green.” Cavan paused for a moment and asked, “How far do you want me to go?”

“To getting your ass and hers back in the ship hangar in one piece,” answered Lyri, flicking Marik on the ear again as he snickered.

The pilot frowned but didn't roll his eyes as might have been expected. Then he continued, “If all shows up green, I'm clear to move out with the rest of the squad on the mission. Group of thirty raiders is the target and I am – by order of the Commander – to run as Colonel Treize's wing-man when he goes after the fuel supplies we know they have on surface. If all goes well, the supplies will be in our hands; worst case scenario, they blow them in an attempt to flambe and/or blind us and we proceed to light up their sorry asses like the cowards they are.”

Cavan paused, scratching the back of his head, then finished, “All going well with the other members of the squad, we should have the camp neutralized in minutes. If they actually manage to get some of their Mechs up and running, maybe an extra ten to twenty depending on how many they get going. After that it's back home.”

“Now it'll just have to actually go like you plan,” mumbled Marik, earning another flick about the ear from Lyri. “Ow! I'm just sayin'!”

“That's jinxing the whole damn mission,” she growled in response. “Superstitions, Marik, you've got to remember mercenary superstitions! You can't just say something like that when we're about to send a squad off on a job.”

“Sorry.”

“No harm done, honestly,” said Cavan with a shake of his head. He grinned at the apprentice then rose from his seat, picking up his plate as he went. “You believe too much in the old superstitions, Illyri. Keep a gun underneath your pillow too?”

The blue-haired mechanic just grinned at him before replying, “And a knife.”

He laughed at that then said, “I'll be fine. Trust me.”

As Cavan walked away, Marik leaned over and asked softly, “I...I didn't actually jinx the squad, did I, Lyri?”

Lyri smiled fondly at him and pulled the teenager into a hug, ruffling his hair.

“Don't you worry, Rik,” she said as her eyes followed Cavan as he left the mess hall, swallowing her own fears. “He'll be fine. And he'll keep my baby in one piece if he doesn't want to get shot when he comes back.”