Chapter 19 - Morgan Takes On Crew.

"SPITFIRE?" I yelled. There was no answer. I walked around Aria to see if she had just wandered off, but I couldn't see her anywhere. Now where the hell could she have gone?! I walked to the burger joint we had eaten at the night before, but didn't see her there either. After wandering around the station for almost an hour, I thought of the sales area where we had first met. As I weaved my way between the hulking ships toward the War Lance, I heard voices.

"We done told you before, dock rat. Stay outta our way! You keep taking jobs that belong to us!
"Ya!" said another voice. "We could'a made an extra six hundred credits on that 'Charmer job if it hadn't been for you, ya little bitch."

I started running toward the voices.

A third voice added. "I say we make her pay us back boys. You're lookin' pretty growed up there, dock rat. Let's take a look and see just how growed up you are!" there was a nasty laugh. I heard Spitfire scream, then a THUNK! Then a man howled and yelled. "You're gonna pay for that too, you little..."

I rounded the corner behind an old Cobra MK3, and saw them. Three station mechanics had her cornered against a bunch of cargo containers. One of them was hopping on one leg while holding his shin. He was also holding Spitfire's bikini top. The other two had grabbed the now topless girl by the arms, and were trying to hold her as she kicked, bit, scratched, and struggled. Her hammer lay on the floor out of reach, but she had a large monkey wrench that she was trying to bring into action. I grabbed bully number one, the one doing the kangaroo impersonation, and threw him into the containers. Head first. One of the other two let go of Spitfire, and advanced toward me. His swung a roundhouse right, that slid past my cheek. I put all my six foot four inches, and two hundred and twenty pounds, behind a right hook to his gut. I heard the air whoosh out of him as his feet left the floor. When they touched down again, the rest of him followed, and he puddled up at my feet, sucking for air. I heard a CLUNK from behind me and whirled around. Bully number three now lay on the floor as well. Spitfire had opened up his scalp with her monkey wrench! I heard a groan as bully number one started to come around, so I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, picked him up, and shook him.

"You and your friends get the hell outta here before I call station security. And if I ever see any of you again, there won't be enough left for security to mop up!" I let him go, and once all three had managed to find their feet, they hobbled away as I watched them. I grinned. Spitfire had clobbered one of them in the shin with her hammer, then knocked one senseless with a monkey wrench! She had sure earned her nickname today! I turned to compliment her fighting skills, and saw her lying on the floor. I ran and knelt beside her. She was curled in a ball and was crying and sobbing her little heart out. I sat down next to her and gathered her up into my arms. She reached out and clung to me as I smoothed her hair, and told her that it was all over, and that she was all right. After a minute or two, she began to calm down.

"I'm sorry." I heard between hiccups and sniffles.

"Sorry for what Bee? Ain't none of that was your fault, you hear?" She was still curled in a ball on my lap now, and I was curled around her like a protective shell. I rocked her gently back and forth.

"But this isn't the first time, Morgan. There are always drunks, or HIC pilots who try to make me HIC do things, or some mechanic or other who figures I "owe" him. But I've always been able to fight them off or talk them out of it. After a while, most of them learn better than to try. But this time...HIC! This time, there were three of them, Morgan, and I HIC was scared. Not of having to HIC fight, but of what they were going to do to me!" She broke off and started sobbing again.

"There, there, now. You know, when I come around that corner and seen that bully hoppin' up and down on his one leg and a howlin' like a scalded dog, I darn near died laughing!" Bee gave a half laugh, half sob and wiped her nose on my shirt. "Hell little Spitfire, it wasn't you I was coming to save! It was those poor men who was in danger! And that poor man you bashed in the noggin with your wrench, will probably be seein' double for a week!

Bee punched me halfheartedly in the chest, and tried to laugh between sniffles and hics. "Yessiree, why if it hadn't been for me saving them, you would have had all three of them boys tied in a knot and hanging by their family jewels!" This time, she laughed in earnest. She wiped her nose on my rather damp t-shirt again.

"Sorry about your shirt." she said, with a vain attempt at wiping it with her hand.

"Oh that's alright, had worse than that on me at one time or another, I'm sure." I wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks with my thumb. "Bee, why did you leave when I went in to get your cred-chip?"

"Oh Morgan, I didn't want your money! I liked being with you and Aria, and I didn't want you to go, and I didn't want to say goodbye and..." She was starting to well up all over again.

"Now, now, that's enough of that." I lifted her from my lap, and sat her on the floor in front of me. I lifted her chin with my finger so I could look her in the eyes. "I didn't go inside to get your cred-chip. I had that with me all along." I pulled the chip from my pocket and handed it to her. "There's five credits on there for you."

"Five credits!" she looked at the chip like it was made of gold. "But Morgan, that..."

"No buts, no arguing. You earned it, and it's yours."

"But, if you had this with you the whole time, why did you go back into the ship?"

"Because, little Spitfire, I wanted to ask Aria about hiring our first crew member."

"Crew memb... Who? You don't mean..." Her grey eyes were red from crying, but they were focused on mine like a drowning man looks at a rope.

"I mean you, you little grease monkey! I asked Aria what she thought of hiring you as our ship mechanic!"

"And... She... what did she..."

"She said it wasn't a bad idea. Which, coming from Aria, is a pretty good recommendation! So, what do you say, would you like to come with Aria and me and be our mechanic? I will pay yo..." With a squeal that made my eyeballs vibrate, Bee launched herself at me. She locked her little arms around my neck, her momentum pushed me onto my back on the floor, with her on top of me. Her head was buried against my neck as she hugged me, but I could hear her muffled voice.

"Yes, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes! I want to go more than anything in the world!

I laughed, making her bob up and down on my chest. She lifted her head and looked at me. She was grinning ear to ear. She pushed herself up from my chest until she was straddling my stomach. "You know what else Morgan?" Her smile had suddenly turned into a very mischievous grin.

"What..?" I asked, apprehensively.

"That man took my top." She had been topless this whole time, and I hadn't even noticed!

"Oh! I umm... I..." You know what it's like, when someone tells you NOT to look at something... Ya, well I just closed my eyes.

She slapped me on the chest. "Oh don't you backslide on me now! Come on, get up." She stood, and then held her hand out to help me up. "Now, give me your shirt." I slipped my soggy t-shirt off over my head, tear stains, snot, and all, and handed it to her. She slipped it on, and giggled as it fell past her knees. She gathered it up as much as she could and tied it in a knot on the side. "What now?" she asked.

"Well, I guess you should go pack up whatever you're going to take with you, so we can load it on the ship."

She picked up her hammer and monkey wrench from where they had fallen, and put them back in her tool belt. "Okay, all done." she said.

"What? Don't you own anything else you want to take?"

"When you don't have a place of your own, you can't keep a lot of stuff to carry around. You never know when you might have to run in the middle of the night." She hitched her tool belt higher on her shapely little hips. "These were my daddy's, and they are all I have now."

The neck of my t-shirt was so big on her, that one side had slipped off her shoulder and down arm clear to her elbow, almost exposing her entire brea... "I think we need to go shopping!" I said, averting my gaze, and heading off toward the main part of the station.

She giggled as she ran to catch up.