Smallfry Samba (Cowboy Bebop)

[Pineapple]

Spoiler

Smallfry Samba


Session 1:
Free-fall and Other Delights​

It wasn't always about the money except when it was and in this case it was about a shitload of money and I couldn't say no. Kid needed a college fund and I was never going to make that on my salary, at least not comfortably. I had expensive tastes and I liked expensive toys and, yeah it was a little selfish, but for the money I was being paid crime was definitely on the table.

So it wasn't my plane but they were my guns and it was someone-else's cocaine that loaded down the old DC-3 while I death-gripped the control yoke and felt my teeth doing their very best to rattle themselves out of my head as the twin radials hammered out their unsynchronized beat. Low and as fast as I could manage, that was how we'd get through this.

The flight down had been uneventful, we'd even carried tourists just to add a sense of legitimacy to the flight. Down and back, three days tops, and I'd go home with a million in cash. Easy peasy. I'd get to buy a new car, pay off the house, maybe even retire early. Sure a million wasn't a lot, but it was enough that I could rely on my wife's income for the rest of my life.

But that damn shaking was giving me a headache. Keeping the mix on the lean side and keeping the engines dialed in just right meant I could stretch the hell out of my fuel supply, but it also meant the engines ran rough.

My co-pilot could have given me some rest by taking over but he was still back in Columbia because he weighed two-eighty and I weighed in at a cool seventy-eight, which meant they could pack a lot more cocaine into the plane if he stayed behind.

More coke was more cash, and more cash was fine with me.

Four hours outside of Bogotá had me nearly to Jamaica, and from there I'd pass Cuba and finally drop bale after bale of top shelf cocaine into the everglades, at which point my work would be done.

I'd hoped.

Complications were, while definitely undesired, not unplanned for. Pistol, rifle, enough ammo to sink a battleship and a flak jacket just in case, it wouldn't be completely unheard of for me to get shot at by a rival cartel who wanted to steal the cargo or just stop it from being delivered.

For what felt like the millionth time I checked the gauges and sighed. Everything was still in the normal range, fuel levels were good, engine temperatures were as close to normal as I was going to get them and battery voltage was where it needed to be. Personal exhaustion would take me out before fuel exhaustion would and the former felt like it was getting closer and closer with every passing minute.

Water stretched out before me in an endless field of blue and with the sun reflecting off of it just right it made me imagine I was laid out on the beach, staring out into the distance, sitting in paradise and without a care in the world. Counting my money while a girl in a coconut bikini refills my pina colada one more time. Of course--

The sound of metal on metal shook me out of my daydream and it took me a minute to realize what it was: bullets hitting aircraft aluminum. Out ahead of me and hiding in the glare from the sun, a row of speed boats with machine guns on the backs of them.

So that was it. I could outrun any one of them but with so many that might not be as easy as it sounded. My right hand snapped out to the side and I shoved the throttle, propeller, and mixture controls up and the engines roared up to full take-off power.

Yoke back, power on, I started pulling altitude to get above the guns as best I could; skimming the sea at seventy-five feet made me a pretty easy target. One hundred, one-fifty, one-seventy five.

An explosion behind me stunned me and the floor pitched forward, the ocean was visible through the windscreen and then the windscreen was gone and I blacked out.

I didn't know how long I was out, but when I came to I was still strapped into my seat and the plane was silent but for the whistling of air though the missing windscreen. I was dizzy, confused. Hypoxic, but shouldn't have been. Was flying too low for that, wasn't I?

I was still spinning though, not as fast as I had been before. Uncontrolled still, but it felt wrong. Managed to crack my eyes open and saw the sun through the shattered windscreen as it slowly spun around within the frame.

The explosion. Plane must have broken up during the explosion, which meant I wasn't flying my way out of it. I punched my harness releases a few times before the blasted thing finally let go and I dropped to the side from the force of the spin.

It wasn't that it was strong, I just wasn't expecting it.

My bug-out bag was pressed against the back wall of the cockpit and beyond that... beyond that there was nothing left. Open sky and water below me, along with a couple thosand kilos of Columbia's finest hanging from the front half of the fueselage by the netting that it had been strapped down with.

That explained why I was falling tail first.

Gravity still worked though, at least a little bit. That meant we'd already reached terminal velocity and that meant I could probably jump out and get clear. I was already wearing a parachute just in case it came to that eventuality; could never be too careful when you were running seventy million dollars worth of white powder.

I pulled my bug-out bag off the front of the bulkhead where it had ended up and clipped it to the front of my parachute harness, then rolled into the open doorway that, were the rest of the plane still there, would have lead to the cargo hold.

My head snapped back and I crashed into and through the broken shards of the windscreen a split second later. I had failed to account for the fact that the plane and cocaine would have a higher terminal velocity than I did, and once I stepped into that airstream passing through the fueselage I felt the full drag my body could muster and it shot me through the front windows like a potato out of a potato gun.

At least until my boot hooked on some cabling that had come out with me. Looked like part of the throttle linkage, not that that helped me any. I tried kicking but it wasn't doing anything, and if I pulled my 'chute with a plane hanging off my leg I'd rip my damn foot off.

Pulled to my death by my own boot wasn't how I wanted to go out, and I didn't have more than about two thousand feet left before impact at the very most. The gun on my right leg in a drop holster came to mind and I pulled it the next moment. It worked in the movies, and it wasn't like I had anything to lose, right?

Thumb-down, safety off. I fired at the end of the cable attached to the plane once, twice, three times. No joy, I kept firing till all nine rounds were spent and finally the cable popped loose and the plane dropped away as I slowed considerably.

Nine hundred feet left, tops. I jammed the pistol back into my leg holster and jerked the rip-cord and nearly blacked out again when the chute popped free. Hundred and twenty miles an hour to around fifteen in a second or so. It took my a second to clear my head after that, I'd definitely banged it on something on the way out if the blood I felt running down my scalp was anything to go by.

There was no way I was making land-fall from this close to the surface, eight hundred feet estimated didn't give me a lot of horizontal travel options. The sound of the rest of the plane slamming into the water did draw my attention towards it, and so I was able to spot the brown fishing trawler that was a few hundred feet to the south of the impact point.

I cranked the lines and twisted around in the air to line myself up to land on the deck. They might have been part of the cartel that shot me down, but I didn't see any guns or people on the deck and it was still better than hitting open water without a raft or a life jacket.

I'd definitely have to plan for a life jacket next time.

The closer I got to the ship, the weirder it seemed to look. It was definitely boat shaped and it was definitely floating, but beyond that it looked... other.

It had the basic shape I'd have expected from a fishing boat, but the deck lead to what looked like a hanger at the far end of it and that was unlike any fishing boat I'd ever seen. Maybe what you might expect the ass-end of a burke to look like, but not a fishing boat.

But with a lack of options, I spilled off my lift and dropped towards the deck. Two hundred feet vertical, three hundred horizontal. One fifty. Fifty. My feet were over the deck and I was ten feet from touchdown.

Five. "Oh shit!"

Zero. My feet hit the deck and I toppled forward, the parachute caught a gust of wind and I got dragged along the deck, bouncing and rolling and getting tangled up in the lines before I crashed full speed into the hanger doors at the far end of the deck.

The crack of my head filled my nose with the smell of spinal fluid and once again I slipped out of conciousness.

***
​

I'd liked to think that my goal was admirable; cash enough to live comfortably for a long time without having to worry about anything. That's what I'd told Rae and she'd agreed with me that it was worthwhile to do.

Partly because she wanted the money too, but partly because she was a professional at cocaine. The former could pay for the latter, but there was also the possibility of skimming, as risky as that would necessarily be.

Still, we'd never really argued about it. She was a party girl and she could party when she like. The rest of the money meant that our kid would get a top notch education and do even better than we did, which still wasn't half bad.

"It'll be a week, tops. You can take care of everything around the house by yourself until then, right?" I asked her.

"Let's be real babe, I do most of the work around here anyway. Yeah, I'll be fine. Just bring home a shitload of money alright?"

And that was that, and that was all that it would be.

Just one week, and I'd be home again.

Just one week.

***
​

I woke up feeling like someone had poured drain cleaner down my throat, both the taste and the smell. Maybe some kind of medicine aftertaste or maybe they'd even pumped my stomach. I wasn't an expert but it wasn't something I was used to experiencing.

I remembered the impact but nothing after that and the pain coursing through me told me at least something was broken. A rib at the minimum, but the creeping ache in my leg told me something was probably wrong there too, to say nothing of my spine.

But I was alive.

The hospital I must certainly have been in didn't smell like a hospital at all though. Instead of alcohol and latex it was more like metal shavings and motor oil. I cracked my eyes open and saw metal pipes above me in the ceiling, not tiles. To the left was a coffee table and more metal, deck plating it looked like.

To my right was the back of a couch, a sort of brown-orange color in fake leather that looked like it had seen more miles than any couch had a right. It wasn't exactly filthy, it looked like it had been cleaned but it also looked like there were some stains that just never came out.

So not a hospital, probably that ship I'd landed on in the first place. I guess it was either further out than I thought, or maybe they wanted something extra before I got to the hospital.

But I was bandaged, so that didn't track either. They were caring for me but not taking me to a hospital. The other option that opened up was that they were doing something illegal too and didn't want to turn themselves in to help me, but they still felt the obligation to help me.

Nice people, but also criminals. That was the current best option and it was certainly a better choice than 'the cartel who shot me down' as selections for people who'd have rescued me. My best guess is that if the cartels had been the ones to pick me up I would never have woken up at all.

And if I did wake up, I'd probably have wished I hadn't.

I felt good enough to sit up, and so I did. I wasn't dressed in clothing anymore but I was dressed in bandages, not the least of which was the gauze wrapped around my chest and ribcage and managed to preserve my modesty. I could feel the wrappings around my head and I could see a splint on my left leg, so that might have broken after all.

Breathing hurt, but not as much as childbirth so I could deal with it. Childbirth and dislocated hips were really at the top of my 'shit that hurts a lot' scale and 'crashing a plane' was right below that.

As far as crashes went, this didn't hurt as bad as the worst one I'd ever been in. That was a status that would probably change after a day or two when the real aches and pains finally decided to show their heads.

I turned to the side and managed to get myself into a sitting position with my feet on the floor and it was surprisingly not as cold as I'd have expected a metal floor to be, which was nice. The whole room had a strange familiar feeling to it that I couldn't quite place; from the circular entry hatch on the one end, to the 'landing' at the edge of it to the staircase down into where I was sitting, to the couch and matching chair and steel table.

My holsters and bug-out bag were sitting on the table but the guns were still there and the bag was still sealed. Whoever it was wasn't stealing from me, and seemed to trust leaving my weapons with me.

That, or they were confident that they could take me in a fight and come out without losses. Maybe it was a test, or maybe they'd already unloaded them. I didn't want to probe that idea and end up shot for playing with guns in someone else's house.

It didn't feel like I was a captive, but I also didn't want to help anyone manufacture a pretext for self-defensing me to death either. So I left the guns alone and leaned back against the couch and stared straight up.

Into brown eyes under an unruly mop of red hair. My first thought was of a girl who I knew this could not possibly be and yet--

"Hello new person."

I blinked at her, but she did not blink back. Instead she did a front flip over the couch and landed on her feet in front of me, facing me. She was wearing a white shirt that fit her all wrong and black spandex shorts and she was taller than me, but definitely not older. Early teens at most.

Something about her bothered me immeasurably, and it wasn't her personality or her looks it was something at the edge of my mind, in the same way that the ship hadn't looked quite right or that this room looked somehow familiar.

"Uh, hey?" I offered with a wave that I immediately regretted when it made my ribs ache and forced a cough out of me that made them ache even more. At least no blood came out with the cough so I clearly didn't puncture a lung.

"Ed leave her alone." I heard from above and behind me, on that landing by the hatch. Something about the voice struck a chord of familiarity, I knew it, but still could not quite place it. Probably around my age, not exactly deep, but masculine, with a sort of aggressive harshness to it.

And the girl, he called her Ed? Ed. Ed...

"Oh fine! Ed will play with her later." The girl 'Ed' conceded to the other voice. She left the room via an exaggerated, almost flailing saunter up the stairs and past the owner of said voice.

A man in a blue suit with large black hair. Smoking a cigarette. Indoors. It hurt my neck to look at him, but I didn't want to look away for some reason or another. He shrugged at me as if to apologize for the girl's behavior.

"So, do you have a name, miss 'falls from the sky'?" He seemed amused, but there was also something else there that I wasn't quite sure of.

Given what I'd been doing before, I didn't want to give him my real name, just in case that metric fuck-ton of cocaine somehow came back to bite me in the ass.

"Jackie Dibny," I finally answered after some consideration. I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with answering to the name Jackie but it sure as hell would never lead back to my real name.

"Well Jackie, you can call me Spike."

In an instant, my world was spinning. I felt like I'd just dropped acid because the final number on the combination finally came up on the dial and the last tumbler rolled into place. It wasn't possible. Coincidence of names, appearances, the room? The fact that this fishing boat didn't quite look right? There was no rational explanation

And I didn't want to accept it. Might have been the head injury or it could have been my mind protesting against the input it was receiving; my stomach turned, I felt the walls closing in around me and I rolled off of the couch, cracked my head against the ground, and blacked out.

 

[Pineapple]

Don't ask why, only ask why not.

Then blame @Alex

 

[Alex]

Don't ask why, only ask why not.

Then blame @Alex

Click to shrink...

I am a terrible influence on the people around me so feel free.

As for the fic itself looks good so far. Has a mix of comedy and action (something you do write quite well) and you are making me want to rewatch Bebop again. Something I always plan to do but never get around to. I'm interested to see where it goes.

 

[Jrin]

Oh wow, that's rare to see an SI story for Bebop and lesbian relationship too before arrival.

 

[daphnis]

Oh wow, that's rare to see an SI story for Bebop and lesbian relationship too before arrival.

Click to shrink...

It's rare to see a Bebop story (that's not a oneshot) at all, really. But that might just be me.

 

[Jrin]

It's rare to see a Bebop story (that's not a oneshot) at all, really. But that might just be me.

Click to shrink...

Well here but there are plenty of stories in Fanfiction.com, of course quality depends.

 

[Skychan]

I actually like the mechanism of crossover. Fun with concussions and crime!

 

[Strypgia]

Zero. My feet hit the deck and I toppled forward, the parachute caught a gust of wind and I got dragged along the deck, bouncing and rolling and getting tangled up in the lines before I crashed full speed into the hanger doors at the far end of the deck.

The crack of my head filled my nose with the smell of spinal fluid and once again I slipped out of conciousness.

Click to shrink...

That was not a proper PLF!

"Hello new person."

Click to shrink...

my stomach turned, I felt the walls closing in around me and I rolled off of the couch, cracked my head against the ground, and blacked out.

Click to shrink...

You really need to stop mashing your head into things like that, or the next time you're going to wake up convinced you're a Jedi or something.

 

[Rajvik_wolfboy]

Oh Jackie, you end up in the most fun places

Watched

 

[Pineapple]

 

[Pineapple]

Session 2:

The long tall trail into the stars​

There were two things I'd always wanted to be when I was a kid: a fighter jock and a space shuttle pilot. I'd failed on the first and never even had a chance for the second. I wasn't healthy enough for it but I'd gotten by in the end, hadn't I?

Looking out the window at the planet below in all it's blue and green glory I realized that though I might have failed in my dreams, this made up for it. There was a void of nothingness past the window pane and that was what I'd always wanted. To leave the world behind and travel into the stars.

"It's not your first time, is it?"

Jet had snuck up on me, no easy task for such a large man but I imagined the microgravity helped. It was also his ship I was hitch-hiking on for that matter. Well, it was their own fault I was still with them. They took off while I was still out cold. I guess they felt like they were doing me a favor by taking me off world and I couldn't deny that it had been a welcome surprise.

"In all my years of flying I've never flown quite this high. Never thought I'd see it from this high up. Makes it easy to forget all the problems down there."

And everything you've left behind.

He grabbed onto the railing next to me and looked down. "That's true, but we still have our own share of problems up here. It's not an easy choice to just pack up and leave, even for people down there. I guess that makes us all the same."

"I get that; making tough choices. I was supposed to be on a job for a week, just one week. No more than that. Feels like I missed the mark." I pushed off of the handrail and floated backwards. Zero G was something else, too.

"I wouldn't have expected someone of your age to be working the kind of jobs involving as much... cargo, as we fished out of your ship's wreckage. Although, Ed would seem to indicate that appearances are not everything."

I rolled backwards in a lazy tumble, it was like skydiving without all the wind and noise. I liked it, even taking into account how I'd ended up on the ship in the first place. "I don't think I'm as young as you think I am, but you do know how to flatter a girl."

"What do you think that I think?" He asked me with a smirk that looked a little out of place on his face, but only just a little.

"I think that you think I'm not too much older than Ed, would that be fair?" I asked him as I pushed off the ceiling and back down to the floor. Zero G was definitely something else.

"It might be fair. You're going to tell me that I'm wrong, right?"

"Well, I'm old enough to be her mother, but I promise you I'm not actually, you know..." I trailed off and started mumbling under my breath. That one had gotten away from me. Stop trying to act cool. "Let's say I'm younger than you, but older than Spike."

"I would find that hard to believe, but things do make more sense if that's the case."

I nodded and let myself drift upwards again, "So with that in mind, I don't suppose I've got some way of making myself useful to you, at least in the short term, to keep me around?"

He rubbed his chin and stared at me, doubtless trying to determine my motive. Whatever he came up with would surely not be the truth, but I wasn't going to tell him the whole truth. Not yet, maybe not ever. "Why would you want that? What is it that you think we do?"

"Well," I answered with a clenched fist and a olympic-effort attempt at holding back tears, just for a moment...

"Well, I guess you could say I don't really know anybody else, not anymore. Right now I don't have anything to go back to and you seem like an honest enough group of people. And I'd have a really hard time selling all of that baking powder without your help."

"Alright, but what is it that you can do for us?"

What, indeed. I was a pretty decent helicopter and fixed wing pilot. I was at least a journeyman carpenter. I could turn a wrench on a car. I could shoot. I could gunsmith. "I can turn a wrench, pull a trigger, and fly. But bounty hunters like you could probably use that second one most of all, considering how you misjudged me already."

He flinched, almost imperceptibly, but it was there. I smiled, I'd won. "What makes you say that we're bounty hunters?"

I couldn't tell the truth, but I could pretend to be super-duper intuitive. "Well, this is a fishing boat but you're not exactly fisherman. It wouldn't make a very good cargo ship, and you smell like a cop but you're not wearing a badge. The kid, Ed, she doesn't really fit into it, but Spike carries himself like a guy that could take a lot of people out. So you're either bounty hunters or pirates, but you're not cops and you're not fisherman."

He scowled and turned away from me, put both his hands back onto the handrail and stared out at the stars. "If you're that determined to stay, then stay. If you don't work you don't eat, and if you cause problems I'll drop you on the first rock we come to."

I had to simply assume that I was right about him, about everyone. If this was what it looked like, and it certainly had to be by all accounts, there wasn't really anyone else I could trust and even this would only carry me so far.

So I'd stick with them as long as I could, until I figured out how I was going to get back.

***
​

Waking up the second time, after my meltdown at meeting spike, had been the hardest. It was then that I'd realized it wasn't a dream, and exactly what it was. Hyperventilation and panic reflexes kicked in and the only thing that kept me from diving for my long-slide forty-five was the dizziness and confusion that clouded my mind.

What I'd have learned later was one of the side effects of Jet's medicinal concoction. Side effects aside, it had helped, though maybe not the way he intended it to help. Keeping me from getting myself shot by my rescuers was the main benefit.

Half-lidded panic still didn't escape Spike's notice, and Ed simply took notes, though that probably shouldn't have looked surprising. Jet had done his best to introduce himself, as though that would somehow solve the freakout that I'd been having. He couldn't know that he'd only made it worse.

But eventually the combination of mental exhaustion and artistically small-batch pharmacology shorted my brain out and I fell into a dull acceptance. It wasn't good or great but it was something I could work through, a sort of comfortable dulling of the senses.

It wasn't the healthiest attitude to have but it had served me well in the past and it was far from the first time I'd used pharmacology to keep myself in the game.

Reflecting on the past wasn't going to get me where I needed to be; back home.

Not that I really knew how. So, as Jet had said, I could stay. For now. And that was fine. I may not have really known them, but I still had a pretty good idea of what kind of people they were and so I was able to feel safe, even if I didn't feel safe with the situation.

After the meeting on the flight deck with Jet I'd made my way back down towards the common area, and from there to the shower, which I didn't yet use, instead I used the privacy it afforded me to get back into my clothes. Skin tight leggings and a tank top might not have been the most modest attire I could have chosen but it was comfortable.

And I had on good authority that I wouldn't be the most scantily clad woman on the ship.

The flak jacket and bandoliers would go on over that and it was thin enough that I wouldn't overheat. The folder Vz.58 was still in the bug-out bag, along with my magazines, and they were still loaded. No sabotage that I could see.

I wouldn't need them on the ship, so I put them back into the bag, along with the ration packs, spare clothes and trauma kit. In practice my little bag of fun was closer to a SERE kit than a bug-out bag, but I was running a shitload of cocaine so I loaded a little heavy on the boom-boom.

The idea would have been to immediately ditch anything in the bag I didn't need, depending on the situation I found myself in, and then go from there. Being on a space ship, I figured I didn't have to worry about having to hump the damn thing through the bush for half a week, so it worked out in my favor that I'd gone so heavy on the load out.

Still, maybe a just in case wouldn't be a bad idea. I checked over the chromed two-shot fort-five caliber derringer and then slipped it into my boot. The long-slide and my drop holster went into the bag with the rest of my stuff and I tossed it over my shoulder. It weighed at least half as much as I did, but it was a weight I wasn't entirely unused to carrying.

Would have been easier for me if the shower wasn't inside the gravity ring, but then it wouldn't be a very good shower if it wasn't.

I sighed and pushed the door open and stepped back out into a hallway and took a right, lugging my bag along with me towards the far end. There was another bed down there, Jet had told me. He hadn't been in the room in 'years, probably' and so he couldn't guarantee that it was habitable but it was mine if I wanted it.

I figured that the worst case scenario it would be a place to dump my shit and I could sleep on the couch. It wouldn't be the first time and there was no way it was going to be the last time I'd ended up sleeping on a sofa.

Despite the lower than standard gravity I'd still managed to work up a sweat by the time I made it to the indicated door. It wasn't rusty, somehow, but it did look old. I grabbed the release and pulled on it with my hand and after surprisingly little struggle I managed to pull it open.

Dust thick enough to make snow-angels in covered every surface and I was unsurprised and unimpressed. Along the far wall was a bed covered in plastic wrapping, above it was a series of alcoves for 'stuff'. To the right of that and wrapping all the way around the rest of the room were box after box of more 'stuff'

But that didn't matter over-much. I walked to the left wall, by the head-end of the bed, and pulled open one of the storage lockers, then tossed my bag into it. The green burlap landed with a metallic clink and then I closed the door over it.

Next, I directed my attention to the bed itself. The plastic cover looked almost like the cling-wrap you'd use on a bowl of leftovers, so I treated it the same way; one hand on the corner and I ripped it off in one go.

One regulation space ship mattress, space ship blanket, and space ship pillow. Because I was on a space ship.

I dropped myself onto the bed and let out a pained grunt. I still wasn't better, I was just distracted from the pain. The mattress was hard, but not as hard as I'd have expected. Or maybe that was just because the spin only gave about half a G and so I didn't weigh hardly anything at all.

But I found myself laying on top of the covers staring at the ceiling and contemplating how I'd managed to achieve my dream of spaceflight, but how I'd be sleeping in a cold bed for... I didn't know how long.

I thought about how maybe that shower wouldn't have been a bad idea. About how much stuff I could have bought with that smuggling paycheck. About how the two most important people in the world to me were a million miles away and fifty-three years in the past.

I didn't know what time it was, or even if that mattered. I'd been awake for six hours, or maybe ten. I couldn't tell really and I wasn't sure how much it even mattered. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and powered it on for the first time since Columbia and rolled through my pictures, of my wife, my daughter. Our life.

And then with a pang of regret I put it away again. One week, it was supposed to be one week. I'd been gone fifty-three years, if they were even in this world at all.

In through the mouth, out through the nose. I closed my eyes and...

And let the tears fall as I cried myself into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

 

[no.]

I heard that this was in the works. I'll keep an eye out for how this goes. You certainly have a good grasp of prose. You describe stuff in this like, I dunno, half-subconscious kind of way? Like, you describe the aspects of sensory perception that people don't consciously notice they're feeling unless they're looking for them, you know?

 

[Pineapple]

I heard that this was in the works. I'll keep an eye out for how this goes. You certainly have a good grasp of prose. You describe stuff in this like, I dunno, half-subconscious kind of way? Like, you describe the aspects of sensory perception that people don't consciously notice they're feeling unless they're looking for them, you know?

Click to shrink...

Nobody thinks about the smell of a leather car seat on a hot summer day until you remind them to think about it, then it's instantly relatable.

 

[Alex]

Aww sad but nice start. I will say I would have probably preferred this Jackie flop into the Bebop world without knowing about the anime since the whole hidden knowledge aspect of SI's has never stuck with me But I am looking forward to where its going and I think it has a lot of potential if you manage to avoid some of the common SI traps. Oh and to reiterate I think you have a great hand for writing stuff that flows well both the action and introspection. Tho if I am honest there are times when I would prefer a bit more explanation is given with some technical stuff.

Edit: Also thank you for making me listen to Miles Davis. Always a pleasure

 

[RagnorakTres]

Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite anime of all time, just behind Sailor Moon and Nanoha, and you've captured the feel of it damn near perfectly. Miles Davis is always welcome, and honestly that's something that meshes with your style very well; you love to put up songs to sort of set the mood, and one of the best parts of Cowboy Bebop is its soundtrack. Definitely excited to see where this goes.

 

[Skychan]

I love it so far.

Of course now I'm stuck wondering about those rooms. Do some of them end upside down when in a gravity well? Are they oriented so that everything inside can swing towards wherever 'down' currently happens to be with floors and ceiling and walls all randomly switching places? Simply unusable when landed? all sorts of odd unimportant questions.

 

[Compellor]

90% of the way through the OP, I was really excited thinking this was going to be a re-imagining of the show into the present day or recent past, with the familiar characters and some OCs in a sort of a Black Lagoon-like setting.

 

[Pineapple]

90% of the way through the OP, I was really excited thinking this was going to be a re-imagining of the show into the present day or recent past, with the familiar characters and some OCs in a sort of a Black Lagoon-like setting.

Click to shrink...

I am sorry to disappoint?

 

[Pineapple]

 

[Pineapple]

Session 3:

Martian Shuffle​

To say I'd never been to mars would have been obvious, but as we descended towards it I couldn't help but feel like I was still not quite getting the full experience. At least, not the way I'd imagined it as a kid. I wanted to set foot and plant a flag and walk out on the surface of the red planet in my space suit and leave my mark.

I wanted to say 'I am here!' for all of eternity.

Maybe those aspirations were a bit lofty, but seeing the city stretched out before us took some of the wonder out of it. I was still dropping from orbit on a spaceship and that was still incredible but it still felt, in some way, lacking.

I mean, it was Mars and at the same time, it was... Detroit. Space Detroit. Detroit of the Red Planet. Nothing particularly wrong with it, just... lacked the luster I was looking for.

The deck rocked under me when we finally touched down on the water. That was another thing that made it feel... not quite like Mars. All the water. It felt like I was being robbed of some kind of life changing experience.

But we touched down on the water and the deck rocked but nowhere near as much as I would have expected. Either due to the sheer mass of the ship or maybe it was because of Jet's piloting. I didn't know and I would probably not find out.

It didn't really matter, we were here for a reason.

We had a couple thousand kilos of baking soda to offload, call it a 'bounty' and we were going to collect.

Turning it in to the police for a reward had never occurred to me, but if I'd done it back before I'd probably have had killers come after me. As it was, my presumed death at least meant my family was safe from retribution; getting taken out in transit was a thing that happened and, hopefully, wasn't considered a betrayal.

But then, without a body to identify, they'd never know who I really was, or so I hoped.

I let out a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh when the ship bumped up against a wooden pier. There was something deeply amusing about a space ship docking up like an old time sailing ship.

Spike put a hand on my shoulder and gestured his head back towards the hatch. "Get ready short-stack. You're coming with us."

***
​

The weather on Mars reminded me of the pacific northwest; chilly and damp. The humidity was out of this world, probably something to do with the terraforming but I couldn't really speculate beyond that. It meant I had an excuse to wear a jacket, and so I was able to fold in the stock on my rifle and hide it, and the bandolier of magazines, under the knee length jacket.

More like a rain coat or a poncho at that point, but even with the spandex leggings and tank top under it I still wasn't the weirdest looking person in the city. That was still reserved for another woman who'd thus-far avoided meeting me. Jet said not to worry about it.

But I still did.

Riding shotgun in a cargo truck loaded down with a metric butt-ton of bisquick was not exactly my idea of a party but we didn't have more than a dozen miles to go to get to the police impound and our payday. Leaning forward in the seat to avoid the uncomfortable situation of a rifle stabbing me in the spine was still more comfortable than the alternative.

The rumbling of the engine and the crunching of the tires on the rough pavement was an oddly comforting experience because it reminded me of home, of summers spent with my dad doing the same thing. Just, with a lot less contraband.

The exhaust didn't quite smell like diesel but it still left the same sort of off-taste in my mouth so it was close enough. Jet's driving was a little more conservative than mine or my dad's but that was probably for the best.

My eyes were extra, just in case something happened. Spike was in the cargo box with all the bales of cake mix, just in case it got that far.

My job was simple; look for anything suspicious and make sure we weren't being followed. The police were expecting us but they could hardly spare the manpower for an escort and that would probably make us a bigger target anyway. We were bounty hunters and we could handle ourselves.

At least that was the idea.

I had plenty of practice watching out for unmarked police cars and suspicious drivers. You didn't get away with going a hundred and thirty in the fast line while choking down a double cheeseburger and sipping on a diet coke while steering with your kneecap by being inattentive.

At least that's what I'd heard, it wasn't like I'd ever actually done such a silly thing.

So it was apparent to me after the third turn in which we'd been followed that there was a forest green sedan tailing us. "Jet, can you circle this next block? I think we've got a tail and that should confirm it."

"I'll assume that it is a tail. Keep your eye on them, but I don't want to change our route and tip them off that we noticed them." Jet answered back, then I heard the click of his radio. "Spike, we've got a tail."

"That sounds about right. If we didn't have bad luck we'd have none at all."

I kept my eye on the mirror and my mind drifted to the fully automatic weapon slung against my back. "So, if they go after us, we can shoot back, right? Is there a law against shooting back?"

"What?" I could almost hear the cocked eyebrow in his voice.

"I've never been to Mars before, alright?" I answered as I spotted another car following closely behind the forest green sedan, some kind of pick-up truck like vehicle in the same color.

"If they shoot at you, shoot back. But don't shoot first."

"If they shoot at me you should definitely shoot back." Spike answered from Jet's radio. Apparently he'd left it open. That made sense.

"I'll keep that in mind. It looks like he might have a friend with a truck following him." I answered to both of them. I slipped the rifle and around and out the front of my jacket, then unclipped the sling from it. I still kept it low, but ready.

"Why do you even have that kind of hardware?" Jet asked with more than a little surprise in his voice. Clearly he hadn't gone through my things while I was out. I could appreciate that.

"There's thirty-six hundred pounds of powdered milk in the back of this truck and you're asking why I've got an assault rifle?" I asked him with all the incredulity I could muster from my body, which was a surprisingly large amount.

"I shouldn't have asked."

"I'm still glad that you did, though. It shows you really care." I answered back while I took another look in the mirror. The green car had advanced from six cars back to three and the truck was next to it, with a clear lane to pull up along side us.

It was going to get ugly or non-eventful very soon.

"If they plan on making a move, now is the time. There's no way we'll get any support from the air in a crowded area like this..." I trailed off, looking up and over at the buildings that bracketed the roadway. Maybe a hell of a pilot in a helicopter could pull something off, but anything fixed wing was right out.

The thing about having all hell break loose is that it tended to telegraph itself. It was never something subtle and it tended to happen all at once. It always left an impression and as the truck veered closer to us I knew that this time would be no different.

I unfolded the stock and rolled the fire selector over to full auto, took a glance over the edge of the window without turning my head and popped my seatbelt off. I had a really bad case of the shakes, but who wouldn't?

Spike. Spike wouldn't. Jet wouldn't. Ed... might.

The truck crept in alongside my door and inched closer while the car in back pulled right up to the doors on the back of the cargo box. I bit down hard on my tongue and held the rifle in a left handed grip, perfect for firing over and out the right window.

"It's happening, right now," Jet said in a deadly calm down of voice a moment before the rear side window of the truck exploded out towards us in a hail of gunfire.

The shards of glass hadn't even made it to us before my window burst in towards me and bullets peppered the roof over my head, missing hitting me only due to my short stature. I dropped down to the floor, I wanted to throw up and curl into a ball and cry and hide--

"Shoot back!" Jet yelled over the sound of gunfire and I grit my teeth.

My grip tightened around the pistol grip of the assault rifle and I shoved it up and over the edge of the door, aimed it down and squeezed the trigger. The first shot kicked and then the second and third followed along for the ride. By shot eight I was holding pressure against it to keep it pointed down and towards the other truck.

Then it clicked empty and I pulled it back over the edge of the door. My ears were ringing so bad I couldn't hear anything over it. Not Jet, not the radio, not the engine, not the road. Not my own labored breathing or the blood pounding in my head.

Jet steered us to the right and I felt us crash into the vehicle next to us and I wobbled to the side before righting myself. I turned my attention down to the rifle, hot as can be and with the bolt locked back. I knocked the magazine out of the well and fumbled a second one out from under my jacket and into the magazine well.

I worked my jaw up and down to pop my ears and try to get some hearing back while I racked the bolt and let it drop, chambering a fresh round as our truck sped up. I was shaking harder now, but I could keep it together.

I had to keep it together. I hadn't appreciated how much the whole thing would take out of me and I wished I'd worn my flak jacket. I felt a wetness rolling down my right cheek and I rubbed it and pulled back fingers covered in blood. Working my way up my face I felt a cut in my forehead from where the ejected casings from my full auto burst had smacked me in the head.

I hadn't even felt it.

"...kinda of a shooting gallery back here!" I heard spike yell over the radio and I finally pulled myself off the floor and turned towards the front of the truck. The bullets from the hijacker truck had knocked out my half of the windshield, I could fit through that gap no problem.

I crawled out onto the hood through the hole in the windshield then turned around to face backwards over the top of the cab and cargo box. The forest green truck was hanging back behind us, but the car was still behind us and I could hear gunfire coming from it.

I hadn't really noticed that my hearing had started to come back, but I was still shaky and the blood was still running down my face. There was no helping it though. I crawled onto the top of the truck and from there worked my way onto the top of the cargo box, army-crawling the whole way so I didn't get shot in the head for my trouble.

It was the stupidest thing I'd ever done but by that point the adrenaline was flowing and this whole thing was my fault in the first place. We were definitely not getting the deposit back on the truck either.

I pushed my let hand down on a strangely wobbly section of the cargo box and it went through, and the rest of me followed along with it as the roof caved in and dropped me directly onto the strapped-down bales below.

A hand reached over and yanked me, hard, towards the front of the truck and I found myself head down, feet up, staring up at Spike. He looked alright, it looked like the bales had taken most of the bullets and the rest had at least not hit him. He had his necktie wrapped around his nose and mouth, to keep from inhaling the dust I figured.

I saw the pistol in his right hand, and I looked down to the rifle still clutched in a death grip in my right hand. I looked back to his face and we locked eyes, for a moment. I held up the rifle towards him. "Trade?"

He nodded and took the rifle with his left hand and passed me his pistol. I rolled to the side to get back upright and then peeked out from behind the bales. The truck was keeping far back, but the engine was smoking. There was no way they'd keep up for long. The sedan was keeping pace and there were men hanging out the windows with large guns.

"These guys are really crazy about cornstarch huh?" I asked with a stupid half-grin and all that did was make spike shake his head at me.

At least I tried.

My pulse was racing and I felt like I was the baddest badass in the world; the talcum powder was definitely working its way into my system. Not enough to really be dangerous, at least not yet, but sticking around for too terribly wrong would be as bad a thing as a bad thing could be.

Spike popped up over the bales and squeezed down the trigger and an expertly aimed stream of fully automatic fire zipped through the dust-filled air and poured into the hood of the sedan, shredding the thin metal and tearing apart whatever power-plant was under it.

The car slowed, and then caught fire and ground to a halt, and we pulled away from them as they bailed out. No point in sticking around, I supposed, because Jet kept driving.

It couldn't have been too much further to get to the police impound and get away from this pile once and for all.

I walked towards the end of the truck, where the doors had been ripped off, and sat against the wall, breathing in the fresh air. There was a thump and Spike sat down beside me. I turned to look at him and started laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing was. Tension let out all at once, drugs and adrenaline and relief all in one.

I felt like I could jump over a planet and at the same time all I wanted to do was lay down and sleep. I was definitely going to feel all of it the next day, and the day after that, and the one after that. I still wasn't fully healed from my crash landing onto the Bebop.

He bumped the stock of the rifle against my leg and pointed down at the pistol in my hand, the one I hadn't even fired. I looked up at him and saw he'd taken the tie off his face and had that smirk on his face. "Trade?"

 

[RagnorakTres]

You've got the feel of the series down pat. Everything's calm until it's not, and when it's not calm it's really not calm at all, and then it goes right back to being normal. Good shit.

 

[Pineapple]

You've got the feel of the series down pat. Everything's calm until it's not, and when it's not calm it's really not calm at all, and then it goes right back to being normal. Good shit.

Click to shrink...

Well that's true of real life too. When hell breaks loose it's sudden and completely.

 

[Skychan]

I've got to say this was a fantastic chapter. I'm also terribly amused by all the various different way's you've come up with saying confectioners sugar in just one chapter.

 

[Pineapple]

I've got to say this was a fantastic chapter. I'm also terribly amused by all the various different way's you've come up with saying confectioners sugar in just one chapter.

Click to shrink...

I knew I missed one.

 

[Skychan]

I knew I missed one.

Click to shrink...

Well it wouldn't have been a very good review if I had just used one of your already fine examples when referring to flour.