Fara i Viking - Chapter 6

Chapter VI – Ice Locked

The impact rocked through the whole vessel, vibrating through the walls and floor like an earthquake.  Too focused on getting to his station as quickly as possible to defend them, Tino did not have time to grab onto something to steady himself.  As the ship lurched sideways he stumbled, loosing his footing, and his arms flailed in vain to find something to grab onto.  The little gunman prepared himself for a hard hit on the rough flooring, but it never came.  Instead a strong arm wrapped around his waist and lifted him entirely off the ground.  It was so unexpected it frightened him more than the fall had and Tino let out an embarrassingly feminine yelp of alarm.

But nothing bad happened.  There was no pain except the discomfort of the arm around his waist holding him perhaps a little too tightly and Tino slowly realized that he was safe.  He had been saved from what probably would have resulted in some nasty cuts and bruises, but the little tumble would hardly have been serious.  Opening his eyes, Tino turned his head to see who had been quick enough to catch his fall, and was startled.  Berwald's aquamarine eyes stared down at him, causing that familiar chill to run down Tino's spine.

But as Tino stared up at the larger man, whose fearsome strength had been enough to lift him off his feet as though he were no more than a sack of potatoes, he saw a flicker of emotion in those eyes that he had always thought so cold.  Fear; concern.  Berwald had been worried about him.

"Y'okay?" The engineer's gruff voice startled Tino out of his thoughts, but the small man could only nod an affirmation. Then he thought he heard Berwald sigh in relief.  The tall man set him back down on the ground and his large hands were surprisingly gentle as they made sure that Tino was steady enough to stand and walk on his own.

"Th-thanks," Tino mumbled and straightened out his shirt. He just stared back up at Berwald for a long moment, and then another hit rocked the ship. But this time Tino was able to grab onto the wall and keep himself upright. The jolt knocked him back to his senses. He needed to get to the weapons station to defend the ship. "I have to go," he said quickly and spun around, heading down the hall at a run. Berwald watched him leave, and then began making his way back to the engine room.

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With only one large gun the Hofvar was outgunned in the fight. It was a struggle, but firing in the void of space was easier than on any planet, where gravity and weather played a part in the trajectory of the shot. And Tino never missed a shot when those were an issue.

But his first shot at their attackers did miss this time. Though Tino would claim it was by no fault of his own. It seemed the other ship was more maneuverable than he had thought. It was not making things any easier to have Aleksander pulling the ship this way and that dodging enemy fire. His next shot found the other ship's tail, causing a pretty little hole to open up in the hull. A few seconds later there was a lull in the onslaught of weapons fire from the other ship. Aleksander was able to stop jerking them around while he dodged and Tino lined up his gun.

When Tino shot a weapon at an enemy he turned into a completely different person. Those smiling lavender eyes turned cold, his smile faded and his brow furrowed in concentration. His cheek pressed against the barrel of the gun as he sighed down the barrel, not trusting the accuracy of the computer aiming system that someone had so thoughtfully installed at one point. Computers malfunctioned, programs glitched. Tino's eyes never lied to him, they always showed objects exactly as they were, exactly where they were, and told him exactly when to pull the trigger.

A slight squeeze and the kickback thrust Tino's little body into the back of his seat. Still his eyes never left his target. Not until he saw the shot hit home, just where he had placed it in his mind. Perfection. But the small amount of satisfaction he always felt when a shot hit target was belayed. The shot had hit, but it had done no damage. Instead, when then blast hit the other ship it sent a shockwave around the other vessel like ripples on the surface of water after throwing a rock. "Perkele," Tino bit his lip and fired again, but the result was the same.

"Shields!" the gunman strained his spine as he twisted around to shout back down to the others in the bridge. "They have shields!"

He heard cursing come back up from below and the ship lurched again as Aleksander pulled them out of the way of another attack. The sudden movement rocked Tino in his seat and he hung onto his gun for stability. Worried, he waited for further instructions. There was nothing his gun could do against shields; it simply was not powerful enough. Just as he was beginning to worry that he hadn't been heard, Mathias' face appeared at the hatch, staring up at him.

"Keep firing! Aim for the engines," the captain ordered curtly. "Eiríkur's trying to find a gap in the shield. We might only have a second to get through."

Tino nodded and turned around again, pressing himself up against the weapon and focusing all his attention on the target. He fired, feeling the butt of the gun slam back against his chest and shoulder each time. He hardly paused between shots, not giving the enemy a chance to regain their balance before hitting again, each time with perfect precision. Even if his weapon could do no damage it hit with enough force to shake up the ship a bit.

He could feel a bruise beginning to form from the recoil. Each shot hurt a bit more than the one before. And then he saw it. A flicker. Barely noticeable. "Whatever you just did, do it again!" Tino shouted and pulled the trigger again three times in rapid succession, not even giving the gun time to cool down before firing again. The shield flickered again for half a second and one went through. The government ship lurched and Tino could see the results of his marksmanship when the dust cleared. A scuff and a small hull breach. It was not much, but he would take what he could get at this point.

"Great job!" Mathias appeared at the hatch again. "That should slow 'em down, so keep us covered while we get the Hel out of here!"

"Yes sir!" Tino replied curtly.

Aleksander pulled the ship around as quickly as it could so they could get away from their attackers. The force of the turn nearly knocked Tino out of his seat, but he held fast to the gun and turned along with it, firing back at the government vessel as they headed away from it at top speed. The ship fired back at them, but with the hull breach in their engine room they were dead in the water. Tino fired until they were completely out of sight, and only then did he relax his grip on the trigger and lean back in his seat with a sigh.

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"Shields!" Mathias was saying when Tino climbed down from his perch. "They've never put them on police vessels before!"

It was true. The technology for deflective shield, like the one that ship had been sporting, was still new; too experimental and too dangerous to put on anything so important as a police vessel.

"They must have perfected the technology," Eiríkur mused. It was both a good and a bad thing. Shields like that were something all pirates wanted, but they did not want to face down government ships decked out in the technology without having it themselves.

"But you managed to put a hole in it, right?" Tino spoke up. "So maybe it's not perfect."

"No, there are probably a few bugs," Aleksander agreed. "Which we were able to exploit this time, but they'll no doubt be fixing them. We'll have to do some real research on these new craft when we're back at the Chariot."

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"We need ta land somewhere," Berwald announced after climbing out of the belly of the ship after the firefight. He appeared at the door to the bridge and startled the others with his sudden presence.

"Why? Is something wrong?" Tino asked in concern.

"Mm," Berwald nodded and wiped some grease from his hands off on his pants. "She didn' like the heat on the last planet. 'N' we took some shots in the fight."

"So what?" Mathias asked. "Can't you just fix her up like you always do?"

Berwald shook his head. "Need ta cool 'er down for a while. Best ta shut her off entirely and take a good look at everythin'."

Mathias made a face that showed he was clearly unhappy with this assessment. Tino frowned in concern, afraid that the captain would demand they continue on despite the engineer's advice. The captain placed his hands on his hips and stared across the room at Berwald and Berwald stared right back with the same fearsome expression he always wore. The two stared at each other for a long moment, and then Mathias threw up his hands in defeat. "Alright, alright; we'll touch down on the next habitable planet, okay?" Berwald only nodded and turned around to head back down to the engine room.

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The next habitable planet showed up three days later on Aleksander's radar and he immediately changed course so that they could land. From above the planet was not much to look at all white and blue, swirling clouds covering much of the planet's surface. It orbited surprisingly far from its mother star, on the farthest bounds of what was generally considered the habitable zone. So it was no surprise that they emerged through the clouds to find the ground before them covered in ice and snow.

"Niflheim," Aleksander identified it as the navigational computer once again adjusted itself to function within the atmosphere of a planet. "Uninhabited." So they would not have any interruptions while Berwald worked on their vessel.

Aleksander set them down in the middle of a snowfield. The landing struts settled deeply into the white powder so that the ship's belly rested nestled into the top layer of snow. When the hatch opened the ramp fell down and carved a divot into the powder.

Everything was white as far as the eye could see. The snow covered ground stretched out endlessly in gently rolling drifts and hillocks. Even the sky was white with clouds, only small patches of blue sky breaking through to allow the sun to shine down and warm the frostbitten land as much as it could. In the distance there was a hint of vegetation, snow covered trees of some sort, probably well adapted to growing in such a cold environment.

Tino happily ran down the ramp and out into the snow, his heavy military boots crunching a trail of deep footprints into the virgin landscape. He stopped a few paces away from the ship and bent down to pick up some of the snow in his bare hands. He packed a snowball and tossed it up in the air, catching it as it fell back down, but it fell apart as soon as it hit his hands.

"Having fun?" Eiríkur had joined him out in the snow, his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his coat and the collar pulled up to keep his neck warm. None of them really had proper cold weather clothing.

"Yes," Tino smiled happily as he bent down to pack another snowball. "I love snow," he commented happily. "It snowed a lot where I grew up, but I haven't seen it since it was a kid."  And he was having a grand time regressing back to his childhood. "Do you like snow, Eiríkur?"

The teen merely shrugged. "It's alright," he replied. And then found himself with a face full of snow. By the time Eiríkur had wiped the snow off his face – and gotten it out of his coat – Tino was already running away. The small man ran a short distance and then turned around to see if Eiríkur was following him. Not yet. Then he made a face and stuck his tongue out at the younger man. That was it. This was war.

Aleksander and Mathias watched the pair chase each other about in the snow, throwing hastily made snowballs at each other, but even Tino missed his target half the time. He was apparently much better with a gun than with his arm. It almost looked like Eiríkur was winning for a while, until Tino caught up with him and stuffed an entire handful of snow down the back of his coat. Eiríkur's shriek could be heard all the way back at the ship as he reached his arms back and hopped about like some kind of disturbed flightless bird while trying to get all of the snow out of his shirt. Tino laughed so hard that he doubled over and eventually sat down in the snow. He was still laughing fit to paralyze when Eiríkur recovered and got his revenge by dumping an armful of snow on top of the prostrate man. Tino stopped laughing immediately and hopped to his feet, doing his own strange little dance while he dusted the flakes off of himself and made sure none of it had gotten inside his clothing.

"They look like they're having fun," Aleksander observed, and there was a tiny, almost imperceptible, smile on his features as he watched them. Mathias smiled when he saw this. He was happy to see Eiríkur out doing something childish, too.

"They are. Snowball fights are awesome," Mathias agreed, not voicing what was truly in his thoughts.

"You can go join them if you want," Aleksander informed him without taking his eyes off of his younger brother.

"And leave you here all by yourself? You'd be lonely," Mathias grinned cheekily at his companion.

Aleksander scoffed. "I would not. Besides, Berwald's here if I wanted any real company."

"Even worse," Mathias laughed, "That's like talking to a wall."

"I find it more enjoyable than talking to you."

"So mean, Aleks," Mathias pouted, pretending to be offended but not doing a terribly good job. "People would think you didn't like my company at all."

"I don't," Aleksander replied, his voice so devoid of emotion it was hard to tell whether he was even being sarcastic.

"That's not what you said last night," The captain grinned and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Aleksander's cheeks turned red and he punched the taller man in the arm, but Mathias only laughed it off and trotted off down the ramp to join the two playing in the snow.

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Mathias, Eiríkur and Tino returned to the ship wet and shivering but grinning. They trotted down the spine of the ship and into the galley, leaving wet footprints in their wake and shedding the outer layers of their clothes. The galley was the warmest part of the ship other than the engine room that sat right below it, so it was the best place for the three men to warm numbed toes and fingers. Dripping coats were discarded on the table along with damp socks after boots had been removed.

After rubbing the life back into his reddened fingers, Tino filled and started the coffee pot. The coffee was made weaker than he would have liked, but they had to ration the beans or fear running out entirely. And that would have been worse than running out of food.

When wet clothing had been removed and the coffee maker was dripping away productively, they camped out on the most comfortable seats. Mathias, as always, settled in his "captain's chair" with his feet propped up on the table. Eiríkur and Tino went to sit on the sofa, but as soon as they sat down called over to them in a voice entirely louder than it needed to be to go across the room. "Tino, go check on Berwald," he ordered.

"What?" Tino had just sat down and did not want to get up again so soon. "Why me?"

"Because I said so," Mathias replied, as though it was obvious.

"I don't want to," Tino complained.

"So? You're not doing anything except waiting for the coffee, go see if the Swede's made any progress."

"We've only been here a few hours, what could he have done in that time?" Tino asked.

"I don't know," Mathias shrugged. "Just go."

Tino sighed in annoyance and stood up again. He snatched his boots back up and slipped them on his bare feet but did not bother lacing them before he stomped out of the room. Stupid Mathias, he grumbled as he made his way to the ladder that led down into the engine room and cargo area of the ship. Tino did not come down here often, not unless he had to, really.  This was where Berwald spent the majority of his time, and that was the main reason Tino avoided it.  He was getting more used to the imposing man, but he still did not feel entirely comfortable around him.  Being with Berwald always made him feel awkward, small and weak; and Tino did not like any of those feelings.

So it was with great reluctance that he made his way down the ladder to the lower deck of the ship. It was rather a long climb, or it felt like it to him. While the main deck of the ship was only barely tall enough for a man of Berwald's height to stand up in without risking hitting his head on anything, the lower level was much taller in order to accommodate the engine.

Tino was slightly relieved when his boots hit solid ground again, but only slightly. As he stood at the base of the ladder he was facing the wall with the engine room to his right and the cargo hold to his left. The little Finn took a deep breath before he turned around and stepped up to the door of the engine room. It was left open, as it always was, but he still felt terribly shy of entering. What if he startled Berwald and the man hurt himself? What if he messed up some delicate work? But Tino tried to ignore these worries as he knocked on the doorframe and peeked inside.

Within the engine room it was like a whole other world. Wires and cables and tubes and pipes and all manner of things, most of which Tino could not even name covered nearly every surface, all the walls and the ceiling, and down the center ran the main portion of the engine itself. Everything was metal and grease and bizarre contraptions and overall a very alien world to Tino.

He did not see Berwald when he poked his head inside, and did not receive a reply to his knock. So he knocked again, and this time called out, albeit softly. "Berwald?" There was still no reply, and Tino frowned slightly. The engine was not on, so there was no sound to drown out his voice. But apparently Berwald was not in the engine room. But if Berwald was not in the engine room then where could he be?

"Tino?"

The small man actually jumped in surprise. He had been so lost in his worries he had not heard anyone come up behind him. Spinning around, he braced his arms on the doorframe and looked up to meet the stern gaze of the tall engineer. "B-Berwald!" he stammered in alarm.

"Sorry," the man mumbled back, and Tino noticed that he was holding something in his hands, something metal that looked like a machine part. Probably a part that needed replacing that he had gotten from the cargo. "Did ya want something?" he asked.

"Um… Oh, yes," Tino stammered and tried to regain his composure. He fidgeted and tugged his clothes straight. "Mathias wanted me to check on you. So, um… Is everything going well?"

"Ja," Berwald replied with a curt nod.

"Oh, good," Tino replied, and continued to fidget.

They stood in silence for a moment, until Berwald spoke up again. "'Scuse me."

It was then Tino realized he was still standing in the doorway, and quickly hopped aside, feeling embarrassed. "Sorry!"

"It's alright," Berwald mumbled in reply and stepped through the doorway.

Tino watched him pass and then turned to peek into the engine room again. "So, what are you working on?" he asked shyly. Though he did not understand single thing that he saw in the engine room, he had always been kind of curious about how it all worked.

Berwald paused and turned back around. For a moment Tino thought he might get angry, but instead he just asked, "Ya wanna see?"

"If you don't mind," Tino amended quickly. He did not want to get in the way and was worried that his presence might annoy the engineer.

Berwald shook his head and motioned for Tino to follow him into the engine room. He led the smaller man down one side of the main engine, carefully cradling the part he had retrieved in his hands. He stopped about halfway down the narrow aisle, squeezed between machinery on either side. Tino felt cramped in here, and he could not help wondering how a large man like Berwald was able to spend so much time down here and not get claustrophobic.

"This's part of th' exhaust system," Berwald informed him as he held up the piece in his hands. To Tino it just looked like a pipe with a funny valve on one end, but he trusted that Berwald knew what he was doing. After all, the man had kept them in the sky safely the entire time Tino had been on this ship, and presumably before that. "It goes in there," he pointed through a tangle of wires and tubes to where a very similar looking pipe ran along the wall behind everything else.

"How do you get to it?" Tino asked, because there did not seem to be an easy way to reach it.

Berwald just shrugged and took a wrench of his belt. There was no way his arm would fit through there, Tino could not help thinking, but the mechanic simply stuck his hand right in. Of course now he could not see what he was working on, but that did not seem to stop him. With his eyes locked on another part of the engine entirely he worked by touch alone to take off the old piece and a few moments later his hand reemerged from the depths of the engine with a piece identical to the one he had just retrieved. Identical, but much dirtier.

"What exactly is it?" Tino asked curiously.

"Part of th' exhaust," Berwald repeated. "Filters emissions into the air purification system," he elaborated after a moment. "See here?" he pointed into the pipe with one finger and held it up for Tino to see. What he had initially thought to be a valve of some sort he could not see was actually a thick and very fine filter. "Th't catches all th' oil 'n bits 'n gunk that come off th' engine so it doesn't get into th' air."

Tino nodded in understanding. It sounded like a very important part, and it looked very dirty, so he was glad that Berwald was replacing that filter so their air would remain gunk free. Berwald set the dirty piece down on the floor and then took the new one and thrust his arm into the tangle of mechanics once more to fit it into place. This took him a while longer than it had to remove the old one, but eventually his hand emerged again holding nothing but the small wrench. It had all looked very simple, but Tino doubted he would have been able to do it properly even if given all the necessary tools. "Where did you learn to do this?" the small man asked.

Berwald looked over at him as he dropped the wrench back into his tool belt and wiped his hands off on a rag that was hanging there. "Taught m'self," he replied.

"Really?" Tino asked in surprise.

Berwald nodded. "Always thought machines were fascinating, used t' take stuff apart when I w's a kid just t' see if I could put it back t'gether."

"Could you?"  Tino questioned.

"N't always," Berwald replied. "B't that was how I learned."

"That's really neat, though," Tino smiled up at the other man, "So you've always known that you wanted to do something like this?"

Berwald only shrugged again. "What 'bout you?" he asked. "Y'don't look like th' military type."

Tino laughed a little, feeling sheepish. "No, I guess I don't," he replied. He was short; he was not very strong physically; he was rather feminine. "My father taught me to shoot when I was a kid, for hunting. Though there wasn't much of anything to hunt on our colony. But he always said that's what fathers and sons were supposed to do together. And I was always really good at it because my eyes are really good. And then I didn't get very good marks in school, so I decided to join the military because it seemed like the only kind of job I could get, and they trained me properly, but then... Well... Then I messed that up as well.

"Ah, but I'm sorry," Tino quickly waved his hands in front of his face and tried to change the subject. "I didn't mean to bore you with my whole life story. What's this do?" he pointed to a random piece of the engine machinery.

"For coolant," Berwald replied. He did not think that Tino was all that interested in learning how the engine worked, but it was obvious that the other man did not want to talk about his past even though he had brought the subject up.  Tino nodded and pointed to another piece of the engine, again at random, and again Berwald answered him with no hesitation. This continued, with Berwald explaining the function of various parts of the engine while Tino listened raptly whether or not he was actually interested or actually learning anything.  But Berwald did not mind. It was not often that Berwald had company down in the engine room. In fact, he almost never had company. Sometimes Mathias came down to annoy him, Aleksander sometimes came to see the state of the ship he flew, but more often than not Berwald was on his own. It was nice to have company, especially company like Tino's.

Over a year after the sniper had joined their crew and Berwald still had a small crush on him. Actually, it was becoming a large crush. He had watched the small man at every opportunity, limited as they were with how isolated the engineer usually was. He knew that Tino had an amazing eye for marksmanship, that he cared for his guns as carefully and meticulously as Berwald did the engine of the ship, that more than half his wardrobe was too big for him and, of course, that Tino was absolutely gorgeous when he smiled.

Tino, for his part, did not hate this as much as he had thought he would. As Berwald talked he forgot about his discomfort and the claustrophobic atmosphere. Really, the tall man was still imposing, but he was not as frightening as Tino had thought him to be. He was very kind to be entertaining Tino when he most likely had much more important things to do, like whatever else needed to be done to the engine. But instead he was walking around, showing the smaller man all of the obscure parts and telling him how the ship worked.  And it was actually a lot more interesting than Tino had expected.  Having known next to nothing about how ships like this worked, he was fascinated by everything, by how the relatively simple engine kept everything on this ship running, from the life support to the weapons array.

"I should let you get back to work," Tino said after a while. He had completely lost track of time and had no idea how long he had been down in the engine room. By now he wouldn't be surprised if the others were wondering where he was.

"Don' mind," Berwald replied, "Like the company,"

Tino smiled a tiny bit. "I guess you get lonely down here by yourself, huh?" he asked. It was not something that had crossed his mind before, but while he was able to spend most of his time on the main deck with the company of the other three crew members, Berwald was stuck down here alone making sure everything ran properly. "Well, maybe I could come visit you sometimes," he offered, "If I wouldn't be in the way."

Berwald was surprised. "Y'wouldn't be in the way," he replied.

"Really?" Tino looked up at Berwald, his violet eyes wide. He did not think it would be hard to be in the way in this tight space.

"O'course," Berwald nodded.

Tino smiled wider, that same smile that made Berwald melt a little inside. "Then I will come down and see you sometimes," he decided. "And if I ever get in the way you can kick me out. I don't want to mess up anything in here." A smile quirked the corner of Berwald's lips, and it was the first time Tino had ever seen such an expression cross the man's face. It was only a tiny change of expression, but it did wonders to soften his features. And Tino could not help but return the smile as brightly as he was able before he trotted out of the engine room and headed back to the main deck.

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"You were certainly down there a long time," Eiríkur observed when Tino returned to the galley.  Mathias was missing now, though his wet clothes still draped over the table, one corner of his coat dripping slowly onto the floor.

Tino shrugged as he kicked of his boots again, which were beginning to become uncomfortable as he wore them without socks. "I got distracted. Aww, you drank all the coffee," he moaned when he saw the little pot had less than one cups worth on the bottom.

"You snooze, you loose," Eiríkur told him. "Got tired of waiting for you to come back and it was getting cold anyway. What were you doing down there?"

"I was just talking to Berwald," Tino replied, and grumbled to himself in Finnish as he began filling the machine again with grounds and water to make another pot, this one he was determined to get at least two cups out of.

"Talking to Berwald?" Eiríkur raised an eyebrow curiously as he watched the other man.

The sniper shrugged again. "Yeah, well… His company's not as bad as I thought it was."

"Right…" Eiríkur did not sound as though he believed him, but Tino decided to ignore that for now. He had enjoyed spending time with Berwald, so what did it matter what the others thought.