Lucy’s Monologue
Robin Grapepunch. That’s one I haven’t heard in a long time. It was one of those fake names, you know. One he made up when he was six years old so that the feds would stop pestering him about his home. They stuck him in an orphanage and he stayed there until the Great War. No not that one, you know, the one against those aliens who could photosynthesize. Yeah…like the giant plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, the war came and he was…oh…eighteen I think. So he enlisted and started training. He was a little clumsy at first, but then he started climbing the ranks; he got better and better until you could easily say he was the best there was a not lie one speck. Sure people were jealous, but he didn’t care about the fame and fortune. A real hero and vigilante. “That’s nice,” you say, but I’m serious. He was uncomfortable around girls and could start up a conversation to save his life. If you wanted gab you’d talk to his friend, Dayne. But that’s neither here nor there. If you stuck him in the cockpit where he could control the ship and feel the energy flowing through the motor, he was inseperable. He became the ship and he could think faster on his feet than it could. If anything broke down, he was there to fix it. A lot of people didn’t like him ‘cause he was so quiet, but no one could deny how much safer you felt going into a battle with him leading the crew. Even I felt a euphoria on his ship.
I hate battle. I went into service as entertainment and when things got sticky, I was drafted in. “Don’t worry,” they said, “You’ll just be a mechanic.” Pah! But I’ll never forget when after a long battle, I think it was the one at 31EG but I get them so confused now, he just sat in his chair when he thinks he’s alone and runs his hand over the buttons in thought. And a boy who’s so good at what he does and who I thought had nerves of steel, just lets himself cry. Dayne said he did that a lot, but Dayne’s good at pleasing people. I still felt bad, regardless.
His ship was the Daytona Waterfall because it was painted a bright blue and even though you thought you were going to be spotted, you’d be surprised how many people passed you up in the dark. The color was because the paint had special reflective quality that cut us out of radar from a passing ship. It couldn’t scan us; would just slip on over and not pick up a thing. That’s part of what made me feel so comfortable around him; I didn’t have to run and shoot all the time, we could just sit and be ok.
Well, I hope you find him. But it’s better to be missing in action than killed right? …Right?
