"Please be seated."
The inside of the 'light dropship', as Mac called it, had a pair of benches for 4 people to sit flanking a narrow hallway. It was a sterile kind of clean with a smell Tia couldn't quite place, and as she took a seat as instructed, belts secured her in place. Mac likewise took a seat across from her as she felt the ground shift.
"... Is that supposed to happen?"
Glancing at Tia who shifted nervously in her seat, Mac waved his hand and the featureless black walls of the dropship became transparent.
"It's just the crane moving us to a launch tube."
"You realise I don't understand most of those words in that order, right?"
Staring back blankly at him, Mac realised Tia might be cranky, but then again he had no real way of telling as he wasn't really trying to understand her for now.
"Yeah, so look instead."
Extending a hand, Mac pointed at the shockmount that was grabbing the dropship and was currently moving it to the electromagnetic launch catapult.
"That's the crane, it's moving us, to the launch tube, that thing over there."
The command deck of any cruiser Mac had spec'd out himself had this rather unusual feature of a bridge hangar, and as the bridge was the only area more armored than the reactor core it was more of a process than the usual 'drop and burn' routine to get out. While dropships entering the bridge hangar docked at one of the normal hangars and were transported by the ammunition lifts, ships exiting were launched via 'massive, low powered railgun' to get out.
"Don't bite your tongue now."
"Don't wha!!!-"
Overriding the launch procedure, Mac watched with a shit-eating grin as Tia screamed, getting pushed back into her seat as the dropship launched.
"AHAhaha!- That never gets old~"
Laughing enough to almost get a coughing fit, Mac knew he was in for dire things when Tia stopped getting pushed into her seat. Once the shock and surprise wore off, Anger flooded through Tia as her face flushed red. Sadly for Mac, his shin was within kicking range.
"I apologise."
"No, I'm sorry too."
After sitting in silence (and pain) for a bit, Tia finally stopped nursing her very hurt foot and Mac followed immediately after. Turns out, Mac's legs were also made of some kind of metal and although he appeared more inhuman than ever, his smile looked insanely pure and he laughed like an immature brat.
"My commanding officer did the same thing to me and a bunch of other recruits when I became an officer… Sorry to say it is a bit of a tradition."
Although it wasn't really that much of an explanation, Mac still felt stupid for potentially torpedoing his newly established business relationship with a stupid joke.
"A commanding officer? So you are part of a military?"
While Tia had heard about Mac's 'mission' straight from the horse's mouth, she still knew drastically little about him, his background or even where he came from.
"Yeah, I served as an officer of the navy for quite a few years. Now I'm technically a fleet admiral."
Mac had mixed feelings about that time, although it had been so long now he still remembered some of the good, shooting the shit with the other officers fresh out of the academy, and some of the bad, getting chewed out for nothing in particular. Now after everything he really didn't know how to feel.
"In the navy? Are you a sailor?"
"Yeah, where I'm from we called it a navy because when my people first started going into space with the military they turned to people who were used to stuff themselves into tight, pressurized spaces for months at a time without outside contact… Traditions are a thing, for better or for worse, so it all stuck around."
(... Better not ask about that again.)
Tia had only known Mac for a few days at this point, and spoken face to face with him for far less than that, but she didn't even need her experience haggling with people to see that it pained Mac greatly to talk about the past, try as much as he could to hide it.
(He's not really as much of a blunt oaf as he is just painfully honest… At least for now.)
Glancing out at the nearby wall, Tia wasn't even surprised when the wall turned see-through, nor were she really surprised when she looked at the pale blue dot slowly getting larger.
"Is that really where I'm from… Where everyone I know is from?"
"Yeah, that's where everyone from your world is from… Mine was more grey than anything."
Thinking back to his own world rather than his time in the navy, Mac's mood soured considerably. It was as if every time he was gravitationally anchored to that world he would be forced to suffer.
"What was your-"
"We're nearing atmospheric ingress. For real this time, don't bite your tongue."
Countering further questions about his birthplace with his usual grace, Mac did a few last minute adjustments to decent trajectory through his uplink and confirmed grav wave handshake with V190 before remembering.
"Oh, yeah; don't mind the flames, those are normal."
As Mac's light dropship was joined by a few others friction started heating up the ship's surface skin.
A (relatively) gentle orbital descent later, Mac's dropship performed a quiet landing as its grav slaved to V190 and 'caught' it and its low altitude close to the surface. Opening up the rear ramp, Tia saw the night sky for the first time in what felt like forever and walked out onto the quiet road, or at least she tried to.
"Woah."
Stepping out from the dropship, Tia felt her legs go wiggly before she sat down on the ground.
"Yeah, the changing grav- downwards force you're feeling now is slightly different than what you've been used to for the past few days."
Doing his best to explain what Tia was feeling, Mac extended a hand and even waited for Tia to adjust before helping her up. As Mac helped Tia adjust to normal gravity again, multiple drones moved out from the dropship and established a defensive envelope.
"I think I'm good… What's next?"
"I've brought a sample, and that over there should be the town you pointed out to me earlier, your hometown."
Pointing to sparse light on the horizon after motioning to the drone that now stood right beside him with a faux wooden box filled with 'coal', Tia breathed a sigh.
"We're not getting inside at this hour, the gates are closed."
"Who says we're using the gate?"
Approaching town took a little over an hour, and while Tia continued to be sceptical about how they would 'jump' the gate, Mac nevertheless managed to calm her down until they reached the city wall.
"Don't freak out now."
"... I won't."
Staring at Tia for a while to make sure she was calm, Mac nevertheless figured she was going to freak out.
"My arm is going to do something strange now."
With a silent thud, Mac's left arm split open up to his elbow and into 4 pieces as his fingers and the parts of his forearm started floating around a slightly glowing, spear-like core.
"... Yeah, that is strange."
Now it at least made a bit of sense why the hand Tia shook felt so strange, but as Mac said, it was quite a bit strange.
"You got more of those surprises?"
"Well yeah, but please buy me a drink first."
Earning himself another sharp kick to the shin Mac stopped fucking around as the faux wood box one of the drones held started floating.
"We're going to gently fly over the wall and land just inside… Okay?"
"O-okay."
Staring in disbelief at the box for a moment, Tia quickly remembered what a wild show it had been the last few days and decided that of course Mac could float in the air like now, because of course he could.
"Then here we go. Try not to scream, don't want to alarm the guards up on the wall falling asleep."
While Tia wanted to say something she soon felt her guts go haywire as she started levitating. Quickly stifling a yelp by covering her mouth with both hands, Tia tucked in her legs as she started spinning slightly, but that was quickly corrected by Mac as he also lifted off of the ground holding a straight and fine posture like he was taking a stroll.
(Jackass.)
Even in the dark Tia could still see Mac's smug smile, and as she rolled her eyes she did manage to calm down slightly.
Landing on a familiar back street, Tia felt a bit overwhelmed to be back home after everything that had happened the last few days (and grateful to land on solid ground again) but she quickly got her bearings. Setting down on the ground, Mac caught his package with his right hand as his left transformed back into its former self.
"That seems very handy, being able to fly around like that."
Tia figured that if she could get used to floating around like Mac it could be quite useful.
"Yeah, but it generates a lot of heat, so if I use it for too long it tends to burn up my fleshy bits."
"You have fleshy bits?"
Explaining a bit about his body, Mac had long since forgotten what it was like to have 'real' organic arms… Legs too, for that matter. Not that Tia needed to know about that for the moment, given she had just given him a perfect setup.
"Heh, yeah well if you wanna see, then you'll need to buy me a- AW! Okay, okay."
Even if it was late, Tia and Mac didn't stand out in their faux wool and leather clothes so they made it to her home without issue.
From outside you could see smoke coming from the forge, and as Tia drew closer she could hear the steady beat of a hammer she knew all too well.
(He's sad… Yeah, news of my 'death' must have reached here by now.)
Tia had listened to her dad, Hank's hammer for most of her life, so it was easy for her to tell that it was beating slower and with less enthusiasm than normally. The adventures guild must've reported back to him by now, feeding him whatever bullshit excuse those shitstains had come up with.
Walking up to the worn door into the forge, Tia hesitated for a bit before she knocked on the door like she always had. Immediately the hammering from inside the forge stopped, but after a few seconds of silence it picked back up again, it seemed like Tia's dad no longer believed she was alive, he had given up hope at this point and simply believed his mind was playing tricks on him.
"Dad?"
Speaking out softly was all Tia had to do to dissuade that illusion, immediately the sound of a hammer getting dropped was heard, and soon Tia's dad, Hank threw his door open and stared in disbelief for a moment before immediately hugging his daughter as tears of joy started flowing freely.
"Nice to meet you Hank, my name is Mac and I'm not from around here."
Getting inside the forge after Hank and Tia had a very emotional reunion, Mac sat down across Tia and Hank to formally introduce himself. Extending a hand to shake, Mac expected to shake Hank's, but he just stared at it for a bit instead.
"... What the hell are you made of?"
Hank was a stout man in the golden years of his life, with gray white hair, a pair of animal-like ears on top of his head like his daughter and built like a tank, as countless years of physical labor did to most people.
As an experienced blacksmith, Hank could easily tell Mac's outstretched hand was more metal than anything. This immediately alarmed Hank, as soon as he noticed that oddity, other abnormalities about the thing which called itself Mac had about him. As far as Hank could tell, Mac was some kind of demonkin, but he wasn't sure.
"A few different things, most importantly there's also an implant in my head that alarmed me of the fact that a young woman had been kicked off of her carriage and was running for her life away from monsters."
Stopping any discussion about his body as he retracted his hand, Mac's smile which had frozen at Hank's comment turned cold.
"It was also the kind of body that allowed me to communicate with a bunch of different systems that fabricated the blood to replace what Tia had lost, sew her body closed and set her bones so she could sit here next to you today, instead of dying in a ditch."
Not appreciating where things were heading, Mac was about to get even meaner when his shin received a sharp kick from under the table.
"Calm down. You too Mac."
Taking control of the situation, Tia reassured her dad with a hand on his shoulder as she talked.
"Mac is from another world, he is here to apparently talk with our leaders and become a part of the kingdom. He also saved my life, and I can attest to that."
Rolling up her sleeve, Tia scanned her own arm where she had been cut quite deeply just a few days ago. Although it had been restored to an almost absurd level of perfection, Tia could still feel a small line going down it where Mac had 'stitched it together'.
"He demanded no payment, no strange favors for that, in fact he paid me immediately after, just for talking with him and teaching him of our world. He's here right now as my new boss, so please respect that."
Setting both her dad and Mac in place and calming them down, Tia turned her attention to her dad for the moment.
"So he's your boss… How much does this Mac feller pay you, and what exactly are you doing?"
Slightly more unsettled by the fact that Mac was Tia's boss now Hank calmed down a bit, so he started asking the universal questions most parents asked when hearing her child had a job now.
"Mac can produce a bunch of different things, but has no way or understanding how to sell them. So he asked me to do that, basically I will still be trading."
"Okay… Then what about your salary?"
Calming down slightly, Hank braced himself for news that Tia would be paying back her medical costs for the next decade.
"Twice my weight in copper for every day of work, plus 75% commission on each of my sales."
"And the occasional bonus."
Interjecting to correct Tia with a smug smile on his face, Mac watched Hank's shocked face feeling like had won some kind of contest.