[IC] Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

[Penny]

Junebug glanced around the strange room, regardless of its original intent it certainly served their purposes well. The walls provided perfect cover and the profusion of them meant that grenade blasts and other explosives would be of limited use. Whatever this vessel was, it was certainly no Terran treasury ship, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t valuable. Alien technology, particularly alien technology this divergent from the galactic norm, was valuable, but there were only a few buyers for it and you had to be careful how you doled it out, lest a Terran warship arrive and seize the whole thing.

It did mean the Canek was going to be very disappointed if and when he managed to fight his way back here. He certainly wasn’t going to get the quick cash turn around he had wanted to start his mercenary company which meant getting the Highlander fixed was still going to be a problem. A problem if they lived anyway.

“Well I can imagine better circumstances to visit an alien sex dungeon,” Sayeed observed wryly. Neil and Saxon both snorted laughter and even Taya smiled.

“We aren’t going to call it that are we?” she asked incredulously. Junebug checked the load on her stolen weapon. It held nearly a hundred rounds, probably originally intended as a squad support weapon. Raising it to her shoulder she peered through its iron sights tracking the length of the barrel with her eyes. By now the sound of firing from outside had died away, meaning that either Canek had been destroyed or his men had pulled back out of effective range. Neither of those boded very well for the four trapped mercenaries. Momentarily Junebug was back on the freighter where she had earned her nom-de-guerre, running through the hallways with an empty rifle and a bloody bayonet, hacking into the neck of a federal conscript with a powered cutting bar.

“Junebug?” Taya asked in a tone which suggested it wasn’t the first time. She blinked her eyes, skin prickling as she shook her head to clear it.

“Right,” she interjected, giving herself a moment to gather her thoughts, “Here is what we will do.”

It took the enemy nearly an hour to find them. Neil and Saxon had time to do a little scavenging, but beyond tools that had been used to partially disassemble sections of the ship there was little enough to find. They were just dragging in a box of welding rods when yells and gunfire announced that they had finally been spotted. Saxon let out a roar and ripped off a burst with his integrated cannon before the man and the Hex dived through the door and slammed it shut. Without power there was no way to lock it. Sayeeda lay prone on a ledge halfway to the back of the room. There was enough of a lip to allow her to rest her stolen weapon without use of a bipod.

Neil and Saxon just managed to take cover behind the nearest wall when the door jerked open and a pair of grenades sailed in. They detonated with a shocking actinic that was instantly stunning to anyone in the area, sending sparks and electrical discharge crawling over all the nearby surfaces. Whether Neil or Saxon were effected Sayeeda couldn’t say, but her combat helmet blanked the discharge easily, throwing up a wire frame approximation of what was going on, synthesized from the thermal and millimetric radar displays. Three figures rushed through the door, guns chattering as they sought to overwhelm the defenders. Sayeeda dropped all three with careful bursts. To her annoyance the weapons feed was too fast to allow for single shots but by careful trigger control she kept each burst to two or three rounds. The wireframe’s slumped to the ground as more figures fired from the cover of the door, spraying the interior of the room with bullets. Sayeeda fired twice more and then ducked back as the gunmen at the door tracked towards her muzzle flash. Neil and Saxon popped up and cut down another pair of gunmen who had been wrong footed by the move. Then Saxon leaped the wall, seized the door and slammed it shut in the faces of the shocked survivors. Taya jumped forward with a heavy industrial rivet gun and stapled the door to the wall, freezing it in place, at least until the attackers could organize a real breaching team.

There was a great deal of pounding on the door and some gunfire, but they weren’t able to penetrated it. Junebug slipped down and examined the weapons and gear that the attackers had carried, gratefully accepting a second rifle and a bandolier of ammunition to supplement her own depleted gun. Taya looked vaugely sick as Junebug and Neil quickly and effectively stripped the dead. Hearing a crackle Junebug pulled an earpiece from the ear of one of the corpses.

“... get in there and kill the bastards!” someone was shouting over the radio. Junebug’s helmet AI matched the frequency for her automatically.

“This is Captin Cyckali commanding the intrusion team in this vessel,” she declared formerly.

“We’d like to talk terms with whomever is in charge of this shit show.”

[POOHEAD189]

The comm crackled like popped bubblewrap. Only in the briefest intervals would Sayeeda be able to pick up the odd word or two. Spoken in quick succession and to one another in their native tongue. The volume on the static too a downward spiral, and suddenly the frequency popped and then skyrocketed into a high pitch squeal of a sound, and then silence. Until a clear, cold voice spoke over the comm with an air of confidence.

"Hello." the voice said, obviously accented and rough, but still somewhat cultured in its inflection. "To whom am I speaking to?"

"Captain Cyckali of the Highlander crew." she replied. "Your name and rank?"

There was a silence for a moment, and then an answer. "Raoul Shajar. Colonel."

As Sayeeda was making contact, Neil checked the integrity of the "door" Saxon had made after slamming that slab shut, even welding a bit of it with his multitool to keep it steady, mouth grinning widely at the sight of the flames, giving the youthful man a terrible look to his otherwise charmingly sly features. Behind him, he could hear Sayeeda's answers growing more curt as she had to literally drag out the terms of ceasefire.

"Allow us to leave unharmed and unmolested, and no more of your men need die." She said.

"Or we could allow you to starve." the voice said back. Neil had a feeling whoever Raoul was, he was probably a disgraced Baron having fallen on hard times. "Unless you wish to join us, that is."

"We have a contract with another benefactor. I don't break contracts. Business is business."

"Then you can hardly blame me for not aiding your...benefactor by allowing you to leave."

"If you think-"

Neil had begun to explore the back of the chamber, a memory of a memory bringing him to look for another option. In the wall looked to be an enclosed archway, only there was no door here it seemed. Only the archway, with various archaic pressure points along the wall set in a hexagonal fashion. He gingerly pressed the third to the left, two feet above his head. There was a sudden exhalation of air from an unknown vent, and a small control chamber slid out chest height.

"Hey! Hey big guy!" Neil whispered, drawing Saxon's burning gaze. He motioned for him to come over. The Xenos did begrudgingly, stomping past the interlocking walls to the corner where Neil stood. "What do you want?" He sounded less than pleased, though that was usually the norm. Neil pointed at the wall.

"Bend down and pick it up, will you?" he said.

Saxon just looked at him quizzically. Neil's fingers almost sang a tune as he manned the control console. If his Aelahyne memory served, and it was technically uploaded knowledge so it would serve without fault like a machine. Just a few more seconds and he would have it, but he didn't have the strength to move it. Normally with a stable power source it would, but now?

"What are you bleating about?" Saxon warbled.

"Look!" Neil exclaimed, pointing. The Hexanagallion looked again, and sure enough there was a slit in the wall where there had not been, just next to the floor. Saxon gave Neil one last look of contempt before bending down and placing his great claws upon the fallen wall, lifting it up, inch by grinding inch until it revealed a small inner corridor, lit by a strange red glow that seemed to have no source. As Taya placed a hand over her mouth, Neil grinned wickedly.
@Penny

[Penny]

The sudden light of the sun was blinding. Junebug stood like a statue, unable to move or even breathe. She had the disturbing sensation that her heart wasn’t beating. They were on a dune, an almost shear wall of falling sand. In the distance smoke rose from the shattered mesa where, a second ago she would have sworn she stood. Two brass casings hung suspended in the air beside her ejection port, held in the air by nothing Junebug could determine. Saxon stood beside her, equally imobile, his wrist mounted cannon was frozen in mid muzzle blast, the small hyper velocity bullets frozen a few inches from the muzzle.

With a sudden crack the muzzle blast completed and the suspended bullets vanished, the casings fell to the sand below her feet and Junebug staggered her mind reeling. She had been shooting at someone, hadn’t she? But that had been inside a spacecraft? Recent memories were confused and garbled and she could remember little since being thrown into the alien ship. Taya fell to the sand beside her, a small pistol in her hand and her eyes wide and staring. No ne seemed able to move but after a moment Junebug’s hands moved on their own, mechanically stripping the half empty clip from her stolen rifle and replacing it with a fresh one. The action snapped shut and the sound seemed to free the others from their temporary paralysis. Saxon leaped to his feet, bearing his teeth and letting out a sibilant screech of rage. He really was quite attractive in a primal sort of way Junebug observed. Neil stepped into view and helped Taya to her feet.

“What happened…” Taya gasped, her eyes wide and terrified.

“We used the lifeboat,” Neil explained, he was calmer looking that Sayeeda felt he had any right to be. Whatever had happened they clearly weren’t in a lifeboat she thought mulishly.

“What lifeboat,” Taya asked, clearly desperate for something she could make sense of.

“I told you they had control over time,” Neil explained, looking a little uncomfortable.

“AID, replay past thirty seconds at 2x,” Junebug instructed, speaking only with a considerable mental effort. Her helmet obediently began to replay footage, she saw the doors blowing off their hinges and the muzzle flash of her own weapon as she opened fire. Saxon stepped from behind cover to add his fire to hers. Junebug saw herself reload, catching a glimpse of Taya, eyes squeezed shut, firing her pistol the direction of the door. Sayeeda leveled her rifle and opened fire, her view point rocking with the violence of the long automatic burst and then… she stood on the dune.

“It froze us in time, just for a second,” Neil was saying, “enough that the rotation of the planet bought us clear.”

Junebug’s mind shied away from the implication of the statement and she mentally shrugged, trying to fight her way clear of the mental apathy that whatever had just happened had induced. To the eyes of the enemy they must simply have vanished, although that might be hard to be sure of in the chaos and confusion of their attempted breach.

“Cyckali,” Saxon hissed, his Hexagallion mouthparts doing a better job of rendering her last name than either her given name or her nickname. She turned to see him pointing away down the trough of the june. Perhaps a half a kilometer away there smoked a metallic object that shimmered with heat. Her helmet magnified the view to show Canek’s tank. It lay on a pool of glass, its composite armor all but glowing with heat energy. The turret was completely gone, lifted by the force of the blast when one of the anti-tank artillery shells had found the fusion bottle. Junebug had seen the sight to many times to hold out any hope. Her mouth worked and she began to laugh. They had no money, no parts to fix the Highlander, their employer was a cloud of vaporized carbon, they were in the middle of the desert with no transport and an unknown number of well equipped enemies were certain to hunt them down as soon as they realised they weren’t hiding on the ship somewhere. The almost hysterical laughter echoed of the quiet dunes, broken only by the distant crack of fracturing metal as the stricken tank collapsed in on itself.

[POOHEAD189]

"Well...this was fun." Neil said without spirit, looking vacantly out into the desert sands. It stretched as far as the eye could see, and without batting an eye. He seemed to have lost his spirit, and it was further evident when he was almost violently grabbed by Saxon by the neck, lifting him up seemingly into the sun. Neil didn't bat an eye other than looking somewhat surprised at the sudden 'attack.'

"Wait, stop! What are you doing?" Taya asked, trying to move across a small rise in the sand to get to Saxon, though she didn't know what she would do if it came down to it. Saxon and Neil didn't acknowledge her. Saxon pulled Neil down face to face with him, his bestial breath filled Neil's senses.

"As usual, all of this is because of you. I wouldn't doubt if I killed you here and now, our fortunes would improve."

"You're probably right." Neil said, clearing his throat. He knew Saxon could simply squeeze and pop his head clean off. He wondered what Junebug and Taya would do, though he guessed it didn't matter. He'd be too dead to see or care. He almost felt that way now, truth be told. He'd saved their lives, but they wouldn't have been out here in the first place if it wasn't for Neil. He got Sven to get them into this wild goose chase and now they were in a desert of unknown size and dangers. "Hey, when you kill me can you be sure to drink my blood to stay hydrated?"

"Put my pilot down." Junebug told Saxon, placing another clip in the receiver of her gun and aiming it his way. Saxon looked like a crocodillian then, eyes almost emotionless, yet somehow you could tell it sought to attack at any moment. Neil's voice spoke up next. "Aim for the lower back, just above the hindquarters. He's less armored there." Saxon's teeth gritted, and he shook Neil, silencing him. Still, after a few brief moments, he tossed Neil to the ground and shrugged his shoulders, though the move was an alien way of stretching the excess energy he had left in his system.

Neil hit the ground and blinked, his eyes stinging from the sand and the intense light that beat down on them. What did they have, one gallon of water left, between the four of them? Taya fell to her knees in relief. "Thank the stars." she said, sinking into the sand as if she was sinking beneath waves. Behind her, Neil lifted his head from the sand.

"How long is the day cycle on this planet?" he asked.

They all look at him. Well, Sayeeda and Taya did. Neil remembered on his own when they had flown in. 34 hours. "Wait no, what direction did we move in from Caneks?"

"Southwest." Junebug said.

"Once the stars are out, we can make it back." he said, as if he had just received a revelation.

"How would that work? We don't know this planet's constellations, Neil." Taya replied, shaking her head. Neil's look buttoned her lip.

"I do, though." he said, tapping his head.

"Why not, we have nothing else we can fucking do." Junebug said, falling onto her back in the sand and covering her eyes with her forearms. "But even if we get our bearings, we'll probably still die."

Hours later, the sun had dipped below the horizon agonizingly slow. Neil did his best not to watch it set. He needed his eyes good for the constellations. Saxon had taken residence in a smaller dune of sand about a dozen paces from them, having basked in the sun like any cold-blooded creature would. Taya and Junebug sipped their canteens fleetingly, talking to each other. Or, Taya talked and Junebug replied with the odd curse or slur, or gave a violent anecdote that had Taya skipping to different topics so she wouldn't need to dwell on it.

The sky lit up with stars almost as soon as the Sun had disappeared, and just as Neil had thought, they were as bright in the desert as they ever would be, no matter the planet one was on. He saw the two headed serpent, Zahhak to the left, and just below it was the strong man, Enkidu, bare chested and wild haired. But of course, right of them was Jawzarh, the largest and brightest collection of stars that formed a great dragon. He still had no idea how such information was in his head, but he wasn't going to question it.

"I know where we're going." He said, triumphantly. The sense of elation was pure ecstasy. Maybe they could make it out of this shit hole. They might not have the money to make it off world, but Neil had done shady things in the past to get what he needed. He knew they could figure something out once they made it back to civilization.

They walked all night where Neil indicated north, knowing they would come by a bedouin path at some point. Travelers riding the strange beasts they had seen in town, But when the sun rose again, they had no found a thing. Junebug did well keeping people moving, joking with Neil and reassuring Taya. Saxon moved without complaint or slowing, but he refused when Neil and Junebug asked him to let Taya ride on his shoulders.

Another night and day passed, and they still had found nothing. No shelter, or sign of passage. Saxon began to mutter that Neil had no idea where they were going, but the others knew better logically. They had gone southwest via transport, moving many kilometers an hour and had gone for several days. They had far too many miles to think about between them and the town, but still, they should have come by a sign of some habitation, and the lack of food and water had everyone on edge.
@Penny

[Penny]

Despite the insistance of of her helmet chronometer that it had only been four days, Junebug was certain it had been a hundred years when they finally stumbled in to the upper reaches of a canyon whose covering of scrubby vegetation marked the passage of an underground river. Junebug’s skin was burnt to a shade of bronze that would have done her desert dwelling Terran ancestors proud. Neil and Taya, fairer and having spent less time out in the elements, were not faring so well, both were badly sunburned despite their efforts to keep covered. Saxon, surprisingly, had fared the best of them all. Sayeeda had always associated the Hex with jungles in her mind, but the way his scales had grown dull suggested that their native habitat might as likely be desert as wetland. He didn’t complain of thirst or speak much other than level the occasional threat at Neil but with the exception of a slight sluggishness to the nictitating membranes which served as his eyelids, did not seem much the worse for wear.
They had travelled at night seeking shelter and sleep during the day, following a steady course south easterly to the nearest chartered settlement. The protein rations Sayeeda had been carrying had kept them from starving though all, save perhaps Saxon, were suffering from hunger pains from the meager rations. The concentrated protein was enough to keep them moving but they were neither filling nor satisfying. Water was a much more pressing concern, Junebug’s armor held a reclaimer unit which was able to process her sweat and what little moisture there was in the aird air into potable water but it was still little more than a cup a day and their bodies were beginning to suffer from the dehydration.

As they stumbled down the side of the canyon the air cooled and moistened significantly and they humidity counter displayed in Junebugs helmet climbed from <1% up to a modest 15 percent. The reclaimer clicked quietly as its workload increased. Fortunately the salvagers had either believed them dead or lost their trail as no pursuit had followed them. Junebug suspected that the answer to that lay in the strange method of their escape, the temporal distortion that had carried them out of the alien vessel had left her clock unaltered, but she suspected that they had traveled some time, perhaps a day or two into the future and that attempts to find them had already failed.

They moved down the canyon at a shuffling walk until, rounding a corner, they found themselves confronted by a group of houses built into the canyon wall and a sprawl of greenery surrounding a metal capped wellhead. Men in desert garb started at the sight of them and several disappeared into their houses to return a moment later carrying antiquated looking long arms. Sayeeda held her hand up in a gesture of friendship, though her other hand held the receiver of her stolen rifle. Despite the weight of the weapon she had clung to it throughout the arduous trek. A soldier didn’t give up her weapon any more than she threw away her rations or took of her helmet in vacuum.

“We need to passage to the spaceport,” she croaked in response to a demand to know who she was.

It cost them their remaining rations and both Sayeeda and Taya’s side arms, but two hours later they were arriving on the outskirts of the city, all of them riding in the back of a large air cushion truck that served as the villages primary conveyance. It was nearly nightfall and the city was already falling into it’s strangely divided routine. The locals were returning to their homes while the spacers and traders were heading out to the various bars and dives that ringed the spaceport.

The Highlander sat where they had left it, though there were a few disappointed vendors who had clearly noticed that it had been several days since anyone approached the ship and perhaps had been hoping that they might pick the vessel over if its owners were dead. Sayeeda stepped up to the ramp and put in her code, lowing the access ramp to the sandstone floor. They marched up the stairs and into the cool interior of the ship intent on food, water and, at least in Junebug’s case, a shower. After that they would have to discuss how they were planning to get off this rock but Junebug couldn’t force her tired brain to grapple with that right at the moment.

“Lonny?” Neil asked, and it wasn’t until after he spoke that a vague sense of unease crystalized in Junebugs mind. Behind her she heard the soft click of a weapon being unsafed. Instinctively her own hand slid down to her rifle but before she could react a feminine voice spoke from behind her.

“Please, I don’t mean you any harm.” Junebug turned slowly. Stepping out from behind a bulkhead was a beautiful woman. Though she was dressed in a set of Neil’s coveralls her body still managed to look lush and inviting, her face might have been a computer generated picture of beauty with full pouting lips and blond hair with natural curls that many women would have spent a weeks salary at a salon to acquire. In her hand was four barreled flechette pistol, a weapon intended for use inside the ship where heavier weapons might smash systems and damage electronics. The energized darts were still plenty deadly however.

“Your the woman from the palace,” Junebug said, her mouth voicing the thought before her exhausted mind was truly aware of it. She remembered the woman the Pasha had held at gunpoint, though she couldn’t for the life of her think of a reason she had come here.

“Please dont,” the woman implored desperately. Junebug realised that her hands had continued their migration to her weapon and she deliberately lifted them away from the slung rifle.

“I came here for help,” she confessed, the pistol wavering in her hands.

“Maybe put the gun down then?” Junebug suggested, and to her considerable relief the woman lowered the pistol.

“Who are you?” Taya asked, irritably.

“My name is Indra Hawkwood. I am the daughter of the Primate of Cylonieka,” she said, the tone clearly suggesting that the information should mean something to the group. Sayeeda glanced sideways at Neil who shrugged.

“Ok Miss Hawkwood,” Junebug said with all the civility she could manage.

“Why did you break into our ship and point a gun at us if you need our help. I dont know how things are done on Cylon… wherever…”

The woman was already shaking her head, her beautiful face a mask of fear and dispair.

“You don’t understand,” she blurted, “the pasha and his men are looking for me, I thought you might be them!”

Neil snorted and Junebug smiled.

“Trust me lady, the Pasha isn’t looking for anyone unless he is doing it from beyond the grave,” Junebug told her with a tired smile but the woman shook her head emphatically.

“Not the old Pasha, the new one. Sven or whatever he calls himself, he wants to keep me as a hostage! I’ve been hiding here for days hoping you would come back.”

Sayeeda’s face blanked and Neil swore quietly. Taya reached out and touched the ramp control. It began to retract, sealing off the noise of the starport outside.

“Well shit,” Neil observed.

[POOHEAD189]

20 minutes later, Neil stepped into the break room by the Cockpit access corridor where the crew usually ate their meals. Normally he would care about how presentable he was when in front of a pretty woman, and this one was more ravishing than almost any he'd seen. More beautiful than any remembered, at least. But he was just happy to have a shower and clean clothes.

His hair was matted and still glistening from the water, and the food and water in front of him he ate greedily. The harem girl sat across from him, her dark hair unkempt but somehow its softness was evident as it curled around her delicate shoulders in a thick, roughly tied stream. He looked up from his meal after a moment to see her looking at him, and he couldn't tell if she was simply watching how piggish he was being or if she was curious about something.

"Sorry," he croaked, and beat on his chest a bit with his fist to clear his throat.

She did the last thing he expected from her usual fearful demeanor. She laughed. "You're a high born gentleman compared to the last pasha. And you saved me, if you don't remember."

"I can't remember much other than sand at the moment." he joked, though there was more of a dry humor to it.

"Well, I am very grateful." she said with a small smile.

Junebug now entered, having changed into more comfortable, casual clothes just as Neil had. Taya was a bit too worn out, and before she even took a shower, she grabbed a few bites to eat and three large jugs of water and escaped into her room. Neil did not know where Saxon was. Probably in the cargo bay.

"So, your highness..." Junebug began.

"I'm just a lady, not a princess." Indra replied sheepishly, looking down. Neil could tell she had only come here because she had no other place to go. Well, she might be up shit creek without a paddle but at least that wasn't an uncommon trait among the crew, so she had good company.

Junebug nodded with good patience, though it was clearly running thin. Her and Neil might be up and about but they were far too tired to be agreeable or conscientious. "So, you say Sven is after you. You do realize that you being here compromises us... not that he doesn't deserve it. That bastard could..." she stopped, and Neil shared a look with her, clearly having though along the lines of what she was thinking.

If they gave him the girl, he would give them enough resources to leave the planet.

The beautiful woman took a moment, but she realized just what they were thinking and almost got out of her chair to run before Junebug's sidearm was trained on her. The woman clutched herself desperately, fear mounting again. "Please!" she gasped. She might not be a princess but she certainly played the part of a damsel. "You don't understand, if you rescue me my father would pay you handsomely! Please!"

"Don't worry, we're not that heartless." the Captain said. "But I can't have you fleeing at the sight of something not going your way."

"We should keep our options open." Neil said casually, and when Indra couldn't tell if he was joking she looked at him in fear as well. He held his hands up, calming her with his next words. "Whoa whoa whoa, don't worry. Look, I didn't save you just to toss you to the wolves again." She visibly relaxed. Neil had to consciously not look at her voluptuous figure when she did so. "But we do need a way off this planet. Can we brainstorm without you thinking we'll fuck you over?"

She nodded, too exacerbated to speak.

"Cool. Now, how far away is Cyclopia?"

"Cylonieka" she corrected him. "Its in a nearby system."

"If we radioed your father, would he be able to send us support?" he asked her, confident that if they were out of range, Neil could go to the city scavenge yard and see if he could upgrade the comm system. To his and Sayeeda's satisfaction, she nodded emphatically. Now Neil really needed to not look at her bouncing body. Thankfully, he was too tired to have the energy to fantasize about anything right now. He'd need a good sleep, or at least he felt like relaxing, but then they could get to work.

And maybe talk about selling her to Sven without her in the room if all else failed, but he'd rather not do that. Hopefully, Junebug wasn't lying and had similar reservations about human trafficking.
@Penny

[Penny]

Junebug closed the medicomp around Taya’s body and bought it live with a few touches of the holographic pad. Ordinarily the autodoc would have been overkill for sunburn and dehydration but Taya was very fair and hadn’t been exposed to a lifetime of grueling physical activity the way Junebug had. The blond haired woman sighed immediately as salves and antiseptics were applied to her skin and intravenous hydration began to replace the fluids she had lost on the grueling march across the desert. Crossing to the pilot's seat she took a cup of water and downed it in single long pull thrilling to the feel of the cool water in her parched throat.

Neil had already gone to sleep but Taya was too burned and dehydrated to go quite yet. Sayeeda had opted to take the first watch, mostly because other than Saxon, she was the only person in any condition to do it. Lony confirmed that Saxon was in the hold, he seemed to be conducting some form of meditation, though from the way his nostrils and scales were flared, it had more to do with adapting to the new temperature than it did with finding inner peace.

Indra watched from the corner of the room. She was clearly tense, no doubt worried that the Highlanders might simply turn around and sell her to Sven. The woman’s body was too perfect to be the result of natural processes, Junebug suspected genetic engineering rather than surgery but she wasn’t an expert in such things. Few worlds that could afford such high tech luxuries were ever in the market for mercenary soldiers or at least they tended to the hiring for service on some much less well off colony worlds. If Sven was indeed after her, it was a miracle she was still free, coming to the Highlander was probably the one move the Cyborg wouldn’t have predicted. That made her either extremely lucky or extremely smart and Junebug wasn’t sure which one to go with just yet.

“You won’t turn me over to him will you?” Indra asked as Junebug refilled her cup from the dispensing nozzle. Her voice had a vulnerable quaver that made even Junebug’s pulse climb a few beats. She glanced sidelong at Indra trying to determine if this was a conscious effort to manipulate her, but she saw no guile in the woman’s worried face.

“Look,” Junebug began, searching for a way to make herself understood without making herself look like a monster.

“I’m a mercenary, but I’m a good one, if you contract my crew to get you off this dustball, than that is what we will do,” she explained. It was unlikely that the woman really appreciated how seriously Junebug took her contracts but it was enough reassurance for Indra to break into a nervous smile.

“Do we need to sign paperwork or anything?” she asked in what Junebug thought might be a weak attempt at a joke. Instead of responding she reached out her hand.

“Let's make it a full repair of my ship and a million credits and you have yourself an extraction team,” Junebug offered. As expected Indra grasped her hand and shook it firmly.

“So what does Sven want with you?” Taya asked unexpectedly. Junebug had forgotten the young aristocrat was in the room until the moment she spoke.

“I mean I can see what the old Pasha wanted but Sven… I didn’t get the impression he was that interested in… in the normal human stuff.” If Indra was ashamed of her previous slavery to the Pasha she didn’t show it.

“I don’t know what he wants, perhaps to ransom me to my father?” Indra supposed. Junebug shook her head. Whatever else Sven was, he was certainly ambitious, she doubted he would be happy being the tin pot dictator of one city on an insignificant dustball for long. Whatever he had in mind for Indra it would be a bigger play than a simple ransom.

“How will you get in touch with my father, if your ship cant fly?” she asked, more at ease now that the deal had been struck.

“She can fly,” Junebug snapped, a little defensive at the idea that the Highlander was in that bad shape.

“Sorry, it's been a long couple of days,” she apologised, draining another glass of water and refilling it.

“What I meant to say is that she can fly, it's just we can't inset into the RIP without some serious repairs. As for how we will get in touch with your father… “ It was a fair question, there was no way to communicate between systems across interstellar distances. The usual protocol was to send message capsules, miniature spacecraft, or to have freighters and merchantmen carry news packets with them. As all systems paid a small fee to any ship transmitting a packet, most merchant ships did so as a matter of course, often allowing an automated system to handle the whole thing start to finish. There were rumors that the Terran had constructed a few array of quantum binaries, theoretical pairs of electrons, carefully separated so that they could use quantum entanglement to instantaneously transport data from one place to another, but that seemed more like campfire stories than anything Junebug was willing to put stock in.

“Neil really is the engineer on this boat,” she admitted grudgingly. While she could work on most systems with the aid of her helmet, she just wasn't the same sort of tinkerer that Neil was.

[POOHEAD189]

Neil groaned, opening his eyes slowly. He was beyond glad that making it home wasn't a dream. The softness of the bed and the aching of his muscles showed he was back in the Highlander. And then the memories flied back into his head. The news about Sven, and the woman that was so gorgeous she couldn't be fully organic came back to him.

"Well, it's just like Sven to throw unexpected curveballs my way." he said. He rubbed his forehead when he slipped out of the bed. "Just don't hit on this woman. Doesn't matter that Junebug hasn't talked to you since you acted like a gradeschooler. Just fucking be cool, you can fix the Highlander and get everyone back to space. Maybe take a vacation after..."

He pulled his pants up, slipping a belt around his slim waist. Grabbing a button up, he flipped it to loosen the fabric up before slipping his arms through it. Opening the door without buttoning the shirt up, he stepped through. The corridor was empty, and he made his day down into the cargo bay to find any loose equipment he might have. "You've earned a vacation, right?" he asked himself aloud, his voice still husky from sleep.

"I think we both have," the angelic voice behind him said.

Neil nearly jumped out of his skin, the white shock taking hold for a moment before he caught himself. Indra looked embarrassed at her having startled him, placing her hands on her mouth. Neil had a hand on his chest when he looked aty her.

"I'm sorry" she said softly.

"No, no problem." He told her, regaining his composure. Just don't look at her. Also get yourself some water before you go downstairs to the Cargo bay. "You're good, I just woke up. It's ok." he told her, holding his hands up and smiling. He needed to treat her gently. She had just left sex slavery, after all. He couldn't imagine what that was like, particularly with the fat old Pasha he shot. Not to mention she had been on the run since Neil had released her.

"Just, make yourself at home-" he told her.

"People keep telling me that, I just want to help...if I can."

Neil hesitated. "Sure...um, do you know where the Cargo bay is? Ok it's down this hall and down the stairs. Get me some water and meet me down there with it. After being in the desert for over a standard week I still need some, please."

She nodded her head, lush waves of hair bouncing and she turned. Neil immediately looked away so as not to look at her ass as she did so, and he went downstairs to the Cargo bay where the scraps and the HMU-350 was located, along with a molting Saxon. Neil immediately let out a comical 'ugh' as soon as he saw the Hexanagallion. Armor off and curled upright, he looked like a Xenos Obelisk Statue that somehow was still covered in moisture. All of the appeal or terror of his armored form was gone. Not that his sleek, dark reptillian skin didn't look particularly menacing in a horrific sort of way. But he was now unresponsive, and Neil knew he would be for another day likely.

He shook his head and walked over to the scraps, looking for energy nodes and refurbished rehibilitater tubes. He didn't exactly have a 5 star plan, but he only had two options. One, he could somehow send a message to Indra's father's planet physically, and that would require sending an item through the R.I.P. which was perhaps possible, as it would require less power than the ship. Or two, he can try to send the message itself through timespace, which was...not possible to modern science but hey he was a dreamer. What he needed now was a piece of equipment that could be launched, and the node to power it.

Neil jumped out of his skin a second time in ten minutes when Indra screamed, glass shattering when she dropped the water.

"WHOA!" Neil cried, spinning at her.

"WHAT is that?" she asked, pointing at Saxon.

"Oh..." Neil sighed with relief. "Oh don't worry, he's just a big asshole. Well...not physically. I mean I'm sure he has one but still..."
@Penny

[Penny]

Junebug stepped into the hold and opened her mouth an instant before Indra all but leaped into her arms. Instinctively she caught the woman around the waist with one arm, keeping the other free for a weapon for the half second it took her mind to analyze the situation and report that there were no threats. Saxon stood coiled in his odd posture, looking sleek and powerful without his almost ever present Awkwardly she bought her other hand up and supported the other woman, one arm around her shoulders the other looped under her knees while Indra turned and buried her face in Sayeeda’s shoulder. She wasn’t particularly heavy and her body was soft against Sayeeda’s body, which, like Saxon was unusually bereft of armor, instead covered with a tank top with the winged knife of the Terran Marines, and a pair of khaki shorts.

Although she was clean, Junebug still looked an almost shocking contrast to Indra. Patches of skin at her shoulders and over her hips were rubbed raw from grit and the weight of her ceramic armor during the grueling march through the desert. Her hands were scratched from scrambling over rocks and her right hand bore a patch of synthetic spray seal where careless contact against a hot weapon had burned her. Numerous small scratches ran over her hands and up her arms where she had been cut on rocks, or injured in the firefight at the mesa. Where Indra was soft and sensual, Sayeeda was hard, wiry muscles coiled over her frame, allowing her to support the noblewoman without difficulty.

“No need to panic,” Sayeeda said awkwardly, “Nothing is going to hurt you while you are on this ship.” That might or might not be true. If Sven discovered she was here and stormed the ship, there might be little they could do to prevent it, but there seemed little point in sharing that with the panicked woman Indra clung to her looking unconvinced. Sayeeda gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile and then gently disentangled herself, setting the woman back on the deck. Indra gave her a look, her lips curving up into a smile of appraisal that Junebug had seen before, though not in this exact situation.

“I had an idea,” she explained to Neil, moving back to the business that had originally bought her to the hold. Moving past the noblewoman she took her helmet from the rack she had stowed it in and set it on the floor, then opened a refrigerated crate that hissed cold white vapor into the air. She drew forth three bottles of Terran beer, leftovers from the supplies the commandos had bought aboard, and tossed one to Neil then passed a second to Indra who looked mildly perplexed. Taking a seat on an ammunition crate she struck the cap off by driving it down against the metal edge of the crate with a crisp pop, the motion had the casual ease of long practice.

“Aid, squad briefing, project a map of the star port,” she commanded before draining half of the beer in a single long swallow. It was ice cold, and pure ambrosia after the heat and thirst of the previous days. A hologram sprung into existence above the helmet, showing a picture of the dusty plate of sandstone on which they and several other ships currently rested. The footage was a composite, compiled by Lony from a variety of systems, mostly security camera feeds, that Taya had gained access to since their arrival. Computer finishing gave it the crisp accuracy of a high resolution satellite photo, right down to the various booths and stalls selling junk along the canyon walls.

“According to Taya these are the freighters Middle Finger and Lambruka,” she said. Two of the freighters, both larger than the highlander, brightened on the display and the names appeared beside them. The Middle Finger was nearly twice the size of their own vessel, though considerably older.

“Both of these ships pretty much make the run between Hahn and Cyloneika, bringing manufactured goods in exchange for loot that pirates sell here,” she explained. Indra brightened immediately at that news.

“So we can just take one of them home?” she asked eagerly. Neil frowned but Junebug was already shaking her head.

“Unfortunately both these ships are already being watched Sven’s men,” she explained. It was an obvious move and one Sven would not have failed to anticipate. He had probably checked in or surveilled most ships, in all likelihood it was only the fact that he knew first hand that the Highlander was in no condition to leave, that had kept Indra safe this long.

“I was thinking that maybe we could build some kind of device that would be able to attach itself to one of the ships, probably in orbit, that can either carry our message to Cylonekia, or maybe disable the ship long enough that we could fly the Highlander up and dock with it…”

Neil sucked in a shocked breath at the suggestion though Indra merely looked confused.

“You want to try to use of those ships to carry the Highlander through the RIP?” he asked, appearing genuinely horrified.

“Junebug you know… I mean… the RIP engines aren't calibrated to add another ships worth of mass to the jump profile. Sayeeda finished her beer and drew another from the ice chest, spreading her arms in an equivocal gesture.

“I’m just spitballing,” she told him honestly, “you’re the engineer afterall.”

[POOHEAD189]

Neil laughed nervously, shaking his head. He picked up one of the ice cold beers and pointed at Sayeeda. "You know I usually like it when you're crazy, but don't joke about that." he told her, reclining back and taking a long swig of the brew. It burned going down in a pleasant sensation, and he gave a gasp when he was done. Indra seemed at the edge of her rope, with all of their plans coming up short. He didn't necessarily know what to do to make her feel better, but he felt the same way. Junebug's idea could never work, it...

"Wait..." he said, feeling a sense of wonderment as he plotted, realizing he had been thinking through this the wrong way. Junebug did have a good idea, even if it would have gotten them all torn into a trillion pieces and devoured by RIP beasts. He just needed to make it work. It was impossible to teleport to other systems, and it was impossible to send transmissions accurately instantaneously as well. But if they could somehow get on one of those ships without being noticed, they could hitch a ride.

"What?" Sayeeda asked, looking at him expectantly. Neil hadn't realized he had been quiet for some time. He was still doing the math in his head, calculating on if they had the right equipment, theorizing on how this would effect the RIP tide, if it would at all. It was almost as crazy to attempt what the Captain had suggested anyway, but this might make it possible to try it if they could get this to work.

Junebug snapped her fingers in front of his face, and sighed when he was still contemplating. Indra shrugged, not knowing what was wrong with him. "Neil, I am giving you an order to start talking." she said, leaning forward over the table, alcohol on her breath. "Answer me!"

Neil's mind finished processing, and he could almost hear an audible 'ding' once he realized it was possible. Neil could not contain his excitement. He suddenly grabbed Junebug by the hair and suddenly kissed her. Not giving her time to react, he looked right into her eyes. "You are a godsdamn genius, Junebug!" he exclaimed. He stood up and down the last half of his beer, giving an audible burp once he was finished.

Indra raised a hand as if she were in a classroom. "Um, excuse? What is happening right now?" she asked, somewhat taken aback but morbidly intrigued. Neil clamped the bottle back on the table. "Look, a RIP jump can't take more than a conceived, estimated amount of mass, right? So we couldn't dock on a ship, Sven owned or no, if the converter cannot take us through the RIP. So all we need to do, is to make sure we have no mass. Right?" His hands began to spin, signifying a rotating electron, though that would be lost on anyone but himself. "To do that we need an anti-gravity generator, because anti-gravity creates our own separate reality. Following me?"

He didn't wait to see if anyone was actually following him, and he continued to think out loud. "If you understand the full range of quantum mechanics, you can make anti-gravity. The tricky part is you can't observe it or you'll be entangled in the quantum field, and done in an anti-gravity machine can...create...a black hole..." he waved that away, dismissing the catastrophic possibility as if it was nothing. "But that's not going to happen. What will happen, if we transfer most of our remaining power to the generator is that it'll form a small reality where we float in real space, within the generator of Sven's ship. So it will be as if we have no mass. Goddamn I am a genius, and you are too!" he pointed at Junebug. "Gideon save me, ok we need to get started."

The following minute was spent with Neil explaining what types of scrap and lenses he would need, with Lonney filling in the blanks of Neil's techno-gibberish, though truth be told it was less techno and more Neil gibberish.
@Penny

[Penny]

The rented flat bed truck rumbled to a halt. Dust, drawn along by the air around the truck continued forward a few feet before settling to the baking ground. Sayeeda stepped from the cab onto the riding board and then jumped down to the dusty rock of the canyon floor. In the cave mouth ahead of her a half dozen mercenaries crouched, pointing weapons nervously in her direction. Carelessly she took a cigarette from the pack in her breast pocket and struck the igniter with a fingertip, sucking on the filter to it lit to her satisfaction. As she had hoped it might, the innocuous action stopped her from being immediately shot.

“What are you doing back here!” one of the braver guards barked. Junebug started walking towards the cave mouth as though she had every right to be here.

“Canek got torn up pretty bad, he and the rest of the column are falling back west, keeping off the comms to avoid the yokels,” she lied. It was a plausible enough tale. These men would have heard the screaming and yelling on their comm nets as the ambush unfolded. They might know better, but they would want to believe their comrades were still alive.

“You made it out?” one of the guards said, lowering his carbine and stepping into the open.

“No, I’m dead in the fucking desert,” Junebug responded acidly. She paused and glanced at the waiting soldiers.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Ge the shit on the truck,” she snapped in her command voice, gesturing towards the parked vehicle.

“What?...” the nearest of the merc asked clearly confused.

“Get moving! Guns, on the truck, fucking yesterday,” she roared.

“We got casualties, we got captured men, that means enemy forces here sooner rather than fucking later. NOW GET THE GUNS ON THE GOD DAMN TRUCK!!” Her face contorted in in unvarnished anger. The soldiers bolted back into the cavern without a backward glance.

“How did you know that would work?” Taya asked as they rumbled off into the desert. The truck was loaded down till its axels creaked, but the mercs had managed to load every last weapon in Canek’s arsenal into the flat bed. Olive covered tarps were tied down over the crates and boxes, more for concealment than to secure the load. They had left the soldiers with a vague assurance that transports were on the way to extract them.

“They were scared,” Junebug explained as she pulled the road out of the creek bed and up onto the dirt road leading back toward the wadi. Distant dust clouds showed other vehicles on the road, but none were yet insight. By the time Canek’s men realised they had been duped they would be long gone.

“They want someone to tell them that there is a plan and that everything is under control,” she went on, shifting the big rig into gear and picking up speed as the heavy engine torqued and lugged.

“Also, they always leave the dim wits on guard detail for a big operation. If they were worth a damn, they would have been in the desert with the strike force.” Taya seemed to consider this as the sped along through the desolate landscape.

“Would it have worked with your old unit?” Taya asked. Sayeeda laughed grimly.

“Nah, we always had enough wounded that we had a couple of guys in charge of these kind of things. THey have shot us before we went two feet.”

------

The anti-grav generator was of an old Rennish configuration. It had probably began life as a load distributor for a super freighter container ring. It was in sections that could be assembled into a pair of ten meter rings, though each section trailed a dizzying array of wires and connectors. The junk dealer had been willing to part with it for a pair of modern assault rifles and two cases of grenades. Sven’s coup finally seemed to be doing them some good as it had put weapons at rather a premium. Whether people wanted protection from the new regime, or there were old loyalists who wanted to take back the place Sayeeda didn’t know, and so long as they were out of here before the shooting started, she didn’t much care.

“Where is our Goddes-damned lizard freak when we need him,” Junebug groused as she slid the first ring segment down to Neil. The pilot was dressed in one of the half finished mech rig. They could have used Saxon’s strength to unload the guns that were now stacked in the main hold, trade goods they could use to complete Neil’s insane retrofit and to replenish the Highlanders much depleted arms locker, but the Hex was apparently still in whatever heat management coma he had fallen into after they returned from the desert. Sweat ran down her shoulders and back as she heaved, lifting enough of the weight so that Neil’s servo assisted arms could pull it free and carry it towards their improvised workshop. Neil had strung a large tarp from the side of one of the ships engine pods, beneath a lift derrick they had rigged with pullies and woven titanium cable. Cutting equipment and work benches had been set up in the shaded area and tools had been carried out of the hold. A lattice of electrified wire fenced the whole area off, in an effort to stop local thieves from growing too bold. Junebug would still insist they posted a guard, though that meant long shifts for her and Neil, unless she wanted to trust Taya with the job, which she wasn’t certain was a good idea. Fortunately the locals had seen enough dirtside refit attempts not to be too curious, beyond the occasional glance at Neil’s mechanized suit.

At least Indra was keeping out of sight. Junebug sucked at her cheek as she worked, in a gesture of puzzled contemplation. She was still confused by what had happened in the ship. Her mind seemed to alternate between Indra leaping into her arms and Neil kissing her. The segment she was lifting nearly slipped from her fingers and pain jolted through her shoulders as she grabbed at the metal.

“You alright?” Neil asked her, lifting the segment away with a whine of servos.

“I’m fine,” she told him, “just tired of dust and heat. How long do you figure to get this rigged up?”

[POOHEAD189]

Neil knew that was horseshit. Nobody was perfect, but he knew his Captain better than that. She had never let anything halt her progress from work before. If he had been a new addition to the crew he wouldn't have noticed anything, but by this point they had gone through hell and highwater. He wouldn't press any issue though. Now was not the time, and they didn't get this right then they would likely feel an eternity of torture within a singularity in the depths of space.

Not a fun time.

The pilot grabbed another byronian steel ring and lowered it carefully into the pod. The jury rigged metal appendage he had on his arm hissed softly as it curled. Neil wasn't a weak guy, but this was far too important for vanity to take over judgement, and he probably needed it regardless. Junebug certainly didn't. Her arms and back muscles were as hard and defined as the metal crates and metal rings they were needing to move.

"The hardest part will be getting the quantum wave to act accordingly. This won't take much longer," he said, referring to actually creating the system itself. For emphasis he stacked another ring into its proper place, closing it up with a smaller lever that opened the port for the next one. "and after that it'll take me...woo thirty minutes maybe? If we got the right lenses. Did we manage to get a few yet?"

"I sent Taya to get some. She should be back soon." Sayeeda replied.

Neil gave her a look. Junebug caught it when she handed him the next ring. "What? She might be young but she has her uses." It said something that even while arguing, they worked as if they weren't speaking at all. They'd been a team now for almost longer than Neil had been off-world. Neil caught the ring and spoke. "I'm not saying she doesn't! I just don't like the most defenseless one of us out there, talking to backwater traders!"

"Calm down," she barked. "I told her not to take her cowl off."

---

So far, so good, Taya thought to herself. Her vision poking out of the heavily wrapped scarf that shrouded her face, the cowl hanging loosely over her head. She shuffled along, having been given directions by an elderly chap she would assume was probably one of the least backstabbing people in the small town, and made her way to Zephyr Street where the specialized traders dwelled and sold their wares.

Three gentlemen she could only describe as 'thugs' stood on the far side of the other street as she rounded the corner, with a plethora of other rundown folk who looked they could use a bath sooner than a crafted item. She couldn't imagine living in such squalor. Even when food ran short on the Highlander, she still got to sleep in her own bed. She suspected that was because she had come from old money. Not for the first time did she wonder on the fate of her father and her world. It ate at her sometimes, though apart of her had already accepted they would likely be dead by now.

She had felt uneasy approaching the junkers, and she realized it wasn't because of their rough nature or the intimidating men milling about. She was uneasy because they reminded her of Sven. Men wearing naught but rags yet still likely enough rigged firepower to detonate the street if need be, with gravely voices and various parts of their anatomy likely artificial. Still, she needed to do her part and stepped past a man looking at an out-of-date power converter.

"Excuse me," Taya said to a bearded, gap toothed fellow with mechanical spider legs strapped (or perhaps infused in) to his back. He leaned over a table that looked far too flimsy to be holding the amount of metallic junk and gadgets it was. Taya made sure her shoulders were squared. "Do you have a C-34 3X5 Lens for sale? I need four of them, if you have that in your stock." There was a small pause, and she realized she might sound very foreign, so she added. "And make it snappy, you fuck."

If Neil or Sayeeda were around, she didn't know if they would be proud or if they would laugh their butts off. But she had to add something! The man leaned in, one of his spider legs piercing the table to stabilize him as he leaned over. "You don't sound like any dervish I know. What do you need these for, little one? They're hard to come by."

"I said hurry up! You don't want to make me late, for my master is an unforgiving one. He will kill me and then you, and use you for parts in his war machine. Here are the credits if you wish for them." she said, her petite hand sliding out of her robes to showcase her datapad with a few thousand credits, slightly more than they likely needed but she did not want to be found wanting in the money department.

The man wasn't cowed, but after a moment, he did realize that whatever her business was, it was best not to get involved, and he called for one of his Xenos to fetch the right lenses. Taya's smile was so bright one could almost see a light behind her scarf as she made her way back to the Highlander, lenses procured.
@Penny

[Penny]

“I read… 62.16 microns,” Junebug called, peering down at the ring attachment point through her engineering goggles. The sensors in the headset reported the measurement faster and more accurately than a set of calipers could. The handy devices could also read voltage and current and diagnose the effectiveness of any chip or component in the Highlanders maintenance database. It also provided ‘helpful’ notations which had been added by Neil in the subjective year or so since they had taken over the ship. These ranged from notations about what types of tools to use, to less helpful notations like ‘is trash’, ‘kill that junk dealer when next in system’, and perhaps most perplexing of all, ‘do not lick’. Sayeeda was not a skilled mechanic, but she helped out on enough field repairs, and routine maintenance that she was beginning to be a little more help than an unskilled pair of hands.

“Good enough,” Neil mumbled around the bolt he held between his teeth. He plucked the fastener free and fed it into his bolt driver, then placed the tip against the ring a few inches from the end.

“Still good?” he asked and Sayeeda glanced at the figures.

“48.01,” she replied. Niel nodded and triggered the bolt driver, the device whired and there was the sharp smell of ozone and hot metal as the self welding bolt bored through the ring and into the Highlander’s hull, locking the last ring in place.

“58.83,” Sayeeda reported and Niel nodded with satisfaction.

“They will expand and contract with heat and cold anyway, anything under 100 microns is fine,” Neil explained, peeling off his own goggles and wiping at his sweat soaked face with one sleeve. Both of them were dripping, though Sayeeda’s darker complexion seemed to do better in the desert sun. It was nearly local noon and the sun was a hammer overhead, worse yet the hull radiated back much of the heat like the element of an oven. Still the job was done and Sayeeda wasn’t one to delay a necessary job just because it was unpleasant. Taya had arrived an hour ago, lenses in hand and looking very pleased with herself. The final tweaking of the installation was done, all they needed to do now was to calibrate the rings in space.

“Alright lets take a break,” Sayeeda declared, peeling off her own goggles with some relief. She didn’t care for anything that decreased her peripheral vision, no matter how necessary it was. With Indra aboard, trouble could erupt at any moment and she didn’t wish to be caught unawares. Throughout the work she had seen men watching the ship, but in a place like this it was impossible to know how many worked for Sven, reported to Sven, or merely gossiped which got back to Sven. Knowing the cyborg, he would want to keep an eye on the Highlander and Neil, if only because he knew first hand the sort of spectacular disruptions the group was both capable, and likely, to cause.

Neil and Sayeeda climbed up through the boarding hatch and headed to the main hold. Saxon stil seemed to be in his hibernation state, though Sayeeda noticed that the Hex’s coloration was subtly different and his massive musculature rippled occasionally as though his entire body was slowly respiring with his whole body. The Hex was and impressive physical specimen Sayeeda was forced to admit. Since learning that Saxon might be attracted to her she had, well maybe not interest, but a certain intellectual curiosity. She shook her head trying to clear it of such useless wanderings.

Indra sat with Taya at the table they had set up in the center of the hold. The space was less open than it had been now that the crates of weapons she had stolen from Canek were stowed and tied down, but there was still plenty of space. The woman looked casually stunning in some of Sayeeda’s cast of clothing and she chatted excitedly with Taya about some point or another to do with tracing noble decent. Junebug had forgotten that Taya was herself an aristocrat by birth, if not by fortune and position at the moment. It must be nice for her to have someone to talk to. Junebug wasn’t always the best at dealing with people and her own conversational skills were fairly basic. Even her education was narrow, consisting essentially of high school and then a hyper focused military academy. As for the rest of her education, well, it wasn’t that she hadn’t learned things, it's just those things you didn’t talk to other people about, not if you were sober anyway.

“Are we ready to go?” Indra demanded as Neil and Sayeeda approached the table. Rather than answering Sayeeda snatched up one of the canteens of water and drank deeply for several seconds before splashing some water on her face and neck to clean away dust and grit.

“Not yet,” Sayeeda admitted looking around in vain for something to eat. Indra looked indignant.

“But you said the repairs would be finished!” she snapped. Junebug nodded sagely, taking a deep breath and reminding herself that this woman was her employer and that she had been through alot in the past few days and weeks. To call what Neil and Sayeeda had done to the ship ‘repairs’ was also a bit of a stretch but the womans meaning was clear.

“Unfortunately no sane ship captain is going to let us just fly up and hook onto their freighter,” she explained, judiciously not stressing that no sane spacer would attempt this in the first place.

“There is a Megafreighter due to leave in about twelve hours, the Karma Hazu,” Junebug plowed on before fresh objections could be raised. “

Taya has put together a computer virus that will tell the Karma Hazu’s sensors not to report us to the ships AI or officers, they will technically see us, it just wont report anywhere. One of its cargo shuttles should be landing here in an hour or so, then all we have to do is upload it to the shuttle.”

[POOHEAD189]

Neil managed to nab a can of assorted meat and vegeatbles, aptly named "Galactic Mix" and tossed it to Sayeeda. She caught him, giving a closed mouth grin in thanks. Neil found one for himself too. It wasn't much, but it was something to keep them going for the next few hours, and the two of them popped the cans and dug in with their makeshift silverware, consisting of Neil using a cleaned wrench and Sayeeda handling a short, bent pipe in the form of a crude spoon. It was apparent there was a disparity when the two had come in. The upper class women sat at the end of the table, with Neil and Sayeeda, covered in grease and sweat, scarfing down food and booze with equal enthusiasm.

Indra looked disgusted, and Taya looked simply embarrassed when she noticed their guest watching in morbid fascination. Indra continued their conversation as the two ate. "So we can board without them being any the wiser?" She asked, sighing. Despite herself, she was obviously hungry as well. She wouldn't admit it, however. Not until they were gone at least, so she could relax and speak with Taya further. "That is good news, but shouldn't you be spending all of your time and effort to repair the ship? You can eat after you're finished."

As she was speaking, Neil had downed the last bit of the 'slop', almost inhaling it down his gullet. He set it down and grabbed a bottle of Phaerimian Ale, uncorking the top. "We need to rest a little bit," the Pilot said. At Indra's rolling of the eyes, Neil smirked. "Looks like someone doesn't appreciate us saving them from that fat man at great personal risk, eh? Or this cyborg that would likely strip her for parts."

Indra colored, caught in being embarrassed and guilty. Neil had meant it as a playful jab, but Junebug reclined, kicking her legs on the desk. "It certainly seems like we're not being appreciated, I grant you that." She said, and Indra took the bait. She shook her head, and despite the haughtiness not ten seconds ago, she reached across the table and grabbed at Neil's hands. "No, no, I am very appreciative. I've already thanked you so much."

Neil wasn't certain why she was grabbing at his hands, but he realized after a moment that he was the one that had shot the fat pasha and saved her. He also realized that no one with any sane mind would think Junebug was being truthful, but again, Indra had been without sleep or hope for many weeks. Neil squeezed her hands. "We're bullshitting, don't worry." He told her in no uncertain terms.

"They act like this, but we've entertained royalty before. A Prince, even!" Taya exclaimed. The remark caused Junebug to wince and Neil to lose his uplifting expression. It hadn't been brought up for months, and the Prince debacle was still not a good subject to bring up for various reasons. The fact that they were in pursuit by the law, Neil's slight jealousy and Junebug being lied to by the corrupt bastard.

"Really?" Indra asked, intrigued. Taya zipped her lip after she was glared at, however. She nodded, swallowing. "Yes, but it didn't last long. We just love helping people. Going all over the galaxy, we bump into the strangest men and women, and Xenos too. I remember this one time-" She continued on to change the subject, and Neil grunted and stretched. "I think we better get back to work. You ready?" he asked the Captain.

@Penny

[Penny]

“I think we are good to go,” Junebug declared with satisfaction. The gravity coils hummed with power as Lonny continued the diagnostic. The schematic pulsed above a holographic display unit charting the flux and coverage of the grid as an asymmetric bubble around the hull of the Highlander. At present the current in the coils was only at a few hundredths of a percent of its full capacity, but it was enough for Lonny and Neil to diagnose and detect any faults.

“This is going almost too well,” Neil commented as he pulled away his mask and wiped the sweat from his face. It was well after dark but the pair hadn’t taken a break since their awkward lunch with Taya and Indra. Although Junebug found it almost sacrilegious to suggest such a thing, an old soldiers superstition, she had to agree. Taya had managed to talk her way onto the Karma Hazu’s cargo shuttle and install the program without difficulty, and with the repairs completed they were ready to lift and leave Hahn behind. Sayeeda took a moment to glance out over the settlement, the market was still busy as people took advantage of the relative evening cool. The arabesque minarets of the main settlement seemed to glint in the silver moonlight and the palms waved in the gentle breeze.

“I bought dinner!” Taya called as she hurried out of the crowd, hooded and caped. In her hands rested several bags of food, purchased from local street vendors. Though her stomach rumbled a sick feeling passed over Sayeeda and the hair on the back of her hands prickled as it often did before things really dropped in the pot.

“What?” Neil asked, evidently knowing her well enough to sense the change in her demeanor, even if he didn’t know exactly what it meant.

“Get inside, we are lift…” A gunshot rang out from somewhere in the crowd and one of Taya’s bags exploded in a shower of rice and meat. People began to scream and scramble away from the freighter as more gunshots tore through the cool evening.

“Run!” Junebug shouted to the girl, pulling a heavy pistol from her webbing belt and firing at one of the gunmen, a tall, brutal looking man in leather armor and carrying an old fashioned chemical slug thrower, as he was revealed by the parting crowd. Plasma blew the sand around the man to shards of blackened glass, but at this range it would have been a minor miracle if she scored a hit. Taya cast an open mouthed look back at the crowd, a half dozen men were rushing forward most carrying rifles, though a few carrying shock prod and other close combat weapons.

“Run!” Junebug screamed at the girl, dropping from her elevated position on the ships hull to the improvised workbench. The fibre board bowed and flexed, but held her weight as she braced herself in a proper shooter's stance, gripping her pistol with both hands with one knee to the work bench. One of the shock rod wielding toughs had reached Taya and was rasing his weapon for a blow when Junebug’s plasma bolt caught him the the neck, blowing his head from his body in an arc described by his own burning hair. The shock seemed to break Taya from her daze and she dropped the remaining food and bolted across the sand in an ungainly lurch. There as a hollow booming above her as Neil opened fire with those ludicrous heavy pistols he always carried and another man spun to the dirt, vomiting bright pulmonary blood. That was luck, but it was good luck for the Highlander and her crew. A bullet ripped into the workbench and split it, dropping Junebug to the ground in a sprawl.

“Junebug!” Neil yelled dropping to the sand beside her.

“I’m not hurt,” she reassured him as she pushed herself to her feet, her arms and face covered with sand where it clung to her sweat. Taya raced up the ramp as it sparkled and rang with bullet impacts, miraculously avoiding being cut down as she was silhouetted against the hatch opening. How Junebug and Neil would managed the same feat she had no idea. A pair of thugs tried to rush the boarding hatch but the two mercenaries cut them down with a hail of pistol fire, toppling their corpses to the floor with flashing plasma and crashing bullets.

“The starboard hatch is blocked by the rings!” Neil shouted as though reading her mind. The configuration of that anti-grav rings had given them no choice but to block the starboard side cargo hatch, fortunately it was slightly forward of the port one in order to allow for proper compartmentalization of the ship in case of a hull breach.

“Umm…” Sayeeda temporized, but before she could think of anything a reptilian roar echoed from inside the ship. Saxon crashed down the ramp, still completely naked and sex organ displayed prominently. In his hand he held a six foot length of metal tubing. It was an off cut from where they had been forced to reroute some of the internal ductwork and it was sliced to a wicked mitred point. His other hand held the short stubby tube of a concussion grenade. Leaning forward the Hex roared a battle cry, his jaw all but unhinging to display several rows of razor sharp teeth, then he hurled the tubing like a javelin at the nearest opponent, a heavy set man with a squad automatic weapon. The pipe wobbled slightly before punching into the man's chest, hurling him six feet before pinning him to the side of a wooden stall like an insect in an entomology display. The Hex almost negligently tossed the stun grenade at the surviving gunman and Junebug only had enough time to open her mouth to diffuse the blast before it went off with a shattering crash and a vast donough to dust and sand.

“Well, you don’t see that everyday,” she remarked her voice tinny and attenuated in her own ears as she and Neil scrambled to their feet.

“Yeah thankfully,” the pilot responded as they darted up the ramp followed by the naked Saxon. Junebug took a moment to slap the hatch closure switch and the hydraulics whined to life, pulling the hatch closed with the slow majesty demanded by its half ton mass. Gunfire began to snap and crack against the hull, though it wasn’t of my threat to the ships armored plating.

“Go! Go! Go!” she yelled at Neil but he was already scrambling up the ladder to the cockpit. Saxon was making an odd sound that might have been a laugh, and his neck was pouchy and red in what Sayeeda remembered was a mating display among his people. Whether it was directed at her or he was merely excited to kill something she wasn’t sure but she gave him a measuring glance before racing up the ladder after Neil.

To her credit Taya was already most of the way through the power up sequence when they arrived, though she looked shaken and unsteady.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she repeated over and over has her hands flew over the controls.

“I got it!” Neil yelled as he took the controls, fingers hammering at switches and controls.

“What happened, what did I do wrong?” Taya wailed.

“You bought food for four humans,” Junebug responded, the answer appearing in her head as though summoned by the question.

“There are only three of us and Sven noticed,” she explained.

“How is that…” but her remaining words were bloated out as the Highlander’s powerful engines roared to life.

“Hold on to your ass,” she advised clinically.

[POOHEAD189]

Neil placed in a Y-Sec algorithm, the Highlander roaring as if it had a life of its own. Lonney popped up on the speaker, indicating wind speed and the daily temperature, something Neil needed to put into consideration when they had very little power to spare. The display monitor popped up a forward screen that showed the surrounding area. Various men continued to spray fire from different small arms. Neil noticed there was a mutant among them, big enough to be nearly Saxon's size with a shotgun that could like blow a hole in nearly anything except a space ship hull.

Indra, being completely ignorant as to what was happening, scrambled into the cockpit for reassurance. "What is going on?" She asked, clinging to the backseat chair. "Are we going? Can we make it!?"

The pilot didn't need an extra distraction, but he had always been good under pressure. He pulled the lever that began the lift off modem. "You know normally we would have no problems, but after seeing that three pronged alien sex organ, I am not certain what I'm capable of at the moment." He quipped, and with the bullets and las fire rattling against the hull, they lifted off and shot off toward orbit.

A huge crash was heard and an uncomfortable roar echoed. Neil grinned, knowing that was likely Saxon hitting a wall. Indra screamed and clung to the chair, and Neil could hear Taya's cry in the other chamber. He didn't hear Junebug, but he didn't need to. He had expected her to be too cool headed to scream. For his part, Neil laughed triumphantly. He'd not had a chance to fly in what seemed like ages, and the clear blue sky grew darker as they approached.

Soon, the gravity stabilized and then disappeared. Neil couldn't risk turning on the ship's normal gravity generator in fear of messing up the anti-grav machine they had created. Neil got the Captain on the comm. "Junebug, are you at the machine?" He asked, and he received confirmation. "Good. On my mark!" he called. He glanced backwards and saw Indra floating upside down, looking positively uncomfortable as she hung on to the seatbelt.

They were 43 kilometers away and closing in fast. Neil reoriented the radar to pick up any large bodies of material and energy to bring a hone on its position, and as they approached Neil counted down. "Ten...nine...eight..." Neil spun the Highlander, maneuvering it until it clamped onto the hull of the larger ship, bringing out the electromagnetic charge that would keep it stuck even through a R.I.P.jump.

They needed to move quickly so they weren't detected. "Three...two...now!" A large crack was heard, and suddenly the world shifted not unlike a R.I.P. jump, and the gravity stabilized once more. Neil had unbuckled as soon as it happened, and he caught Indra before she could hit the floor hard.

"Thank you," she breathed, shaking and getting in the chair.

"We didn't save you to have your head crack on the floor. Don't worry, babe." He told her casually, waiting for a moment to hear if something went wrong or out of the realm of their original plan. Nothing occurred, and it was sweet euphoria.

Neil breathed easier, grabbing his hair and sighing. "Gideon, I cannot believe that worked..." he said.

Indra's next words were incredulous. "What!?"
@Penny

[Penny]

The Highlander settled against the hull of the mega freighter with a soft clang. Powerful electromagnets, intended to tether the smaller vessel to docking platforms in low G or otherwise unstable situations, powered on and locked the ships together. Indra looked around incredulously.

“You mean you didn’t know it would work?!” she demanded. Junebug shrugged her shoulders.

“The scientific method in action,” she responded as diplomatically as she could, wondering if the woman would have preferred to stay on the ground while Sven and his men stormed the ship. Indra was her employer however so she maintained her professional demeanour.

“We could have all been killed,” the beautiful woman hissed.

“But we weren’t,” Junebug replied. It was also true that the most dangerous part of this experiment was still ahead of them, though there seemed little point in advertising that to the already skittish Indra. Sayeeda glanced at her console, the holographic read out showed a pair of schematics in wireframe. One was the Karma Hazu as read by the Highlanders gravimetric sensors before they attached, the second was the post attachment read. The gravity rings rendered the Highlander essentially massless and the readouts confirmed that there was no significant difference in the Karma Hazu’s mass to four significant figures. That in theory meant that the bigger ships RIP drive should carry them safely, but there was a world of difference between theory and practice.

“How long till they jump?” she asked Taya, correctly assuming that the girl had already penetrated the aged mega freighters onboard computer. Taya touched a button and a countdown clock, three hours and twenty five minutes flashed up on her screen.

“We left a little earlier than we planned,” Taya reminded her.

“You don’t think Sven will send ships to stop us do you?” she asked, glancing at the sensor board nervously. That was a reasonable enough concern. Under ordinary circumstances she would have said there was no chance that they could be traced to the Karma Hazu. Hahn had no orbital satellite network or sensor array but Junebug wasn’t willing to bet that the crafty cyborg wouldn’t be able to piece together what they were doing, his superhuman ability to synthesize trivial facts had just been demonstrated afterall.

“Taya can you make the Karma Hazu think its getting a broadband transmission from the planet?” she asked, turning her chair to face the blonde woman. Taya nodded and touched several keys.

“Its done,” she replied. Sayeeda smiled, previously Taya might have asked questions before taking action. She was learning that in a tense situation there wasn’t always time for a debate. An icon to engage a transmission appeared on Sayeeda’s console and she touched it.

“All ships currently in orbit of Hahn, you are hereby the property of Sven Khan, planetary overlord of the Hahn system, heave to and prepare to be boarded!”

Junebug cut the comms with satisfaction. Indra stared at her with shock, her face suggesting that Sayeeda might have lost her mind.

“Taya cut, their receiving gear so they get no response to any hails.”

Even as she spoke the big ships drives kicked to life and its bow began to swing ponderously. The countdown timer dropped to fifteen minutes as the freighter prepared for an emergency jump away from the perceived danger.

“Always bet on people running away if they have a chance,” she explained with a satisfied smile.

[POOHEAD189]

Neil pointed at the Captain. "Exactly," he said, and hopped off the crate he had taken to sitting on, making his way over to the anti-grav machine. He knelt down and made sure everything was self contained and fully functioning. He tapped the four number code into the base module he'd placed on it. The power couplings seemed stable. Good.

Taya knelt beside him as Neil worked, looking over his shoulder. "Neil, are you sure this is going to work?" she asked, watching like a prey animal. Neil nodded. "Of course I'm sure. I wouldn't endanger all of our lives if I wasn't sure this was going to work. I'm just checking the power."

She looked wholly unconvinced, and he noticed it. He placed his wrench down and held his hands up. "Look, I realize I am an idiot." He said. "But I'm also a smart guy." Neil did his best not to listen to how ludicrously stupid his own words were, and he let Taya figure out how to take that as he picked the wrench up and continued working. Everything looked perfect. It was the sixth time he had checked so he didn't doubt it, but they were in the belly of the beast.

Taya walked up and hugged Indra, the stunning woman nervous but attempting to console the younger girl. Taya looked at Junebug. "You were always the best Captain."

Neil dropped his wrench again. "Look, there's always going to be risks but- y- OK fine! Let's go back to Hahn! That sounds like a good idea right!?" Neil stood up, his hand in the air dramatically. "There's only the planet-wide search of Indra and likely ourselves now, with rampant slavery and dervishes who we've fucked over. Let's just stay there! Sure I'll just detatch the ship and fly on back in. It's not like we'll be completely out of fuel by then. No biggie!"

Taya grumbled, realizing she was being a bit presumptuous on this being a hair-brained Neil scheme. Briefly, she wondered if she was simply taking after Indra's worry. She felt somewhat attached to the woman, her being the link to a life she had left behind. The girl took a breath, and realized that her team had made it through everything before. She had never heard of a R.I.P. jump being performed this way, but it was apart of their job, right?

Even Indra seemed less enthused about going back to Hahn than taking the deep dive into the void of hyperspace. She cringed at the very notion they go back to the planet. "We're with you. I'm just not used to...all of this."

Saxon entered the room, now fully encased in his armor. His massive three toed feet stamped into the Xarconian ground, and he looked around at each of them. His eyes fell on Indra. "Who is this one?" he growled. The woman blanched. Neil just shot back with "She's our next payoff, so try not to eat her." He turned away from Saxon and made a cutting motion with his hand, shaking his head and mouthing reassurances to Indra.

"Very well..." the Xenos said, cleary not understanding it was a joke. Which was more worrying, likely. "How long was I in hibernation?" Saxon rumbled.

"Five days," Junebug said. "But you woke up at the right time."

It was difficult to tell, but it looked as if Saxon was grinning. Neil didn't know if it was from Junebug's approval or him thinking of the violence he had inflicted once he had awoken. The pilot still had a hint of jealousy over the proclamation he might be attracted to her, but he knew it was just his head messing with him. At least in this instance. Saxon would choose the 'joys' of bloodshed over a mate any day of the week.

Something shifted in the air. The crew felt it, and despite their being reassured, Taya and Indra looked nervous. Junebug glanced up, calling the AI. "Lonney, are we about to enter the R.I.P?" she asked.

"No Captain." Lonney said, which prompted her to ask why there was that strange shift. Neil blinked, realizing what it was. "Lonney, are we in the R.I.P.?"

"Yes."

"Fuck yes!" Neil said, pumping his arm. "We didn't even feel it!" The sensation of being hurled through the alternate dimension only gave them a slight shutter. They were smoothly going on their destination.
@Penny

[Penny]

Sayeeda slept uneasily. After the success of their hijacked RIP jump the exhaustion of days of constant work and stress had kicked in. She had barely made it to her bunk before sleep had claimed her. Curious nightmares plagued her. Taya balancing her fathers sever head in a scale. A vision of herself with her arm on fire, flicking it irritably in an attempt to put it out. Saxon making love to her as Terran science officer critiqued her body's performance and Prince Aiden watched with disapproval . Her old troopers lounging among plasma burned corpses while they smoked cigarettes. Briefly she was back in her light attack vehicle as the surf surged over the sides, dragging at the safety release of her harness, only this time it refused to come free even as the water closed over her head.

She awoke with a start, shaking and sweating despite the relative cool of the climate control system. Irritably, she tossed aside her sheet and sat up grabbing for the bottle of brandy she kept on her bedside table. Finding it empty she hurled it across the room in disgust where it clattered off a bulkhead and landed in one of her boots.

“For fucks sake,” she muttered to herself and climbed out of bed. Pulling on a pair of exercise shorts and a tan tank top she slipped out of her room and made her way down to the corner of the hold they had designated as the gym. Even with the guns they had stolen from Canek and his mean the space was cavernously empty. Fortunately no one seemed to be around. She wrapped her hands and began to work on the punching bag, circling constantly and delivering powerful jabs and one two combinations in quick succession. The sharp rhythmic slaps of her hands against the bag made a counterpoint to her grunts of effort. As the sweat began to flow she began adding kicks and knee jabs to the routine, pounding the battered old bag hard enough that puffs of dust emerged from the seam at the top. She didn’t seem to tire. Though she hadn’t had much time to think about it, since her encounter with the Terrans it seemed that she was capable of greater and greater feats of endurance. The medical computer didn’t detect any measurable differences in her blood work or in her body scans but she could see and feel the difference. It didn’t seem to be a bad thing, but she couldn’t help but feel violated by the Terrans and she couldn’t help but wonder what it might cost her in the future.

“What did the poor bag ever do to you? Stars don’t you ever give it a rest?” A sleepy Taya asked her, emerging from the crew section wearing a robe and with a towel around her hair and a cup of coffee in her hand. Coffee had been one of the few things they had bought on board on Hahn, other than Indra and the guns of course.

“Never,” she replied, blowing a wisp of hair from infront of her eyes before delivering a lightning fast series of blows that culminated in a spinning kick that shook the mounting bracket.

“You should consider a hobby or something,” Taya observed, taking a seat on a convenient crate. Junebug returned to a balanced fighting stance for a moment before letting her arms fall to her sides.

“There is always some younger out there, someone faster, someone with more talent… and they are probably training,” Junebug told her repeating the aphorisim her instructors had drilled into her.

“I suppose I should take it up then,” Taya said with a grin.

“Only if you want to live,” Junebug replied, the nonchalance in her voice making the younger woman flinch.

“Stars, that's a little bleak” Taya mumbled. Feeling embarrassed Junebug held up her hands and crossed to take a seat on a crate beside Taya.

“Sorry, I get a little dramatic I guess,” she apologised. That didn’t change her opinion, but neither did she want to fight with or scare Taya.

“You want some coffee?” the aristocrat asked, “I made a pot.”

Junebug shook her head, pulled a bottle of water from a crate and tore the seal from it with her teeth before guzzling half of it to quench the thirst her exercise and days of Hahns dry dusty atmosphere had raised. Taya watched her for a moment before continuing.

“Junebug… do you remember your first… you know?” Taya mumbled.

“My first…” Junebug asked in confusion, thinking for a moment that they were straying into areas of sexual remincants that she wasn’t sure she wanted to enter. Then she understood, Taya had just been in her first major gun battle afterall.

“My first kill you mean?” she asked, resisting the urge to scowl. It wasn’t good manners to ask a veteran such questions, but Taya wasn’t a mercenary, at least not by training, and she probably didn’t know that.

“Probably not,” she admitted, “my first couple of actions I was so scared everything is kind of grey. I remember shooting but I’m cursed if I could tell you at what. The first one I remember though…”

She paused to take another drink of water, swished it around her mouth and spat it back out onto the deck. Taya frowned at the unladylike behavior but made no further comment.

“We launched a surprise attack and overan an indig fire base,” she explained, mind far away in the purplish green forests of a distant world.

“Our Tankers torched their bunkers and we rushed them, came over the berm at full power and landed on the other side fishtailing all to hell. A guy ran out of one of the barracks, no pants on, just a jacket and an assault rifle, silhouetted perfectly by the door frame…”

She raised her hands and squeezed her fingers together in a pantomime of firing a heavy stabilized plasma weapon, though Taya probably didn’t recognize it as such.

“First round blew off his knee cap and he fell into the second, right in the chest, pop pop pop,” she explained, lowering her hands.

“Did it bother you?” Taya asked.

“At the time, I was too scared to think about anything other than staying alive,” she explained.

“Afterwards? I don’t know, I guess I’ve done alot worse shit than killing a half naked conscript in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She fell silent and then shook her self alert.

“I keep seeing the man I shot the other day, one second he was alive, the next second blood everywhere,” the girl confided. Junebug lay a hand awkwardly on her knee.

“Hey no sweat,” she told her, “Besides no one is in this line of work that isn’t half a bastard anyway, no doubt he deserved it.” Taya smiled wanly at that.

“Your in this line of work, do you deserve it?” she asked with a slight smile. Junebug grinned wolfishly.

“And how little girl, and how.”

Taya nodded solemly and looked up at her captain.

"Will I be able to stop seeing his face?" Taya asked somewhat timidly. Junebug's face sobered. You didn't lie to your troops, there was no point.

"Only if you want to live."

[POOHEAD189]

Now that he had some downtime, Neil decided to work on the hauler he had neglected for the past few weeks. He knew he had responsibilities to the Highlander and its crew, being first mate and the pilot and all. But mechs had always been a large part of his life and previous career. Something about him still called back to when he was a soldier and mech fighter, for the relatively brief amount of time it was.

He turned some music on with the room stereo. He'd rigged up a music system in the Highlander, personalized to play different songs in different rooms so as not annoy Sayeeda and Taya when Neil wanted to rock on. He was still a bit bemused that this music was archaic to them, as they had just arrived on Fotus in recent years. But that was how the universe worked, he guessed.

You weren't supposed to drink copious amounts of alcohol in the R.I.P., but he still had a frosty drink out as he worked. Shirtless, he worked on the left arm rig, making sure the steel was welded correctly. Sparks bounced across his arms as he tightened the coils by melting a bit of the steel. He still had to add the main power core, and he could definitely equip some more accesories. The jump stabilizers needed some heavy work too, but otherwise it was a workable machine. Honestly he could move and fight with it now, as it had its own power core. But the engine wasn't enough for what Neil had planned.

Turning, he dropped the welder to pick up a wire realignment tool before he noticed Indra was in the room with him. He was glad he was slightly buzzed, or he might have tripped over something in surprise. "Code 001" he said, and the music shut off immediately. Indra held her dainty hands up apologetically.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to stop you." She said, sitting on one of the barrels. It was annoying how beautiful she was. She somehow became even more attractive when she smiled.

"I don't mind an audience, but do you need something?" Neil wondered, wiping the oil off his hands with a cloth. "Most people don't like my music." he grinned.

"It's...not bad, honestly. There's a certain melancholy to it. I've never heard of it before." She confessed as he put his shirt on. He might be a helpless scoundrel, but she was royalty. "What do you call it?"

"It's grunge," he told her. "And did you need something?"

"No," she said, though she seemed to be holding something in. The woman stood up. "It was either here or in the cargo area where the...alien lurks. He looks at me as if he wants to eat me, and I think he does. Plus I like watching people work. Particularly on specialized things like...whatever this is."

"Well, I am happy to know I'm only the second worst thing on the ship," He said, clearly joking. She laughed. Neil had worked on the hauler enough for now. He reached into his bag and pulled out a deck he hadn't used in awhile, holding it up to Indra.

"Wanna play cards?" he asked.

"Cards? I've never-..."

"I figured, but it's easy. I promise." He said.
@Penny