[hider=Title of the Recording: Gone]

What do I run from?
Where am I going?
There’s no point in guessing and no way of knowing.

There goes my life,
There goes my home,
And everything thing I thought I owned.

The city slithers through my grip,
No bigger than a fingertip…

And then it’s gone.[/hider]

Ryen was practically on Lazlo’s heals as he headed out of the mess hall after the captain had announced his intentions to lift off. She hadn’t been the only one who seemed to be interested in their next destination, but much like before everyone took the news different. For herself, Ryen was happy that their first stop would be a Federation Stronghold. Even though Syrae was outside the Federation’s sphere of control, they had civil relationships and seeing Federation soldiers in the planet’s markets was common place. Perhaps if the people who were chasing her happened to catch up, the Federation would step in and grant her an asylum. There was another reason Ryen was happy that would be FS 700 would be their first stop. If Lazlo was willing to enter the operations base, then he had to be a least some-what legitimate. Any common thief or wanted criminal would know to stay well away.

[i]”He can’t be that bad,”[/i] Ryen thought to herself as she slipped into her quarters, [i]”Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Maybe he was just as desperate to leave the planet as I was.”[/i] A picture of Lazlo firing into the crowd popped into her head again. Could she have done that if there was no other way to escape? She didn’t know and she was glad she didn’t have to. [i]”I guess in the end he really didn’t have to drag me along. He could have left me. The ship’s new enough that it really shouldn’t need a mechanic for a while.”[/i] Her thoughts echoed Quincy’s words earlier. [i]” Maybe I should thank him…”[/i]

[b]”Launching in 5…”[/b]

Ryen reached out and grabbed her bed straps, quickly clicking them into place. They were designed to help protect the occupant in an event of a crash landing (assuming the landing wasn’t so intense it destroyed the entire ship, sleeping compartments and all). There were most likely a few places around the ship that had similar restraints, the cockpit being one of them, but Ryen wasn’t sure where else and their mini lift-off earlier out of the shipyard had taught her better than to stand around when their captain told them otherwise.

Less than a second after Lazlo’s voice stated “1”, Ryen’s body was being pressed firmly into her bed’s ergonomic padding. Her chest hurt as her lungs struggled against the G force the rapid lift off had created. Her stomach meanwhile did flip flops as her body’s equilibrium struggled to adjust itself. 

Outside the ship the bubble shell of her city shimmered under the late afternoon light, a crystalline bubble in a merciless snow globe. Soon enough the view revealed that the ship had just breached the planet’s stratosphere. Nimbus clouds, heavy with snow that fell almost perpetually to the planet’s surface, spread out below like bunches of cotton down below. In almost no time their distinct shapes blended together forming a white blanket. The sky in the distance was still blue, but soon enough it would darken and take on the empty blackness of space.

Almost as quickly as it started, the intense force on her body ebbed and then disappeared entirely as the ship’s artificial gravity fully adjusted. Unstrapping herself, Ryen rolled over and dry heaved at the metallic floor thankful that she’d only had cracker and lox. Anything heavier might just have resurfaced.

Part of her wanted to hide away in her room and pour over her father’s notebook but she decided against it. She’d have time enough later in the evening and she desperately wanted to wash the out the taste that had manifested itself in the back of her throat.

Unsurprisingly, almost everyone else had made it back to the mess hall before her. Cracker pieces littered the floor here and there and the near empty container of lox was upside down in the corner but other than that the room was no worse for wear. Like most objects on the ship, the table and chairs were firmly bolted down to the floor.

Lazlo and Gunther were sitting back at the table, asking Eleanor a series of questions causing the woman to grow redder and redder. Almost automatically Ryen entered the code for water into the replicator. [b]”What’s going on?”[/b] she said, accusation dripping from her words, all thoughts of thanking Lazlo for dragging her onto the ship instantly gone.

[b]”It’s not a big thing.”[/b] Ellie tittered, her face and body language clearly illustrated that it wasn’t. 

[b]”Did they do something to you?”[/b] Ryen snapped her fist uncontrollably balling into a fist. The lift off couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes. What could these two men have done to the poor technician in that short amount of time?

[b]”Hey now,”[/b] Gunther said, his hands going up in the air, [b]”Don’t look at me like that. She was like this when I came in here.”[/b] Just as before, Eleanor insisted on waiting for the doctor to arrive. After retrieving the drink from the replicator, Ryen offered it to the technician but the other woman turned it down.

[b]”The lift-off was a bit intense.”[/b] Ryen said, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence and the group waited for the doctor to arrive. [i]”Good one, Ryen,”[/i] she chided herself, [i]”And here I thought we decided to try to be nicer to the captain.”[/i] [b]”I mean I’m sure it would have been normal if the ship’s gravity was up and running to its full capacity.”[/b]