[indent][indent]Tes strode into the cabin, her IMP still slowly and elegantly orbiting her head. She could tell that Ruce had been looking at something on the monitors before she walked in, he never could lie very well…at least not to her. She knew what he was hiding and toyed with the idea of letting him think he had kept it from her successfully. She discarded that idea very quickly. 

[color=6ecff6]“They brought the Zephyr, didn’t they?”[/color] She asked, knowing the answer to the question. When the Grannok had approached her in the cargo bay the irregularity of the entire situation began to dawn on her. [i][color=6ecff6]Why were there armed Urin accompanying the Grannoks? Why the cloak and dagger meeting in the middle of pissing nowheresville?[/color][/i] Whatever it was they were actually transporting for the Expanse, it was something more valuable than solar farming equipment. It makes sense they’d bring the Zephyr. She didn’t wait for a lie or protest from her Captain. [color=6ecff6]“What I don’t understand about it all is why the secrecy? If they’d brought the Zephyr, we didn’t we just dock there and offload? Why drag us planet-side for a pointlessly inconvenient meeting when it could have been a lot simpler?”[/color]

She seemed to look past him and up into the sky, knowing full well she wouldn’t see the ship itself. Without looking, she took the credit chit from his hand and sat down in the left hand chair of the two set out behind the pilot’s seat. She tucked it into the pocket of her cargo trousers with one hand and plucked her IMP from the air with the other, stuffing it into another pocket. As the ship took of, she relaxed a little. There was nothing quite like being in the air.

As the city hove into view, she glanced around the cockpit and found the coolant pipe the captain had broken. To his credit, he was a dab hand with the adhesive tape but no amount of bodging was going to hold it. She sighed to herself. It was part of the pipe nest for the Inertial Dampening Mesh. It certainly needed replacing before they even thought about breaking atmo unless they wanted the last thing they experienced as solid beings the feeling of their lungs being forced between the spaces of the back of their ribcages.

Ruce was a hell of a pilot, that’s one of the reasons she stuck around as part of this dysfunctional, two-man operation. The flight was smooth and, despite Valkyrie’s mechanical idiosyncrasies, the landing was too. She felt the landing gear touch down and the shock absorbers lower the ship carefully to rest. 

She stood from her seat, turning to face Ruce as he spoke.

[color=6ecff6]“I can get the fuse cluster for the Collider-Brake Coolant Relay and the pipe to repair the nest for the Dampening Mesh.”[/color] She began, as he walked past her, towards the bridge bulkhead. [color=6ecff6]“The railgun has never worked, part of the reason we were able to pick the old girl up so cheap, but I’ve told you before ‘it’s on my to-do list’. When I get back, I’ll reroute the hydraulics from the landing gear shock absorbers a little and re-pressurise the cargo bay, door. Twenty minute job, max. As for the hull…you got all precious about it and blew the fuse cluster on the Brake Servo in the first place, the hull is your problem.”[/color] Following him out, she passed through the bulkhead and down the corridor into the cargo bay. As before, she flipped over the railings and slid down one of the ladders on the other side. [color=6ecff6]“How much D.T we got, Chief?”[/color] She added, looking back up at him.[/indent][/indent]