Junebug decided that bludgeoning her pilot into unconsciousness would be even less feasible now they were airborne she promised herself the day was coming however.

“Booster,” she said, using the military commo term for an AI, “highlight the gunnery console.” For a moment she thought that the AI wouldn’t answer the unfamiliar term but a moment later the mechanical voice responded.

“There are no designated consoles on civilian vessels Captain,” the computer replied. Rather than waste any more time she slid into the padded seat of the most elevated of the for consoles and pulled the security straps down over her armor, securing herself in place.  The console provided an adequate view of the cockpit window over Neil’s or Firestorm’s or whatever other bloody thing he choose to call himself, shoulder.

The console came up with a thrum when she pressed the activation stud, a holographic screen flickering to life. She took her ceramic helmet from her belt and plugged it into the console, hitting a series of keystrokes to download her internal software into the console. Immediate the streams of meaningless guages and data resolved themselves into the familiar read outs of the station she had trained with. The communications light was blinking an angry red ‘priority one’ alert. The ship did not report that it was being painted with radar, lidar or any other weapons targeting system so Junebug relegated the message to ‘priority when I get to it’.

Remarkably the ship remained more or less in the green as it ascended through the atmosphere. Despite the artificial gravity it bumped and shook as it shoulders its way through the thinning tropical air. In theory there was a chance of collision with other ships, but in practice all of Hodierna’s shipping came in predictable channels, either down to the manufacturing cities or to private estates like the one they had just yet. Men like Golran were more than happy to shoot down a rival's ship that strayed into their turf and claim a ‘unexpected technical failure’ bought the ship down. Seeing they would have physical custody of the wreck there wouldn’t be anyone to gainsay them.

With the slow majesty of a sunrise the buffeting began to fade and the air peeled back away from the ship to reveal the inky blackness of space. Sayeeda hit a few keys and bought up a panorama of Hodierna as seen from the rear sensors. Later, she was going to have a long talk with Neil about trusting AI assessments of equipment. She wasn’t particularly irritated with the surprise ascent, seeing she had managed to survive learning about it.

The redlight continued to pulse angrily and Junebug reluctantly thumbed the switch.

“Highlander Six, go ahead,” she said, instinctively falling back into communications discipline.

“Captain Cyckali, we had not finished discussing matters, return to the ground at once,” Gorlan’s irritation was unmistakable even over the static broadband radio transmission.

“Negative ground,” Sayeeda said, her mouth twitching into a grin, “Highlander is outbound, we will be shaking down for three zero minutes before we clear the gravity well transmit any further instructions. Highlander out.” She broke the connection. A moment later it began to pulse again but she ignored. Gorlan might be a partner but he was going to learn that a ship had owners and then it had a captain and she was the captain of this ship by the Goddess’ Blood. She thought of the small bindle she had left in the rented truck that had bought her to Gorlan’s compound. Truthfully there wasn’t much there and she had sold nearly everything she owned in order to meet Gorlan’s minimum fee for the Highlander. Screw itlet whatever scavenger or street rat take it. For a moment she enjoyed the silence and then she spoke.

“Neil, get us in a stable orbit free of the gravity well and tie us into the nav beacons so we can start computing the rip for the trip out.” She unbuckled her safety straps with the slap of a hand.

“I’m going to check out the rest of the ship.”

[@POOHEAD189]