Junebug would not have described herself a cautious. No one who took up soldiering for a living put a huge premium on playing it safe, but equally, no one who didn't take some precautions survived for very long. Her body slammed into her restraints as the gravity compensators overloaded, pressed as they were by the additional strain of the planets own modest gravity. In a vehicle when you went suddenly airborne, it was usually because you were moving too fast for the terrain and the correct response was to grip your gun, bend your knees and brace for impact. That was exactly the wrong impulse here and after a moment Sayeeda managed to overcome her instinct.

Instead of firing she slapped her hand down on the weapons lockout she had built into her terminal in the proceeding two days, locking all the Highlanders offensive weaponry out so that it could not be fired by the pilot. He was young and impulsive and as much as it was viscerally satisfying to shoot back, slagging a bunch of missile battery crewman was a bad idea for a number of reasons. Morally Sayeeda had no problem slagging a bunch of half drunken idiots crewing a missile station on a backwater world, and the drunkeness and the idiocy were pretty general for the kinds of troops they were talking about, but it wasn't morality that stayed her hand. Nor was it mercy, mercy being as alien to a mercenary as morality was. The trouble with slagging the missle pit was that they had no idea who it belonged to. If it was a government installation, and she used the term government loosely, then it would cause the problems in the capital when they landed. If it were a rebel installation then it would engender justifiable ill feeling amongst that group should their paths cross. Finally if she oblitereated an orbital defence site it would tell everyone, government, rebel and, for they were surely watching with their excellent sensors, the orbiting Terran's, that the Highlander was extraordinarily well armed. 

They plumeted into the canyon juking left and right through vast trees which towered above the lesser jungle canopy. Twice she felt the slap of branches against the freighters hull, but Niel didn't seem concerned, a little crazy perhaps, but not concerned. She was forced to defer to his superior expertise in the area. A moment later a massive concussion rocked the ship. For a moment Junebug thought they were hit but the view from the rear sensors showed ther the trooth of it. The missle had struck one of the giant trees and detonated with a dirty red flash, spraying pices of burning wood over several acres of tropical forest. She hoped the loam was damp enough that it didn't start forest fires.

"Stay low," she directed unnecessarily. The lip of the shallow valley would provide cover from any follow up missiles in the unlikely event they were still in range.

"We ought to be out of any immediate danger."

[@POOHEAD189]