The Highlander spiralled skyward in a long lazy corkscrew, beneath them Saravan’s polar wastes twisted like a monochromatic kaleidoscope. Junebug’s console was split into three sections, showing the attack board, the plot position indicator and a live video feed. The feed was being remoted from the sensors on one of the planetary missile batteries. The unit was a front line military model and had the crew known its business Sayeeda could never have entered its sensor feed, but without professional crew managing the software, it was simple enough to pirate the visuals. The feed itself showed a glowing lance of plasma lifting the second Terran destroyer, Windhoven, up to orbit. The destroyer’s crew did know there business and there was no way for Sayeeda to enter its systems. It didn’t take a genius to deduce that the Windhoven was executing an emergency lift, doubtless with half its crew left in whatever bars and brothels they had been carousing in when the emergency recall was issued.

“Told you it would work,” Neil said with a smirk in his voice. Sayeeda nodded in an acknowledgement that the pilot, seated forward, couldn't see. If the Terrans had noticed them, breaking orbit in the polar magnetic flux, they were too focused on the new metallic mountain range closer to the equator. 

“So you did,” Sayeeda conceded as she imported the latest RIP data from the navigational satellites. It seemed like there had been little change in the RIP in the last 24 hours and they had their own reciprocal course to Hodinera to work from. That would simplify the return voyage. They had returned to the city on their stolen dropship without incident. Junebug had initially been concerned their might be trouble with the locals, but the seismic disturbances they had unleashed had what passed for authorities in the city swamped. It had been to her considerable relief that the Highlander hadn’t been shaken off the landing pad and into the ravine. Sayeeda had clouted the Terran pilot unconscious and scrambled his access controls. It probably wouldn’t make her any friends with the Terrans but it was preferable to shooting the man outright. Besides it was fair to say that the popularity contest had already been lost. From there they had flown low across the planet to the southern pole before punching for orbit. Neil claimed that the magnetics would make them difficult to see.

Drake moaned from one of the passenger seats, his hands and arms secured with cago tape to the arm and foot rest. A piece of the silvery adhesive tape was stretched across his mouth also. The scientist pulled at the tape in frustration, but the boron monocrystal woven through the fabric, and the industrial adhesive that secured it, could have have held a small vehicle. His left leg was stained with dark blood and his face was bruised from Neil’s kick. She supposed that once they were in the RIP she would get him into the ships medi-comp and have some of the damage taken care off. It was unlikely her father cared but proper treatment of prisoners was an axiom of mercenary service.

“Fifteen minutes to insertion Cap’n,” the ship's AI chimed. The PPI blinked green, even at full burn the Z-49 wouldn’t be able to reach them in timer and the Windhoven wouldn’t be fully clear of the atmosphere for at least five more minutes, by the time it was underway they would be long gone. Sayeeda unsnapped her restraints.

“Well Neil, it was a hell of a first day.”

[@POOHEAD189]