Sayeeda tentatively inserted her hand into the glove rig and closed her hand. With a whiring of servos, little louder than the background hum of a datapad the mechanical hand closed in syconrony with her fist. Slowly she spread her fingers and then closed them one by one. The machine moved fluidly with her without any hinderance to her movement. She wondered how quicly she could jetision it in face of an emp, but such weaponry wasn't likely on most worlds they were likely to venture to.

"It is sort of sexy," she admitted, "Thank you Neil."

"I wonder if I could get it on over my..."

"90 minutes to the mysterious meetn-greet cap'n!" Lonney chirruped in his irritating accent. Sayeeda withdrew her hand from the half finished rig with a sigh.

"I swear to the Goddess if this is some prank they will never find the body."



Sayeeda and Neil moved rapidly through the streets. The hab was unusually quiet even though the streets were packed. MOst people had downed tools in face of the alien invasion and with every armed man preparing to defend the hab there was no one to force the laborers back to work. Instead they congregated in bars and on street corners, watching vids and buying food where there could. It wasn't quite hoarding yet but people were definitely getting the notion that things were more serious than the authorities were letting on. Pretty soon someone would have the bright idea to start looting and then the city would become real interesting.

Although she had agonized over the choice Junebug had lost the inner argument about wearing her armor. Beat up as she was the idea of strapping twenty pounds of ceramic plate over her torso had not appealed. Instead she had dressed in what she had explained to Neil as business causal. As usual she wore fatigue pants of mottled green fabric with many convenient pockets and her heavy back combat boots. Somewhat more uncharacteristic was a dark blue tank top with the word Timebomb written across it at a jaunty descending angle in white exaggerated font. Junebug dimly remembered it as a band from one of they worlds she had served on towards the end of her tour although she couldn't have said anything else about it. The garment was light and airy and exposed the owl tattoo snaking down over her shoulder. In a shocking departure from protocol she had even left her como helmet behind, opting for a pistol belt and a bandoleer of reloads that she carried slung over her shoulder.

"Might have been a mistake to roll so light," she commented as they headed deeper into the more deserted manufacturing sections. Neil snorted.

"Would have attracted attention if we had come armed for an assault drop," he pointed out, reaching forth to brush back some dangling cables so she could step clear unobstructed.

"I've always found that a 20mm plasma gun makes people fairly uncurious after they get a look at it," she countered, earning another snort of amusement from her companion.

The walked for about half an hour, doubling back and taking rapid blind corners to throw off any pursuit. It would be difficult with things so quiet although Junebug had known intel ops who could have managed the trick well enough. Well if there were people of that calibre following them their mysterious petitioner was going to be in for a shock. Eventually they entered the AB13 manu, designated by the stenciled characters above a large starship style hatch. They had passed dozens of other similar signs. The interior was a large open warehouse perhaps a hundred feet long by half that wide. Large mechanical components, engines of some sort sat on large roller ways, not unlike old fashioned rail lines. Cranes and lifting apparatus hung from the ceiling like skeletal arms. The whole place smelled of metal and old lubricant as well as the ozone residues of arc welders.

There was a momentary static pop as the overhead speakers crackled to life.

"Thank you for coming," a deliberately distorted voice said from the speakers, as sexless and lacking in distinction as an AI. An unmodified AI anyway Sayeeda thought sourly.

"Your welcome," Sayeeda replied in a deceptively mild tone her eyes scanning the shadowed receses of the warehouse. Always a mistake not to bring the helmet, she could have used IR.

"Who I am is not important..." Sayeeda broke in without waiting, her clear voice, used to calling orders across a battlefield filling the inside of the warehouse more efficiently than the cheaply installed speaker system.

"Listen, whoever the fuck you are, you have about 3 seconds to cut the shit and come out or my friend and I are walking." The speakers cut of suddenly as though the operator was shocked. Sayeeda waited a few moments eyebrows raised and then turned as if to leave. There was a sudden comotion from an upper level gangway an a young woman, dressed in conservative black street clothes and holding an expensive datapad scrambled out of a concealed position.

"Wait wait!" she called, her voice useful and a stark contrast to the modulated filter she had been using.

"I'm coming down." As the girl came down the metal stairs in a series of clanks Sayeeda measured her with her eyes. Early twenties, asiatic features with hear a shockingly vibrant blue that could only be a synthetic implant job. It looked as though she had made some attempt to conceal it with a hood while she had been playing incognito. The girl had an attractive open face although she was clearly flustered at having things depart so radically from her prepared script.

"I'm Taya Cho-Lan," the girl said as she stopped in front of the two spacer. She had a long barreled pistol sticking out of her belt sash, doubtless it was intended to be practical but Sayeeda doubted the girl had ever fired, or expected to have fire the thing. 

"You're Junebug Cyckali right, the mercenary?" the girl burbled nervously. Sayeeda exchanged a long glance with Neil.

"Yes I suppose I am," Sayeeda replied.

"What can we do for you Misstress Cho-Lan?" Her tone suggested that it had better be good. To her surprise the girl didn't flinch but rather turned grave.

"I need you to get me off this planet before the Duke has my family killed and, before my father has the pair of you killed." There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Uhhh... you are going to have to back that up for me Taya," Junebug confessed, irritation giving way to perplexity. 

[@POOHEAD189]