The Highlander lifted smoothly into the air and up towards the open sky. Sayeeda watched through the view screen as the plasma thrusters bathed the piles of offloaded coffee, flaming it to ruined ash. She had managed to reload about a quarter of the original quantity, with the aid of the exosuit Neil had made for her, but without steevedores, salvaging the rest was a bust. She supposed she would have to settle for making it out of here alive.

Almost immediately the comm circuit began to sqwak with demands to put down and threats that the airspace was closed. Junebug didn't respond manually but she keyed the automated codes that Cho-Lan had given them as well as those the Duke's people had provided for the civilian evac, figuring that the confusion would cover them.

"I've locked out the main missile batteries," Taya stated from the third, and usually empty, command seat. Junebug turned on her gimbling seat to regard the girl with surprise. In the excitement of the departure she had almost forgotten about her.

"What? How?" Sayeeda demanded incredulously. Simultaneously with the question she bought up a copy of Taya's terminal in a twenty five percent section of her own holo screen. Tabulated data of some kind, obviously to do with the comm system, but unintelligible to Sayeeda scrolled past.

"I used the microwave transmitor to send the code for a training drone to the sensor head. It switched the program from active to simulation. They can still get a solution on us but if they try to fire all they will get is a simulation complete screen," the girl explained, beaming with pride.

"That's insane," Sayeeda countered,"even equipment on this dustbowl cant be that easy to spoof." Her eyes ran over the text, she wasn't a signals expert but it seemed to bear out some of what the girl was saying.

"There is a way to deactivate the simulator switch over, but it is usually performed during set up and testing. I don't think my fathers men are that thorough." Sayeeda supposed that was true and she was about to ask the girl just how the hell she knew how to do it in the first place when the Highlander shook violently.

"Ta aer be a shakin!" Lonney chimed in, unhelpfully. Sayeeda changed the feed to show the direction pick up from the source of the sound. Long white tracers of water vapor had ripped through the sky moments before, shaking the air with their passage.

"Are they shooting at us?!" Taya asked, clearly worried her clever fix hand't worked.

"No," Sayeeda replied, shaking her head. Another few clicks changed the feed to a magnified view behind them, over the hab in the far distance, dirty flashes could bee seen on a distant ridge, too far away for the crumps of impact to reach them.

"Its outgoing, the bugs must be making their first probe on the city and whatever arty the Duke has is opening up." She looked grimly at the display.

"The invasion is starting for real."

[@POOHEAD189]