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Neil kicked off with her, still not entirely certain the Xenonid had not poked any holes in his suit despite the fact it read all clear. He guessed being in a dead ship full of corpses made him a bit paranoid. He was parallel to Sayeeda as they sailed down the shaft, gaining speed ever so lightly in the void. It was actually kind of relaxing, even though they would pass open doors every now and then. Doorways that gave Neil glimpses of what looked to be bloated corpses or bodies torn in two, along with a few dead Xenonids lodged within them.

"I will be glad when we make money some other way." Neil said through his comm, glancing Sayeeda's way as they continued to shoot through the darkness of the shaft.

"We're approaching the target." He heard her reply. "I'll be glad when we get the hell out of here."

"It's not so bad in here, as long as we got some light." Neil said, looking upwards just in time for his light to reveal a shrieking Xenonid, spasming in the darkness, causing both of them to have a sudden chill run up their spines. Luckily, neither of them were close enough to the dying creature to get caught by its arms. Neil did give it the finger however, though he yelped when he felt Sayeeda's arm grab onto him as she caught the door they needed to enter.

He was whipped about, but caught himself and climbed up with her to enter the engine sector. They were at the end of a dimly lit hallway, some of the lights still functional it seemed. Beyond the hall, the blast doors were opened. They at least, looked to be disfunctional. Neil smiled to Sayeeda, despite the bullet wound that had still yet to be properly attended on the left side of abdomen. "Watch my ass," he told her with a wink.

They made it down the short corridor into the engine room. It looked oddly reminiscent of the Aelahyne control room on Sevran, though far more human and utilitarian in its structure. Yet the truly massive engine was at the center of a large room, the engine itself located within a sloping structure. Neil had seen its like before in large humans vessels, but he had never put two and two together. He wondered if the ancient ones and humanity ever had contact beyond superficial greetings.

The engine blinked red on a beacon located on its top right. Neil took out his toolkit and unlatched the front panel of the engine. "Alright baby let's go to work."
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Sayeeda was not crazy about all the angles of attack the large engine room provided. For the first ten minutes she scanned unceasingly but boredom set in sooner rather than later. With no sound but her own rhythmic breathing and the occasional clink of tools, their vibrations transmitted through the hull to her boots there was nothing to occupy her.

Neil kept up a constant chatter, mostly technobabble which she sometimes grasped and she sometimes did not. It seemed that the engines were at least fireable, but that the damage the ship had suffered had triggered a variety of shut outs, some of which were intentional and some of which were hardware failures that Neil now had to find work arounds for. It wasn't tremendously interesting to listen to but she understood its importance.

"Junebug, er I mean Captain!" a voice crackled in her ear. She started slightly at the unexptected voice before recognising it as Taya. The girl sounded in a panic even over the radio distortion.

"Six here go ahead," she said, lapsing into correct commo protocol even though the girl was not using it herself.

"The... the ship, that is Lonney, says that one of the xenos ships is burning towards us, what do I do?" the girl babbled.

"Take a deep breath, can you send the telemetry data through to my helmet?" she asked calmly, clicking her visor over to display the incoming signal, a moment later the telemetry appeared as a fifty percent mask. Neil paused in his labor and looked up but judging she had it under control and retuned to her work.

Two courses showed up on her visor, one in blue pastel the other in red.

"Boster display intercept time..." she started to say but the view already was refining first showing the intercept time - 41:35 - and then adjusting for weapon range based on estimated values from sensor data.

"Taya are you...?" she started to ask but the display refined again adding in the time increment that she and Neil had taken to reach the engineroom. Red line was 23 minutes, either they could get the engine started or they would have to haul ass back to the Highlander and boost away at maximum survivable G's.

"Is that what you wanted?" Taya's voice asked, nervous yes but excited also.

"Yes that is wonderful Taya," Sayeeda responded marvelling at the girls easy grasp of infomration systems.

"Neil we got twenty minutes to fire this bitch up or we have to scrub!"

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Neil heard all of it through his comm system, though he was glad Sayeeda kicked him into gear with her comment. He was basically too busy to concentrate on what Taya was informing them of, his mind moving on technical instinct. As the Captain informed him to haul ass, he was already opening the grille to the left, unhooking the cylindrical drive cores so he could redirect all power to the megafreighter's sublight engines.

Superheated steam burst from the vents as he unlatched them. "I'm on it. Won't take long," he replied, switching the drive cores around to the main entryway of the engine. He began to speak as he worked, alleviating her worries as much as letting him prep himself of where he was at. "I already bypassed her security measures and shut her main functions down. Just need to switch the drives, manually override the auxiliary protocol and then hit it with the power and we're golden."

As he did that, the minutes ticked down. Sayeeda would see him working as fast as he could, giving her regular updates. "Drives cores inserted and am now running the set up...and I am redirecting and beginning the sublight engine's phase..."

"We have 5 minutes until I will yank you out of here." Sayeeda warned just before Neil clipped down the last algorithm. "DONE." His announcement was followed by a thrum that filled the chamber, reverberating the very walls of the room. Heat began to envelope the two, though it wasn't overly scalding unless they remained. Luckily, they made as good a time as any getting back into the shaft and shooting upward through it.

Neil and Sayeeda traversed the shaft, Taya suddenly appearing on the comm as they were within 50 meters of the stop. "Where are you? Lonny says the Bioship is gaining speed, and others are joining it."

"We're almost there." Neil promised her. Zero gravity running wasn't exactly possible, but they shot off of every curve and crevice and corner they could find to speed them up as they made it back into the Highlander. The bay door opened for them both, Neil and Sayeeda leaping into it, the door behind them sealing shut. Oxygen filled the room, and Neil removed his helmet. He was sweating bullets from the exertion and his wound, but he still had to fly them out of here.

He ran from the room and into the cockpit just as soon as the warning beacon began lighting up, showing that the bioships were getting within firing range. Neil plopped into his chair and flipped on the sublight engines, bringing up the maneuvering display.

"Let's get the fuck out of here."
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"No wait!" Sayeeda snapped and cut the engines.

"Neil all power to the shields!" If Neil was confused or irritated at being overruled he reacted instantly, dumping the energy he had been sending to the engines into the shield generators. Beneath them the great merchant vessel began to move as its vast engines kicked into action, pouring a jet of plasma into space. The bioship fired, its shots missing the Highlander by meters and blasing the hull plate infront of them. A second shot hit the shields and warning alarms began to whine to life. A third blast shook the ship and Taya glanced at her captain as though she thought she had gone mad. The ship beneath them surged forward, beginning to pull away from their pursuers who still fired futiely at them. The reactors and thrusters on the freighter were many times the size of anything that could be practically mounted on a craft the size of the Highlander. The bioships engines, or whatever passed for engines, were all ready stressed to their maximum by closing the distance with an object moving at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light and they couldn't keep it up no matter how unusual their construction.

The shots faded away as the Freighter rocketed forward, its fuel consumption no long regulated by the demands of economy but by whatever maximum rate Neil could pump through it. A faint pink alarm began to pulse of Sayeeda's terminal.

"Capt'n we's be gown near on 0.4 C," Lonny warned. It would get difficult in the near future for the Highlanders engines to boost them free of the ships superstructure. She nodded decicievly.

"Hit it," she told Neil but the words had barely formed in her throat before the deck kicked her hard as all of the Highlanders attitude jets kicked hard, hurling them clear. The freighter seemed to slide slowly ahead of them and then suddenly it was speeding away and out of sight of the naked eye. The vessels path began to curve around the dense moon hiding it from sight.

"Well..." Sayeeda said into the silence. Neil had cut the throttle but they were still moving at nearly 0.4C out of the system. The Freighter emerged from behind the moon. Not as a ship but as an incandecent ball of fire and debris.

"What..." Taya exclaimed, clearly shocked.

"Must have burned out the fuel conduits and gone critical," Neil observed.

"But wont that spoil the plan?" Taya asked glancing rapidly between Neil and Sayeeda. The Captain shook her head.

"In space and at that speed, the impact of so much gas and junk is almost worse, look" she pointed an finger and dialed up the magnification. Half a dozen of the hive ships were balls of glowing fire now, as locked into landing approaches and without time to maneuver they were swept up in the debris cloud.

"You know, Its a shame no one is paying us for any of this," she grumbled but she clapped a hand on Neil's shoulder in congratulations none the less.
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Neil hovered the Highlander near the moon. At least, it would seem to be hovering to those inside. They were actually moving quite fast, as far away from Fornax as they possibly could. Though Vesuvius loomed to the left on the monitor, and the Bio-fleet that blockaded the brown and green planet of Fornax was visible to the right. Hundreds of thousands of dots that lingered around the celestial body like a planetary ring.

Neil only paid slight attention to such a massive fleet, instead following the maelstrom of fiery debris heading straight for the Xenonid invaders below. Neil had never seen something so captivating. The glow that emanated from it reflected off his eyes, and he stared until he saw it consume countless ships, engulfing the largest Bio-ship of the fleet as well. The only one that was large enough for the three of them to make out details of it.

Its feelers wiggled in panic, its carapace strong enough to hold off fighter ships utterly powerless against such a missile. Within moments, the mockery of life was totally consumed in fire. Neil let out a breath, blinking and coming back to himself. He was glad he was in the front seat or the two women would have seen just how excited that had made him. "So ladies," he said, turning up the power to the engines even more as they passed Vesuvius and approached the next planet in the system's ring of worlds. "Is one of you good with a needle? I think I'll need to be patched up a bit before I get into that Cryotube."

On the monitor, the mass of debris that wreathed flame and destruction utterly decimated most of the fleet. Thankfully, the merc's calculations were correct. The large freighter's remains sliding past Fornax rather than directly into it, resulting it maximum damage to the fleet with minimal fallout to the planet. Though now the manufacture-world had a new satellite in its orbit, one that could be seen from the naked eye on a cloudless day.

"Lonney, take over." Neil said, wincing as he stood up. "Roight, mate." the AI replied with a programmed enthusiasm, the Highlander now maintaining its current course for the time being.
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Chapter 3

The cryo-coma lifted like a quick burning fog. Junebug felt cold, colder than she ever had in her life despite the fact that she felt this way every single time she went into cryogentic stasis. It wasn't a technology people used much, except in extreme conditions where RIP jumping was dangerous. Few places in the galaxy were far enough away that people preferred to freeze themselves rather than suffer weeks or months in the RIP. Fire started to pulse through her arm and she tried to thrash but the restraints held her in place. THe panic subsided when she remembered it was simply the return of freshly warm blood, spreading through her body and displacing that laced with preservative cryoglobulins.

With a hiss the fluid around her began to drain away and she felt the return of air to her lungs down the intubation tube. When the pod was fully drained the seal cracked open with a hiss and she saw... nothing. The ship was as black as the bottom of a mineshaft. Worse yet it was silent. All space vessels were essentially giant masses of electronics and machinery with space grudgingly provided for crew and cargo, they were never quiet even when the systems ran on low power mode. This was a very poor sign.

"Lon... Lonney, report," she gasped as she pulled the intubation tube from her throat and gasped at the stale air. THe recyclers were off judging by the dusty lubricant tinged aftertaste it left in the back of her throat. Lonney did not reply.

"Lonney?" she called again stumbling blindly from the tube, body dripping with cryo fluid as she stepped onto the deck. THe pods beside her glowed with soft green emergency back up lights and the fear in the back of her mind, the fear that Neil and Taya had died in unpowered pods, eased slightly.

"Lo... booster," she changed her mind, querying her helmet AI over her mastoid radio, "status."

"Online," the helmet responded in its flat emotionless voice. THere weren't too many occasions when one needed to use the speaking software as it was primarily intended for visual display, but the AI was full capable of speech.

"Booster what is the status of the Highlander?"

"Unknown."

"What is the location of the ship?"

"Unknown." Sayeeda cursed silent under her breath as she felt her way along the wall to a tool bench and powered on a battery operated lamp. It cast a yellowish white illumination over the inside of the ship. A thin layer of dust coated everything, inevitable if the air scrubbers were down. She trailed her finger through the dust curiously.

"Booster, expired time since last activation?"

"Eight hundred twenty seven Sols," the helmet replied in its calm mechanical voice. Holy shit. Two years and change. She started to form a question but realized that the limited information available to the AI wouldn't help so she choked it back, instead she turned to Neil's cryopod. She swept the lamp over his face it was serene and he was still alive. Pulling the shield away from a panel she toggled the thaw command. Nothing happened. She tried again. Low Power flashed over the screen in dull yellow lettering.

"Fuck work with me here," she snarled at the machine and turned back to the tool bench. Grabbing one of the power cells she quickly stripped the wiring and started splicing in a shunt. Although she was no engineer, Sayeeda had pulled enough maintenance to know the basics. So long as she only messed with the ignition circuit, she really couldn't kill Neil. Hopefully. With a twist of the pliers she closed the circuit and thumbed the control again. The pod hummed to life and began its defrost procedure. Once Neil was out the could figure out just what in the stars was going on.

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Neil suddenly felt a chilling sensation coarse through him, now aware that every pore of his being was immersed in liquid biochemicals designed to keep him alive while freezing him nearly indefinitely if there was need. He felt extremely weak, and not for the first time did he gain the painful realization of just how frail the human body was. He was nothing more than meat, bone, grey matter, and the right piping that kept it flowing, now dependent upon a machine for survival.

He shuddered and coughed, feeling the tube down his throat pumping air in him while the water drained. He began to feel fiery stabs all through out his body, the blood returning to its normal routine. He groaned, and then suddenly felt very heavy and weak as his body lay prostrated. Once the restraints were unlatched, he pulled the tube out of his throat and gagged, spitting up some fluid before blinking, his voice hoarse. "Man."

The young man blinked, trying to see into the light and now wondering just why everywhere else was dark. For a moment, he couldn't see Junebug's face behind the light and thought some colonial marines from a patrol had come across their ship, in which case he'd tell them to leave and he'd get back to sleep. But that was just his head catching up with the fact there was no light.

"Sayeeda?" He asked, blinking once more and stepping out of the cryotube, trying not to stumble. The wound she'd patched up ached at his side, but it seemed alright. "Where the hell are we? What's going on?" He asked.

When she inevitably caught him up on what she knew, that brought Neil's head quickly. "That is...problematic." Neil rubbed his head, matted hair still sticking to his skin. He coughed, realizing how stuffy the air was inside the Highlander. He also needed to put on some real clothes, a bit too disoriented to feel entirely modest at the moment, though his functions were swiftly returning. "We were heading toward the M6 Butterfly Cluster last I saw, but if the time's right we should be way past that now..."

Neil shook his head, and looked Sayeeda in the eye. "I have no idea where the hell we are either."
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Sayeeda floated upside down in the access conduit. Turning off the grav pumps hand't helped restore power and so they were checking the junctions manually. The light in her helmet burned in the darkness, illuminating the circuit board she was working on, AI providing visual cues for her as she compared components against catalgouge data. A tool box floated next to her, complete with a small battery for sodering iron and micro welder.

"Junction A11-2B looks like its cooked all its capacitors," she said, the radio carrying the words to the ear unit Neil was wearing. She leaned in with her pliers and began stripping out the blackened capacitor units and then soddering fresh ones into place, the inbuilt multi-meter in her helmet verifying each of the connections as she marked them complete.

"Fuck," was Neil's eloquent response. She could hear the whir of one of the diamond saws over the static of the radio. They had decided to leave Taya in Cryo so long as there was enough auxiliary power to make her safe. Until the oxygen recycles were back in action there was no point wasting air. The girl had demonstrated she was smart and had some technical skills, but she didn't have the calm in a crisis that necessity had inculcated in both Neil and Sayeeda.

"Must have been some kind of subspace electrical pulse," Neil mumbled, "Probably cooked every shielded system."

"Are we fucked on navigation then?" Sayeeda asked calmly. If that were the case they were dead sure as the Galaxy spun. She tripped the test switch on the panel and watched it light up green before kicking off the conduit to float along to the next junction where she stopped herself with pressure of her hand against the wall.

"Not as such," Neil replied, it sounded like he was holding a bolt in his mouth, a moment later she heard the dispenser whir it into place.

"Nav and RIP drive are shielded and seperate just in case, if we can get power we can probably get the astronav to figure out where the hell we are. Even make a short jump to a planet." Sayeeda laughed tinnily over the radio.

"Yeah ok then we just have to land with no engine control," she grinned inspite of herself, if you couldn't laugh at crisis then life as a mercenary was a cheerless bussiness.

"One impossible task at a time Captain," Neil replied, the same grim humor in his voice. Sayeeda paused in consideration.

"Neil if we could get Lonney online could he give us a system wide schematic?"

"Sure but we don't have the power for that."

"What if I fired up the fusion bottle in the gun jeep in the hold? I could discharge it into the grid." There was a long pause.

"It would be pretty low power compared to the ship, plus how would you get it started without a jump?"

"I know a trick or two, and we only need Lonney for a few seconds to give us a damage control read out, then we can target the damage to the essential systems. Can you direct the power so it will flow only to the AI core?" Another lengthy pause.

"Should be possible Cap," Neil said his voice tentatively hopeful.

"Alright," she kicked off the wall and started floating down towards the main hold, "get started on the transformer and current path, ILl see if can coax the gun jeep to life."

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"And things just keep getting better," he breathed, tinkering around best he could as the comm went off. He admitted her idea was the best they had so he wasn't against it at all. They'd just need to be quick on their feet, and he had to hope Lonney wasn't going to give them a terrible reading. He hadn't explored the ship in its entirety so as far as he knew there was a hull breach somewhere, the only thing keeping them out of the void was one of the automated blast doors.

He rerouted all of the central power sources to the AI's function. Except the life support systems. It was a miracle those still worked. He was glad for his forethought. When he first started messing with the ship, he made sure those would be the last on the list of utilities that would be shut down in case of a malfunction or a loss of power. It seemed to be working, though not at full capacity since it was bloody cold in the ship, and the air felt terribly thick.

"Alright, alright, alright, alright, alriiiiiiii- got it!" He said, hearing the audible 'snap' of the last router being set into place. He slipped his auto-tool into his utility belt. All they needed now was the power supply Sayeeda was getting, and they'd be underway.

As if on cue, he heard Junebug on the comm. "Neil?"

"Here."

"I have the core. Ready?"

"Do you even need to ask?"

"It's a go."

Suddenly, Neil felt a small warmth radiating from the power source, and he saw bits of static around the routers that suddenly began to flow with power from the fuel core. Neil looked around, using his small light source as if he expected to see something. He hesitated, eyebrow raised. Then he spoke.

"Lonney?"

"Aye sir?"

Neil fist pumped triumphantly. "Lonney, it's good to hear from you. Diagnostic of the ship, now."

"Roight!" Lonney said, and it only took a moment for him to speak again. "Got th' R.I.P. drive shredded. Sublight engines migh' werk but only for short jumps, and tha's if there wis poower. Life Support is ok fer noa. Wee bit of damage. Hull breach in the compartment area, and hull damage along the aft and the stern, and well...many outer layers."

"Show me." Neil said. He stepped back when one of the monitors in the station lowered. He shined the light on the monitor just in case, hoping to the Gods and Gideon that it was going to be minimal damage. With an obnoxious beep and the keen wailing of a signal, the monitor turned on to show the Highlander's outer hull.

"Oh...holy shit." Neil said, blinking.

The smuggling freighter's outside was completely wrenched, as if some large clawed beast had grabbed ahold of his and shaken it. He could see what looked like great claw marks along its underside, and one of the clawmarks had punctured the ship just where Lonney had warned Neil of the hull breach. The pilot shook his head, feeling his heart drop. It was unnerving to look at but, he knew what had caused this.

A beast from the R.I.P. had attacked the ship. How long ago, Neil couldn't tell. But they had gotten off lucky. Most ships that were attacked were eaten, or blown to pieces within R.I.P. space.
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Sayeeda worked the fusion bottle as quickly as she dared as the gauges lit up. The fusion cells the jeep used were order of magnitudes smaller than the Highlanders own twin units, but the principal was much the same. With the aid of her helmet AI, she connected cables and by passed saftey cut offs, throwing switches and punching buttons. After a moment number two fusion reactor hummed, blinking red as its magnetic containment bottle came online. The smaller reactor power level plumeted even as Junebug threw the last cut out. With a shuddering sound the fusion process in number two ignited, expanding to fill the fusion bottle. Lights and systems began to flicker on and off and sparks rained from overhead panels that hadn't been patched yet.

"Neil shut down...!" but the pilot was already on it, scrambling to the main breaker board and tearing out fuses to all but the most crititcal systems. A puff of dust blew from the vents as the air reycler kicked on and Junebug's nose filters clamped down from her helmet to protect her respitory system. She stood frozen for a moment unwilling to risk jynxing the repair by moving. Everything held steady.

"Lonney? You back with us?"

"Aye Capt'm!"

"Can you pull anything from the astro nav?" she enquired, kicking off and floating up towards the bridge area.

"No Input ta go un Capt'm," the AI responded cheerfully. Junebug frowned. The disturbance in the R.I.P must have been worse than... the thought died in her mind as she emerged onto the bridge and saw the damage report schematic on Neil's terminal.

"Well fuck," she added helpfully. For a moment all she could do was stare at the the display, the familiar feeling of feeling a shot pass close by prickling her skin. It was a miracle they were still alive at all. Drifting to her console she punched in a few commands and started the few external sensors taking star sights. It was too much to hope for that they were anywhere on the charts, but at least they could locate a planet they could set down and effect real repairs.

"Where the hell are we?" she asked no one in particular.
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Neil was about to open his mouth in his shrug before Lonney cut him off. "Unknown Capt'm. Galactic map disfunctional, bu' tha radars werkin' like a charm. If tha sublight engines can get started, there's a system 0.003 lightyears away."

"And there's no way we can tell what system that is?"

"Nope."

"Uh, god." Neil said, before he inhaled a large amount of the dust that had been floating around here and he began to cough, choking somewhat until he gained control of himself, patting his chest. "Well at least we have plenty of supplies." He croaked, knowing he at least had a lot of water to drink from. He went off to go do that.

"Roight... about that sir." The voice halted Neil in his tracks. There was an eerie silence as Neil turned around.

"What?" Neil asked, his throat and mouth uncomfortably dry. Lonney's voice crackled over the intercom. Neil sincerely hoped that wasn't a sign of the A.I. losing power. "Well ye ha' three months of supplies, but once we go' tha hull breach ye got aboot a month now. Some of its go' the chemical composition of havin' spoiled from bein' exposed to air, and the rest was sucked oot."
"But we have a month?"
"Aye."
"How long will it take to get to the system if we fix the sublight engines now?"
"two months."

"Goddammit." Neil declared, his voice comically highpitched from the exasperation as he clenched his fist. He seemed to be on the verge of suffering some mild case of space dementia. He pointed at Junebug adamantly. "We're going to fix the hull, and then I'm going to fix the R.I.P. drive and we're going to get the fuck out of here." He didn't know what power source he'd use, or even how much longer they'd have Lonney, but while the Captain did the strategic thinking, he'd work on the ship.

First he was going to take a huge chug of water before he started to conserve it.
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Sayeeda punched the keyboard again and arrived at the same answer.

"Well," she said sinking back into the chair with a grim chuckle, "I suppose we can always eat Taya."

She had run a half dozen different ration scenarios and even at extreme rationing they would only just make it to the as yet unnamed planet. That would exhaust their food and there was no guarantee the place was settled or that there was any indigenous food they could eat. Also it would use up any safety margin they had, so if it didn't pan out they would have no choice but to risk an all or nothing jump.

"we are goin gto have to make the jump," she said glumly.

"Even if I go back into cryo it will be tight, and there is no gaurntee you will have the power to wake me up again."

"We are going to have to jump on number two and hope that the RIP isnt completely set against us." The analogy betwen the RIP and a tide was not perfect, a ship could make way even against a moderate current providing it wasn't in total opposition. Given a spherical orientation such a coincidence was extremely unlikely. But worse things happend in war time.

"I guess we are just going to have to fire it up and hope the containment shield holds and the navi computer dosent totally fry."
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Neil had that water and a bite to eat, and then he unfortunately donned the space suit once more. It seemed just a few hours ago he'd worn the thing. Refitting the helmet firmly atop his shoulders, he gave a light burp at the quick consumption of the provisions and he turned the comm on to get Junebug's attention. "Shut the door to the cockpit." He told her. "I'm juuuust about to make for the compartment area and fix the hull best I can. Copy?" He waited a few moments for confirmation.

Once he was sure the coast was clear, he held onto the railing parallel to the door and used his free hand to release the hatch, letting the door slide open. It did so so violently it impressed him, and he felt the void yanking him in. He was glad his suit's magnetic boots still worked fine, and even with the immense pressure he walked steadily, closing the door behind him. Once the pressure was equalized, instead of being sucked out into space, he felt a weightlessness now counteracted by his boots.

All that was audible was his breathing, and he went to work. "All clear. I'm outside the ship." He clarified to Junebug, beginning to reshape the rent metal, one gloved hand running over one of the immense marks left by the R.I.P. Beast. Hideously, he felt a slick liquid that clung to the bits of metal. The substance seemed a bit too light to be akin to most liquids, yet it wasn't a gas. It made him feel entirely uneasy, mixed with a feeling of intense interest. No one had ever witnessed one of the outer dimensional creatures and lived to tell the tale, save the Great Gideon. And even he was too disturbed to speak of such things, Neil had heard, the hero claiming it nearly shattered his sanity.

"Let's think about lighter things." Neil pipped up to himself, welding and reshaping what he could, the advanced vacuum-welder working like a charm. He only lamented he had no tunes available to listen to while he worked. Instead he just decided to go over what had occurred the last two months, er, years. He'd need to get used to the time thing. Wait...he needed to call his mom!

So engrossed was he in his work that he never turned around. Sayeeda would see... it on the radar once it passed the stellar nursery of molecular hydrogen in the distance. An immense oblong shape of what looked to be polished stone hurtling toward Highlander general vicinity.
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"Contact," Sayeeda reported as her PPI flashed the new signal. Her hands flew over the controls targeting sensors and examining readings. It didn't have the multiple frequency reading that a ship would have, they bi-product of hundreds or thousands of motors, pumps and actuators, It only emitted one signal, a slowly growing diffraction wave.

"All clear," she said by reflex, "looks like its only a comet or some other chunk of space rock. Moving fast though and seems to be... how is it possible for a rock to be accelerating."

"Captm, It mus have onatural high concentrations of antimater that be sublimin to cause thrust," Lonney chipped in. Sayeeda blinked rapidly, momentarily defeated by the dialect the damn computer used. A few finger strokes converted the analysis to text without the accent.

"Hardly fair!" Looney grumped.

"Looks like its going to pass within one standard unit of us, Looney says that it must have a vein of some sort of anti matter rich ore that is subliming to give it its thrust. Sensors can't predict if we will need to maneuver."

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Neil turned his head, the expression on his face somewhat perturbed and annoyed, as if he was being bugged by some unexpected phenomena like spilled milk. However, the unfamiliar silhouette of an object that was approaching that even he could now see with his naked eye was a startling revelation. "Uh, yeah let's see if we can take advantage of this gift from the fricken stars," he replied back on the comm, though whether or not they could benefit from it, he wasn't sure of.

"Antimatter?" He mouthed to himself, and then shrugged before hauling ass back inside to take control of the Highlander. Antimatter was a volatile material from all he'd heard. It would either solve their problem and get them out of this mess, or it would kill them much faster than their current status of 'starving to death in the void.'

The next Sayeeda heard of Neil, it was the door to the cockpit sliding open with him stomping through the door with his suit on. He had his helmet off, but that was about it. "Maneuver? We're going to maneuver the hell on out of here." He told his Captain, hopping onto the cockpit's pilot seat. The frumpy suit made an oddly specific gaseous noise when he sat, which had Neil chuckling to further enhance his daring mood. Thankfully, Sayeeda's fears were not realized. It would pass by them judging from the coordinates on the screen. Just barely.

"Lonney, redirect the power to the cables. We're only going to have one shot at this."

"Yes sir, First Officer Neil Edwards."

"Wh-..." Neil turned to Junebug with an accusatory look, his voice somewhat higher pitched. "What did you do to Lonney?"

Sayeeda snapped twice in front of his face, placed two fingers to her eyes and then to the display monitor. Neil gave a start as if she'd just woken him up. He turned around and unhooked the cables, opening the firing mechanism and took control of the secondary handles, his thumbs over the 'loose' button.

"Ten thousand kilometers before impact," The AI announced, and began to count down from five thousand with mechanical and unerring accuracy. Neil let out a labored breath, his eyes straining as he saw what he perceived as a smooth asteroid enter within range. Just before his thumb hit the button, he spoke up.

"By the way this might make us explode."
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"Well it will either solve our problem and get us out of this mess, or it would kill us much faster than their current status of starving to death in the void," Sayeeda said with a grin. Neil started and turned back to look at her as though she had spoken some strange language but before he could speak the console began to beep a proximity alert. Neil turned back to the control and adjusted the attitude jets with a series of quick motions. They didn't have excess power for the grav pumps so each maneuver drove their chairs into them with significant force, the form fitting polymer doing its best to mute the impact.

"Five seconds to range," Sayeeda reported watching her own console and keying the commands to ready the external grapples. The grapples were meant to secure two ships for a zero-g cargo transfer and not for anything as violent as this.

"Range," she reported and tumbed the trigger on her flight yoke. Metallic bangs resounded through the ship as the grapples fired, moments later they struck the surface of the asteroid tethering them in place. The ship matched speed perfectly as Neil verniered the thrusters expertly.

"Dropping power," he reported slowly easing back, the ship began to sink relative to the asteroid and the cables began to take up tension. This was a critical moment, the rate of change was what was important. The cables would hold two ships together in normal circumstances but the differentials in speed at this order of magnitude could part them like cobwebs. The ship groaned as the power slowly trailed of, only once was there an unpleasant jerk as one of the cables came too snug. Neil cursed and adjusted throttle. At last he shut the engines off completely, allowing the asteroid to pull them along at an equivalent velocity.

Junebug blew out a breath.

"Great, now all we need to do is gather up the most unstable element in existence and use it to give enough energy for a blind RIP jump. Situation is improving."

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With the engines now off, Neil breathed a sigh of relief at their volatile luck. It was almost as if one of the Star Gods had decided to make the Highlander Crew their plaything, dangling bits of good news right as they fuck them from behind. With practiced ease, he used the auxiliary power that still held the cable rotor in place to ease the Highlander closer to the asteroid, meter by meter, so as to get close enough for their power controls to collect the necessary anti-matter.

Luckily, they were still in interstellar space, so Solar Wind wouldn't be any problem. Lagging behind this asteroid, they merely needed to hope that the velocity would remain consistent. Neil raised his brow as the Highlander drifted closer, until they were close enough to dock in any normal situation. It worried him more than a little that he felt an odd pressure from being so close to such a massive amount of the dark-stuff. But first and foremost, survival from starvation was key.

"Take the helm. I'll go out and get some engine juice." Neil said lightly, yanking up his suit once more around his shoulders and re-donning his helmet. "Wish me luck." He said, not finishing the last sentence they might ever speak to one another with a joke. He knew what rided on this.




Despite the ache of his wound and the month in cryo-sleep, Neil still had his wits about him enough to control the omni-tool with an engineer's skill, and he managed to collect the smallest inkling of the anti-matter. He was most afraid of how the material would do when introduced to close proximity of the cutting lazer, and how it would do in a controlled container. But it was by the Grace of Gideon that Neil managed to re-enter the Highlander with the anti-matter, and introduce the substance to the engines.

Closing the power core, Neil let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. It was now or never, and he opened his comm. "Captain...the anti-matter is in." Giving her the go to release the cable and start the engines, checking the power gauge. He made his way to the cockpit to see firsthand how this would turn out.
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The Highlander lurched into RIP space with a violence that Sayeeda had never experienced. The containment protocols for anti matter were not so different but the instaneous jolt of energy was very different from the normal slow continous feed of power. For a moment she felt like the ship itself hand vanished and greasy coils of rip space were wrapping around her body, pulling her apart with the inexorable strength of glaciers. Her mouth opened to yell but as soon as her lips parted the sensation faded. For a few moments all was calm and then the Highlander crashed out of the RIP, its short hop completed.

Alarms screamed as Sayeeda grabbed for the controls. Neil was already pulling at the flight yoke but there was a sickening crash.

"Atmospheric bounce!" he yelled over the grinding of over stressed metal and then the sensation of falling took hold in the pit of her stomach. The PPI confirmed that the Highlander had come out of the RIP far to close to the planet they were aiming for. That was a reasonable outcome given the fact that the most accurate R.I.P data they had was years out of date but it was a damn poor time for a stroke of ill fortune.

The ship plunged uncontrolled into the atmosphere as Sayeeda punched up the damage report.

"We have lost starboard three and port one and two," she said with the calm of a combat vehicle driver for whom life depended on reporting the situation accurately. A dozen other sub systems were in the red but that hardly mattered right now. Aft airlock B wouldn't be much of a concern if they were smashed to flaming debris on planet fall.

"Tell me something I dont fucking know," Neil yelled as he continued to fight with the control yoke. He had obviously noticed the lack of thrusters when he tried to maneuver.

"The Atmosphere reads as breathable," she responded tartly. Neil looked back over his shoulder in puzzlement, sweat beading on his face.

"What?!"

"You didn't fucking know that," she responded her hands still flying over the console.

"Oh very fucking clever," he responded but there was a hint of a grin in his voice as he turned back to his task.

Sayeeda pulled up the limited topographical information the sensors could detect. The planet was lightly wooded with no local technology centers registering. She tapped the map twice highlighting a stretch of coast that read as as tropical estuary and fowarded it to Neil's terminal.

"Are you c... you know what never mind," the pilot said shaking his head. The landmass swelled into focus beneath them as they tore through the clouds, the nose of the vessel red hot from air friction of the barely controlled decent. Sayeeda checked her harness and braced herself as the tropical lowlands raced up at them at a suicidal rate.

"Venting ventral B!" Neil yelled and flipped a series of switches as he hauled up on the controls. Metal shrieked and their was a sound like a vast explosion as the seat punched up into Sayeeda. She had a split second to realize that he had vented the fusion chamber at the last second to give them a last minute burst of thrust. For a moment everything was confused and their was a vast rushing sound like an anvil hitting a swimming pool at terminal velocity. Dark water closed over the view port for a moment and then the ship up thrust like a breaching whale. Water rained down from a column that must have stretched three hundred meters into the air and local wildlife scattered in all directions. The ship bobbed violent for a moment and then began to settle.

"Well," Sayeeda said with careful understatement, "We are down."

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Neil had to tell himself to keep his teeth closed and tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth. He'd seen more than one man bite off his own tongue from a rough landing, and seeing the pink organ on the floor of the Highlander was not something he fancied thinking about. Once the ship had lunged out of the water, gaining buoyancy, he couldn't help but marvel yet again at the ship's design. Not many ships in the Imperium had the shape or density to land and remain safely in water.

He opened one eye, and then another. Neil found himself strapped to the pilot's chair, and a heavily breathing Sayeeda next to him at her station. He couldn't help it, but he laughed. It was a slow bobbing of his head and chest and first, but it grew into a full blown laugh of triumph, until he ran out of breath and simply fell limp against the chair. It didn't have an entirely different feeling than the relaxed, loss of energy after sex.

Well, they had survived. He guessed the universe wasn't done with him yet, or Sayeeda for that matter. "Oh man," he sighed, unbuckling his strap and standing up. He found the rough landing had him sore. But then what doesn't make you sore these days? Neil leaned down, and flipped the switch on the display console, the power reading of the engines came up "------" which caused him to blink. Even if they had no power, it would have displayed a zero.

"Guess that's going to need fixing, too." He said, having no idea if the anti-matter had given the engine a permanent kick like a car battery, or if it destroyed all of the power cores with its intense energy. He reached a hand down and helped Junebug out of her chair. Outside of the cockpit, it might not be civilization, but it certainly looked like a beautiful place to put a cabin in one of the richer areas of his homeworld.

"Well that was a hell of a ride," Junebug said, her professional soldier's reserve evaporating for a moment. Neil winked. "Stick with me kid, you'll go far." he joked. The next order of business for him would be opening up the rarely used top hatch. In fact it had not been used since they fought the Xenonids on Fornax and the Knight had to make that daring escape attempt.

Once Neil pulled himself up, he helps Junebug up as well. Not that she likely needed a hand, but he was her comrade after all. He stood tall atop the Xarconian metal of the ship, and he cracked his back with a stretch. "Man, it's good to be outta there!" He declared, feeling the clear, coastal air and the heat of the day pressing down. Behind them was a vast ocean, with only a few rocks jutting out of the horizon to give indication it wasn't infinite. Before them, a few dozen meters away was a shoreline, which quickly lead into a forested area full of coarse shrubs.

Where in the hell were they?
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Junebug looked around the scruby forest that covered the shoreline. They seemed willowy and sinuous compared to the Tara pines of her homeworld, but she had been on many planets and seen many different eco systems since then. There were no animals in sight, which was good because Junebug was pretty sure she didn't want to meet any animal that calmly accepted a thousand tons of starship crashing out of the sky.

"Damn," she said as she got her first look at the great rents in the side of the ship. Whatever had savaged them in the RIP had torn long diagonal slashes, the force of which had left the jagged edges raninbowe with heat stress. As she watched water gurgled lazily into the open holds and she felt the ship shift and then grind softly onto the pale sand beneath them. The eddying water slowed. They were in an estuary or a small river mouth with only thirty meters or so to shore on either side of them. They must have come very close to breaking the back of the ship when they hit. She suspected that Neil's last minute burst of thrust had saved them and there was a smell in the air like molten glass and burned mud that suggested she was right.

"Power reserves at critical Cap'm," Lonney's voice chimed in her mastoid radio.

"Roger that Lonney shut down if you need to."

"Aye Cap'm but what about Popsicle number three?" Sayeeda frowned trying to puzzle out the AI's meaning until she realised that Taya was still in the pod and would likely die if the power went completely out. Lonney must be channeling the last few watts of power into keeping her alive.

"Start the thaw cycle Lonney we will be down in a sec," she snapped and spun to drop back into the Highlander. A minute later she was cracking the seal and helping a shaken looking Taya out of her cry pod and into some dry clothes.

"First thing is first we better get the gun jeep onto dry land," she told Neil as she returned, leaving Taya in the cryo bay to recover her senses. The pilot had obviously been surveying the damage and looked rather mournful.

"From there we can run lines out to the ship to at least keep the lights on, even a small fusion bottle is more than enough juice for that." She sank down to the deck and peered across the narrow stretch of water at the pale sandy shore, it was almost pure white.

"I didn't see any tech on the scopes on the way down, the Goddess alone knows how we are going to get Her to lift again."

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