“I think we are good to go,” Junebug declared with satisfaction. The gravity coils hummed with power as Lonny continued the diagnostic. The schematic pulsed above a holographic display unit charting the flux and coverage of the grid as an asymmetric bubble around the hull of the Highlander. At present the current in the coils was only at a few hundredths of a percent of its full capacity, but it was enough for Lonny and Neil to diagnose and detect any faults.

“This is going almost too well,” Neil commented as he pulled away his mask and wiped the sweat from his face. It was well after dark but the pair hadn’t taken a break since their awkward lunch with Taya and Indra. Although Junebug found it almost sacrilegious to suggest such a thing, an old soldiers superstition, she had to agree. Taya had managed to talk her way onto the Karma Hazu’s cargo shuttle and install the program without difficulty, and with the repairs completed they were ready to lift and leave Hahn behind. Sayeeda took a moment to glance out over the settlement, the market was still busy as people took advantage of the relative evening cool. The arabesque minarets of the main settlement seemed to glint in the silver moonlight and the palms waved in the gentle breeze.

“I bought dinner!” Taya called as she hurried out of the crowd, hooded and caped. In her hands rested several bags of food, purchased from local street vendors. Though her stomach rumbled a sick feeling passed over Sayeeda and the hair on the back of her hands prickled as it often did before things really dropped in the pot.

“What?” Neil asked, evidently knowing her well enough to sense the change in her demeanor, even if he didn’t know exactly what it meant.

“Get inside, we are lift…” A gunshot rang out from somewhere in the crowd and one of Taya’s bags exploded in a shower of rice and meat. People began to scream and scramble away from the freighter as more gunshots tore through the cool evening.

“Run!” Junebug shouted to the girl, pulling a heavy pistol from her webbing belt and firing at one of the gunmen, a tall, brutal looking man in leather armor and carrying an old fashioned chemical slug thrower, as he was revealed by the parting crowd. Plasma blew the sand around the man to shards of blackened glass, but at this range it would have been a minor miracle if she scored a hit. Taya cast an open mouthed look back at the crowd, a half dozen men were rushing forward most carrying rifles, though a few carrying shock prod and other close combat weapons.

“Run!” Junebug screamed at the girl, dropping from her elevated position on the ships hull to the improvised workbench. The fibre board bowed and flexed, but held her weight as she braced herself in a proper shooter's stance, gripping her pistol with both hands with one knee to the work bench. One of the shock rod wielding toughs had reached Taya and was rasing his weapon for a blow when Junebug’s plasma bolt caught him the the neck, blowing his head from his body in an arc described by his own burning hair. The shock seemed to break Taya from her daze and she dropped the remaining food and bolted across the sand in an ungainly lurch. There as a hollow booming above her as Neil opened fire with those ludicrous heavy pistols he always carried and another man spun to the dirt, vomiting bright pulmonary blood. That was luck, but it was good luck for the Highlander and her crew. A bullet ripped into the workbench and split it, dropping Junebug to the ground in a sprawl.

“Junebug!” Neil yelled dropping to the sand beside her.

“I’m not hurt,” she reassured him as she pushed herself to her feet, her arms and face covered with sand where it clung to her sweat. Taya raced up the ramp as it sparkled and rang with bullet impacts, miraculously avoiding being cut down as she was silhouetted against the hatch opening. How Junebug and Neil would managed the same feat she had no idea. A pair of thugs tried to rush the boarding hatch but the two mercenaries cut them down with a hail of pistol fire, toppling their corpses to the floor with flashing plasma and crashing bullets.

“The starboard hatch is blocked by the rings!” Neil shouted as though reading her mind. The configuration of that anti-grav rings had given them no choice but to block the starboard side cargo hatch, fortunately it was slightly forward of the port one in order to allow for proper compartmentalization of the ship in case of a hull breach.

“Umm…” Sayeeda temporized, but before she could think of anything a reptilian roar echoed from inside the ship. Saxon crashed down the ramp, still completely naked and sex organ displayed prominently. In his hand he held a six foot length of metal tubing. It was an off cut from where they had been forced to reroute some of the internal ductwork and it was sliced to a wicked mitred point. His other hand held the short stubby tube of a concussion grenade. Leaning forward the Hex roared a battle cry, his jaw all but unhinging to display several rows of razor sharp teeth, then he hurled the tubing like a javelin at the nearest opponent, a heavy set man with a squad automatic weapon. The pipe wobbled slightly before punching into the man's chest, hurling him six feet before pinning him to the side of a wooden stall like an insect in an entomology display. The Hex almost negligently tossed the stun grenade at the surviving gunman and Junebug only had enough time to open her mouth to diffuse the blast before it went off with a shattering crash and a vast donough to dust and sand.   

“Well, you don’t see that everyday,” she remarked her voice tinny and attenuated in her own ears as she and Neil scrambled to their feet.

“Yeah thankfully,” the pilot responded as they darted up the ramp followed by the naked Saxon. Junebug took a moment to slap the hatch closure switch and the hydraulics whined to life, pulling the hatch closed with the slow majesty demanded by its half ton mass. Gunfire began to snap and crack against the hull, though it wasn’t of my threat to the ships armored plating.

“Go! Go! Go!” she yelled at Neil but he was already scrambling up the ladder to the cockpit. Saxon was making an odd sound that might have been a laugh, and his neck was pouchy and red in what Sayeeda remembered was a mating display among his people. Whether it was directed at her or he was merely excited to kill something she wasn’t sure but she gave him a measuring glance before racing up the ladder after Neil.

To her credit Taya was already most of the way through the power up sequence when they arrived, though she looked shaken and unsteady.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she repeated over and over has her hands flew over the controls.

“I got it!” Neil yelled as he took the controls, fingers hammering at switches and controls.

“What happened, what did I do wrong?” Taya wailed.

“You bought food for four humans,” Junebug responded, the answer appearing in her head as though summoned by the question.

“There are only three of us and Sven noticed,” she explained.

“How is that…” but her remaining words were bloated out as the Highlander’s powerful engines roared to life.

“Hold on to your ass,” she advised clinically.