[font=Times New Roman]Bonnie heard about the meeting, not being told about it had made her mad, and slightly concerned. It wasn't as if it was going to be kept quiet. Someone would have told her eventually, and that is exactly what had happened. As she walked into the room and saw Clyde she stopped in her tracks and glared at him. The door banged closed behind her, bringing unwanted attention to herself.[color=#FF99FF]"What are you doing here. Back to cause more trouble are you?"Noticing the guns pointed at him, she crossed her arms and shook her head.
"Clyde, I'd really recommend you start answering the questions." Alex commented without lowering the gun. "You can't just run off without so much as a goodbye and then come back like nothing happened. Where the bloody hell were you?"
Clyde glanced around and felt an overwhelming urge to run. With the amount of barrels. rails and angry faces aimed in his direction, it was hard not too.
"Look, I ain't gunna be able to to explain it with guns down my throat... If you need to give me a hiding, do it now."
He braced himself for the imminent whack to the head was so deserving of.
[font=Times New Roman]Still glaring at Clyde, she shook her head and pulled up a seat. After sitting with her head in her hands for a few minutes she looked up at him and sighed. [color=#FF99FF]"Yeah, I'd give you a run for your money, except for the fact that I'm having your damn kid. Apparently I have to lay off a lot of that sort of stuff, you know. So, Alex, feel free to do what ever you feel the need to, and some from me."
A rumbling could be heard down the landing bay. The screeching and high-pitched whine of engines being overtaxed followed the deep rumbling. A moment later a Roc bomber passed through the bay's mag-screen. Unsteady and clearly in trouble it lurched one way and then the other while trying to right itself. As soon as it entered the oxygen rich environment of the hanger bay the fuel leak on its port side engine ignited and flames and smoke immediately spread across that side.
The Roc attempted to come in for a hard landing, and at first appeared that it would break itself apart all across the landing bay. Instead the pilot managed to right the wounded bird at the last moment and brought it smoothly down on its landing struts, but the craft was not out of danger. The port side strut almost immediately failed and the bird lurched and collapsed onto its left wing, sending showers of sparks all across the landing bay as the craft skidded to a halt.
For a moment nothing happened as the earsplitting noise died away and the engines whined down to a stop along with it. The fire off the port engine continued to blaze and smoke as it got dangerously close to Nova torpedo magazine. Then there was a hiss and the canopy popped open and struggled to rise. Smoke billowed out of the cockpit, obscuring the view inside, but the sounds of repeated curses could be heard from within, and a moment later a flight helmet came sailing out of the smoke to bounce across the floor of the bay.
As the smoke cleared a woman could be seen in the cockpit. She wore a light, form-fitting EVA flight suit and was tugging at the ties in her hair. Once free, long brown hair tumbled down her back, which she loosened with her left hand. She reached down out of sight and a moment later her empty hand came back with a Stetson, which she placed on her head. Then she removed a small cigar from her breast pocket and placed it in her mouth, lighting it with a small survival lighter that dangled from a bracelet around her wrist. She took a couple drags off the cigar and exhaled, seemingly oblivious to everything around her, including the fire.
After a moment she reached down again, along her left side. He left hand came away with a duel purpose fire extinguisher, which she pointed backwards over her left side out the cockpit. Without looking she squeezed both handles and with a 'whoosh' let the fire have it with both barrels. Not bothering to look back at the jets of both Halon gas and fire retardant foam jetting from the extinguisher, she instead looked ahead, seemingly in deep thought. The fire went out and simply smoldered, then coughed its last, small amounts of smoke continuing to billow from the site of where it once lived. The woman didn't stop spraying until the canister was empty. When it stopped spraying she seemed to come out of whatever deep thought she was having and brought the extinguisher around to where she could see it. With a slightly confused expression she looked at the device as she shook it, but still the rebellious thing refused to respond. She shrugged and released the canister absentmindedly and it fell from her grip to clatter onto the deck with a loud 'BANG'
She leaned back into the flight chair and took another pull from the small cigar. Blowing two smoke rings, and then taking a deep breath.
'ZACK!' She yelled out. When no immediate answer came, she yelled again 'ZACK!'
Then muttering to herself she straightened up and started to take an actual notice of her surroundings, apparently looking for Zack. At that moment she finally noticed the group of people standing off the nose of her craft, and with a bemused expression, noticed all of the guns pointed at one of them, a man she had never seen before.
She raised an eyebrow, and in a Colorado accent inquired, 'Eh, am I interrupting something?'
Alex raised an eyebrow and cast Zack his 'who the hell did you hire this time' look.
"We'll pick this up later." He said to all of them returning the shotgun back to its holster in the small of his back. Things with Clyde were far from sorted out but that would take a lot of time and patience to make sense of.
"I wouldn't say you're interupting so much as wrecking the hangar..." Alex replied rubbing his forehead. This didn't look good, they had just finished fixing everything after Bonnie's crash landing... he cast a glance at the Armageddon and quite predictably the crash landing had totaled the Warran... again.
"This is going to be expensive..." He muttered to himself. "Now!" He said adressing the woman. "Clearly Zack's the reason you're here... unfortunately that doesn't answer the immediate question of who you are and why you felt the need to crash land your ship into our hangar."
The woman released her harness and started climbing out of the cockpit. Pulling a small flight bag out with her, and an old-style gun belt and holster, which she slung over her shoulder.
'Wrecked the hangar??' she demanded impatiently. 'It wasn't that bad of a landing!' she insisted.
Once she reached the deck she unzipped her suit and started climbing out of it while simultaneously turning around to look back over the way she had come in. She started to giggle when she saw the damage, then she laughed hysterically. There were clear gouges in the deck about 30 yards down the landing run, but she didn't think it looked that bad.
'You gotta be kidding me.' She said, 'A few sheets of plate steel and an arc-welder will fix that right up.'
She finished climbing out of her flight suit. She wasn't wearing much underneath, then she noticed that her cigar had dropped out of mouth as she was laughing and had fallen to the deck. She cursed and snatched it up, putting it back in her mouth, as she retrieved a pair of heeled shoes from her bag and slipped them on.
'And if you think my bird looks bad, you should see the other guy.' She added. 'Got 5 mios from his IC account before splashing his rear-end all over the 'Lane. Too bad the LN Dread showed up.'
She retrieved her gun belt and straightened. Then she noticed that the man standing before her was pointing his thumb over his shoulder. In that direction was a well-dented Waran, clearly knocked clean off its struts. She then looked at the damage evident on her starboard wing and its close proximity to the Waran. Looks like she clipped it coming in.
'Oops' She said, perfectly straight-faced. 'Well, this outta cover that.'
She walked under the centerline of her bird and pulled a recessed handle after entering a six-digit code on a pad under a sliding panel. With a 'whoosh' the center cargo hatch lowered and two cargo canisters slide down the small ramp. Dozens more could be seen inside.
'Gold ore.' The woman said proudly. 'Picked up as much of the dead trader's cargo as I could. Anyway, I promise next time I'll look both ways before I cross the deck in a barely controllable power slide.'
She smirked as she slipped the gun belt around her waist and buckled it in place. A Colt Peacemaker rested in the holster, which she drew in a motion so fast and smooth that a human being's eye couldn't possibly track it. She opened the swing gate and spun the cylinder with her other hand checking each round. Satisfied, she spun the weapon twice on her trigger finger while replacing it in its holster in one smooth motion of her hand and arm. She turned back to the man who had questioned her.
'The name is 'Tanya', but with a 'j', not a 'y'. She said. 'Zack busted me out of super max when h'¦.well, actually he busted me out of a ship that was carrying me and some other guys to super max when he held it up.'
Her cigar was down to a nub. She dropped it on the deck and snuffed it with her high-heeled shoe, then lit another. After a long pull she continued.
'Friend 'o mine had that thing that he didn't need.' She said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at her bird. 'He owed me a huge favor and let me have her. I hung out on Alcatraz awhile, but some of the guys there were giving me '¦'problems'. I shot one and pistol-whipped another. That's when they'¦ asked me to leave. Zack had told me about this ship and you guys, so I thought I'd swing by,'
She reached down and grabbed her flight bag and flight suit, then started off towards the door.
'So what have you guys got to eat on this tub?' She asked over her shoulder. 'I'm famished!'
[font=Times New Roman]Bonnie looked over at the girl making all the noise. Raising an eyebrow as she looked her up and down from where she was standing. [color=#FF99FF]"You have got to be kidding me... I am over this, I will be anywhere else but here if someone actually needs me for anything..... and put some damn clothes on would you."
Clyde opened his eyes as the crash landing in the hangar bay was heard. He felt relieved the focus was off him. He watched everyone leave towards the flight deck, so made his way to the hangar viewing platform, high above the hive of activity developing on the flight deck.
What was in store for him? Was Bonnie gunna take him back? A glance at the wrecked ship on the floor of the hangar, he noticed it was a new comer, a new girl."Christ,"he thought to himself,"Bonnies gunna set her straight quick"
He chuckled to himself, and he noticed that was the first hint of amusement he felt in a very long time