There was something about the blue quality of everything that, at first, calmed her. It wasn't a defining colour she was used to. On the ship they had warm yellow lights with the occasional amber, which reminded her distinctly of her home. The ship was her home now, she thought.
This was like the rare polar snows of the old home. She only witnessed it once. It changed her world from it's industrial hive of dull metallics and tan glow to a stained white wonder. It lasted only about five minutes before the soot and ash of the nearby plants dyed and discoloured it. But this before her was nearly untouched. Ice, blue glow, dusts of snow.
Then, in her mind, she saw the world around them begin to stain. Like ash and soot had reached them here, too. The ice splitting, melting-
No, her pad was just giving out chimes, and the flashing lights of finalization we're playing off the clear canopy. "Just you, f'now. You can't much find any fun with my type o'folk." Another sip, drinking more of the warmth to shake off the weird feelings. She then let out a soft laugh in realization. "Wait did you really call y'self ah 'dangerous man'? What next, you gonna flip a joker card at me?"
He shrugged at the joke, finding it worth a sharp exhale before explaining why he used those words, which wouldn't have been his choice. "You'd have to take that up with Liberty. They labelled me as one of their most wanted, a terrorist responsible for many deaths and lots of unrest. There's nothing I'd really call myself." Despite the Government's usual MO for the Xenos, Morreti had somehow wedged himself into the spotlight as a figure of consequence. But it was his moniker that was more well known, something that had weight in the underworld as an ambitious competitor intent on changing the status quo.
"What might actually be dangerous is us flirting with each other. Might end up behaving like teenagers in that cramped crawl space that people tell me is meant for cargo." He was clearly joking, especially when it came to the visibly lacking cargo space that the Rebel possessed. When trying to make up for the fact that the internals weren't necessarily protected by much plating at all, the engineers decided to forego what they felt was a redundant feature. As a result, the ship could at best carry a small load of fast food and a cup of coffee, but only if you were already drinking the cup of coffee.
She nodded to his reasoning. "Know th' feeling. Same coin, just minted in different houses." There was the slight differences in the coinage however. The Gaian Movement was politically backed by a legal party, if not officially. They were able to fight for their cause through words and law just as much as a bombing strike.
At the mention of teens in the cargo, she barked a laugh. "Please, no, m'good without getting cramps. Maybe another time." She skipped over the comment by tapping on her pad. "Got all th' data ah need. Feel free t'take us out when you're ready"
He nodded at her, seeing that she had everything she needed for the moment. Starting the ship's engines back up only took a few seconds and the air circulation stopped pulling in fresh air from outside, relying on the ship's life support systems instead. The takeoff from the ground was more gradual, on account of the fact that gravity was weighing the ship down quite substantially, causing the engines to redline generously in order to propel the ship up and away from the crater. "Need anything else? May as well get it done now while I'm your taxi." Since he currently had no destination in mind, assuming they had all the scans she needed, he put the nose up and started steadily gaining altitude, if she couldn't think of anything by the time they broke through the atmosphere then that was that.
Holding onto her cup tightly, she downed as much of it as possible before slipping the helmet properly back over. "Gonna regret this, but fly us by as close as yah can to Cold Bay. Just wanna see if they got extra storage up there f'organics. Otherwise, we're good t'go." She peeked to the side as the planet floated away from them as if repulsed by the Rebel fighter. She wondered if she would ever see it in person again.
She couldn't see it, but he was grinning, though it was pretty obvious from the way he responded to that. "My pleasure." With no sense of caution, he hit the base of his palm against the throttle stick and let the ship rip its way through the air. The clouds whipped by and in a matter of minutes they were in the expanse of space again. Since the camp's communications system had conveniently suffered a failure, Cold Bay wasn't expecting an uninvited guest by any means of the word. So not only was the retinue of Hunters nearby not alerted the moment Morreti's ship was spotted, but the defenses were powered down to save power.
By the time they did notice, he was cruising straight underneath it and slipping right by without anyone to get in the way. The resulting panic did eventually provoke the weapon systems to life, a flurry of panicked pulse blasts and primary cannons trailing after the Rebel. Nearby Manitoba was alerted and starting preparing ships to launch, but their ETA was the time it would take for the Rebel to clear itself of Cold Bay's range and make it to the nearby Kenai Field. From that point onwards it was the regular shootout the Hunters were used to, but that was a different set of contracts that Planetform hadn't chimed in on, their concerns remained quite narrow and restricted to the operations on the planet.
This would definitely cause a rumble near the field later between Hunters and whatever their prey for the day happened to be, but for now he'd done what was asked of him without a hitch. "How are you holding up back there?" He was genuinely curious, since he'd put her through the motions today and without any warning every single time.
She thought she was prepared. His antics this flight showed her he was a wild child who took glee in flying like a racer on Cambridge. At least, that was how she saw him.
However, she wasn't prepared for this. The thrust out of a gravity well was a feeling she wasn't ready for and the reckless abandon in how it was done didn't help. Legs pressed out against the sides of her spot to brace, not that it would actually help. Her eyes closed again, missing the entirely of the display. As he slowed when entering the astroid field, she realized she was breathing heavily. And she had forgotten to mute her channel. "Fine." she lied without any tone to hide such a ruse.
He almost sounded guilty for the fact that she was practically hyperventilating. "Sorry, I fly this as if I'm the only person in it on instinct. I'm not trying to get you to throw up." Since there was no imminent threat and they were closing in on Barrow again, he dialed the throttled back and brought the ship to a stop, wanting to let her calm down before he pulled in to land. "Breathe in, count to four, exhale and count to four again. When you're feeling like yourself again I'll pull in to dock." It didn't sound like he minded waiting, turning and craning his neck so he could look past his seat and back at her. His eyes were only just barely visible, a deep blue behind that darkened visor of his.
Mary had learned quickly to take advice from people with experience. Air in, four seconds. Air out, four seconds.
She clearly disliked this display, as she bowed her head to hide her face. Maybe it was just easier to breath. Who's to say.
Air in.
The experience wasn't terrible. She had more respect to those pilots who decided to fly these zippy little crafts. Maybe she could take it up. There was a lot of soiled vomit bags in the future if she decided that path.
Air out.
Maybe it was the shock of the whole experience. The natural gravity, the intense movements. She wasn't used to this on her body. That had to be it. It was just inexperience. It was lack of warning. It was being out of her element.
Air in.
Then why was there a creep of shaking panic in her breaths? She didn't want to think of what she saw back in that crater. She didn't want the weakness of her history to dominate her life. She didn't want this man to see it.
Air out.
Her head lifted. She just sat back and breathed for a moment. Eventually a tap of the helmet muted the connection. A few seconds later it unmuted as if it had been muted this whole time. Her voice sounded tired, but that strength was back in it, real or not. "Don't know what you're talkin' about. M'good to go in." A bold faced lie this time. Her tone conveyed she didn't want to discuss it.
Without hesitation he cleared the ship to land and pulled in carefully, he knew better than to rush a landing at a place like Barrow. It was a base known for being extremely crowded, and practically at all hours of the day you could expect to see ships shuttling in and out, either to deliver loot or between patrols. "For what it's worth, you were a solid ride-along. You didn't pass out or puke." A wing of fighters went by them as Morreti's Rebel pulled in to dock, a dull thump would alert Mary to the fact that they had safely touched down. And at long last, the whine of the engines faded into silence as he powered off all the ship's systems. "Guess that's it then, Ricky will take you and Piper back to Sierra once you're both ready to leave. And so far as the record's concerned, you were the LFR's first 'diplomatic' guests." While he was saying all of that, he undid all the straps that kept him safely glued to his seat, standing up after he'd pulled the canopy open. With a deep exhale he removed his helmet and stepped out of the ship, letting Mary take her time following after him.
Once she was outside, he turned to face her, approaching to offer a handshake as a parting gesture.
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