Scolopendra
10-10-2006, 01:32
Gritting his teeth slightly, Magnus Hesche keeps a steady hand on the control stick, his left hand gingerly yet firmly adjusting the throttle. The muscles of his square jaw work under his bronzed skin as he chews on a well-gnawed toothpick, a day's stubble covering his hard chin, best described as able to crush diamonds. Above that are the rubber goggles, their elastic straps slipping back into their dedicated slits in his leather aviator's helmet. Old-fashioned, perhaps, but Magnus is an old-fashioned sort of guy, along with the flying leathers and the silk scarf wrapped lightly around his neck. Under the goggles, keen blue eyes keep a steady watch out the canopy, only occasionally flicking down to check the instruments in a well-practiced sweep. A job's a job, and it's just another day in the life.
The idea is simple--stay just a few meters behind the ZMI megafreighter, and keep from touching any of the the fusion torch exaust plumes that burn above, below, and to either side of Magnus' ship. Face firm with concentration, but not tight, Magnus carefully keeps his sleek craft inside its deadly box, practically undetectable as it follows the megafreighter through the defense perimeter of Megacity One. A job's a job, and it's just another day in the life... he may be firm--he has to be--but he's also calm, not tense. He's seen worse, and tension would just send him into the flames with the first overcorrection.
The young woman sitting next to him in the co-pilot's seat, platinum blonde with maybe a slight bluish tint, whistles softly as her fingers bite into the armrests of her chair. "You're... good at this..."
"Mmmhrmm," Hesche replies, not bothering to look over, just keeping his bird on course, firm and steady.
"Why are we doing this again?" She tries to not let any fear show in her voice, but the strain still shows through.
"Hafta," says a nonchalant voice from back, sly and perhaps just slightly sleazy. "Meg One's got sensors out the ass and they take a register and a toll on everything, and illegal parking costs even more on short order. For an in-out like we've got planned, we may as well just sneak in." Lean but muscular, the man strokes his thin mustache before glancing back down at his portcomp and tapping at it expertly, weeding out the fuzz from the drives to get a better sensor picture of the outside. "Best way to sneak in is either in plain sight... but we stand out... or where no one would ever look. Only the crazy or the hard would stick this close to a multigigaton bulk hauler and its exhaust stream."
"Crazy is right," the girl mutters.
"Heh heh," chuckles the thick, deep voice of the heavily muscled slab of a man sitting across from the more rat-like one. "You've hung wi' tha boss long'r than we have. Ya know he's hard."
"Like I said, crazy is right." The padded armrest distorts more under her grip.
The fifth person in the cabin, a slick-looking athletic man with an unlikely black coif, glasses, and a red muscle shirt frowns slightly. "How much longer?"
The sly, skinny one shrugs before fishing out a cigarette, sticking it in his mouth, and lighting it perhaps a touch too quickly out of habit. "Just a few more minutes. Once we're inside the Meg's perimeter, we slide out of the slipstream and land in the kipple." He gestures with the cigarette between his fingers, glowing end streaking in the dark cabin, then shrugs, opens a paint window on his portcomp, and starts doodling. "Don't worry. I'm grokking the police bands as we speak, I'll let you know."
Magnus simply nods, continuing to chew idly on his toothpick. "It's all according to plan, boys. Under control."
Zoom out of the canopy; Magnus' sleek aerodyne rocket tucked neatly between four massive plasma streams of a secondary thruster bank, the heat distorting the light into waves and eddies. Further out, and the megafreighter becomes a real object instead of a wall, larger than most towns, slowly descending as it approaches the massive metal compound fracture that is Megacity One.
The idea is simple--stay just a few meters behind the ZMI megafreighter, and keep from touching any of the the fusion torch exaust plumes that burn above, below, and to either side of Magnus' ship. Face firm with concentration, but not tight, Magnus carefully keeps his sleek craft inside its deadly box, practically undetectable as it follows the megafreighter through the defense perimeter of Megacity One. A job's a job, and it's just another day in the life... he may be firm--he has to be--but he's also calm, not tense. He's seen worse, and tension would just send him into the flames with the first overcorrection.
The young woman sitting next to him in the co-pilot's seat, platinum blonde with maybe a slight bluish tint, whistles softly as her fingers bite into the armrests of her chair. "You're... good at this..."
"Mmmhrmm," Hesche replies, not bothering to look over, just keeping his bird on course, firm and steady.
"Why are we doing this again?" She tries to not let any fear show in her voice, but the strain still shows through.
"Hafta," says a nonchalant voice from back, sly and perhaps just slightly sleazy. "Meg One's got sensors out the ass and they take a register and a toll on everything, and illegal parking costs even more on short order. For an in-out like we've got planned, we may as well just sneak in." Lean but muscular, the man strokes his thin mustache before glancing back down at his portcomp and tapping at it expertly, weeding out the fuzz from the drives to get a better sensor picture of the outside. "Best way to sneak in is either in plain sight... but we stand out... or where no one would ever look. Only the crazy or the hard would stick this close to a multigigaton bulk hauler and its exhaust stream."
"Crazy is right," the girl mutters.
"Heh heh," chuckles the thick, deep voice of the heavily muscled slab of a man sitting across from the more rat-like one. "You've hung wi' tha boss long'r than we have. Ya know he's hard."
"Like I said, crazy is right." The padded armrest distorts more under her grip.
The fifth person in the cabin, a slick-looking athletic man with an unlikely black coif, glasses, and a red muscle shirt frowns slightly. "How much longer?"
The sly, skinny one shrugs before fishing out a cigarette, sticking it in his mouth, and lighting it perhaps a touch too quickly out of habit. "Just a few more minutes. Once we're inside the Meg's perimeter, we slide out of the slipstream and land in the kipple." He gestures with the cigarette between his fingers, glowing end streaking in the dark cabin, then shrugs, opens a paint window on his portcomp, and starts doodling. "Don't worry. I'm grokking the police bands as we speak, I'll let you know."
Magnus simply nods, continuing to chew idly on his toothpick. "It's all according to plan, boys. Under control."
Zoom out of the canopy; Magnus' sleek aerodyne rocket tucked neatly between four massive plasma streams of a secondary thruster bank, the heat distorting the light into waves and eddies. Further out, and the megafreighter becomes a real object instead of a wall, larger than most towns, slowly descending as it approaches the massive metal compound fracture that is Megacity One.