Snippet #2813085

Roland waited in silence, secretly hoping the skull probe would not respond.

“Hello? This is the Children.” He said, giving the grotesque machine a little shake. A bright blue light sparked from its inner workings, giving Roland a static shock as the glowing red eye faded out.

“What?” Roland said. He shook it a couple more times before pushing it onto the floor in irritation. He’d have to get an engineer to repair it. Possibly that new rocketeer fellow, although he seems more interested in propulsion systems than anything else.

Roland headed out into the corridor, quickly locating Rei in a mostly unused workroom. He could see she was waiting for a response, and gave it a good moment before the communicator got way too hot to keep holding on to. “It’s alright.” He said, using his coat like an oven mitt to take it from her and place it into one of his many unreasonably deep pockets.

“Just as well the skull-machine is unresponsive too. That was my plan B all the way to Z…” Roland twirled a pen in between his fingers, looking intently through the doorway leading to a corridor. Just as one of the Childrens’ many thugs rushed past, Roland called out.

“You!” and the thug stopped in his tracks, attentive to Roland’s words. “Sorry. Daniel, I mean. Collect Thomas Lawson. Bring him here. Afterwards get our resident rocketeer to repair the skull probe in my office.” Daniel gave a nod.. “Then prepare a ship to take us off world. Enhanced procedures, more discretion than usual. Use a connection we haven’t used in a good while. Understood?”

“Uh, sure thing... Are we boned?” He said.

“Not if we stick to procedure. Get to it, now.”

Daniel left down the corridor. Roland turned back to Rei.

“We need your ship. Great Magellan war era, yes? The technology we could develop from its design would give us a much needed edge. I can track it, within reason, and also get a ship prepared to smuggle us outside of the blockade. Getting back in would be a problem, though I believe the Ghost Dance meets the technical specifications for such a task.”

“So Rei, what do you think? I’ll require every piece of information regarding its present location, to your knowledge.”

~~~

Daniel headed down the corridor, poking his head into the occasional barracks room or meeting area until he spotted Thomas looking through his things at his bunk. The kid had earnt himself a reputation as being one of the more quiet souls as part of the Children, and it was irksome to see him rummaging around weapons and grenades.

“Uh, Tom?” Said Daniel. “The boss wants you. Sounded important.”

If Thomas would follow, Daniel would lead him back to Roland before moving on to tasking the Rocketeer with repairing the skull probe.