Daniel Altarei's Story

Linus Trucidabunt stopped abruptly shortly before the doors, by an almost overflowing ashtray next to a recently emptied garbage can.

"Well, ye got yer wish," He tapped at his pockets as if looking for a wallet. A joke.

Carmen Dellevon dropped her smile, reaching up to touch the soft petaled flower she had tucked behind her ear. It had begun to wilt. Were she an enchantress, it would have never. But, she was not.

She sighed audibly, heavy, exaggerated.

"Aren't you having fun, though?"

Linus Trucidabunt chuckled and folded his arms across his chest. So, she wasn't gonna pay up easy, eh?

"Nah. Hate the city. Hate space. Good in the water. You payin' or 'm I hollerin'?"

He hated to do it, but he wasn't so sure about leaving Terra just yet. He had this sick underwater thing that he had pieced back together himself. He had a decent hustle, which was about to get a little more strict when it came to items of transport.

No, Linus wasn't interested in becoming a wanted refugee. He liked his lil' life as a captainless pirate.

Carmen Dellevon harrumphed and fished a wad of cash out from somewhere that Linus didn't catch. She slapped it at his chest.

Linus Trucidabunt shuffled to catch the money and shot Carmen a glare.

Carmen Dellevon flashed Linus a devious smile, turned on her heel, and marched off to the shuttles. Sneaking on ships was her recent specialty. Perhaps she's dry it again, perhaps not. Either way, she supposed she was done with Linus. He had been paid and now he was gone.

Linus Trucidabunt didn't hang around, just in case someone who had seen those wanted ads just so happened to see him accepting money from Carmen. So far, it seemed, so good.

Carmen Dellevon snuck around the spaceport nonchalantly. She noticed security was a bit lax around one bay, tucked down a hallway that was too inconveniently long to have much traffic. There weren't even any shops down this way. What a fortunate meander!

She slipped under a piece of neon yellow tape doing a bad job at blocking the bay entrance - not bothering to notice that it was police tape.

There wasn't anyone inside, which again seemed very odd. A quick glance around and she realized why. The place was fully covered with security cameras. It looked like the whole bay was automated. But, she hadn't tripped any alarms.

"Yeah, we just got it working last week- but it's..." Said a voice deeper in the bay to someone else. They were in the control room it sounded like, but the door was open. Carmen kicked off her shoes and tucked them under an armpit. Cowboy boots weren't exactly quiet and it was a miracle nobody had noticed her.

"I don't see why we don't," responded another voice. They sounded impatient. Carmen crept around the perimeter of the bay.

In the center was a tall thing covered with a giant black sheet-like tarp. It looked heavy and weatherproof- and it touched the ground right over there.

"...Politics, you know?" The first voice said again. Carmen wasn't catching the whole conversation.

"...up and running if they're just going to decommission it. Makes no sense!" the second voice said. Carmen ducked into the fold of the fabric covering the thing in the center of the room where it touched the ground. It was just big enough to hide all of her, and if they hadn't been looking at the cameras to see her get this far...well. That was the opposite of her problem.

Footsteps started to approach. Carmen held her breath.

"We did our job," Said the first voice.

"Woulda been nice, though, to be able to push them buttons," Responded the second.

"Yeah, woulda coulda shoulda. I'm starved," the first voice changed the topic. It sounded like they were going out the way Carmen had come in.

"Same. Clock out & hit the diner?" The second voice was all too willing to talk food over work. The footsteps quickened and receded down the tunnel that led to the bay. Carmen could have burst out laughing. If that was security, well. It was no wonder she was to fly out from here. What security?!

Carmen Dellevon dragged the big tarp-like thing off of the tall mechanical object - which turned out to be not unlike the one she had used to get from the cliffs of Gruelle to the beaches of Aslund. She grinned, realizing she had watched Linus pilot his underwater version of this gargantuan thing. Now, how to get in it?

"Hello?" Carmen called up and tapped on the leg, noticing a child had put a bunch of metallic star stickers meticulously all over it. That was cute.

Chaos erupted in the bay at the departure of Sol Senshi. As soon as the sky door opened to allow it to pass through, an alarm began to blare. All over Wing City Spaceport, officials mobilized to the scene of the crime.

A Gundam, decommissioned tech and unseen for ages on Terra, was ascending into the sky. It was supposed to be sent to Sol Enterprise but um...well, it was currently headed off planet now wasn't it?

Someone was in deep trouble!

"Shit,"

Jatara arrived on shift to a shit show. So, someone had stolen the project she was responsible for? Great. Brilliant. Wonderful. It looked like they had pursuit handled, but now to buck it up and tell the bosses. Not fun. She unpeeled a cherry flavored piece of gun, popped it in her mouth, and tossed the wrapper at a trash can.

Daniel Altarei smiled as he checked the security system logs. He tagged the people of interest, and started a security sweep to see what was known about them. He wondered if Carmen would discover the tracking device hidden on Sol Senshi, not that he would be able to track the signal once it slipped into hyperspace.