"Hmm?"
Swiftman's writers sense had given a tiny tingle. Not much, but enough to warn him.
Not taking chances, Swiftman speedily headed back to his Pyro-GX, got in and prepared the regular take-off procedures.
"Core power, 50%." Swiftman repeated to himself. He wish he had installed an artificial personality matrix in the Pyro-GX. On long trips to Andromeda the boredom of sitting in a silent ship was nerve-wracking.
Suddenly Swiftman's writers sense gave a sudden jolt.
"Oh, JEEZ!" Swiftman saw a huge bolt of energy heading straight for his position.
He punched the Pyro-GX's engines into overdrive, then fired the afterburners. He managed to avoid being hit by the direct beam, but the few thousand tonnes of rock splash damage struck several engines on the Pyro-GX, rendering the Hyperdrive engines useless.
"Damn it!" Swiftman pounded his controls, hoping to get something. Nothing. The computer was still working, but no drive units were functioning.
He typed a few keys into the computer,, calculating his current trajectory.
"Io? Oh, no. Tiger won't like that."
Pulling out a special remote, Swiftman gave a certain button a push.
Recieving the signal, despite the many millions of miles between them, the Skiver, currently sitting dormant in Swiftman's underground complex in Alberta, suddenly activated and took off without hestation to intercept Swiftman's damaged Pyro-GX, completely unmanned.
Or so he thought....
"Ah, there it is."
Swiftman saw the Skiver flying towards him. The green of the Skiver's armor seemed to stick out very easily with the blackness of space.
The skiver stopped and matched speed with the Pyro-GX's flight. Turning on his internal oxy-tanks, Swiftman opened the cockpit of the Pyro-GX and jumped out. He opened up the Skiver and jumped in. Activating the gravity beam, he grabbed onto the Pyro-GX and flew back to Earth,
Swiftman engaged the life support systems in the Skiver, only to find that they were on already.
"Huh? It's usually set to ahve them off while it's in unmanned flight. Unless the system etected a body in here before launch, it should have been off. Maybe I bumped a setting."
Typing through the control panel, Swiftman looked through his settings, trying to find the life support options.
"Mmm.... What happened?"
Swiftman nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Lacus!? Damn, girl. You rightly spooked me!"
She was indeed looking like a mess. She had rings under her eyes, her hair was tousled and messed up, and looked like she hadn't washed her face in quite a while.
She looked up at Swiftman's face, then smiled slightly. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been sleeping in the Skiver." She hung her head a little, her face hidden by her hair.
"No no, it's alright." Swiftman patted her head lightly. "Why you wouldn't want to sleep in your room back at home is beyond me, though."
She looked up and Swiftman's face, and giggled. "Well, Broom and Kary were... 'making noises'."
Recognition dawned on Swiftman's face. "Ah. I see. Well, I don't blame you for wanting to get away from that."
Lacus gave her smile an incline, then put her arms around Swiftman. "You're so good."
Cocking an eyebrow, Swiftman remembered that Lacus did not of him and Morrigan. Nevertheless, he gave her a hug back.
"Uh, Lacus, we're currently plummeting for Io. Do you think you could...." he gave a motion for her to sit in a chair and buckle in.
"Oh, right." She gave a sheepy face and sat down, then strapped herself in.
Swiftman turned back to the controls. Still holding the Pyro-GX in a tractor hold, he activated the Inter-phase drives on the Siver and flew back to Earth.
