STS Intruder

[mesmer]

A rumbling could be heard down the landing bay. The screeching and high-pitched whine of engines being overtaxed followed the deep rumbling. A moment later a Roc bomber passed through the bay'€™s mag-screen. Unsteady and clearly in trouble it lurched one way and then the other while trying to right itself. As soon as it entered the oxygen rich environment of the hanger bay the fuel leak on its port side engine ignited and flames and smoke immediately spread across that side.

The Roc attempted to come in for a hard landing, and at first appeared that it would break itself apart all across the landing bay. Instead the pilot managed to right the wounded bird at the last moment and brought it smoothly down on its landing struts, but the craft was not out of danger. The port side strut almost immediately failed and the bird lurched and collapsed onto its left wing, sending showers of sparks all across the landing bay as the craft skidded to a halt.

For a moment nothing happened as the earsplitting noise died away and the engines whined down to a stop along with it. The fire off the port engine continued to blaze and smoke as it got dangerously close to Nova torpedo magazine. Then there was a hiss and the canopy popped open and struggled to rise. Smoke billowed out of the cockpit, obscuring the view inside, but the sounds of repeated curses could be heard from within, and a moment later a flight helmet came sailing out of the smoke to bounce across the floor of the bay.

As the smoke cleared a woman could be seen in the cockpit. She wore a light, form-fitting EVA flight suit and was tugging at the ties in her hair. Once free, long brown hair tumbled down her back, which she loosened with her left hand. She reached down out of sight and a moment later her empty hand came back with a Stetson, which she placed on her head. Then she removed a small cigar from her breast pocket and placed it in her mouth, lighting it with a small survival lighter that dangled from a bracelet around her wrist. She took a couple drags off the cigar and exhaled, seemingly oblivious to everything around her, including the fire.

After a moment she reached down again, along her left side. He left hand came away with a duel purpose fire extinguisher, which she pointed backwards over her left side out the cockpit. Without looking she squeezed both handles and with a '€œwhoosh'€ let the fire have it with both barrels. Not bothering to look back at the jets of both Halon gas and fire retardant foam jetting from the extinguisher, she instead looked ahead, seemingly in deep thought. The fire went out and simply smoldered, then coughed its last, small amounts of smoke continuing to billow from the site of where it once lived. The woman didn'€™t stop spraying until the canister was empty. When it stopped spraying she seemed to come out of whatever deep thought she was having and brought the extinguisher around to where she could see it. With a slightly confused expression she looked at the device as she shook it, but still the rebellious thing refused to respond. She shrugged and released the canister absentmindedly and it fell from her grip to clatter onto the deck with a loud '€œBANG'€

She leaned back into the flight chair and took another pull from the small cigar. Blowing two smoke rings, and then taking a deep breath.

'€œZACK!'€ She yelled out. When no immediate answer came, she yelled again '€œZACK!'€

Then muttering to herself she straightened up and started to take an actual notice of her surroundings, apparently looking for Zack. At that moment she finally noticed the group of people standing off the nose of her craft, and with a bemused expression, noticed all of the guns pointed at one of them, a man she had never seen before.

She raised an eyebrow, and in a Colorado accent inquired, '€œEh, am I interrupting something?'€

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