Ashes left the pantless Draya in the captain's quarters to begin her quest for pants. As she passed through the bridge she stopped to take a check on their flight progress. It was quite a distance across the Magellan system between the Cortez and Leeds Jump Holes. The two Werewolf escorts flew either side of the Transport, and a Lane Hacker patrol had joined up with them, they were on a routine patrol to the Jump Hole any way, but they could only offer their assistance for this leg of the journey. Everything looked good so far, but it was only a matter of time until the Bounty Hunters made their move.
"Hey Francis, check the personnel files and tell me where Michaels is stationed at. I need to have a word with him." Ashes called to the Rogue sitting behind one of the ship's main computers.
There was a moments silence as he scanned the ships flight data.
"He's stationed in Engine Room B, Captain." Francis replied.
That was good, the engine rooms weren't too far away from the bridge. "I'll be right back." She announced as she started down the spiral staircase.
As Ashes left the bridge the weightlessness of space took over and she began to float down the staircase, free of the mortal bonds of gravity. On a ship of this size the only areas that received anti-gravitational pull were the Bridge and the Engine Rooms, all other areas were free-floating to save on power.
She moved with an almost painful slowness through the door and into the cargo bay. There was a cargo box or two floating around the ceiling, the ones some careless Rogue forgot to secure before launch. It didn't matter too much, the goods inside were not breakable, it was however a safety hazard. But then again, being a Rogue is a safety hazard.
Ashes floated her way down to the cargo bay floor, pulling herself along by the walls of the ship and into a hallway leading into the back of the ship. She ducked through another door and her boots made a metallic clunk as they touched down on the floor when the gravity took hold of her once more. She took a left at the junction up ahead; the sign read clearly "Engine Room B." The ship had two engine rooms, one for each of the outboard engines where they could be maintained and monitored.
"Yo Michaels, you in here?" Ashes called out into the room. A head popped out from under one of the power couplings, stereotypically covered in grease. Ashes wondered if Draya liked them greasy. Michaels glanced up at Ashes as she stood over top of him.
"Can I have a word with you?" Ashes asked.
"Aw damn it, what'd I do now?" Michaels asked as he slid out from under the coupling and got to his feet.
"Nothing. I just needed to talk to you about something." Ashes said awkwardly, not entirely sure how to approach this.
She had never exactly asked someone to sleep with her best friend before.
"Y'know my best friend Draya right? Well she sent me here to tell you she really likes you." Ashes said quickly, deciding a direct approach would be the easiest.
"Well I uh.. y'see I.." Michaels stuttered a little, he seemed a bit flustered.
"She wants to meet you in my cabin, come on." Ashes said and grabbed his wrist, pulling him along with her.
"No wait!" Michaels protested, although was too afraid to resist. He had witnessed how quickly Ashes could destroy every bone in a man's arm.
As Ashes pulled Michaels up the staircase a sudden thought struck the back of her mind. What would her deck crew think of her dragging this greasy Rogue up into her cabin? That would certainly look quite indignant. She slowed down at the top of the stairs and walked quietly up into the bridge, all of the Rogues were pretty busy at their stations, too busy to notice her. She crept over to her cabin door and punched in the code to unlock it.
"Hi Michaels." The deck crew called out simultaneously.
Ashes flinched and muttered a curse in Kusarian under her breath, now it looked even worse that she had tried to sneak him in. She put that behind her and opened the door, locking it promptly behind her. She spun around to see Draya sprawled out on the bed wearing nothing but her lingerie.
"Hey there sailor." She winked at Michaels, and Ashes nearly caved her forehead in as it collided with her own palm.
Michaels continued to stutter and hesitate uncharacteristically for a typical Liberty Rogue man. Ashes shook her head and muttered "I wish I hadn't seen that." To herself, then composed herself and pushed Michaels towards Draya.
"Come on, go say hi." She encouraged him.
"No wait, wait!" Michaels continued to get more panicked as Ashes pushed him closer. "I'm gay!" He suddenly burst out.
Ashes stopped dumbfounded by the sudden outburst, which had also knocked the sexy look off of Draya's face.
Ashes cocked one eyebrow. "I will be honest; I did not see that one coming."
'You like boys?' Draya scratched her head. 'Why? Girls are so much prettier than boys'¦'
Ashes crossed her arms, trying not to giggle at the hopelessly confused look on her friend's face. Back to the drawing board.
Michaels' face flashed bright red and he looked away. 'S-shut up! You two are crazy.' He pivoted on his heel and made a b-line towards the door.
'Hey wait a minute!' The Kusarian chimed in, grabbing the scrawny rogue by the nape of his collar. 'We still need your pants!'
He twisted to get out of her grip and his fingers slipped off the doorknob. 'Hell no! Stoppit!' The two wound up in a tangle before toppling over onto the bed with Draya.
'Quick!' Ashes panted. 'Grab his pants!'
The redhead nodded with wide eyes and dived for his ankles, grabbing the bottoms of his tough canvas cargo pants. The bed squeaked wildly and the man screamed in a girly manner; meanwhile Draya had worked his pants down to his calves. Michaels yelped again as Ashes' elbow smacked into his eye forcefully.
Woops.
'Got 'em yet?' The girl managed through her gritted teeth.
'Al'¦most'¦ there!' Draya exclaimed, flopping back to her rear with the pants in hand.
'What the hell!' Michaels wheezed incredulously, now flailing around with Ashes in a pair of tighty whities. 'Help!'
A subtle creak sounded from the doorway, the swinging metal door drifting open till the room was fully visible. What seemed to be half of the entire crew now stood there in the doorway, squeezed in to see the scene in the bedroom. One of them coughed and Ashes', Michaels', and Draya's eyes flicked to the doorway.
Draya waved.
'OUT!' Ashes boomed, hopping up from the bed and slamming the door shut.
This wasn't going too well.
Michaels jumped off the bed and eyed the two girls with utter disbelief. His face was cherry red from exertion, anger, and embarrassment; his little greasy hands balled into tight fists.
'Will someone please tell me why you two just stole my ****ing pants?' He yelled, what looked to be tears in the corners of his baby blue eyes.
'I lost my pants'¦ I needed new ones.' Draya answered simply. 'I'm sorry.'
Ashes stood back and watched. This outta' be good.
'You'¦ what?' He cocked his eyebrows. 'How did you lose your pants?'
The girl spent the next few minutes calmly explaining her predicament, as well as what led up to the pants abduction. Michaels sat cross-legged at the edge of the bed in his briefs, Draya mirroring him in the center of the bed in her panties. Finally she finished, apologizing once more before stopping to see how the man reacted.
All he managed to do was laugh.
'Wow, that's awesome.' He chuckled. 'But seriously, you didn't have to kidnap me and my pants. I brought more than one pair, you could have just asked.'
Doh.
'Well, we're sorry.' Ashes nodded. 'Desperate times call for desperate measures?'
'Sure.' He replied with a hint of sarcasm. 'In other news, the crew won't be picking on me for being gay for awhile. I guess I should say thank you actually.'
'Alright, here Draya.' She tossed a sheet to the girl. 'Cover yourself up and go with Michaels to borrow some pants. Hopefully they're not too'¦' Her eyes did an up and down on the skinny male rogue. ''¦small.'
'But that'll look funny! Everyone's out'¦ there.' She lost conviction in the phrase midway through the sentence.
There wasn't much to hide from the crew at this point. Duh.
'Yeah. I'm gonna go see how we're doing.' Ashes muttered. 'I'm never gonna live this one down'¦'
As Draya and Michaels left the cabin, Ashes allowed herself a moment to colapse on her bed and collect her thoughts. She could tell already this was going to be a very interesting adventure. She forcefully picked herself back up before she got too comfortable laying down and headed towards the door, they couldn't be too far from the Leeds Jump Hole now. The crew would have to be alert and ready for anything, they couldn't afford any more of these distractions.
Ashes strode back into the bridge with that look on her face which meant that she wasn't in the mood for games. The crew silently shifted their stares back to their monitors and continued working. The ability to command fear is what kept Ashes alive in this sort of enviroment, she was just a small girl in the world of men afterall.
She took a seat in her captains chair at the centre of the bridge and took a glance at the main screen in front of her.
"Fifteen klicks out from the Jump Hole, Captain." The navigations officer narrated.
"Yes, I can read basic." Ashes responded as she brought the side of her hand up to her lips.
Despite her ability to read basic, most of her controls were written in the Kusari language in all of her ships any way. She always found the traditional kanji more elegant than english characters. It also made it hard for people to steal her ships.
So far the scanners were clear, if there was anything waiting for them on this end of the Jump Hole, their scanners would have been able to pick them up by now, unless they were using the Walker Nebula to hide their signatures. Although at this point the only thing they were able to do was stay their course.
"Start a scan on the Jump Hole now to check it's stability, I don't want to be hanging around in one place for too long." Ashes ordered as they closed in.
"Uh Captain, we have a problem." Francis suddenly spoke up.
"What is it?" Ashes straightened up.
"Someone just accessed their neural net through the ships system and sent out a hail on an encrypted line." Francis explained.
"From inside the ship? Please tell me you scrambled it." Ashes said hopefully.
"Quickly as I could Captain, but I don't know how much got out." Francis responded.
"Francis, patch me through to the crews cabins." Ashes instructed, and Francis obediantly switched the channel.
"Draya, I hope you've got your pants on. I need you back on the deck aye-sap, things are about to get messy." Ashes said through the comm channel.
As if on cue, the edge of the ship's scanners began to light up. Ashes hoped Draya got the message.
![[Image: SLRU.png]](http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv46/Nighthawkashes/SLRU.png)
