Fueled for Departure

Jujube twisted one of the mechanical dials on her arm blaster. It was an older model, but that suited her for situations like this: fine-tuning the blaster fire at a lower intensity would mean she could stave off some of these Earthlings without too many of them risking permanent injury.

Well, unless the dial was off by a millimeter or two ... but that was a problem for a future Jujube. 

Before she could even think about opening fire on the approaching Earthlings, someone came crashing down beside her. She slammed down on the arm blaster to open fire on what she presumed was an attacker, but fortunately, the blast fired wide into the sky and did little more than startle one of the oncoming flying machines.

"You need to be more care--" she was cut off as that shot struck nearby, and she leapt backwards to hug the wall. She aimed her blaster upwards, her scouter lighting up green as she scanned for targets.

But, she held off -- begrudgingly so, as she turned her attention to the tall musician whispering to her. The last thing she needed was to be slowed down by some kind of reckless Earthling, but--

-- another shot ricocheted around the alleyway, pinging off of a hanging lamp and nearly catching Jujube over the ear. Startled, she just jerked her head harshly to one side, and started bolting for far exit that she'd been cut off from already.

"Yeah, I've -- got a ship," she said, between breaths. "It's got space, just--"

She slid behind an oversized recycling container as their opposition became all the more clear: aside from the flying machines overhead, which seemed to be growing in number, there was also a barricade at the end of the alley with at least a half dozen hovercars. Those trying to prevent their escape were standard Earthlings at best, and their weapons were antiquated compared to Jujube's. Their scouters gave them some kind of defense, but they wouldn't hold up long.

She cast an uneasy glance back to the newcomer. It was hard to tell from looking at her what kind of stomach she had for this sort of work, and the fact that they were some kind of musician didn't fill her with confidence. She offered a smile to them, but given the doubt in her eyes, it was a rather weak gesture.

"Your call, er -- babe," she said off-handedly, as a yellow-white energy began to hum to life at the muzzle of her blaster. "I can get us out quick, but some Earthlings will probably die. Or, we can take this slow and keep the light-show to a minimum. The only risk is if they've got any of their off-world heroes lurking around."

The gathering energy reached its peak, and she pinched her fingers against the safety dial. Ready to kill or stun, at her newfound accomplice's word. She wasn't keen on earning that intergalactic bounty for killing Earthlings, but the musician was right: being 'thrown in the can' would be worse.

Jujube stared up at the musician when they took up their guitar, her eyes going wide. She would have sworn they were insane, but as the notes they played rang out over the sound of the gunfire, a crackling barrier formed before her eyes. She couldn't quite hide the shock on her face, and she slowly dimmed the energy coming from the tip of her blaster. If her scouter could be believed, this person's music would be more than enough to keep them covered under the hail of gunfire.

"Yeah, I -- can you hear me over all that..?"

She shrugged the thought off and hopped back to her feet, and with one more look of open disbelief at Chord, gave them a nod -- and just bolted directly for the exit. She could hardly hear the gunshot salvos firing off under the thrum of the music, but she was sure the alleyway was being lit up -- she just didn't quite have the stomach to stare at oncoming bullets while trusting a total stranger to keep her safe.

"You're clever for someone who crashed out of the sky -- now, please, hold on..!"

By the time she made it to the exit of the alley, she spun around and tried to seize Chord by the wrist, activating the miniaturized rocket boosters in her off-wrist to send her hurdling into the air, ideally with Chord in tow. It wasn't quite flight, given her proper armour had been left behind on her ship, but it could at least put distance between them and their pursuers.

In an instant, the boost propelled her high above the low-rise buildings in the neighborhood, and the flaring sirens fell into the background. Gunshots continued to ring out through the air, but as she (and potentially Chord) got farther away, the Earthlings would begin to be more cautious about shooting, for risk of bullets going astray.

Getting up this high was one thing, getting down was another: the rocket booster was barely enough to stabilize Jujube on her descent, but with the fuel hidden in her leather satchel, and potentially Chord, there was no making the landing easy. She tried to pivot herself towards the park nearest the landing pad she'd left her ship at, but as the greenspace drew closer and closer, the hopes for a clean landing continued to dwindle.

She shut her eyes and hoped for the best, primed to crash through the branches of a half-dozen trees. She just hoped that she'd miss the lake. It might put a damper on the theft if she got water in her fuel.

When the crash didn't come, Jujube blinked her eyes open. She took an owlish look around, having been almost certain she was going to hit at least one or six trees. Instead, she found herself carried safely to the ground by the strange musician. There was a moment of alarm over her eyes and she nearly scrambled her way into a freefall before catching herself. When she stopped panicking, she turned out to be rather easy to hoist along, given her own petite frame by contrast.

"Are you flying?" she blurts out, obtusely.

The musician didn't look very much like a Saiyan to her, but she was almost certain that flying as a Saiyan art. Maybe they had learned during the war, or had acquired a Saiyan tutor, or maybe -- well, maybe Jujube was just behind the curve on how common this really was.

She gestured for the landing pad which lurked beyond the edge of the urban greenspace, almost sheepish after asking a question that she now realized was probably obvious.

"My ship is over there," she almost mumbled. "I was trying to get to it when I got cornered, but I, er, parked a little farther away than I thought we were going."

She could still hear sirens in the distance, though they were far enough behind now that she was certain they could make it there before too much trouble arrived. The Earthlings' flying machines might have been starting to catch up, but if she aimed around Chord's shoulder, maybe--

She mimed taking aim, before thinking against it. If she was being spirited to safety, antagonizing her accomplish slash rescuer by firing on the Earthlings probably wasn't the play just yet.

"I didn't really aim all that ... specific," she admits. "I just thought -- you know, it was green over here, so there was less chance of crashing into a building, or through a window, or..."

She trailed off.

"I'm not used to running like that!"

The landing pad would quickly become clear as they travelled: it was a general purpose pad, one of those created to facilitate Earth's more frequent contact with spacefaring empires. While most of the ships were fairly nondescript, Jujube's would probably stand out from the group. It was, itself, a fairly standard design: a spherical build, with a platinum-plated hull and a couple minor point-defense turrets installed along its axis. It was also certainly big enough for a few passengers.

What made it so obvious was also the one unfortunate wrinkle -- Chord might be hitting their head on the ceiling. The ship was almost painfully scaled for Tuffle use. Low ceilings just might have been an anti-theft strategy at some stage in Hatchi.

"I can fly when I have my combat suit," Jujube added, almost in self-defense. "Just, it isn't really fashionable for wearing in Earthling cities, it's a little -- you know -- hostile looking."

Jujube had to take a couple of moments to input her passcode once they reached the ship, something that was rather more easily said than done. The code was still long and ponderous, and she had never quite figured out how to change it without causing the systems to lock down. She didn't quite purchase the ship herself, after all -- she just didn't give it back after her tenure with the Tuffle military had 'lapsed'.

"I'm a Tuffle," she said over her shoulder, as she typed in what must have been the twentieth or so different character to get the door on the ship to unseal. "We're, uh -- well, we're from a place called Plant, which is incidentally where the ship is set up to go next."

She peered upwards at the looming and smirking figure, puffing her cheeks out in a huff.

"I wasn't -- I wasn't being defensive!" she claimed, as the door finally unsealed. "I was just explaining! Besides, if I'd been wearing my combat suit, there's a good chance they might have opened fire sooner. You can't steal things in a big metal suit."

The interior of the ship was about what could be expected: it was a large room with a navigation booth in the center, what appeared to be a refrigerator in the central column -- right next to the generator, which ran cold with some kind of rare element. That probably wasn't a health risk. There were two doors leading into back rooms, along with a handful of comfortable-enough-looking chairs for passengerrs.

It certainly wasn't a luxury ship, but it was at least meant for lengthy travel.

As Jujube gestured for Chord to enter before her, those flying machines finally caught up. Gunfire crackled through the night again, pinging off of the hull of the ship harmlessly enough. When the Tuffle got on board, she hurried over to the navigation booth and started pressing key after key.

Outside, the ship rocked and rattled with bullets, but the ship was fortunately built to withstand attacks from far more formidable adversaries than Earthling security. Though, with enough time sitting still...

"It'll only take -- uh! Thirty seconds!"

She initiated the engines, and double-checked the charts. Accounting for differences in gravity, and the ship's own quirks after a little too much time in service...

... she paused. A handful of error messages popped up on screen, warning about this problem or that problem. Some of the power coils had heated up too much due to being left out under the sun, leading to instabilities in the main generator -- and was that hull damage? Certainly not.

She quickly closed out all the error messages with a series of clicks.

"Make that a minute and a half," she corrected, trying not to let concern leak into her voice. "You're alright going to Plant, right? Good! You'll like it there."

Jujube hardly even noticed the musician inputting her code, too consumed with trying to get the ship started for her to register what had happened. What was important was that energy shield had once again come to her rescue, as she continued to clear error message after error message.

Luckily, the ship wasn't reading any further damage -- her newfound accomplice had seen to that.

"Alright, alright..." she murmured to herself. "Just a manual override here, a little bypass there..."

Her original timing was a little off: it took her nearly two minutes, during which time the Earthlings' firing line only grew in numbers and intensity, before the engines flared to life. Fortunately, the ship was designed to take off from planets with far heavier gravity profiles, and so once flames started to lick the landing platform, it immediately began to rocket into the air.

Despite the musician's last warning, she did worry about leaving them to fend off the Earthlings on their own. Instead of just go straight for the atmosphere, she slammed down on the airlock release to force it open again, and twisted the ship over precariously, presenting a clear shot straight up for her guitar-toting defender to fly in through.

She had to hang onto the controls for dear life, as one of the things she had to manually override was the artificial gravity. The sound of cargo slamming into the side of the ship rang out, along with the unwelcome noise of glass shattering in the refrigerator. She took a deep breath: it was alright. There was stuff in hard plastic containers to eat and drink, too.

"Up this way!" she called, though her voice could hardly carry over the combined chorus of music and rocket engines.

The Earthlings weren't ignorant to the escape attempt, and unfortunately, once it came to space-ships, they were a little more well-armed than their standard security had been. Just as she coasted overhead, waiting for Chord to make their entry back into the ship, alarms began to blare loudly from inside the ship: missile locks from a nearby defense tower.

When had the Earthlings installed those? Probably around the time they started having to defend themselves for interplanar invasions.

"We--we really need to get into atmosphere!" she called out, the panic now wholly entering her voice.

Jujube let out a yelp in alarm as Chord let go of the ship, and sped off in the other direction. She barely knew the musician, but that didn't mean she wanted to see them turn into smoke and mist over the skies of West City. She preemptively winced before activating the camera feed, to watch the chaos about to unfold.

The feed could hardly even track the musician's movements: they were like a blur racing across the horizon, until -- the explosion rang out. Her eyes shot wide as she stared at the resulting debris. It was one thing for her to have contemplated shooting out a handful of Earthlings to escape, but this death felt needless to her.

She tilted her head down and let out a breath, swallowing whatever remorse she felt over getting the musician into this situation. She didn't even see the blur coming towards the ship, until the sound of her would-be accomplice impacting the floor startled her and drew her attention.

It was a horrific sight, but one that explained -- rather a lot. By the time she managed to push past the shock of seeing Chord torn to pieces, she slammed down the ignition to send the ship scorching towards the atmosphere. As it leveled out, the artificial gravity finally started to work, at least easing off some of the bumpiness of their escape towards the stars.

It took her a half-second to set the ship on an autopilot out of the Earthling solar system, before she slid out of her chair and rushed to the side of the half-destroyed android. She couldn't believe that they were grinning after all of that, but she wrote it down to shock. She slid her stolen satchel off to the side and instead opened the inner-compartment of her arm-blaster, looking for supplies.

She turned a shade paler.

"U-uh, sorry, I think I mostly have medical supplies for ... flesh and blood," she managed, her voice wavering under the pressure. "I do have some repair tools down below, but they're for a ship's engine. I don't know if I'll be able to repair ... much."

She caught a glimpse of that intact guitar out of the corner of her eye, and went to grab it and pull it in closer.

"This won't help at all, will it?" she asked, hopefully. It was a long shot, but -- well, you never knew.

As the blonde Tuffle fussed, the stars began to streak past the main viewport as the ship really picked up speed. It had only taken them moments to clear Earth's system, and then they were free: safe, at least for the moment. The cascading stars cast a dim white-blue light across the interior of the hull, until the viewport properly dimmed.