The ship departure was smooth. Somehow I'd expected something like being ejected out of a volcano. Clacks occupied about half the bridge room, which was barely scaled big enough for his sort of bulk. He backed into a sort of hexagonal capsule in its center. A couple consoles on armatures attached to it, that could be swung out of the way if he exited. He seemed busy with both, and some smaller Kreeb ran other consoles mounted forward of it, under a panoramic view-pane. Christa, Henry, myself, and Lisa sort of hung onto pole affairs near Clacks' hex - there weren't any chairs, as such. The passenger chambers had them, obviously retrofitted.
Things as they were, we all wanted to watch the ship leave. Clacks assured us take-off would be comfortable.
The land view shrank and dwindled quickly. Clouds obscured things for a second or two, then there was blue sky, quickly darkening, above a globe laced in green, brown and gray, with a sort of white halo around it. After, it got really dark, and some sort of automated cabin lighting brightened in compensation.
Henry looked on, shaking his head. “Never thought I'd ever be doing anything like this. You?”
“Not in a million years.” The darkness outside became lit with a million small stars, the sheer number of them, made my belly drop. I sighed. “Guess we've got some details to thrash out. Clacks, how long will this take?”
The Kreeb's head stayed focused on his panels, but he piped up in reply. “Sixteen hours, take, to first drop. The site in your New Mexico, yes?”
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Rouk wanted at least three hours, and all in all, we had decided to drop him first, unload the returnees in Urban Frisco, where the Kreeb had mostly recruited from. Then, after arming ourselves, return to New Mexico to get Rouk.
I took a breath. Once the colonists were safely off ship and Rouk back on board, it would be time to try the Reese Corp site. It wasn't far from the returnee drop really, a area cleared from the suburban rubble outside Frisco. I thought wistfully about the things left in my digs uptown, but that would have to wait for some other time, if our plan worked out. Given the travel speed of the ship, Clacks had assured us this would not be long excursion, ambitious as it seemed.
The cabin lighting had obscured some of the grandeur, and we needed to get ready. “Okay, we've seen space, and it has seen us. Back to work”
Most of the people who would sub as storm troopers this trip were in the main bay, near the cargo doors. Having zip military experience personally, all that fell to Henry, who wanted to organize the volunteers into teams and at minimum establish a chain of command. The Kreeb didn't have enough portable communicators for everyone, but one per say twenty or so was possible. Only, Being Kreeb stuff, no one really knew exactly how to use them. Pretty much, we were still unarmed. If the armory had been breached, if we were spotted by the wrong people in Frisco, if,if,if. I hated our plan already. So Henry was going to have an interesting few hours, then it would get worse.
Lisa poked me. “Come on, champ. Buck up. Its not a funeral, its a liberation, yah?.”
I smiled weakly. “Going back to my cabin to check on the cat.”
“You do that. I'm going to see how the returnees are looking.” She palmed my cheeks. “Then I'll come join you, yah?”