Operation: Marauder

Chapter 4

Rowan paced in front of the Marauder, which had been sitting in this hangar, collecting dust for the past year. Until a week ago. Maliki had made leaping strides in repairing the ship. It hadn't been what Rowan had asked him to do, fixing the hyperdrive was his priority, but he had to admit, being able to fly at all was better than being grounded. This morning was the first time they took the Marauder up with no alarms going off once they were ten feet off the ground. They went off when they reached atmo. But Maliki and Mave believe they had worked out the kinks to give it another go.

If only their liaison was here to supervise. Rowan had no plans on leaving this planet yet--they couldn't--he only wanted to feel a slither of hope that they would one day return home, but he didn't want to increase the tension in the already tense humans,  so he had to wait for Jack to return from whatever stupid, unimportant meeting he had to attend before they could fire her up. It was apparently important enough for him to throw a fit and demanded they return back to base when he saw what time it was while they were flying through the mesosphere this morning.

The hangar doors opened. Jack came rushing across the smooth concrete floor. He had forgotten to change out of his civvies, still wearing jeans and a tee shirt; he didn't seem to care when Rowan brought it up either.

"Let's go again," was all he said, passing him straight for the ramp. Rowan recognized that look from anywhere; he knew exactly how Jack felt after his first time in space. He couldn't wait to do it all over again either. He doubted the novelty would ever wear thin for the human, though.

Rowan followed him inside the spacecraft, hitting the ramp button to retract it. It closed them in with a solid thunk.

The rest of the crew were already buckled up, just outside of the cockpit doors. Mave was in the cockpit, calling out the launch sequence through the speaker. Jack wiggled in his seat restlessly, like a kid who wanted the ride to start already.

Knox shook his head at him. "Calm down, man, or you're going to pass out before we reach atmo."

Jack paused in his wiggling to look at him. "Is that a thing?"

Knox shrugged. "Could be for a human."

"It's not a thing," Cas corrected, unimpressed with Knox's teasing. "We have environmental stabilizers in place to ensure a smooth ride for all species."

As soon as his words left his mouth, the ship left the ground, teetering from side to side. Jack clutched his seat, like he did the last time they had a rocky start. What could they expect, she had been grounded for a year, there was still a few things that needed greasing up and dusting off.

Once she was clear of the hangar, though, the ride smoothed out. When they reached the stratosphere and no alarms went off, Rowan ordered Mave to push her a little harder.

"Harder!" Knox cheered, grinning like a cheeky schoolboy.

He knew they had reached the exosphere when Mave opened up the cockpit and joined them in the main area. Jack was the first to unbuckle; he raced for the window in the cockpit.

"Oi! Don't touch anything!" Mave called to him.

Jack was too busy admiring Earth from below to listen. Trusting that Jack wouldn't meddle with the ship console, Rowan turned to his crew, pressing a button that summoned the navigation table from the floor. They took a quick scan of Earth this morning before they had to take her back to the hangar; Rowan brought up the 3D projection of the planet.

"Where did the escort ship land?"

Mave used his fingers to control the map, spinning it until he found what he was looking for and highlighted the coordinates. "It landed here."