Hortan entered the bachelor suite as John and Waldoze called their common room. He immediately started retreating, as it looked like he had entered a menage a trois that was just about to start. That is, until he looked at the extremely red eyes that were semi closed under the bushy eyebrows that inhabited Dozer's face.
"Your ride is here Ms. Rose." John rose like the gentleman his mum had taught him to be, and handed Rose a cred stick he had found among Dozer's possessions. "I expect that this will cover any expenses you may have had, including the fare back."
Rose had gotten up and smiled at John before letting Hortan take her out into the corridor.
"To Daltas Hold Hort, you know where."
Hortan escorted the young girl from John’s quarters down towards the launch bay. She had clad in a too big cotton coat and very high plateau heels, and had a scarf over her hair. Hortan was glad that she had covered herself up, at least then he stopped blushing. She was a bit unsteady, and so he offered her his hand for support. It turned out that she needed more than a hand, and so he ended having his hand around her waist and her arm over his shoulder, with her head resting on the shoulder as well.
They exited the residential area and ran into Fluffy, who was on his way back to his room with some take-away food, some caffeine enriched Nyrius Dew, a large bag of peanut flavoured potato chips, and a bag of films. He looked at Hortan, at the young girl, and then back at Hortan.
"How the hell do yoo do it? You are the official TGFT stud man. She is from the Pear, right?" Fluffy padded Hortan on the shoulder and looked admiringly at him.
"Oh, yes, her name is Rose. I am just flying her back to Sedina, she is finished here." Her head nestled a bit deeper into the crook of Hortan's neck.
"Some guys have it, and some guys doon't. You have so much Hort. Respect." With that, Fluffy punched his own chest with a fist and presented and inverted V to Hortan before staggering on down to his room.
Hortan didn't really understand what had just happened, and so he happily helped the young girl down to his Atlas "The Certain Death IX" and got her strapped within. He launched and set course for Daltas Hold, expecting them to be there after about thirty minutes. He turned to make sure that his passenger was okay, but she was fast asleep. He smiled; he was going to make sure that she came home safe. He flew to the wormhole from Latos to Sedina and engaged the warpdrive.
When he re-emerged into real space, the ship was almost immediately pummelled by neutron fire across the flanks, scoring hit upon hit. Hortan engaged the right side thrusters in emergency maximum setting, fired the left roll booster and flicked the slightest turbo drive into the main engines. He broke contact, but it was merely a question of time before the chase ship would once more have target lock. Hortan engaged the turbo, and due to the lack of cargo, the Atlas behaved like a fighter. He accelerated very fast with the vulture trying to keep up. Finally he had time to look at his damage screen. 12% armour remaining, with none on the side and top. He tapped the radar screen and got an echo on his IFF. Some pilot from CLM called Lebermac it seemed. Hortan was furious; this was not how CLM was supposed to act. They were supposed to hail and extort money, not shoot innocent traders. And especially not when those traders had human cargo that was not covered by the EAPRS. He accelerated to the 3k mark and jumped to the relative safety of the Xang Xi station guards around Daltas Hold, but still punched up a radar image. Lebermac was following. Hortan engaged the turbo again and moved as fast as possible towards the docking bay, only disengaging the turbo and hitting the brake immediately before crashing into the bay. Rose woke up when the violent braking stopped the craft.
"Mmh, are we there yet?"
Hortan flipped the off switches and turned slowly. "Yes Ms., we are here now. Let me help you with those straps and get you on your way." Hortan's voice trembled just the tiniest bit, but he tried to keep his hands steady as he unfastened the straps that had kept her in the seat. There was no reason for the girl to find out how close she had come to death just minutes earlier. He escorted her out of the Atlas, and tried to shield the damage that was wrought to the side and top of the ship with his body. She got out and started to walk into the station proper. Hortan followed close behind, he was going to make sure that she got all the way to the Priggly Pear unscathed. She turned and brought a small camera phone up in her right hand.
"I just want to take a picture of you and the beautiful painting on your....." She saw the long melted streaks of xithricite armour plating that had completely destroyed the painting Vardonx had made. She had seen enough combat damaged ships to know that this had been a close call. Several places had the internal wiring showing, and at least two streaks of damage were shown towards the cockpit, but were twisting away just before hitting it. Signs of evasive manoeuvre, signs of near destruction. The melted wreck would take a full set of armour plating to work again.
"I slept through that? But you must have been taking evasive action? How did you do that?" She looked at Hortan with awe, and when he realised this, he started blushing.
"It was nothing Ms., really. I just didn't want to scare you, I promised to John that I'd bring you safe back, and so I had to."
She lifted her left hand to his cheek and gentle stroked it with the outside of her fingers. "You really are special. Thank you pilot." She took a picture of the wreck with Hortan blushing like a beacon next to it, and then she let her be escorted inside to the Priggly Pear.
Hortan walked back to his shattered Atlas. This was going to take some time, but the damage was only to the armour plating. He walked down to the food court and grabbed himself a NutriSoy™ NearlyMeat burger while the mechanics worked. He was wondering how he could make this Lebermac behave properly, and let the traders get a decent chance. Maybe through the regular CLM channels, but how would he get an audience with yoda? Eventually he boarded his now grey ship and launched for Dau K-10. He arrived without problems, and ordered a bright yellow paintjob for the ship. He was going to need it eventually, so he could just as well have it in good shape. He would have to ask Vardonx for a new painting on the front if he could take the time off to do it.
