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random_nanorimo_stuff2012-11-27 09:33 pm
random_xtras) wrote in random_nanorimo_stuff2012-11-27 09:33 pm
Entry tags:
Other Trails Chapter 8
Freedom XIV was smaller than Shade and Mist's world of origin, but still large enough to have comfortable seasonal diversity. It circled a large gas giant, which in turn orbited a pale and rather embarrassed looking little sun.
"It's probably got a crazy tidal zone," said Starfighter as he scrolled data across the view screen with halfhearted interest. "But the part we're going to is over in the center of that biggest continent." He ran more words across the screen, causing Mist to perk with interest as she spotted unfamiliar scripts. "Not a lot of earthquake activity, and none in that area. Nice."
[Earth shake STINK!] said Mist.
"Heh. Yeah, I guess they would. Probably worse than being on a small station when some drunk rams his ship into it."
"Earthshakes are when the old trees die," said Shade absently from where she was helping Freedom turn a whole large skein of Meena's yarn into a big, fuzzy, soft, cuddly purple doll for Meme. "The ones that're so old and sick that their roots are rotting. They fall down, and flowers and new trees grow in the spaces they leave."
[And meat lover live in torn up ground.] Mist stamped her hoof slightly, then grinned and leaned on the console so that she could see those enticing strings of unknown letters and glyphs more closely.
"Unicorns have curly hair." Freedom sat up after tying off the last doll leg and carefully wrapping yarn around the end and then adding stitches in black to make it look like a cloven hoof. "How will we do that, Captain?"
"Is that piece that I asked you to dry ready yet, Starfighter?" asked Meena from where she was comfortably curled in a round seat near the back of the bridge.
"Yup." He dumped it out of the wall onto her head. "Wanna cuddle it while it's warm?"
"You're a brat." Meena sighed and held the pleasantly heated block of knitting close till it cooled, and then started raveling it and wrapping it around from her other hand to the foot of her outstretched leg.
Shade and Freedom watched curiously, but when Meena finished wrapping the yarn, folded it in half, then tied the resultant bundle in the middle and let go of it they both exclaimed softly with understanding.
"Here's curly hair." Meena grinned and held it out for Freedom to come and take.
"Thank you, meme." The human girl scooted over to get it, then returned and once more sat comfortably on the floor as she carefully tied the curly yarn into place and then set about styling it.
"She needs a horn." Shade frowned thoughtfully at their creation. "And some ears."
"Oh." Freedom held the doll up and studied it. "You are right. Even with her little muzzle and her tail she does not look like a unicorn yet."
"Ears!" Starfighter dumped on Meena's head a couple of little crochet bits made from the same purple yarn that the doll and her hair were made from.
"So that's where those wool ends went." Shade shook her head and went to get them from the chuckling unicorn woman. "Thanks, Starfighter."
[Girl work,] Mist teased, but then bounced a bit as she saw the blinking light of a hail from the planet. Still dancing, she quickly typed a response.
"Thrrpt!" said Starfighter, then perked. "I just found a button under a lot of dust back in my storage compartment. It's not pointy, but it's fuzzy and could work for a horn maybe anyway."
"Is it purple?" Shade didn't look up.
"Is now." Starfighter dropped it on her and then chuckled as she snorted at him.
[Are you listening? Landing instructions!] Mist punched him gently on the console.
"Ow! What? Oh, yeah. Of course. Sheesh." He flashed an image of his avatar's face onto the screen and made it pull faces at Mist as he swung gently to one side to begin the descent to the landing area. "Everybody better get to their safety stations."
"I am going." Freedom scrambled to her feet and hurried over to the jump seat next to Meena's basket seat, then let Starfighter lower the safety bar over her shoulders before looking to the screen and clutching the doll with absent anxiety.
Meena stretched again and then chuckled as Starfighter closed safety apparatus around her as well. "Thank you, dear. Oh, I'm sleepy today."
"Well that's what happens when organic people don't get as much sleep as their systems need." He made a snorting sound.
"Yes. You are a brat." Meena snuggled back contentedly into her seat and closed her eyes. "It's too bad you're not a unicorn. My daughter would just love you then."
"Eh. Little and teeny and fuzzy isn't my type, even if she can fly circles around me." Starfighter absently twitched his wings as he spoke, and then concentrated on executing a perfect landing with no turbulence or bumps for his crew and passengers.
* * *
Meena's daughter Jenny met them at the landing strip, a burly young unicorn man and a shining silver humanoid avatar walking to either side of her. She wore a vest similar to Shade's and Mist's, but made in white cotton with clear flat buttons and a vine of tiny embroidered purple rosebuds around the bottom hem. Instead of fringe, her skirt was made of foot wide strips of the same kind of soft material that Meme's new skirt was made from. It too was white, and went past her knees.
"I see you've been busy," noted Meena as she hugged the younger woman and the two gently rubbed their velvety horns together.
Jenny grinned widely and let go her mother to turn and hug the arm of the young man. "Look, Ma! Muscles!"
"Is she forgetting about you, Grig?" Meena turned to the silver avatar with a sympathetic smile.
"Forgetting me?" he responded in a rasping but soothing deep voice that carried laughter and good nature. "I don't need muscles for the work we do. Sebastian and I each have our own places in her heart."
"Sebastian." The young man perked up, his big soft eyes brightening beneath his hornless forehead.
"Yup. Sebastian. That's you," said Jenny, grinning up at him.
"That's me," he said happily. "Jenny!"
"Yup. That's me." She turned a face beaming with pride and affection for him toward her mother.
Meena blinked a few times, but then chuckled softly. "The doctors have found a way to help them?"
"Just Sebastian yet," said Jenny, snuggling his arm and making the little purrling sound that usually accompanied unicorn smiles. "He's the test subject. But he's surprising them with his progress."
Sebastian watched her as she spoke, but then turned curiously to look toward where Shade and Mist were peeking their heads around the edge of Starfighter's entrance hatch. "Hi?"
"That's Captain Shade and her sister Mist." Meena glanced over toward them as well, then smiled and turned back, reaching toward the girl who was hanging back shyly behind her though taller than her. "And this is Freedom."
Sebastian looked up at Freedom, then back to Mist and Shade before turning his attention and a softly pleading look back to Jenny.
"Friends," she told him, patting his chest. "Shade, Mist, Freedom."
He stuck out the patted chest in automatic desire to show off, but then squeaked and made a quick grab for his soft drawstring britches, his expression going to chagrin and confusion.
"It's okay," Jenny hastened to reassure him, putting her hand over his. "We fixed that so they don't fall down anymore, remember? It's okay."
Sebastian stared at her for a moment, but then sighed and relaxed as he worked out the context of her words in relation to the ones he remembered and knew the meaning of. "It's okay. I remember."
"Right." Jenny nuzzled his cheek gently, and then smiled up at him, once more purrling softly.
"I'll bring you two to your new quarters if you want." Grig had a wide grin on his face as he turned from watching the pair to offer to get some of Meena's heap of luggage.
"That's very kind of you." The elderly woman's expression, ear position, and voice held her amusement. "And Freedom's eager to see her friend."
"She's waiting for you," Grig told the human girl as he hoisted a duffel on each shoulder and turned toward a compound of low buildings a couple hundred yards away from the landing strip. "At first the doctors couldn't figure out how to get her away from the babies without upsetting her, but then they sent to the lock base commander for a picture of you."
"She recognized it?" Freedom's eyes went wide as she looked up from grabbing a duffel herself.
"She did. And she made it very clear that she wanted more than a picture. It's a good thing they only showed it to her this morning."
"Ma, wait for us." Jenny laughed and heaved a duffel into her arms, then praised Sebastian as he grabbed the last one and the case that held the sewing machine. "That's my muscles!"
Shade watched them go, then glanced at her sister and managed to hit the door close panel before she collapsed into a giggling heap that tried to sign explanation to Mist of everything that the others had been saying.
"Muscles?" Starfighter's avatar signed as he rezzed into sight. "What the rust?"
Shade laughed harder, joined now by Mist. "Muscles are what Jenny thinks is pretty. And Sebastian does have them!"
"Euch." Starfighter wrinkled his face up, which made his crew laugh even more.
Shade finally rubbed at her eyes and sat up. "What is Grig, anyway? I haven't seen an avatar like that before."
"Huh? That's the star fighter. It changes shape. Some kind of liquid metal deal, I never paid attention when anybody talked about it. I just know that most of 'em were wiped out before they ever got finished, a long time ago, by organic reckoning." Starfighter opened the door again and peeked out. "Too bad you guys can't go out and stretch your legs. I bet that grass would feel good under your hooves."
Mist wrinkled her nose. [Too much grass. Not enough trees. No shade.]
"Yeah. We'd feel too exposed." Shade patted the wall by the door. "Are we cramping your style and keeping you from converting?"
"Nah. I'm fine." The blue and silver avatar gazed thoughtfully at the distant hint of mountains far behind the medical compound. "Funny that this feels too open for you. Planets always feel too closed in to me."
"Huh? But they're less closed in than space stations." Shade pushed her mane back, then reared slightly to get it to hang right.
"But they're also big enough that you can't see space anywhere except maybe at night." Starfighter reached out and poked her, getting a swat in return. "On a station I can always sense the void around me."
[And emptiness/star trails is your home,] said Mist, her signs small and close to her as she spoke softly.
"Yeah." He grinned at her and offered a hug, then patted the white-furred girl's back as she came over for a friendly exchange of affection. "Heh, what was that?"
"What was what?" Shade looked around from closing the door again.
"Mist made this funny little whisper of a sound." Starfighter repeated it so that it was audible to the dark-furred sister.
Shade put her hands to her mouth. "Ohh. I didn't realize she could feel us doing that."
"What's it mean?" Starfighter made his avatar frown at her quizzically as Mist turned from the hug to watch her sister.
"That you're family. I'm not sure if that's what it means to..." She broke off as Mist waved emphatically.
[Yes. I mean that.] The white-furred sister grinned. [Why not?]
"Awww." Starfighter hugged her again, but then suddenly stiffened and looked up. "I hear a distress signal."
"What?" Shade stamped with alarm as she remembered what Angelina had said about such signals. "Where?"
"It's coming from this planet." Starfighter let go of Mist with an absent reassuring touch to her chest, then wheeled on his hind legs and trotted down the short passage to the bridge. "The other side."
[A trap?] asked Mist, moving beside him as soon as they were out of the passage so that she could see his hands and talk to him.
"No. Pirates don't work this close to the Warlady's station, and they wouldn't be on the same planet as an official planet cop outpost." He rezzed out the avatar and left its translucent image on the forward screen. "This is the real deal." A pause in scrolling data and avatar signing as the avatar blinked. "Whoa, this is an Earth-based code."
"But Earth got irradiated," said Shade, remembering what she'd read and been told about the legendary world.
"Yeah, but there are still some people living there." Starfighter lifted off gently. "And it was so long ago that there probably aren't very many hotspots left. I know there are humans who wanted to move back there, but The League of Aryan Future wouldn't let 'em."
"Why not?" Shade settled into her stanchion.
Starfighter snorted as he searched the information feeds for the answer and found it. "Get this. They said that the guys who wanted to go back were the wrong colour to be real humans."
Shade blinked, then glanced at her sister.
Mist looked as uncertain about what Starfighter had just said as her sister did.
[Repeat?] she requested, frowning.
"No. You heard and saw me right. These guys say you have to be a certain colour to be a real human."
Shade scowled. "And what do they say about people who aren't human?"
Starfighter checked. "Ffft! The same things those losers behind the lock say. Except this bunch thinks they have to purify the human race, and then go out and prove the supremacy of the master race. Who, get this, don't even have space travel or even a primitive internet."
[Good!] Mist stamped in her stanchion, and then hugged herself. [No more people nommers on our trails.]
"Heyyyy... I just found actual data streams that somebody says came from Earth." Starfighter adjusted his trajectory so that he could hover in an orbit above the source of the SOS, his nose pointed toward the spot, then came in closer as he sought a place to set down. "The streams're from other people than those League jerks, and they sound like nice guys. Ugh. I can't land in that."
"I can jump thirty foot, if I have to," Shade said, leaning forward to look at the screen. "Are those trees?"
"Yup. Wall to wall jungle. The SOS is coming from some kind of little pod, but it landed without making a big enough space for..." He broke off as she thumped on his console for attention.
"Hover over the spot and open the door." She unbuttoned her vest and pulled it off, then raced toward her cabin to grab the narrow elastic tube that Meena had given her and quickly pull it over her chest so that she'd still be legal without exposing her pretty clothes to thorns and branches.
"Those trees are over fifty foot tall, Shade." Starfighter's avatar rezzed into solidity and frowned at her.
"Show me what they look like." She glanced toward the screen, and then nodded as she saw the schematic of limbs and heavy, woody vines. "No problem. Let me out over that one that looks like a basket."
"No meteor pitted way!" he protested, but then squeaked as Mist reared and punched him with her front feet. "Hey! What???"
[Let her out. Stop being silly!] The white-furred girl punched him again.
"She'll break her rusted leg or something!"
[No!] Mist laughed her soundless laugh. [No. Let her out.]
"Break my leg?" Shade gave the avatar an incredulous look. "What do you think I am, a didi?"
"No," said Starfighter sullenly. "But..."
"Let me out!" Shade went down the passage and then impatiently punched the wall by the door. "Hurry up. I have to find the person who's in trouble."
"I can't! I'm afraid you'll get hurt. You're a hoofed being, not an arboreal."
"I've been climbing trees since I learned how to walk strongly. It's part of foraging and lookout." She shook her head, trying not to laugh in the face of his concern.
"It's... Oh. But..."
"Now."
"Yessir." The door slid open slowly, so as to not suck her out with any sudden pressure changes.
Shade chortled and took a flying leap, hearing Starfighter's yell of panicked despair behind and above her as she dropped beneath the forest canopy.
"It's probably got a crazy tidal zone," said Starfighter as he scrolled data across the view screen with halfhearted interest. "But the part we're going to is over in the center of that biggest continent." He ran more words across the screen, causing Mist to perk with interest as she spotted unfamiliar scripts. "Not a lot of earthquake activity, and none in that area. Nice."
[Earth shake STINK!] said Mist.
"Heh. Yeah, I guess they would. Probably worse than being on a small station when some drunk rams his ship into it."
"Earthshakes are when the old trees die," said Shade absently from where she was helping Freedom turn a whole large skein of Meena's yarn into a big, fuzzy, soft, cuddly purple doll for Meme. "The ones that're so old and sick that their roots are rotting. They fall down, and flowers and new trees grow in the spaces they leave."
[And meat lover live in torn up ground.] Mist stamped her hoof slightly, then grinned and leaned on the console so that she could see those enticing strings of unknown letters and glyphs more closely.
"Unicorns have curly hair." Freedom sat up after tying off the last doll leg and carefully wrapping yarn around the end and then adding stitches in black to make it look like a cloven hoof. "How will we do that, Captain?"
"Is that piece that I asked you to dry ready yet, Starfighter?" asked Meena from where she was comfortably curled in a round seat near the back of the bridge.
"Yup." He dumped it out of the wall onto her head. "Wanna cuddle it while it's warm?"
"You're a brat." Meena sighed and held the pleasantly heated block of knitting close till it cooled, and then started raveling it and wrapping it around from her other hand to the foot of her outstretched leg.
Shade and Freedom watched curiously, but when Meena finished wrapping the yarn, folded it in half, then tied the resultant bundle in the middle and let go of it they both exclaimed softly with understanding.
"Here's curly hair." Meena grinned and held it out for Freedom to come and take.
"Thank you, meme." The human girl scooted over to get it, then returned and once more sat comfortably on the floor as she carefully tied the curly yarn into place and then set about styling it.
"She needs a horn." Shade frowned thoughtfully at their creation. "And some ears."
"Oh." Freedom held the doll up and studied it. "You are right. Even with her little muzzle and her tail she does not look like a unicorn yet."
"Ears!" Starfighter dumped on Meena's head a couple of little crochet bits made from the same purple yarn that the doll and her hair were made from.
"So that's where those wool ends went." Shade shook her head and went to get them from the chuckling unicorn woman. "Thanks, Starfighter."
[Girl work,] Mist teased, but then bounced a bit as she saw the blinking light of a hail from the planet. Still dancing, she quickly typed a response.
"Thrrpt!" said Starfighter, then perked. "I just found a button under a lot of dust back in my storage compartment. It's not pointy, but it's fuzzy and could work for a horn maybe anyway."
"Is it purple?" Shade didn't look up.
"Is now." Starfighter dropped it on her and then chuckled as she snorted at him.
[Are you listening? Landing instructions!] Mist punched him gently on the console.
"Ow! What? Oh, yeah. Of course. Sheesh." He flashed an image of his avatar's face onto the screen and made it pull faces at Mist as he swung gently to one side to begin the descent to the landing area. "Everybody better get to their safety stations."
"I am going." Freedom scrambled to her feet and hurried over to the jump seat next to Meena's basket seat, then let Starfighter lower the safety bar over her shoulders before looking to the screen and clutching the doll with absent anxiety.
Meena stretched again and then chuckled as Starfighter closed safety apparatus around her as well. "Thank you, dear. Oh, I'm sleepy today."
"Well that's what happens when organic people don't get as much sleep as their systems need." He made a snorting sound.
"Yes. You are a brat." Meena snuggled back contentedly into her seat and closed her eyes. "It's too bad you're not a unicorn. My daughter would just love you then."
"Eh. Little and teeny and fuzzy isn't my type, even if she can fly circles around me." Starfighter absently twitched his wings as he spoke, and then concentrated on executing a perfect landing with no turbulence or bumps for his crew and passengers.
Meena's daughter Jenny met them at the landing strip, a burly young unicorn man and a shining silver humanoid avatar walking to either side of her. She wore a vest similar to Shade's and Mist's, but made in white cotton with clear flat buttons and a vine of tiny embroidered purple rosebuds around the bottom hem. Instead of fringe, her skirt was made of foot wide strips of the same kind of soft material that Meme's new skirt was made from. It too was white, and went past her knees.
"I see you've been busy," noted Meena as she hugged the younger woman and the two gently rubbed their velvety horns together.
Jenny grinned widely and let go her mother to turn and hug the arm of the young man. "Look, Ma! Muscles!"
"Is she forgetting about you, Grig?" Meena turned to the silver avatar with a sympathetic smile.
"Forgetting me?" he responded in a rasping but soothing deep voice that carried laughter and good nature. "I don't need muscles for the work we do. Sebastian and I each have our own places in her heart."
"Sebastian." The young man perked up, his big soft eyes brightening beneath his hornless forehead.
"Yup. Sebastian. That's you," said Jenny, grinning up at him.
"That's me," he said happily. "Jenny!"
"Yup. That's me." She turned a face beaming with pride and affection for him toward her mother.
Meena blinked a few times, but then chuckled softly. "The doctors have found a way to help them?"
"Just Sebastian yet," said Jenny, snuggling his arm and making the little purrling sound that usually accompanied unicorn smiles. "He's the test subject. But he's surprising them with his progress."
Sebastian watched her as she spoke, but then turned curiously to look toward where Shade and Mist were peeking their heads around the edge of Starfighter's entrance hatch. "Hi?"
"That's Captain Shade and her sister Mist." Meena glanced over toward them as well, then smiled and turned back, reaching toward the girl who was hanging back shyly behind her though taller than her. "And this is Freedom."
Sebastian looked up at Freedom, then back to Mist and Shade before turning his attention and a softly pleading look back to Jenny.
"Friends," she told him, patting his chest. "Shade, Mist, Freedom."
He stuck out the patted chest in automatic desire to show off, but then squeaked and made a quick grab for his soft drawstring britches, his expression going to chagrin and confusion.
"It's okay," Jenny hastened to reassure him, putting her hand over his. "We fixed that so they don't fall down anymore, remember? It's okay."
Sebastian stared at her for a moment, but then sighed and relaxed as he worked out the context of her words in relation to the ones he remembered and knew the meaning of. "It's okay. I remember."
"Right." Jenny nuzzled his cheek gently, and then smiled up at him, once more purrling softly.
"I'll bring you two to your new quarters if you want." Grig had a wide grin on his face as he turned from watching the pair to offer to get some of Meena's heap of luggage.
"That's very kind of you." The elderly woman's expression, ear position, and voice held her amusement. "And Freedom's eager to see her friend."
"She's waiting for you," Grig told the human girl as he hoisted a duffel on each shoulder and turned toward a compound of low buildings a couple hundred yards away from the landing strip. "At first the doctors couldn't figure out how to get her away from the babies without upsetting her, but then they sent to the lock base commander for a picture of you."
"She recognized it?" Freedom's eyes went wide as she looked up from grabbing a duffel herself.
"She did. And she made it very clear that she wanted more than a picture. It's a good thing they only showed it to her this morning."
"Ma, wait for us." Jenny laughed and heaved a duffel into her arms, then praised Sebastian as he grabbed the last one and the case that held the sewing machine. "That's my muscles!"
Shade watched them go, then glanced at her sister and managed to hit the door close panel before she collapsed into a giggling heap that tried to sign explanation to Mist of everything that the others had been saying.
"Muscles?" Starfighter's avatar signed as he rezzed into sight. "What the rust?"
Shade laughed harder, joined now by Mist. "Muscles are what Jenny thinks is pretty. And Sebastian does have them!"
"Euch." Starfighter wrinkled his face up, which made his crew laugh even more.
Shade finally rubbed at her eyes and sat up. "What is Grig, anyway? I haven't seen an avatar like that before."
"Huh? That's the star fighter. It changes shape. Some kind of liquid metal deal, I never paid attention when anybody talked about it. I just know that most of 'em were wiped out before they ever got finished, a long time ago, by organic reckoning." Starfighter opened the door again and peeked out. "Too bad you guys can't go out and stretch your legs. I bet that grass would feel good under your hooves."
Mist wrinkled her nose. [Too much grass. Not enough trees. No shade.]
"Yeah. We'd feel too exposed." Shade patted the wall by the door. "Are we cramping your style and keeping you from converting?"
"Nah. I'm fine." The blue and silver avatar gazed thoughtfully at the distant hint of mountains far behind the medical compound. "Funny that this feels too open for you. Planets always feel too closed in to me."
"Huh? But they're less closed in than space stations." Shade pushed her mane back, then reared slightly to get it to hang right.
"But they're also big enough that you can't see space anywhere except maybe at night." Starfighter reached out and poked her, getting a swat in return. "On a station I can always sense the void around me."
[And emptiness/star trails is your home,] said Mist, her signs small and close to her as she spoke softly.
"Yeah." He grinned at her and offered a hug, then patted the white-furred girl's back as she came over for a friendly exchange of affection. "Heh, what was that?"
"What was what?" Shade looked around from closing the door again.
"Mist made this funny little whisper of a sound." Starfighter repeated it so that it was audible to the dark-furred sister.
Shade put her hands to her mouth. "Ohh. I didn't realize she could feel us doing that."
"What's it mean?" Starfighter made his avatar frown at her quizzically as Mist turned from the hug to watch her sister.
"That you're family. I'm not sure if that's what it means to..." She broke off as Mist waved emphatically.
[Yes. I mean that.] The white-furred sister grinned. [Why not?]
"Awww." Starfighter hugged her again, but then suddenly stiffened and looked up. "I hear a distress signal."
"What?" Shade stamped with alarm as she remembered what Angelina had said about such signals. "Where?"
"It's coming from this planet." Starfighter let go of Mist with an absent reassuring touch to her chest, then wheeled on his hind legs and trotted down the short passage to the bridge. "The other side."
[A trap?] asked Mist, moving beside him as soon as they were out of the passage so that she could see his hands and talk to him.
"No. Pirates don't work this close to the Warlady's station, and they wouldn't be on the same planet as an official planet cop outpost." He rezzed out the avatar and left its translucent image on the forward screen. "This is the real deal." A pause in scrolling data and avatar signing as the avatar blinked. "Whoa, this is an Earth-based code."
"But Earth got irradiated," said Shade, remembering what she'd read and been told about the legendary world.
"Yeah, but there are still some people living there." Starfighter lifted off gently. "And it was so long ago that there probably aren't very many hotspots left. I know there are humans who wanted to move back there, but The League of Aryan Future wouldn't let 'em."
"Why not?" Shade settled into her stanchion.
Starfighter snorted as he searched the information feeds for the answer and found it. "Get this. They said that the guys who wanted to go back were the wrong colour to be real humans."
Shade blinked, then glanced at her sister.
Mist looked as uncertain about what Starfighter had just said as her sister did.
[Repeat?] she requested, frowning.
"No. You heard and saw me right. These guys say you have to be a certain colour to be a real human."
Shade scowled. "And what do they say about people who aren't human?"
Starfighter checked. "Ffft! The same things those losers behind the lock say. Except this bunch thinks they have to purify the human race, and then go out and prove the supremacy of the master race. Who, get this, don't even have space travel or even a primitive internet."
[Good!] Mist stamped in her stanchion, and then hugged herself. [No more people nommers on our trails.]
"Heyyyy... I just found actual data streams that somebody says came from Earth." Starfighter adjusted his trajectory so that he could hover in an orbit above the source of the SOS, his nose pointed toward the spot, then came in closer as he sought a place to set down. "The streams're from other people than those League jerks, and they sound like nice guys. Ugh. I can't land in that."
"I can jump thirty foot, if I have to," Shade said, leaning forward to look at the screen. "Are those trees?"
"Yup. Wall to wall jungle. The SOS is coming from some kind of little pod, but it landed without making a big enough space for..." He broke off as she thumped on his console for attention.
"Hover over the spot and open the door." She unbuttoned her vest and pulled it off, then raced toward her cabin to grab the narrow elastic tube that Meena had given her and quickly pull it over her chest so that she'd still be legal without exposing her pretty clothes to thorns and branches.
"Those trees are over fifty foot tall, Shade." Starfighter's avatar rezzed into solidity and frowned at her.
"Show me what they look like." She glanced toward the screen, and then nodded as she saw the schematic of limbs and heavy, woody vines. "No problem. Let me out over that one that looks like a basket."
"No meteor pitted way!" he protested, but then squeaked as Mist reared and punched him with her front feet. "Hey! What???"
[Let her out. Stop being silly!] The white-furred girl punched him again.
"She'll break her rusted leg or something!"
[No!] Mist laughed her soundless laugh. [No. Let her out.]
"Break my leg?" Shade gave the avatar an incredulous look. "What do you think I am, a didi?"
"No," said Starfighter sullenly. "But..."
"Let me out!" Shade went down the passage and then impatiently punched the wall by the door. "Hurry up. I have to find the person who's in trouble."
"I can't! I'm afraid you'll get hurt. You're a hoofed being, not an arboreal."
"I've been climbing trees since I learned how to walk strongly. It's part of foraging and lookout." She shook her head, trying not to laugh in the face of his concern.
"It's... Oh. But..."
"Now."
"Yessir." The door slid open slowly, so as to not suck her out with any sudden pressure changes.
Shade chortled and took a flying leap, hearing Starfighter's yell of panicked despair behind and above her as she dropped beneath the forest canopy.