RidOv Chpt-3

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==Ridiculously Overboard!! (A Captain Roberts Tale!!)Chapter 3 - Lift Off!==
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Spaceport fueling Dock 17...
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The alarms went off first, and reaction forces scrambled to search for whatever it was that triggered them, including revealing where five-man squads had been sited.
They found nothing.
Half an hour later, the alarms went off at a different section of the perimeter. This time, a hungry feral dog, likely from the abandoned sections of the city, had blundered into the sensor grid.
Half an hour later, and it was another dog.
Half an hour later, it was another false alarm.
This caused the commander on-site to order technicians to examine the calibration controls on the seismic and thermal sensors.
And...half an hour after that, another false alarm-this time, two dogs and a cat.
At 02:30 local time, the alarms went off again on the perimeter.
The reaction was slower, casual, 'another damned false alarm'.
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Amanda followed the reaction team back through, before the grid could activate. She left off following them at a coolant truck that was parked near the flight-line, and triggered her bait one more time-on the far end of the field, the simple RF encoder releasing another feral dog from its 'humane' capture box.
This triggered another alarm, and lured the security force away from her destination.
"Eenie meenie-miney...you'll do." she sauntered to the grounded shuttle marked with Raven markings, opened the service access panel for the emergency rescue, and followed her instincts. cross-wiring in a sub panel below that to open the exterior airlock door, which she entered, and closed behind her.
So nice, and clean in here and quiet...
First, she made sure no crew were aboard. Crew aboard would be...less than optimal.
"I don't see anything either, you're good."
"Thanks for the observation mister obvious." she muttered, heading up to the flight deck.
The checklist was self-evident. She ran through the pre-flight, spinning up the on-board fusion power plant, checking fuel levels full tanks, nice.
Through the windscreens, she could see bodies exiting the main terminal, and the security team with their Battle Armor and those funky mini-'mechs were dashing toward her.
"Well, everything else looks so nice, I guess I can cut the checklist short." she engaged thrusters at full power and hauled back on the stick.
The shuttle leaped into the air, then accelerated under overthrust, shoving her into the pilot's seat like god's own hydraulic press, making it hard to reach the controls...
Buffetting smoothed out as she came to, fighting for consciousness, she reduced power to the engines and looked out the windows.
The blue marble of the world was wreathed in rising sunlight.
"Yo, ho, yo...ho, a pirate's life for me..." she murmur-sang as she cracked the onboard autopilot and began inputting settings for her destination, deep in the outer system.
In the distance behind her, fighters were rising from air-bases, and Air Defense installations were sweeping to track her and her stolen small craft.
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