Now was the time to wait for the launch timer to count down. Olly started the car and as everyone else kept pouring into the parking lot to watch the upcoming launch he left. He arrived back to the empty lot Olly joins Clara in the back office near the drone, the waited for the launch window to close to 25 minutes to launch.
Olly and Clara watched the timer hit twenty five minutes to launch, the times up and it was time to get into the pods, Clara checked over Olly’s pod and hovers over him. Olly says, “Clara, stop I’ll be fine go close up your pod I’ll join you in resting soon”. “Olly, remember you need to be asleep for 4 minutes before the drones launch or you risk death”. “Yes, Clara, I know I built the system”.
Olly watched Clara close her pod and drift off as the sleeping drugs hit her system. He turned back to the monitors to observe the latest report. On the terminal the words ‘EMP deployment successful’ print to the screen, He sighed in relief, Houston is now silenced. The only reports the military will receive will appear as a perfectly normal launch. He watched the other monitor show the rocket site. Time to pull the trigger. Olly put the space suits helmet on checked his air pressure. He saw the green light for a good seal pushed the monitors away to lays back, the pod closed up encasing him in a dark drifting sleep that pulled him down, everything else was up to autopilot.
The drone pulled the pods into itself and ramped up the engines, T minus 20 minutes to launch the drones start was a very dramatic and chaotic evasive flight to launch site, 2 other drones joined in each placed at a 120 degree they closed into the launch site, reaching 300MPH while still flying erratically they peaked at 15Gs of force, designed to evade close arms fire. The drones closed the distance to the launch site, T minus 5 minutes they fired harpoons, not at the rocket, at each other, they have now just become a lasso that surrounded the towering 385 foot rocket. Their passengers Olly, Clara, and an advanced medical grade bio printer along with additional gear rested in the cargo hold as the drones pulled each other in closer and closer until touching the surface of the rocket. Upon contact with the rocket they extended links reinforcing the harpoon wires and deployed welding bolts into the frame of the rocket. Now that the drones were joined to the rocket the dragonfly observed the final link up. It sent the final message to the military over watch. Jerome Stuarts voice sounds out over the comms “This is Houston, We have rocket booster ignition and liftoff!”.
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The rocket, previously unmanned, ready to embrace Salacia before the long, assumed journey to Neptune rose up into the sky with two newly boarded passengers and cargo. When it arrived at the Salacia auto-docking initiated. With the docking complete the passengers woke up from their brief but adventurous nap they get to work on their EVA, retro fitting an unmanned spaceship for human living was challenging, doing it on a 6 hour window was stressful beyond belief. Clara and Olly had practiced this many times over, at least as much as the indoor pool turned space walk practice site could allow, being space pirates was hard work. The first thing to go was one of the landers, an SUV sized cargo hold was perfect for a habitat except for that which it lacked, such as air, water, food, a restroom, privacy and protection from space, basically it lacked everything except a view. Olly and Clara carefully but forcefully detached the lander and pushed it out into space, they took a few deep breaths paused to take in the view as they used sign language to communicate, they held radio silence. They returned to the drones, a tow line drifted behind them, near useless in space the drones themself would be recycled but the cargo was critical and the loss of any additional supplies would make the trip tighter than comfortable. Smuggling food and equipment for life onto a lifeless spaceship was challenge enough, the loss of anything brought this far would be gut wrenching.
As the rocket launched in the air Annie couldn’t help but feel a little unease about the ignition message, it sounded familiar, the computers didn’t flag anything unusual about the message but her gut was saying something was off. She ignored protocol and ditched the on going status messages, her monitoring of the launch system was redundant and she couldn’t squash her unease until she dug through the logs from earlier in the day, there was something here she just needed to see it. (After a bit of digging she goes over the earlier miss handled com check, it was the same voice. She dug more to find a masked update to the launch this is when she pulled the alarm on the launch, 20 minutes to late the launch was already well under way and an abort at this point would be a political nightmare, besides her job was to observe and analyze she doesn't have the authority to blow up a rocket.)
