[Draft][Story-bit] Enter the Sabre

[Dakota]

Small piece of the next second and some fragments. While I figure out why google docs just slapped my doc with a lock that doesn't let me keep it shared.

It was a long drive down to Breatthitt County, even with the Trooper’s sirens going the whole time. Jet clocked a top speed over over 210kph on the main road, just before they hit Campton. Ruth was driving the wheel’s off the Crown Victoria, and it still felt achingly slow.
And horrendously small.
The Magnificent Midnight had been cramped inside... but a car. Jet was barely able to fit in the seat... her knees where jammed against the glove compartment, and the whole wing assembly was pushing her forward in the seat.
She bristled inside the vehicle, staring out the windows at the world crawling past. She closed her eyes, feeling the car’s frame begin to close in around her.
She took a deep breath.
“Nervous?” the Trooper questioned.
“Just not a car person,” the cyborg answered. That was the truth.
She flies, but doesn’t like being in a fast car, how strange. Ruth mused on that for a few moments. When she’d had Jet in the van, that was something she’d put down to tiredness, or maybe an unfamiliarity with American roads. Hell, she’d nearly jumped out of her... metal the first time Ruth turned right on a red.
“Can we go a faster?” Jet asked.
“I’m pegged at the speed-limiter. ”
Right...the cyborg realised, ordinary petrol engined car. Jet closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. Ruth could tell that something had changed when they opened again, but for the life of her, couldn’t tell what.
“Do you have any red paint or lipstick or anything like that.?” enquired Jet, her voice strangely flat.
Ruth gave her a weird look. “Lipstick?”
“Something that will leave a mark on skin,”
Whatever it was, it seemed serious.
“Check in the glove compartment. There might be somethin’. But I ain’t got no idea why you’re so concerned about being pretty before you go into a fight,”
“It’s not that,” stated Jet, carefully and very deliberately opening the compartment. She rummaged slowly, before finding a red marker normally used for marking out crash sites.
Ruth watched her draw two red lines under each of her eyes, reminding of the eye-black footballers wore. Weird.... Another little mystery about the Fen from outer space.
She turned her attention back to the road, to some drunken moron who’d thought she was trying to pull him over and stuffed it in a ditch trying to run away. She called it in, but didn’t have time to stop to help. Local county-mounties could take care of it.
“These fella’s know I’m going to be there, don’t they?”
“They do,” Ruth assured her. “Remember, take care of the Cat, and try not to get in their way,”
Jet just nodded. “If they start using other wavetech?”
“Wait for us to call for help before doing anything
“I need the radio frequencies. ”
“It’s the normal police band,” She looked at her antennae on the gynoids back, “You can receive that stuff, right?”
“Yeah.” Jet exhaled a breath, rubbing at some empty mounting on her forearm. “Just don’t call unless you’re sure you can’t handle it. We need these people alive.”
Ruth wore a puzzled look for a moment “...Alright.” The cop pondered on that for a moment, before forcing her conclusion out of her mind with a chilling shudder. “Anyway,” she focused her mind, “The legalities have been sorted out, as best as they can be...”
The explanation of which just soared over Jet’s head. Ruth knew she was probably just boring the cyborg, but it helped keep her mind awake. She’d been up for over thirty-six hours. The trooper swallowed a yawn, doing her damnedest to focus on driving.
“Too bad we’re not in Fenspace“ Jet remarked, offhand. “We just raid them as soon as we find them,”
“No warrant?”
“Nope,” she shook her head.
Ruth looked almost appalled at the idea.
“Well,” Jet continued, “There’re very few all-Fenspace courts, and very little’s actually illegal. Besides...” she shrugged, “, while we do like due process, what courts there are are pretty ad-hoc.”
Ruth blinked, “You mean sort of like the wild west?”
“Pretty much. Space is too big and too diverse for anything more complicated.”
Ruth yawned again, veering into the left-hand lane for a moment, before she pulled the car back.
“Sorry,” she shook her head to clear her mind. “Been up for a bit too long. Just keep talkin’ to me. What do you guys do when you raid them?”
“Much the same things you guys do,” answered Jet, trying to be diplomatic. “We’re supposed to arrest, it’s just not always possible.”
“I see. Well... we’re planning to take these guys alive. See if we can find where their main base is,”
Jet smiled, “Speaking of which. In my pouch, I’ve got a memory stick with sensor scans of the area, courtesy of the Fenspace Convention,”
Ruth perked, “Oh? Did they find anything?”

And some fragments

===========================
The loop is broken
Music selection: First part: Maroon 5 - “Harder to breathe”

Stea woke to blackness deeper to anything known. There wasn’t even any of the grogginess that one would expect with having just woken. His life flashed before his eyes, like a moving slide show with a crystal clearness that shouldn’t have been possible. It finished with him getting shot and falling, but something was off. He realized that he was watching himself fall at the same time he felt it. Something tugged at the back of his mind getting more presistent with every passing moment.
...damage sustained...
.
What? Where did that come from. He peered about until he spotted the source, a dying ember of light above him. It pulsed as he watched and the tug came again.
...damage sustained...core restart...
.
.
...failed...
Something caused him to reach out for the glowing ember, some drive he couldn’t help. It seemed so helpless there as he cupped his hands around it and drew it in. It seemed to respond to him. The glow grew brighter, he could feel something trying to talk to him in the back of his head. “They did always say one should go into the light.”  He relaxed as he became one with the light as it consumed the darkness.
...damage sustained...core restart...
.
.
.
...successful...
=============================
$Outside
             Second Part: Bon Jovi - “It’s my life”

Vents on the zoid popped open a faint glow could be seen inside. The sounds of the area where drowned out by the whine of a turbine.  The glow increased as the volume of the turbine climbed higher. The half open cockpit hatch snapped shut as the zoid picked itself off the ground. It then lifted it’s head to the heavens to let out a roar. The vents slowly shut and cut the sound off as the zoid lowered it’s head, eyes a glow.

Jet and Sabre talking some point after the above. Probably after a high speed chase by Jet to run him down.

“It’s strange to be staring at your own dead body.”
“Don’t worry, you’re not the first. I know at least one other person who’se seen himself die, and he’s okay with it.”
“Best to pick up the pieces and move on.”
While the Bosco’s are all... “Hey, he’s not dead! We don’t get murder convictions!!

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Characters
Sabre Fang
Dakota