Hotarou closed the door to the cabin behind him with a look of determination in his eyes. The rest of the group, in anticipation of his arrival, all waited in the living room. As they heard his steps come down the hall they turned their attention toward him and waited for their commands. He looked up, only slightly surprised to see the group.

"We're leaving in 30 minutes. Gather everything up and secure everything you care about. Anyone not ready gets to deal with it. Once out of the atmosphere we're going into hyper-drive." He made his statements then moved on to the front of the ship. The group split and began work immediately. Anything left outside was brought in first then items such as cooking supplies were put away. Everything was ready to go sooner than expected so the group went up to the front.

Hotarou had programmed his watch and synced it with the piloting system in the ship. He gave a quick glance over his shoulder then knew everything was ready. The ship started up with a roar then pushed off of the ground. It picked up speed as it slowly moved toward the atmosphere.

Meanwhile Satoshi looked over Hotarou's plans. "There's a lot of clutter in the atmosphere today, just where we're planning to exit," he commented with a peek at Hotarou.

"I know. Just like he planned," Hotarou muttered. He reached an arm over and pointed on the holographic map, "there's a lot of shrapnel from past experiments and satellites from Earth just over there. We'll try to skirt them, but hitting something is inevitable. We want any slower moving objects to hit us, not the ones that have been caught in orbit for a while. I'll need a second pair of eyes for that."

Satoshi smiled and nodded, "Aye-aye captain!"

Once on the outer reaches of the mesosphere, Satoshi began to point out some debris heading toward them fairly quickly. Hotarou directed the ship out of the way with ease but soon the debris became unavoidable. Small pieces hit the ship making loud echoing sounds in the main body of the ship which was tense with silence. Only the voice of Satoshi calling out the locations of faster and larger fragments interrupted the quiet. The girls sat in the back, Eru tried to comfort the other two by talking about things, especially the Hyouka volume. Irisu's face was indifferent, but her crossed arms and tense posture proved otherwise and Mayaka was openly nervous and even trembled at times.

"The volume was put together by my uncle," Eru explained, she flinched as something hit the ship. "H-he was one of the people who were trying to get people away from the Organization and get them out of our solar system and towards a free planet. Sort of like Oreki…"

"Oreki!" Mayaka suddenly started, coming to a realization. "Why wasn't it this bad when we came to Earth!?"

"Because I planned it that way," Hotaoru responded with a tight voice as he attempted to maneuver around the space garbage. "I timed it so that the upper layers would be fairly clear. But this time I didn't plan it. We just needed to get off of Earth—we'd been there too long."

"I liked Earth," Mayaka sighed. "I could've stayed there longer…"

"Don't worry, wherever Oreki is taking us, I'm sure it is even better than Earth!" Eru chirped happily.

"You sure have a lot of faith in him," Mayaka retorted. "I don't think he even knows where he's going."

"Don't say that," Satoshi said from the front. "Hotarou always has a plan, right?"

Hotaoru hummed apathetically which didn't help to comfort the girls or Satoshi. After a moment Satohsi laughed. "There's more that goes on in his head than he lets on to," he said trying to break the tension. "Oh! there's a big one coming at 1:15!" Hotarou jerked the ship away, the group yelped with surprise, then continued to plow on.

A loud siren suddenly started up in the front of the ship. "This is the atmosphere inspection unit! We have noted your stolen jet! Pull aside for inspection once clear of the debris."

"What?" Mayaka stated up again. "This isn't stolen! Did you even register it with the Organization?"

Hotarou grunted. I figured this would happen, he thought. There's a lot of cleaning I need to do still because of him, thanks for wasting my energy! Rather, it was my fault for not catching him sooner…

"Hotarou! We're nearly out, but there's a big one coming and I don't think we can dodge it!" Hotarou glanced up and saw the mass moving quickly toward him. The ship couldn't turn on a dime so getting away unscathed would be impossible, his best shot was to minimize damage. He shoved the controls down so that the ship dropped like a stone. The edge of the debris caught the top of the ship and tipped the entire machine as it passed.

"How are we…" Eru began but Hotarou ignored her.

I need to check the damage but first we need to get out of here and past the patrollers. He shot the ship through, mindless of other debris then finally escaped through the atmosphere. The sirens ran again and repeated the warning, but Hotaoru didn't stop.

"Oreki what are you doing?!" Mayaka exclaimed as she say flashing lights and ships coming from a side window. "Stop!"

The sirens blared and so did the warnings which increased in severity. "Stop resisting!"

This ship can't out-run the small patrollers, if I can just get into the asteroids so we can disappear…

"Hotarou! The space debris! It's back!" Satoshi shouted. Hotarou looked on the monitor then out of the window—it's true! The mass was coming back from behind them and to the left, just behind the patrol ships. "What's the plan?"

Hotarou furrowed his brows. "We'll get hit by the debris. We can't get arrested." Hotarou decided. The rest of the group suddenly felt very worried.

"But…Hotarou, if we get hit with the debris…" Satoshi stuttered, glancing back at the group, Mayaka specifically.

Hotarou turned and looked Satoshi square in the eye without saying a word. Satoshi's eyes widened then he lowered his gaze with a slight frown. I'll never know what he's thinking…but I'll trust him anyway.

The large ball gained not only on them, but on the patrol jets as well, which made those driving them very nervous. Suddenly those in the patrol jets felt their vehicles caught in what seemed to be a large magnetic field. The patrollers contacted each other and all agreed to forego the operation. They managed to somehow wriggle out of the field around the debris and move along. When they stopped pursuit the ball seemed to gain even more steadily on the group. They all looked at each other and waited in the eerie quiet for a word of comfort from Hotarou. They were given none.

The mass was right upon them. They began to feel the magnetic field on their ship, which grew stronger with every passing moment. The light from any other celestial bodies was blocked out by the mass and as everything became darker the fear in their hearts deepened and the stress from waiting became almost unbearable. They closed their eyes, waiting for it to be over… when suddenly they heard the sound of a metal door shut and the sound of a chamber filling with air.

They opened their eyes to a lighted hanger that was filled with at least eight different small jets. They stood slowly, still unsure of where they were or what even happened. Hotarou blinked a bit then laughed under his breath. So this is what they look like…

A door on the side of the ship was suddenly opened and the bright light poured in from outside. A figure stood in the doorway dressed in a light, airy toga with a leather corset extending from her bust to her waist. Her brown-colored hair was in dreadlocks and partially pinned back, with beads absorbed into some of those thick locks. The toga, at the knees in the front, extended into a long train of orange and red which made her look like a queen, most likely, of pirates.

"Hotarou and friends! Long time, no see!" she beamed stepping into the light where they could see her face.

"Oreki's sister!" the crew exclaimed all taking a huge sigh of relief.

"Welcome to Suzie's family ship!" she said spreading her arms wide as if welcoming the crew into her palace. "I noticed you all were in a pinch so I thought I might step in!"

"It's no wonder you never get caught," Hotarou said sarcastically. "this ship looks like a huge pile of trash."

Tomoe smiled. "Exactly! How about I show you the grand tour?" she whirled back around and gestured for the others to follow her. They walked down the steps provided but as Hotarou moved to follow the rest of the group he heard Tomoe say in a low voice so that only he could hear.

"I have news for you, dear Hotarou…"

Sorry this is so short! but here it is anyway! Enjoy!

P.S.-friends, call this a commercial if you'd like, but if you like stories like this there's a new anime out called "Zankyou no Terror" or "Terror in Resonance." It's really cool and especially if you liked "Cowboy Bebop" (as I referenced a few chapters ago) you should watch it. It is literally by the same director, same company, same musical composer as "Bebop" and it's very interesting. I even got some non-anime viewing friends to watch it and they loved it! So y'all should totally check it out, okay?

Aright, I'm out, peace!