Slippy cruised through the emptiness of space, distracted from what little manoeuvring he had to do by his nagging worries. His eyes stared blankly into the distance, unseeing, while his mind's eye was fixated inward on his many grievances. Whenever the shame he felt for behaving so irrationally and erratically surfaced, he crushed it by turning his thoughts back to Falco and the injustices he'd suffered at the hands of his contemptuous team mates. He reminded himself of their mockery in the field, their unappreciative reception of all his inventions, and of course, the way they insulted and dismissed his value as a pilot, like Falco had done that morning.
Yes, I was justified, he reasoned. All they've done is use my capabilities for their own gain and give me no respect or recognition in return. Never mind that they'd helped Slippy countless times in a pinch by blasting away the enemies he couldn't shake, or everything they'd been through as a team, or that they probably were quite concerned for his safety at this very moment. He owed them nothing!
And though the last thing he wanted to do was face them after what he'd done, he wondered: if they really care, then where are they?
But the more Slippy appealed to this victimized logic, the more ludicrous it truly seemed in his heart. He knew he should turn back, but he wasn't yet ready to admit to himself he'd made a mistake, much less own up to it in front of Falco. In his blind rage, Slippy decided that he would truly strike out on his own, and to do that he would cut ties with the ones he was fleeing so they could never possibly find him.
A perk of having designed it himself was that Slippy knew exactly how he could be rid of it. It was on the underside of his seat, but that could be changed with a simple press of the air tube button that blinked at him from the dashboard. He eyed it a moment, mind racing, blood rushing at the thought of what he was about to do, his fingers tense as coiled springs. His body and world paralyzed by nerves, time ticked by - seconds, then a minute passed…
In an instant his thoughts culminated into action, and that was all it took. In that instant, his hand pounced upon the button, the tube shot up from beneath him, the air-lock below it was released, and the homing device affixed to his seat was sucked into the vacuum of space, inertia carrying it forward till it was lost among the stars, while Slippy descended on Fortuna.