Mike walked up the loading ramp of the Hauler. His cyborg co-pilot stood at the top of the ramp waiting for him. He looked rather impatient as Mike slowly worked his way up the ramp.

“Are we getting out of here yet?” He said in a mechanical voice. “I don’t really want to sit here and wait for you to get all of this shit done.”

“The plans have changed.” Mike said. “I’m going out for the Dragons-class ships first flight. They want me to captain it.”

“Great.” The cyborg hissed. “So I get to sit here and wait for you to come back before we leave.”

“I’m not sure I’m taking the Hauler anywhere Cozac.” Mike frowned. “Saben wants me to take the ship. He says that since I designed it I should have it.”

“Good for you.” Cozac said with bitterness in his voice. “That means I get to take a ship that is meant to be flown by two people out of here by myself.”

“No.” Mike shook his head. “I want you to join me on that ship.”

“What?” Cozac asked his still natural eye widened. “You want me on a ship I don’t know and don’t care about? Why would I want to go out and do that?”

“Because I need you and I made a promise to you.” Mike said. “You can stay here in till we finish the first flight but after that I need you to join me on my ship and take over engineering.”

“I don’t know anything about that ship.” Cozac said. “And what about Craggy? She won’t like the idea of being scrapped.”

“She won’t be scraped.” Mike grunted. “I plan to have her upload into the Dragoon and we can take that with us on the Proto-Dragon. She might even be able to download herself into the dragons systems.”

Cozac grunted. “She might like that but what about the hold? We spent the better half of the last two years here. I’m not even still alive according to the Alliance. What’s gonna happen when they find out I didn’t die when you said I did?”

“They don’t really care if you died or not.” Mike gave him a disturbed look. “In fact they know you’re alive. They don’t care because what can you do? Your people don’t want you and the Alliance doesn’t want you. I took you in because if I hadn’t we would have lost that information you hold in your head plus you received the injuries that made you the man you are today.”