I'm good at shooting people, cracking wise, and pretending to know how to fight.

"Yeah, that thing is definitely still up there," Atton said, peering straight on up. He was sitting on top of the Hawk, so he had a pretty good view. "Ugh. A whole planet that doesn't even know there's life outside this solar system, and space still has to come invade us every five seconds."

He'd never thought he'd be happy about Sparkle having some crippling emotional trauma to run away from. But from what he'd seen from the carnage yesterday, this had 'screw the kid up' written all over it. So, yeah. Better he was gone.

Atton slid off the roof of the ship and hit the ground.

"Ah, well," he said, "It's been a while since I got to blow something out of the sky, anyway." Beat. "And at least this time I'm not naked."

[[ open! ]]

After getting back from Los Angeles, 19-whenever, Atton made a beeline right back to his apartment, where he picked up a microwave burger to eat, and then headed back up to his ship. It'd been three weeks or so since the last time he'd been on the job; it was starting to drive him nuts to the point that spending the evening shining up every last button on the Ebon Hawk actually seemed like a better idea than sitting around his apartment.

Of course, he hadn't even made it out of the cockpit when his comlink went off.

"Yeah?"

"Atton! You're alive!"

He squinted at the dashboard, because it was there. "Well, obviously," he said. "What's up, Mical? You almost seem happy about that."

They were on slightly better terms these days. He was willing to admit to that much. Didn't mean he was going to stop needling the guy.

"I have been trying to contact you for several days, but none of your communications devices responded," Mical replied. "We had feared the worst."

"I went on vacation," Atton said. "Sometimes it's a thing people do. Sometimes they even unplug."

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. Of course there was. "We cannot tarry on Atris' trial any longer, and there are some other matters that require your attention--"

"Okay. You call Portalocity for me, I'll run the engines on the Hawk and be right over."

"--So I believe it w-- Okay." A beat. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Atton said. That wasn't strictly true any day, and it certainly wasn't now, but space, he needed to be back on the job. Three weeks. Three weeks of sitting around, stuck in his own head. He'd be happy to deal with Atris if that meant getting other matters to his attention. "Portal's between Neptune and Pluto, right?"

"...Right."

"Then I'm on my way."

He shut off the comlink. Then he sat his ass back down in the pilot's chair and ran the engines.

[[ establishy. ]]