II. Not So Clean Getaway

"Yup this is the real deal." Strife said as he handed me the knife.

"You know that he doesn't like fake right?" I replied as I placed the knife in a box.

Celestine got out of the captain's chair and approached us. She took a pen and started to write something on the box.

"What are you doing?" I asked her as I held her hand preventing her from writing.

"Well from the looks of it this is McGuffin 47 right?"

"Uh… no. This is not a McGuffin."

"I thought all the things you found with this ship are automatically called McGuffins?" Strife asked as he looked around the shelf where the knife was placed.

"That's only part true. By definition McGuffin is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself." I proudly explained.

Both of them gave me a condescending look. I know that it's how they look at me. But it still hurts.

"Okay fine. I call things McGuffin only if in the process of acquiring the item I've been placed in a dangerous position. Or after getting the item, things suddenly went south… and if I moved past those obstacles and had a chance to inspect the item. Only to find it was basically inoperable, unsellable, and in the worst case plain trash. Then I call them McGuffins."

"So the knife doesn't count because it's sellable?" Celestine asked.

"Yes."

We continued our conversation about the topic. It has been six months since this team operated and so far our relationship is solid as rock, even if I am shy to admit that. You might be wondering why we stole a knife instead of finding it on some dead planet. Well you see the guy who raised both me and Strife came to us with a job offer. And he came at the right time because it was about three months in and we hadn't got anything ourselves. He told us about the knife, well it doesn't have any crazy powers, just a knife.

He gave us everything we needed about the knife. Who's the current owner, where is it right now, how much it cost and pretty much everything we needed to know. He was even generous enough to provide us the fake credits to get us in that high tier casino. All we had to do was plan out the heist and I have to say that it went without a hitch. Or so I thought.

"Attention colony drones inbound." C.H.R.I.S. announced throughout the ship.

Strife looked out the window. He saw at least two colony drones.

Colony drones are limited to about 30 kilometers away from their own colony. They serve as pilot ships that lead others to their designated ports. They can also be used as first lines of defense against enemy warships. As two of them came close to our wings we shifted our minds to be ready for combat.

I don't want to jinx myself but I have no idea why the colony's drone would escort us. Could it be that they realized that we pulled a prank on one of their exclusive casinos and stole an ancient ritual knife?

"Receiving transmission from the colony." C.H.R.I.S. informed us.

We moved towards the cockpit and took our respective seats, with Celestine on the captain's chair. She then ordered C.H.R.I.S. to put them through. The video came on and it was the Prozden from earlier.

"Crew and captain of The Swift, greetings. I believe you have something that belongs to me."He said with a smile.

"I'm afraid we have no idea what you're referring to." Celestine replied.

"Oh, I am talking about the ancient ritual knife that you stole."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, you might want some evidence. Well then cameras from my casino are equipped with a night vision in the event of a sudden black out. And this is what it picked up." He said as he switched to the video feed from the casino. It was clear that Celestine disguised as a waitress stole the knife. "But don't worry I won't ask you to return the knife to me."

I was a little surprised not only at the fact that he was the owner but also that night vision cameras totally slipped my mind. Regardless we silently changed the controls from autopilot to manual.

"I'll just take the knife from your ship's debris. After I personally saw your demise."

We then saw a manned luxury type ship, which I assume belongs to the Prozden, behind us flying at full speed. The drones also fired missiles at us. With Strife's quick reflex we managed to dodge the missiles. Without any second wasted the drones dived in chasing us while the Prozden's ship stayed and watched us fight.

We flew around dodging the attacks from the drones. Like I said earlier colony drones have a range of 30 kilometers away from the colony, which means our current goal is to be at least 31 kilometers away from the colony. It's also implied that we have to make sure we won't get knocked down.

Strife and I focused on steering the ship away from the colony while making sure the drones won't hit us. Due to their unmanned nature the drones are more nibble than us which only makes our situation a little bit threatening.

Celestine looked at our radar. We're already about a few kilometers out of Floating Sin and we could see the nearby debris field. As we reached the marker and went beyond the drones stopped. We wanted to slow down but before we could do it the drones fired one last barrage of homing missiles.

Strife punched the accelerator. He was automatically the pilot of The Swift. As he maneuvers the ships his eyes are intently looking at the asteroid belt. I simply looked back at the colony only to see the luxury ship still there.

"Give me controls." I ordered Strife.

"Why?" Strife loudly asked.

"I have a plan."

"We'll lose it in the debris field, I know. I'm thinking the same thing."

"Nope!" I said as I smiled.

"Fine." Strife shifted the main controls to me.

After receiving controls, I immediately went higher. I made sure that the missiles were still following us. I then turned the ship back to the direction of the colony which made the drones pursue us again. Punching at full speed I made my heading directly ahead of the luxury ship. From what it looked like at the other ship, it seemed as if we got desperate and turned for a suicide dive.

With the distance closing in, the luxury ship had no choice but to bank right. As I saw the ship move right I instantly broke right preventing the impact. That maneuver caused both the missile and drones to collide with the luxury ship creating a giant explosion. As Strife and Celestine looked at the explosion I only smiled as I flew us away from The Floating Sin.