The voice of the Novalis' comms officer crackled through his comms crystal, indicating they were now undocked. "Finally.." he said to himself, putting the engines in gear and spinning up the propellers. One of the drived coughed and sputtered as a fuel line rand dry. "Darnit.." he cursed, rerouting fuel from the reserve tank. Once all engines were firing, he turned the Isabella to follow the Novalis. Not too difficult to do, as the Novalis was a beast of a ship, compared to his lady.<br/><br/>He tuned in for some music again, but he was interrupted by the rending sound of metal upon metal. Had the ship hit something? He quickly checked all balance sensors. The ship was on course and undisturbed. He was puzzled for a moment, then he remembered: the pirate shuttle..<br/><br/>-------------------<br/><br/>Kienan was then cutting off the last of the grapple pitons off, then unholstering his shotgun to pepper the shuttle's impeller engine with buckshot, making the tiny craft start to slowly sink, then plummet as the engine failed, into the ocean below. He then activated his comm crystal. "Cap'n, got good news and bad. Good first." he said. "I have the nav crystal, and looks like a good one. Bad news, there was a tracker aboard that shuttle. The Skulls know where we were, and in what direction we were moving, until I killed it. Best brace for bad stuff."