Gary drove his old truck down an old gravel road, it was missing a lot of the of the decorative panels, as such it looked akin to a dune buggy. He was driving south at Arthur's request towards the load yard, ships of various sizes were stopped their to either be refilled for long journeys or left, abandoned to die. From what Arthur told him, the latter is why he was here, he needed to 'borrow' a ship and launch it off-world, at the request of the front as proof of loyalty for employment.
Gary shook his head, it was clearly a lie but honestly Gary didn't care, his friend needed his help and he was nothing short of loyal. He watched as the buildings slowly disappeared opening up to field of long, yellow grass, with flowers of various color poking through the yellow fields, breaking up the almost blinding monotony. It was a longer drive to get there, as they kept it some miles away from the town to cause noise pollution as various machines and loaders performed their duties and maintenance on the large vessels built for long term space voyages. It was early morning, the beginnings of the sun slowly poking out of the western hemisphere to bath the the world a shimmering gold, causing the sky to brighten.
Arthur poked his head through the cabin window, questioningly.
"Are we there yet?"
Gary turned and looked at him.
"I will turn this truck around if you don't shut the fuck up."
He studied Arthur, releasing the man wasn't wearing a shirt.
"Are you naked again?"
Arthur looked down at himself, then nodded slowly.
"Yeah, I'm not going to allow my clothes to burn up in the atmosphere again."
Gary shook his head.
"I am getting sick of seeing you walking around with you ass out. Besides I thought you were leaving."
Arthur looked at him shocked.
"Why I would never leave you dear, c'mere..."
He reached an arm through the window and Gary smacked it.
"Will you stop joking around and tell me what's really going on? Also don't pretend for even a second that you wouldn't leave for me, it's your lady friend isn't it."
Arthur rolled his eyes mockingly.
"How dare you, you aren't wrong, but the insinuation that you aren't important to me is rather insulting. Her name is Alara by the way, I think you should know the name of the woman looking after your child."
Gary nearly crashed the vehicle in shock and stared at Arthur, clearly bewildered.
"Are you kidding me!? You left Gary Jr. with Alara, the woman who hates the Valahi even more than I do?"
Arthur stifled a laugh, the mocking look never leaving his face.
"Gary Jr.? Really?"
Gary looked looked almost embarrassed by it for a moment but continued.
"Don't change the god damn subject, do you trust her at least?"
Arthur's face became very serious, which, juxtaposed against his nudity was truly a strange sight.
"With my life Gary, I might play the fool sometimes for fun, but I truly am not one, I'd never endanger your son, at least not willingly."
Gary looked away, and grumbled under his breath.
"Gary Jr. is a girl."
This time Arthur didn't even try to stifle the laugh, pulling his head out of the cabin of the vehicle as Gary began hurling some rather colorful words at him. He leaned against the bed of the truck and pulled the blue tarp from the last time he was in the vehicle over his body.
After about half an hour Gary stopped the truck, it lurched forward as the naked man stood and leapt onto the ground, sprinting towards the ten foot tall electric fence before them. The look of disgust never left Gary's face.
Arthur was sprinting far faster than any human should ever be able to move, he jumped and cleared the fence and landed on the cool asphalt. He began jogging as people stopped and stared at the strange man. After sometime he spotted the vehicle he was locking for, it was called a 'Réservoir', a large passenger class vehicle outfitted to carry about 12 people at maximum capacity, it was shining brilliantly in the rising sun, reflecting shades of orange on the ground.
He stopped for a moment and looked around the facility, the compound was filled with massive warehouses hundreds of meters tall, and double that in width and height. At that moment though that wasn't important, a part of his mind wanted to take note of the architecture but he needed a camera to record his face. The Front leased this yard, as such it was the one of the only places on the planet with facial recognition. He saw a camera pointed toward one of the entrances about twenty feet away, he walked over to it and waved, watching it slowly turned towards him, in the light he could see the lenses adjusting, magnifying his feature. With that he began to sign.
"Hello, I, Arthur Donovan, will be borrowing the Réservoir you have over there, thanks."
He than ran over to the vehicle past a crowd of workers and climbed inside, no one tried to stop him, either they weren't paid enough or they just couldn't be bothered to stop the naked man. He walked into the cockpit and sat in a brown leather chair, he was quite familiar with the controls of most space aircraft, given his age, but it still took him a minute to get everything in order.
"Ignition, Stabilize, Hover, Stabilize, Tilt, Stabilize."
He was remembering why this vehicle was out of commission, if you didn't stabilize the vehicle after every move on a planet with gravity it would begin flipping wildly or just shut down. He aimed the vehicle at the sky and took off, the ground grew small, as the wind whipped past the ship. He pressed a large button on the underside of the massive console and the bay door swung open, bouncing loosely in the wind, he had put the vehicle to fly at a slight angle towards the sky.
He waited until it was about to exit orbit, listening to sensors scream loudly at the fact those door were open, rendering them incapable of maintaining a stable atmosphere. He stood up and allowed the gravity to pull him from the vehicle as it flew further away from him, it felt as if he was floating. After a few moments, of course, he then felt intense heat envelope his body as he began falling. He did not enjoy this feeling, so he closed his eyes and waited for impact.