[i]As if on cue, a massive ripple appeared in the sky, as if someone had burst a massive, gloomy bubble above the house. A small slipspace rupture, only a few hundred meters above the surface, caused a small scale EMP, and sent anyone in the blast radius flying backwards. And out of that rift soared the Arrowhead, in all of its glory. Michael Drake had analyzed the situation, and waited for an opportune time. He saw the Alamo-cruiser in orbit, which would have no trouble blasting him out of the sky if it saw him, so he'd have to pull a risky slipspace maneuver and exit his jump just above the surface, using the computerized drive to its full potential. There would be some delay before the Cruiser noticed him, aimed their weapons, charged them, and then fired them, so he'd have a brief window to translocate Alpha onto the ship. Nothing on the ground could pierce the Arrowhead's electromagnetic shields--of that he was certain. So when the Arrowhead appeared, it did so only momentarily. In the second it took for it to appear, it locked onto Alpha's DNA reading, which had been logged on the ship's targeting computer, and he was translocated onboard the ship, at which point Drake reactivated the slipspace drive, and they reentered warp. Beta, however, wasn't recognized by the ship, and she was left behind...[/i]