Forced separation

<snip>
"I get that" Jay nodded "I - Whoops. We've got a lock on us..."
He banked the Starbug sharply to the right
"No, wait" Cass spoke up "We've got more - two, three, five... multiple inboud...”
<end snip>

Jay lurched the control stick to one side, the Starbug responding slugglishly and throwing anyone not buckled into their seats tumbling around the mid and rear sections.
A missile screeched past the hull narrowly, missing the landing leg by inches.
He pushed the stick forward this time, sending the bug into a dive, another missile skimming the dorsal hull.
“Jay dude!” Jaxx called from the mid-section and stepping through to the cockpit “Whats going on…”
“Little trouble with the locals…I suggest you buckle up…”
Jaxx nodded and sat in the tactical chair, strapping himself in.
The two missiles Jay had evaded came around again just as Jay twisted around between another handful of them.
He lurched the ship upwards, it barely responded but did manage to avoid them, sending them screaming toward each other.
“Two down…” Jay began, as the missiles neared each other looking for all the world like they would meet head on when they shimmered out of existence and re-appeared dead ahead.
“Oh you’ve got to be smegging me…” Jay snapped as he sent the bug spinning sideways letting the missiles sail past the shuttle again.
“We used these in the STCP…” he said explaining to Cass and Jaxx “When they detect a threat they jump back in time a few seconds and carry on chasing their target from a new trajectory…”
“Whoa..that sucks Jay dude!” Jaxx replied
“The bug just isn’t manouverable enough in an atmosphere” Jay grumbled. “I can’t possibly avoid them all if they just keep coming back!”
“What do we do?” asked Cass.
“Only one thing I can do…I need to drop mass…make us more aerodynamic, and smaller…”
He flicked some overhead switches, cutting the main engines and then yanked on a level in front of him. The doors between the Starbugs three sections dropped rapidly and after a hissing sound – the ship split into three.
Jay fired up the cockpits thrusters, while the two larger sections fell away, and parachutes unfurled from under hatches on the hull and they floated harmlessly ground-wards – the cockpit now the only heat signature for the missiles to lock onto.
More manouverable now, Jay found it much easier to avoid the missiles.
“Six missiles still tracking us Jay..” Cass said glancing at her monitor.
“This isn’t gonna work..” said Jay “I need to head somewhere they can’t follow…”
“Like where?...woah!” Cass said as the bug spun suddenly and spiralled downward sending her stomach into her throat.
The cockpit splashed down into the ocean, and plunged deep under the surface, the missiles all detonating harmlessly on the surface. Jay pulled up, and the cockpit broke the surface again before the water logged engines cut out and the module dropped out of the air where it landed on the water and floated aimlessly.
“See...” Jay said “Told you we should have gone hard and fast…”

<tag - we’re separated – I’ll let you decide whether you’re in the mid or rear sections we’ve room for a fourth in the cockpit (but Jaxx, I’ve split you and Eve up on purpose – more chance for you to develop them both individually)
We’ve a few options
- Head to the base
- Track down the Ssala to see what they know
- Find Efof…

Lets go get the old gimmer.>