Rock stared, deadpan. He did not resist her intrusion, but just tilted his head in a sort of accepting (maybe relenting?) shrug, and shut the canopy anyway.

"We'll give it a shot, then," he declared, reaching around her to grasp the control stick and reach the instrument panel and controls, and start up the engines. There was a minute or two of testing, checking engines, throttling up and down, checking electrical systems, etc.; there was a mess of devices with various meters that one could only assume was diagnostic equipment connected and littering the bare metal floor.

He pulled a headset off the floor and put it on, then clicked the radio button on the yoke. "Controls, open the launch bay."

"The launch bay will open immediately," said an electronic voice over the loudspeakers in the hangar. "Please stand clear of the doors."

A loud alarm buzz gratingly blared, a bell rang, and a huge set of armored hangar doors straight ahead unlatched and slid apart, opening up to whipping winds, a dark, midnight-blue sky, and the lights of the cities of South Island below. Orange light strips on the floor pointed the way out.

"There's no ejection seat, so if somethin' goes wrong, you just gotta bail," stated the primate, matter-of-fact as ever as he pushed forward on the throttle. The aircraft's engines whined, and the weight on its landing gear's spongy suspension eased as it began to lift straight up off the floor, hovering gently, while jets of blue exhaust rushed out of an assortment of vernier-like openings on the bulky pods containing the engines, blowing loose tools carelessly across the floor beneath it.

Thrust shifted behind, the nose dipped and the aircraft wobbled just so slightly, then at once, it rushed out the doors with violent acceleration and into the open night sky.