"But... what will you do?" The little blue and white skinned girl inquired, her long forked tail twitching frantically, "There's only room in the escape pod for one.  I don't think the pirates will be too happy you helped a captive escape, either..."  
"Don't worry," Her tomboyish benefactor replied, helping the girl into the small, metallic cylinder, "Ah've got mah own way off.  Yuh jus' need tuh worry about takin' care of yurself..."  
"Wait!" the blue and white skinned girl cried out, "At least tell me your name..."  
"Ahm Ni!" the tomboy explained, "And yuh?  Guess if weh were to evuh meet ag'in it might beh useful to know yuh as somethin' other than 'Little Run-Ahway Kylee Gal'".  
"I'm Lyka..." the blue and white skinned girl replied.  
Ni smiled.  "It's ah pleasure tuh meet yuh, Lyka!" she explained.  
Lyka reached out and touched her hand against the green vein-like markings on Ni's face.  "Don't... don't die, ok?" the girl pleaded.  
"Ah won't," Ni promised.  

Ni watched through her helmet as the door to the escape-hatch spiraled shut.  She then quickly grabbed the metallic, vaguely suitcase like structure she had placed near the hatch and began to unscrew the circular lock on the cover on its top.  Quickly, she pulled out four long, shiny boards, two long, slender cylinders, and two concave dishes.  She then closed the top of the structure and pulled it out, elongating the device significantly.  She then proceeded to grab one side of the device and pulled that out too, effectively creating an expanded compartment of sorts, and from there proceeded to start connecting the various smaller items she had removed to each other and to the now oddly shaped suitcase, itself, rapidly forming what loosely resembled a small space-ship.  It was a relatively simple assembly, considering what she was trying to assemble was to be capable of inter-planetary travel, but the fact that she knew she had mere minutes at most to do it definitely added some desperation to the procedure.  

Ni finished assembling her ship.  There was the sound of a metallic door being slammed into a wall just as Ni was throwing her backpack in while trying to figure out how to get the hatch re-opened.  The sliding doors on the ship were mechanical, yet this was clearly the effect of someone using physical force...

The group of figures that proceeded to march in were all heavily dressed in armor.  Although Ni had been stowed away on the ship for the better part of a day, she had never quite figured out what the pirates looked like underneath those suits.  All she knew is that they were large.  Thankfully, they didn't seem terribly fast.  Or bright...  

... Ni focused, and the world began to slow down around her...  

... Ni could be very fast when she really, truly needed to be.  It would come at a price, though.  This was an all or nothing run, and she was running on a timer, of sorts.  

Ni charged at the front most pirate... the captain, if her understanding was correct.  She had a very specific objective in mind:  Around the pirates waist were a cluster of hemisphere shaped metallic objects, slightly smaller than your average orange, with a subtle rounded lump on top.  She had learned to recognize these devices as double duty grenades/mines:  Low grade explosives with a secondary flash and smoke effect... mainly used as panic-inducing devices, although more than capable of damaging a solid structure if applied directly to such.  

Unfortunately, the pirates had a simple objective in mind as well:  Reducing Ni to her component atoms.  And the rifle-like weapons they were holding looked to be pretty dangerous.

The pirates took aim.  

Ni dropped to the ground and did a barrel roll.  

There was the flash of ionized air.  Several patches of floor around Ni sizzled, noticeably marked and damaged by the sudden impact of what Ni now recognized as pulse-lasers.  Ni rose to her knees and rapidly grabbed at the belt around the leaders waist, fumbling for only a second before finding the release mechanism and removing the belt, throwing it as close to the escape-hatch as she could manage.  

The leader cursed loudly and began firing frantically, his aim was clearly affected by his panic.  Ni  made a mad dash for her assembled space-ship.  

There was a brief pause as the leader stopped shooting.  He let out another profanity, this time muttered under his breath.  Then he turned to his crew and started screaming.  

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" the pirate leader ordered.  
"What?  But she doesn't..." another pirate protested.  
"I SAID GET OUT OF HERE!!!"  
The group of pirates rapidly exited back out the door through which they had entered, this time allowing it to close itself mechanically.  The door struggled for a second, seemingly having been adversely affected by the leaders show of aggression earlier, but after a moment it righted itself and was able to fully seal off the area.  

Ni started to crawl into her ship.  She was glad the pirates seem to have retreated in anticipation of her actions, but she didn't want to give them a chance to change their mind.  She just hoped this worked.  She didn't know any other way to get the hatch open with the escape pod gone.  

Ni leaned partway out of the hatch of her ship and pulled a closed, semi-rectangular device out from her bra, removing it from around her neck.  She opened the device, and pulled an odd extension from it.  It was a laser... nowhere near as powerful as what the pirates had been using, but hopefully still enough to set off the detonators in the pirate's explosives.  Of course, then she would have to hope that that would be enough to get the hatch opened, and that there wouldn't be any complications from there...  It was kind of a long-shot, really.  

Ni took aim.  There was another crackle of ionized air.  The belt exploded, blowing off a chunk of the escape hatch, which promptly swung open.  Air started rushing out of the chamber, pulling Ni's ship with it.  The young explorer quickly pulled herself down into her ship and frantically sealed off the entrance to her vessel.  

Ni tried to get the second, internal seal on what passed for her ship's air-lock closed, but found her efforts impaired as the vessel started to get battered around, colliding with various objects as it slid towards the exit.  Ni winced... this was somewhat expected, but she still couldn't help but fear that it was going to leave her ship inoperationally damaged.  The battering wasn't THAT severe, but her ship wasn't exactly what you'd call the sturdiest of space-faring vessels either.  

There was one last, massive CLANG, and Ni found her head ricochet against the side of her ship... then the collisions stopped, and Ni found herself experiencing the sensation of weightlessness.  Steadying herself against the walls with her hands, Ni maneuvered herself to level her head with the upper windows in her ship.  Sure enough, she was off the pirate ship, and floating in the vacuum of space.  

Ni paused.  There was a soft whistling sound, and the sensation of wind.  Somewhere on her ship there was a pinhole leak.  Ni raised a finger to try to locate it... it seemed to be coming from above her.  

Quickly, Ni closed the inner seal of her ship, and listened to make sure the whistling had stopped.  She felt lucky... a breach in the air-lock could potentially pose problems, but nothing NEARLY as bad as one on the inner chamber of the ship.  

Ni pulled what appeared to be a small phone out of her bra and looked at it... nearest habitable planet was a matter of minutes away for a good FTL ship, but she was merely using a pair of ramjets... so it'd be over a day for her.  Barren, only about 40% of its surface being water, and very little of that potable without desalinization and other treatments... close to the sun, thin atmosphere... populated, but barely so.  Modest gravity and a strong magnetic field, though, so assuming her ramjets were still intact enough to serve their parachute function she should at least be able to land on it.  

Ni forced herself to the floor of her ship and buckled herself in.  She reached over to the side, and adjusted a set of switches.  The engines of the ship kicked in, and Ni found herself experiencing the sensation of gravity once again.  Ni kept one eye on the screen of her "phone", but mostly focused on feeling out the presence of the planet she was heading for... another talent she was grateful for.  It was faint at this distance, and mixed up with the gravitational pulls of all the other celestial bodies floating around, but she could make it out.  

Ni maneuvered the ship until it was pointed in the right direction.  She could feel her mind start to give in to exhaustion... so she let her eyes close and slowly drifted off.  She just hoped there wouldn't be any further problems for the next few hours...