Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I don't own X-Men or Alien, so please don't sue me nice people at Marvel and Fox.

Author's Note: In the first chapter I referred to the captain as Alex Masters. However, that was wrong, because Warren Worthington was meant to be the captain, so where it said Alex, imagine it said Warren, 'kay.

Oh, and if you like this fic, then you need to read Tyriel's Aliens:Evolution, the continuation of the Alien series. Read it!

Chapter II: Planetfall

Though far from comfortable, the mess was just big enough to hold the entire crew. Since they rarely ate their meals simultaneously (the always-functioning autochef indirectly encouraging individuality in eating habits), it hadn't been designed with comfortable seating for seven in mind. They shuffled from foot to foot, bumping and jostling each other and trying not to get on each other's nerves.
Evan and Sam weren't happy and took no pains to hide their displeasure. Their sole consolation was that there was nothing wrong with engineering and that whatever they'd been revived to deal with was the responsibility of persons other than themselves. Rogue had already filled them in on the disconcerting absence of their intended destination.
Evan considered that they would all have to re-enter hypersleep, a messy and uncomfortable process at best, and cursed under his breath. He resented anything that kept him separated from his end-of-voyage paycheck.
"We know we haven't arrived at Sol, captain." Bobby spoke for the others, who were all eyeing Warren expectantly. "We're nowhere near home and the ship sees fit to hustle us all out of hypersleep. Time we find out why."
"Time you did." Warren agreed readily. "As you all know," he began importantly, "Cerebro is programmed to interrupt our journey and bring us out of hyperdrive and sleep if certain specific conditions arise." He paused for effect, said, "They have."
"It would have to be pretty serious." Jubilee was watching Destiny the cat play with a blinking telltale. "You know that. Bringing a full crew out of hypersleep isn't lightly done. There's always some risk involved."
"Tell me about it." Evan muttered it so softly only Sam could overhear.
"You'll be happy to learn," Warren continued, "that the emergency we've been awakened to deal with does not involve the Starjammer. Cerebro says we're in perfect shape." A couple of heartfelt 'amens' sounded in the cramped mess.
"The emergency lies elsewhere - specifically, in the unlisted system we've recently entered. We should be closing on the particular planet concerned right now." He glanced at Jason, who rewarded him with a confirming nod. "We've picked up a transmission from another source. It's garbled and apparently took Cerebro some time to puzzle out, but it's definitely a distress signal."
"Whoa, that doesn't make sense." Jubilee looked puzzled herself. "Of all standard transmissions, emergency calls are the most straightforward and the least complex. Why would Cerebro have the slightest trouble interpreting one?"
"Cerebro speculates that this is anything but a 'standard' transmission. It's an acoustic signal, which repeats at intervals of twelve seconds. That much is not unusual. However she believes the signal is not of human origin."
That provoked some startled muttering. When the first excitement had faded, he explained further. "Cerebro's not positive. That's what I don't understand. I've never seen a computer show confusion before. Ignorance, yes, but not confusion. This may be a first.
"What is important is that she's certain enough it's a distress signal to pull us out of hypersleep."
"So what?" Sam appeared sublimely unconcerned.
Bobby replied with just a hint of irritation. "Come on, man. You know your manual. We're obliged under section B2 of Company in-transit directives to render whatever aid and assistance we can in such situations. Whether the call is human or not."
Evan kicked at the deck in disgust. "Christ. I hate to say this, but we're a commercial tug with a big, hard-to-handle cargo. Not a damn rescue unit. This kind of duty's not in our contract." He brightened slightly. "Of course, if there's some extra money involved for such work . . ."
"You'd better read your own contract." Jason recited as neatly as the main computer he was so proud of. "'Any systematic transmission indicating possible intelligent origin must be investigated.' At penalty of full forfeiture of all pay and bonuses due on journey's completion. Not a word about bonus money for helping someone in distress."
Evan gave the deck another kick, kept his mouth shut. Neither he nor Sam considered himself the hero type. Anything that could force a ship down on a strange world might treat them in an equally inconsiderate manner. Not that they had any evidence that this unknown caller had been forced down, but being a realist in a harsh universe, he was inclined to be pessimistic.
Sam simply saw the detour in terms of his delayed paycheck.
"We're going in. That's all there is to it." Warren eyed them each in turn. He was about fed up with the two of them. He no more enjoyed this kind of detour than they did, and was as anxious to be home and offloading their cargo as they were, but there were times when letting off steam crossed over into disobedience.
"Right," said Sam sardonically.
"Right what?"
The engineering tech was no fool. The combination of Warren's tone combined with the expression on his face, told him it was time to ease up.
"Right . . . we're going in." Warren continued to stare at him and he added with a smile, "Sir."
The captain turned a jaundiced eye on Evan, but that worthy was now subdued.
"Can we land on it?" he asked Jason.
"Somebody did."
"That's what I mean," he said significantly. "'Land' is a benign term. It implies a sequence of events successfully carried out, resulting in the gentle and safe touchdown of a ship on a hard surface. We're faced with a distress call. That implies events other than benign. Let's go find out what's going on . . . but let's go quietly, with boots in hand."
There was an illuminated cartographic table on the bridge. Warren, Bobby, Rogue, and Jason stood at opposite points of its compass, while Lambert sat at her station.
"There it is." Warren fingered a glowing point on the table. He looked around the table. "Something I want everyone to hear."
They resumed their seats as he nodded to Jubilee. Her fingers were poised over a particular switch. "Okay, let's hear it. Watch the volume."
The navigator flipped the switch. Static and hissing sounds filled the bridge. These cleared suddenly, were replaced by a sound that sent shivers up Bobby's back and unholy crawling things down Rogue's. It lasted for twelve seconds, then was replaced by the static.
"Good God." Bobby's expression was drawn.
Jubilee switched off the speakers. It was human on the bridge again.
"What the hell is it?" Rogue looked as if she'd just seen something dead on her lunch plate. "It don't sound like any distress signal ah've ever heard."
"That's what Cerebro calls it," Warren told them. "Calling it 'alien' turns out to have been something of an understatement."
"Maybe it's a voice." Jubilee paused, considered her just-uttered words, found the implications they raised unpleasant, and tried to pretend she hadn't said them.
"We'll know soon. Have you homed in on it?"
"I've found the section of planet." Jubilee turned gratefully to her console, relieved to be able to deal with mathematics instead of disquieting thoughts. "We're close enough."
"Cerebro wouldn't a pulled us outta hypersleep unless we were," Rogue murmured.
"It's coming from ascension six minutes, twenty seconds; declination minus thirty-nine degrees, two seconds."
"Show me the whole thing on a screen," Warren ordered.
The navigator hit a succession of buttons. One of the bridge flickered, gifted them with a bright dot.
"High albedo. Can you get it a little closer?"
"No. You have to look at it from this distance. That's what I'm going to do." Immediately the screen zoomed in tighter on the point of light, revealing an unspectacular, slightly oblate shape sitting in emptiness.
"Smart ass." Warren voiced it without malice. "Are you sure that's it? It's a crowded system."
"That's it, alright. Just a planetoid, really. Maybe twelve hundred kilometres, no more."
"Any rotation?"
"Yeah. 'Bout two hours, working off the initial figures. Tell you better in ten minutes."
"That's good enough for now. What's the gravity?"
Jubilee studied different readouts. "Point eight six. Must be pretty dense stuff."
"Don't tell Evan and Sam," said Rogue. "They'll be thinking it's solid heavy metal and wander off somewhere prospecting before we can check out our unknown broadcaster."
Jason's observation was more prosaic. "You can walk on it." They settled down to working on orbiting procedure . . .

The Starjammer edged close to the tiny world, trailing its vast cargo of tanks and refinery equipment.
"Approaching orbital apogee. Mark. Twenty seconds. Nineteen, eighteen . . ." Jubilee continued to count down while her mates worked steadily around her.
"Roll ninety-tow degrees starboard yaw," announced Bobby, thoroughly business like.
The tug and refinery rotated, performing a massive pirouette in space. Light appeared at the stern of the tug as her secondary engines fired briefly.
"Equatorial orbit nailed," declared Jason. Below them the miniature world rotated unconcernedly.
"Give me an EC pressure reading."
Jason examined gauges, spoke without turning to face Warren. "Three point four five en slashed em squared . . . about five psia, sir."
"Shout if it changes."
"You worried about redundancy managing disabling CMGS control while we're busy elsewhere?"
"Yeah."
"CMGS control is inhibited via DAS/DCS. We'll augment with TACS and monitor through ATMDC and computer interface. Feel better now?"
"A lot." Jason was a funny sort, kind of coldly friendly, but supremely competent. Nothing rattled him. Warren felt confident with the science officer backing him up, watching his decisions. "Prepare to disengage from platform." He flicked a switch, addressed a small pickup. "Engineering, preparing to disengage."
"L alignment on port and starboard is green," reported Evan, all hint of usual sarcasm gone.
"Green on spinal umbilical severance," added Sam.
"Crossing the terminator," Jubilee informed them all. "Entering nightside." Below, a dark line split thick clouds, leaving them brightly reflecting on one side, dark as a tomb on the other.
"It's coming up. It's coming up. Stand by." Jubilee threw switches in sequence. "Stand by. Fifteen seconds . . . ten . . . five . . . four. Three. Two. One. Lock."
"Disengage," ordered Warren curtly.
Tiny puffs of gas showed between the Starjammer and the ponderous bulk of the refinery. The two artificial structures, one tiny and inhabited, the other enormous and deserted, drifted slowly apart. Warren watched the separation intently on number two screen.
"Umbilicals clear," Rogue announced after a short pause.
"Precision corrected," Bobby leaned back in his seat, relaxing for a few seconds. "All clean and clear. Separation successful. No damage."
"Check here," added Jubilee.
Warren glanced over at his navigator. "You sure we've left her in a steady orbit? I don't want the whole two billion tons dropping and burning while we're downstairs. Atmosphere's not thick enough to give us a safe umbrella.
Jubilee checked a readout. "She'll stay up here for a year or so, easy sir."
"All right. The money's safe and so's our skulls. Let's take it down. Prepare for atmospheric flight." Five humans worked busily, each engrossed in his or her assigned tasks. Destiny the cat sat on a port console and studied the approaching clouds.
"Dropping." Jubilee's attention was fixed on one particular gauge. "Fifty thousand metres. Down. Down. Forty-nine thousand. Entering atmosphere."
Warren watched his own instrumentation, tried to evaluate and evaluate the dozens of steadily shifting figures. Deep-space travel was a question of paying proper homage to one's instruments and let Cerebro do the hard work. Atmospheric flight was another story entirely. For a change, it was a pilot's work instead of a machine's.
Brown and grey clouds kissed the underside of the ship.
"Watch it. Looks nasty down there."
How lahke Warren, Rogue thought. Somewhere in the dun-hued hell below another ship was bleating a regular, inhuman, frightening distress call. The world itself was unlisted, which meant they'd begin from scratch where such things as atmospheric peculiarities, terrain, and such were concerned. Yet to Warren, it was no more or less than 'nasty'. She'd often wondered what a man as competent as their captain was doing squiring an unimportant tub like the Starjammer around the cosmos.
The answer, could she have read his mind, would have surprised her. He liked it.
"Vertical descent computed and entered. Correcting course slightly," Jubilee informed them. "On course now, homing. Locked and we're headed in straight."
"Check. How's our plotting going to square with secondary propulsion in this weather?"
"We're doing okay so far, sir. I can't say for sure until we get under these clouds. If we can get under them."
"Good enough." He frowned at a readout, touched a button. The reading changed to a more pleasing one. "Let me know if you think we're going to lose it."
"Will do."
The tug struck an invisibility. Invisible to the eye, not to her instruments. She bounced once, twice, a third time, then settled down into the thick wad of cloud. He ease of the entry was a tribute to Jubilee's skills at plotting and Warren's as a pilot.
It did not last. Within the ocean of air, heavy currents swirled. They began buffeting the descending ship.
"Turbulence," Rogue wrestled with her own controls.
"Give us navigation and landing lights." Warren tried to sort sense from the maelstrom obscuring the viewscreen. "Maybe we can spot something visually."
"No substitute for the instruments," said Jason. "Not in this."
"No substitute for maximum input, either. Anyhow, I like to look."
Powerful lights came on beneath the Starjammer. They pierced the cloud waves only weakly, did not provide the clear field of vision Warren so badly desired. But they did illuminate the dark screens, thereby illuminating both the bridge and the mental atmosphere thereon. Jubilee felt less like they were flying through ink.
Evan and Sam couldn't see the cloud cover outside, but they could feel it. The engine room gave a sudden shift, rocked to the opposite side, shifted sharply again.
Evan swore under his breath. "What was that? You hear that?"
"Yeah." Sam examined a readout nervously. "Pressure drop in intake number three. We've lost a shield." He punched buttons. "Yep, three's gone. Dust pouring through the intake."
"Shut her down, shut her down."
"What do you think I'm doing?"
"Great. So we've got a secondary full of dust."
"No problem . . . I hope." Sam adjusted a control. "I'll bypass number three and vent the stuff out as it comes in."
"Damage is done, though." Evan didn't like to think what the presence of wind-blown abrasives might have done to the intake lining. "What the hell are we flying through? Clouds or rocks? If we don't crash, dollars to your aunt's cherry we get an electrical fire somewhere in the relevant circuitry."
Unaware of the steady cursing taking place in engineering, the five on the bridge went about the business of trying to set the tug down intact and near to the signal source.
"Approaching point of origin." Jubilee studied a gauge. "Closing at twenty-five kilometres. Twenty. Ten, five . . ."
"Slowing and turning." Warren leaned over on the manual helm.
"Correct course three degrees, four minutes right." He complied with the directions. "That's got it. Five kilometres to centre of search circle and steady."
"Tightening now." Warren fingered the helm once more.
"Three kiloms. Two." Jubilee sounded just a mite excited, though whether from the danger or the nearness of the signal source Warren couldn't tell. "We're practically circling above it now."
"Nice work Jubilee. Rogue, what's the terrain like? Find us a landing spot."
"Working, sir." She tried several panels, her expression of disgust growing deeper as unacceptable readings came back. Warren continued to make sure the ship held its target in the centre of its circling flight path as Rogue fought to make sense of the unseen surface.
"Visual lahne of sight impossible."
"We can see that," Bobby grumbled. "Or rather, can't see it." The rare half-glimpses the instruments had given him of the ground hadn't put him in a pleasant frame of mind. The occasional readings had hinted at extensive desolation, a hostile, barren desert of a world.
"Radar gives me noise." Rogue wished electronics would react to imprecations as readily as people. "Sonar gives me noise. Infra-red, noise. Hang on, ah'm gonna try ultra-violet. Spectrum's high enough not to interfere." A moment, followed by the appearance on a crucial readout of some gratifying lines at last, followed by brightly lit words and a computer sketch.
"That did it."
"And a place to land on it?"
Rogue looked fully relaxed now. "As near as ah can tell, we can set down anywhere you like. Readings say it's flat below us. Totally flat."
Warren's thoughts turned to smooth lava, of a cool but deceptively thin crust barely concealing molten destruction. "Yeah, but flat what? Water, pahoehoe, sand? Bounce something off, Bobby. Get us a determination. I'll take her down low enough so that we loose most of this interference. If it's flat, I can get us close without too much trouble."
Bobby flicked switches. "Monitoring. Analytics activated. Still getting noise."
Carefully, Warren lost altitude. Jubilee watched gauges. They were more than high enough for a safe clearance, but at the speed they were travelling that could change rapidly if anything went wrong with the ship's engines, or if an other-worldly downdraft should materialise. Nor could they cut their speed further. In this wind, that would mean a critical loss of control.
"Clearing, clearing . . . that's got it!" Bobby studied readouts and contour lines, provided by the ship's imaging scanner. "It was molten once, but not anymore. Not for a long time, according to the analytics. It's mostly basalt, some rhyolite, with occasional lava overlays. Everything's cool and solid now. No sign of tectonic activity." He activated other instruments to probe deeper into the mysteries of the tiny world's skin.
"No faults of any consequence below us or in the immediate vicinity. Should be a nice place to set down."
Warren thought briefly. "You're positive about that surface composition?"
"It's too old to be anything else." The executive officer sounded a touch irritated. "I know enough to check age data along with composition. Think I'd risk putting us down inside a volcano?"
"Alright, alright. Sorry. Just checking. I haven't done a landing without charts and beacons since school training. I'm a bit nervous."
"Aren't we all?" admitted Jubilee readily.
"If we're set then?" No one objected. "Let's take her down. I'm going to spiral in as best I can in this wind, try to get us as close as possible. But you keep a tight signal watch on, Jubilee. I don't want us coming down on top of that calling ship. Warn me for distance if we get too close." His tone was intense in the cramped room.
Adjustments were made, commands given and executed by faithful electronic servants. The Starjammer commenced to follow a steady spiralling path surfaceward, fighting cross-winds and protesting gusts of black air every metre of the way.
"Fifteen kilometres and descending," announced Rogue evenly. "Twelve . . . ten . . . eight." Warren touched a control. "Slowing rate. Five . . . three . . . two. One kilometre." The same control was furthered altered. "Slowing. Activate landing engines."
"Locked." Bobby was working furiously at his console. "Descent now computer monitored." A steady hum filled the bridge as Cerebro took over control of their drop, regulating the last metres of descent than the best human pilot could have managed.
"Descending on landers," Bobby told them.
"Kill engines."
Warren performed a final pre-landing check, flipped several switches to OFF. "Engines off. Lifter quads functioning properly." A steady throbbing filled the bridge.
"Nine hundred metres an' dropping." Rogue watched her console. "Eight hundred. Seven hundred. Six." She continued to count off the rate of descent in hundreds of metres. Before long she was reciting it in tens.
At five metres the tug hesitated, hovering on its landers above the storm-wracked, night-shrouded surface.
"Struts down." Bobby was already moving to execute the required action as Warren was giving the order. A faint whine filled the bridge. Several thick metal legs unfolded beetle-like from the ship's belly, drifted tantalizingly close to the still unseen rock below them.
"Four metres . . . uff!" Rogue stopped. So did the Starjammer as landing struts contacted unyielding rock. Massive shock absorbers cushioned the contact.
"We're down."
Something snapped. A minor circuit, probably, or perhaps an overload not properly compensated for, not handled fast enough. A terrific shock ran through the ship. The metal of the hull vibrated, producing an eerie, metallic moan throughout the ship.
"Lost it! Lost it!" Bobby was shouting as the lights on the bridge went out. Gauges screamed for attention as the failure snowballed back through the interdependent metal nerve ends of the Starjammer.
When the shock struck engineering, Evan and Sam were preparing to crack another set of beers. A line of ranked pipes set into the moulded ceiling promptly exploded. Three panels in the control cubicle burst into flame, while a nearby pressure valve swelled, then burst.
The lights went out and they fumbled for hand beams, while Evan tried to find the back-up generator, which provided power in the absence of direct service from the operating engines.
Controlled confusion reigned on the bridge. When the yells and questions had died down, it was Jubilee who voiced the most common thought.
"Secondary generator should have kicked over by now." She took a step, bumped a knee hard against a console.
"Wonder what's keeping it." Bobby moved to the wall, felt along it. Backup landing controls . . . here. He ran his fingers over several familiar knobs. Aft lock stud . . . there. Nearby ought to be . . . his hand fastened on an emergency lightbar, switched it on. A dim glow revealed several ghostly silhouettes.
With Bobby's light serving as a guide, Warren and Jubilee located their own lightbars. The three beams combined to provide enough illumination to work by.
"What happened? Why hasn't the secondary taken over? And what caused the outage?"
Rogue thumbed the intercom. "Engineering room, what happened? What's our status?"
"Lousy." Evan sounded busy, mad, and worried all at once. A distant buzzing, like the frantic wings of some colossal insect, formed a backdrop to his words. These words rose and faded, as though the speaker were having trouble staying in range of the omni-directional intercom pickup.
"Goddam dust in the engines, that's what happened. Caught it coming down. Guess we didn't close it off and clean it out in time. Got an electrical fire back here."
"It's big," was Sam's only addition to the conversation. He sounded weak with distance.
There was a pause, during which they could make out only the whoosh of chemical extinguishers over the speaker. "The intakes got clogged," Sam was finally able to tell the anxious knot of listeners. "We overheated bad, burnt out a whole cell, I think. Christ, it's really breaking loose down here . . ."
Warren glanced over at Rogue. "Those two sound busy enough. Somebody give me the critical answer. Something went bang. I hope to hell it was only back in their department, but it could be worse. Has the hull been reached?" He took a deep breath. "If so, where and how badly?"
Rogue performed a quick scan of the ship's emergency pressurisation gauges, then made a rapid eye search via individual cabin diagrams before she felt confident in replying with certainty. "Ah don't see anything. We still have full pressure in all compartments. If there is a hole, it's too small to show and the self-seal's already managed to plug it."
Jason studied his own console. Along with the others, it was independently powered in the event of a massive energy failure such as the one they were presently experience. "Air in all compartments shows no sign of contamination from outside atmosphere. I think we're still tight, sir."
"Best news I've had in sixty seconds. Bobby, hit the exterior screens that are still powered up."
The executive officer adjusted a trio of toggles. There was a noticeable flickering, hints of faint geological forms, then complete darkness.
"Nothing. We're blind outside as well as in here. Have to get secondary power at least before we can have a look at where we are. Batteries aren't enough for even minimal imaging."
The audio sensors required less energy. They conveyed the voice of this world into the cabin. The storm-wind sounds rose against the motionless receptors, filling the bridge with a hoo-click sound like fish arguing.
"Wish we'd come down in daylight." Jubilee gazed out a dark port. "We'd be able to see without instruments.
"What's the matter, Jubilee?" Bobby was teasing her. "Afraid of the dark?"
She didn't smile back. "I'm not afraid of the dark I know. It's the dark I don't that terrifies me. Especially when it's filled with noises like that distress call." She turned her attention back to the dust-swept port.
Her willingness to express their deepest fears did nothing to improve the mental atmosphere on the bridge. Cramped at the best of times, it grew suffocating in the near blackness, made worse by a continuing silence among them.
It was a relief when Rogue announced, "we've got intercom to engineering again." Warren and the others watched her expectantly as she fiddled with the amp. "That you, Evan?"
"Yeah, it's me." From the sound of it the engineer was too tired to snap in his usual acerbic manner.
"What's your status?" Warren crossed mental fingers. "What about the fire?"
"We finally got it knocked down." He sighed, making it sound like wind over the 'com. "It got into some of that old lubrication lining the walls down on C level. For a while I thought we'd get our lungs seared proper. The combustible stuff was thinner than I though, though, and it burnt out fast before it ate up too much of our air. Scrubbers seem to be getting the carbon out okay."
Warren licked his lips. "How about damage? Never mind the superficial stuff. Ship efficiency and performance hindrance are all I'm concerned about."
"Let's see . . . four panel is totally shot." Warren could imagine the engineer ticking off items on his fingers as he reported back. "The secondary load-sharing unit is out and at least three cellites on twelve module are gone. With all that implies." He let that sink in, added, "you want the little things? Give me about an hour and I'll have you a list."
"Skip it. Hold on a second." He turned to Rogue. "Try the screens again." She did so, with no effect. They remained as blank as a Company accountant's mind.
"We'll just have to do without a while longer," he told her.
"You sure that's everythin'?" she said into the pickup. Rogue found herself feeling sympathy for Evan and Sam for the first time since they'd become part of the crew. Or since she had, as Evan preceded her in seniority as a member of the Starjammer's complement . . .
"So far," he coughed over the speaker. "We're trying to get full ship power back right now. Twelve module going out screwed up everything back here. Let you know better about power everything the fire ate."
"What about repairs? Can you manage?" Warren was running over the engineer's brief report in his mind. They ought to be able to patch up the initial damage, but the cellite problem would take time. What might be wrong with module twelve he preferred not to think about.
"Couldn't fix it all out here no matter what," Evan replied.
"I didn't think you could. Don't expect you to. What can you do?"
"We need to re-route a couple of these ducts and reline the damaged intakes. We'll have to work around the really bad damage. Can't fix those ducts properly without putting the ship in a full dry dock. We'll have to fake it."
"I understand. What else?"
"Told you. Module twelve. I'm giving it to you straight, we lost a main cell."
"How? The dust?"
"Partly." Evan paused, exchanged inaudible words with Sam, then was back at the pickup. "Some fragments agglutinated inside the intakes, caked up, and caused the overheating that sparked the fire. You know how sensitive those drivers are. Went right through the shielding and blew the whole system."
"Anything you can do with it?" Warren asked. The system had to be repaired somehow. They couldn't replace it.
"I think so. Sam thinks so. We've got to clean it all out and re-vacuum. If it stays tight after it's been scoured, we should be fine. If it doesn't, we can try metalforming a patchseal. If it turns out that we've got a crack running the length of the duct, well . . ." his voice trailed away.
"Let's not talk about ultimate problems," Warren suggested. "Let's stick with the immediate ones for now, and hope that they're all we have to deal with."
"Okay by us."
"Right," added Sam, sounding as though he was working somewhere off to the engineer's left.
"Bridge out."
"Engineering out. Keep the coffee warm."
Rogue flipped off the intercom, looked expectantly at Warren. He sat quietly, thinking.
"How long before we're functional Rogue? Given that Evan's right about the damage and that he and Sam can do their jobs and the repairs hold."
She studied readouts, thought for a moment. "If they can re-route those ducts and fix module twelve to the point where it'll carry its share of the powerload again, ah'd estimate fifteen to twenty hours."
"Not too bad, I got eighteen." He didn't smile, but he was feeling more hopeful. "What about the auxiliaries. They'd better be ready to go when we get power back."
"Working on it." Jubilee made adjustments to concealed instrumentation. "We'll be ready here when they're finished back in engineering."
Ten minutes later a tiny speaker at Bobby's station let go with a series of sharp beeps. He studied a gauge then flipped on the 'com. "Bridge, Bobby here."
Sounding exhausted but pleased with himself, Evan spoke from the far end of the ship. "I don't know how long it'll hold . . . some of the welds we had to make are pretty sloppy. If everything kicks over the way it ought to, we'll retrace more carefully and redo the seals for permanence. You ought to have power now."
The exec thumbed an override. Lights returned to the bridge, dependent readouts flickered and lit up, and there scattered grunts and murmurs of appreciation from the rest of the crew.
"We've got power and lights back," Bobby reported. "Nice work you two."
"All our work is nice," replied Evan.
"Right." Sam must have been standing next to the intercom pickup back by the engines, judging by the steady hum that formed an elegant counterpoint to his standard monosyllabic response.
"Don't get too excited," Evan was saying. "The new links should hold, but I'm not making any promises. We just threw stuff together back here. Anything new up your way?"
Bobby shook his head, reminded himself that Evan couldn't see the gesture. "Not a damn thing." He glanced out the nearest port. The bridge lights cast their faint glow over a patch of featureless, barren ground. Occasionally the storm raging outside would carry a large fragment of sand or bit of rock into view and there would be a brief flash produced by reflection. But that was all.
"Just bare rock. We can't see very far. For all I know we could be squatting five metres from the local oasis."
"Dream on." Evan shouted something to Sam, closed with a workmanlike, "be in touch if we have any trouble. Let us know the same."
"Send you a postcard," Kane switched off . . .