Chapter 6

Itchy grumbled angrily as he walked through the Javelin, scratching at his beard while he made his way to the bridge. Ginger had sent out a message to the squad, asking them to meet on the bridge as they were about to exit Quantum. As he walked, he spotted Nixie and Bacon ahead of him, chatting as they walked. Behind him were Hat and Reaper, the two going over some technical data that Reaper had on a data pad. They'd all managed to catch a few hours of sleep, and while he was certainly still tired, he was more alert than he had been.

Nixie and Bacon entered the bridge and he saw them greet Ginger, who was talking with a woman with long, auburn hair, pale skin and a beauty mark under her left eye. Ginger had turned his head to greet them, but turned back to the woman immediately. Itchy joined his ground team and exchanged greetings with them before they were joined by Reaper and Hat.

With everyone assembled, Ginger turned toward them and stepped closer, the woman a step behind him.

"Sorry for the early wake-up, but I figured you'd all wanna be here when we exited Quantum." Ginger said while lifting his arm and opening his MobiGlas. "Now, before you arrived, we'd managed to get scans of our exit point. Long story short, we've traveled to an adjacent galaxy and are about to exit Quantum on the outskirts of an unknown system. If you want to know the probability of this, ask Hat, I'm just counting us lucky that we didn't end up in dark space."

"Anyways. This is Captain Marie Bennett." Ginger gestured to the woman who stepped up alongside him and straightened to attention. "She's in charge of the Javelin and reports to me. While you're on the ship, her word goes. Itchy, consider her having the same authority as yourself outside of ground operations."

"Hold on, when do you get to make command decisions for all of us?" Hat questioned, there wasn't any anger in his voice, just curiosity.

"Since the squad placed me in charge of fleet operations." Was Ginger's immediate response. "While in space, I have overall command, as was decided when we started this outfit."

"Ah. Right."

"Moving on." Ginger glanced down at his MobiGlas and brought up an image of a solar system. "This is where we'll be exiting Quantum."

A red X appeared appeared outside the system's border.

"If our Quantum Drive isnt fried after this and we've done our calculations correctly, which I'd like Hat to double check, we should be able to jump into the system."

Hat moved to take a data pad from Marie, glancing over the data and running the math in his head.

"Our first order of business will be assessing the state of the ship and implementing any repairs as needed."

"While engineers are going over the ship, I want Ginger and Reaper in the Cutlass ferrying teams along the hull while Itchy, Bacon and Nixie provide security." This earned Marie a few confused looks from those mentioned aside from Ginger. "We are in unknown space and the likelihood of intelligent life, while low, is present. Rather safe than sorry as the old saying goes."

Hat looked up from the data pad.

"Math looks good, but like you said, this'll hinge on rather the Drive is still working when we exit."

"So long as it's got your seal of approval, I'll take it." Ginger replied.

"Initial estimates for internal damage put us in Dry Dock for a week, without proper facilities and resources, we'll be looking at about a month to repair everything ourselves." Marie continued as she brought up a zoomed in view of the system's asteroid belt. "We'll need to do a proper evaluation of external damage before a time line can be outlined. In the meantime, we can use our ship's mining and salvage drones to affect repairs if we can get within range of this asteroid belt. Unless things are drastically different in this galaxy, there should be resources we can use in the asteroids."

"We should be exiting Quantum in about thirty minutes, so take some time to grab some food and get ready for the day." Ginger crossed his arms and gave them a tired smile. "It's gonna be a long one."

"So, who wants to bet we're wasting our time flying security?" Bacon asked as he pulled on his armored chest plate.

"Seems like a pretty shit bet." Itchy replied, securing his leg armor.

"I'll take that bet." Nixie called while twisting her arms to help her armor settle in place.

"Alright, a hundred credits that security is pointless." Bacon holds out his armored hand which was quickly taken by Nixie as the two shook on the deal. "I'll enjoy taking your money."

"We'll see." Nixie answered before pulling on her helmet and securing it to her suit.

Once the three were fully armored, they made their way to the port side hangar where their personal fighters were stored. Bacon got to his Anvil Arrow first and climbed up to the cockpit. Nixie took a moment to inspect her Avenger Titan before lowering the rear ramp and entering. Once in the pilot's seat, she sealed the ramp and began prepping for launch.

Itchy took his time approaching his Vanduul Scythe. The fighter looking severely out of place in the hangar of the Javelin with its midnight armor and red tinted canopy. He climbed into the cockpit and got as comfortable as the fighter would allow, which wasn't much.

"Swordbreaker Actual, this is Itchy Psycho, requesting permission to take off."

"Permission granted, Itchy Psycho. Pleasant flying."

With the soft hum of his thrusters, Itchy lifted the Scythe from the deck and slowly eased forward out of the hangar. To his left he saw Nixie and Bacon following his lead. Once his fighter was past the Javelin's hangar doors he accelerated, feeling the rush of adrenaline as his Scythe hurled through the void. His radar showed Nixie and Bacon falling behind, their ships not able to match his Scythe's speed.

When he reached twenty-thousand meters from the Javelin, he decelerated and held his position so Nixie and Bacon could form up on him.

"Bacon, send out a ping and scan the system. I wanna make sure we're the only ones out here." Itchy ordered as he looked through the canopy at empty space. His console beeped when Bacon's radar ping passed over his ship. He ignored it and waited for Bacon's report.

"Hmm, well that's interesting." Bacons voice was contemplative. "There appears to be...nothing, wait. I see something!"

Itchy jerked to attention, his eyes scanning the void before him.

"What do you got? My scans are negative."

"I see a hundred credits coming my way!" Bacon's voice was full of laughter as he sent his scan results to Nixie and himself.

"Not funny, Bacon." Chided Nixie as she maneuvered her ship into a predetermined overwatch position.

"Cut the shit, Bacon. We're on mission." Itchy's voice held no humor as he admonished his squad mate. "Save the jokes for later."

"Roger that." Bacon's response was short and professional. There wouldn't be any hard feelings over this, as laid back as their group was, when it was game time, they fell in line. Sometimes, they just needed a reminder.

Marie Bennett was in over her head.

Captain.

Captain.

She'd gone from communications officer to Captain of the Swordbreaker and she still wasn't sure if this was some kind of trauma induced dream.

She'd put on a confident front. Held her head high as she called out orders to her crew.

'My crew.' She thought with an amused huff.

She'd never given orders before. She'd thought herself lucky to become an officer in Dysfunction, especially an officer on the bridge team. The pay was good, her life was easy and all she needed to worry about was making and relaying communications.

But now. Now she stood at the head of it all. Only answering to the one man who threw her into the position with a stupid, smug grin and absolutely no warning. Just because you took charge in a crisis doesn't mean you're ready for leadership. At least, that's what she thought, but no. Apparently that was good enough for Ginger to lay the whole burden on her shoulders.

In hindsight, she should have kept him on the bridge to help her, but she'd been so focused on proving herself that she'd sent him out to ferry work crews around.

Such a stupid decision.

"Ma'am." Her attention was drawn away from her inner thoughts as one of her techs held a data pad out for her.

Her techs. Still a weird thought.

"And what's this?" She asked as she took the pad.

Damage summaries from the work crews." They responded. "Initial estimates look good."

She took a moment to scan the text, noting the most of the damage, while severe, was superficial in nature. There were a few problem areas, such as the power grid, which was apparently being held together by duct tape and prayers, as Hat had written in his report.

"Thank you, please return to your duties." She dismissed the Tech with a motherly smile and turned back to the command console. Opening a communication to Ginger, she waited a few seconds before he answered.

"MechaGinger here."

"Ginger, Swordbreaker Actual, what's your current status?" Maria asked, glancing toward the scanners which showed a the green dots signifying his ship as well as Itchy's squadron.

"On standby, Ma'am. Crews are working with the drones to fix the hull damage, Reaper and I are in overwatch."

"Acknowledged. Return to the ship and report to the bridge. Reaper can take the Cutlass out and continue overwatch for the crews." There was a slight pause before Ginger's reply.

"Understood, Ma'am."

Maria cut the transmission and sighed. She hated calling him back, but she needed help. She had no idea what she was supposed to be doing right now and despite his easy-going demeanor, Ginger was the most experienced ship commander they had.

'Stupid Ginger with his stupid decisions.' Were her last thoughts before another tech came up with a new report.

"We've secured a staging area outside the settlement. The frigates are moving in to land as we speak. There are small pockets of resistance, but the main garrison has been dealt with."

"Excellent." Crathan smiled as he leaned back into his seat. "Split your forces and lead a push into the colony, eliminate all resistance. Put your second in charge of capturing the humans hiding outside the shelters."

It was an unnecessary order, his men were veterans and knew how to conduct a proper raid, but it never hurt to remind them of who was in charge.

"Understood, Sir."

The connection ended and Crathan pulled up an image of the colony taken by one of the frigates as it descended. Using a simple V.I. program, the image was rendered into a crude map with on overlay of his troop positions. Now he would have a rough idea of the progress his men were making. His gunships soared through the skies, firing upon any pockets of resistance while his infantry made their way through the streets.

They methodically checked and cleared each building before moving to the next. While the progress was slow, it kept the enemy from catching them in an ambush. A common tactic of the cowardly humans.

At their current rate, they should be done on this planet in less than a day.