By ChaosEternus
Thanks to LONA of the BSGWS for Beta'ing this fic for me.
Chapter 6Things got interesting then, as half the ships crew seemed to find urgent reason to race through the cathedral to the fiery corridor beyond.
It wasn't just DC parties, we could tell who they were by all the protective gear, all the equipment and the organised way in which they moved, No, it was staffers, civilians, the works.
I took a wild off-the-wall guess and decided it really was a fuel line burning.
Which rated a 'damn,' quite possibly a 'bugger'; maybe even an 'Oh bloody hell'.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that Fire fuel line spacecraft= Very bad idea, possibly a fatal idea.
But we couldn't do anything about it.
Just watch.
As the corridor began to grow visibly brighter, as people with more hoses and extinguishers poured into the corridor.
As everyone poured out of the corridor, sharply abruptly.
As the blast doors slammed shut.
As a great roaring, rumbling filled the room.
As Techie led a team towards several hidden valves, swiftly shutting them down, the stars beyond stopping their manoeuvring as she did so.
As they hastily rigged a bypass the ship rumbled and shook, obviously under heavy fire.
As the stars shifted again when the bypass was completed.
As the three of us stared wide-eyed and shocked at the moving stars and realized exactly what that fuel line had powered.
Manoeuvring.
In the middle of combat, the ship we were on had lost the ability to manoeuvre.
Well, that rated a bloody F'ing hell for definate, talk about dangerous.
No ability to dodge incoming fire, no ability to make the enemy work to actually target you….oh yeah, fun.
Now we just had to explain to the nice men with the big guns how we were not responsible, how the guard had really gotten the nice little bump on his head.
Oh yeah, fun. Not.
In the end, we were lucky.
They didn't try to ask. I got the impression that somebody; probably Command Presence, could add one and one and get the annual revised budget request.
We got the distinct impression we were considered heroes, of sorts.
Not that that mattered too much, there was still the little issue of a language barrier.
Turns out, they had been working on that too.
Priestly came up to us one day in the mess. The guards were sitting with us once more, running through their homework, which was basic pronunciation in English, that's proper English, not American English or Australian English to all you bloody colonials out there… heh…
Anyway, she comes up to us, and with a curious expression, haltingly says something in a rather guttural language.
Donally spat his 'coffee', such as it was, out, spraying it the length of the table and across the guard's workbooks. The resultant look from the guards was an interesting mix of disgust, resignation and amusement.
"Can you talk this?" Donally translated slowly, hesitatingly.
We shot each other startled, relieved looks, communication of a kind, at last.
NEXT CHAPTER