"Interesting, it's true you can't find good help these days." Bowing her head in thought Kasuga pondered the idea for several seconds. "Damn it," she whispered, "I have to go." The O-5 promptly stood up, leaving the cramped bridge behind as she passed through the open doorway.

"I think we should leave too. By the way Takino, I'm not actually a part of Naval Warfare (NavWar). I belong to Naval Special Warfare (NavSpecWar), and SOCOM."

"What the hell is SOCOM?" Takino stared at her counterpart now revealing herself to be a spook.

"Special Operations Command genius,"

The spook walked away, Takino remained confused and decided to follow her. All Navy ships use LED lights their low cost and energy needs being essential to extra-planetary warfare. Takino often complained about their slight bluish tinge, saying that they weren't as good as white incandescent bulbs. Takino followed the spook throughout the ship wondering where they were headed. A sign above her head read Engineering. It was then that Takino understood why they had come. Engineering is the part of the warship where the repair crews are located. Their main job is to maintain the fusion engines, essential to the survival of the crew. One of the engineers stood by the window overlooking a subcomponent of the main fusion chamber. The massive structure had to be perfectly aligned in order to keep it from destroying the entire warship. Beside the reinforced windows a small woman stood talking to Commander Kasuga. Her hair was dyed a light pink, against regulations, she had on a t-shirt, also against regulations, and her hair had two ponytails dangling beside her head, also against regulations. Commander Takino looked at this small defiant person who seemed oblivious to the lack of compliance her appearance had. This is my kind of engineer, Takino told herself, probably gets away with it too.

"So what you're telling me Miss Mihama is that you shut down the engines yourself." Whenever Kasuga said something it was a statement, never a question, she had a reputation for being a real hard ass.

"Yes Miss Osaka, I…."

"Never call me that."

"But…isn't that your nickname?"

"No one that is a regular member of the crew has the right to use that name. Understand."

"I I I um, okay, Commander Kasuga!"

"That's better."

What a b—, Takino thought to herself.

"Yes I did have the engines disabled Commander Kasuga because there are several issues with the superstructure of the engines. In fact I saw a small section of the engines fall off onto the deck."

"Why weren't these issues discovered before we set off for a nine month voyage!" The O-5 yelled at the young scientist at the top of her lungs. "We could have all been killed when we left the atmosphere!"

"I I I'm not sure why this is happening. I mean I only came aboard a Navy vessel quite recently and I didn't see any records of metal fatigue in the travel logs."

Shit, Takino thought to herself. Metal fatigue in the engines could explain the problems with the superstructure, worse, it could mean that the engines were near failing. Unlike a car or even a tank, engine failure on one of these babies created a ball of fusion that reached temperatures of over 300,000 degrees. That kind of heat wasn't even found in suns, not even plasmas could survive it.

"Don't be so harsh with her, Osaka."

The hell? How did Miss SOCOM know Kasuga's nickname, I didn't even know it till now!

"What's the big deal Special K? She's not Navy like you or me, she's not even military."

"True, but I don't think FleetCom would place an inexperienced engineer on reactor duty."

Damn it who the hell are these two? Both know each other, both are Commanders, and they seem to hate each others guts. I've heard of love triangles, but are there such things as hate triangles?

"Do you expect the engines to be repaired soon?" The spook looked at the young engineer seeing the fear on her face.

"Honestly I don't think we can make all the repairs on board this ship. It's pretty obvious that we need to return for a refit. But it's equally obvious that these issues were caused by someone, at least it is to me."

"So can we limp back to port or not kid?"

"Right now no, but in three weeks yes."

Kasuga rolled her eyes. "Great, three more weeks till twelve more weeks till two years. Really, really great."

"As long as I get to spend those two years apart from you two I think I'll be fine."

"I'm sure you will be Takino, hey maybe my SOCOM friends and I can pay you a little visit."

"F— you."

"That's just too bad, I'm sure you'd love to meet them."

"Commander Kasuga report to the bridge, bridge to Commander Kasuga, Takino you come up too," Mizuhara's voice could be heard through the loud speaker. "Actually Takino, don't come up okay?"

"Damn it Yomi I outrank you, you're not the boss of me!"

"Look, we just need you two to get your asses up here already!"

"Let's go," Kasuga said looking at Tomo, her eyes hard.

"I doubt it's too serious anyways."

"We'll find out when we get there."

"Who said you could tag along Miss SOCOM?" Takino sneered at her, showing a small amount of jealousy at the size of the spook's breasts.

"Just try to keep up," the spook took off down the hallway, running faster than anyone Tomo had ever seen.

When Takino and Kasuga reached the bridge "Miss SOCOM" was already standing beside Lt. Commander Mizuhara.

"Have you tried signaling yet?"

"No, so far we're hoping we can remain dark."

"Yeah right. This ship is bright silver, how stealthy can it be?"

"I think you have a point there."

"What's the deal Yomi?" Tomo turned to her only friend, but she still thought her glasses were pretty freakin' ugly.

"Take a look at this screen."

Tomo turned her head towards the direction of the screen. There were several sections to the screen, each one displaying a different image. While most of the screen's sections cycled through multiple cameras one of the sections stayed on one camera's field of vision.

"Do you mind cutting these other feeds?" Tomo asked.

The image on the single section blew up to fill the entire screen.

"Dear God," Tomo whispered.

The screen displayed a field of black dotted with stars, as well as a small golden yellow disc. The disc appeared on the center of the screen, on its sides small rectangular windows gave a view inside. Five small black shapes could be seen, their large white eyes staring at Tomo's destroyer the Hercules. The image on the screen began to grow larger and larger. After a few seconds only the windows and faces were visible.

"Lt., stop zooming in so much," Kasuga complained.

"I'm not zooming in," Yomi said. "That thing is coming closer."

The weapons officer, a small woman who many were convinced was a lesbian came over. "Based on the object's current trajectory and the fact that our engines are disabled, I'm afraid that we will collide in the next sixty seconds."

"Um, say again please?"

"I said that thing is headed straight for us. In other words we're going to crash!"