"We also keep hearing a strange squeaking sound down here," she points.
Jeryn glances over to where all of her personal effects have been jostled around. She palms her face, still a bit shaky from the nightmare.
"Ruby."
"I beg your pardon, Commander?" Specialist Traynor looks at her, clearly concerned.
"Never mind." Jeryn grits her teeth, shaking off the last of sleep. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the cargo hold."
~^v^~
That damned squeak echoes again.
She knows the damned thing is down here. Whoever let a hamster out on a spaceship should be keelhauled. Had she a keel to haul someone across.
Sighing, Jeryn follows the sound down the ladderwell into the hold below Engineering.
The damned lighting is darker than before. She knows it's regs, but it still irritates her. The entire Galaxy is fighting a war, and she's chasing a blasted hamster.
If Ruby gets into the core, she could muck up the entire ship, and then they'll be floating out here in the middle of no where, Joker will probably cry, and then who will fight the Reapers?
Jeryn chuckles out loud at her own ridiculous thoughts as something catches her eye. It's barely a flick of movement, but it doesn't belong.
"Gotcha!" She leaps at the scurrying rodent, but winds up plowing into a stack of gear lockers. Using the bulkhead to support herself, she gets back up and starts digging. The squeak and the flash of darting is behind her now, and she trips over the cable and scrapes her knee on the non-skid.
"Shit." She looks at the hole in her utilities and the freshly bleeding wound. Raking hands through her short-cropped hair, she feels the tears prickle at her eyes for some reason she can't or won't understand.
Hearing the squeak again, Jeryn looks up.
"You little scamp," she laughs. Ruby is sitting right in front of her. "Let's go, you." Scooping her up, she cups her hands around Ruby and climbs the ladderwell.