Snippet #1802879

Captain Elena Ramirez
Transit, EDF Atlas

When the class of ships led by the Atlas had been the forerunners of the EDF Fleet and the standard by which the rest of the space-faring Terran progeny measured itself, Elena Ramirez walked the same halls as a courier on the message run between the flagship and the other pieces of the convoys lumbering from point to point, carrying orders and manifests to be approved and signed by commanding officers day in and day out in the finest tradition of military efficiency.

Now, she walked the hall as the commanding officer of the only friendly ship for farther than she could calculate and the decision of whether to act was solely in her discretion as a commanding officer in a time of war. The times had certainly changed.

“Scuttlebutt across the CIC is that the civilian population is asking about the possibility of integration with the crew given our ‘difficult’ situation. Can you imagine trying to keep anyone’s head on straight?” The senior officer mused with the enlisted man as they made their way through the corridors to their eventual destination of the main cargo bay full of malcontent and scared civilians.

Col. Kaito Narita & Lt. Cmdr. Aiden Morrow
XO’s Quarters, EDF Atlas

“…and I don’t know the full extent of the damage that was done the Angels, but it’s going to be difficult to get close enough to learn more without exposing our ships and our pilots to more danger. We were lucky,” Morrow spoke, standing before the metallic desk separating him from the seating figure of the ship’s executive officer and his former commander at Triton Station. The pilot’s posture was straight but relaxed as he delivered the report, leaning forward and taking a long drink from a glass of water poured for him.

“I see,” Kaito Narita spoke as he shuffled through a number of orders that Morrow had carried down with him after running into a duty officer and being informed that Narita was in point command while the captain sought to alleviate the tense situation brewing in the belly of the ship.

“Whatever the ship is, if it were going anywhere it would have done so long before you stumbled across it. All the same, reroute the standard patrol to keep a regular contact on it and put a relay Boomer so that we’re in constant connection with whoever we have out there.”

“What if it decides to make a move?”

“Order your pilots to maintain visual contact. If it starts advancing on our position, disable it.”

Morrow did his best not to flinch. Ramirez would have never given such an order but rather would have redeployed the Atlas rather than fire the first shot in a situation like that. Still, it was the colonel’s call.

“Also, Commander,” Narita spoke with his normal rigid deliver even in the most informal of circumstances, “start drafting up a plan to get us close and inside that thing. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lt. Mackenzie Hawkins
Flight Deck, EDF Atlas

After a hot shower and the best excuse for a hot meal she could scrounge up in the mess, Mackenzie found herself wandering about the ship with too much energy for the rack time t hat her body probably needed but refused to allow. Had the mission ended an hour earlier she probably would have been sound asleep by now, but instead she was restless.

Clad in an Endeavor-issued pair of black sweatpants and a grey sweatshirt that bore the Alpha Company insignia from her days as a cadet at Triton Station, the young officer ducked through a hatch and into the open air of the flight deck. The place was never quiet, never really clean, and never really sleeping.

More than any other place on the ship, it felt like home.

Sliding down on the ladders leading up from the higher decks and traversing across the action area to where some of the wounded or servicing birds were tucked by the repair docks, she quickly spotted the familiar tail markings of the Angel that served her since her transfer to the Atlas. The bird that had been her personal fighter aboard the Endeavor was still out of touch for a while, having taken a wicked wing shot during the Melchoir encounter and still needing a refit or two to deal with the older launch mechanisms of her new ship.

“My kingdom, my kingdom for a grease monkey,” she said aloud, inspecting a munitions rack next to the parked Angel.