Part XIV: Shields and cores

The ship shuddered gently under the women. Neeka looked up from the monitor at Macnelia and Jyra. They all exchanged smiles as the enormous engines came to life.

“Ready to link engine number one,” Neeka said into the earpiece.

“Initiate now,” Craig’s voice said.

“Coming online,” Neeka said. Several tense moments passed before she spoke again.

“Linked. Onto the second engine.”

It didn’t take long before all three engines were connected to the bridge and responding to the controls.

“We’re looking good here,” Craig reported.

“And here,” Neeka said.

Their voices were drowned as Macnelia lifted a com microphone to her lips and spoke.

“Attention throughout the ship, the engines are online.” Her voice echoed in every room.

“I could barely hear her over the noise down here, but I heard that,” Craig said and Neeka chuckled.

Macnelia smiled as she set the com down, but Jyra approached, grinning broadly.

“I have more good news,” she said. “You can tell them one of the storage bays in the stern is full of food and water.”

Macnelia shot a skeptical glance at Jyra and raised her eyebrows.

“Neeka, ask Craig if there are any crates of food aboard,” Jyra said.

Macnelia’s next ship-wide transmission revealed not only the presence of the food, but also where to find it.

                        *

Everyone reconvened in the main hangar beneath two of the enormous laser cannons. Leonick and Craig had collected some food and water from the storage bay on their way back from the engine room and after sharing mutual congratulations, the group exchanged talking for eating.

Jyra tore into a package of dried apples and gulped some clear water from a bottle. The food was second only to what she’d eaten on Drometica. Even though she knew of richer flavors and purer water, she couldn’t forget the substandard quality of each she’d grown up with on Tyrorken.

As she chewed, Jyra stared at the massive doors on either side of the hangar. For a moment, she wondered if maybe the atmospheric shield on the door that had been closed since their arrival might still work. Then she remembered both shields were powered by the same source.

She took another swig of water and nudged Craig on the shoulder.

“We need to find an electrical schematic for the shield power panel,” she said.

Craig had punctured the vacuum seal on a loaf of bread and just torn into the crust with his teeth. Unable to speak his reply for the moment, he shook his head. When he swallowed, he answered properly.

“I asked Neeka,” Craig said. “According to her, there’s no entry for it on the ship’s computer.”

Neeka looked up from a container of cold soup and nodded.

“I didn’t investigate why it wasn’t there, but I figured it would be something we could probably use to get the shield working again.”

“It would make the whole job easier,” Jyra said. “Do you think Jed could have erased it?” she added to Craig.

“Why would he?”

“Well,” Jyra began, frowning as she tried to see where her reasoning was taking her. “If something was wrong with the shield, the diagnostic computer compares the schematic to the actual device. If any operation between the two conflicts, the computer sends an alert to the bridge. What if Jed deleted the entire shield schematic and overrode the diagnostic processor to make sure no one found out about it?”

Craig took another bite of bread and pondered while he chewed.

“It’s certainly possible, but erasing the entire program and bypassing the computer would take a long time.”

“We don’t know how long he had to sabotage the ship,” Jyra said. “Causing the shield to fail could have been the first thing he did, maybe before it even took off. If that’s how he undermined the ship, then the actual defect to the shield operation system is probably pretty small. It had to be impossible for anyone aboard to find fast enough.”

“So where do we start?” Macnelia asked, setting her bottle of water aside.

“At the control box,” Craig said. “Maybe you and Neeka can find the schematic. I never knew Jed to be too great with computers and hopefully he just stuck the plans in some other location. It might be possible to hunt it down.”

“Can we enjoy our first meal in days first?” Shandra said, setting an empty box of crackers aside while reaching for a second.

“I’m not doing anything until I’m finished,” Berk grunted.

Jyra observed him out of the corner of her eye. Even with his bulky coat, he looked thinner. His beard and hair were as wild as ever, but his eyelids hung lower than usual. His flask hung in his left hand while he stuffed some sort of canned meat into his mouth with his right.

“We’ve got to finish with the laser cannons after we’re done,” Derek said, wincing as he shifted his wounded leg in order to better face the group.

“Careful,” Neeka said, setting her arm on Derek’s shoulder.

“I can turn myself around just fine,” he said shortly.

“How are you doing?” Macnelia asked.

“Fine,” Derek said, but his tone grew stiffer. “Couldn’t be better for someone who’s been shot in the leg.”

Jyra stopped eating, suddenly aware of how Derek must feel amid all activity, most of it beyond his physical capability with his wound. She recalled one of Dario’s friends had accidentally shot himself in the leg. Although the injury was said to be minor, it had taken more than six months to heal. Jyra wasn’t sure how much damage the bullet had done to Derek, but his inability to fully serve the resistance clearly irritated him. Where will the resistance be in half a year? Jyra wondered. Where will I be in half a year?

After the meal, Jyra and Craig made their way across the hangar to the shield control box. They removed the bent cover and after several minutes of studying the wiring, Craig pushed himself back from the wall, shaking his head.

“It looks normal,” he said. “Nothing’s cut or missing.”

“He likely wouldn’t have done anything in here,” Jyra said. “We just had to check.”

Craig wiped his brow before lifting the cover back into place.

“Let’s the check the box for the other door,” Jyra said as she drove the mounting screws in place.

“All right,” Craig said. He sounded skeptical.

“We have another circuit to use for comparison,” Jyra said.

“Hopefully they’ll just dig up the schematic,” Craig said, fighting off the urge to yawn.

“Until they do, other side of the hangar,” Jyra said.

                        *

“This is different.”

“How?”

“The wires here.”

“They’re just on the right instead of the left,” Craig said, staring into the control box for the second hangar door.

“Oh,” Jyra said, her excitement draining. She hated the feeling, but had often faced it while working in Jed’s garage. However much she might enjoy troubleshooting problems, the experience only gave her satisfaction if she solved the issue.

What if they couldn’t get to the bottom of the malfunctioning shield without the schematic?

Craig picked the cover up, but Jyra leaned forward suddenly, pushing a group of wires aside.

“What are these?” she said. “There were two wires entering the other box, but there’re four here.”

Craig set the cover back on the floor and examined the wires between Jyra’s fingers. They reached the conclusion at the same time.

“Of course,” they said together.

Their gaze traveled up to the top of the box, following the wires into their junction clips. One of the conductors had been pulled free.

“That’s it,” Jyra said. “That’s all he had to do.”

“Simple,” Craig said. “Sabotage the system on the opposite side of the hangar.”

“The shields share the same power source,” Jyra said. “I didn’t realize the lines for both sides of the hangar were routed through here.”

“No one figured it out fast enough either,” Craig said, reaching into the control box.

Carefully, he opened the clip and inserted the loose wire back inside it.

“Check it with the bridge,” Jyra said.

Craig jerked his head sideways to activate the earpiece.

“Macnelia or Neeka, update the shield status,” he said. “We may have solved it.”

“What?” Neeka replied.

“Update the atmospheric shield status.” Craig rolled his eyes and Jyra tightened her grip on the control box.

“We’ve got a reading!” Neeka yelled and Craig tore the earpiece free, cursing and holding his ear.

Jyra sank off her knees to lean against the wall, surrendering to a feeling similar to the one she’d experienced when she found the food in the storage bay.

Macnelia’s voice suddenly boomed over the com system, reporting the shield was back online.

Except for the two women on the bridge, everyone was in the middle of the hangar working on the laser cannons. Tools fell to the deck with a clatter and cheers erupted, the noise echoing through the cavernous room.

 Craig extended a hand and pulled Jyra to her feet. His eyes gleamed beneath his Mourning Mark. Jyra glanced at the charcoal smudge and gave Craig a small smile.

“Your parents would be proud,” she said. The light in Craig’s eyes faded but he didn’t look away.

“So would yours,” he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. His hand glided down her arm, avoiding the wound near her elbow.

Jyra was aware of the approaching footsteps and knew who it was before he started speaking.

“All right,” Berk said. “You’ve got the shield back up so come give us a hand with the cannons. They’re almost ready.”

                        *

Jyra opened her eyes, blinking in the dim light of her quarters on Mastranada. She pushed her hair out of her face and sat up. As she rubbed her eyes, the events before her nap came back to her. She and Craig had restored the atmospheric shield. Then they had helped the others mount and prep the laser cannons. Macnelia and Neeka returned from the bridge and suggested everyone get some sleep.

“Once the fighting begins, there’s no saying when we’ll be able to rest again.” Macnelia’s words filled Jyra’s head and she pulled on her clothes and wandered into the corridor. She wasn’t sure where she was headed, but as she drew closer to engine room, Jyra heard noises.

For a moment, she thought of the guard Berk had slain in the room, but she tried to focus on her fresh curiosity instead. She opened the door and discovered Leonick working at a panel on the wall.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?” she asked.

“I do not sleep,” Leonick said. “Especially when I have as much on my mind as I do.”

“You always have a lot to think about,” Jyra said. “What is it now?”

“I am mostly preoccupied with fixing this ship.”

Jyra stared around the engine room and realized that since they crash-landed on Valiant Conductor II, she hadn’t heard or seen any effort to repair Mastranada.

“I think everyone thought overhauling the TF ship was more important,” Jyra said. Leonick dug a flask out of his pocket and took a mighty swig.

“Macnelia thought it was important,” he said, an uncharacteristic tone of bitterness entering his voice. “If something happened to the large ship, how would we escape? Until I get these new fuses in place, Mastranada cannot even power up.”

“Where did you get the fuses?” Jyra asked.

“From the TF ship. They were in a supply locker near the engine room. My point is, we have taken an awful risk staying aboard this ship, and we are about to take an even greater risk by firing on other vessels. I have not been able to convince Macnelia that repairing this ship is vital to our survival should something happen to the TF one during the fighting. I will not let this ship go down inside another.”

Jyra saw him glance at the energy cores behind him. She suddenly remembered the conversation she and Leonick shared in this very room before they bombed the TF complex. She learned Leonick had invented energy core technology. Jyra recalled they way he worked on them. She had never seen anyone approach a machine with such care and delicacy. TF had played a part in barring energy cores from becoming a standard fuel alternative for ships, which is what Jyra suspected motivated Leonick to join the resistance in the first place.

Jyra saw his point about using Mastranada to evacuate Valiant Conductor II in an emergency. It seemed odd Macnelia didn’t view fixing Mastranada as a priority. The odd conversation she recently overheard between Macnelia and Berk surfaced in Jyra’s mind. Macnelia hadn’t sounded like herself, but Berk had suggested she had been pushing herself too hard.

“Has Macnelia seemed different to you at all lately?” Jyra blurted before she could stop herself.

Leonick deftly pressed the fuses into their contacts and wiped his hands on his trousers.

“I cannot say,” he said. “If you are inquiring about her attitude toward repairing this ship, it does not matter because she should be ready to fly again.”

“All you had to do was replace the fuses?”

“There were other tasks,” Leonick said, snapping the panel cover in place. “Several power cables were shaken out of their couplings during landing. I also patched three ruptured air lines.”

He stared around the engine room and his eyes fell on the energy cores again. A look of reverence spread across his face and he laid on the hand on the closest one. Out of nowhere, Jyra realized Leonick’s expression reminded her of how her parents used to look at her and Dario.

“What is it?” she said, surprised that she had trouble speaking.

“These are the last energy cores I know of that actively power a ship,” Leonick said, before taking a long sip from his flask. “To see them and interact with them is a privilege I never expected to experience again. I understand machines and what they require to survive. Every machine I have made is part of me and I do what I can to nurture and support them. To meet again when I thought these cores lost has renewed my commitment to their survival.”

“You speak of them as though they are your children,” Jyra said. Leonick turned his gaze to her and nodded.

“In a way, they are,” he said. “And if we run into trouble during the coming assault, we are going to need them as much as they need me.”

He left the engine room and Jyra followed him into the corridor.

“Have you had any luck developing your time machine?” she whispered after him.

“I do not rely on luck,” he said shortly. “I rely on a systematic approach.”

“Well, have you started building the machine yet?” Jyra asked, still walking after him. Leonick paused and turned, drawing out his flask and unscrewing the cap.

“The first rule about designing a machine is knowing the environment in which it will function. In the case of the time machine, I am still searching for the correct environment.”

“You mean the galaxy parallel to this one in all ways except time?”

“Precisely, but the universe is a big place and I can only search it in small increments,” Leonick said, emptying his flask with a final gulp. “The parallel galaxy may not exist, but I would like to find out one way or the other. If the galaxy I am after is out there, then I will start building the time machine.”

Jyra already how she would answer the question residing on the tip of her tongue, but she had no idea how Leonick would respond.

“Once you build it, would you use it to change anything in your past?”

“I might,” Leonick mused. “But there is no sense thinking about it until the means to act on it are developed.”
His mouth curved into a grin as he entered his quarters and shut the door behind him. Jyra returned to her room and picked up her mother’s locket. She sat in the semidarkness, remembering how the jewelry hung on her mother’s neck. Jyra pulled the blanket over her and fell asleep, imagining what her counterpart might be up to in a parallel galaxy.

Part XIII: Somasteria

A few hours later, Jyra lay on her bed, turning her mother’s locket in her fingers. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Derek had said. It made her realize she hadn’t considered the sacrifices she might have to make to get to the bottom of Dario’s death.

Her life on Tyrorken had been one of perpetual hardship and struggle. It was hard to forget the nights when it was difficult to breathe because of the pollution. As she grew older, her parents spent more time at work. TF even consumed most of the time Jyra would have had with Dario. There was little to be excited about on Tyrorken besides her dream of becoming a pilot.

Jyra knew she couldn’t escape her past experiences, but she could move beyond them. She no longer lived on Tyrorken. It was her home planet, but it wasn’t her home.

Jyra sat up and set the locket on her bedside table. She dug a mirror out of her duffel and examined her reflection. Her dark eyes glittered at her beneath her equally dark hair, which hung past her shoulders. She gave herself a small smile, which disappeared when she noticed no trace of the Mourning Mark on her forehead. She touched the spot where it had been. As she lowered her arm, she caught sight of the cut near her elbow. It no longer pained her, but Jyra could tell a scar would remain; the skin around the wound glistened in the dim light.

It would likely shine for a few weeks just like the scar on the back of her hand. Jyra looked at the white line that began at the base of the knuckle of her index finger. The sight of the scar reminded her of Jed. She couldn’t think of him without considering his message.

Did he carry his grudge against TF into his career with the company? When did he decide to sabotage the ship? Did he act alone? The last thought opened a whole new path of inquiry. If others helped him, were they associated with the resistance?

Though she fought to resist it, the memory of her parents’ murder filled her mind. Just before the killing shots sounded, the guard had said information had been passed to a known enemy. Could that enemy have been the resistance? Tadwin had also said TF had killed Dario. Jyra clutched her head in her hands, straining to recall the details.

“How far does this go?” Jyra breathed aloud, unable to assemble the information into a coherent thought. How had all these different people come to turn against TF? Jed, Jyra’s parents and brother, and all the members of the resistance with Jyra on this ship had a common goal and somehow weren’t aware of it. After witnessing the TF agents’ assault on Derek, Jyra understood the need for secrecy had been of utmost importance. As she thought about it, however, the confidentiality had undermined the resistance more than protected it. If they all had been able to work together from the beginning, perhaps TF would have fallen long ago. Then again, the resistance could have suffered that exact same fate.

Jyra’s thoughts returned to Tadwin’s insistence that TF had killed Dario. He had said it with a conviction Jyra had never heard in her father’s voice. He was often soft-spoken and vague, never one to speak in absolutes.

Before she could consider the idea further, voices in the corridor distracted her. Jyra stood up as quietly as he could and pressed her ear to the door. Berk’s gruff tone was easy to identify, but it took several moments before Jyra recognized that a second, breathless voice belonged to Macnelia.

“Settle down and just tell me what’s wrong,” Berk said gently.

“I’m having a hard time,” Macnelia gasped. She sounded out of breath. “I…I’m not sure what my…our next move is.”

For a moment, all Jyra could hear was the sound of Macnelia taking deep breaths.

“You’re pushing yourself too hard,” Berk said.

“No,” Macnelia said. “It’s not that. We’re adrift in more ways than one. I don’t know what happened back there, but the Nilcyns were already attacking. We need to understand why. And we’ve got to get this ship back online. It’s all we have to further our campaign.”

“What do you want to see happen?” Berk said. Silence followed his question and Jyra strained against her door, listening.

“I want to see Tyrorken restored,” she said. “I want to save that planet and drive TF into oblivion.”

“Well we’re off to a good start,” Berk said.

“And we have a long way to go,” Macnelia continued. She began to sound more like herself. “Taking out their headquarters doesn’t eliminate them. There’s still more to do.”

“Do you feel better?”

“I think so,” Macnelia said, her voice faded with footsteps as she and Berk continued down the corridor.

Jyra returned to her bed, thoughts of her parents and the resistance suspended as she pondered what might be troubling Macnelia.

                       *

After another shift of rest, the resistance resumed work on Valiant Conductor II. Leonick completed his inspection of the engines and insisted they were ready for power. Shandra instructed everyone how to check for damage to a ship’s hull from the inside. Then everyone split off and began assessing different parts of the enormous vessel.

Jyra ventured into the stern below the engine room, making her way toward the starboard hull. “Ships of the Kaosaam System” had indicated this part of the ship would likely consist of storage and power bunkers. An empty cargo bay lay behind the first door she entered off main corridor. The closed door gave her moment’s pause, until she saw the marks from Berk’s hammer that marred its left edge. Members of the resistance had already been through this part of the ship to check and fix the doors.

A number of crates were stacked in the next room, which was dark. Jyra flipped a switch on the wall and several lights clicked on. She began reading the packing labels on the crates, moving between them with mounting eagerness and urgency. “Crackers, bread, oats, rice, pasta” Jyra read aloud, her voice trembling with excitement. Another label listed dried fruit, nuts, and chips. One box contained jars of water.

“There must be fifty crates here,” she said, pressing her fingers into her hair. “This will last us for months.”

For the first time in a long time, a sense of relief spread through Jyra and she sat on one of the crates. The fortune of finding such a large supply of food overwhelmed her. She put her face in her hands, surrendering to her feelings. For a moment, she remembered the feeling of her bed on Tyrorken, the creases in the sheets and the weight of the blankets. She thought of the days before she fled her planet, when her brother and her parents were still alive. It suddenly seemed as though no time had passed since their deaths.

Jyra pushed her hair back and wiped her eyes with the back of her arm. She waited for the relief of discovering the crates to fade, but it remained fixed inside along with her sadness.

Jyra heard footsteps in corridor and stood up to find the label on the crate so she could pretend to be reading it.

“Oh,” Craig’s voice said from the doorway. “I’ve strayed into your part of the ship. What’s in the crates?”

Jyra did her best to keep her face hidden as she tested her voice, wondering if it would betray her emotions.

“Food,” she croaked. “There’s food and water here.”

“Are you kidding?” Craig said, rushing into the room and checking the first label he saw. “I can’t believe it.”

Jyra gave a jerking nod and Craig noticed something was wrong.

“What is it?” he asked, the excitement draining from his words. He approached from behind and put a hand on Jyra’s shoulder.

She turned and pressed her face into his chest so that he couldn’t look at her. They put their arms around each other. One of Craig’s hands traced small circles on her back. Jyra focused on the sensation, managed to quell her tears, and she broke the embrace. She shuffled back to the pile of crates and sat down, staring at her hands in her lap.

“I’ve lost so much,” she said slowly. “For what? We destroyed a building, but TF ships are still out there. I thought the resistance would give me something I wanted.”

“What do you want?” Craig asked, joining her on the crate. Jyra glanced up into one of the lights, thinking.

“Vengeance,” she said dully.

“You don’t sound very convinced,” Craig said with a small smile.

“I know,” Jyra said. “I think it’s what I want, but I have no idea how to get it. When I heard about the plan to bomb TF headquarters, it seemed like the perfect solution. I thought it would satisfy me. But it didn’t and now I’m worried that whatever I want, I won’t be able to get it.”

“It sounds like you need to choose that first,” Craig said. “Once you’ve got a goal, you’ve got something to focus on and achieve. It doesn’t need to be related to the resistance.”

He stopped talking abruptly and stared at the floor. His eyes narrowed and his brow was furrowed. Jyra glanced at him and remembered the only other occasion when Craig had looked that way. It had been Jyra’s first day back at Jed’s Garage after getting stitches in her hand. Craig had arrived late and he wore that same expression when he entered the shop.

“You’re thinking about your goal, aren’t you?” she said gently and he nodded. “What do you want?”

Craig took a deep breath and drummed his fingers on his knees.

“I should start by reminding you of some advice I gave you once. After we got out of the TF complex, I told you not to regret things you didn’t do.”

Jyra recalled the exchange more vividly that she cared to, but she only nodded to encourage Craig to keep talking.

“We’ve both lost our parents to TF, but in different ways,” Craig said and Jyra felt her eyes grow wide with curiosity. “I haven’t done a very good job of taking my own advice. I know I did all I could to prevent my parents’ fate, but it’s easy to blame my efforts, because, obviously, they weren’t enough.”

“What happened to them?” Jyra said. Craig rarely discussed his parents and Jyra had never seen them.

“Have you ever heard of Somasteria?” Craig asked. Jyra shook her head.

“TF has gone to great lengths to keep the disease out of public knowledge. Once someone contracts the illness, TF quarantines them. If they or members of their household are caught discussing it, they are thrown in a medical facility. More of a jail really.”

“What causes it?”

“Somasteria is caused by several of the products TF uses for drilling. Excessive direct contact with skin leads to the early stages of the disease. It primarily attacks the blood, but eventually compromises the nervous system. There’s no cure, only symptom blockers, but within about two years, the victim is completely comatose.

“Both of my parents contracted the disease on a weeklong drilling mission. They weren’t even handling the solvents, but they were exposed to the fumes. Your susceptibility depends on the strength of your immune system.

 “The first symptoms weren’t very severe—lapses in memory and difficulty sleeping—but they got worse as time passed. They had trouble eating and drinking. Forming complete sentences became a challenge. They developed paranoia and night terrors. Even through all that, it wasn’t too hard to look after them, until they began to forget who I was. There was a two-week period where they asked my name each day. At the end of those two weeks, they stopped asking. Not long after that, they just stared straight ahead and never said another word.”

Craig pushed himself off the crate and crossed to the opposite wall. Jyra was too stunned to move. She couldn’t believe such a debilitating illness could be hidden from the public, let alone that it had affected someone so close to her. It sounded too horrible to be real. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have her parents gradually forget who she was. Craig’s ordeal seemed even worse because he had been there, watching it happen.

“I wanted to hide them,” he said, turning away from the wall. “I wanted to get them somewhere safe, but they were each in medical beds by the end. There was no way to move them on my own and when the TF doctors came, it was all over. My parents were transferred to the medical facility, beyond my reach.”

“Can’t we go after them?” Jyra said.

Craig gave a hollow laugh and shook his head.

“That brings me back to my point,” he said, pushing his hair off his bowed forehead. “I could try to rescue them. And what would happen if I did? Get myself injured or killed in the process. At the very least, I’d get a company of TF agents pursuing me. The way I figure, even I get out of there with my parents, it’s more of a risk than I care to take. They look at me but don’t see me. Even if they’re still alive, my parents have left their bodies. Sometimes it takes all I’ve got to fight back how I regret not being able to save them from TF. I can regret the things I did, because I could have prevented them. But it’s not worth going through the anguish and grief over things I didn’t do. Life’s hard enough without extra misery anyway.

“Let’s finish checking the hull,” he said after a brief pause. “Then we should head back to our ship.”

“All right,” Jyra said, but before we regroup with the others, we need to do something.”

After completing the inspection and finding no faults with the hull, Craig and Jyra made their way back to Mastranada. They bypassed the cargo bay, ignoring the chatter within.

Jyra entered her quarters and promptly began digging through her duffel while Craig lingered in the doorway. After moving Dario’s dagger and setting “Ships of the Kaosaam System” on the floor, Jyra found the small canister. She stood and beckoned Craig forward. He stood in front of her, eyeing the silver vessel in Jyra’s fingers.

“Close your eyes,” she said, unscrewing the lid.

She dipped two fingers into the charcoal powder and applied the Mourning Mark to Craig’s forehead. Some of the black dust fell into Craig’s eyebrows and eyelashes, disappearing immediately.

Jyra screwed the lid back on the canister and gripped Craig’s arm. He opened his eyes and a let out a deep breath. Jyra extended her fingers again and pressed the Mark and Craig blinked before pulling her into another embrace.

“Thank you,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.

“You’re welcome,” Jyra replied. “May you carry their memory with you forever.”

“And you,” Craig said.

                        *

“Well?” Macnelia asked when Craig and Jyra stepped into the cargo bay.

“The hull’s solid,” Craig said.

“In that case, I suggest we prepare to power up the engines,” Leonick said. Berk gulped his whiskey and passed the flask to Leonick.

“Right, let’s get to it,” Macnelia said. “It’s time we had little control over our direction. What do we do first, Leonick?”

“If you mean in order to start the engines, we need to calibrate them and bring each one online and link them to the bridge.”

“Jyra, can you help Neeka and me forge the link from the bridge?” Macnelia asked.

 “Of course,” Jyra said.

“Leonick, why don’t you take Craig to assist in the engine room?”

“I cannot think of reason, so come along,” Leonick said, motioning to Craig.

“The rest of you will work with Berk in the main hangar,” Macnelia said.

“What are we doing?” Shandra asked.

“Getting the auxiliary laser cannons mounted in place,” Macnelia answered. “Once we fix the shield drive, we’ll start hunting down the remaining TF ships.”