“Well, that was a fun little introduction we all had,” Shift remarked, after the other Infiltrators left. “I can see we’re all gonna get along juuuuust fine.”
Swift shrugged. “I dunno, the zebra seemed alright to me. At least she held a conversation for a while. What’s the story with the diamond dog though? It’s like he was refusing to speak or something.”
“Dunno. Wonder if the officers know something,” Shift pondered, before dismissing the thought. “Righty, we’ve got some free time now, yeah? Wanna check out the pool?”
“Shit yeah I do!” Swift loudly proclaimed, and followed his brother to the elevator.
Stepping out on the fourteenth deck, the pair found themselves alone. Ahead of them by the hull, they could see a small part of the starboard aft sensor dome protruding from the floor. One ringed and four standard seats lied just ahead, in a single row.
Turning around, the pegasi found one of the two pools, nestled between the starboard elevators and engine duct, and the aft torpedo tubes. “Aww, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!” Shift shouted. “Eight by fifty metres of awesomeness!”
Swift looked up at the ceiling, just above the pool’s edge. Extending partially down were sliding doors, presumably to seal the pool area off and contain the water during ship manoeuvres. Moving closer to the water’s edge, he peered over. “Well, slap my flank and call me a cragodile, that looks deep.”
“If you insist, Sir cragodile …”
“If I wha—AAAAH!” Swift yelped, toppling over the edge and sending a splash of water onto Shift. “Shift, ya bloody ratbag!” he yelled as he surfaced. In a flash, he pulled his brother in from his collar before Shift had time to react.
After a few minutes of wrestling, the pair ended up floating on their backs at the pool’s edge. Using their wings, they propelled themselves lightly through the water, occasionally dipping below the surface.
“Y’know what?” Shift called out. “I can get used to this. Beats the royal guard any day.”
“No contest. And we’re getting paid to—” Swift suddenly went quiet, his ears pointed towards one of the elevators, as he heard approaching steps. He turned to his brother and whispered, “Hey, somepony’s coming. You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Get my head checked if I’m not,” Shift snickered.
In unison, the twins took deep breaths and dived, swimming effortlessly through the water towards the source of the sound. As they neared the edge of the pool, they could see the blurry outline of a griffon. Turning to each other, the pegasi gave mischievous grins, then shot straight up, breaching the surface with a loud scream beside their victim.
The griffon made no reaction. “Nice try guys.”
Shift pouted. “Aww, you’re no fun.”
“You guys know I could see you, right?”
“Nope. Guess we do now.” Swift shrugged, extending a dripping hoof. “How ya doin’ mate? Name’s Swift.”
“Shift,” the other pegasus replied, mimicking the gesture.
The griffon bumped both hooves simultaneously. “Syzygy,” he replied. “Syz for short.”
“Look at that multitasking right there!” Swift exclaimed.
“Heh, you gotta have it if you’re one of the ship’s cooks.”
“Ahh, the on-board potato peeler, eh?”
“I prefer Specialist spud scrubber, just for the alliteration, but yeah, close enough.” Pausing, the griffon glanced between the pegasi. “So uhh, what exactly are you two doing?”
“Guessing the same thing you are. Checking out the ship.”
Syz raised an eyebrow at the pair. “And taking a swim in your NSUs?”
“Yeah, you can blame Shift for that.” Swift climbed out of the pool and wrung the loose parts of his uniform out. He then proceeded to shake more water off like a dog.
Shift followed suit. “Yep, guilty as charged.”
Syzygy watched in amusement as the pair sent water everywhere. “So did I hear right when you said you were in the royal guard?”
“Damn, you got some good hearing there, mate.”
“I mean, you two talk rather loudly. What was it like with the royal guard then?”
“Well, we never got a chance to ogle Celestia’s flank up close, if that’s what you’re wondering”—Swift made a crude gesture with his hooves at the relevant body part—“since the other guards kept pulling rank to get that bloody assignment.”
“Ha! Wouldn’t blame them,” the other pegasus laughed.
“Heh. I guess you royal guard types would have been more chill off-duty than your public images tended to show, huh?”
“You kidding? The royal guards were some of the most boring hard-flanks you’d ever work with. Hay, that’s why we got out. Pay was decent, but that was it.”
“We probably didn’t think things through though. We hadn’t exactly secured any job afterwards, so we kinda lived off renting our house out to this dodgy bloke for a few months while we flew to a nearby camp site. I guess that technically made us homeless, but we needed the beer money. Was the one thing we couldn’t make ourselves.”
Syz frowned. “Wait, I’m confused. So, you guys had a home, but chose not to live in it to make rent money?”
“Beer money,” Swift corrected. “Never underestimate a good amber fluid. But yeah, that’s the short version. Honestly though? That house was just a convenience, and a place for our mail to go to. Ain’t nothing we couldn’t build with our two hooves for survival. And, y’know, grass is kinda everywhere if you need it.”
“Was also kinda fun, y’know? Watching something come together, bit by bit,” Shift continued. “Coupl’a hours, and we’d have a wooden framework lashed with vines for a decently sized hut, all made from resources in our environment. Even built a stone axe and everything to get the job done.”
“What sucked was building up the walls though. Layers upon layers of mud and stone. I mean, bucking hay, the stench while it was drying out was horrible. Still, I think we did a good job. Put all them tent campers to shame! We had to re-build the roof though, since water kept coming through when it rained.”
Shift smacked the side of his brother with a wing. “Yeah? Which drongo’s idea was it to use leaves that wilted away, huh?”
“How was I supposed to know it would take so long to build that kiln for firing clay tiles?”
“Regardless, you don’t use—”
“This is the Captain. Attention crew at stations, situation bravo,” Quasar’s voice suddenly sounded across the deck. “Hyperspace jump in two-zero minutes.”
“Bugger me, we need to grab our pressure suits!” Shift looked up at the nearest speaker, before he and his brother headed off in a hurry, leaving twin trails of water behind them. “Catch you later Syz!”
The starboard pressure door closed, as Eclipse entered the command centre in his BPS. Surveying the tight interior, he found all ops crew seated already, illuminated by the screens on their ringed seats, and the compartment’s dim blue lighting. Most of the screens displayed with varying combinations of digital gauges, graphs, sensor readouts, logs, and status updates, depending on the viewer’s role.
Serving as the helm ahead of him were two seats back-to-back. Two Specialists sat there, their left sleeves depicting a pair of anchors crossed at the shanks as a sign of their rank. A light green earth mare sat at the port-facing seat, running through the primary control checklists to a cream yellow unicorn stallion at the other helm’s station. He interacted with his controls as the mare read each line, ensuring all engineering and navigational systems pertaining to propulsion and manoeuvrability were within acceptable tolerances.
Surrounding the helm’s stations were four additional seats. The ones nearest to Eclipse had ‘WEP’ or ‘XO’ printed at their bases, while the furthest two displayed ‘NAV’ and ‘DCK/ENG’. Built into the walls were several stowages, labelled ‘Operations Manuals’, ‘Emergency Equipment’, ‘Checklists’, ‘Technical Logbooks’, ‘Maintenance Release’, and many more. A ladder to either side of the helm’s stations led to a second floor, with four more seats.
Seated at the weapon officer’s station was an electric-blue unicorn. The Lieutenant stood out with a scabbard worn by his left, housing a sword of his namesake. The sheathed weapon’s sapphire hilt gave off a dim glow, barely visible against his uniform. Eclipse had heard stories about Arc Sabre, mainly for the weapon he insisted on carrying at all times.
Interacting with his systems, Sabre paused. He looked up, as a holographic projection appeared above the helm’s stations. A parallelogram symbol represented Amarok, and a trajectory line adjusted its heading as the officer made changes from his seat. The line persisted as he switched between short and long range views. Satisfied, the Lieutenant tapped several times on his controls, and the projection disappeared.
Another Lieutenant sat at the navigation station. The officer hid behind a large, unfolded galactic map that was so wide, it was held open by her wings. Occasionally, the pale pink feathers would twitch and re-adjust, and a hoof would pull down the top edge to reveal a set of blue eyes that jumped between the map and her screens.
Ensign Sierra busied herself at her station. The chief engineer inspected a massive array of circuit breakers on the wall behind her seat. Looking back and forth between the breakers and her screens, she pulled a few breakers out, then returned them to their original positions a few seconds later.
Climbing a ladder, Eclipse found four more seats, and a lavatory above. A dark-coated griffon wearing a Chief Petty Officer’s emblem sat at the station labelled ‘SEC’, cycling through the ship’s internal cameras. Eclipse stared far too long at a patch of the griffon’s head with a significant amount of feathers missing, and the two made eye contact.
Eclipse quickly nodded. “Chief.”
“Commander,” the griffon replied, nodding back.
Commander Quasar waited at his seat with a thermal flask of coffee. He was about to acknowledge Eclipse, when the orange unicorn at the adjacent station marked ‘SNS/CMM’ completed his checklists and leaned over to speak with the Captain. Receiving a nod from the officer, the Specialist slid down the ladder and left the command centre with mild urgency.
Quasar returned his attention to Eclipse. “Took you long enough.” Before Eclipse could reply, he raised a hoof. “Relax, we’ve got a bit of a delay. Ensign Sierra mentioned something about a sluggish response from one of the torpedo tubes the crew are having a look at.”
Eclipse looked down at Sierra’s station and raised his voice. “Anything serious?”
Looking up, Sierra shrugged. “I doubt it. In my experience, it’s usually just a sensor that needs cleaning. My bet is on the crew before us. The ones responsible for the field tests, that is. They might have been doing some extensive tests on the tubes, but whatever the case, it shouldn’t be more than a few minutes. Anything longer and I’ll head up myself to check it out.”
An audible blip came from the vacated seat beside Quasar. Briefly leaning over, the Captain brought up the respective page on his own screen and read the contents of an incoming message. Examining the contents, he commented, “This should be fun.”
Eclipse looked over at the Captain, keeping his curiosity in check. “Sir?”
“One moment,” Quasar replied, reading the message once more.
>NAVAL COMMAND
>ADM. FOXTROT
>VERIFICATION 6A2FC9
>9632.17814594215 GSY
>
>Live-fire drills confirmed. Objectives are as follows:
>
>Proceed to Great Wastelands sector AFF-437, sub-sector F629, BBD4, 1210
>Locate and destroy three frigate-class target drones patrolling around a stationary crate
>Infiltrate crate and retrieve data recorder
>Deliver data recorder to Kupaart Rozt
>
>Drills will be considered a failure if any of the following occurs:
>
>Any drone detects Amarok on their sensors
>Time between first and last destroyed drones exceeds 10 seconds
>Crate is damaged
After double-checking the important information, the Captain spoke up. “Ensign Sierra, what is the status of the hyperspace drives? We’ll need to go on a little field trip.”
“One moment. Just have to clear these warnings first,” Sierra replied, tapping on one of her control interfaces. “Drive systems green and idle, sir. I’ve sent the order to engineering, and they report the drives will be ready in … two-zero minutes.”
Down on the engineering deck, the two hyperspace drives hummed to life. The columns the drives resided in lit up, revealing their contents. Each comprised of a vertical shaft, with five shielding dishes extending radially at intervals. Between the dishes were three trefoil knots, with the shaft running through the middle gap of each. The knots appeared to hover, separated from the shaft and dishes by powerful magnetic forces. As the humming intensified, straining to move the immensely dense devices, the shafts were the first to begin rotating, followed shortly by the knots in an asynchronous manner.
“Lieutenant Azimuth, plot a course into the hyperspace targeting system with the coordinates I just sent to your station,” Quasar ordered, before reaching for the ship’s intercom. A droning tone resounded across the ship, as Quasar made his announcement. “This is the Captain. Attention crew at stations, situation bravo. Hyperspace jump in two-zero minutes.”
While the command centre crew waited, others proceeded to their own stations, ensuring all systems were combat ready. Sensors crew at auxiliary stations ran test sweeps on every device within the sensor arrays. Engineering and subsystems crew monitored stress tests on the fusion reactor clusters, control moment gyros, cloak generators, and hyperspace inhibitors. Utilities crew inspected electrical, oxygen and fire suppression systems, and performed diagnostics on Amarok’s internal sensors. Security and damage control teams moved to their assigned positions and ensured all pressure doors were sealed once preparations had been completed. The command centre’s own doors sealed as the orange unicorn galloped back in and returned to his station.
A soft beep alerted Sierra to an internal message. Quickly reading it, she spoke up once more. “Captain, engineering reports hyperspace drives charged. We’re just waiting for the last deck to report in before we—” Sierra looked back at a screen displaying a schematic of Amarok, as the final red coloured area turned green with a beep. “Yup, ship is secured. Ready to de-pressurise on your order.”
“Do it.”
As soon as Sierra initiated the relevant procedure, valves across the vessel opened, and large volumes of air hissed in and out of different openings from the ceilings. Feeling her pressure suit expand slightly, she monitored the progress of the ship-wide depressurisation. “Stage one complete. Non-critical sections steady at zero decimal three-five standard atmosphere. Humidifiers compensating.”
The hissing ceased at various locations across the ship, with additional valves opening for air to circulate from elsewhere. A higher-pitched, whistling hiss screamed throughout the ship as the second half of the procedure finished. When the system stabilised, Sierra announced, “Stage two complete. Non-critical sections set to zero decimal eight percent oxygen. Critical sections at zero atmosphere. Depressurisation complete.”
“Thank you, Ensign. Lieutenant Azimuth?”
“Hyperspace coordinates locked in, and a straight-run course has been plotted. Ready on your mark.”
“Ensign Sierra, initiate hyperspace.”
Discharging the immense energy built up in the hyperspace drives, a faint blue aura enveloped the devices, while a similarly coloured hyperspace window opened ahead of the destroyer. As the drives pulled the window across the ship’s length, Amarok appeared to be swallowed whole. The window continued moving past Amarok’s aft-most point, before collapsing upon itself, from a flat square, to a line, and finally a single point, before disappearing entirely.
“Initial jump procedures complete. The quantum waveform is stable,” Sierra announced. “Hull is holding, no warnings, no cautions. All systems running in their designated tolerances.”
Quasar nodded to himself. “Lieutenant Azimuth, what’s our ETA?”
“Approximately niner decimal three hours, sir,” the mare replied.
“Right”—Quasar pulled out a book and opened it to a bookmarked page—“If anypony needs to use the lav, now’s the time.”
While one of the crew rose to use the lavatory, Sierra switched a screen of hers over to one of Amarok’s many external cameras. Flipping through the different cameras, she finally settled on one mounted slightly forward of the infiltration tunnel. “Fancy a look, anypony?”
A couple of the crew gathered around Sierra’s screens to observe the journey through hyperspace. They watched as incoming blue, flame-like wisps parted for the ship, or danced across the hull, scattering upon impact. Around them, the stretched passage of stars, nebulae, and clusters were visible, with incoming light subjected to lensing. The sight was unusual. To the junior crew, almost surreal. Despite travelling at speeds much faster than light, the visible passage of these celestial bodies made their journey seem slow, like the view of the land out of a pegasus chariot flying at high altitudes.
Having returned to their stations, the command centre’s crew fell silent, switching between external cameras and monitoring the systems of their respective stations. Every so often, the occasional small talk would break out amongst adjacent crew, however most preferred to watch the natural artwork unfold outside, between rounds of routine duties instead. As Amarok drew closer to its destination, Sierra ordered the subsystems crew to activate the cloak generators, while Azimuth updated the Captain, who in turn issued the order for battle stations over the intercom.
“This is the Captain. Attention crew at stations, situation alpha. Exiting hyperspace in five minutes.”
An invisible shock-wave around the hyperspace drives dissipated the auras that had surrounded them during their faster-than-light journey. As the drives bled their rotational speed within seconds, the released energy interrupted the quantum waveform that maintained their presence in hyperspace and commenced the opening of the exit coordinate window. Ejecting the vessel at their destination, the crew felt weightlessness in their seats.
“Ensign Sierra, Lieutenant Azimuth,” Commander Quasar spoke up. “Systems report.”
“Hyperspace jump successful, and drives powering down to idle,” Sierra announced. “Engineering reports no abnormalities, and the drives will be ready in two-zero minutes. Cloaking devices one through six reported to be operating as expected.”
Quickly confirming with the Specialist at the sensor station, Azimuth followed with her update. “Sensors confirm we have arrived at the correct coordinates. Hyperspace targeting computer appears to be functioning within specifications.”
Quasar turned to the unicorn beside him. “Specialist?”
“Immediate area looks secure, Captain,” the orange pony replied. “Short-range sensors are only picking up small pockets of dust clouds. No interference expected. Long-range indicates three frigate contacts, bearing two-eight-four, zero-zero-eight. A fourth smaller contact is also in the vicinity.” Panning and rotating the sensor manager on one of his screens, he examined each blip in detail. Satisfied, he tapped several orders into the closest screen. “We’re verifying their drive energy signatures now. No IFF data available though.”
The Captain did not reply. Holding down a small button on the side of his seat, he reclined slightly and pulled out his coffee from a small stowage on the side of the seat base. Twisting the cap off, he gently nudged a few blobs of the black liquid out. The undulating liquid floated in the air for a moment, before Quasar sipped it away, watching as a droplet escaped his reach and floated off.
Having decided on a course of action after monitoring the situation, Quasar secured the cap on his flask, making eye contact with the navigation and engineering officers below. “Set heading for contacts. Rig for silent running, then set drives ahead standard.”
“Yes, sir. Rigging for silent,” Sierra read her order back and initiated the appropriate procedures. “Manoeuvring drives disabled, and CMGs online. Ahead standard, main drives.”
“Update on contacts, Captain,” the unicorn at the sensor station spoke up. “First three vessels appear to be Dagger-type ion-array frigs. Turanic Raiders.”
“Understood, Specialist,” Quasar replied, watching as the drop of coffee fell to the ground once the engines started. A return to normal gravity was felt shortly after. “What about the fourth?” he asked, still fine-tuning his seat’s position.
“Insufficient data. Contact is either too small, or a distortion field is set up around it. Or a combination of the two. I can however tell you that based on vector history, the Daggers appear to be patrolling around it.”
“Adjust course towards the fourth contact and hold position once we are five-zero klicks out,” Quasar ordered, growing frustrated at his seat. “And anypony know how to adjust the leg rest on this thing?”
“Five-zero klick mark reached. Contacts in visual range on forward camera,” the sensor station unicorn stated while squinting at the barely visible objects on his screen. “Looks like Raiders, alright. They appear to be patrolling around a … crate, or some sort of derelict.”
The Captain remained silent, as he too analysed the vessels. “Lieutenant Sabre,” he called out.
“Sir?”
“Calculate a synchronised firing solution for the Daggers. One torpedo each. Ensure the blasts do not damage the unknown contact. At least until we know what it is.”
“Understood. Permission to use active sensors?”
“Passive only. We’re still running silent. Lieutenant Azimuth, Ensign Sierra, take us in to cloaked torpedo range and re-position as necessary for Lieutenant Sabre.”
“Yes sir.” Azimuth shifted her focus back to her screens and input the necessary way-point information. A time value appeared at the side of her centre screen. “We will arrive at CTR in under a minute.”
“Order submitted for torpedo priming on tubes one, two and three,” Sierra reported. “Engineering awaiting response from the torpedo decks for plasma delivery.”
While the others continued to monitor the situation or complete preparations, Sabre immediately went to work at his station. Using Amarok’s passive sensors to track energy signatures from each contact’s engines, he input the required variables and constants into the torpedo data computer on his screens. As he did so, a message from the torpedo decks confirmed engineering’s transfer. Passing the message on to Sierra and Quasar, he resumed his work.
Studying the movement of each frigate closely, Sabre picked a moment in their patrol patterns that had so far been a straight run for each vessel. Selecting the appropriate locations on an adjacent screen’s sensor overlay, the software returned each vessel’s relevant positioning data with live updates.
>Set bearing mode: [X] Relative, [ ] Absolute
>Set launch coordinates: 0, 0, 0
>Set torpedo speed: 400 m/s
>Set detonator: [X] Coordinates, [ ] Impact, [ ] Proximity
>Set run: [X] Straight, [ ] Custom
>
>Contact 1
>Velocity: 245 m/s, 131.4017° Azimuth, 8.0444° Inclination
>Distance: 34942 m
>Bearing: 0.5475° Azimuth, 0.9500° Inclination
>
>Contact 2
>Velocity: 232 m/s, 130.9792° Azimuth, 8.9836° Inclination
>Distance: 36000 m
>Bearing: 0.2150° Azimuth, 0.1010° Inclination
>
>Contact 3:
>Velocity: 239 m/s, 130.6925° Azimuth, 7.4100° Inclination
>Distance: 29964 m
>Bearing: 1.2005° Azimuth, 0.9801° Inclination
Shifting his focus back to the torpedo data computer’s screen, Sabre used the sensor data to create a firing solution for each target.
>Impact point 1 bearing: 70.1629° Azimuth, 2.6530° Inclination
>Impact point 1 distance: 36020.9907 m
>Torpedo run time: 48 s
>Launch timing: t + 45 s
>
>Impact point 2 bearing: 78.1511° Azimuth, 1.6422° Inclination
>Impact point 2 distance: 36021.4743 m
>Torpedo run time: 32 s
>Launch timing: t + 61 s
>
>Impact point 3 bearing: 51.3709° Azimuth, 5.6960° Inclination
>Impact point 3 distance: 36128.0819 m
>Torpedo run time: 93 s
>Launch timing: t + 0 s
>
>Distance to firing sequence: 13395 m
“Plasma delivery complete. Engineering secured,” Sierra reported, while Sabre verified his work.
Satisfied with his results, Sabre spoke up. “Solution ready, Captain. Torpedo decks received bearing and firing sequence data.” Opening his mouth again, he paused as another notification arrived from the torpedo decks. “Tubes one, two, and three open, plasma delivery confirmed, and torpedo decks are secure.”
“You may fire when ready, Lieutenant.”
“Yes sir. Starting the clock.”
A single-digit countdown appeared on Sabre’s screen, indicating the time before the torpedo firing sequence would begin. As it reached zero, an almost imperceptible shudder of the ship could be felt, as the third torpedo tube’s magnetic accelerators launched the first torpedo.
“Torpedo away,” Sabre announced, while one of the tables displayed the estimated trajectory of the torpedo at long range. “Torpedo decks confirm launch of tube three and commencing reload. Next torpedo firing in three-five seconds.”
Hidden even from Amarok’s own sensors, the crew could not track the present location of the torpedo as it sped further from the vessel. With no other option but to monitor the icon showing its estimated position, they waited for the next torpedo’s countdown to reach zero.
While the torpedo whizzed towards its target, the torpedo decks’ crew commenced the process for their first reload. Having already closed the tube at the business end, the crew re-pressurised the tube and disengaged the clamps on the cap at the opposite end, revealing an opening in the ceiling of the middle torpedo deck. Three unicorns enveloped the torpedo directly below the opening in their aura, and lifted the ordnance up into the tube. Confirming a snug fit through cameras, the rest of the crew closed the tube.
With time to spare, the crew re-arranged the rest of the torpedoes. Once the centre-most torpedo had moved out of the way, an inter-deck passage was revealed on the floor and ceiling, wide enough to move torpedoes through. Coordinating with the lower deck crew, the floor passage opened, allowing the unicorns below to push one of their torpedoes through. Closing the passage, the aura around the torpedo dissipated, and the middle torpedo deck returned to full capacity.
“Torpedo away. Launched confirmed, tube one commencing reload,” Sabre spoke once again. “Final torpedo launching in eight seconds … five … three, two, one … torpedo away. Launch confirmed, tube two reloading. Firing sequence complete.”
“And now we wait,” Quasar commented, satisfied so far with his crew’s performance. He, and several others switched a screen at their respective stations to the external cameras, focusing on the targets and expected impact points.
The crew in the torpedo decks had almost finished reloading the next two tubes when Sabre announced, “Time to impact, two-zero seconds.”
Monitoring the estimated torpedo trajectories on their screens, the command crew were fixated on the three blips on the long-range sensors diverging from each other and closing in on their targets. Drawing nearer, Sabre read out the countdown, “One-zero seconds to impact. Three, two, one, impact!” he emphasised with a point of a hoof at his screen. Timed to his words, the external camera feeds flashed a blinding white. Zooming out, the crew made out giant clouds of brilliant blue plasma where their targets had once been, with plumes of gas trailing out in random directions from glowing-hot debris launched clear of the explosions.
The unicorn Specialist stared slack-jawed at his screen. “Sweet mother of Celestia.”
Even after the light had subsided, the crew made no sound or action aside from monitoring their screens. Deciding the crew had lingered enough on the outcome, he cleared his throat. “Good work, all. Specialist?” He turned to the orange unicorn. “Is the fourth conta—”
“Uhh hold that thought, sir. New message received,” the Specialist interrupted, eliciting a glare from Quasar. “It’s urgent.”
“Let me see that.” Quasar opened the message, his lips moving silently as he read the contents. “Lieutenant Azimuth, input these coordinates for hyperspace,” he ordered, sending the relevant information to the navigation station. “Ensign Sierra, secure the ship for immediate hyperspace,” he continued, reaching for the inter-phone once more. “This is the Captain. This exercise was a drill. Congratulations for performing as expected. The following will not be a drill. Stand down to situation bravo and prepare for immediate hyperspace. Further information to follow.”
“All decks have re-confirmed they are secured for immediate hyperspace, and engineering confirms drives are ready on your mark, Captain,” Sierra announced.
“Initiate hyperspace.”