The night of the briefing, Fleming had retreated in a sense, to the UCS Zenpyou ’s temporary home in hangar Bay 13 after he had put the chairs away after the briefing. He had decided to maintain some air of professionalism instead of mingling, flirting and socializing with his new crew as a whole…and that left him feeling empty from the missed potential of warmth, camaraderie and… something more in the company of his new crew.
He explored the crawl spaces and various hiding spaces on the Zenpyou first, determined to learn the ship’s secrets before they left. He liked the sleekness and newness of the ship around him. He felt like it could finally be home if he played his cards right. It took him several hours to finish his initial exploration before he settled into his quarters, unpacking his belongings and decorating the room.
His thoughts lingered heavily on the very limited information that Miss Blake had given him, he felt extremely troubled by the fact that they were going into Miyamae 3 cold with nothing but an accusation and a possible group of suspects. In his gut, he felt like there was something more to the situation than it seemed… the ship types didn’t fit the profile of aggressive attackers but if they truly did have Demon Power Armor it wouldn’t be too hard for a boarding to happen once they had effectively crippled the cargo ship somehow.
The uncertainty of it all nagged at him, Why had the colonists waited so long to report it? Were they being jammed? And if so, how did they get the report out finally? Why would the Barras family stick around long enough for them to run into us? Are they going to be lurking in the system?
Stacey frowned as he turned the thoughts over in his mind, there were truly too many possibilities but they were the responding police officers on this, it was their job to find those answers by any legal means they could. He thought of the days when someone else’s unit gave him this sort of information but those days were long gone. This was his baby now and he’d make Ember proud.
Ember is a wonderful woman, I really wish that she and Sky Marshall Davis would shack up but I think both are past the point of screwing around and are way too busy to casually date… I really wish the politicians would get their acts together and finish getting the treaties out there. I, personally, wouldn’t mind the chance to go back to Nepleslia at some point to see my dad… though… I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for leaving the Nepleslian army... the Nepleslian’s thoughts drifted away as he lost himself in his memories.
His fingers sought out the cool, smooth, hardness of the white lacquered keys of his keyboard as he idly caressed the instrument, seeking something to keep his hands occupied as he lost himself in thought. The keys softly gave way to a disjointed composition of music that was more randomly touching keys than concentrated playing but he enjoyed the growing warmth of it as his body heat transferred into the keys...
The next morning began for Commander Stacey Fleming at the ripe time of 0430. He had slept fairly soundly in his new bed and he hurriedly pulled on his running shorts, sneakers and a tank top to cover his nakedness. He left his quarters and headed down to the Ship’s hangar bay and began his morning work out routine.
By the crew’s report in time, Fleming was showered, and fully dressed in his short sleeve variant of the Peacekeeper uniform. His rank pin shone brightly in the light as he settled into the captain’s chair on the bridge with a cup of coffee in one hand and looking over their course in the other.
There was no further information to give the crew before the Zenpyou departed but he announced clearly over the ship’s communication system, “Attention all hands, we are now departing Siren be prepared to suit up and enter battle stations as we enter Miyamae 3’s orbit in 3 hours.”
The flight itself to Miyamae 3 from Siren was uneventful, nothing screamed across the sensors nor the communications systems… in fact, when they entered the Miyamae System and got closer to Miyamae 3 itself, they were met with complete radio silence. There was nothing but static on all channels and the Zenpyou’s long range scanners didn’t seem to be working at all.
Commander Fleming frowned as he pulled up a visual of the space they were flying into and saw debris and chunks of asteroids everywhere. “Hey Karasu,” he called over the ship’s communication system to the engineer, “something’s up with our scanners, I need you to run a full scale diagnostic.” He felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle with a sense of someone walking on his grave.
“Attention all hands, we’re now at Miyamae system, suit up and enter battle stations,” he ordered the rest of the ship as he manually took over the ship’s flight controls no longer able to trust the electronics to avoid the debris. He scanned the field, seeing chunks of ship, cargo crates and other unidentified bits of what might have been the missing cargo ships. His eyes widened as he noticed a large green and gold bulkhead with a large burnt hole in the distance, as the bulkhead slowly turned, he could see that it was a damaged ship.
“Shit, that fits the description… Stryker, get a team ready to investigate that space hulk. I’ll need a team to stay here to defend the ship in case something else happens. I want you to pick the other team leader,” he ordered his executive officer without looking at the man. There was a frown on his face as he gingerly navigated the ship through the mess, paying attention to the ship’s shield readings as some of the debris came into contact with the shields and the hull with loud thunking noises.
Shit, I really hope that Gin can tell me that our systems are glitchy rather than us being jammed… but I can’t make that assumption. The heightened readiness should be enough right now if we are, he thought concernedly to himself. All he could do was hope for the best and prepare for the worse.
