slip working in the crawl spaces or when she would get cagey and try to hide things from them. After the third such attempt, the guards politely asked her to stop. And in their version of polite, one of them grabbed her by the arm and slammed her hard against the metal bulkhead while the other screamed his directives in her face. She complied.
Under Armsman Jax’s direction, shield nodes were being constructed and set aside for later installation. He refused to bring the ship to a stop to allow installation out in the void, preferring to err on the side of caution there and simply keep moving. While everyone on board was not thrilled with the idea of just under ninety days in hyperspace, creeping along (relatively) until they reached Amethyst, the longer trip gave the engineering teams more time to work on repairs.
Ka’Xarian really stepped up during this time. He held daily meetings with Quesh, who had just been released from sickbay and was now able to stand on his own, but only for short periods; he tired easily and his legs felt to him as though they were made from very light rubber. But the Parkani was recovering and was determined that he would not lose his slot as Chief Engineer. He was on medical convalescence just now and grudgingly allowed Xar to take the reins. But he demanded to be kept in the loop on everything being done, every weld and every build.
There was a lot to do. The three engineering officers planned it all out, working first on sealing up every single crack, breach and microfracture that they could in the hull. They wanted the ship sealed back up again, airtight. This was hampered a bit by the fact that the Armsman refused to stop the ship to therefore allow any teams to go out on the external surface of the ship to perform repairs, but that would be planned for when they reached Amethyst. Quesh’s teams worked on repairing the damaged computer systems (in order to make sure that the navigation subnet didn’t go down at a critical moment and either drop the ship out of hyperspace prematurely or else steer them off course). Ka’Xarian focused his attention on the command and control lines, many of which had either been damaged or torn out during the last days at Ulla-tran while Tamara and her people concentrated on power. All of these systems had been in pristine order before all the ruckus had gone down before the jump, which caused a great deal of grumbling among all of the engineering teams.
There was nothing they could do to remedy any of that now, of course. What was done was done and they were forced to simply swallow their ire and move on. Most of the crew seemed to be adapting to this new cruise, dealing with the pirate soldiers that seemed to somehow be everywhere on the ship at all hours of the ship’s day and night. So far, they hadn’t burst into any of the individual quarters, though every so often a patrolling guard would walk through deck and engineering berthing leering at everyone, giving hard looks, but generally leaving the crew alone. They ate in the mess hall in shifts and generally did little more than make their presence known.
Morale aboard the ship, however, was beginning to slip. With only twenty days gone and more than seventy to go, the pirates were starting to get restless. Being cooped up in a ship, even one as large as the Grania Estelle was unusual. Unusual in the fact that there wasn’t any entertainment for them. One of the cargo bays had been retrofitted as a shooting range and running track for the pirate soldiers, who visited it in shifts. It was a ten day project, this required pulling engineering teams of repair duties to build this playhouse (such as it was) for the soldiers. But once it was completed, this took a small amount of pressure off the crew, as only ten
Under Armsman Jax’s direction, shield nodes were being constructed and set aside for later installation. He refused to bring the ship to a stop to allow installation out in the void, preferring to err on the side of caution there and simply keep moving. While everyone on board was not thrilled with the idea of just under ninety days in hyperspace, creeping along (relatively) until they reached Amethyst, the longer trip gave the engineering teams more time to work on repairs.
Ka’Xarian really stepped up during this time. He held daily meetings with Quesh, who had just been released from sickbay and was now able to stand on his own, but only for short periods; he tired easily and his legs felt to him as though they were made from very light rubber. But the Parkani was recovering and was determined that he would not lose his slot as Chief Engineer. He was on medical convalescence just now and grudgingly allowed Xar to take the reins. But he demanded to be kept in the loop on everything being done, every weld and every build.
There was a lot to do. The three engineering officers planned it all out, working first on sealing up every single crack, breach and microfracture that they could in the hull. They wanted the ship sealed back up again, airtight. This was hampered a bit by the fact that the Armsman refused to stop the ship to therefore allow any teams to go out on the external surface of the ship to perform repairs, but that would be planned for when they reached Amethyst. Quesh’s teams worked on repairing the damaged computer systems (in order to make sure that the navigation subnet didn’t go down at a critical moment and either drop the ship out of hyperspace prematurely or else steer them off course). Ka’Xarian focused his attention on the command and control lines, many of which had either been damaged or torn out during the last days at Ulla-tran while Tamara and her people concentrated on power. All of these systems had been in pristine order before all the ruckus had gone down before the jump, which caused a great deal of grumbling among all of the engineering teams.
There was nothing they could do to remedy any of that now, of course. What was done was done and they were forced to simply swallow their ire and move on. Most of the crew seemed to be adapting to this new cruise, dealing with the pirate soldiers that seemed to somehow be everywhere on the ship at all hours of the ship’s day and night. So far, they hadn’t burst into any of the individual quarters, though every so often a patrolling guard would walk through deck and engineering berthing leering at everyone, giving hard looks, but generally leaving the crew alone. They ate in the mess hall in shifts and generally did little more than make their presence known.
Morale aboard the ship, however, was beginning to slip. With only twenty days gone and more than seventy to go, the pirates were starting to get restless. Being cooped up in a ship, even one as large as the Grania Estelle was unusual. Unusual in the fact that there wasn’t any entertainment for them. One of the cargo bays had been retrofitted as a shooting range and running track for the pirate soldiers, who visited it in shifts. It was a ten day project, this required pulling engineering teams of repair duties to build this playhouse (such as it was) for the soldiers. But once it was completed, this took a small amount of pressure off the crew, as only ten
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