“Notify Flight Two and Flight Three I want an alpha-strength strike force on a fifteen minute alert as soon as possible.”

“Affirmative, Lieutenant, Skywatch out.”

Yili unlatched her shock harness, drew her blaster pistol and went to the hatch. She had just about finished configuring her life support alarm and commlink when the sound of a fist pounding on the outside metal almost made her jump out of her boots.

The fist pounded again. “Is anyone in there?”

Curtiss thought the voice sounded familiar, but after what she had been through the last hour she wasn’t about to take any chances. She leaned close to the hatch, her blaster at the ready.

“Identify yourself.”

“Room service!”

Yili tried to keep herself from smiling.

“I didn’t order anything!”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. I thought you said you wanted some earplugs!”

She unlocked the hatch and Moo stepped through. He had burn marks on his armor and Yili instantly noticed his weapon was down to 15% reserve energy. Smudges and soot residue covered his chiseled face, but he still managed a grin.

“You’ve been through hell.”

“That’s affirmative, Engineer. We’ve still got intruders on Deck 31 but they’re pinned below the vital energy conduits for Reactor Six. They got two of our fusion plants and cut power to all the control systems above deck six just before the missile attack. It couldn’t have been timed better.”

“Any contact with the bridge yet?” Yili asked with concern in her eyes.

“Negative. To be honest, the only people I’ve had a chance to talk to in the last hour have been wounded marines and medics. Sickbay set up a triage in the machine shop loading area on deck 19.”

“Then you need to take command, sir.” Yili said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I’ve got a boarding party to neutralize, Lieutenant. Are you sure there aren’t any officers reachable?”

“The bridge has been cut off since the first missile impact. I’m in nominal command because frankly, I couldn’t find anyone who outranks me until now.”

“You stay in command, Lieutenant. You know the ship a hell of a lot better than me. I’ll make sure you get to the bridge or at least someplace where you can run things until we figure out what happened on deck one.” Moo keyed his mic. “Dog block, this is Chuck Wagon. Brass secured. Rendezvous at point Indigo. Confirm.”

A moment passed.

“Confirmed, Chuck Wagon. Dog block out.”

Moo hefted his weapon. “Let’s go join the party, Lieutenant. I’ll take point, you cover.”

“Anything to get out of this phone booth for a few minutes.”