Their reactions were a bit more shocked and appalled than she’d anticipated, and they erupted into a furor of questions and concerns. She crossed her arms.
Jackin’s harsh voice cut through the din. “Shut it!”
They shut up, and Jackin moved to stand beside her, glaring down at the soldiers.
Adequin cleared her throat. “We need to get unloaded and prepared for that possibility.”
“Where is everyone?” someone called out.
“I know you have questions. We’ll do a briefing as soon as we get this Drudger thing under control. But we need to keep this gate at all costs; it’s our only foothold out here until we can get it operational again. So for now, we’re in full defense mode. Got it?”
A mixture of tentative verbal affirmations rippled across the soldiers.
“I want a base camp set up at the end of this hall,” she continued. “If they dock, it’ll be this side, and we’ll throttle them here. There are arms lockers down the main corridors; let’s get those unlocked and gather as many plasma guns as we can. Set up ammo drops and distribute biotools. Let’s do a temporary med station down this hallway as well. You guys know the drill.”
A stronger wave of affirmation came with a series of sharp “yes, sir”s.
She pointed down the corridor toward the port bow. “Port-side control room will be our base of operations. Nexus comms should be working on the local network, but if you need anything, you can find Optio North and me there.” She turned to Jackin. “What else?”
Jackin nodded. “Emery, Warner, grab two others and head to the port-side fuel depot. Fill and bring back every warp core you can find.”
“Yes, sir,” Emery said.
Jackin turned to Erandus. “Coordinate getting everything pulled off the SGL, but leave the essentials on board in case we need to—” He let out a slow sigh. “Er … retreat.”
Erandus gave a sharp nod. “Yes, sir.”
The others shuffled their feet and exchanged nervous glances.
“Get to it,” Adequin ordered.
They saluted, then peeled away. Cavalon remained standing at the back, sweaty and flushed, holding one hand over his mouth, the other arm cradling his stomach.
Adequin caught the eye of a nearby oculus.
The short, dark-haired woman snapped to attention, facing her. “Sir?”
“Can you find the med station and get that oculus an injection of cerenozine?” She tilted her head toward Cavalon. “It’ll probably knock him out for a while, so bring a few cots up as well. Then pull whatever other supplies they have and bring them over. And check with everyone else, make sure no one was injured when we fell out of warp.”
“Right away, sir.” The oculus marched off.
Adequin caught Puck’s eye. “Puck, with us.”
Puck and Jackin followed as she made her way toward the port-side control room at the bow of the vessel. When they arrived, Puck immediately slid into one of the six work stations congregated around the central, triangular platform. Moments later, the overhead lights came on, and the displays of every terminal flickered to life, including a series of large maps and status outputs above the central hub.
Adequin gave a nod of approval. “Puck, get the bio scanners up first. Let’s make sure we’re the only ones on board.”
“You got it, sir.” Puck leaned forward to hunker down at the terminal.
Adequin turned to find Jackin staring at her, arms crossed. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I said you should talk to them.”
“I know.” She sighed. “But let’s focus on not getting ambushed by Drudgers first.”