“Who has a background in astromech?”
Feet shuffled, and no one spoke up.
“Mechanics? Engineering? Anyone?”
A tentative hand raised in the back. Emery and Warner turned around to look at the volunteer standing behind them, revealing a pair of nervous, tired blue eyes.
Adequin sighed. Right. Degree number whatever: astromechanical engineering. Of course.
“Cavalon, with us.” She turned and headed back into the cockpit. Cavalon appeared moments later, Puck gripping his shoulders as he led him inside. The door slid shut behind them.
“We meet again,” Jackin said.
Cavalon flashed a nervous grin. “Hey, Optio. Long time no see.”
“You okay working with him again, Jack?” Adequin asked. “Did he give you any grief?”
“No,” Jackin said. “He did great, actually.”
Adequin raised an eyebrow. She’d have believed “didn’t get us all killed,” “not awful,” or even “decent.” But “great”？
Jackin gave a small shrug to indicate his sincerity, however hard to believe.
Cavalon crossed his arms and huffed. “Try not to look too surprised.”
“Not surprised,” she assured. Not just surprised. “Pleased.”
“We got tossed from warp, right?” Cavalon said. “What’s going on?”
Jackin walked over to the flight console and Cavalon followed. “We’ve got a class G malfunction, it says. Not overly specific systems computers on these little transport vessels. Any ideas?”
Cavalon rubbed his chin as he stared at the readout. “Huh. Well, that’s a catchall classification. Could mean just about anything. I guess you might have had a hull panel lift up when—” He scoffed a laugh and turned to Adequin. “When you did that ludicrous mass pull. That was fucking awesome, by the way.”
She dampened the smile that tried to tug at her lips. His boyish incredulity was a little endearing, if very annoying and ill-timed.
Cavalon turned his smirk onto Jackin. “Or when you snap-warped earlier, I suppose.”
Adequin leveled a flat look at her optio, who scratched the back of his head and did a fantastic job of ignoring her.
“You were saying…” she said, turning back to Cavalon. “About a panel?”
Cavalon’s amusement faded, and he refocused on the display. “Right. Well, you might have caught some debris, or rattled something loose during that slingshot. If a hull panel around the engine’s nacelle lifted or bent, it could have exposed part of the outer engine and be giving you a reading like this. Might just need tightening back up.”
“Might?” Jackin asked.
Cavalon shrugged. “Yeah. Mighta ripped something clean off too. No way to know without getting eyes on it.”
“All right, Oculus,” Jackin said. “Get an MMU from cargo and get suited up.”
Cavalon’s eyebrows raised as he looked to Jackin. “Get a what, now?”
“An MMU,” Jackin repeated, as if Cavalon simply hadn’t heard him. Then dawning realization crossed Jackin’s face and he ran a hand through his black hair. “Oh, void.”
“Cavalon?” Adequin said.
He swung his high-browed look to her. “Yeah, sir?”
“You’ve never done an EVA?”
“Me? No. Well, I don’t know. What is that?”