“You’re certain?” Maxwell asked. Still in his ready room, Commander Beck had joined him to inform him of the situation with the warp core. Apparently when they had lost shields, and their ablative armor had sustained heavy damage, some of the Vaadwaur destroyers had got a few lucky shots on the engineering hull of the ship. Such shots were able to cause power surges throughout those sections, and such power surges were close enough and strong enough to cause significant damage to the magnetic interlocks.

“Basically, Captain. Those damned destroyers were gunning for our warp core. They had every intention on destroying this ship and they almost did.” Beck told him, a slight hint of anger, dread and relief in his voice.

Maxwell looked away from Beck and at the the stars through the viewport for a moment. The realization of how close they were to a warp core breach in the middle of battle had laid to rest on his shoulders and the weight was intense. So intense, Maxwell had not realized how long the silence in the room had lasted until he heard Beck clear his throat. Maxwell turned to look at Beck and noticed that the time indicator on his desk had advanced twenty minutes. Was he really deep in thought for that long, he wondered. His eyes shifted from the time to Beck’s eyes. “Thank you for that revelation, Commander.”

“We’re here, Captain. Everyone is alive and have the chance to relax, enjoy themselves. You should too. Once they get that quantum slipstream drive online, Sovereign will be at Avalon in no time and I heard the station has many wonderful facilities to enjoy.” Said Beck.

Maxwell smirked at the thought of relaxation. The smirk had also came with a relief, for Beck was right. They are alive. “This job is relaxing, I need nothing else.”

Beck rolled his eyes. “Spoken like a Captain in love with his ship. Seriously, you need to get out more.”

Maxwell raised a brow and then threw his arms out wide. “How much more out can you get?”

The room was full of laughter for a moment and then the next moment was of silence but only briefly. Maxwell then pushed himself out of his chair so he could make his way around his desk and cut the distance between him and Beck. Soon as he was before him, he extended his hand out towards the man. “It was an honor having you on board, Mr. Beck.”

Beck smiled and grabbed Maxwell’s hand ti give it a firm shake. “No, Captain, pleasure was all mine. But I bet we will see each other again.”

Maxwell smirked. “Why would you go mess with such a good moment?”

Elidia sighed after she finished off her glass of ice cold water. She set the tall glass down on the table and looked around are the nearly empty lounge. The Junior Officer’s Lounge was on deck four, with a forward view. They could call it Four-Forward, and some people do, but Elidia liked the sound of Ten-Forward better. But this ship didn’t even have a lounge on deck ten. If she remembered correctly, there were two lounges on deck two, one forward and one aft. This of course, allowed the senior staff to relax but be able to return to the bridge in matter of seconds in case of an emergency.

As for right now? Elidia had chosen to take a break for the day and enjoy a glass of ice cold water. She was not alone, though. She could see Mizu and Rubi at a table together, but the table was nearly overloaded with a random variety of dishes. They looked like a mix of Klingon, Tamarian and Romulan food. It looked like Mizu had a plate of gagh in front of her, while Rubi was scarfing down whatever he could get his hands on. Elidia then got up and eventually stood over their table.

“I can’t believe you two!”

Mizu looked at Elidia with confusion on her face. “What? I’m not the one stuffing my face!”

Rubi stopped mid way of grabbing some gagh with one hand and some sort of pie in the other while he had a bit of a mouth full. He swallowed some of it and asked, “Wa- -ou -ean?”

“Geez, don’t talk with your mouth full of food. Ugh.” Elidia rolled her eyes. “How can you two be having a buffet? Aren’t you two still on duty?”

Mizu ignored the fact that Rubi gone back to stuff his face and answered Elidia’s question. “K’Roll told us we’ll be at Avalon in matter of minutes. So why not start enjoying our shore-leave early?”

“That’s not how it works though! We still have to do our jobs until the ship docks and the Captain says so!” Elidia put her hands on her hips, her attempt to intimidate.

Both Mizu and Rubi started to laugh but of course, Rubi had so much food in his mouth that he began to choke a bit. With a few pats, maybe some smacks, onto his back, he was fine and went back to eating.

Elidia sighed heavily with a shake of her head. “At least K’Roll has the decency to keep working.”

“A’ually,” Rubi tried to say before he quickly swallowed down what food he had in his mouth so he could speak more clearly, and respectfully this time. “A lot of the engineers took off to take their shore-leave as early as everyone else did. I mean, sure engineering still has a decent handful, but apparently K’Roll has taken the basic engineering courses back at the academy. You know, one of those credits that you need to earn before you can graduate kind of thing. I think.” Rubi thought about it for a second before he continued. “Point is. Beck asked him if he wanted to help build a quantum slipstream drive, from what K’Roll told us anyway, and of course K’Roll said ‘yes’. He told us that anyone who’d say ‘no’ would be stupid. Who don’t want to build a quantum slipstream drive?”

Mizu gulped some of her drink down, some sort of Tamarian juice, she couldn’t remember the name of it but it was sweet and salty at the same time and she loved it. “Actually, anyone with brains would say ‘no’.”

Rubi frowned at Mizu and was in the middle of digging his teeth in some tentacles of some squid before he pulled it out of his mouth to respond. “Are you nuts? Why would anyone do that?”

“Because it’s dangerous! Don’t you remember the classes from the academy about the whole thing? Why the entire fleet just don’t use these drives at the press of a button?” Mizu asked him and when she got nothing but a blank stare she sighed. “The crystals, dude.” Mizu went on to explain the dangers of the benamite crystals, mining the ore, refining, etc.

“Point is,” Mizu comes near the end of her explanation. “I believe the Captain had intended on using this drive during the whole Vaadwaur invasion but were were lucky in finding the underspace aperture. And if I remember correctly from the class at the academy, this is something that we will not be allowed to use again. We’re just using it to get the ship home for repairs, that’s it. But once we use it, the chances those crystals remain stable for another use is unlikely.”

Rubi leaned back in his chair as he crossed his arms over his chest. “So once we use it to get to Avalon, because our warp core is at risk, Avalon engineers will probably end up taking the drive away for security purposes?” They learned that the warp core containment field was unstable through K’Roll, who had swung by the lounge earlier to grab a bite before he returned to engineering to finish his work with the acting chief engineer.

Mizu shrugged her shoulders. “Probably. There are other unique faster than light propulsion systems but I guess they want to use up those benamite crystals before they become useless. If we could keep them around just a while longer, we could just give the benamite to command for storage. But that’s unlikely.”

“Could we not call for one of those ships that could tug the Sovereign at warp to the nearest Starbase?” Rubi asked before he leaned forward in his chair again to resume stuffing his face.

“Maxwell is my mentor, and while he has been my mentor for only a matter of months, I don’t think he would settle for that. He likes to bring his ship home under its own power, even if it means doing something risky like the QSD.” Mizu leaned back in her seat and looked up at the ceiling. “He cherishes this ship so much, the thought of the Sovereign being brought to a starbase under a tug would probably embarrass him.”

Elidia shook her head, more at Rubi for the fact that he stuffed a handful of gagh into his mouth when he still had some of those tentacles that he barely chewed through. “Can’t believe our captain would have such an ego. It’s just a ship.” There was a sudden clatter of silverware, either it had fallen and hit a plate or someone had set it down a little abrupt. Elidia then looked around, and what little officers there were in the lounge, she could see her voice had carried and she had all their eyes on her. “What?! It’s the truth!”