Licking wounds

The way Hyoni looks at me tells bad news already. I've seen this face too many times, back during the war.
"The primary coil assembly in the port nacelle's fried", she says.
"What about the breach on C deck?", I ask.
"Tell me when you can go near it", she quips back, "I think we're still leaking something. Not atmo, maybe water. All internal sensors are down in that section."
"How long it will...?", I try to say but she cuts in:
"Linus, the ship's bust. FUBAR. We were lucky to escape anyway!"
I don't know if she says this as a complement or with malice. Yeah, I came up with a crazy idea that saved us from those Kzinti things, but I might have doomed ourselves by doing it. Turns out, executing impulse grade manouvers at Warp speed isn't something Polaris was built for. It fried half the systems, even some backups.
I hear a distorted buzz. At least comm is online. I press the receiver button.
"Randolph here".
"Captain, I found us a place to hide"., Katya says from the other end of the line, "An asteroid. Not too big, but it has a crater that could hide our energy signature."
"Bring us in.", I say, nodding, as if she could see it. I turn back to Hyoni. "Forget the Warp drive. Sensors and weapons are a priority."
She nods and turns to walk away, muttering something udner her breath. I always admired this about Hyoni. She has the subtlety of a bull elephant, but she's the best damned engineer this side of Heaven. The intercom chimes again.
"Yes?", I ask.
"Linus, it's Samuel", I hear from the tiny speaker. His slow, calm bass of a voice sounds all too ominous, "I got the casualty list".
I sigh as I turn off the intercom. The way to the bridge feels like a road to Hell and back.



Models by me
BTW, modelling and texturing a decent asteroid is hard!