Incursion Vector

018

[▲] INS Issac Asimov, Gagarin Interstellar Naval Shipyards

Turning away to to sneeze, Sparrow rubbed at his nose with his sleeve and groaned. Space wasn't supposed to be dusty, at least not the space inside a space ship. "What do you mean there's no extra thruster modules?"

Tucking his hands into his jumpsuit pockets as best he could with a limiter cast still fixed to his mending right arm, Sebastian Connor gave the man an indifferent shrug. "I've got a full set of backups for every Stuka we have coming to the line but that's it. RS Mary Shelly should have some waiting for us at Voyager on the way out.”

"Christ," muttered the pilot with another disappointed shake of his head. "They've had three weeks to get this shit going now! What the hell are they doing ordering us to wartime loadouts without the wartime payload?"

"Scuttlebutt is that the Congress doesn't even want to declare war," said Connor. "Civ sector is starting to say our showing up in warships offended the aliens and that we all should've just made nice and put up peace signs and shit.”

"Guess nobody's heard about the Tiaha fleet yet."

"Nobody's going to care about the Tiaha fleet. Not even the Colonies. As far as the civs are concerned they're a bunch of camel-riding religious nuts who liked to strap bombs to themselves so much they got kicked off Earth. And honestly, the fleets didn't help themselves out much by going off into radio silence. The only place they bother to teach people about that war is the UFS."

The pilot had to stifle his sudden urge to spit on the well-polished deck, an act he knew would garner him the ire of everyone in visual range. "Morons."

"Election year." The lieutenant gave him a toothy grin. "Everyone doubles down on stupid beginning 01 January."

Sparrow eyed the man skeptically. "You're the worst load toad ever. Why did Captain Michael send you with us again?"

"Because I'm the guy who managed to get you that full set of backups when we had precisely dick a week ago," replied Connor, growing more insulted as he went on. "This isn't Heinlein, Colonel. Until you landed on it I doubt this deck had seen a Stuka that wasn't a hood ornament tutorial. Everyone here flies either an Abrams or a Proteus. We're lucky there's enough long range ordinance to outfit the Hayhas up to full spec."

With a groan Sparrow realized what an ass he was being to the only man he knew in his new flight crew. "Shit. I'm sorry, Sebby. I didn't mean it like that."

"You owe me a beer next time we're on leave," said the man, waving off the apology as unneeded. "Bet your ass I'll be counting."

"I wish Herald was here to deal with all this shit," muttered Sparrow. "He was better at this... organizing... thing."

"And I wish the old man had sent LT Jackson over instead of me." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the bays where all their extra marauder module inventory was housed. "I had just gotten my loads perfectly distributed and mentally referenced in Heinlein's holds. I can almost understand why Jackson used to bitch out all our new Cadets to make them too afraid to touch stuff without orders."

"That bad?"

"I haven't seen a place this disorganized since we made that training run with the Herbert. It's like they forgot there was a entire port side to this ship in which they can, yanno, store stuff. If space were an ocean we'd fucking capsize."

Sparrow tossed the man a wry smirk. "You can always come back to the dark side and fly a Proteus for me."

"What, and give up this glorious new rank and pay grade to get shot at again?” Connor chuffed in disgust. “I took a chest full of ship shrapnel for my twenty second birthday and just three weeks ago I was blown up. I've hit my personal max for near-death experiences."