Sabatine had never felt more exhausted in her life. Breaking that record was becoming a routine however and she rubbed her hands over gummy eyes as she finished the shut down sequence. The sudden silence as the roar of expelled plasma cut off was almost physically shocking. Not for the first time, or even the hundredth time, she cursed the name of Prince Kaiden Caladwarden. She had brought the Z-21 on a short hope through the matrix to an unnamed world that rejoiced in the simple alpha numeric M-X-2341 in a little under 2 days. It had been tricky with her new rig, designed for looks rather than efficiency, but even if she wasn't a brilliant astrogater, she was solidly competent. She glanced around the bridge at the exhausted faces of her few watch standers, all of whom had been needed to land the destroyer after the brutal chore of rerigging her. Fortunately the hard part was now over, and all they had to do was wait for Kaiden to arrive in the Vickie to take them on to the next phase of the plan. 

"Open hatches, get some men out soonest to top off reaction mass," Sabatine ordered over the command net. M-X-2341 had a breathable atmosphere, though the air as very arid. It even had liquid water which allowed starships to refuel. Colonization had never been attempted however because the powerful magnetic storms which raged across it played hell with sensors of all kinds. Sabatine had bought them in to what had once, in the geological past, been a crater lake, but now was a dry sandy basin several kilometers across. The crew would have to deploy the drills to get down to the aquafir twenty meters or so below the sand, but that was easy work in close to the 1g that humans were designed to operate within.

With nothing pressing to do, Sabatine opened the ships log with a private thrill. [i]Brought vessel from Delta 3-7 to M-X-2341 in a voyage of one day seven hours, fair conditions in the matrix with course attached[/i]. She appended the file with a few key strokes then allowed herself a few moments to savor something she had dreamed of since she was a small girl visiting the great naval base at Harbor 3 on Cinnabar. She flexed her fingers and added: [i]Lt Sabatine Hickoring, Officer Commanding, RCS Z-21.[/i] If the ship survived operations and returned to Cinnibar some day, that entry would be copied to the Navy House records. Whatever else might happen, she would always be able to claim she commanded a ship in time of war, even if it was for a short hop from one no where to another. Her irritation with Kaiden dropped a grudging degree, given that he had made this possible.

"Orders Captain?" Creavy, the engineer and acting chief of ship asked. He was nervous, drafted from the Whitehall to a ship ten times its side, and suicidally short crewed, though she suspected he was the type that would be nervous no matter what was going on.

"Soon as we have topped off the tanks power everything down, fusion bottles to stand by," she replied. Already the steady thrum thrum thrum of pumps told her that water was coming aboard.

"Lets put her in moth balls and wait for Lieutenant Kaiden arrives to pick us up," she instructed, without another word she stood up and walked into the captains cabin, throwing herself down on the bed without even removing her boots. She was asleep in moments.