“Stars she is really banged up,” Vanderbeak declared as the Voyager swelled to fill the main monitor. The vessels hull was scared with weapons fire and charing from hits with energy weapons and blast damage. Something about it seemed wrong to Slade as his hands played over the controls. As the captain had directed he and six other crewmen including Vanderbeak who had volunteered, as much to get away from the captain, as for any real need for another officer, were aboard one of the boarding craft. The Sexy, more properly the C-EX-3, was a small all purpose cutter, useful for landing men, providing fire support to ground troops and the other ash and trash jobs that took crewmen away from the Cartagena. It had a pair of nose mounted pulse cannons, a bank of four thrusters mounted, on the tips of each of its four wings on gimbels, and a single jump capacitor in case of emergencies. The Sexy, as the number implies, was one of three such craft assigned to the Cartagena, but due to maintenance shortfalls, it was the only one currently operational. 

“She’s taken alot of hits to still be in one piece like that,” Slade observed, touching the controls and gimbling the forward thrusters into a slight tangential opposition to the rearward pair. The maneuver pushed the crew into their acceleration couches as the Sexy’s nose lifted so that she flared like a swooping bird.

“Captain must be a stubborn bitch,” Vanderbeak agreed with a note of admiration in his voice. Slade opened his mouth to agree, but there was something about the damage that didn’ts sit quite right with him. Why had the captain not surrendered to the pirates earlier? Perhaps she had felt that she could run for Ceres? It was only half a million kilometers away, a mere stones throw in astronomical terms, but she must have known she couldn’t bring the ship through the atmosphere while being fired upon from a high guard. That was impossible even for a warship. Panic might have been an excuse, but if you panicked you were more likely to surrender than to risk being blown to atoms. 

“Stand by to de-cel,” Slade said over the unit push as the rangefinders spun down towards intercept. He touched a series of control kicking the Sexy into alignment with the hangar bay at the aft of the vessel. 

“Burning.”

The deck seemed to punch up into their feet as he fired all four thrusters in a series of syncopating bursts, bleeding off the residual acceleration without losing his heading. The small shuttle slid through the magnetic containment field no faster than a man could walk and there was a slight slap as they encountered the air inside the bay. A moment later they touched down with all the force of a feather fluttering to the ground.

“Show off,” Vanderbeak muttered as he began to unstrap himself. Slade winked at him and stood up. He was wearing a set of fleet standard body armor, segmented grey ceramic plates over a vacuum rated polymer suit. The integral air supply was mounted in the slight bulk between his shoulder blades, feeding the maneuvering jets built into the arms and legs as well as providing air to  the occupant. He fixed his helmet over his head with a hiss of engaging seals and bought the HUD live with a flick of his tongue. Slade had done his rotation in zero-g operations, though he didn’t claim to be an expert. In the Fleet most long term G-heads were female, whose lower metabolic rates and muscle mass gave them an advantage where oxygen consumption was a factor.

“Do you really think you are going to need the monkey suit?” Vanderbeak asked. He, like the rest of the boarding party were dressed in grey T.R.O.Y coveralls, a far more comfortable choice. They had tactical webbing on though with the exception of the holstered pistols and the odd knife, they weren’t armed. This was a rescue operation after all and tools were likely to be more useful than weapons. 

“The last thought of every poor bastard blown out an airlock has probably been ‘I wish I packed my monkey suit’ right?” Slade retorted, picking up a small sub machine gun and hanging it from an attachment point on the front of the suit, before opening the hatch to the crew compartment. Six crewmen sat on jump seats along a central isle. The looked excited and were babbling among themselves, which was understandable, this was the most exciting thing that had happened in the months since Slade had joined the crew.

“Alright,” Slade declared, his voice cutting through the babble of voices with a clear not of command.

“We know these people have been robbed by pirates. Pirates who we can’t be sure are all gone, keep your guard up and follow protocol. We will locate the captain and then give them what assistance they need to get to the ground on Ceres.” He paused for a moment uncertain of what else he should say.

“Keep your eyes open, something doesn't smell quite right,” he added at last. More than one set of eyes rolled, but they dutifully stood to allow him passed.  At the end of the gangway he pulled the retractor switch and the rear facing ramp dropped under hydraulic pressure. There was a slight rush of air as the pressure differential between ship air and shuttle air equalized and then the ramp clanged down. The air in the hanger smelled like lubricant and burned engine casings, though some of that was the thruster wash from the shuttle. Crates of tools and half repaired pieces of machinery were scattered about and cables and hoses were stowed in untidy loops. There was no gravity in the bay and bolts, trash and globs of lubricant floated in the air. Slade used his magnetic boots to walk down the ramp and onto the deck. Behind him the spacers tramped down the ramp, pulling on helmets to shield their eyes.

“This is S2 to Cartagena,” Slade said, the words tripping the microwave link back to the ship.

“We are on deck, but it doesn't look like anyone came to meet us. Ill update you soonest S2 out.”