[color=a2d39c][h1][center][u][i]Captain Maria Thorne[/i][/u][/center][/h1][/color]
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There was an almost comedic pause between the ship shuddering, Ansgar calling, and Maria reacting. As the explosion hit and the metal of the hull whined, the captain heard dishes in a nearby cabinet clattering against one another. No doubt a couple of them would be broken. The entire ship shuddered around them, like an animal that had just been wounded, and Maria took just a moment to let out a sigh. There was no rest for the weary. When Ansgar's voice rang out, Maria stood up and ran in the direction of the engine room, not sparing so much as a glance towards Kev or the Judge before disappearing down the corridor. 

Her pace slowed to a walk as the engine room drew near, and she took second to observe Ansgar to make sure he didn't have any injuries. When convinced of the engineer's health, Maria looked into the engine room, deciding against actually entering before getting the facts. Before speaking to Ansgar, Maria turned on the comms to respond to Andrea. 

"The passenger, Kev, Ansgar and I are all fine," She replied, and then the captain turned to the engineer. "What the hell happened to my ship?" 

The tone was little sharper than she intended, but the anger wasn't directed towards Ansgar. He was good at his job, and never would have been incompetent enough to cause this big of a problem. Whatever happened to the ship, Maria had the sneaky suspicion that it wasn't an accident. Someone had messed with her ship, and when she found out who they were going to meet her wrath. 

This wasn't exactly the first time someone had tampered with The [i]Veritas.[/i] A year or two back, when Maria had just started to get a crew together, some useless bag of Glao scum thought it would be a fun idea to try and murder everyone on the ship by means of a bomb in the Galley. Thankfully, the bomb was a dud, but that didn't stop Maria from nearly tearing the little beast limb from limb when it was discovered. If it hadn't been for her better judgement she might have thrown him out the airlock. Alas, she simply turned him over to the authorities on his home-world to be imprisoned for his entire lifetime, which would probably not be very long given the state of Glao prisons. Okay, maybe her "better judgement" was slightly influenced by a drive of vengeance that just happened to be of a legal means this time, but that's not the point. 

Maria had half a mind to wonder if the Judge could have been involved, but what reason would he have to sabotage the ship? They were out of his jurisdiction, and he had no evidence that any of them had done anything against his government. Not to mention he would have endangered his own life. No, it didn't make sense that the Judge was the perpetrator. Whoever it was, they were more than likely on the hub. The captain wracked her mind, trying to think of the people in this area of space she'd pissed off who would like to harm her and the crew. The list was somewhat longer than she would like to admit. Government officials and other humans notwithstanding, they had stepped on a lot of toes as they tried to build the rebellion, and she wouldn't put it past any of them to try and kill the crew. The universe had been a relatively quiet place before the humans came along, and not a lot of people were thrilled about the ruckus the rebellion was starting to make. 

At the very least, no one had been seriously injured. Cookie had even emerged from some cranny where he'd been hiding, and was now rubbing on Maria and Ansgar's legs, evidently wondering what the humans had done this time.