[center][h2][b]The Solonis[/b][/h2][/center]

The bridge of the Solonis was a lot calmer than it had been on it's arrival to this new, unknown galaxy, but it was still quite tense. Captain Hayley Duncan believed that had to do with the bridge crew being the most experienced of the ship, and though there were many other experienced men and women aboard her ship, she knew there were a lot of inexperienced personnel, too. She already knew two individuals had both ended up in the brig for acting on their emotions, but she couldn't blame them. Hayley was as lost as the rest of them, but she couldn't act out on it, she needed to set an example. 

Hayley made sure that the crew didn't have time to dwell on the fact that they were lost in space. Departmental heads were running drills, and a few sections of the ship often found themselves marked as locked down as the Marines ran drills. They had already ran two Rabbit drills, which often left the crew a little disgruntled or intrigued (or a mix of the two) as Marines ran the length of the ship in powered armour, searching for their hiding target. A pair of marines had made their way onto the bridge on one of the drills, only - to the amusement of the bridge crew - to be chased off by the Sergeant On Deck. "You really think I would let some sissy on this bridge?" He had roared, stomping after them. Holly knew that Major Stanforth was working the marines hard, but a few times had wondered if he should give them a break. She wasn't in any position to direct that, however - while she had the authority, she wasn't going to direct the marines. That was Stanforth's job.

Commander Furret and Lieutenant Clarke were both standing over the latter's station, planning out the next set of operations for the crewmen. With interest, but not to intrude upon their work, Hayley unfolded her screen and brought it in front of her to look at the current ship operations. External maintenance was on the list, and she navigated her way to the external cameras. Panning the camera and zooming in, she watched a pair of crewmen in zero-G using a tool that looked like a hair comb attached to a wrench on a panel. To her amusement, she also saw a fireteam of marines on security. The serious part of her thought that external security was a good idea when in unknown space like this, when who-knows-what could come crawling onto her hull. The non-serious part of her wondered what each and every member of that team did to get such a shitty job. The crewmen had firearms and were capable of using them, and their suits would send out an alert if something happened to them, so that in case they had a puncture or accidentally floated themselves off into space there was a chance for rescue. She knew the marines would rather be on board the ship or even helping the crewmen by moving some a hull plate instead of standing around.

A flash of light on the center of the bridge made Hayley turn to the central holotable, expecting a report. She found one wasn't needed, however; Lieutenant Allan and Second Lieutenant Knox were playing with holographic fighters. To anyone that wasn't a part of the crew it would look like they were playing games, but Hayley knew that whilst it may have been some fun for Lieutenant Allan, it was practise for Lieutenant Knox. Lilly Knox was new to her role as Flight Operations Director, and though she had experience directing shuttlecraft in her logistical role, directing fighter operations was new to her.

Hayley observed the table from the Captain's chair, watching the simulated versions of Fang and Apricot squadrons destroying a first wave of missiles headed for the Solonis and then getting into a knife-fight range dogfight with the opposing fighters. Fang and Apricot were marked as Aces with a single little dot next to each fighter, whereas the opposing fighters were novices. Hayley thought the fight was a little unbalanced; all enemy fighters were destroyed with just one damaged fighter in Apricot squadron that returned to the nest. There was a lull in the fight before more fighters came in, a couple of Aces this time in the mix. The fight was harder this time, but Hayley knew that Solonis' fighters were going to win. However, two enemy carriers then entered the fray, holographic beams stabbing out at targets and deploying fighters and bombers. There was no way Solonis' fighters would win that fight, and Lieutenant Knox looked a little upset. "That's not fair!"

"Hey, I didn't do that!" Lieutenant Allan replied. As the two battled it out not just on the table but now with words, Hayley scanned the bridge. She had a sneaking suspicion that someone on the bridge had done that. As she had seen everyone else of the senior crew was busy apart from Lieutenants McEwan and Jameson, she looked over to the pair's stations. Jameson's station had been having some trouble, and there was currently a tech buried in cable spaghetti underneath it, so that ruled her out. Hayley didn't need to see that a two-dimensional representation of the holotable was on McEwan's table to know it was him, nor the fact that he was sat backwards on his chair facing the holotable; his grin alone told the story. Olivia and Lilly figured that out quickly.

"Can you [i]not[/i] interrupt, please?" Olivia asked, folding her arms. Lilly was glaring at Toby, clearly wanting to say something but holding herself back. Olivia entered with some more words of her own. "We don't exactly interrupt [i]your[/i] simulations or fuck them up, do we?" She asked. Hayley knew that much was true, but only because Toby's simulations were done on his own station and two-dimensional; he only watched the results on the holotable if he had to.

"Battle isn't simple. Anything can change, and sometimes you don't win," Toby responded with a smirk. He then turned back to his own station, leaving the pair of women glancing at eachother, and then looking back at Toby with a face of disgust. Hayley was never a fan of these situations, because technically both were right. Toby was the weakest link on her bridge - he was great at his job, but he was someone who took jokes too far, and perhaps sometimes at inappropriate times. He was a bit of a troublemaker.

"Lieutenant McEwan, please don't mess with simulations in future without permission from those running them or my own permission," Captain Duncan states. That seemed to ease the expressions of the ladies, and they went back to their training. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Commander Furret turning back to whatever he was doing with Lieutenant Clarke. Commander Elliot Furret was her [i]other[/i] problem. He was older than her, which was not surprising with Hayley being a touch young for her own position but not too uncommon. The surprising part was Furret's age gap between her being a little large, and his experience too being much broader and further than her own. Some would have thought that Commander Furret would be commanding his own cruiser by now, or perhaps the Commodore of a small flotilla if they wanted to stretch it a little. Hayley knew Furret's position was by fault of his own but by political connections, and she understand his frustration. Fortunately, he never second-guessed her, and followed orders. She knew he was watching her, however. He always was, and it worried her a little. Turning her head over to Kayla Jameson's station, Hayley addressed the technician there. "Mister Roberts, how long until the Lieutenant's station is running again?"

"About five minutes, Captain," Technician Roberts responded, not taking his eyes off of his work. Hayley was disappointed, but not by Roberts. If it took that long to fix, it took that long to fix. She didn't need to communicate with anyone in particular, and communications was being run by a junior crewman on the bridge in the meanwhile, but it still didn't make her happy. The only person she wanted to keep tabs on presently was Lieutenant-Commander Sinclair, who was presently off-ship and on board one of the other ships, the [i]Resurgence[/i], but she didn't want to be too nosey, either.

[hr]

Lieutenant-Commander Sinclair was in the makeshift labs of the [i]Resurgence[/i]. As an engineer, people most likely expected him to go to Engineering and look around there rather than in the labs, but Sinclair knew that whatever was there was possibly beyond what the Solonis had or could do without a major overhaul. Plus, there was no way he'd be allowed to look into the depths of the engineering specifications, as that was a great risk - at least, he would class it as that, and any other engineer from his own galaxy would. He had know idea what those of this one thought of that in regards to security. Therefore, the labs were the best place for him to learn something new, something small that could help increase the sustainability of the ship.