The answer to the Captain’s unspoken question was actually quite simple. Most species’ eyes reacted differently to different wavelengths of light they could discern. Since the majority of Prize’s crew were Humans of various origin, their ancestral homeworld or not, the lighting was designed with their eyes in mind. Emergency lighting was red, because red light didn’t disrupt the human eye’s natural dark vision once it was accustomed to it. The majority of human-made image intensifiers were green since they were invented since human eyes were the most sensitive to the color green, therefore they could work with significantly lower brightness than any other color, thus putting less strain on the user’s eyes. And the color blue inhibited the production of Melatonin, a hormone responsible for regulating the sleep-wake cycle, used here to keep everyone awake, while the rest of the room was kept in darkness to avoid distractions and keep everyone focused on the important things.

Prize’s designers generally knew what they were doing, at least they did in this instance, because Astrid had just gotten off a 2200 - 0600 shift and had been woken up by the captain’s summons about thirty minutes and one strong coffee ago. She listened to the captain explain the plan, studying all of the information available about Du-Vos’ ship. As soon as the subject of boarding the civilian craft came up, she pulled up the schematics of the Moray on her datapad as well, leaving them side by side.

“If Alpha’s approaching from aft, they could pack some shaped charges. Place them when they arrive and disable Du-Vos’ main drives once the fighting starts, though it would require someone who can perform EVA. Would make it a lot easier for those manning the Moray in the fight if Du-Vos was a sitting duck. Although in such an event, being stuck without sublight propulsion could drive the scumbags to desperation. Executing hostages out of pure spite, that sort of deal.” She suggested, not liking the idea of fighting in a glorified interstellar bus.

“Beta team, affirmative. Board the Moray, restore to working order, await further instructions.” Astrid acknowledged her assigned role. Four months on this ship and she still couldn’t get used to the captain almost pleading with people like this. Like she would complain, even if she had a choice. It was safe and easy work compared to Alpha team. Poor sods. “Hmm… Charon-class transport. Encountered one or two of those on salvage duty before. Magnetoplasma thrusters, that’s good. Very few moving parts, easy to fix most of the time, won’t have to carry half a damn workshop with me, assuming they’re not shot to shit.” She thought out loud, “I’ll need a pilot with me on Beta. I can plot maneuvers, but I don’t know how to actually fly it. Cake could fill that role and fly her remotely. Even with the slight delay, she’s still faster than any organic pilot. That is, of course, assuming Moray’s broadband communications array is intact, It would make sense for the attackers to disable it so the target ship cannot call for help as it’s being boarded.” The engineer summarized the technical side of things as she saw it.

She listened to Gue’rach’s proposal, nodding to herself at certain points of his explanation. “Even if they shut down Moray’s reactor, she wouldn’t have had enough time to noticeably cool down, therefore they shouldn’t notice a difference when we get on board and get it going again. As Lieutenant Ve’tame pointed out, the main drive will be a dead giveaway by thermal emissions alone. Of course any change in velocity, even small, can be detected, but at this range even getting 500 meters closer before they notice would make a difference given Moray’s armaments, and that’s quite doable by maneuvering thrusters alone. May I just suggest the Prize and Moray be kept on separate planes?” Three dots appeared beside the main projection, two green ones representing the Prize and Moray, a red one being the hostile vessel. A plane indicated by a blue square appeared in such a way the Prize and the pirate ship were placed on it and the Moray was slightly below it. Dashed lines representing the general direction of fire appeared between both friendly and the hostile ship, extending past the hostile to illustrate Astrid’s point, namely that ‘missed’ shots from either friendly ship came anywhere near the other one. “The probability is low, but I’d like to minimize risks of friendly fire regardless.”

“Do we have Moray's passenger list? Specifically, do we know how many were on board and whether they’ll fit onto the shuttle in one run?” She turned to Carabello once the previous point had been addressed.