As soon as she was done explaining to the follow-up team what was what with the Moray, Astrid hurried to the shuttle bay, eager to meet one of the combat engineers and her former CE colleague who accompanied Alpha on the mission. “Hey, Angus! Everything without a hitch like always?”
“The rookie almost got half of us cooked with an incendiary. Instead, he only got himself shot, so not as shite as it could’ve been.” The big Irishman grumbled, looking a bit glum.
“Crap. Is he going to pull through- Wait, Alphabet actually brought a damn grenade?” She shook her head incredulously, “Where is that moron? I’m going to beat some sense into that empty head of his.” She regretted her choice of words immediately after as four medics carried Rod’s lifeless body through the hall past them. She couldn’t make much out except charred and battered armor, fortunately for her. “Ah… Shit.”

As soon as the Prize arrived at the station and Astrid woke up from catching up on sleep lost due to the Pirate encounter, an engineer from Lt. Rong’s shift showed up to tell her she was needed on-board to oversee the hull repairs. Aware that she had a leg up in structural engineering over her colleague, she nonetheless went back to the Moray and came out a few minutes later with the half-disassembled bomb. “Take a look at this. I did. Quite up close. Back when it was still armed, not to mention on two hours of sleep. This is your team’s shift, not mine’s, therefore your problem. Better yet, let the locals work to earn their living and I’ll check the work the day before we set out.” She shoved the inactive bomb into the poor sap’s hands and walked off. “Say hi to Lan for me. Drinks later?”

One unnecessarily detailed report later, Astrid joined the engineering senior staff in enjoying one of Deep Solar 3’s bars near the bazaar or whatever it was. On one hand, they were happy they could kick back and not do anything for a few days or however long the repairs would take. On the other, no engineer was particularly happy about letting someone else poke around [i]their[/i] ship or station. Then there was the case of Rod…
“To Rod…? Alphabet.” The Irishman raised his glass, the others following, “He may have been a pile of hair with a moron under it, but he was our pile. Wherever you’ve gone, I hope ye rest easy lad.”
“Sadly, Du-Vos will most likely live out his retirement out of taxpayers’ pockets. At least it won’t be our pockets.” At least Astrid hoped that was the case. If the authorities had the nerve to tax them when they were who knows where on the other side of a wormhole, she might just lose the last sliver of her faith in Humanity.