Captain Andov looked up from the mineral composition reports when Greeg screamed a warning. He immediately pressed the button to retract the harvesting arms and activate the shields.

A green bolt of supercharged plasma hit seconds after the shields came online. The impact shook the frame of the ship causing several innatentive crew members to stumble.

"Crew to battlestations, Veeky give me ship status!" said Captain Andov as he sat down in his command chair.

Veeky was on the floor. A shattered mug that had once read "Universe's best mom" lied in a pool of liquid next to her. She cursed under her breath as she pushed herself up and read the monitor at her workstation. "Shields holding sir at 7-9. Slip drive emergency startup available on your order. "

Ten feet away, Grou, a large round old man with catfish like whiskers braided into his beard looked down at the shattered mug and fought between reactions to sneer at such poor craftsmanship or commiserate the loss of an item that he knew had great sentiment to his co worker. He chose neither, because both were a distraction from the data on his screen. Data that in the moment he looked away had not miraculously changed for the better.

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"We are too heavy to make port." Said Grou. " If we activate emergency slip we will be stranded in the void."

"Noted. Give me a charged scan of whatever hit us, and maneuver us to point our shell at it." Andov sat

"Sir spike and emp missles are now ready to fire. We have 15 spike shells on standby. Target data is....Gone!" Veeky said.

"We are blind! All the sensors just entered a diagnostic check! Targeting, navigation, all of them!"

Greeg shouted.

Captain Andov rolled up his sleeve to expose the GreGre tattoo he had gotten as a young man in the navy. It was against Navy regulations to expose, but everytime things became hairy the tattoo's luck kept him safe. 'Come on Special Soup do your thing.' Andov said inside his head while posturing a brave face for the crew. He needed a miracle.

"Captain incoming hail." said Greeg.

Andov smiled.