Chapter 24: Chapter 15: The Pressure Rises

“Ugh…” I groaned as I was walking to my cabin, going over the list of things we still had to do to make our new guests’ stay as comfortable as possible. I’d been doing some overtime to really get into the details, so we wouldn’t get riots at our hands. Already a couple of crew members had raised some complaints, although those were luckily relatively minor. 

I was just scrolling to the next page when I bumped into someone. 

“Ouch.” It was Eva, she’d fallen back and was now sitting on the floor. 

“Oh, shit. Sorry Eva. I was absolutely not paying attention to where I was going. Are you alright?” I put away my holostick and offered her my hand. 

“No, it’s fine.” She sounded a little bit hurt. “I just landed on my tailbone. Luckily, Luna was still holding the mugs.” She grabbed my arm and I helped her up.

“Luna?” I looked over and saw Luna standing in the doorway to her cabin, looking rather shocked in her pj’s and two mugs in her hand, presumably ready to having handed them over to the Doctor. “Ah, hey.” I scratched the back of my head. 

“H-hi, Co-commander…” 

“Did I interrupt something?” 

“No, I was just leaving. We had a little bit of a chat.” Eva replied. 

“I hope it was nothing serious?” 

“No, not really.” Eva smiled and shook her head. She then proceeded to take the mugs out of Luna’s hands. “Anyway, that’s that. I’m going to rest my sore tailbone in my own cabin now.” 

“Sorry, again.” I chuckled uncomfortably. 

“It’s really not an issue. Good night Lauren, good night, Luna.” 

“G-goodnight!” Luna shyly waved as Eva moved off. 

“Good night!” I called after her as well. 

When Eva had well and truly gone away, a rather uncomfortable silence formed in the hallway. 

“Uh…” Luna broke it after a couple of seconds. “W-were you still working, Commander?” 

“Mhmm. Yeah.” I took my holostick back out of my jacket’s pocket. “I was going over some things concerning our new friends downstairs.” 

“Hmm…” Luna nodded. 

“Shouldn’t you go inside, it must be cold in your pj’s right?” 

It seemed like she’d forgotten that she was standing there in her pajamas, as her face flushed red in an instant. “A-a-ah!” She immediately scooted to the side so she was partially hidden by the wall. 

I gave her a smile. “I’ll let you get comfortable. Good night, Luna.”

As I walked off, Luna called after me. “G-good night, C…Lauren. P-please get some rest. It was a heavy day for you too…” 

“Thanks, I will.” I smiled back. She closed the door softly, and continued towards my cabin. Before I opened the door, I stared at the holostick in my hand. “I guess I should take that advice… I can continue working on this stuff in the morning.”  

 

When I got into my cabin, I put on some relaxing music and took yet another shower. I had taken one not that long ago, but it helped to get me ready for a good night’s rest. My work continued for most of the day and the couple of days after that but we finally managed to really get into a good work flow. Our guests, who called themselves the ‘Dokazuuk’ offered to help with a lot of the mechanical work aboard the ship because they didn’t want to completely freeload on our resources. Their size, strength and technical expertise when it comes to welding, helped out a lot. So much so that a couple of engineers asked if they could stay forever because of how light the workload got with them aboard. They also made a couple of suggestions to reinforce certain armor plating in some of the more vulnerable spots of the ship. Some other crew members had even started to get a liking for the fruits and vegetables our guests taught us about. Since there were no dietary concerns, it hadn’t taken too long for some brave souls to go on a culinary adventure. I, however, hadn’t been brave enough for this. 

Of course, because of the bug presence in this system, we decided to jump a couple of sectors away, just in case more of those ships would pop up in the vicinity. After a week of jumping, our sensors that had been damaged by the pulsar also got completely recalibrated, removing our blind spot so we could go back to regular operation. 

There was one question that the crew had been bugging me about though, which was, at this moment, being echoed by my XO. “Commander, weren’t we supposed to plan that party?” 

“Not you too, Luna…” I sighed. I had been trying to think of a good time and place to plan the event in. But I was still a bit hesitant because of the relatively recent attack we’ve faced. “I would want to, but I’m not sure if this is a good time…” 

“I think we are far enough from the danger by now…” Luna looked down at her holo stick. “And I think it might be a good way to let most of the crew socialize with the Dokazuuk for a while as well…” 

“Yeah, I know… but it just doesn’t feel right…” 

“What about increasing the number of people on guard during the event, but relieving them in 3 shifts?” 

“Maybe… but then the people from the third shift can’t drink alcohol if they want to, at all.” 

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“Oh… that’s true…” 

“You see. It’s difficult. I’ve been thinking about this as well. The perfect answer would be a system in which we could be completely safe, but finding something like that in uncharted territory… it’s like finding a needle in a haystack.” 

“I’ll try to keep an eye out for it as well.” Luna said, seemingly full of confidence. “There must be some place that is relatively safe.” 

“Hey, Commander.” Lieutenant McAllister commented. “I heard you talking just now and I might have a solution.” 

“Which is?” I asked. Looking down on the bridge in front of me. 

“Well, earlier I was looking at the planetoid on the outer edge of this system and I spotted a cave that looked just big enough to hide our ship in.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes, ma’am. I checked the dimensions because I thought it would be pretty funny to park the ship in there, and it should definitely be possible.”

“And we can mask our ship completely?”

“That shouldn’t be an issue either, Commander.” This time it was Lieutenant Zu who spoke up. 

I smiled. “Great. That’s our plan then. Good job people.” I opened the map that McAllister sent to me. “Get it parked, I will tell everyone to prepare for the party by tomorrow.” 

“Aye aye, Commander.” McAllister saluted and turned back around in her seat. 

“I will also start sending messages around, Commander.” Luna said as she started tapping away on her holo stick. 

“Good work.” 

“Thank you.” 

 

Preparations for the party went along splendidly, mostly because we’d already prepared most of it beforehand and the only thing left was actually preparing the food. We ended up with a lot of different snacks, and by that I really mean A LOT of different snacks. If we’d reserve one table just for one piece of every single different snack, we’d almost not have enough room. 

I was personally overseeing the preparatory final touches in the officer's lounge when Eva came by to look in on the progress. 

“Ready for the party, Lauren?” 

“Pretty much, everything is set up, food and drinks are ready and different games are also done. How were the preparations on the lower deck?” 

“Everything went smoothly.” Eva came to stand right next to me and looked over the lounge. “I think the Dokazuuk are excited to participate.” 

“Can you tell? I find it very hard to read their emotions.” 

“I’m not too surprised by that.” 

“Why did that sound like an insult…” I looked at my friend. 

“It wasn’t, I promise.” Yet, her smile betrayed that she wasn’t being completely honest with me. “Anyhow, where’s Luna?” 

“She went to her cabin to rest a bit before the party.” 

“Shouldn’t you do the same? You’ve been up since 0500, right?” 

“I’m not really tired.” I shrugged. 

“I still think you should, though. Let’s call it doctor’s orders.” She patted me on the shoulder. “You don’t want to fall asleep in those spicy fruits the Dokazuuk introduced to us, would you? I heard those really sting.” 

“If you insist.” I smiled. “Will you finish this up?” 

“Yes, don’t worry about it.” Eva smiled back and took a grape from the table we were standing by, popping it in her mouth. 

“Thanks.” I smiled once more and headed off to my cabin. On the way there, I yawned. Seemed like I wasn’t as energetic as I first thought. Well, at least I could get a 5-hour nap before the party got underway. Let’s hope everyone will enjoy themselves because we definitely need a bit of time to blow off steam. 

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