"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

  – Isaac Asimov

  Luca's hands were steady as he ordered everyone toward the hangar. The UER shuttles had launched five minutes ago, which meant they would be here within the next couple of hours.

  His head throbbed from forcing that ability, a lingering headache that made him feel like absolute shit. Didn't matter. No time to think about pain. No time to think, period.

  "Uniforms," he snapped. "Now. Everyone. Gear up."

  The hangar was a disaster zone, like Joey had warned. Crates and equipment boxes stacked everywhere, harsh lighting casting weird shadows, air still tasting like soot from the electrical fire. But there, near the dropshipThe Percival, sat the uniform crates from Zoe and Emily's shopping spree.

  Ryan hesitated. "Shouldn't we be figuring out—"

  “We are figuring it out. First step? Protection. Put your uniform on.” Luca tore into the box with his name, ignoring the blood trickling down his nose. Inside was a white bodysuit with silver trim, crisply folded and way too clean.

  Emily was standing there in his oversized red hoodie, the one that hung almost to her knees. She was looking at him with those big green eyes of hers.

  Wait, here?" Her eyes darted around the hangar.

  "Take your boxes to your cabin if you want, Em, but they're coming and we've got no time to waste." Luca stripped without ceremony, pulling his ruined shirt over his head, "Let's go."

  That got everyone moving.

  Privacy was a luxury they couldn't afford, not with enemy shuttles closing in. Ryan was already down to his boxers, Chris peeling off his t-shirt, Danny fumbling with his orange hoodie like he'd forgotten how undressing worked.

  Emily grabbed her uniform and nudged Zoe. "Come on. Our cabins aren't that far."

  Zoe grinned rolling her eyes. "Well, if the UER are about to blow us to bits, might as well get a last look. " She leaned against a crate, arms folded. "Go on boys, don't mind us."

  "Not funny, Zo." Emily grabbed Zoe's arm. "_We're_changing in privacy." She rolled her eyes at the guys. "Let's go!"

  Out the hangar doors they went.

  Trying not to smile, Luca shook his head and turned back to his uniform. Time to get to work.

  The white bodysuit felt like tech-woven armor. Gore-Tex layered over neoprene, compressed tight. Reinforced panels at knees and elbows, elastic weave promising vacuum-proof seal in a pinch._Professional gear for professional idiots,_he thought, stepping out of his jeans.

  Putting it on was pure struggle. The suit stretched but compressed everything: every scar, every muscle knot, with zero margin for comfort. Emily had bragged about cut-and-friction protection, smartsuit properties, but right now the slick fabric bit into raw blisters on his palms. Luca yanked the zipper up.

  "Fuck," he muttered under his breath.

  Danny adjusted his uniform, dark blue trim making his red hair look even brighter. "These are actually pretty comfortable," he said, flexing experimentally.

  "Should be, considering what we paid," Zoe said, reentering with Emily close behind. Both zipped up, new boots on.

  "Alright, listen up." Luca forced himself to focus. "We need the main thrusters online, and we need them now. Zoe, Ryan, Chris, and Danny, you're on diagnostics. Emily, Joey, bridge for power management."

  Ryan cracked his knuckles, grinning. "Finally, something I actually know how to do."

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "Try not to blow anything up this time," Luca said.

  "Where's the fun in that?"

  The engineering team disappeared into the ship's guts, leaving the bridge in a state of tense quiet. Luca paced behind the command stations, the nervous energy making it impossible to stand still. He looked at the shrink-wrapped chairs stacked against the bulkhead. They couldn't just stand around waiting. They needed to make this place a functional command center.

  "Joey, give me a hand." Luca tore plastic off the nearest chair. "Let's get these bolted down."

  For the next hour, chaos ruled the bridge. Luca and Joey worked on securing command chairs, the repetitive task a welcome anchor against the madness their ship had become. Each wrench turn was a small victory against the complete clusterfuck they were in. At her station, Emily coordinated with the team below, rerouting power and watching their struggling systems.

  The radio crackled. It was Ryan.

  "Luca," he said, like he was delivering someone's death sentence. "This is worse than we thought. The sabotage runs deep. It wasn't only the ignition relay; they corrupted the diagnostic software and fried the primary fuel regulators. This isn't a quick fix. We're looking at minimum five hours before we can even attempt ignition."

  Luca's stomach dropped through the deck. Five hours. UER shuttles would be crawling all over them. "Can you do it faster?"

  "Not unless you want us to skip safety checks and risk venting the core into the asteroid belt," Ryan shot back. "We're moving as fast as we can."

  Silence swallowed the comm line. Five hours. The frantic sprint was over, replaced by a long, agonizing wait for the inevitable. Luca looked at Emily, who'd heard the whole exchange.

  "We'll be ready for them," she said quietly.

  Now came the wait.

  "Headache still killing you?" Emily asked, glancing up from her display.

  "Yeah," he admitted. "But at least doing this," he grunted, tightening a final bolt, "keeps me from going crazy."

  Emily moved to the other side of the bridge, pulling power readouts onto the central display. Joey cleared his throat. "Your heart rate spiked when she walked past," he said casually. "Suit vitals are live."

  Luca didn't look up from the bolt. "You've had four years to get bored of that observation."

  Emily shot Joey a look from her console. "Want to keep your vitals stable? Stop talking."

  Joey coughed. "Copy that, XO."

  She knelt beside Luca. "You ok?"

  He looked up, meeting her small smirk. "Yeah," he said, quieter than intended. "Didn't expect to be doing any of this. Not this soon."

  She nodded slowly. "None of us did. We're going to be fine," she said softly, and for a second, he almost believed it."

  Joey, likely pretending to be oblivious, called from the rear console again. "You two know this is all getting logged, right?"

  "Joey," they both said at once.

  Luca gave him a look that said shut the hell up, but Joey grinned anyway.

  Static crackled from the radio, then Zoe's voice came through crystal clear. "Fuel feed pressure is nominal. Plasma injectors are cold but responding to test signals."

  Emily reached out and tapped the console, pulling up the same data on the forward screen.

  "Uh, I think the relays are good. Probably." Danny's voice followed, way more hesitant. "I mean... I'll double-check the secondaries to be safe."

  "That's the confidence I love to hear, Danny," Luca cut in. "Let's try not to explode, okay?"

  Emily frowned at her readings. "Containment looks good. Power's flowing to the manifold."

  "Ignition circuits testing clean," Zoe cut in, all business now. "Magnetic containment stable. We'll need to do a manual startup, but fuel pump pressure is... actually better than I expected."

  Back to the next bolt, Luca tried not to stare at Emily crouched beside her panel. One knee bent, fingers absently tapping her thigh as she ran through checklists.

  Not nervous exactly. But definitely keyed up. He could tell by the way she chewed the inside of her cheek, something she only did when deep in the zone.

  "Manual startup?" He realized. Did Zoe just say that? "What happened to automatic?"

  "Automatic needs the ship's computer to have full diagnostic data on every component," Danny explained, like he was teaching kindergarten. "Which we don't have. That's probably why Zoe keeps frying the electronics every time she tries igniting the thrusters."

  "Hey!" Zoe's protest crackled through. "I resent that! It means we do this manually, by hand."

  Emily looked at him, then hit the radio. "Alright. Confirm when you're ready to begin pre-burn procedures."

  "Copy that," Ryan's voice came through, deeper and more solid than the others. "Zoe's taking lead. I've got safety interlocks and manual overrides. Danny's on redundancy checks."

  "You're letting Zoe take point?" Luca said into the mic.

  "I can still tackle her if she messes up," Ryan answered. "Engineering teamwork." He swore he heard Chris scoff before Ryan turned off the radio link.

  Sitting back on his heels, Luca shot Emily a look. "This doesn't exactly inspire confidence."

  "Hey, bridge," Zoe's voice came back, completely deadpan. "I heard that. Choosing to take it as a compliment."

  "Can confirm," Joey snorted. "Zoe's heart rate just spiked."

  "Joey," Emily said, but she was smiling.

  Luca rose to his feet and stretched, the bodysuit pulling tight across his shoulders. The bridge was starting to feel smaller, even with only the three of them. The light from the forward displays reflected in Emily’s eyes, and for a second, he didn’t want to leave this spot. Not yet.

  "Once we're flying," he said, keeping his voice low, "we're going to have to figure out a real shift rotation. People are running on fumes."

  He moved to the next chair. One bolt at a time. That’s how you keep the ship together.

  https://discord.gg/JkDC3CJupC

  https://www.nasa.gov/niac-funded-studies/

  https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/niac-studies/pulsed-plasma-rocket-ppr-shielded-fast-transits-for-humans-to-mars/

  https://www.colorado.edu/faculty/kantha/sites/default/files/attached-files/webber_vasimr.pdf