Flawless

<snip>
"Ok." Jay said, interrupting. "We can still use parts from this ship. I'll take the Huzzard and Kenneth, and we'll try to take out the scavengers. You three stay here" he said, indicating White Wolf, Jamie and Cass "and see if you can figure out how to use it."
</snip>
"How many times?" Cass bristled
Jay's shoulders sagged.
"Yeah, yeah, okay" he sighed "You're not crew and I shouldn't order you around; but in this instance would you mind staying with Jamie and White Wolf, to help them figure out how to get this ship moving?"
"How hard can it be?" Cass sighed "The main question is whether we can figure a way to tear the core out of this crate and use it in the Dwarf"
"Like I said," Jamie interjected "we can't have the core without the Q-T drive"
"Then it's useless to us" Cass shrugged
"If we can use the drive, it'll be so much faster than the Dwarf!"
"Q-T drives were something of a technological blind alley" White Wolf said gently "Nobody could ever figure the radiation problem out"
"Yeah, but with enough shielding" Jamie's brow knotted as he worked the power ratios out in his head "We're maybe looking at speeds in excess of a hundred times the speed light; maybe more!"
"Even at five hundred c, it'll still take us more than a hundred years to get home," Cass countered "and the radiation... We're not looking at comic book mutations here – We're going to get cancer"
She paused to look between the other Dwarfer's, all squeezed into the little shuttle bay control room together
"Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want that" she continued softly "I saw the way my mother died; so I'm in no hurry get back to whatever remains of Earth. I like my life here."
"Is there nothing we can do about the radiation?" Jay asked "You have to admit that this ship is way better than the Dwarf. If we could figure something out, it would be nice to live on a ship where things actually work!"
"Could we not cannibalise a few stasis pods and engineer us a phased stasis shield?" Jamie suggested
"This is way out my field of expertise," Cass admitted "but as far as I understand the theory, the radiation is emitted as a result of manipulating the zero-point field to enable the tunnelling; so in all likelihood, we're going to see it inside even stasis shielding"
"Ms. Jones is indeed correct" Kenneth nodded "The drive functions by dramatically reducing the zero point energy in and around the ship; this enables the macro-scale quantum tunnelling which moves the whole ship forward. The radiation is a simple by-product of the energy put into the system and, as such, will be all pervasive; even inside shielding units"
"I just said that," Cass scowled "but thanks for the exposition"
"You're very welcome" Kenneth replied, without even the remotest hint of irony.
"So what actually happened to the crew?" White Wolf asked "We know they had to abandon this ship; but where did they go?"
"Not sure" Cass replied. She span in her chair and turned back to the terminal she was working on "Here are the crew's personal logs" she pointed up at a data schematic displayed on one of the screens, her index finger tracking down the list "The last entry is from a Doctor Miranda Holland."
Pausing, she quickly tracked the related log entries back through the revision tree and dumped a transcript of the results to the screen, her eyes narrowing for a couple of seconds as she scrolled rapidly through the text
"Seems like they were too far out by the time they realised the radiation was a major issue. There were a couple of deaths and so the doctor ordered the evacuation of the ship. The remainder of the crew apparently set a colony up"
"A colony?" Jay asked, his interest suddenly piqued "Is it nearby?"
"One sec..." Cass frowned up at the screens as she pulled the telemetry records up, the information blurring across the monitors as she executed a complex series of commands "There you go"
"Huh" Jay frowned at the navigation charts "About three hundred light years away - That's not exactly close"
"Is it worthwhile us heading towards there?" Kenneth asked
"What's the point?" Jay shrugged "It's ancient history; and besides which, we've seen evidence of human activity on some of the other planets we've visited – We'll find some useful equipment soon enough"
He turned to go
"C'mon Kenny, let's go do something about those scavengers"
"There's no need" Cass called back over her shoulder "All we need to do..." she murmured, her fingers moving over the controls "is lock the ship down and then simply purge the atmosphere. There!" she swivelled back around in her chair to smile up at Jay "Job done"
"I..."
"What?"
"I was going to try and negotiate"
"Oh" Cassandra's face fell and she hurriedly turned back to pull up a few security feeds of several obese and vaguely humanoid creatures, currently engaged in stripping the ship of anything useful "It'll be a minute or two before most of them notice - Do you want me to cancel the purge?"
"Bollocks" Jay leaned in to frown at the waddling bags of warts and pus shown on the monitors "Malodorians"
"What are they?" Jamie asked, his mouth curling in distaste "I've never seen or even heard of them"
"We had a few run-ins with them before you joined us" Jay said, straightening again "They're unpleasant"
"Degenerate scum would be more accurate" Cass interjected "They'd cheerfully torture you to death and then spend the next month fucking your rotting corpse"
"Yeah, they could be something of a problem" Jay said heavily "How many are there?"
"Motion sensors are reporting around thirty in four different locations. It's not a problem – they'll be dead soon"
"I'm uncomfortable with just killing them without provocation" Jay shook his head "Open escape routes back to their ship - Let's see if we can't just flush them out of here"
"Well, I haven't got a problem with killing them" Cass grumbled belligerently, but she acceded to his request and began unlocking the various doors back towards the airlock the Malodorian's shuttle had docked against.
"That's done" she said after a moment "Although you've got about ten minutes to change your mind – Survivors are bad news; they'll track this ship back to the Dwarf if they're able – and then we'll just have to kill them anyway, while we're fighting to protect our home"
"If we can get this ship moving," White Wolf suggested "we could use the Q-T drive to move out of their sensor range before swinging around back to the Dwarf; the radiation exposure will be well within tolerable limits"
Cass wrinkled her nose "Yeah, that would work; but surely their long range scanners would be able to track us?"
Her terminal chimed a notification and she fumbled it out of her pocket "Ah, great. Holly and I have been working to use our distance from the Dwarf here, to perform a triangulation - We've found Plisken" she fell silent for a moment while she absorbed the information on the device's screen "Bugger"
"Where is he?" Jay asked, his eyes not leaving the Malodorians on the security feeds, who had just noticed the change in the air pressure
"Fernando's"
"You what!?"
"See for yourself" Cass held the terminal out for everyone to inspect and cycled the triangulation results through, back through to their source
"Oh, for Pete's sake" Jay grumbled, ignoring Jamie's sudden, broad grin
"We can't really abandon him, can we?" Cass said slowly "He's one of us"
"No" Jay said emphatically "We don't leave one of our own behind"
"Yeah, but... Fernando's?"
"Oh, wait up" Jamie pointed at the monitors "We've got movement"
Sure enough the Malodorian's were on the move; the low air pressure apparently having ruptured one or two of the larger pustules crowding several of the degenerate creatures filthy skin, leaving them streaked with bloody discharge.
In almost no time, the panicking scavengers were herded through the ship by the rapidly depleting air supply and out through the airlock, onto their shuttle.
"That went astonishingly well" Cass muttered in wonder, as airlock spiralled closed behind the last of the creatures.
"Jamie and I think we've figured the navigation and Q-T controls out" White Wolf volunteered from the workstation next to her
Jay raised his eyebrows in surprise – This really was going uncharacteristically well.
"Do you think we engage the drive with the Malodorian's ship still docked to us by an umbilical?" he asked
"It should just shear off the instant we engage the drive" Jamie nodded
"Should or will?"
"It will" White Wolf said emphatically
Jay shrugged and took a deep breath "I guess there's one way to find out: Hit it"
A dull, resounding boom echoed through the ship as Jamie activated the drive, followed by absolute silence.
Everyone looked at each other.
"We're still here" Cass said suspiciously "Did it work?"
"The drive's working flawlessly" Jamie reported
"And the Malodorians?"
"Far behind us"
They waited in silence for a moment longer; but nothing continued to happen
Eventually, Jay cleared his throat.
"Cass... Could you just check the sensors for me?"
"I'm already on it"
"There are no alien battle fleets or doomsday devices out there, are there?"
"Nope"
"No wormholes or dimensional portals, or other weird spatial anomalies?"
"None of those either" Cass slowly shook her head
"Huh" Jay was silent for a bit "So there's nothing out there?"
"Nothing but empty space"
They lapsed back into an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes before Cass eventually piped up
"Is anyone else getting weirded out by this?"


The mission continued to remain problem free over the course of the next few hours while the Dwarfer's looped the Sovereign around in a wide arc away from the Malodorians and back towards their beleaguered home.
Arriving back just under five hours later, Jay expertly guided the comparatively tiny Sovereign into one of the Dwarf's larger shuttle bays and only finally slumped back into his seat as the docking clamps engaged with an echoing boom.
"That went alarmingly well" he murmured in the silence that followed, still somewhat unable to believe that nothing bad had happened.
"Holly reports everything's fine here as well" Cass frowned down at her terminal "No lives lost, no STCP incursions, no more critical systems going offline" she glanced around at her compatriots "I think we did it"
Everyone blew out a collective sigh of relief as Jay pushed himself to his feet
"Right" he said decisively "Jamie, White Wolf: We need this ship's reactor core wiring into our main power grid. I don't care how you do it, but we need it sooner rather than later – I want us to be able to move under our own power within the next eight hours. Cass..." her eyes flicked sharply up to meet his "Would you mind working with Jade and getting Jaxx fixed up? – A deal's a deal and we're going to need him when we go back to Fernando's
"Kenneth: I want you and Prichard, wherever the fuck he's got to, to review the sensor data from the field systems surrounding Fernando's and work together on building a shielding unit that will stop us crash landing as soon as we enter the atmosphere; Cass mimicked the fields to keep the nanophage virus dormant while I was ill, so work with her notes if necessary"
"And what about you, Jay?" Cass favoured him with an expectant smile
"I'll help wherever I can"


<tag>
Okay people, there we have it – You've got your orders and once we get power back on in the Dwarf, we've got a bit of travel time before we get back to Fernando's, so what do you do with the time?

Jaxx – If you want to post, just assume that the procedure was successful and go for it – You're back! We could do with a little help getting equipment together for the rescue
Plisken: You're being held in a specially shielded facility on Fernando's. High-tech will work in the base but not outside – Can you escape? What's outside?
If you can't escape, let's have a description of the facility and its defences – everyone else is on the way in to rescue you.
</tag>