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JD stood off to one side and watched the Pursers going through the stacks of crates. Chief Medical Officer Nalen was there with her datapad and Lieutenant Arwan, the ship's head chef was also there. Bonnie was loitering off to one side, datapad in hand, chatting excitedly to Tristan and Shadow. They were inspecting a trio of crates intently, peering inside them, chuckling every-now-and-then. JD cocked his head, trying to listen in, but the feverish activity surrounding him on the dock drowned most conversation out. He had powerful hearing, but the giant power tools being used on the Jinx was loud enough to drown out the noise from an entire street bazaar

'Captain?' A voice said.

He turned around. Standing a few feet behind, looking at him tentatively, was a slim, dark blue demoness, dark yellow horns rising from a cascade of fiery hair. Glowing blue irises sat in orbs of black, examining him critically. She flicked her tail in curiosity.

'I'm off duty, so you can drop the formalities.' He said, a small smile forming on his lips.

A few quick strides closed the distance between them and Saleen buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms around him.

'Thought you were going to die.' She mumbled pathetically into his broad chest.

He kissed the top of her head, between her horns, chuckling softly.

'Takes a bit more than an alien mushroom to do me in.' JD said, stroking her hair soothingly.

She looked up at him and went up on her toes to peer over his shoulder.

'Dad?'

'Mm?'

'Are you spying on Chief Coltan?'

'A little bit. You know what Sponge Cake is?' He asked her as she pulled away from him.

She cocked her head and stared at him curiously. 'It's a type of cake. Are sure you're feeling well?' She said slowly.

'Apart from a headache and some mild fatigue, I'm fine. What I meant was, Bonnie's ordered crates of something and she's had it labelled on the shipment manifest as Sponge Cake. I know Bonnie. What's in those crates certainly isn't sponge cake.'

'I pilot a starfighter. The Legionaries only come to our decks when they want a ride to their next kill zone. And mum hasn't said anything. Why don't you just go over there? You're the captain, you can pretty much do what you want.'

'You have a long way to go before you reach the rank of captain.' He said. He paused, his focus shifting from Saleen back to the crates. 'As curious as I am, I'm more concerned about our missiles. Do me a favour, Sal. Go over there and use your mother as leverage to horn your way into the conversation. Then let me know what Bonnie's up to.'

Saleen gave him one last hug and jogged across the dock to join the Legionaries. JD watched them a few moments longer, then turned around and headed toward the station lifts. He, Umber and Blacktip had a long - no doubt a particularly one-sided - discussion with Vice Admiral Osharra to endure. Thankfully, the debriefing was being held via vid-link. They had been given permission to use the Impart ansible to conduct their business, which, naturally, had come at a cost.

Vice Admiral N'kat Osharra was pale skinned, dark haired and very, very angry. The Jes'wan sat in his office back on Nuam, decked out in his dress uniform, the banner of the Shadow Stalkers hanging from the wall behind him, flanked by heavily loaded bookshelves. Osharra had just spent the last forty minutes reaming JD, Umber and Blacktip with his own idea of how he would have handled the situation with Admiral Meeshan, and that Meeshan was right to issue the Rite of Shattering. Of course, when JD had pointed out the slight breach in the rules of the Rite - using a tainted weapon to gain the upper hand - Osharra had conveniently ignored him. JD was left to grind his teeth in frustration as Osharra continued his angry tirade. He had gradually, angrily, worked his way through the mission report, pointing out every tiny flaw - as he saw it.

JD and Umber were sitting either side of Captain Blacktip in the small conference room, both Demon and Shadow Dragon trying not to wince from the anger rolling from the Shark's aura in thick, stifling waves. The trio had given up attempting to speak to Osharra until he had run out of breath, which didn't appear to be happening any time soon. Regardless of the extra money earned, Osharra had relieved Blacktip of the rank of Commodore. The damage to the three ships was too much and the loss of life was too great for such a simplistic mission, the Vice Admiral had stated. Osharra had lost his faith in Blacktip's ability to successfully lead a task force, so he would have to take another run at gaining the rank of Commodore if he was ever presented with the opportunity again. Captain Umber's outburst was also discussed. The Dragon decided to keep her mouth clamped firmly shut, but JD could feel her dark magic slowly filling the room, leaving him with the feeling of sitting in the slowly rising waters of a cold bog.

It took another twenty minutes for Osharra to subside. He looked hard at them through the large viewscreen, his jaw set, eyes ablaze.

'Do you have anything to add to this mockery of duty?' He asked coldly.

An explanation as to how you passed your last psych-eval would be nice. JD thought acidly. 'Do I get to keep my ship?' He asked instead, fighting hard to keep his tone even and as civil as possible.

'Yes, Captain D'armeus. You do.' Osharra sounded almost disappointed with the news. 'For some reason, there's someone above me that has taken quite the shine to you.'

'Like who?' Blacktip asked curiosly.

'If I find out, I'll be sure to send them to the Chief Pyschiatrist for an evaluation, because I can't see how anybody could like someone who actively causes that much damage to not only his ship, but to contracts as well. The three of you have been a disgrace this run. Five failed missions between you and yet someone insists on keeping you in charge of ships of war. By this point, your performance record couldn't even get you a purser position on a freighter.' He shook his head. 'Never mind. What's done is done. Regardless of the money you've brought in, you still fucked up. The Candaran world government has blacklisted us. Not one of our ships is to cross their primary star system border thanks to you three. I suggest you get your ships as space worthy as possible, load up and get your asses back to Nuam for proper repairs ASAP.' Without further words, Vice Admiral Osharra cut the link.

'I would love nothing more than to break every bone in his body. Load him up with stims and just go to town. One bone at a time.' Umber growled, clenching her fists on the table top.

'I can't believe he's blaming this shit show on us.' Blacktip said angrily. He rose from his chair and stretched, heaving a tired sigh. He paced slowly around the room, hands at his back, tail lashing from side to side in agitation. 'I wonder what his game is.'

'Drinking games, probably.' JD said.

Blacktip shook his head, a sense of defeat settling across him, dampening the flames of anger that had built up within him. 'Don't. There's already enough rumours about him to overweigh a super freighter's rated tonnage. We don't need any more. I suggest you both go about your business. Head out to Nuam as soon as you get the go ahead. Dismissed.'

JD stood in the officer's lounge, looking out the broad, floor-to-ceiling window. Below, locked into a nest of hydraulic scaffolding, umbilicals plugged into its systems, was the Jinx. In the repair slip beyond the Jinx was the Reaper, locked down in the same way. Workers - both Impart and Shadow Stalkers engineers and techs - scrambled all over the two multi-role destroyers, clad in armoured vac-suits and wielding various tools. Seeing the two ships under the harsh lights of a repair slip, their matte black hulls on display for everyone to see, it was easy to see why Impart Station could not provide all the proper repairs necessary to make the ships combat worthy again. Holes and rents in the armour were being patched up with huge slabs of grey, ceramic coated steel. A new comms array was being plugged in; a brash fountain of flexible white whiskers protruding from halfway down the ship's spine, a wild display of antenna jutting up from the rear of the tinted transparasteel observation blister. It almost reminded JD of a rogue tuft of hair. Thankfully, he mused, the _Jinx_wouldn't retain its cowlick for long. It was a temporary thing, tacked on to the remains of the existing communications array. It would allow for long distance communication, small, FTL broadcasts and give them their video feed back.

Looking down at the reports from his various department heads involved in helping the Impart personnel working on the ship, the whole communications suite, right down to the smallest CPU, would have to removed and replaced. As would the sublights, which would mean there was a possibility they would be getting a new slipdrive. It all depended on the age of the replacement sublights or if they were getting a new set of the ones they currently had. The shield generators had been replaced, too, and the beam weapons had been removed to allow for the super structure of the ship to be properly investigated. No issues had been registered thus far, so he had no doubt that the beam weapons would be re-attached and re-connected to the weapons systems.

'She doesn't look nearly as bad as the Reaper. My old lady's got some serious issues.' Umber padded up beside him and looked out at the damaged ships, folding her arms across her ample chest.

'How bad is it?'

'I got one sublight left operating at full capacity. No missiles on the rimward flank. My beam weapons' mountings have been bent out of shape, so I need a new bracket mount for both. Half my point-defences are out of action and I have no long-range sensors. Life support is still questionable; there's a bug in the system and Chief Tech Oomari is having the time of his life trying to find it. Artificial gravity gyros have all shorted out, so inertial compensation's out of the airlock, too. I got four of my rail guns left, a fully functioning comms suite and my slipdrive's still good to go, so there's that.' She said, ticking off points on her fingers.

JD breathed out slowly. He hadn't realised just how much damage the Reaper had taken. Sending the ship out with no escort in such a condition, even for a Point-A to Point-B run between friendly ports was out of the question.

'Impart making any decent progress?' He asked.

'Some. They're patching up the hull nicely, but I'm still thinking I'm going to need to contact one of our Big Boys for a tow.' She looked at him, worried. 'Even with the repairs, I don't feel confident in taking the Reaper into the slipstream.'

'Hell, if I were you, I'd be putting in that call now.' JD said honestly. 'I got more drives than you and a working AG-system, and I'm still not happy about taking the Jinx into the slipstream.'

Umber worried her bottom lip. 'I might just do that...' She said and wandered away.

'Hey, do the initials G. A. N mean anything to you?' He called after her.

She paused mid-step and turned back around, her brow furrowed. 'Kinda. Why?'

'Well, my missile re-supply got cancelled. The cancellation had a small text memo attached to it: 'Sit tight, I've got you covered - G. A. N.' Ring any bells?'

'General Ajax Newark. But I can't really see him having the clout to cancel a re-supply for a ship's munitions and ordnance. He's in the wrong heirarchy for that. The Legionares are his, not the ships and sailors. But he's the only one I can think of right now that fits those initials.' She said after a moments' thought. 'Anything else?'

'No, that's it. Thank you, Umber.' He murmered, staring at his ship.

He downed what was left of his drink, a sour tasting black liquid that did little to revitalize his senses, but was just enough to keep the fatigue at bay, and left the captain's lounge, heading for the dock the Jinx had been assigned. It was time to put one mystery to bed and he knew where to find the woman who could help him.

'Sponge Cake? Hah! I tagged it as that to avoid as much scrutiny as possible the moment I found out that Vice Admiral Osharra was overseeing our re-supply shipment as well as the mission. He's already cancelled our missiles, he ain't cancelling my new toys.' Bonnie said, hefting a bulky rifle clad in black and grey insulated ceramics and rubbers. She snapped open the breech to reveal the inner workings of the heavy rifle; an electromagnet coil was slotted and secured in place within the rifle's body, replacing the battery and capacitor rigs of the railguns they typically used. The new rifle was a .50 caliber monster and not one JD had seen before. And judging by the gleam in the Horse's brown eyes, it was one of the newest guns on the market.

'Last I checked, railguns, no matter the size, are not classed as confectionery.' JD stated reprovingly.

'Aye, but I find a well crafted weapon to be just as satisfying as a well baked cake.' She smiled, snapping the breech shut and handing the demon the gun to inspect. She knew it wouldn't take many seconds to win him over once he got his hands on it.

He tested its weight, turned to face the bulkhead wall and pressed the stock against his shoulder as he sighted down its one meter length.

'We got high-end digital scopes and the more basic scopes to go with them. Each gun comes with five magazines as standard. Each magazine has a capacity of thirty rounds. So long as the round's a fifty in size, the mag'll accept it. Anything smaller than that has to be manually loaded like an old school rifle. The coil set-up saves weight and battery power, too, since it's not loaded down with loads of little individual internal battery packs and magnets. With our railguns, we can empty ten magazines, easy, before running out of juice. They're too chunky, too and not easy to jury-rig for a team of various sized misfits like us. They're good looking in an ugly way, granted, but when you've been slogging through mud and guts for the last ten hours without rest, they become a serious hinderance. These gauss rifles are much lighter and the energy is rated for double the performance. They're a lot easier to adjust to the wielder's size, too. It's easier to make field-repairs, and they're cheaper to manufacture now the kinks have been ironed out.'

'Where'd you buy them from?' JD wondered aloud. He turned to a sealed crate of MREs that were awaiting loading and started field-stripping the rifle. He studied its guts, admired its raw form and put it back together again. He looked at Bonnie. She was still grinning like a kid who had just been given free run of the sweet shop.

'I got a friend in the heavy infantry corps over on Panzaaria. He said all field tests were positive, with the usual niggles about balance and fire rate, but their recent run-in with Engarren Sectionists on Vilus sealed the deal. The moment the first group of Sectionists were dealt with, the manufacturer took the field reports as the green light to start mass producing for the military, including their allies. I cannot wait to take these out into the field.'

'Careful what you wish for.' JD warned, handing the gauss rifle back to her.

'I gave up wishing when I was a foal. Didn't do me much good.' She shrugged and flipped the rifle up, resting it across her shoulder in an easy, relaxed fashion. 'So, you figure out why we have no missiles?'

'It turns out that it was probably General Newark who cancelled them.' He replied blandly, turning to look up at the mangled flank of the Jinx as the next slab of gray armour plating was welded into place.

Bonnie was quiet for a moment, her eyes glazing over as she thought hard. 'Any reason why he cancelled them? If it was him, that is.'

'No. Just says he's got us covered.'

'Hm. Interesting.' She murmered softly. 'Lemme make some calls, see if can find anything out for you.'

'Much appreciated, Chief.' He sighed tiredly.

He looked up at his ship again, watching the progress of repairs. Everything was moving so swiftly and going so well, that the Jinx would be able to leave the slip under her own power and head out for Nuam for full repair and refit within another two days. He immediately became suspicious. He checked his datapad. Nothing new had been reported, so he decided to head to his quarters for some rest. His department heads had everything in hand and had their crews on rotation so as not to wear them out too badly, so he doubted he would be missed.