The whirring of the engine grew louder. The vibration of it charging until it was ready to launch the ship forward. Maybe the vibrations would make Captain Posey relax. Instead she stood rigid as a support beam in front of the captain’s chair.

The chair was really comfortable. It already had an indent of Charyd’s ass in it, but it was soft. She should probably take a seat. 

“Ten. Nine - We’re going- AND ONE!” shouted Tony.

The ship vaulted forward. Charyd looked forward before his neck got hurt from the sudden strain. He heard Posey sit down and curse. “That’s not a countdown!”

A smile pulled across Charyd’s face. He really wanted to captain this ship again. It was the orca of space, shaking any captain that had not raised it for the asteroid races herself. Charyd held on for months and almost succeeded in breaking the ship if the military hadn’t shown up to take it back. At the time, he was too distracted by the ship to notice the threat that had slowly circled them. Lightning Strike was powerful, but it only fried the computers on the first ship. The second ship it hit had a reboot, and the third barely flinched. The fourth through seventh fighters were not even touched. In the end, they were caught. 

The Gunner Officer straightened himself once the DME corrected the gravitational pull in the Darkstorm. Charyd looked at the map, he smiled when he saw how they were already out of one solar system. “Speed of four KMS reached. The estimated time is now on the display.” He tapped out the navigation screen.

The numbers 00:02:58:56 popped up. Quickly followed by a youthful-shaven man’s face. He wore the high collar of a military officer, no specific rank, and no badges on his narrow frame. “Woah. We can do better.”

Please don’t. 

Charyd still couldn’t understand what was the deal with humans giving all of their tech human faces. It was weird. And this one, Tony, as Captain Posey called it, was even weirder. Especially when it wanted to screw Charyd over. 

Charyd tapped at the map. “Captain, this is the most efficient path.”

“Mmmmm kay. No.” The Darkstorm’s program added a tiny beep in substitute of a tongue clicking. “We can get there a lot faster if we don’t take such a wide girth around a big jolly planet there.”

“Captain, I was having us avoid the rings.”

Captain Posey inclined their head. “Tony, you know your systems. Can you handle the gravitational pull and particles of Planet AT-5540?”

“I’m going to slide on through. You won’t hear a bump on our shell.” A thin long hand pointed to where the time clock was displayed. “We will get there now in this much time.”

He smiled so big that it forced his eyes to close. It was the last image everyone saw before the youth’s face disappeared and the countdown clock changed to 00:01:59:13.

“Excellent Tony.” Captain Posey’s shoulders actually slacked into the chair. “Officer Charyd, take notes.”

If a hammer or wrench was nearby, Charyd would have used it to hit the Darkstorm’s board. Charyd stared at the newly mapped path on his display. He would have to be back at his station in an hour and a half. 

The gunner next to him was busy tapping away at the screens, no doubt adjusting for the change in his own plans. Once he finished, he turned to Charyd and asked, “Hey mate, want to come with me to check the weapons? The pirates left a hilarious piranha design on one of them.”

“You will be cleaning that mark. Now.” Posey's purple eyes, a unique trait for her species, focused on the marksman with a glare so accurate it proved the pin on her chest was not just for show.