Mentioned in Dispatches

Imperial Cutter "Temeraire"

System HR 5413

203 light years from Sol

The day had one more surprise for us.

We were on our way to set down and run diagnostics when I had my first call to duty of the expedition. A commander had received damage after a run-in with a star and contacted the Hull Seals for assistance. The Seal assigned to help had problems and since I was in the system after the near-disastrous jump, I volunteered my help. Unfortunately by the time I was close to the commander, the original Seal had recovered and carried out the repair. I stood down but later got a message from the Fleet Mechanics Wing leader, thanking us all for our professionalism in difficult circumstances.

Shortly after this, the nav computer started to malfunction in earnest. I realized that the damage was serious and there was little I could do to repair it away from a starport, plus I could get all the systems checked out properly if I dry-docked Temeraire, so after rebooting the system I limped back to the bubble.

It must have been the fastest repair job in history! I really pissed off the maintenance crew, hanging around and pushing them to hurry up. To their credit Temeraire was patched up, recalibrated and back into the black again within an hour.

It wasn’t long before tiredness got the better of me and I had to put down for the night. Setting down on a planet I shut down all but shields and life support and went off to bed via the galley and a bite to eat.

Sleep came quickly, but the creaks of the slowly cooling systems were a little hard to ignore. I will get used to it soon, but it’s still disconcerting on the first night.