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wore a single silver thermskin suit, and her skin was pale with a cream-­like quality to it.
    â€œI would believe you.” Morwyn plugged in a fiber-­optic cable and smiled when it glowed green.
    â€œOur astrocharts are back online.” Lizbeth was visibly happy as she called this out. She would need those charts if there were to be any hope of safe return to Central Point. Plugged into the ship, she was now capable of “seeing” through the various cameras and sensors on board. The Jinxed Thirteenth was effectively an extension of her body. And while Morwyn had a personal neurolink interface grafted at the base of his neck that allowed him to upload situational combat information to any operative under his command once he was plugged in, he could not begin to imagine what it was like to “feel” the entirety of the ship as part of oneself.
    Morwyn pulled himself out from beneath the console. “Good to know we will be able to find our way back to Central Point when we are mobile once more.”
    â€œCould be a long while before we get ourselves to that point,” a snarky voice barked out over the coms link. Morwyn looked out the main bridge view port to see two shapes walking along the hull outside. One was almost a giant in a clunky orange repair lifesuit. The person in the lifesuit was Kolto, a top graduate from the Engineering Academies of Alexandros. The other, much shorter and in a low-­tech life-­rig made out of fibers rather than composite plastics and metal, was Oran Arterum Nem’Troy, the oldest serving member of the Jinxed Thirteenth and lead machinist.
    â€œMy love and starfire is correct in her assessment, Captain Morwyn,” Kolto added in his deep booming voice, thick with a Thegran accent.
    â€œOf course I’m right! Name one instance where I’ve been wrong,” Oran snapped back at Kolto. The two of them were presently hard at work repairing the ship’s damaged mobility drive.
    â€œWhat new problems have you discovered, Machinist Oran?” Morwyn resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. Nothing was ever simple.
    A little more than a standard year ago, Morwyn Soltaine had been languishing as a Pax Police officer in the violent streets of Barsul, sentenced to uphold the Hegemon’s iron laws in this starkest of ghettos on the world of Ambrosia. Following the council of his friend and mentor Commander Eliana Jafahan, Morwyn had chosen to abandon his claim to Pax Humanis citizenship in exchange for serving the common Humanis good with the Covenant.
    He had been able to gather a skeleton crew for the Jinxed Thirteenth, and Covenant Command at Central Point had given him their blessing. He had then been sent out on his first training mission in End Space. The test was simple enough—­could Morwyn command his crew? Given that they had just barely survived their first rescue mission, his ego-­free assessment of the situation was: he could have done much better.
    â€œ Jinxie ’s mobility drive we can fix no prob.” Oran’s voice was sour. She usually sounded as if she were in a foul mood, although Morwyn had seen her smile once or twice when Kolto managed to sneak in a compliment. The two had met during Kolto’s first tour of ser­vice on the Jinxed Thirteenth and had not only fallen in love, but been promptly wed. Having come from the homogenized Pax Humanis, where mixed unions were typically frowned upon, it had warmed Morwyn’s heart to see that these two truly did love one another.
    â€œWhat is the problem then?”
    â€œWe ain’t got the parts required to repair the slipdrive,” came Oran’s reply.
    â€œOnce again, Captain Morwyn, my solar flare and I are in agreement. We can repair most of Jinxie from here, but unless we get the parts we need for the slipdrive, namely a new fuel line and regulator, we won’t be able to safely slip anywhere,” Kolto explained, his tone