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unprepared for what he saw when he stepped through the mess hall hatch. The entire room, which was large enough to sit at least two hundred at once, was covered with sheets of raw molo. There were stacks of it, each piece about a meter square and ten centimeters thick. Tug was leading the workers from the harvesting crew, along with two of the Aurora’s crew, as they removed the outer skin from each piece. After skinning it, they would quarter it and then move it into the galley for cleaning.
    Across the serving counter, Nathan could see several large pots with steam pouring out of them as one of the female workers dumped bowls full of diced molo, as well as some sort of fresh herbs into the pots of boiling water. While there was nothing appetizing about the smell, Nathan knew from experience that when prepared properly, molo was a tasty and nutritious meal. He was just thankful that they had someone on board who knew how to cook it.
    Nathan made his way over to one of his crew, a young technician who was showing one of the workers from Haven how to use the comm-set he was being assigned. “How’s it going?”
    “This is the last one, sir,” the technician answered as he indicated to the worker that he was free to go. “I made a list of all their names, skill sets, and their comm-set ID’s, just like Commander Taylor asked.”
    “Very good. Do me a favor, and make sure they all know that our doctor will be calling them in for physicals at some point over the next few days—if they’re here that long.”
    “Yes, sir,” the technician answered, looking somewhat dejected.
    Nathan was sure that the smell of the molo was getting to the young man. “Don’t worry, it tastes a lot better than it smells.”
    “It would have to, sir.”
    Nathan made his way across the room to where Tug was working. On one of the tables he passed there were several boxes full of some type of prepackaged foods, labeled in a language he didn’t understand. “What’s all that?” he asked Tug as he approached, pointing back toward the boxes.
    “They were on the shuttles,” Tug explained. “It was meant to feed the workers for at least a few days. We thought it might be useful. We might be able to combine some of it with the molo to stretch it a bit further.”
    Nathan looked around at the stacks of molo. “It looks like you’ve already prepped most of it. That was pretty fast.”
    “Actually, about half of the original shipment was ruined during the battle in the hangar bay. I guess a few of your men took cover behind one of the stacks, and it got pretty cooked by energy weapons fire.”
    Nathan grimaced. “So how long will what we have last us?”
    “Including the extra people you took on board today, maybe two weeks. But I understand you have some emergency rations that you pulled from the escape pods?”
    “Yeah, but don’t get your hopes up,” Nathan told him, remembering the noodle and mystery meat that he and Vladimir had been forced to eat just before their trip to Haven. “Most of that stuff is barely edible.” Nathan looked around the room. “Where are the fly boys?”
    “Your new shuttle crew? They’re down in the hangar bay, going over the shuttles to check for damage. I don’t think they were comfortable rubbing elbows with the workers.”
    “Yeah, I can understand that,” Nathan said. “I think I’ll go check on them,” he added as he turned to walk away. “We’re going to have another strategy meeting in about an hour or so,” he called back to him.
    “I’ll be there, Captain.”
    As he headed out the door, one of the female workers stopped him and offered a sample of a type of prepared molo that he had not seen before. They were small, round balls, brownish in color, and covered with a finely ground cracker or cookie of some sort.
    “Would you like to try some, Captain?” the woman asked, holding out the plate in offering.
    “Sure.” Nathan picked up one of the small brown balls and popped it