Shoot for Earth: MedSci Missions 3

Arfus spoke up. “I’ve arranged with Admiral Eats for he and I to join a party of Sixers on Heracles that will board the Shadowstar. The Poid ship will keep Shadowstar’s crew distracted until we destroy their weapons. We’ll board via a break we’ll form in the docking door. We’ll then find their intel on the Pandora infectious DNA and bring it back to Chiron.”
Walsh looked somewhat relieved. “Ok,” the Captain said. “Bold plan. Suitably so, under the circumstances. I’ll pilot another fighter for backup.”
Alarmed, O’Bien said, “Captain, we need you on Chiron. It’s a dangerous mission.”
“Ma’am,” Walsh said drily, “in case you forgot, an AI bot is in command, and doing a bang-up job.”
“But –”
Walsh shook his head firmly. “But I remember you agreed you wouldn’t give operational orders to my crew. Right now, I’m crew.”
O’Bien wrinkled her brow with exasperation. “I did say that.”
“I’d better gear up,” Walsh said, straightening. “Woon should be picking you up soon, and we can talk in person. Walsh out.”
When he got to the hangar bay after an hour of preparations, he was pleased to find Woon and his team disembarking from Peleus on schedule.”
“Great to see you, Woon!” he peeked behind him, and a minute later asked, “Where’s the Ambassador?”
“They insisted she stay to complete compensation negotiations. She convinced the Taslamin the rest of us should fly up to increase the chance of mission success.”
“She’s a hostage?” the Captain asked sharply.
“No!” Woon paused for thought. “Maybe. A well treated one.”
Walsh grimaced. “We’d better make this work.”
“Yes, Captain san!”
“Ok, I’ll run control from space, as much as Arfus will allow. I’m also backing you up.”
“Understood, sir.”
Twenty minutes later, they launched.