Empire Reforged
Chapter 3: Fault Lines and Orders
Location: IPV-120 Vigilance, Docked at Centares Orbital Depot
Date: BBY 8 – 1700 Hours
The mess hall was smaller than regulation standard. A single row of fold-out tables stretched from one bulkhead to the other, scuffed from years of hasty meal cycles and poor maintenance. The overhead lighting buzzed with a low-frequency hum that irritated the ear after more than a minute. The air smelled of ration powder and recycled protein paste.
Lucan Virex sat at the end of the table, his back to the bulkhead, sipping a metallic-tasting cup of station-brewed caf. He had no tray. He wasn't there to eat.
He was there to observe.
The crew filtered in over the next fifteen minutes. In small clumps, mostly by department—engineering on the left, gunnery in the middle, navigation and comms by the dispenser. Few spoke above a murmur. A few glanced his way, quickly looked away. The comms officer with the tattoos—Valk, according to the logs—kept her eyes on him longer than the others.
Lucan didn't acknowledge her. He didn't speak. He simply watched.
He wanted them to feel the tension. Wanted them to remember that this wasn't a ghost ship anymore. The Navy had returned.
Selene Darran appeared in the hatchway, nodded once at Lucan, then joined the engineering crew with a tray and a quiet word. The tension in the room eased slightly with her presence. That was useful. She was the unofficial center of the crew's respect. He could build on that—if she didn't turn against him.
Lucan finished his caf, stood, and left without a word.
—
He made his way down to engineering.
The main power core of the Vigilance was a BX-4 fission-thrust reactor, over three decades old. Once reliable, it now whined and surged in irregular pulses, barely calibrated. Two crewmen were hunched over the control panel, manually synchronizing the secondary regulators. One of them—a stocky man with cybernetic implants behind his ears—glanced up as Lucan entered, then returned to his work.
Lucan moved to the main console and activated the maintenance log.
Diagnostics: 37% reactor efficiency.
Cooling systems: flagged yellow.
Power distribution: uneven.
Hyperdrive calibration: 11% variance, bordering failure thresholds.
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
The logs told a story of neglect—not laziness, but exhaustion. The engineering crew had been keeping the ship alive with scrap and desperation. No refits, no proper replacement parts. Just grit.
"Lieutenant Virex?" a voice said behind him.
Lucan turned.
The engineer was young—mid-twenties, wiry, with dark hair tied back in a utilitarian knot. His gloves were covered in carbon scoring, and he held a hydrospanner like it was a weapon.
"Chief Engineer Holtz," the man said, offering a half-salute. "Officially. Though unofficially, I've been 'that poor bastard stuck in the crawlspace' for the last two years."
Lucan nodded. "Report."
Holtz tilted his head. "Straight? You've got a reactor core that should've been pulled from service five years ago, a starboard coolant line that leaks under stress, and a hyperdrive motivator that sometimes decides it's a blender. But... we're spaceworthy. Barely."
"How many systems are bypassed?"
"Four primary. Seven secondaries. Life support, stabilizers, inertial compensators all jury-rigged."
"Replace the coolant line first. Prioritize hyperdrive calibration. I want minimal variance by patrol launch."
Holtz blinked. "You serious?"
"Do I appear otherwise?"
"Right. Yes, sir."
Lucan tapped the console. "You'll have two extra crew pulled from life support detail. Full shift rotations. If you need scrap, requisition it. If the Depot won't give it, take it from wreck storage. Quietly."
Holtz grinned despite himself. "You're not like the others."
"I'm not here to be."
—
By 1900 hours, the lights in the forward corridor had been replaced.
The flickering bulkhead panels now shone steady, clean. It was minor, but it mattered. Lucan paused outside the bridge and watched as two crewmen finished installing the new conduits. Neither acknowledged him. He didn't expect them to. Not yet.
He entered the bridge.
It was quiet, except for the soft whir of the sensor arrays booting into calibration mode. The command consoles were aged, but functional. The main viewport showed the edge of Centares, a molten-yellow crescent overlaid by static from the incomplete sensor grid.
Darran was at the nav console, cross-checking course data.
"Lieutenant," she said, not turning around. "We received a ping from Depot Command. They want an updated launch ETA."
"Tell them thirty-six hours, on schedule."
"Still planning to take the ship out?"
Lucan stepped beside her. "Do you doubt it can fly?"
"No. I doubt they care."
Lucan studied the nav chart. Patrol route: Centares to Beldiris Belt, then out to Gorin Relay and back. Three systems. Twenty-seven hours round trip. Standard recon lane. Unlikely to encounter anything but debris and false signals.
Which made it perfect for a combat readiness evaluation.
"I'll be conducting bridge drills tonight," he said. "Navigation, gunnery, damage control. No one's exempt."
Darran finally looked at him. "You're not going to win them over by working them into the deckplates."
"They don't need to like me. They need to function."
She studied him for a long moment. "You're sharp. Maybe too sharp for this ship."
Lucan glanced at the viewport. "Then I'll sharpen the ship to match."
—
The ship's alarm klaxon echoed through the corridors at 2300 hours.
"Drill alert. Condition Yellow. All primary crew to duty stations."
Lucan stood in the center of the bridge as the crew filtered in, groggy but moving. Darran took her seat at command nav, Holtz at engineering. Valk, the tattooed comms officer, arrived last, chewing on a stim stick and giving him a challenging look.
"Simulated reactor surge in thirty seconds," Lucan said calmly. "Fire control teams to standby. Engineering reroute power through secondary regulators. Gunnery crews to tracking stations. Communications—initiate fleet beacon scramble and isolate primary channel."
The bridge snapped into movement. Some hesitated. Some didn't.
The ship groaned as simulated power fluctuations were fed into the system. Lights dimmed. Panels flickered. The floor vibrated faintly under Lucan's boots.
Holtz's voice barked over internal comms. "Regulators holding. Cooling line strain at twenty-one percent—well within tolerances."
"Fire control systems ready," came another voice. "Simulated target locked."
Lucan turned slowly, observing every station. No shouting. No panic. Just tension.
"Bridge drill complete," he said finally. "Condition Green. Stand down."
The tension released like a coiled spring. Crew slumped slightly in their seats. Valk pulled out the stim stick and tossed it in a bin.
Lucan let the silence hang a moment longer.
"Better," he said.
He turned and left the bridge.
The ship didn't feel like a wreck tonight.
It felt like it was waking up.