Ellie tried to run me through a couple of the changes by going over a couple of key points where efficiency had been increased. All that time, she was still profusely apologetic about what had transpired. At least it sounded like she learned something from this… in more than one way I suppose.

Once I was satisfied with her explanation, I held up my hand. “It’s fine Ellie. I will run through the rest of the data at another time together with Luna.”

Luna nodded. “Yes, there’s a lot to look at.”

“Alright.” Ellie replied. “Then I would like to discuss something else with you, Commander.”

“Go ahead.” I opened my hand up to her.

“As we have now surveyed the planet and thanks to my systems update, I would like to suggest not postponing the contamination plan for too long.” She said.

“I wasn’t planning on doing that to begin with.” I replied. “I was just not sure if we should start with it immediately or not. And your little update had kind of distracted me a little.”

“Again, my apologies. I would however say that it’d be better to enact the plan sooner rather than later. Everything has been prepped, everyone knows what to do. The more time passes, the higher the possibility that something might happen that we didn’t account for.”

I looked at Luna for a moment, she nodded at me. “Alright, then I’ll go and give the signal for Eva to come up to the bridge.

“I’ll start the playbook when you have met.”

“Thank you.” I started walking towards the door, with Luna close behind me. But just before I walked out, I turned around and pointed into the room. “But we still need to talk about Luna’s secret, don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”

“Yes, Commander.”

The door closed behind us and I took my holostick back out of its socket.

“Lauren…”

“Yes, Luna, I know it was rather pointless to point into an empty room, but I needed to make my point clear.”

“It was very effective, Commander.” Ellie replied.

“Thanks.”

Luna started giggling. At least that little bit of humor managed to take some of the edge off of what we were about to do.

On my way to the bridge, I’d sent Eva a message on her holostick which contained a combination of words that we’d agreed upon beforehand, signaling we were about to begin our plan.

I’d quite quickly gotten a message back that she was on her way too.

I took a quick breather right before we turned into the hallway that led onto the bridge. “Alright, let’s do this.”

Luna nodded rather confidently but didn’t say a word. She just followed me along. The bridge crew was doing their normal routine when we entered. While a big part of them knew what the plan entailed, it was still important that we kept up the act, just in case.

It took a couple of minutes before Eva finally walked onto the bridge as well.

“Sorry, I’m a bit late.” Eva started her part of the playbook. “Someone had just spilled some water.”

At that exact moment, alerts started blaring throughout the entire ship. A big yellow warning appeared on our screens. “Biological contamination has been detected! Locking down sections 1 to 207.” Followed by lights that started flashing yellow and red as well. The bulkheads that lead onto the bridge are also slamming shut.

“Ellie, status report.” I called out.

“Contaminated air particles have been detected near Dokazuuk crewmembers, Commander.”

I turned myself to Eva. “Do you know anything of this, Doctor?”

“Some of them had a rash but none of my tests really showed anything, Commander.”

“Have you been into close contact with them?”

“I have followed protocols, Commander.”

“Running scans now.” Ellie continued. “The doctor is clean, Commander.”

“When did these rashes first appear?”

“Not too long ago.” Eva shook her head. “It might be some kind of disease they carry around with them…. But I really don’t understand, we did so many checks…”

“It might have been dormant, Doctor.” Ellie said. “Having only unleashed itself properly when the conditions were just perfect.”

“Maybe the proximity to the planet?”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Ellie, can you give me a quick rundown on all the infected people?”

“Already on it, Commander. List has been updated on your screens. Several human crewmates have also been infected.”

“I see that the update paid off.” Eva said silently as we all turned towards the screen to see a crew list that was rather familiar to us all.

“Commander. Emergency update. The condition of several of the Dokazuuk crew has clearly begun to deteriorate.”

“Alright. Tell everyone to stay as far apart from the others as they possibly can if they have been locked into the same compartment. Call up the healthy marines to get in their suits. That should hold back the contagion, as they are completely airtight. Then start the decontamination protocol.”

“What are we going to do with the contaminated, Commander?” This time the question came from Zu.

“First of all, get them apart from everyone, but our marines will take care of that. After that… Well, we’ll see how bad it is. But that’s for the Doctor here to decide.”

“Ellie,” Doctor Winter asked. “Can you tell the people who are less sick to take care of those with heavier symptoms?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“At least that’ll give them a bit more comfort until I can try to figure out what exactly is wrong with them.”

I nodded.

“I will start unlocking compartments once a full scan has cleared each area.” Ellie said, and with that we just had to wait a little for our plans to continue unfolding.

Within half an hour we had secured all the “infected” crew while the marines went on to start to ‘decontaminate’ the spaces that had held them.

Ellie had established a video link between me and Jacky so that I could speak with him. Right now, we were in a situation where we could talk freely about what would happen next. But it would also be the last opportunity for us to speak before they’d be sent off to the planet surface.

“Jacky, how is it going? Everything okay on your end?”

“We are doing good, Commander. The plan is going horizontally.”

I tilted my head. “I think you mean smoothly, right?”

“Yes.” Jacky nodded.

“Great.” I smiled. “The next step is to escalate and to send you down to the planet below. So prepare the injections Doctor Winter has given to you.”

“Yes, Commander.” Jacky nodded once more. “But can I ask something first.”

“Of course, go ahead.”

“How is the planet? You have been down there, right?”

“It’s a beautiful place.” I replied with yet another smile. “It’s not the same as your home world was, but I think you all will enjoy it. There’s a couple of structures on the planet's surface too. They are safe, so don’t worry too much about them.”

“Your Ellie has already told me about them, Commander. It’ll be interesting to see what they hold in person. I heard it was very beautiful too.”

“That’s definitely true.” I looked at one of my other screens for a second before I turned back to Jacky. “We will send down supplies too, that will last you for a while, but in case we are not coming back, I wouldn’t wait too long to start setting up your own food supply.”

“Just like how it was laid down in the plan.”

“Exactly.” I nodded. “I do hope we will be able to return relatively soon but there’s no way of knowing that for sure.”

“I understand, Commander. In case we do not meet again, I do want to repeat how thankful we are for saving us from certain extinction. It was an honor to be part of your crew, if only for a while.”

“Thank you. It was also an honor to me and I’m sure that counts for this entire ship.” I gave him a salute, which he promptly returned. “Until we meet again.”

“Until we meet again, Commander.”

I shut off the video link and leant forward onto my desk. Luna walked up to me from behind and put her hand on my shoulder.

“Did you not want to say goodbye?” I turned my head to look at her.

“I think you conveyed my feelings perfectly.” She replied with a soft smile. “I’m sure we’ll be able to meet again.”

“Hmmm.” I chuckled. “That’s quite the confident statement.”

“You are Commander Lauren Davis, glorious war hero of the United Federation, and beside that also a pretty great girlfriend. How could I not be confident in your abilities?”

“Dealing with the Admiralty is a pain in the ass, though. I honestly don’t know what to expect when we arrive back home.” I replied. “However…”

“However?”

“When my girlfriend has this much trust in our success. I can’t let her faith be shattered, right?” I gave her a wink.

Luna smiled. “Exactly.” She took me by the shoulders to turn me around completely, and then gave me a kiss. “Plus, I like confidence.”

“I’m pretty sure I like confident Luna too.” I started laughing and gave her a kiss of my own.