John was tired, the battle drills he had called for from Kate had woken him twice during the time he was supposed to be sleeping. Hopefully, it would not affect his decisions. He stared at the primary display that showed the systems bright yellow star and the seven planets orbiting around it. Caldear IV had a primitive species on it and one of these days the Imperial research guild wanted to set up a longterm observation post. It was rare to be able to observe the evolution of a species from such an early beginning. They had not picked up any other ships within the system yet. It was frowned upon for any ships to use the resources of systems that had indigenous species, even primitive ones. Any ship and crew that were discovered doing so would be fined heavily and repeated offenses would result in having the vessel seized and crew imprisoned. So the Riptide continued to stay in stealth mode why she continued to observe the system and made sure she was alone.

John pulled up the post-combat damage report from Chief Letts, the combat with the pirates had caused one of the Pulse Cannons and two of the PDCs to be knocked out of alignment and they would be realigned within the hour. He was also in the process of disassembling two of the Type I combat drones to provide additional parts for the other two and had plans to upgrade the remaining one's weapons and armor so they would be better able to defend the Riptide. Hopefully, his shift would be boring, but you never knew until it was over. He pulled up the Ship status and alerts he had received.

Ship Status- Riptide

Shields- Standby Mode

Engines- Running 40% Capacity

Warp Engine- Standby Mode

Fore Missile Tubes- Unarmed/Loaded

Aft Missile Tubes- Unarmed/Loaded

Pulse Cannons- Standby Mode

Point Defense Cannons- 50% Manned/Standby Mode

Stealth Suite- Active

Fusion Generator- Online/Operating 50%

Mission Complete: Battle Drills

Description: To prepare your ship's crew for the inevitable coming battles, you called for a series of battle drills. This has increased the response time of your crew, continued drills will increase the response time further.

Rewards: GQ response time decreased by 5%, all your crew gained 100 Exp

Based on the mission description that mission should be repeatable, that was a thought for another time. He would give the crew at least 24 hours downtime from mock GQ calls before resuming them. The training regime had increased the familiarity of the green crew with their duties and what they would be called upon to do. So far the scans the Riptide had revealed nothing new in the system, which was good but it meant it would be a boring day.

The only other thing of note that had happened while he was on the bridge was the target practice for the PDC crews and Pulse Cannons. They had found one of the many fields of roaming meteorites and John had put the Riptide in the path of the cloud to give the gun crews some needed experience. Chief Letts had complained about putting the ship in danger but the crews needed sufficient motivation to improve their skills. As he walked off the bridge he told his XO to continue the gun training with the gun crews from 2nd shift.

As he headed to his quarters to file the paperwork for the day and fill out the log for his shift he stopped by the Officers Mess to grab some food. He saw the Marine Commander in their eating and filing his paperwork. He approached Commander Jacobs Smitt "Commander, how is your day going?" John asked.

The commander looked up from his tablet and food "Good Captain Port, almost thought I was going to give my boys some real-world experience yesterday. Guess it wasn't meant to be, but my instincts tell me that my people will be getting experience sooner rather than later." John nodded his head in agreement.

"After I get done with some of my paperwork I am going to head down to the firing range and get some practice in with my gun and a rifle." Commander Smitt nodded his head in acknowledgment. With that, John headed off to his quarters and the dam paperwork.

Two hours later he had completed half his paperwork, it was time to shoot something and let off some steam. As he walked into the firing range he saw several marines going over their arms and powered armor. They had two ranges here, the stationary one that had targets set up at various ranges and the interactive one that had targets that shot back. Since his current avatar had no gun skills yet, he was just going to use the stationery range. Once he got more used to his weapons only then would he go for the more advanced training

About two hours later he gave the rifle back to Marine sergeant that had given it to him. "You did a good job Captain, I could almost swear you were a green Marine for a minute. We don't get many of you nave folk down here, its good to see that you do not forget about us sir." the sergeant said.

"Don't worry you will definitely be seeing more naval personnel down here soon. Have a good day sergeant." with that John headed back to his quarters to clean his handgun and finish his paperwork.

'Captain, Lieutenant Commander Rebecca Stein is requesting your presence on the bridge' Kate called. John sighed and headed to the bridge.

As John walked onto the bridge the XO was by the sensor/communications station, "Lieutenant Commander Stein what is the problem?" Rebecca looked over at John before whispering something to the ensign and moving away with John

'Sir Lieutenant Commander Stein wishes to initiate private communications with you, is this ok?' Kate asked. John raised his eyebrow but agreed

'Sorry Sir, but I don't want this to get out to everyone. When we jumped out of Caldear we picked up a burst transmission. The origin point was one of the asteroids but we could not determine the destination point, but we could extrapolate a general direction and three of the systems we are supposed to explore are within the area. The good news, none of the three are the current destination.'

John nodded his head before he responded 'Ok as soon as we get to the UNK521, and the situation is stable we will drop a comm buoy. We will update FleetComm and hopefully, before we leave the system they will advise us or send us some backup. I will update Commander Smitt of the situation. How long until we get too UNK521?'

Lieutenant Commander Stein responded quickly 'We will transition back to normal space in a little over 12 hours.' John nodded his head and walked off.

'Kate, can you please signal Commander Smitt to come to my quarters ASAP please' John asked the A.I.

As the Marine commander came into his quarters he saluted "Reporting as ordered sir."

John returned the salute "At ease commander, while we are alone like this I don't sit on formalities. I requested your presence for two reasons, one I want the crew of the ship to go through mandatory arms training with 1 hour at the range each day. Second, you were right. Right before we left the Caldear system we picked up a burst transmission right before we left. We could not determine the destination point, but we could get the general direction. We have no idea what was sent and we will avoid the systems that could have received the message until we get new orders or reinforcements from Fleet Comm."

Commander Smitt nodded his head before responding "I will make sure an officer and NCO is stationed at the range at all times, as far as the threat I would like to organize some mock boarding drills. It will increase the crew's response times and give the crew some practical training." John nodded his head and the commander headed out.

Skill Acquired: Small Arms (lvl 1)

Description: Increases the Accuracy of small arms by 5%

Skill Acquired: Rifle Proficiency (lvl 1)

Description: Increases the Accuracy of rifles by 5%

Nice, now time to finish his paperwork and update the log with everything that had happened. Tomorrow they would face the unknown.