After a steamy yet short make-out session, Luna and I sadly had to go back to work. Today we would be reaching the mineral rich asteroid field and we had quite a lot of things to do when we got there. One of those things being the testing of Dokazuuk space suits the engineers had managed to come up with. As they would be our guests for quite a while and, if nothing changed, allies, in the future, having some 0G spacesuits that we could build and maintain would be pretty useful. Meaning they could also start looking at the exterior of the ship for some potential improvements. But first things first, we wanted to do some practical tests to see if things could be improved in ways of comfort or efficiency. And there wasn’t a better opportunity than some good old-fashioned space-walks. Obviously, we made sure it was safe beforehand. We didn’t want to just accidentally expose our friends to the harsh conditions of space.

So while our geologists were busy doing some probey things with the asteroid field and while some minerals were being collected to fill up our stocks, Gunny and I had opted to join the Dokazuuk volunteer who was going to test out the suit. That volunteer being Jacky, of course. He was their leader, and that meant he was going to take the responsibility on himself, even if there were other candidates.

“Looks like it’s the perfect weather for a nice space-walk, isn’t it, Commander?” Gunny floated out of the airlock in front of me.

“Yup, a nice and warm 2.7 Kelvin.” I laughed.

“Do you feel the temperatures of space, Commander?” Jacky asked.

“Ah, sorry, we were just joking, Jacky.”

“Oh. Human humor is still something I need to get used to.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll take some time but I’m sure you’ll get it if you hang out with us long enough.” Gunny replied. He’d already made his way to a small asteroid.

Jacky and I were still in the airlock, so I pointed at the interface on his arm. “Do you still remember the engineers' explanation?” I asked. They had modified our UI to include the Dokazuuk’s written language so it should be easy enough.

“Yes, Commander.” Jacky said, and pressed the button to demagnetize the boots.

“Good.” I gave him a thumbs up and did the same. After which I used my suit’s small thrusters to give him a bit of distance. Experience showed that even though people understood the theory, flying one of these suits still required quite a bit of practice.

But to my surprise, Jacky did get used to the thrusters quite fast. He bonked into the wall only five times before he managed to fly over to me.

“Hey, looks like you’ve got a talent for this.”

“Thank you.” Jacky said, after which he almost bumped into me.

“Do you think you can manage a trip around the ship?”

“I’ll try.” He replied.

“We’ll come and get ya if you float away too far. Just cut your trust if you think you are losing control. Otherwise you might make it worse.”

“Okay.” Cautiously, Jacky started moving to the front of the ship, with Gunny and I staying pretty close to him.

It was interesting to see the UFS Roald Amundsen from up close like this. I’d never really space-walked with it because I just didn’t have the time before back on Luna…. -Phrasing, Lauren, phrasing!!-

We were on the side where the enemy ship hadn’t docked so we couldn’t really see her battle scars yet, but we would probably make our way to that side as well a bit later on. Although it could be said that the lettering of the ship could use a new layer of paint on this side as well. It had faded quite a bit, together with a couple of scratches.

“Hey Jacky.” Gunny spoke, making me look back at my two comrades instead of the navy gray hull of our ship.

“Yes, Gunnery Sergeant Taylor?” Jacky replied.

“How about we test the suit’s manipulation?”

“Manipulation?” I asked. “What is he supposed to manipulate, then? There’s nothing wrong with the ship here.”

“That suit has a pair of pliers, doesn’t it?” Gunny asked.

“Yes, it does.” Jacky pressed the UI on his suit as a couple of pliers folded out of the arm storage compartment.

“Try to catch this with it.” Gunny made a piece of rock spin in place where he was and then moved away from it. It must’ve been a piece of the asteroid Gunny was at a bit earlier.

“Good thinking.” I replied and watched as Jacky made his way closer to the small spinning piece of asteroid.

“Try doing it without using your other hand.”

Jacky didn’t immediately reply but from the way he was approaching the small rock, it meant that he had taken up the challenge given to him by Gunny. Flying the suits while also handling a tool definitely added something to the degree of difficulty but Jacky completed the task admirably.

“Nice.” Gunny said and clapped his hands. Of course, it didn’t make any sound but I think Jacky appreciated the gesture.

We then continued on our trip alongside our ship, approaching the bridge. While the bridge was generally shielded from the outside, for this occasion, the crew had lowered the metal shields that blocked the view from the outside so the three of us could look in.

“Hey there, Commander.” I could see Luna grab for her earpiece.

“Hello there, XO.” I replied and gave her a short wave.

“Is everything still going fine on the bridge?”

“Lieutenant Zu spilled her coffee on the dashboard, but apart from that, everything is still the same as you left it.”

“LC! You said you wouldn’t tell her!” I could hear Zu’s voice coming over Luna’s intercoms. Seeing her gesticulate quite a lot at her chair. Zu then grabbed her own earpiece and spoke to me too. “Commander, I promise you, I cleaned everything up.”

“Are you sure, Zu? I think I can still see a spot.”

“Where? Oh, flip it, you are right.” I could see Zu take a towel and start wiping something from the top of her console.

Luna chuckled over the intercom. “Please make sure Jacky doesn’t float away into space.”

“We will try.” I said as I looked over to Jacky and Gunny, they were fooling around a little by spinning their suits. But that actually did show just how fast Jacky was improving with the suit controls. “Looks like we won’t need to worry that much about that.” I chuckled as well.

“See you back inside in a bit?” Luna asked.

“Yeah, we’ll just go back the other way around and call it a day.” replied. “See you in a bit. Oh, and Zu, make sure your console doesn’t stick, okay?”

“Yes, Commander.” Zu dutifully replied as she continued scrubbing away.

I smiled and I waved the bridge crew goodbye for now as we were moving on to the other side of the ship, the larboard side.

It became obvious pretty quickly where the repairs of the ship had been completed. With the newly repaired areas not even having been painted. You could really see how much exterior damage the boarding action of the Empire had done.

“This needs quite a couple of layers of paint, doesn’t it, Commander?” Gunny said. The three of us all looked at the part of the ship that had been damaged the most.

“Yeah, definitely. Though a paint job can wait for the time being.”

“But what if we run into the space fashion police?”

“I think they’ll give us a pass because of our uniforms.” I shrugged. We did have really nice uniforms, after all.

“Space fashion police?” Jacky asked.

“Ah, that’s another case of silly human humor, Jacky.” Gunny explained.

“Aaaaah.”

Gunny and I both laughed at Jacky’s reaction.

We finished our little tour around the ship and got back into the airlock. I think it was fair to say that the suit was performing to expectations, and if Jacky had any feedback he could now provide it to the engineers. We were getting out of our suits in the room next to the airlock when Ellie started talking over the intercoms.

“Commander, your presence is requested in the comms room.”

“Oh? Now?”

“The message was marked as urgent and for you and high ranked staff only.”

“Ellie, there are nicer ways to tell us that we are not invited, you know?” Gunny said to Ellie.

“It’s nothing personal, Gunnery Sergeant. Okay, maybe a little.”

“Do you know if Ellie has a reset button somewhere, Commander?” Gunny grinned.

I just waved away his joke.

“And you don’t know what’s in the message either?”

“No, ma’am.” Ellie replied. “ It’s specially encoded so that I could not access it by myself.

“That sounds serious…” I scratched my head. “Could you notify the other high ranking officers to join us in the comms room as well?”

“Already done so, Commander.”

“Good.” I nodded. -I’m really curious to what the big fuss is about…-