XXXXXX

Sanka was in the engine room, whistling away. He felt the ship moving through the air, and he smiled at the engine. "That's my good girl, ya." He patted the side of the engine room's hull.

He kept working away at scrubbing some rust from a coil compressor when an unfamiliar sound reached his ears. Sanka stopped rubbing instantly, but when he didn't hear anything further, merely shrugged and went back to cleaning.

He was interupted once more by a clanging sound coming from the corner of the room.

Sanka threw down his towel and clomped over to the corner, looking for the source of the noise. Four eyes stared at him from the corner of the room, and he jumped back, startled.

Two cats, black and white, came into view, and Sanka glared at them. "You would be the problem, wouldn't you, Salt and Pepper, yah?"

He snuffed at the cats, who just blinked at him, and went back to work. The captain sure had some weird tasts in pets.

XXXXXX

Kane stood over his locker and began pulling his gear out. He pulled off his shirt and slipped on his balistic mesh armor, then got dressed again. He then put on his equipment harness and attached the scarbard for his old special ops knife to the left suspender. Kane checked the pistol he normally carried and made sure it was loaded and ready to fire, then returned it to its holster on his right hip. Next, he placed his other pistol in its special hidden holster that sat under his jacket, just below his neck and between his shoulder blades. Two extra clips for each pistol were placed in the ammo pouches of the harness. Finally, after making sure his microtransmitter was working and the battery in his binoculars was good, he grabbed his shotgun and the its ammo belt and headed out of the room.

The thought struck him that he might be preparing a little to much, but that old, hard learned combat sense told him to expect the unexpected. He wasn't going to fight a battle, but he wanted to be able to if one happened.

"Where is Jade," He thought. "She needs to ge