Solomon stood at his armouring desk, staring at the finely polished surface of his chest plate that held very few scratches. His company undressing behind him, cleaning their armour and discussing the various things they had witnessed upon The Pride of Lions. Solomon stood like a statue. The rest of the fleet had arrived now to offer help to ships and their crews. The Pride of Lions had been totalled, the wreckage could not be repaired, the crew had been split through the other ships and assigned positions, two more shifts had been created to allow the people to share work loads. Solomons bridge shift was now reduced to four hours, where he would be more than relieved for the free time where he could further define his skills. Captain Simms had been a good friend of Kyril and Solomon alike, now he was dead, Lucius had gone into further detail of what happened once they had completed their rescue.
The Lieutenant Commander of The Pride Of Lions had said to Captain Deeph he was sucked through the unsealed bridge door with half of the bridge crew. The rest of them made it to the battle bridge to try command what was left, but the damage they took had become too much to maintain, it cut most of the power off to that area of the ship, they became stuck inside the battle bridge, like an iron coffin. The Lieutenant Commander of the Pride Of Lions was a middle aged woman by the name of Amy Sykes, who's stern and strict methods reflected upon her hard face. She truly was a woman to fear, but Solomon had seniority, with The Evergreen as his assigned ship, she only out ranked him, when he was off shift and she was on shift, this pleased Solomon to a great extent.
Solomon finally removed his midnight blue and gold striped helmet with a hiss as the air was released through the opening crack at the neck. The voices soon quietened in the room, with a miserable feeling in the pit of his stomach he turned only to see why the company had suddenly fallen quiet. Lyra was stood there, still in her blue field uniform, wearing a thick white coat, littered with many pockets of various sizes. Syringes still clung to the thin long pockets at the top of her arms, below her shoulders. The white coat was worn over her armour. Her metal breastplate had been lazily washed, a smear of blood was still present at her sternum, her blue sealed pants still dirty, but that is not the reason for the silence. She stood there, with messy auburn hair, a simple smile, bright olive eyes, holding a large tray in front of her. A tray of freshly baked chocolate gooey cookies.
It had been roughly two hours since Solomon set foot back on The Evergreen, the loss of the Pride of Lions was still fresh in all the minds of the crews. Six ships remained, Solomon thought deeply of how the ship had been intercepted. Surely a traitor aboard, Solomon could think of no plausible way to ambush a ship mid warp travel. The ship had not been taken by the enemy, hopefully the traitor had been killed? But perhaps, the traitor was still at large. Now aboard one of the other five ships that took aboard the refugees of The Pride Of Lions. Solomons thought was broken by a potent smell of chocolate as Lyra pressed the tray closer to his face, her warm rosy smile widening as he lifted a dirty, rough hand to the tray and relieved her of several cookies. Their surfaces still hot, their bodies slightly curving with the goo inside, not quite yet set. Solomon knew she was trying to make the crew feel better and, as the old saying goes, medical staff know their stuff; do as the doctor orders.
Kyril stormed into the command bridge, his forehead pulsing with veins as he shouted a single name. "Hyphon! Get me Hyphon, now!" his face seething with over whelming anger. Nobody dared speak. After a painstaking minute of waiting as the Comms officer hailed The Judgement, Captain Errol Hyphon proudly stood as a pale ghost on the command bridge of The Evergreen. "Hyphon!" bellowed Sinderman.
"Yes, Captain Sinderman?" said Hyphon taken back by the rage.
"we have a confirmed report that you sent a message from your personal terminal to an unknown vessel one hour before we went into the warp, marking the exact time and coordinates that The Pride of Lions would be at!"
The silence was immense.
The tension was so thick, even Hyphon's pale ghost started to project into a more solid state with the tension becoming unbearable.
Hyphon's face was clearly panicked, after a few moments of opening his mouth and shutting it again without speaking, Hyphon finally managed to find his voice.
"I'm coming over, Kyril. Prepare an armed escort team, if you do not trust me. But I am coming over." and with that said, Errol Hyphon was gone.
The Evergreen crew sat blinking at Captain Sinderman. Only Eve dared speak her mind.
"Captain, there is no prior record of Captain Errol Hyphon having any reason to do what he is accused of. I have calculated, that there is a 2.7% chance he is guilty." her smooth voice forced Kyril into submission. Throwing himself limply upon his commanding leather chair, with a sigh, he began rubbing his temples.
"I know, Eve, I know... but there is evidence that a message was sent from his personal terminal, which is passworded, only a high..." Kyril stopped suddenly, his brow tensed as his brain came into a realisation.