Although if her goal was to not get distracted, she failed almost immediately; there were two ways to get to the bridge from here, a more direct route and then the roundabout route she usually used, since it went through the galley and she usually ate there first.
As it turned out, she picked the wrong way for multiple reasons.
Lana was just passing the facilities when a new warning joined the others, along with a calm but urgent female voice over the ship's speakers. “Warning, shields down. Brace for potential hull breaches.”
Almost on top of the warning, there was a sudden blinding flash from the galley in front of her, accompanied by a deafening roar, and she was nearly yanked off her feet as the air began rushing in that direction. She stumbled, pulled towards the growing maelstrom as objects in the galley began whipping towards a hole in one of the bulkheads.
Just before the rush of air finally yanked her off her feet, a massive metal door slammed down between her and the breached room, cutting off the flow of air. She fell to the ground, then scrambled to her feet and bolted the other way, taking the shorter route to the bridge. It was a vast relief to soon see it ahead, full of familiar faces, and she put on an extra burst of speed.
Ali was speaking in a calm but urgent tone when Lana practically flew through the door. “We're hit. Non-critical hull breach in the galley. Dangerous radiation level warning in the galley.”
“Acknowledged,” Aiden said curtly, feverishly handling his controls. He cocked his head slightly to the side, tone changing as he spoke into his headset. “Fix, seal the hull breach in the galley and decontaminate.”
“Aww seriously, the galley?” Barix whined. “Why couldn't it have been the shields, or the life support!”
The companion turned to give him a bemused look. “You would've preferred they hit a critical system?”
The Ishivi didn't look up from his own display. “If it was repairable? Void yes! Explosive decompression probably blew open half the storage lockers in there, which means goodbye food. And preparation units. And plates and utensils! Those are a pain to replace.”
“My heart bleeds for the plight of your poor stomach,” Aiden said sarcastically. “I'll be sure to take it into consideration in future life or death struggles.”
The almost bantering tones of the bridge crew were a stark contrast to the desperation with which they worked. As if it was a means to keep their cool in a truly dangerous situation as they fought for their lives.
And Lana's.
Unfortunately for her, once she had that realization their banter had the opposite effect; she felt like she was going to be sick, and not just because of the ship weaving drunkenly beneath her from Aiden's maneuvers.
“What's going on?” she demanded.
The captain didn't even glance at her, eyes darting between his readouts and the main display hovering directly in front of him in the center of the room, which showed another ship and streaks of light darting from it towards them.
That answered her question at about the same time Dax, just as focused on the battle as everyone else, spoke distractedly from his station. “Pirates. We dropped out of a rift jump right into an ambush.”
“On that note, Barix,” Aiden added through gritted teeth, yanking the ship into a violent maneuver that threw Lana into the nearest bulkhead in spite of artificial gravity and inertial dampeners, “I thought I told you to calculate jumps to potentially dangerous destinations using rift exits that were never used, even if it meant we had to travel an extra hour or two.”
“I did!” the Ishivi protested with wounded pride. “This is literally the farthest usable rift from Ollan's Hub.”
“Literally the farthest,” the captain shot back sarcastically. “Meaning anyone who wanted to find a safe rift exit point would think of it first, and it would be the first one pirates might pick for an ambush?”
Barix responded with an impressive stream of curses, a surprising number of which Lana wasn't familiar with.
Then a new alarm, even louder than the others, joined the cacophony. She recognized it as the same one that had woken her up not too long ago. “Target lock, missile with radioactive indicators,” Ali warned tersely.
The Ishivi's cursing took a new direction. “Another atomic? We've barely got a few layers of shields back up! These guys must be seriously soiling themselves about us. Not that I blame them.”
“Just thank your lucky stars they were too cheap to open up with a nuke,” Aiden growled. “Hold on.”
The warning wasn't given lightly; Lana barely had time to grab a handhold on the nearest console before being nearly yanked off her feet by the most violent maneuver yet. She hung on desperately, legs kicking for purchase, and it was several seconds before she managed to regain her balance and look back at the main display.
Just in time to see that the captain had narrowly dodged the nuclear missile. It had shot past and was looping around to come at them again, and Aiden was using that small window of opportunity to fly directly towards the pirate ship.
“What are you doing?” she gasped, wondering if the madman was going to try to ram the enemy, make sure no one survived this battle.
The captain spared her the briefest glance. “Nukes will take out any shields within ten kilometers of a detonation. If we get within that range of the pirate ship their own nuke will also fry their shields, putting us on even footing.” He hardened his tone, no longer speaking to her. “At which point our gunner will finally get around to blowing them into scrap, correct?”
“Way ahead of you, sir,” Dax replied, voice almost as calm as Ali's.
“Alternatively,” Barix said brightly, “if the pirates realize what we're doing they'll detonate early to protect their own shields,
