The feel of gravity plating rumbling as the impulse engines eased the ship towards the station, having just let go of their trophy and let the modified black Antares freighter get towed by station tugs. MacKenzie realized something that he did not expect.

He missed flying.

The Cerberus’ flight, even short lived and did not even get a tenth of a light-year outside of the dock, made him realize that he liked being out there, just as much as he liked the calm of the ice fishing back home, or taking five in the observation lounge of DS17. It was a good run, and he really looked forward to coming back out there.

But that was slowly crashing down around him as he read over the report that Kessler had just handed him.

“Robyn, you can’t be serious,” he said.

“I’m as serious as Division 12,” she replied. “If we had actually activated warp when we were supposed to, the Cerberus would have been space dust. There was a fatal build-up of pressure and the integrity of the shell was failing around the antimatter injection assembly. The act of going to warp would have increased the pressure so much that within 0.7 seconds of achieving warp, the core would have breached and we would have been all spread across a couple hundred million kilometers. The only thing that saved us was that total power shutdown we did to dupe Peters and those mercs.”

Na’eth looked shocked. “No chance of survival?” he asked.

“None.”

“That’s closer to death than I wanted to be for this shakedown,” MacKenzie commented, getting up and heading to his ready room. “And the irony of a merc raid saving all of our lives is not lost on me, either. What’s the recommendation?”

Kessler and Na’eth followed along, with Kessler delivering all the bad news. “We’re going to have to get another warp core and antimatter injector built and delivered. It’s a specialty process, and I checked, DS17 can do the antimatter systems but the fabrication area doesn’t have the technical parts or the replicator room to rebuild a warp core of that complexity here. It’s going to need to be shipped here from Antares, they can fabricate one, no problem, in the next week or so, but there’s the travel time. The trip here alone is-”

“Four weeks, minimum,” MacKenzie finished, stopping dead in his tracks just beyond the door, enough for the door to close and fit the three in the room. “And that’s if we get a starship coming this way.” MacKenzie sighed as the realization sank over him.

“I’m sorry, Cap.”

“I do express my sympathies as well, Captain.”

MacKenzie smiled a pained smile, the kind that you put on when one is devastated but wants to stay positive for others, masking everything behind one single facial expression. “That’s all right. I hope the crew will be understanding though.” He paused, trying to find the words. “Does that make this shakedown a failure, a success, or…?”

“I would consider it a success,” Na’eth said. “We did test that the structural integrity of the ship was successful and that no nacelles were going to detach mid-flight.”

MacKenzie chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right.” He laughed a little bit more, trying to let out some stress with laughter. “No one here is having to explain to a very mad-looking admiral why parts of the Cerberus are in orbit of a pre-warp civilization.”

“Exactly,” Kessler said, joining in with a smile. “Just glad they couldn’t see that casing. It would have been a weird explanation as to why the natives fifty years from now think their god was silver with a blue and red glow or something like that.”

Na’eth looked at the two like they had just grown extra heads. “I see nothing humorous about a General Order One violation.”

“It’s a stress relief, Na’eth.” MacKenzie calmed himself down before continuing on. “Call it a tradition among seafaring races. Though I might go asking Dilgur about some cleansing rituals to see if we can ward off bad luck.”

Kessler thought for a moment. “That might actually be a good thing. I read up on some of the history of the namesake, and at least one ship did get associated with bad luck and bad tidings: HMAS Cerberus. Wouldn’t want this ship to continue on with that tradition.”

MacKenzie glanced over at the wall, which featured a painting of previous ships named Cerberus, drawn to the line of the monitor from Earth’s Victorian era. “That one?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Kessler replied.

“I am not as acquainted with Earth history as you two are,” Na’eth said.

“I’ll tell you about it sometime. We apparently will have time to do so over the next few weeks.” MacKenzie sighed. “Kessler, start shutting down the warp core and prepare it for removal out of the ship. Na’eth, continue with the docking sequence. Let’s get into the dock and back to the station for another refit. I’ll join you in a moment.”

“Aye, sir,” both officers said almost simultaneously, and with a turn they left out of the room, leaving MacKenzie there alone.

MacKenzie walked to the pictures of different Cerberus namesakes throughout history, staring at each of them in solemn reflection, picturing what each captain would have done with the news he had been given. At one point or another, the captains of those ships were rookies as well, and he had high expectations about his own command and the adventures that they could have had, even if it was just a routine patrol or force projection mission. He pictured each of them with all the setbacks they had had to endure, especially the HMAS Cerberus.

Not coming to any specific conclusion with his musing after several seconds, he stared long and hard at the last ship, his own, before he realized that a single tear had fallen from his right eye, the wetness splashing on his uniform shoulder the only external sign of what he was feeling at this point.

“Can’t have that here,” he said to himself, wiping away the evidence of the tear with his hand. “Gotta give the crew the bad news.”

He took a few deep breaths to calm himself and put on a neutral face, then readied himself to deliver the bad news. The doors parted as he walked out the door to the bridge, hearing the call out of “Captain on the bridge” but MacKenzie ignored it and walked slowly over to his seat, not even acknowledging any of the crew. Sitting down, he breathed out, not even realizing he had held his breath that long, and took one last look around before his hand hit the right arm control of the chair, his arm feeling like it was moving slowly.

The whistle of a ship wide channel came up, and MacKenzie thought about what he was going to say for a moment. “Attention all hands, this is the captain,” he began, as the familiar view of the construction dock floated into view of the viewscreen.