There was green and there was, well, green. Rennox was all shades of it. Literally and figuratively. 

Dayne caught Mason’s eye as they moved swiftly through the corridors toward engineering, the yeoman running along behind them, clutching his little hand phaser. Mason had ordered him to watch the rear, and the kid kept doing this little hop, skip and turn to check. Dayne bit back his smile. The kid didn’t realise that neither he nor Mason ever stopped watching the rear… it was the quickest way to get dead in a battle… but it made the kid feel useful, and stopped him getting in the way of the serious action. 

But seriously… what was he? All of like, twelve? Dayne knew that physically humans tended to be smaller than llanarians, but he’d never seen a full grown human so small. 

“Hold it,” he growled, holding a hand out to shove Rennox behind him as they reached the intersection before engineering. Mason had taken the other side of the corridor and between them they moved around the corner, covering all the firing arcs. 

“Mason to the bridge,” Mason said as they made it through the double doors into engineering. “You got an update for me on pirate movements aboard?”

“Yes sir,” Burton’s deep voice filled the air. “We seem to have four groups, three now one group are trapped in E42.”

“Where are the others?” Mason asked, slinging his rifle across his shoulder as he set up shop at the central console in the middle of the room. 

Dayne let out a piercing whistle, getting the attention of every engineer in the place and bringing them out from where they’d been working to where they could see him. 

“Right, listen up you lot!” he ordered. “We have pirates on the ship, so let’s start locking everything down. I don’t want these assholes getting a clear run through this ship. Let’s make it bloody difficult for them.” 

The engineers dispersed without a sound, each heading to their own consoles. Dayne watched them go, pride rolling through him at their no-nonsense responses. He’d picked his team carefully, even down to the most junior, Nyla. 

“One group heading up to us here on the bridge,” Burton’s reply came through as Dayne reached Mason’s side. “One headed to you in engineering. But the last one seems to be headed toward Medical. Not sure why.” 

Dayne chuckled. “If they’ve decided to drop in on Micheals, then they’re in for a very rude awakening.” 

Mason nodded, his expression tight. “They are indeed.”

“Why?” 

The unexpected query made them both look up to find Rennox on the other side of the console, bright blue eyes pinned on them. Dayne wondered if the kid had found a box to stand on or something, then realised there was a guard rail on that side of the console. Which meant Rennox was standing on one of the bars to make himself seem taller. 

“Micheals is… was a combat surgeon on her home planet,” Mason explained, already pulling up a schematic of the deck they were on and their location in relation to sickbay. It wasn’t far, but there were a lot of open corridors between it and them. 

“Yes sir. I read her file.” Rennox still looked confused, so Dayne took pity on him. 

Putting his rifle down on the console, he started his own foothold procedure protocols, locking off access to critical systems in case the pirates got in here.

“What you gotta understand, kid, is that your sawbones is basically one of the scariest people you’ll ever meet. Apart from yours truly, of course. They know how to put bodies back together in a variety of inventive and creative ways, but you know what that also means?”

“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

He looked up again, meeting Rennox’s gaze. Gods, the kid was so green. “It means that they’re also pretty good at taking those bodies apart.”

Realisation dawned, Rennox’s eyes going wide. “Ohhhhh!”

“Don’t listen to him. Bennett’s a pussy cat. His mom though, she’s one scary lady,” Mason cut in, still frowning at the schematic as he flicked through level after level, looking for a way through to sickbay without using the main corridors. “But yes, Micheals is used to operating under fire, in the worst conditions. She’s also used to fighting her way out of a bad corner to get her patients to safety.” 

“I… take it you don’t mean a literal corner, sir?”

Dayne caught the kid’s eye and shook his head as he typed. Three out of five protocols were enacted. Two to go then they could start barricading the door. The skin between his shoulder-blades was itching that it wasn’t secured yet, but locking off these systems was more important. 

“Okay… we have a route here,” Mason said, spreading his hands to throw the deck plan up in front of them. A route was marked out in red. Rennox leaned forward and frowned. 

“Errr… that’s… I mean… well…”

Mason looked at him. “Spit it out, Rennox.”

The kid flushed, looking like he wanted the deck plating to open up and eat him whole. “Will you even fit, sir? Nooffencemeantreallysorry.”

Dayne couldn’t help it, a booming laugh escaped him to echo around engineering. Everyone stopped to look at him and he waved them to get back to work, smirking as he slid a sideways glance at Mason. “He’s got you there, general. I thought you were putting a bit of pudge on.”

“One day, Bennett,” Mason growled, but amusement glinted in the back of his eyes. He looked at Rennox. “I’ll fit. Believe me I’ll fit.”

Reaching over, he grabbed Bennett’s rifle and handed it over to Rennox. “Lock and load, you’re coming with me.” 

“What?!” the kid squeaked, catching it as Dayne exclaimed, “Hey! That’s mine!”

Mason rolled his eyes. “Pur-lease, you’ve been dying to break out big Berta for months. Permission for personal weaponry granted.”

“Yes!” Dayne fist-pumped the air. “Yessir! Thank you sir!”

“Who’s big Bertha, sir?” he heard Rennox ask as he followed Mason across engineering to the maintenance shaft they were going to use to get to sickbay. 

“You don’t want to know, kid. Believe me, you don’t want to know…”