With his quartermaster, Addias, Garrison made his way down to the hold and through the doors to the control room. The panels were blinking calmly, the monitors showing direction, controlled by the sailing master, who spent most of his time down here. Otherwise he had a trusted mate taking care of everything. It was this mate that had noticed the blockage. Garrison's blue-green eyes fell on a rapidly blinking red light, below the panel that read "Main 2". "Give me a read on the interior of main two." Garrison said. He studied the interior monitor as it ran a read through the pipes that fueled the engines, and brought up a large, pinpointed block. "What is that...?"

"I dunno..." Sailing master Fennec replied, scratching his scaly arms. "It looks like... just a black blob. I don't think diagnostics can tell either... No..." he tapped on the left keyboard and got a red ERROR read, then sighed. "Damn it, no. We're gonna have to find a place to dock..."

"We're not near a system dock, Fennec, not at these coordinates." Garrison sighed.

"Gaia X." Fennec said, pointing to a lush planet. "Just a few clicks away, we'll get there in minutes."

"That planet's protected by the Federation, we can't dock there... Hell, they don't even have a docking station!"

"No, but they have gravity, and that's what matters for now. We need to dock somewhere and get the block out, or we'll risk blowing engine two entirely."

Garrison sighed and stared at the planet. "Fine... We won't bother the locals, we'll just get in, fix the block, and get the hell out. Set coordinates for Gaia X... I'll head up to grab my first mate and have him get a group together to cool the pipes before we send anyone in." Garrison left Fennec to turn them to the planet, shaking his head. He didn't like to invade planets that were protected by the Universal Federation of Planetary Peace, but sometimes it was necessary. And he didn't want to waste money on a new engine.