3. Wig on the rocks

Several heads turned as Hicks entered the bridge, still desoriented from his nap.
A redhaired attractive woman in her early thirties gave him a quick nod, "Sir, were closing in... Eta about 55 minutes."
"Thanks C".
Cassandra West, or 'C', was a good pilot. Good as any other he had seen. A bit young perhaps, and admittingly, a girly, but still good.

Hicks grunted and took a seat in the large chair at the back of the bridge. It was slightly elevated compared to the rest of the workstations, giving him a nice view of the entire bridge, hopefully making it easier to communicate with the rest of the crew.
He pushed a few buttons on the console to his right and the huge screen at the front of the room lit up. He scrolled through the text he had read several times before, and skimmed down to the last paragraph. Next to the text a photograph showed the face of a young man, tanned and good looking with a short haircut. 'Thats a nice tan', Hicks thought and briefly recollected the pale apparition that stared back at him from the mirror every morning. He read the last paragraph again.

'According to intel the subject, known as Hedron Porter, presently resides in MO-31-FelcIII, orbiting Cassiuz. Locate, subdue if necessary, and bring mr. Porter to the brig on DSS Armitage where Inspector Korz will continue with interrogations. Rendevous with FF Vost for transfer of mr. Porter and insp. Kortz.'

Hicks looked at the picture again. 'I wonder why they send a team of 50 after one man, halfway across the system? A bit expensive, you would think... He must have really pissed someone off.'

He hummed to himself and closed the document. After pushing a few more buttons a large rotating moon suddenly filled the screen. The computer rendered it in shades of grey, with yellow gridlines dividing the surface into smaller sectors.
Felc III, second largest of the moons orbiting the gas giant Cassiuz. The surface was heavily cratered and marked by the volcanic activity going on beneath the surface. A number of mining complexes were marked on the map, but Hicks knew there were several unlicenced ones as well.
The official tradepost, MO-31, and the only place which held any kind of public connection and basic service was inofficially called the 'Squig-nest'; probably due to the fact that under the original four steel domes, the denizens had mined into the ground and through the years built a confusing series of structures and tunnels, well hidden and easy to defend. The files were a bit unclear, but he had a feeling that the subterranean area was much bigger than the one above ground.

He got to his feet and walked over to the right wall, which held a small built in cabinet with what looked like a miniature kitchen. The machine beeped as he pushed a round button and waited for the hot liquid to stop running. He carefully made his way back, since the plastic tops for the cups were out again.
"Damnation!", Hicks cursed as the vessel suddenly jerked sideways. A thunderlike sound propagated through the ship. He tried to balance what wig was left in the cup while the rest of the hot liquid were running down the inside of his jacket. "Rock?", he barked while taking his place.
The bridge were full of people busy at the consoles now, performing their various tasks. The dark haired, middle aged man on his forward left side said, "Yes sir, looks like a rock. Not too big but it caught us from the side at a nasty speed...". "We are running low signature, like ordered sir. I got trouble seeing anything smaller than a ship right now..."
"Allright, thanks Yuri. Any damage Denest?", Hicks turned towards the man sitting on the far right side.
"Hang on, sir!", the man said and continued to scroll through the screens. "Looks like we lost some power in a few subsystems. We lost the secondary communications module and port side cooling went down ten percent or so. I think we may... we probably have a small hull breach, but its hard to tell anything more from this. I'll try to bypass as much as I can get some of the techs to check it up, sir."
"Very well!". Hicks turned and looked at the girl seated at the workstation directly infront of his, "Umi, you may as well inform the crew about what happened and that we are assessing the damage."
She looked back at him and nodded, "Absolutely, sir."

Hicks leaned back in his chair, looking at the wig stains on his jacket and pants.
'I sure hope this day improves', he thought and took the last sip of wig still left in the cup before disposing of it.