Denise did not waist any more time on that, she made her long feline physique move her body with the best speed possible back to the dinning hall. She got there in about a quarter of the time it took her to get to Engineering in the first place. Walking in she went right up to Pogo's table, where he was having his soup served to him. Denise said,

"Well this looks just like it was before all this happened." Pogo turned those blue eyes on to her and said,

"One must do what one must do."Then he handed her a piece of cellulose.

"What is this?" said Denise.

"It is a list of the passengers and any relevant skills they have that might be of use in our current situation. Something I thought you might need."

"Why yes I was just about to do just that. Thank you."She picked up the sheet and found it was written in perfect Galactic Concord. She quickly looked through the list and found what she was looking for. A passenger in third class was an ex- ship engineer. He had retired only last year and was on this trip with his wife. He was a T'sa, they were a small reptilian sentient that had a certain affinity with any sort of technology. She thought for a second, ' This is almost to good to be true.' Looking down the list again she saw a couple of other technicians from other fields who could help. Good the beginnings of a plan were forming in her mind.

She nodded to Pogo and made her way to the front of the room. In a load clear voice she said,

"Ladies and Gentlemen, as you know about an hour ago we had an incident. After further investigation I have found out that the flight crews are all dead, as well as most of the Engineering crew, but there is no need to panic. We are still in our Starfall and on course as far as I can tell." She left that hanging for a moment, but the major uproar that she had expected did not happen. The room was absolutely silent, she was not sure if this was a good sign or not. After letting them think about the seriousness of their situation for a moment she continued,

"I am now going to call some name of some people that I think will be able to help. Anyone else please try and think of any way you may be of any assistance. We need any people who are familiar with any aspect of ships operations. You all know me I am the ships Purser, but with the Captain, Second Mate and Chief Engineer all dead I am in Command. If anyone has a problem with that you can speak up now." She waited what she felt was a fair length of time then went on,

"Ok I guess there are no problems with me taking over as Captain. I need the following people to go to the small dinning room." Then she read off a list of names and before anyone could say anything she made her way to the small dinning room.

She walked in to find the little T'sa all ready there with a thousand questions. She said,

"I believe your name is Yalp Tarst You were a star drive engineer so I am going to rely on you very much. I want you to take all these people down to Engineering and I want a damage report. I also want with that report an estimate as to how long it is good to get things up and running again. We have an auxiliary control down by the Sickbay and that is where I am going to be. When you have something to tell me get it there. Yalp gave her a devilish little smile and said,

"Don't worry Captain we will do all that is possible." The group slowly filled out of the dinning hall and made their way down to Engineering. Denise made her way back to the main dinning hall.

She walked in and right up to the front again, and in the same load voice said,

"Now we have some other areas where we are going to need help. I see by the list we do not have anyone who is familiar with system navigation." At that a young man nudged a young woman beside him. Denise could see the two of them were having a heated discussion and obviously the woman did not want to say anything. At that point the young man stood up and the girl pulled on his shirt sleeve, but it did not stop him. He said,

"My wife use to navigate her fathers yacht in the Sol system." The woman stood up and with a great deal of trepidation said,

"Yes that is true but it was a long time ago and the computer use to double check everything. I did not really do anything, with out a computer I could not do it especially outside of the Sol system. I would like to help but I just don't think I can do it.." Denise looked at her and thought this girl needs a little self confidence, she needs to do this. Denise could not remember who this woman was then it came to her, She was a newly wed, her name was Mrs. Linda Little and her husband was Peter. Denise said,

"Linda how about you help me until we find someone else, all you have to do is the work I will make the decision." Linda looked at her, she was a medium height with light auburn hair and a killer body, Denise thought why would this girl have a confidence problem. Linda had a look of resolution cross her face and said,

"All right I will help you until you find someone else, but I will not be responsible for anything that might go wrong." Denise looked at the rest of the people to see if anyone else wanted to have the job. No one moved they did not even breath, they did not want to draw any attention to themselves. She could feel the tension in the room so she said,

"Ok now that we have our navigation problem under control or as good as it will get for the moment, I would like the following Pilots to come with me." Then she read off a list of six names and told them to assemble by the door. She looked at the group and thought she saw a wave of relief flow over them and said,

"Please enjoy your dinner, as you can see we have everything under control. Though if you have any ideas or suggestion please do not hesitate to bring it to my attention through Pogo. I will make sure I check in with him or if he things it is very important he can bring it to me, but no one is to question his opinion." Then she looked over at Pogo and gave him a smile.

She then walked out with her pilots. Walking through the ship she put her arm through Linda and said,

"Now don't worry, you have two days to work on your navigation skills. In that amount of time you should remember at least enough to get us close to the space station." Two of the pilots looked at her and said,

"You want us to take a severely damaged ship and hock up with a space station."

"No not really we will probably be towed into the space station, but we have to get close enough for them to see we have been damaged." At this point they walked into the auxiliary control room and Denise said,

"Ok gentlemen this is where it is going to happen, I would like you to all get familiar with the instruments." The men started to look around but every time they tried to activate something, nothing, this control room was dead. Denise knew that, that is why she had sent Yalp down to Engineering first. She then said,

"Yes Gentlemen nothing works, but you can still become familiar with where the controls are." She then turned to Linda and said,

"I want you to come with me to Engineering, you are going to have to know where it is anyway because it is the only area that has a window. You are going to need that if you are going to figure out where we are when we come out of this Starfall." The two of them left and made there way through the dark deserted ship to Engineering, It was spooky and Linda stayed close to Denise. They walked in and found it a flurry of activity. The little lizard was running around looking into everything all at the same time. He saw Denise and Linda and walked over,

"Ah, Captain I see you have come down to make sure we are working and not just sitting around. Well we have been working, we have found out what happened to the Engineering Crew. I checked the ships automatic log and found we hit a Cosmic String. They are very deadly, but next to nothing is known about them, these readings will be invaluable to anybody who studies these things. It seems when it hit us it some how sent an electrical charge through the Engineering department. That is what killed all the people in Engineering, the two that survived did so because they were standing on nonconductive surfaces. The electrical charge caused a number of circuits to be blown out but we think we should have power back up to about 90% of the ship in less then an hour."

"Yalp, you are a miracle worker. Can I ask is the computer going to be up and running soon."

"That is hard to say, once we get power to the control room then we can see how the computer is, but right now we are just trying to get the power up for every one."

"Great Yalp, Can you do me another favor and show Linda to the window. She may need to use it when we come into The Zelda system." Linda said,

"Don't leave me here."