ANS Ionèl
"Sir, the Feronia is requesting our status," the comms officer said.
"Chit," Kaal hissed under his breath. "Tell them everything is fine. We just have some, uh, minor coolant leaks that are keeping some of our ships grounded."
The officer glanced back to Kaal with annoyance plain in his expression. Kaal mouthed a silent thank you and made an attempt to muster a smile, but ended up with more of a nervous grin. Comms rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the console.
"Understood, sir," he replied. With the tap of a button, the line to the Feronia opened, and he spoke, "Ionèl to Feronia, we're experiencing some minor coolant leaks in our hangar decks. Some of the evac squadrons will be delayed. In the meantime, let us know where you need us."
In the meantime, Kaal had begun to search his datapad for the latest updates from engineering. Chief Engineer Huyg had been on radio silence for several minutes now without mention of what had happened to the missing energy cores. Any unwanted incident in the middle of a humanitarian effort of immense importance could spiral out to be a media catastrophe, and the responsibility to fix it was squarely on Kaal's shoulders.