President Harper made a big deal about the Fucker, as it came to be called, being the Colonial Marine’s first system-capable warship. The grunts wedged inside knew what it really was—a repurposed NASA Jupiter Mission vessel. There was a clear logic to the design: habitation sphere at one end, nuclear drives at the other, separated by long lattice beam filled with fuel and supplies. To deal with the larger crew and new weapon suites, upgraded power cabling ran from the reactors to the front habitat. In true military fashion, there had been nothing beautiful about these additions, just black rubber conduits tracing the shortest route. Efficiency above all. It was the same on the Bridge; whoever built these systems had money but limited time. It took six more minutes of inching forward into the hot, damp tubes to find Mike.