The ship was quiet, except for the quiet muffle of voices coming from the captain's ready room, though 'quiet' doesn't describe the atmosphere inside the room.

"I don't understand why you're making me do this bullshit," Tre said.

"Because it's an order isn't enough?" the captain replied.

"No, Nia, it's not enough."

"It's going to have to be if you want to remain on this ship."

"You're not in the fucking navy anymore. The BOS is owned by a civilian," Vivian said, though she wasn't quite sure. The owner of the Beacon of Solace was a mystery to her, and suspected it was to the captain as well.

"And that owner is paying us to fix this guy's atmospheric processor."

"I thought we didn't care about being paid."

"Not by the people who really need the aid, and the reason we can do that is jobs like this."

"This guy's a fucking trillionaire. Don't tell me he can't afford an actual mechanic."

"You are an actual mechanic, Ms. Perez." The captain said. Tre rolled her eyes. "Look. I'm no fan of this guy either, but it's not like we're helping this guy commit genocide or human trafficking or something."

"Are you sure?" Tre asked, rhetorically. "We can be pretty sure he's not helping anyone. Again, why the fuck does he need us, Nia?"

"I don't know, okay? But he's planetside so if you do it quick we won't even have to see him. Would you just do it already so we can get away from this shithole?" The captain stood up from her chair with angry authority. Tre relented.

"Fine," She said, throwing up her arms. She turned around in a huff and pressed a panel that opened the door next to it.

"And Estrella," The captain said, "don't make me give you the whole 'it's Captain Dubois' routine."

Estrella rolled her eyes again and stormed out of the room, the impact dulled by the inability to slam the automatic doors.

Tre cursed under her breath as she deboarded the Beacon of Solace and began walking across the dock toward the unmarked ship in the opposite berth. While the ship couldn't be identified by an exterior number, the outer markings were as overly opulent as only a tacky trillionaire could have.

"Horrid, isn't it."

Chills ran down Tre's spine as she heard the all-too-familiar voice. If Tre wasn't happy before, she was now livid. Whatever was left of her drive had been sapped from her body with only a few words. Then the woman spoke a few more.

"You know, you could do a lot more than fix the atmosphere. Or, you could stretch the definition of 'fix,' you know?"

Tre could feel the phantom woman standing next to her, staring at her, like she always did whenever she decided to show up. It took everything she had to ignore the woman, but ignore she did. Tre continued into the ship, hoping that her visitor wouldn't be able to follow her.

The moment Tre stepped onto the ship, she shivered with a feeling that she shouldn't be there. Making it worse was that the ship appeared to be entirely staffed by automated companions, but there was a silver lining in Eden being left behind. At least the ship was quiet. Tre turned to one of the faceless companions near the gangway.

"Life support."

The companion responded with a nod and a silent gesture to follow. It was a decent hike through the corridors of the overly large ship to get to the life support room. Once inside, Tre found the primary control console and started diagnosis.

Mechanically speaking, the processors seemed to be doing fine, but sensors in several of the ships compartments were showing less-than-ideal airflow.

"Fucking shit," Tre said.

She was hoping that she would only have to change a fuse or do a soft reboot or whatever didn't require her to go anywhere else. She had no such luck. In all likelihood, she was going to have to clear the ventilation ducts of blockages. She let out a heavy sigh, and several more, on her way to to the ventilation access hatch nearest to the first issue compartment.

"I'm going to be very pissed off if there's a xenomorph in here," Tre said as she donned her goggles and respirator before climbing up into the ducts.

It was a small relief to find the first blockage of built-up dust and dirt in the duct. At least she knew the problem, and she was prepared to fix it by blasting it away with compressed air. Unfortunately, it was going to completely cover her exposed skin and hair, something that made Tre gag with every cloud of dust she moved through.

She put on some music that helped her suppress her disgust. It took a few hours, but eventually she had only one more duct to clear out, the duct to the main cabin.