“Good morning, sir.” Clara Anselm replied from the comms desk. She didn’t turn or look at Mallory. She was leant toward one screen, controlling a spider droid as it inspected a crumpled tangle of metal that had been partially embedded in the mud.
 
“More aliens arrived down the slope.” She reported, carefully teasing what could have been a comms dish out of the pile. 

“Silbermine went and visited them just now. Looks like some of them brought buttresses to install - Cap told me to flag if they start coming closer. Armament is hot. Fuck!”

The spider drone had flipped the devastated comms dish over to find not just a gouge down the middle, but a large, squishy caterpillar type bug stuck to the metal. Anselm flicked the joystick and the spider drone squashed the dish hard against the ground.  

A light blinked on Mallory’s console and a message from Zey blinked up on screen:

“Good morning!
[list]
[*]Wodan has finished programming the live-fire sim. Start weapons training regime for passengers and crew round the clock
[*]Prepare bodies for external cremation
[*]Circulate list of passenger work assignments, designated supervisor and rota[/list]
Ta
ZK”

Wodan chimed in straight away after its eye tracker concluded Mallory had finished reading.

“I would recommend using the Recreation Room to host VR simulations. I have programmed a step by step weapon handling tutorial and three hundred and sixty degree firing range sim. I’ve also mapped every weapon in the armoury for use as a ‘controller’. I would recommend unloading the weapons before allowing untrained supplementary personnel to handle them.