[SFAP] Chapter 5:8

This is the eighth section of the fifth chapter of Sonnets from a Proton. The novel starts here.
The next section is here.

“That’s it then?” asked Alice pointing out of the window.
“Well unless we’ve got the wrong ship come to rescue us” replied Joseph unlocking the gun ranks.
“I’d heard the tales about it. It really is a mess isn’t it?”
“Oh you should have seen it before the refit.” replied Jo “with those old fission units it had it looked a right mess. Now at least it’s all together in a big lump.”
“That’s like describing the moon as having a crater or two.”
“Hey it does the job and more than that it has what we’re after”
“Have you any idea where the docking port is on that thing, I guess we’re going to have to dock so it’d be good to know where we’re aiming for.” She couldn’t help herself, she looked down the rifle sights to check them, she wasn’t sure what for, but it felt right.
“You mean you’ve not studied the schematics?” Jo turned to look at Alice for the first time since she arrived “You’re not leading a party I trust?”
“No the plan was that I was one of the distressed civilians on board here” Alice laughed at this “See if I can get to the medical unit and then wait to be collected. A mole deep inside as it were.”
“If anything goes wrong you’re still going to need to know your way around.”
“Ha” Alice laughed again “Do you know how bad an actor I am, no better that I am genuinely lost and confused or I’ll be telling the medics they’re taking me the wrong way”
“You ever done anything like this before?”
“I’ve done plenty of simulations, but no you’d be surprised how much call for this there hasn’t been in my life”