The corded circuitry of the central control interface column flickers once in response to the insubstantial electrical-based reboot. The ship is plunging into freezing darkness in a steady, seemingly unpreventable decline as its operations cease one by one, but it evidently hasn't completely run itself out of power. There must be an interference, something funneling the power, draining it, an occlusion of core systems.

The civilian is still talking, dragging Rush's thoughts back into their unbearable helix of unproductivity.

"What?" he ratchets out, the syllable lacking the usual bite of frustration. "Someone on Destiny with a marginally applicable skillset? I was unaware such a creature existed." Employing someone of those alleged expertises sounds perfectly reasonable, and therefore it's overwhelmingly likely that it did not occur to anyone, much less the Colonel.