Here, There Be Dragons - Chapter 7 - When the Day Starts Bad (Patreon)

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Previous Chapters

Chapter 1: https://www.patreon.com/posts/here-there-be-1-77266644

Chapter 2: https://www.patreon.com/posts/chapter-2-here-77330775

Chapter 3: https://www.patreon.com/posts/here-there-be-3-78375956

Chapter 4: https://www.patreon.com/posts/chapter-4-deep-78849830

Chapter 5: https://www.patreon.com/posts/here-there-be-5-83850812

Chapter 6: https://www.patreon.com/posts/83849982

Jackson hummed a tune inside the Kitchen, working on his latest cuisine for the group. It had been three months since Alison joined the crew. Three months of simple jobs that paid well, and Lexington picking away at the encoding on that data gem.

He whistled a tune while he worked, something he heard on one of Hoary’s old CDs, something that was quite catchy. He was sure the song was called something weird like “Hootsforce” but he couldn’t remember the words exactly at this point, only the rhythm of the music. The human voices left him staring into space when he listened to them. He could only ever really remember the musical instruments and their notes.

He kept whistling, getting breakfast ready for the crew. He knew Lexington probably stayed up all night, Alison would wake up late, Hoary would likely already be in her lab, Riptide had a semi-normal sleeping schedule, and Cosette just wanted her food by a certain time, even if she was out cold. He knew all of this from weeks of working with each one and memorizing things about them, which for him required repeated learning of each of them. It was just routine now. The order to deliver their food and the order made to keep it all nice and hot for them never left his memory.

First it would be Hoary and Lexington, then the Captain, then Riptide, and finally he shares his morning meal with Alison because she really hates to eat alone. Jackson was simply trying to show them he cared, and he certainly wanted them to care for him. It was the only real way he knew to show care. He wasn't tender, he got that. He was a big brute. He wasn’t very bright, often being the one who had to have jokes explained to him. He was, however, dutiful, and he paid attention, it just took repetition to get it right for him.

Down the stairs below the kitchen, Lexington kept working on the data gem. He had been up another time, all night, punching away at his keyboard, trying to get at a chink in the cyber-armor of this data gem. It took weeks of modification to just prevent the overload and he had to make sure he was always using it on an airtight closed-loop; a system that was not only closed from any other computer and had no way to transmit, but if he wanted to move something onto there, he had to program it manually, code piece by code piece. He could absolutely not risk any contamination and the worm inside the gem that protects it getting out.

Bags had formed under his eyes, and he was starting to consider taking a break, maybe going to bed. Mind was starting to get foggy, the kind of foggy that happens when one is just tired and ready to call it a day. He looked at his clock on the computer screen, 06:39 ST / 12:02 MC. He noted it and thought about how long his programming and cracking bender had gone this time.

Movement caught the corner of his eye. He turned his head to see a black gloved hand reaching towards his face. He let out a yelp that was suddenly silenced when the hand wrapped around his snout as he struggled to move and pull away. Over and over again he struggled against the secure grip that pulled him into a headlock. His eyes saw a triangle-eared armored vector that had emerged from seemingly nowhere that was twice his height.

The door to his room opened to see Jackson standing there announcing, “Lexington! Breakfast…time?” Jackson stared at his friend in a headlock from an unknown vector who had seemingly arrived by passing through the walls, with a knife in his hand that was off to the side.

“Let him go, right now!” The dingo taur growled as he saw red. The knife was raised and started to press against Lexington’s throat, but no one who had never seen him move, would have guessed that Jackson was that fast. Already they were in a full on brawl, with the figure desperately trying to hold onto Lexington while Jackson was actively pummeling his helmet with his bare fist. The flailing of legs and arms, unable to get much further than repeatedly hearing Jackson’s bruising knuckle slamming into their assaliant’s helmet while Lexington kept yelping and dodging the knife that kept trying to punch his skin.

Within moments they were no longer inside Lexington’s room and were tumbling up the stairs to the upper floor, where another one of the black armored figures immediately tripped into the furball outside the medical lab he was about to enter. The four of them were now slamming each other with fists, paws, claws, and teeth in a mass grapple.

One of the black armored figures hit the button to open the med bay and they rolled through it, not wanting to separate from each other as no party knew who had ranged weapons or knives that could be thrown anymore. Jackson and Lexington lost track of the knife somewhere on the stairs. The second black armor figure looked over to find his gun and lamented that it was outside in the hallway.

Hoary had been up already, cleaned herself and changed into a fresh lab coat. Her morning routine required she be up before everyone else and was already drinking her morning tea, which was something Jackson prepared the night before, all she had to do was hit a button and it would fill her cup.  She thought of what she should do for Jackson for his birthday.

He was born on 07 Jun, we only have a month and I should repay him with something special. Hmm, he does good work and it is only fair if I made that work easier, yes? That is usually socially acceptable. She was thinking about this while preparing a concoction of amino-acids to spill onto her own DNA and analyze the results.

She was speaking into a recorder behind the far half of the med bay. One side was made to treat patients, up to three of them. The beds could be isolated for complex surgeries with drop down sterilized walls, and every single panel in the room could be opened if the magnetic locks and old fashion turn locks were released to reveal all sorts of medicines, surgeon's tools, and medical props.

On her side, through the sound proof bullet resistant glass and a small airlock was her lab. Here, she could do the complex lab work needed for bodily fluids or her bio-experiments, in a sterile contained environment. What she was doing now was her usual attempt to understand herself.

“Subject, Hoary, Blip 431-9-ST481E. Experiment number 473 to penetrate genetic code. Using amino-acid combination 62 to determine a way to break down the cell membrane without the DNA inside unraveling.” She spoke in a measured tone and slowly watched the dropper start to push a drop of the liquid out. “Going to attempt with three drops thi—”

Something slammed into the wall behind her, with enough force to penetrate the sound proof barrier. That sudden loss of concentration caused her to drop the dropper into the solution, and suddenly the entire experiment was contaminated. She could see the bubbles from the reaction and looked under the microscope as the colony of her own cells she had spent three days isolated disintegrated and took the secrets of its DNA with it.

Fury boiled in her veins. They knew she was not to be disturbed when doing her experiments. They knew to not play their pranks or high-jinks, and this had just ruined three days of her work. She turned around and headed to the airlock, seeing only the face of Jackson and Lexington, in the ball of twisting mass of limbs as she pushed through the airlock. “LEXINGTON! JACKSON!”

Hoary squawked so loud it echoed throughout the ship. Everyone would have heard her shriek as the entire furball stopped fighting and turned to her. All they heard was an infuriated and pissed bird. “That was three days of my work, 78 hours of my time waiting, preparing, separating, working with my seemingly unstable yet completely stasised DNA to try to penetrate it and…” She stopped as the group of four were looking at her. Even the ones under the helmet felt some sort of ancient fury had been awakened, and they were about to regret it.

“I’m sorry, who invited you onto our ship?” Her eyes were full of murder already, and now she had a target. Hoary took a step towards the cluster of armored bodies and her crew mates frozen mid-fight, nervously staring at her. Her voice had a piercing quality to it, causing a shiver of instinctual fear inside everyone else, the kind of fear when you hear a predator growl.“I could use the stress relief.” She leaped into the fray, using her wings to propel her faster in the air and tail feathers to turn her body as her talon met the armored figure, and tore right through the steel-alloy as if it were paper. The bio-augmented claws were made for this, the numerous marks on the floor of her lab showed instances where she tapped her claw nervously, landed or walked too hard along it. The person inside the suit was sent flying into the hallway.

Jackson took the opportunity to throw one of the assailants off of Lexington after Hoary and the brawl moved back into the corridor. Talons, fists, reptile scales, feathers, and dog fur rolling against steel-alloy hitting down the corridor towards the bridge. One of the invaders was on the ground, bleeding out as they reached the bridge with the remaining two.

The door opened and the fight spilled out next to Alison and Orishen having their conversation. The two of them turned to stare with stunned and shocked expressions across their faces. Hoary let out an owl shriek while Jackson yelled with extersion to throw one of the boarders through the door with enough force to bounce him off the bulkhead. “What is the meaning of this? Who are these people?”

Orishen’s voice cut through the air and made the group stop their tussle for a moment. With only one boarder still standing and Hoary’s claw around his throat, it was almost comedic that in near zero-G they are able to virtually freeze in place at Orishen’s shout while they stare at her.

“You there, in the white armor, cease! At this instant!” Orishen snorted in her most upset captain’s voice as she stomped over. The trooper sprung against the nearest wall, breaking Hoary’s grip and part of his helmet’s flexible throat protection. He grabbed Orishen by the wrist and yanked her between him and the rest of the crew.

“Stay back!” He demanded with a knife pulled to her throat, Orishen on the other hand remained perfectly calm. Her tails lighting up slightly, Hoary recognized what that meant when the bioluminescent fur lit up, the same thing when her feather pattern shifted. The taste of cuil entered the room, a strange flavor as if tasting a color of the rainbow and the tinge of metal at the same time..

“What did you do?” The canine under the armor snarled at her as he too felt the change in the room.

“Nothing dear, just keep yourself calm.” Orishen spoke with a very cool, collected voice as she held up both of her hands so the canine could see they were empty. “See no, tricks.” She emphasized the word tricks as her tail shoved one of her katarods into his throat through the hole in his armor. The long pointed needle dug into his skin and pushed up into his skull seamlessly.

Her tail released the object as he took a few steps bag, releasing her and struggling to breath. His hands clung to his throat as blood seeped between them. Orishen casually turned around as she faced her attacker.

“I will not be threatened, especially on my own ship,” She said with a coldness that made everyone in the room feel a different sort of chill down their spines.

Riptide pushed into the room. “I heard… oh… ouch.” He stopped looking at the dying caninae choking on his own blood and the needle-like weapon shoved right into his xiphoid in the process. He heaved a few more times before falling to his knees.

Hoary started towards him and Orishen raised her arm to stop her bird doctor. “No Hoary. I will take responsibility for your oath in this case, let him pass.”

Jackson pointed at the one he threw against the wall, who was groaning and slowly shifting, “What about him?”

Orishen nodded. “Secure him, we need to have a long talk with him.” Jackson and Riptide wordlessly moved and secured the guard. Hoary stopped them.

“Hold.” She stepped between them and took off the helmet of the guard. Underneath, they could tell she was a felinae, a spotted leopard subtype. Hoary forced her mouth open and pulled out a small medical scanner. She moved it up to find something, then reached inside the felinae’s mouth with her own beak and ripped out a cybernetic tooth, much to the cat’s attempt to resist. There were several cybernetic wires attached to it as she pulled it out.

“Suicide tooth.” She spat it out onto the floor and motioned for them to go on. “Take them to the med-bay, remove the armor and strap them down using the seizure straps,” She ordered, the sound of the other boarder still strangling as he fell over on his side, slowly dying.

Orishen reached down and pulled at something in the caninae’s throat, several times until her katarod pulled free with a sickening squelch. “I am sorry, but you made one mistake, and now your story ends here. Hoary, Jackson, figure out how they got on board. We are in transit and need to know how they got in here. Also, figure out what this weird reflective armor is.”

Lexington looked up through his black eye and broken tooth. “He umm… phased into my room. Somehow straight through the bulkhead. Hh god, my eye…” He reached up to hold his eye, which was heavily swollen shut.

“Med-Bay,” Hoary said casually as she approached the body to verify it was truly dead.

Lexington let out a whimper, and Hoary turned her head without moving the rest of her body. Her great owl horns, the eyebrows on a standard vector, narrowed to him along her eyes, “Do not make me repeat myself.”

Lexington let out an exaggerated groan. “Fine.”

Alison walked up to Orishen, both of whom were watching Hoary as she checked the body and verified a time of death. “So… a trip to Mars is on the back burner now, I take it?”

“At least until we figure all of this out.”

*****

Jackson and Riptide stood in the medical bay, staring down at the felinae in her undersuit that left not much to the imagination. They both stood up tall over the felinae laid upon the bed and strapped down. She wasn’t bothering to struggle or move, at least not right now.

Riptide smirked. “Yeah, if you got any more cybernetics I’d keep them off. This bed will release an emp and leave all of them permanently crippled.” Riptide had personally installed the device in case they ever had to interrogate a prisoner, and such a threat to a vector was absolutely horrifying. Cybernetics were shielded against EMP, but a direct pulse against the skin would fry them directly. Almost every single vector had some form of cybernetics; suddenly being crippled because they stop working or worse dying was a real fear.

Fear was painted across the Felinae’s face in that moment as Riptide grinned and showed all of his shark teeth to her. The door opened and another felinae walked in, Alison, followed by Orishen and Hoary, making the small two bed med-bay extremely cramped. Lexington took up the other bed, holding an ice pack to his swollen left eye and his tooth sitting on the table next to him. The long jagged incisor still has a stain of blood on it.

Hoary moved to the other bed and placed her wing against Lexington’s mouth. “Open.” He opened his mouth and she began her exam. “Say ahhh.”

With him stretching his mouth open, she was able to find the damage and used her pushframe to open the damaged part. Lexington let out several ah’s of pain as she ensured there was another tooth under it to grow in place. “You should have a new tooth in four to six days. The pain will go away by tomorrow.”

She turned and pulled the ice pack off his eye, looking at the swelling and pushing the skin aside with her pushframe’s field. The power of her pushframe not quite being enough, she pulled out several tools to use in her beak manually.  She gave him a smirk at the sight of the damage. “Okay, well, I’m going to have to work on this for a minute, don’t squirm.”

While Hoary was working on Lexington’s eye, much to his twitches and occasional yelp of pain, Alison stood on one side of the bed the Felinae was in as Orishen stood on the other. They took Riptide and Jackson’s places as they stepped outside the door, but didn’t let it close so they could listen in.

Alison leaned down with a friendly welcoming smile. “Hey, what should we call you?” She emphasized her smile down at the felinae, while Orishen stared down with a stern expression and eyes that could kill. She even used a little bit of her transcendence implants to darken the light around her and make her feel more foreboding.

“Hey hey, listen here girl, don’t pay attention to scary captain lady, she is a little miffed that your friend threatened her life. Pay attention to me, we’ll get along fine. Listen to every question You answer, I'll remove a restraint. Just one, but so long as you keep talking, okay? So, what’s your name sweetie?”

Alison’s words rolled off her tongue with a well practiced seductive lie. She would remove a restraint, but not entirely, more like just loosen a different one every time to buy time for more questions. She also put on the extra level of interest, hoping this girl at least had some attraction to other women.

Orishen smirked just slightly at this, but her tails lit up with her red patches of fire symbol shaped fur, making her look even more menacing when her facial symbols also glowed in the light she had dimmed. “Hi… Sar4h.” Alison recognized the inclusion of a strange A instead of a regular one in the speaking of the name. Each of the various megacorps that comprised most of the ruling elites had a particular way of naming. MarsCo names sounded like Earth English names. ASR were a combining of the first and last name into one singular name. Pulse used leet speak and added punctations to their name. Sar4h’s name was leet speak if she had ever heard it. She could eliminate Spyglass, they used anagrams that spell names out. Sar4h hadn’t proceeded to state what each of the letters in her name meant.

IRPF children had a rank, civilian or student title in their name, and always called each other by their last name. That is why Riptide and Jackson responded to their last names instead of their first. Progenitus would add hard stops in their name and make it sound bored, like saying Ulysses as U’sisous. Transcendent tech would be a first name and a job title.

Sar4h had at least revealed the likely planets she was born on and the primary education she had received. “Oh ho, Pulse girl are you? I bet you and Hoary could share quite a few things on genetics, couldn’t you?”

As Alison spoke, she reached down and undid the strap, starting to loosen it before Orishen snapped her glare at her. “One hole. Not the whole thing.” Her eyes could have stabbed Alison through the chest with how hard that glare was.

Alison groaned, “Oh… fine, you’re no fun sometimes.” Alison and Orishen had been rehearsing this for almost an hour before they stepped in here to do this interrogation. Alison and Orishen knew that Alison had to sell that she was the friendly sweet one. Further, by having Jackson and Riptide step out, any semblance of police would have left with them, making this very much seem like their normal personalities.

Alison tightened the strap as Hoary called over, “Unlikely, I am a blip, artificially created and manufactured for a purpose, she is likely tube-born or a natural born then modified during gestation. We were raised in entirely different circumstances.” Somehow, Hoary’s way of sounding cold and impassive was more spine chilling than Orishen acting the part of scary cop.

Hoary had a way of hiding her feelings and still speaking out, a way that Orishen was counting on and anticipating.  She was something they could both play off of. Orishen looked over to Hoary, “Oh come on, you aren’t a little curious? Maybe take a blood sample? Or look at her under an x-ray and some light surgery to get an identity chip?”

Hoary turned her head, stopping her work on Lexington’s badly bashed eye, trying to ensure he wouldn’t need surgery for his vision. “Do no harm is an oath I take very seriously. Once they are no longer trying to shoot, stab, or beat one of you… even for me, that was cold what you did on the bridge.” She turned her head back to Lexington all without moving her neck.

Orishen had calculated that sort of response and knew that anyone not using an Owl blip would be freaked out by how her head and neck rotated 90 degrees up and to the left without moving her shoulders or body. The felinae shuddered upon seeing this display, something built into vectors after several centuries of incursions; a fear of anything too owl-like. Hoary, however, was not that sort of owl, just a simple barn owl lateral.

Orishen had to suppress the need to smirk and keep up her mask of tough, angry, unforgiving captain. She turned her head back to the felinae. “Leave it to her to be the cheery one.”

Alison cleared her throat to get the attention of Sar4h. “Hey hey, don’t let those two get you down, I’m still here.” She shifted her hips so that her rear was partially on the bed, the warmth of her body able to be felt by the hand of Sar4h. “So tell me, why did you, ya know, try to kill us?”

“Not kill, capture and seize the ship.” Sar4h was being very hesitant with her answers and clearly trying to speak in a way that was not her normal speech pattern. It wasn't so much as if she were injured, but more trying to not say the wrong word, and there was another fear on her breath. This was something Alison and Orishen could both recognize, a fear of something else.

Orishen looked up at Hoary. “Are you sure there isn’t another implant we have to worry about?”

Hoary looked up with her characteristic way of moving her head without her body shifting. She looked genuinely upset at Orishen for doubting her work. “I have x-rayed her head, heart, lungs, and vital organs. I have checked every implant she had within her, every single one. I am certain there is nothing artificially put into her that could cause any distress at this point that I haven’t removed.”

Orishen turned back to Sar4h and motioned for her to go on, keeping her look stern and full of as much fake hatred as she could. Alison nodded for her and gave a friendly smile and a shrug. “Oh come on you can tell us, Hoary over there won’t let us harm you.”

“Damn right,” Hoary chimed in as Lexington winced and hissed. “Come on, Lex. No need to be that big a baby about it. I know it burns, but I’ve got to fix your eye.

Alisoon patted the arm of their prisoner. "Sar4h, come on now. We just want to know why and how you got onto the ship. Won't you please tell me? I can really take the straps off and give you a decent massage if you do."

Orishen looked over to Alison, she broke her grimace as she spoke. "You do give some of the most amazing work with those digits."

Sar4h looked between the two, exchanging glances with each of them. She started to try to speak, but she did not get a word out of her mouth. Her body instead started convulsing, and the heart monitor next to her, which had been mostly silent, sprang to life with loud beeps of cardiac arrest.

Hoary immediately stopped what she was doing with Lexington and leaped over the bed towards the now convulsing strapped down patient. "Hoary, what's going on? Why is she having a seizure?"

Orishen dropped the act and immediately moved to try to assist. Alison was pushed out of the way in favor of the two now trying to stop the prisoner from whatever was attacking them.

“I don't know, this isn't a seizure. It’s like a vital part of her brain has been suddenly removed from her body." As Hoary spoke, frantically moving through screens to find a way to stop the seizure; the vitals monitor let out a long electronic beep. She was holding a PADD showing internals of the patient and a large section of her brain just looked scooped out of existence on the PADD’s screen. All of the vitals crashed to zero, Sar4h having total heart and brain failure at the same time. Hoary stepped back, incredibly perplexed. She had never seen a patient have both brain death and heart failure in the same exact moment.

"Everyone out, you too Lexington," She ordered. They started to protest when she let out a squawk and pointed at the door unrelentingly. The crew, having long since learned that while Orishen was the captain, each of them had their respective sector of the ship that was theirs.

Riptide, the engineering bay. Jackson, the kitchen and pilot seat. Alison, the gymnasium. Lexington, his server room. Orishen, her artifact display. And Hoary, the med-bay. And in this case, it didn't matter what the captain said, Hoary's word as medical officer trumped any protest.

Everyone quickly filed out of the room, and Hoary locked the door as she put on a mask before working over to a containment suit so she could do an autopsy without putting anyone at risk.

Further, she put the med bay on its own air circulation outside of the ship's. She couldn't risk that somehow their prisoner had some sort of contamination on it. She grabbed a radio and pushed the button to speak through her suit. "Jackson, void the bodies."

"But we-"

"No, zero risk, dump them," Hoary shot back and refused to allow him to speak. Whether they could get any intelligence off them or not was irrelevant if it turned out they had some sort of pathogen. And she needed to take as little risk as possible.

"Everyone, suits now. Riptide, full atmospheric flush. This may be contagious, and we need to ensure exposure is now minimized. Even if we have been exposed, I don't want further."

With that, she began the autopsy of the body to figure out what just happened to their prisoners, brain, and heart.

*****

It would be six hours before the crew had gotten back together. Hoary had determined it wasn’t a pathogen, it was something more horrific, a terminator gene inside Sar4h’s DNA designed to go off if her hormone levels ever reached an exact chemical composition. Literally, a precise amount of stressors, and she guessed that this was the same hormone cocktail that Sar4h had exhibited during prisoner interrogation training. It only took a little bit of pushing, and her immune system had been ordered to destroy her heart and brain, as if it were a foreign body.

From there, death would have been within seconds, every white blood cell and t-cell she had suddenly viewed her own heart and brain as hostile, attacking her veins, nerve cells, and circulatory system all at once in an orgy of violence. Built right into her genetic code with an added few lines of code. She probably volunteered for it too, and never knew what they put into her.

Jackson had examined the ship and found a small pod that clearly could fit three individuals into it. There was no way to get inside that they could find, but the suits the boarders had worn were made of a type of null material, a mix of quantum entanglement and transcendent energy tech that would allow you to pass through a solid object without interference. A terrifying piece of technology whispered about in the places of the black markets and information brokers, but never actually producing a working functional piece. Yet here they had three, though they found they were genetically coded.

Lexington had found a wireless network operating on an ineffencent AM radio frequency which allowed him to dial in to the pod, and while he couldn’t get any transmissions or records (those being wiped at the precise same second of Sar4h’s time of death), he was able to detect a signal and figure out the direction said signal was coming from, just not how far away it was.

The crew took a moment to stand on the bridge as each member reviewed their findings. “Riptide, can you get the pod off?”

Riptide nodded. “Yeah, easy peasy. Just need to get out to it for a few seconds.”

Orishen nodded to him and let out a sign of relief. “Jackson, anything we have to worry about on it? Like I don’t want to deal with it exploding or releasing an EMP into something sensitive and unshielded.”

Jackson took in a breath and nodded. “Nope. I check it over and over again, not a thing. Seems once the drives were wiped, they figured, why bother?” He spoke with his usually cheery reassurance and smiling the whole time. His face never lost that smile.

Orishen placed a hand on her chest and let out a long sigh of relief. “Good, you two take care of that. Lexington, are you sure about the direction of the signal?”

Lexington looked up from his laptop he had brought up the bridge as Riptide headed out to go remove the pod. “Yes, absolutely, completely, certainly sure. If I am wrong, I’ll eat a pickle dipped in soy sauce.”

Everyone in the room made a face of revulsion at the idea, then Orishen nodded. “Very well. Jackson, if you would plot a course and burn for us to get there. Hoary, you’re on the sensor suite, if we detect anything, even just a piece of metal, you’re going to say something immediately, and you are glued to that panel if you aren’t sleeping.”

Hoary rolled her eyes from her perch, which was already on the modified science station that gave her all the sensor readings they could. Normal vessels had thermal, radar, visual, and ladar. Her science station included gravimetric, magnetic, tremor, and motion trackers. Further, it could detect leaking atmosphere if it were present in an area. That was how they found Jackson and his departed friend. She remembered the uniform that was put into a frame by Jackson and hung in his room of the lupine Georgia. Jackson also had pieces of his squadmates in his room, among the video games, anime, and piles of snacks.

Jackson got into the pilot seat and waited for Riptide to signal he was back on board as the ship started to calculate a course to trace this strange signal, on a radio frequency no one had used in centuries, to their knowledge. Orishen started to head off from the bridge. “I’m going to see if any of our previous employers know anything from my room via the extranet. Jackson, as soon as Riptide is back on board, start the burn.”

“Aye, ma’am!” Jackson saluted, and both Orishen and Hoary stopped what they were doing to frown at him. His normal bright face got very subdued and showed a dog’s face of distress. “Sorry… still working on that.”

Orishen smiled. “Just so long as you are aware of it.” The bridge door closed, and soon they would depart for wherever this mystery signal led them.