Admiral LeBeau and her people didn’t stay long beyond the meeting. While she made comments to the effect of needing to get back on the hunt for Benson Fisch before the Prime Minister replaced her, I’m pretty sure she was also worried that her aide might end up causing some trouble with a fixation on Tindron. The woman had spent most of the meeting slightly flushed, and casting what she probably thought were subtle looks his way. Tindron, for his part, made a point of not meeting her glances, but even the giobhioni on board - with only second hand accounts of issues regarding benastians - were anticipating a scene.

  I was almost convinced we’d managed to avoid anything happening, until they were all getting ready to board Void’s Cutlass for the trip back to Titan’s Whisper. It was then that Ms. Stein caught Tindron slightly separated from the rest of us, stepped in close and basically threw herself at him.

  Or tried to anyway.

  I’d been right on the verge of yelling out a warning, and I saw both Jophixa, the admiral, and both marines coil as if to dart in their direction - but before any of us could complete our movements, Tindron stepped out of her path with an effortless grace. Then, as the woman flew past him, he reached out one long slender arm and caught her by the collar of her uniform and gave her a gentle shake before leaning in, saying something quietly in her ear. Stein went a shade of red pretty damned close to that of an Ataxian tohma-fruit, and I wasn’t sure if she was going to shrink into herself or lash out at him.

  Not that she could have done much to hurt him, dangling at arms length like she was. And despite benastians looking so wiry, even one of the marines would have a hard time damaging his arm. Tindron walked the woman over to one of said marines and set her down. “I would take it kindly if you would see the admiral’s aide on board. She has, I think, overstayed her welcome.”

  The marine didn’t say a thing, merely gave a curt nod, took the woman by the shoulder and firmly directed her up the boarding ramp and into the Cutlass.

  “I apologize, Mr. Mend’nasa.” Admiral sighed, her left hand raised and massaging her brows, “Ms. Stein is one of my newer aides, and her self control is clearly not what it should be for diplomatic interactions with your people.”

  “It’s not your fault Admiral,” Tindron said with a shrug, “If the situation were different, I’d have had no issues with satiating your aide’s fascination with me. But this isn’t the time, for more reasons than are obvious. Maybe during some future meeting when it is more appropriate.”

  That caused Lebeau’s eyes to widen for a moment before she found herself laughing. “If only I were young enough to dare that myself.” she said, then nodded to Jophixa. “I’ll update the Prime Minister on what we discussed. Remember, if you need more supplies, or support, get in touch with me. We need to work together to make sure this contagion comes to an end. I’m sure Prime Minister Mandela will agree.”

  Jophixa snapped off a giobhioni salute to the woman, her sharp teeth coming together in that startling clack like shattering bone. “I will Admiral, and I’ll get that data package sent over to you as soon as I can.”

  With a return salute, the admiral turned and was escorted up the boarding ramp by the remaining marine. Soon after, the ramp raised and sealed itself against the ship’s fuselage before the Cutlass got itself underway.

  The long range fighter had barely cleared the atmospheric containment barrier when Jo turned around to give all of us the stink eye. “What in Void’s Maw are you all standing around for!” she snapped, the set of her ears the only thing telling me she was nowhere near pissed off. “We’ve got repairs to complete and analyses to run. Get your reactors fired up and your engines on flanking speed, now people!”

  I hid a smile as I grabbed Boudya’s arm and gave it a tug back towards engineering. “Miles, you want to come help with the repairs? Overhauling the cryo conduits is a great way to learn your way around engineering.”

  He turned to look at me with a smile on his face, an answer that I assume was an affirmative halfway out of his mouth, but Jophixa caught his arm. “You can join him later, Mr. West.” She said brusquely, “You and I have some things to discuss, not to mention getting you set up with a berth for while you’re aboard. I’m afraid all the spacious quarters are taken, but once Mr. Aacen has the engines operational again, I’ll have him or Ms. Mend’nasa alter a set of the racks to give you a bit more room.” She made to pull him towards the bridge, but glanced back over her shoulder at me. “I thought I told you to set your engines to full burn Mr. Aacen! Get to it.”

  I snapped a terran salute to her, cognisant of her previous comments that we humans didn’t have the dentition for a giobhioni one, and quickly hustled off to engineering with Boudya.

  It took the better part of two days to finish tracking down all the ruptures in the cryo-conduits. Even with Gertrude and Miles’ help, the process ended up dragging on. No matter what kind of hurry we were in, I wasn’t going to do the job slapdash, not when we had ships watching over us until we could get underway again. It was far better to make sure we got all the leaks dealt with now instead of having ole Murphy rear his ugly head on us later.

  So we ended up doing multiple cycles of getting everything we could find fixed up, then sealing up engineering and pressurizing the conduits with inert gas to determine if we’d missed anything. Three times we either found ruptures that were hiding in cramped areas we’d had issues scanning completely, or had lines that had been critically stressed but hadn’t blown out yet finally gave up.

  Finally though, with all four of us bedraggled and exhausted, we were finally able to clear the system and refill it with cryosterum-20, not the exact formula of coolant giobhioni specs called for, but Stacy had run a full molecular comparison and declared it “good enough” until we could either rendezvous with the station, or synthesize enough to completely flush the system again.

  Honestly, I was half expecting the engines to perform better being cooled with the cryosterum-20. Giobhioni tech outmatches humanity’s by a large degree in so many ways, but Stacy and I had run simulations with the cryonic formulas Whisper had available, and while Stacy was doubtful, my instincts thought we were in for a surprise.

  “Engineering to bridge,” I said after activating the ship's internal comms, “We’ve got the tank topped off and the lines bled. Requesting go ahead to initialize the conspace engines for diagnostics.”

  “Permission granted Mr. Aacen,” came the reply, “We’ve been hanging around here long enough.”

  “Sepaq, Commander. If we stay here much longer, we’ll have to start scraping moss off the hull. Stand-by for engine startup sequence.”

  I cracked my knuckles loudly, catching Boudya wince out of the corner of my eye (she hated it when I did that), reached out to the holographic interface, and initialized the procedure - a silent plea to whatever god of engineering might exist - that the startup would go smoothly.

  Because I really didn’t want to spend any more time in the tantaja tubes! At least for another week.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Engineering was soon filled with the chirps, beeps and whines from various systems as they came to life. It was a cacophony of sound that many an engineer considered a thrilling symphony; the more romantic among us considered it to be like hearing the sound leading up to creation itself. I wasn’t sure about that, but those sounds were music to my ears. Soon, the engine began to emit the growling, rumbling noise of a kind I hadn’t heard in so many years. The sound of a slumbering beast waking from hibernation, the crescendo or a massive orchestra building to the climax of its opus…

  And then, just like that, the growling dropped into the usual subaudible purr that was ever present on the Elegance.

  “How are the readings on your end Boudya?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the diagnostics. So far, everything looked to be within operating parameters, but there was a reason it was best to have more than one set of eyes checking things for something like this.

  “Everything in the green. The Taxlin Harmonizers are reading at a lower temperature than they have previously, but that could be the different coolant.”

  “Bridge, the engines are fully initialized and online.” I called out, “All specs within parameters, but to double check the cryosterum-20’s impact. I suggest taking the ship to one tenth cruising speed so we can get an idea of what to expect.”

  It wasn’t long before Toftri had us maneuvering at the suggested speed and readings were continuing to match with my expectations. I made a note of everything I was seeing, then asked the bridge to perform some high-g maneuvers, then repeat the process in increasing speed increments. Each time, the harmonizers continued to show more efficient temperatures, while the engine sucked back ever so slightly less power.

  “We’re all good, Commander.” I sent over comms, “I’ve got a good set of data points for analysis. We’ll keep a close eye on the engine for a while to make sure, but I think we’re ready to get back to business.”

  “Good to hear, Thomas.” It was a break from her normal formality while on duty, but I could also hear the smile in her voice, “I’ll see you in my office for grapnak at the usual time. Tell Boudya to take a break as well, Stacy can monitor the engines long enough for all of you to catch your breath at least.”

  “Thanks boss, we need it.”

  I had just stepped out of the shower, feeling clean and human again for the first time in days, when Stacy hit me with information that would trigger memories of certain details.

  “Hey Tomminoms?” she said happily, jarring me out of my autopilot drying off. “Do you remember how we talked about marketing a new and improved Optimaster type tool, with giobhioni tech improvements?”

  “Oh geez, I forgot all about that. We’ve been so focused on everything else, I haven’t had time to consider the idea. Don’t tell me you’ve managed to put it out there.”

  “I was going to see about doing it independently. A brand new product in competition with the originals, but when I investigated the legal flotsam around that, it seemed that there was a concern about lawsuits. I’d have to make sure the new product was sufficiently different, and even then they could hold the whole process up in court!”

  “Sounds about right. Corporations can be brutal when it comes to their intellectual property, it was so much worse back in the twentieth century, but they still hate competition.” I shrugged as I considered myself in the mirror - I needed to trim my beard again. “At least they gave up trying to fight Basic Income, even if they are still scumbags.”

  “Yes, well…” she continued, “I decided to approach them directly and see if they were open to making a deal for the new designs. If nothing else, I could use those funds to help with other projects. They were really hard to get a meeting with, but when I finally arranged it, they were definitely interested.”

  Now completely dry, I stepped out into the lounge area of my quarters. I had a bit of time to kill before I was due to meet Jo in her office, so after quickly getting dressed in some comfortable “civvies”, including a simple ayatsana - one that did not bear the patterns of the one Tratsa gifted me. Fully dressed, I flopped down into what was my favorite chair for reading. “So, how are the negotiations going?”

  “Well, that’s the thing.” She said carefully. It was interesting how serious she was being with it just being the two of us in the room. Usually she was so much more flirty and playful in these situations. “They’ve not only concluded, but the first payment has landed in the account you helped me set up.”

  “That’s awesome!” I exclaimed, “I hope it was enough to let you start arranging the supplies to help the station.”

  “You could say that.” Again, she seemed a bit nervous about the entire thing. “I, uh, managed to get a really good deal out of them, Tomminoms. We now have a lot of credits available. And I kind of…I…”

  “Digibits, just spit it out. I promise whatever is worrying you, I’m not going to get mad at you, okay?”

  There was a long silence, and then, all in a rush she blurted out, “I want to build a body!”

  I blinked.

  That wasn’t what I had been expecting. I’d been expecting that maybe there was something in the contract for the new Optimaster that she only realized afterward was troublesome. Or maybe she was nervous about telling Jo about the credits and whatnot. But a body?

  “I really liked being able to interact with things through Frankie,” she explained. “On the station, I can control all the various drones to get things done, but they aren’t specifically designed for me, not to control directly. You are already planning to rebuild Frankie, can we instead not build something specifically for me? So I can…be a real member of the crew?”

  “Stacy, you are a real member of the crew - both here and back on the station.” I told her, “You know it, and I know Jo will say the same thing!”

  “But that’s…”

  “Not the same. Yeah.” I sighed, and scratched my beard for a moment, thinking about the whole idea. Having a platform that Stacy could control directly to interact with things on Elegance, would be useful. My EVA suit was already set up for her to take control of the defence systems integrated into it. Hell, with her processing power, she could do that, control a body, and still manage systems both on Elegance and the station easily. “It’s not a horrible idea Digibits. It’d allow for more crew rotation options. Let me speak to Jo about it, I’d really like to make sure she’s on board with this.”

  “Do you think she’ll allow it?” The worry in her tone was palpable.

  “I’ll do my best to convince her.” I smiled, ideas for the chassis already starting to take form in my mind. “There is a whole lot we could do with such a platform… We could pretty much set you up as a one droid army if we ever need it.”

  “That sounds awesome! I could be like Chuck Nostrom in those action holos!”

  A laugh exploded out of my lungs, “Oh geez, you would latch onto that action hero. At least you didn’t choose Seagull, I would have had to tell the gsaltros back on the station that your personality matrix was on the fritz.”

  “Oh come on,” she responded in an affronted tone, “I have more taste than that. Seagull is a…what’s the human expression? Putz?”

  “That’s accurate.” I shook my head, “Hard to think that this all started with me just trying to survive, and using the Optimaster to break into the station. I thought I was a goner there. If the Optimaster hadn’t been able to translate the…”

  I stopped, details from those moments back on the planetoid, trying to hack the hatch open so I wouldn’t die of hypoxia flooded back. One particular detail looming large among them - the Optimaster had a limited linguistic base for giobhioni! It likely wouldn’t have been able to decode the door lock soon enough for me to survive if it hadn’t. That meant that someone in this sector of space had encountered the language and been able to translate it to some degree!

  “Honey-buns?” Stacy asked, breaking me out of my thoughts. “What is it?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Your brain activity just spiked and you went real quiet. What did you think of?”

  I realized I had to tell Jophixa about this. If someone in this region of the galaxy had encountered giobhioni, it might be extremely important to our mission. I stood up quickly, and bolted for the door. “The giobhioni have been to this region of space before!” I explained as I hustled down the corridor towards the bridge, “Why didn’t any of us catch that before!”

  The Salvager’s Plague

  Ko-Fi or on