"Oh, these?" Solomon said with a hint of irritation, "the doctor said I'm experiencing 'mental load', and wants me to minimize sensory input." SOlomon realized they may not know what he was talking about and added, "Mental load is something that Ascendeds experience when pushing the limits of their abilities, although the doctor thinks that given how 'in our heads' our cogs are, even non-Ascendeds might start experiencing it if they pilot their cogs too much, or if the cogs demands place too much strain on the pilot's mind. Of course, it's just a theory, since I'm the first to come down with it while piloting a cog; neither lieutenant has experienced it yet. Now that I think about it, I don't know the Lieutenant's ability, and if it's useful in battle. And can Quantums experience mental load?"

"Actually, yes we can," Tera said, "Some Quantums desire the convenience of having built-in electronic communications or increased computing power, those that do and push themselves have experienced something similar."

Claire listened, but said nothing in return to Solomon's explanation or his question. Coming to think if it, she was quite sure that such a thing didn't happen to humans. Then again, she heard about it for the first time now, so maybe it was.

A nurse popped her head into the room and said, "Please keep the visit short," and went back to their business.

"Right," Solomon said, "I need to 'rest my mind', which really just means sitting here bored or try to go to sleep."

"I guess we'll leave you to that," Tera said, making her way out.

"Get well soon," Israfil said, following suit.

Claire nodded. "I hope you'll veel better soon." Claire said to him with a friendly smile, before leaving the room.

"Thanks," Solomon said a bit awkwardly.

Once outside, Tera said, "I'm probably going to go rest for now, what are you going to do?" She asked everyone present.

"I'll go back to the hangar," Israfil said. He planned to see Mike again.

"I don't know, maybe I'll see what Blythe is up to." Claire said. In all honesty, she wasn't sure what she was going to do next, buy maybe it was good to see if Blythe had already calmed down a little.

Mike could see Chief Engineer Link having a heated discussion on his drive with the captain, "Are you sure? Even though everything in this Hangar is top secret? ... The top brass are losing their minds! The scientists won't like this one bit! ... Of course, you're the captain. Very well."

Link grabbed the PA and announced, "Alright teams, hold off on the cog repairs for now, and get ready to import some cargo!"

The hangar doors opened as small mobile utility craft from the other carrier headed towards the enemy freighters, bringing back large containers and laying them around the hangar. The engineering crew set about with forklifts and the like to move these containers to out-of-the-way positions and began cataloging them. Again a symbol could be seen on many of the containers:



Israfil entered the hangar, looking around for Mike.

Mike had heard the conversation between the two, but chose not to give it much thought, instead focusing on the new task Link had given. Or at least, that was the case until he noticed Israfil being in the hangar, and walked over to him with a smile.

"Hey Mike," Israfil said, "What's going on here?" He looked at the containers being moved around.

Mike shrugged. "Just importing some cargo. I don't like it as much as working on cogs, but it needs to be done." He answered, before showing Israfil a friendly smile.

"I see," Israfil said, "Must be from those freighters we managed to stop. I wonder what's in them? Anyways, have you heard what happened with the Rivers sister's cogs? Asteria and Nyx? They combined! I wonder if that has to do with them being twins. Apparently our cogs are supposed to be hiding these amazing abilities. I wonder what Orpheus might be hiding."

"It looks like your cog has a small tachyon harp, but I'm not sure about it. I mean even if it looks like it, I'm not sure if such a small tachyon harp would be able to function properly." Mike answered, looking at Israfil.

"A Tachyon Harp?" Israfil asked incredulously. "I wonder what that could possibly be for." Israfil's voice trailed off. It seemed like not much time had passed, and already he had been in two pretty intense battles. Technically, he had killed a lot of people, but he wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about it. There was a barrier between knowing something was true and actually experiencing it; he knew he had killed people but he didn't experience murder. "Umm, Mike?" Israfil asked with some trepidation, "H-have you ever...injured another person before?"

---

Meanwhile, in the female pilots' quarters, Tera, who was feeling unusually fatigued from the prior mission, was climbing into her bunk when her hand slipped and she accidentally knocked one of her belongings down. As it slid across the floor, Tera ran after it but lost her footing and fell on top of some luggage. Without thinking, she reached inside to see if the thing she had dropped had fallen in, and pulled her hand out, holding a picture of Blythe and a man she didn't recognize. Curiously, she wondered who the man was, though she was seized by a sudden anxiety. The emotions that she was programmed with made her nervous and guilty; she knew she had crossed the line. Her face flushed as she knew she had to quickly put the picture back before anyone caught her. Tera wasn't normally this clumsy or thoughtless; perhaps the doctor was right about cogs giving their pilots mental stress. She thought about what she had heard in the infirmary, and to the difficulties she had using Mayura's scanning ability across such a vast region of space. But those thoughts could wait. Tera looked over her shoulder to see if there was anyone behind her.

Mike was silent for a moment, unsure of how to answer Israfil's question. Of course he knew the answer to that, but it wasn't something he was very fond of talking about. "I was involved in a car accident once, some years ago, but I don't know if the other drive was also injured." He finally decided to answer.

Not much later after the incident with Tera and Blythe's picture, said girl walked into the room and greeted the Quantum with a short yet somewhat friendly sounding 'hey', as she climbed onto her bed.

"Were you injured?" Israfil blurted out, momentarily forgetting what he originally wanted to ask. "I-I mean...I don't mean to pry, so you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to..."

---

"H-hey," Tera replied. She was still trying to calm down from the incident. She looked at her shelf and realized that the item she had dropped was her wooden burr puzzle. She never did find it, so it was probably still there among Blythe's belongings. Tera resigned herself to the fact that she'd have to look for it some other time. Blythe's necklace caught her eye, and she wondered if it held any significance, maybe it was a locket, perhaps? She remembered seeing Blythe take it out and put it on. "That's a nice necklace," Tera said, trying to make small talk.

---

Maya, having finished a significant portion of her mission report, left her office to stretch her legs. She wandered around looking for Claire, hoping to apologize herself, this time without Sion and Blythe arguing.

Mike nodded, seeing no need to lie about it now. He has brought up the accident himself, so it would be stupid to start lying about it. "My leg got messed up pretty bad, it had to be amputated, but I got a mechanic one instead." He told, rolling up the leg of his pants to reveal the prosthetic hidden underneath it.

Blythe almost seemed to smile when Tera complimented her about the necklace. "Thanks. I got it from someone who was very close to me." She answered.

Meanwhile, Claire was wandering through the halls, looking for something to do. She didn't feel like going to the quarter already, and considering that Solomon had yo be left alone and that she didn't know where Israfil was, it pretty much meant that she was alone for the moment.

At first Israfil was afraid it would be rude to look, but since Mike was showing him, he took a look. "I-I'm sorry..." Israfil said, feeling a little overwhelmed. He didn't know why Mike would trust him with something so personal. Israfil realized that he was becoming increasingly curious about Mike; though they were the same age, Mike gave off this feeling that he had experienced much more to life, and it drew Israfil in. Mike seemed so confident, so strong despite having been hurt so bad. "T-thank you...for sharing...I don't know that I'm worthy this information. I...I sort of...look up to you. I know we haven't known each other for a long time, but you've helped me, since me met at the space elevator. But I know so little about you." Israfil didn't know where he was going, yet he sort of just kept talking.

---

Tera felt prying any further would be rude and, considering what she had just done, highly inappropriate. "I-I see." Tera climbed into her bed and sat there, flipping through her drive, going through her personal electronic communication accounts, trying to just relax. "H-have you experienced anything...weird? From piloting, I mean. Vertigo, lack of coordination, migraines...?"

---

Maya saw Claire wandering the halls and called out to her, "Rivers! If you're free, want to get coffee together?"

Mike rolled down the leg of his pants again and smiled towards Israfil. "Don't worry, I don't mind sharing this with you. If I would have minded it, I would've let you know. The same counts for anything else, so if there's anything you want to know, just ask." He said, really not minding it. Sure, it wasn't like he would share everything with anyone, but het felt comfortable around Israfil and the boy wasn't bring werd about his leg, so Mike saw no reason not to answer any question Israfil had.

"I got a pretty bad headache after yesterday's mission if that's what you mean, but that's all." Blythe answered, looking at Tera. "What about you?"

Claire looked up when she heard Maya and offered the woman a friendly smile. "Sure, that sounds nice."

Israfil was glad Mike was willing to share information about himself and proceeded to ask more, "Where are you from? The Ascendancy core systems, or the border? I've always lived in the core systems myself."

---

Tera was surprised to hear Blythe's response. "A headache? I've felt a slight...loss of coordination today. I wonder if piloting cogs is safe? I mean, Lear seems to be fine now, and both the Lieutenants have piloted for a while..."

---

Maya walked to the cafeteria with Claire and got a coffee. They sat down at a table and Maya began, "I wanted to apologize to you. I realize that I've probably come off as an incompetent commanding officer. I'm not trying to make any excuses for myself, but I'm used to leading trained soldiers. What makes the cog program so difficult, is the supposed correlation between the strength of the pilot's personality and the strength of the cog. What this means is that our team has people that are not easy to get along with, yet we are in a sense, reliant on those exact people to give our team strength. Do I force everyone to get along, or would that hurt their performance as pilots? How do I make things go as smoothly as possible? In my haste, I took RHS's suggestion and placed you in charge. I apologize, for myself, and for Lieutenant RHS. I've discussed with him and we decided that in the next mission, if we need to split up again, he will take charge. I hope you can forgive him and support him as your leader wholeheartedly."

Mike smiled, glad to see that the boy was now unafraid to ask him any questions. "I'm also from the core, though I would like to see the border one time, to see if it's any different there from what I'm used to." Mike answered.

Blythe shrugged. "I don't see why they're not safe. Aside from what happened to Solomon, they're all minor complaints. And to me, having a headache as the cost for the protection that the exoskeleton of a cog offers, is more than worth it." She said.

Claire nodded. "I understand, and I hold no grudge to either of you for the decision you made. You simply did what you thought was right." She answered, looking at Maya. "And I want to apologise for the way Blythe behaved today. She can be very hard to handle."