Carly gave the... thing that was supposed to be their pilot a good stretch of the side-eye.

"I'm thinking, no. Not at all. The name of the game is discretion. I know how rowdy you PubSec types get, and I will have none of that here."

She grimaced, mentally going through the personnel files in her head again and wondering how AdCorp thought it would be a good idea to put this group of people together in an enclosed space. And, on top of that, how she was supposed to wrangle this lot. Might get tricky...

"If you promise me you'll cooperate, I'll see to it that you get a bonus on top of your payment. You keep your piece and the ship for now, but if you get outta line, that's grounds for termination. In other words, don't make me have to write a report."

---

* * * * *

---

Juddworth grumbled in acknowledgement. "Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too."

He returned his attention to the console, keying up some information he'd procured from the 'net.

"It's especially odd since the Will was written in eighty-one, but James Gray died around, say, sixty-three? Something like that. And that's his signature on the Will. Could be forged, but who knows?"

The Hologram zoomed on the signing date of the Will, before shifting to a portrait of James Gray. A few more keystrokes and the projector brought up the image of an elaborate cemetery.

"Unfortunately, if our theory is correct, James Gray's grave is located within this graveyard here." He pointed at the hologram. "It's contained within the grounds of the Royal Palace, on Mars, which, as we know, is heavily guarded."

He scratched his beard in frustration, taking a moment to catch his breath.

"On top of that, if they Grays have figured it out, which, we should assume, they have, they're not going to let anyone they don't know anywhere close to the Palace, let alone the graveyard."

Savis stepped back from the console, making sure the rest of the crew were paying attention.

"Any wise ideas?"

Bradacharchle
Aboard the Carrion

---

The Erkani stared curiously at the projection of the Will, tilting their head this way and that as though its contents would sift into place to produce an answer. Steepling their fingers, the alien spoke with hesitation, choosing the words one-by one. "The Empress had clearly set her mind upon this some time ago; the date lies closer to her birth than death; perhaps it is a significant date? My knowledge of recent trivia is... scarce. What was the date of her grandfather's death? And the grave. Twice, the grave - is it her grandfather's grave? Or the old grave beside which they spoke, or perhaps two graves - both, or neither?"

The alien looked at their new comrades, each engaged in their own games with each other, with stakes and rules irrelevant to the alien. The haggard one, the military man, seemed stubborn; quick to anger; emotional. The smoker was an unfortunate presence; nothing personal, just the smoke, distracting, choking, ultimately poisonous. Hard to focus on his other attributes. The pilot... hard to know anything about the pilot, yet. And the last, the fighter, was paying attention to the smoker, perhaps irritated by the smoke as well. Perhaps not. Hard to tell, human body language did not translate as cleanly as most of their written languages.

---

Sevro sprinted out of elevator doors as soon as they opened, heading towards the bridge. Two officers were standing at the ready as he turned a corner down the hallway. Not even stopping, he hit one with the stun baton and shouldered the other, knocking the officer to the ground. Moving on he reached the door without any further confrontations with the police. Sevro quickly shut the door behind him and activated the blast door.

Walking over to the main console he began to wipe the memory cards on the ship. If the authorities were to find out who he was it would cause many problems for him. After he wiped the memory banks and previous flight plans he began a timer to eject fuel tanks. The timer was set for 2 days from when he pressed start. After that he began to map a jump to venus. The ship should stop just outside the atmosphere and become useless junk. After that the fuel tanks will eject and the ship will become stuck. The officers will be able to hop out on venus, then the ship will drift to its final destination. As the computers worked out the final calculations Sevro could hear banging on the door. “Have a nice trip boys. I hear venus is beautiful this time of year.”

He could hear the computer start firing engines to get the trajectory for launch correct and began to head to the escape pod. As he got in he flipped on manual control and flipped the launch switch. The pod shot out of its tube and ignited it's thrusters. Sevro immediately activated reverse thrusters and began to fly to the public spaceport. As he neared it he slowed down and looked back at his old ship. It was starting to exit the atmosphere and ready itself to make the jump to venus.

Landing the pod in an alley by the spaceport he hopped off, grabbed his bag, and retracted his helmet. Walking calmly to the front entrance he showed his ID. “Alex Cromwell.” After being let into the spaceport he began to walk to the agreed upon dock.

She smirked a little bit, knowing exactly how punks like this worked. They'd dance for you if you dangled a credit or two extra over their head. All the big talk was for naught when you had more than a speck of... insecurity...

Or irony. Either or.

Killchain was severely lacking. If he didn't want his paper punched, sure. She was fine with that.

"Yeah, it's protected. But I don't think raiding the Royal Palace guns blazing will be kosher with the Grays. Besides..."

She moved her clean boots off the console and onto the floor.

"We have a man on the inside."

The door hissed open as a slightly bedraggled and winded young woman came stumbling into the briefing room, holding a black handkerchief to her mouth as she coughed a couple of times. She took a deep breath, pointed at Victor and grinned.

“Told you I’d be on time,” she reported triumphantly as she made a beeline for her luggage. It was clear which ones were hers - the suitcase was horribly beaten up and there was… something else; it was a clunky metal thing, approximately the size of an ice box, covered in stickers with a suitcase-handle. It looked almost industrial and was just as battered as the suitcase.

Victor shot Abigail a warning scowl before turning to address everyone else present in the room.

“We can leave getting acquainted for later.” he indicated, hinting that he’d be starting with their briefing now that the entire crew had assembled...

“My name is Victor Strade, I’ll be taking on the role of your tactical officer for this hunt. As you’re all aware, you’ve been hand selected by Grays for the purpose of discovering the late Emily’s treasure, which, according to the remaining heirs, is believed to be rightfully theirs.”

He paused and placed a folder on the table, opening it up to reveal a hard copy of Emily Gray’s will to use as reference. He then continued, “This is an important expedition with a small crew to accommodate our strategy. Due to the contents of the will hinting towards an investigative treasure hunt, a full scale search of our system would be a cost of resources and time.

"Instead, we begrudgingly have to play Emily Gray’s game and follow the clues which I require all of you to participate in. We have close to no intel regarding any other crew on the hunt, but we have to expect force to be used against us by any and all of them. From here on out we’re all we have; trusting others can be up for discussion, but ultimately something we want to avoid."

He stopped once more, allowing everyone to take everything in and simultaneously taking this time to get another good look at everyone present before continuing. "Any questions so far?”

“Yeah, I have a question...” Reika, the asian woman in black clothes, spoke up. “It’s pronounced ‘White’, but it’s spelled nothing like ‘White’. It'd got a ‘g’ and an ‘h’, like in, uh, ‘enough’. That’s dumb.” She fell silent looking pointedly at Victor as if she expected something from him.

“That's 'cause it's not white - it's Wight,” responded Abigail patiently. “Y’know, like a ghost, a spirit... something that's invisible to the naked eye and evades normal men. A 'g-h' like in 'might', 'slight’, 'fight’, 'light’....” She trailed off quietly, twiddling with her handkerchief before suddenly perking up. “Is our ghost ship on its own or do we get special privileges for trying to bring the Gray's fortune back home?”

“Okay, Ms. Dictionary,” Reika responded, glancing over before someone could answer her pragmatic question, “Got any more words for me?”

Finn shot a worried glance at Strade and the Havikka, hoping that an argument wouldn't break out between the two young ladies.

Victor cleared his throat before the two could further their conversation. “Maybe with the reward we get, you can buy yourself English lessons, Saigyo,” he chirped before continuing with his briefing.

“I’m glad you asked, Harlow. Our strategy will primarily be covert, that means we have to stick with this mining ship. That also means we don’t want to go around flashing any badges and bragging about our task to people that have nothing to do with it. We can get support here and there, clearance… supplies… yadi-yadi-ya...” he trailed off, wafting a hand to gesticulate the final remark.

“Lovely, our high priority support involves skipping toll booths and avoiding speeding tickets,” quipped Abigail with a smile. “And that's miss Abigail 'Dictionary’ Harlow to you, miss Saigyo,” she retorted jovially, pointing a couple of finger guns at the pilot. Saigyo frowned.

“Yeah, well, good. We got rooms in here?” queried Reika.

“Aye, this better not be another case of us all bein’ crammed into some small room,” Finn chimed in, “I've been in too many ships where all I've got is a tiny bed; it's not good for my back and everyone gets grouchy,” he said as he leaned back against the wall and lit his pipe.

Reika nodded in agreement. “Hear that, Victor? Everyone gets grouchy.” Saigyo repeated sagely.

Victor furrowed his brows at being called by his first name, responding, “Yes. Harlow has a copy of the ship plans. Harlow, could you kindly?” he asked her, motioning at the table before the group for everyone to see.

“How come she's able to call you Victor...” muttered Abigail tetchily. Raising her voice, she reported, “Whilst I was ogling the ship I found the plans on the database too, so I can send it to anyone that wants a peek.”

There was a crumpling noise and a slap as she slammed the mess of blueprints down on the table facing the others. “For those who aren't able to interpret the data, I'll give a quick overview - someone gutted a mining Ship and hid a royal class cruiser inside. Must've taken a lot of work to do since the only giveaway are the thrusters on either side, but they could've easily been salvaged for all anyone knows. Everything in here is state of the art... but what I really want to draw your attention to is the Comms system.”

Abigail pointed at one particular paragraph of supplementary print so small that it was hard to read. This was unsurprising, given that some poor engineer had to cram all of the information onto a single A1 sheet of paper for printing. “As it stands there are terminals in every room, corridor and chamber you can think of - even the toilets, be mindful of that - but it looks like I can hook up a set of earpieces for easy communication. Given enough fiddling, I might just be able to extend the range so you can talk amongst yourselves planetside and still send messages to the ship.”

“Very similar to the military hardware we were issued years ago, when I performed combat duties…” the Havikka mused, while sitting on a nearby bench, lowering her cases to the floor. “Will be very useful, presuming the communication antenna does not short-circuit.”

She turned to the engineer, tilting her head back to look her in the eye. “If your ability to mend wires and metal is of the same proficiency of my mending of bones and flesh, I would doubt that such a thing would happen.”

Reika, still leaning against the wall, looked down at the extraterrestrial, a bemused look on her face. “Wait, you’re the doctor?”

Abigail shifted in her seat, giving Reika a dirty look and a quick eye-roll before attempting to busy herself in her blueprints.

Victor quickly chimed in, noticing some minor tension, “Yes, she is. And judging by the personnel file I was given about her, she’s more than competent; something I’ve done with all of you, as well. The importance of this mission is grave, so I’m expecting none of you to faff about. Pick your quarters, set up your luggage, and meet back here to discuss our first course of action,” he practically demanded, eager to get moving.

Reika shrugged in response, before Abigail spoke again. “I'd call dibs on the big room but their dimensions are exact to the micrometre,” Abigail remarked as she hefted her luggage with a grunt. “Try not to miss me too much, Boss,” she jibed.

With a polite nod of her head and an equally respectable “Gentlemen,” Abigail made as swift of an exit as her entry into the briefing room at the start.

Saigyo picked up her cylindrical bag and followed after Abigail, giving the Havikka doctor that she still didn’t know the name of a sidelong look as she went.

The Havikka doctor picked up her cases, and hefted the giant backpack once more. Quizzically, she pondered the girl’s words as she made her way aft to the lower deck access. “I am not gentle, nor a man…”

Stunned by the sudden disappearance of his colleagues Finn let out a puff of pipe smoke before slowly collecting his things and meandering down the corridor after them, with only a quick glance back at Strade to check that he was doing the right thing by leaving.

Abigail took the dorm closest to the hatch to the upper floor. It was a strategic choice, as she knew that she would be up all hours working on the ship and didn’t want to wake too many people when she finally manages to snatch a few hours’ sleep. She went in, the door snapped shut behind her and the touchpad on the door showed it to be locked and, within the minute, assigned to “A_HARLOW”. A few other moments later and the steady thump of post-modern synth pop started to reverberate into the corridor. It was SYSTEM74, one of the more popular bands for young adults these days. To the uninitiated, it sounded like someone was trying to compose an orchestral piece using industrial tools.

Luckily Abigail kept the volume to a respectable volume and she wasn’t blaring her music for too long, just long enough to unpack and settle in. Afterwards she leant against her open doorframe, revealing that she took her meagre lodgings and transformed them with posters, photographs and all sorts of rugs and pillows into something that looked like an oversized pillow fort. If anything, it would at least dampen the noise. She remained perched between her own room and the corridor as she was busy doing something on her holopad, a wire to the terminal within her room and an earpiece resting just outside its borders.

Reika followed behind Abigail, waiting for her to travel down the hatch and pick a room before she herself climbed down. She looked down the hallway at the few rooms available, and began to walk. She let her momentum carry her towards the room two doors down and to the right. It slid open and she slid her bag off her shoulder and into the corner. There was a touchpad on her side of the door, and she fiddled with it for a few minutes. Her door opened, closed, and opened again as she pressed the biggest virtual button that looked like the sliding door. That was easy. There were a few other buttons too, with various words and symbols. Eventually, she discovered a button that looked like a open pad-lock. She tapped it and pad-lock went from green to red, and the symbol snapped shut. Locked. She didn't bother making it so her name appeared on the outside for that would have required another three minutes of hassle.

There was a bed hunched in the corner, a ventilation shaft, a cabinet, a chair and a desk with a personal pad on it. It was comfortable enough, for sure. Reika pulled her bag over to the desk and cabinet and began storing her extra clothes. Tank tops, t-shirts, leggings, cargo pants and various underwears were all loosely organized. There was a toothrbrush and things of that nature, too, and a handgun. All of the necessities of life. She gripped the weapon and held it in her hands, sliding the slide and ejecting the mag to examine the bullets inside. Bullets- they worked. The only issue is collecting the shells afterward if you fight on your own ship, but that seemed trivial.

She placed the gun- safety on of course- on the desk with the magazine set next to it. Sitting in chair, she leaned preciously back as she set her boots on the surface of the desk, and thought about her first encounter with her new crew.

Victor reminded her somewhat of Captain Evans, her old captain back on the Barnet. No one reminded her of Zebediah as always, because no one was quite like him. Of course, Captain Evans was the best captain in the solar system, and Victor was weird and new. Abigail was a smartass, for sure, one of those educated types with a large vocabulary who like to annoy you with their friendliness. The other old guy talked funny, but a lot of people in her life did so she knew not to judge. Apparently, their doctor was a Havvy. The only alien on board was the one who was supposed to fix them up; no one else thought that was a little fucked up. Creepy little bastards, with those big black eyes of theirs. She snapped from her stupor and thought that she needed to see more of the ship she was going to be piloting.

Wandering throughout the ship, if no one stopped her Reika would eventually find her way into the cockpit where she would fiddle with the controls for a bit.

---

---

Nikki listened to the others as they invaded her bridge. Paladin lit up one of his customary Mars 100s forcing her to shift the atmosphere flow in the small space so that it favored his location. Then as Juddworth continued to rant as seemed to be his habit Aelithea was obvious in her tease of Ry even going so far as to lift her shirt slightly as if she were going to flash her breasts for him.

This was a strange thing to do in light of the discussion of a grave and Will that seemed to hold some obvious clue which could be just a Red Herring; not that she could see through.

She was a Pilot not a Crime scene investigator.

Feeling that she still needed more experience in such situations she instead continued to scan the surrounding area even adding an algorithm to read the pattern of signals to see if there were any change in transmission or orientation. She also added to her list of needed chips forensics, profiling, affidavits, and civil documents.

After that note was made she went back to studying Aelithea. She thought her actions interesting and wondered if she felt any guilt or regret for her activities or if she suffered some mental ailment brought on by an abusive childhood or event; then she could have been raised in a hedonistic environment where her actions were a healthy expression of her inner desires.

As his ship descended int Uranus’s orbit, Jin jumped out of his chair and jogged to the turbolift. ”Docking bay.” He listened to the machine’s whirring as he considered which shuttle he’d use. As the doors opened, he stepped into the garage and perused his options. I think I’ll take… Oh, the Ferrari Cavalcale Astrale, that’ll work nicely. When he got situated in the pilot’s seat of the small shuttle, he informed space traffic control, “Do you copy, there will be a shuttle entering the atomsphere, transferring codes now.” While that was happening, the engine started to spool up. The shuttle exited the bay and soared down to the city at top speed. When he got into the city, he slowed down. He noticed a ship jump to light speed and the cops following suit. Time to cut loose. He punched in the co-ordinates he was supposed to go to, and a waypoint appeared on the windscreen. No instructions, because he wanted to figure out his own way to get there.

He pushed the throttle to full and immediately felt excited. He hadn’t been able to do this for a solid month, and this release was going to be great. Jin activated his enhanced perception modification and took in the architecture. He turned it off and took off like a lightning bolt. He weaved between other, slower shuttles and dodged people on jetpacks. He twisted and turned through buildings and soared over skybridges. He, eventually, was coming up to the coordinates, so he slowed down and lowered his landing gear and pulled into the dock. He opened the cockpit door and a guy and a girl were waiting for him. “Come on, get in. We have stuff to do. What, I don’t know.” As they climbed into the small ship, he relayed a message to the Dragon Goddess to start heading toward Saturn at a decent speed. He warned his passengers that ”this is going to be a bumpy ride.” He gunned it straight for where his ship was and took the same path, going faster than the Quetzal-class ship. When he caught up to it, he landed. As he made his way to the cockpit, he gave directions. ”There’s engineering, there’s the bar, there’s the quarters.” Eventually, when they arrived at Saturn, Jin announced that everyone was on paid leave until further notice. ”If you want to maintain the ship, that’s fine, but take it to Mars and do it there.” Then he and his two compadres got into the shuttle again. They landed in a bay where a small, though big than the shuttle, ship and a woman were waiting. “You must be the Addisons we’re working with. Here we are.”

The first thing to do was to drop off her cases in the medbay.

Following the ship's signs, she made her way into the clean area of the ship, where some equipment, tables and tools were already present. She set the two cases onto one of the shelves, opting to come bac and sort out her tools later. Following that, she made her way to the next room aft, where there were hatches to the lower deck.

She carefully took a couple of steps onto the ladder with her feet and her spare hand. Satisfied that she was in a suitable position of balance, she released her legs from the rungs and used them to grip the sides, sliding down the ladder and landing with a thunk.

Making sure her backpack was secure, the Havikka selected the cabin across from the one marked 'A_HARLOW'. Opening the dorr itself was rather embarrassing, as she had to reach over her head just to hit the switch. Once inside, she spent the next few minutes unpacking her belongings. Last of all, she set her rifle on top of the dresser, bipod extended, with the spare magazines arranged just in front.

Satisfied with her work, the Havikka about-faced and headed back into the corrior. The one called 'Harlow' was loitering in the doorjamb into her cabin. Curious, Mdazi approached.

"Hello, Engineer girl," greeted the Havikka, humbly.

---

* * * * *

---

Things were quiet on the bridge of the Darcy for the next hour as Killchain kept his chattering to a minimum, and Carly browsed idly on her datapad. There were a few articles here and there that piqued her interest, or made her frown in frustration.

Soon, she heard more boots clanking down the main corridor, followed by a greeting from the one she immediately identified as Kobayashi.

"About time! What kept you?" She held up a hand as soon as the words left her mouth. "Scratch that, I don't want to know."

Her eyes swept over the three, and narrowed, settling on the man in the back. "You..." she started, pointing to him, "you're Sevro Barca, right?"

---

Sevro had been enjoying the ride to Saturn until he realized he had only packed his heist gear. That meant while he had weapons, IDs, money, and lots of explosives he had not brought a change of clothes. Oh well, he thought, I’ll just buy some on Saturn. After that, he had been checking which explosives he had shoved into the bag.

After the landing, he had been strolling in the back of the group as they walked up to the new ship. Looking around and whistling like he didn’t have a care in the world he was quite surprised to have been called out immediately. “Whatever it is you think I did I didn’t do it.” Sevro thought for a second then held a finger up. “Unless it was something good, then you're welcome.”

Reika walked right past her and Abigail did not seem to mind in the slightest. She seemed to be too engrossed in her work as the pilot made her way up the ladder but looked away from her holopad long enough to see the Havikka doctor struggle to even reach her doorpad. Abigail frowned a little. She closed whatever it was that she was running on that holopad and typed a few words onto the screen before re-opening the program. Her lips moved ever so slightly as she read whatever results came off it and she nodded to herself, brows creasing with frustration. She hardly noticed when the Havikka exited but did turn to face her once she started up a conversation.

“Afternoon miss,” Abigail responded politely. She set the holopad aside to give the ship’s doctor her full attention - it beeped as it turned off, becoming a mere slab of transparent plastic once she let go of it. “I don’t think you got a chance to even introduce yourself back there, nobody really did...that’s the captain for you though. I’m Abigail.” She held a hand out for the Havikka to shake - notably, she held it at a height that Mdazi could actually reach. It didn’t even seem forced. In fact, Abigail was peering at Mdazi’s door from time to time with a frown.

“We did a whole module on the flaws in human-centric ship design at the university I went to,” Abigail mused miserably, “and the best engineers this empire has to offer didn’t even consider that any extra-terrestrial would be on this crew? I guess the empire’s always been a little racist. Anyway, I’ve made a note to go around and make sure you’ve got as much access to this ship as anyone else. And before you complain,” she held a finger up and smirked, “I’m pretty sure the shower handles are even higher up than the door lock. So it’s a matter of the upmost importance. Besides, this ship’s so shiny and new that I probably won’t have much to do until I get enough data on how it works out in space, so I’ve got time.”

Abigail glanced up at the hatch. She seemed to have a way of talking, as if her stream of consciousness was more of a white-water river and you end up swept up in her ramblings. At least she spoke her mind. “Also ignore whatever that Saigyo girl was on about earlier. I think you’d probably be a better medic than most humans. No doubt you had to study from the very basics and work your way up; even women like Saigyo kind of know where their brain is meant to be…ah, shit. I’m going off on a rant again. Sorry!” Abigail chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. “I don’t even think I asked for your name. Oh god, how rude of me. I’m just really excited for this mission, that’s all.”

She took the proffered hand in the traditional Human greeting, listening to the girl's ramblings with keen interest. There was much praise for Mdazi for someone she had just met. Perhaps she was a xenophile.

"Hail Abigail, of the clan Harlow," she said as the girl finished her speech. "I am Mdazi of the clans Vekko and Liia, born free and formerly of the Resplendent Glory. You may call me Mdazi, if that is suitable."

---

* * * * *

---

"Riiiiight..." She pulled up a page on her newsfeed. "So, you're telling me-"

She turned the 'pad around so Barca could see. It was an article complete with video of a police chasing a ship around Uranus, which then jumped to lightspeed. "-this isn't you?"

---

Luna peered over Sevro's shoulder to glance at the datapad. She only caught parts of the newsfeed scrolling across the page, but it was enough to give her a general idea of who she was working with. Allllrighty then.

It took her a moment to realize that her proximity put her into the Addison lady's line of fire, and she took a step back. Not that she had something to be yelled at about, or anything. The person which had come to pick them up, she never did catch his name, provided a good means of escape, so Luna drifted sideways next to him.

"Not just the driver, huh? Coming along for this ride too?" She asked.

---

---

Sevro watched the video intently. “Oh good, the ship made the jump.” Looking up at the woman and grinned. “That, in fact, wasn't me. I had already gotten off the ship by the time that video was taken. Soon that ship will be gone and the cops will get a vacation in Venus.”

---

---

Niki heard Ry give her the go ahead and damped all the ships electronics while balancing the thrust of the powerful little cruisers engines barely even needing to tap the lateral or dorsals to hold their exit from orbit. Not a sensor nor comm was allowed to go active and even it’s passive receivers placed in low functionality mode which made the Carrion only traceable by visual sensors and there her hull’s coating giving little to reflect.

She wasn’t a shark in the vast ocean of stars but that which hunted sharks; a deadly spear thrust from the shadow of nightmares.

Before Nikki corrected their course she activated her Multi-Spectral hull and disappeared from sight. She was now like a submarine in the dark gray sea’s of the Atlantic during the 1940s Happy Time.

She would take a slower course compared to the noisy ships that filled space all around her but when she appeared she would either seem to just appear or be hidden near her true goal with detailed scans of the target location. That was if the others didn’t demand she rush without regard.

She split her mind into three operations; systems, sensors, and wargames. She often used the quiet cruise times to plot attack vectors on any ship within her attack range out to 50% of her course range which meant two day eta for this trip. She would project intercept points, predict external ship courses setting them as either witness or defense; witness being her favorite.

The Carrion was a stealth killer and part of that meant taking out targets in such a way as to make them seem to enter the Bermuda Triangle...disappear without a trace. She was an assassin like her fellow crewmates but her prey were armed with Terra joule energy weapon or megaton warheads, sensors that could detect targets at 1 or 2 AU ranges and she was still considered a rookie...a virgin.

She didn’t see it that way because she was designed physically for her job and trained mentally. The later was akin to brainwashing or programing and worked on her only biological component; her brain. It was the only part of her former body unaffected by the genetic disease that had trapped her in a living hell and she was glad to be shed of that poorly made shell.

She enjoyed her new bodies even found the revulsion some of the people she served with before her present crew amusing; one had even resigned in a show of pity that Nikki was abused; she had tried to convince her that she should hate what had been done to her. It was a ridiculous concept to her because even denied knowing what it was like to taste food, feel the true touch of a human, see like a human or any of the other things bio’s experienced physically Nikki felt blessed...but she was curious what Aela got from teasing to expose herself to Ry; was it because hers was unique to her?

This required a closer inspection which she thought might come in handy when she served her courtesan function helping her appear more empathic. So Nikki made three internal bots to follow Aela in the junction between the virtual and bio worlds. 1 would monitor her vitals, tone of voice, tempo and volume, the 2nd would monitor the bios Aela came in contact with and the third would monitor body language which might help her appeal to targets.

Finn let out a sigh of relief as he finally came down the hatch to the living quarters, upon leaving the briefing area he had quickly lost track the others and had ended up wondering around the ship unable to find his map in his jumbled pack, at least he had been able to get his bearings and hopefully wouldn't get lost again. Hurrying down the corridor he flashed a smile at Abigail and the Havvika whose name he hadn't caught who were chatting by one of the rooms.
Eventually taking the room furthest down the corridor to the left Finn was glad to be able to get into the room relatively painlessly, though once in the screen was filled with far too much information 'it's as if someone had taken a map of space and tried to make it 2D' he thought to himself as he fumbled through the menus until everything was as it should be. Though his name was now displayed as neslO nniF rather than Finn Olsen after an unsuccessful attempt to have his name appear above his door.

Setting up his room he lay out his clothes neatly in his drawers, with the exception of his space suit which he set to inflate itself so that it would stand like a mannequin at the back of the room. He then set about making the room feel a bit more like home, magnetising his harpoon to the wall and more importantly turning up the temperature, those kids could all freeze themselves if they wanted but Finn was determined to have his room a reasonable temperature for human life. Finally Finn integrated his eye with the ships console, downloading he data saved on his chip onto the computer and connecting to the exterior cameras and sensors. Sitting down Finn set up a holographic image of all known space in the centre of the room and watched as new information appeared on it as the information downloaded, he now had a map which condensed all of the information he had gathered from trade routes and areas patrolled by pirates to the locations of old friends, all in one easily readable map... so long as you were Finn.

Finn smiled, he felt like he could do his job now. He lit his pipe and strolled out of his room feeling much more relaxed than he had previously.