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[Elana]

::Welcome to the game! Readers might want to check out the descriptions thread so you'll know what everyone/everything looks like. New players might also want to check out the rules thread so you'll know how to play along. Hope you enjoy!::

It was 0500 hours on the first Monday of the month: that meant inspection day. Captain Fatefire was already in uniform and on her way down to Engineering. Engineering was always the first place she stopped on Inspection Day. After all, if her ship wasn't running, what good is anything else?

On her way through the white corridors of the Living Wing, Rory reflected on Inspection Day and how she had never actually encountered a problem. Especially not since Tinker joined the crew. In fact, even if there was a problem in engineering, would she even understand what it was, let alone what to do about it? She wrinkled her nose and bapped the button to trigger the door to open, to let her pass into engineering.

The circular door rolled open with a hiss of air. Well, she knew that worked. Each wing of the Moth was designed to be detachable in case of emergency, so the doors between sections were effectively airlocks. She crossed the threshold.

Once inside the belly of the Moth, she felt the heat rise noticeably, due to all the various doodads and whatsits trundling along. An iron walkway crossed high over the floor to get to the opposite side, where the hatches to the Zoo Wing and the Rec Wing were, but instead she took the spiral staircase down to the engineering floor.

Mainly Inspection Day was just a chance to catch up with her crew, one-on-one. She ran a tight ship - literally - so there was rarely an actual malfunction, but she always wanted to give them a chance to talk to her about anything on their minds.

Meeting with Tinker was often more enjoyable for him than for her, since it was his chance to list off all the myriad "improvements" he had designed for the Moth in the past month, none of which Rory would understand, but which would get Tinker extremely excited.

Captain Fatefire was hoping it would take twenty minutes or less this time, so that she could make her way to navigation and have a chat with Anneliesse. She had a few possible Gotchi destinations in mind, and she wanted to start work on plotting the best course.

"Tinker," she called, her soft, breathy voice instantly lost in the various whirrs and rumbles of the machinery. She reached to her waist and tilted her comm device, angling it to see the screen. "Time," she murmured, and "0510 hours" glimmered on the screen until she let go. He'll be here. He's always on time.

[Lord Monkey]

"Just one moment, captain, I've just about finished," spoke a spirited, high-pitched voice from inside a dead control console in the middle of the room. With a distinct "Pop!", a whiff of ozone, and a low hum the console came to life. Its central monitor read: "Central Diagnostic System Mark 1.0: Fully Operational."

Tinker rolled himself out from inside the console with a small kick, then stood to meet the captain. He was by no means a military man, and did not salute, but the captain knew Tinker's loyalties and had no concern over it. "As requested, the Space Moth's diagnostic systems can now be centrally monitored from this console." Tinker began poking the monitor with a grease covered finger bringing up a cross-section of the ship, color coded to denote varying diagnostic information. After a long, dull, but energetically delivered explanation of its functions Tinker was left with an exhausted captain, and a monitor so covered in engine grime that it may as well have been turned off.

Tinker beamed. Vector, the young Robotchi, began tugging on the cuffs of Tinker's coveralls, spitting out a string of beeps and whistles. Tinker looked down, "Yes, of course I hadn't forgot about that, I was just going to tell her...No I do not think it's lunchtime yet." Tinker's eyebrows crossed, and he looked back up at the captain. "There's just one other thing that I'd like you to take a look at."

He turned and started walking down the central corridor of engineering, hardly waiting to hear the captain's sigh as she looked down at her communicator to see that it was now 0528 hours. "Only Tinker, anyone else would have gotten an earful by now," she thought to herself as she straightened her uniform and followed Tinker down to the Turbine Room.

The core of the ship was Tinker's personal sanctuary, far more than his official quarters were. Along with the turbine's multiple housing units, there was a small cot in the corner that Tinker slept on, and the walls were completely covered in schematic diagrams covered in handwritten notes and equations. "Captain, do you remember how when we were last at port I mentioned I would need to procure 6 dimensional buffer arrays?" Fatefire didn't, but only because the dimensional buffer arrays were part of one of Tinker's shopping lists that were several hundred items long. She would normally give him a budget and allow him to purchase what was most important, first to the maintenance of the ship, then to upgrades. The captain looked at him without an answer other than her eyes telling him to hurry up.

"I've been working with the Doc regarding tamagotchi habitats, and we've found that there is a ridiculous variation between what any two tamagotchi can thrive in. Anyway, he mentioned that there was an inadequacy in how the cages currently kept our passengers happy, so I developed this." Tinker flipped a few switches, and in front of him a series of six metal orbs floated together to form the corners of a cube.

"Put your hand inside," Tinker urged and as the captain did so she felt the edge of the cube resist slightly, and then let her hand pass in. What she noticed immediately was that the interior of the cube was significantly cooler than the rest of the turbine room. Tinker adjusted some switches, and the cube warmed significantly, and became remarkably humid. "I should be able to replicate nearly any environment once this is done, and because the cages don't actually have walls, the tamagotchi we collect are still free to socialize. They can easily pass in or out of the cage, but I think they'll have a more recuperative rest when they have something a little closer to home."

Fatefire smiled, better health meant happier tamagotchi, and lead to more money. For once, Tinker's report wasn't simply about how many bolts he had to tighten over the past month.

[Chi]

"Um..." a barely audible voice whispered from behind the Captain and Tinker, in the shadows of the machinery.  When neither responded, it repeated, a little bit louder, "...Um...Captain?"

Captain Fatefire whirled around, only to face a startled Anneliesse Weindmore.  "Oh, good morning, Anneliesse.  Is there anything wrong?"

"Well...no, captain.  Are you busy?" Anneliesse asked softly.

"Actually, Tinker, our engineer, was just showing me our new Tamagotchi containment units.  Have you met Tinker, Anneliesse?"

"...No, Captain."  With a quiet dignity, Anneliesse turned to look at Tinker.  "P--pleased to meet you."  She shook his hand delicately, then stepped back to marvel at his work.  "Wow, Mr. Tinker.  This is...an amazing...contraption..."

"You think?" Tinker asked, his face glowing with pride.  "It wasn't that hard to build, actually.  I just used a bit of glass, some air pressurizing devices, heat and cooling sensors, and a little bit of know-how.  See, to start out with..."

"Oh no," Captain Fatefire groaned inwardly.  When asked, the engineer could give a detailed description of any device or piece of machinery on the ship, especially so if he built it.  Since this was her first voyage, Anneliesse hadn't been aware of this.  At least she was a good listener, the Captain thought wryly.  Still, it could be a good half-hour.
 
Just then, a walkie-talkie-like device strapped around Anneliesse's waist gave a short blip.  Startled, Anneliesse quickly picked it up and used its touch-screen to discover the source of the sound.  Her eyes scanned the page.

"...Captain?  We seem to have...received an incoming message...from some visitors to our airspace...  I think you might want to read this.."

[Jiro]

Captain Fate startled when she saw the unfamiliar alphabets.
"Tinker, does these word looks familiar to you?"



Tinker took his space dictionary and searched for the words,
but he found no results. "I dint think we should think about that message too much." Said Captain Fatefire
"But this could be a sign from the Tamagotchi's around the universe!" Tinker was astonished with the message, he flipped his dictionary again searching for answers.

"I wonder what's taking Officer Jiro so long... He should have been here by now"
"Who is exactly Officer Jiro? I don't think he's on the list." Anneliese was quite sure that she hasn't heard that name.
"Officer Jiro joined us just recently, he's quite a smart lad, but I'm afraid he is irresponsible! he's 20 minutes late for the inspection!" Captain Fatefire lost patience and commanded Robotchi to search for Officer Jiro.
Robotchi quickly sent signal to all the other Tamagotchi's on the ship.
a few seconds later Officer Jiro came running into the room "Why the angry face captain? I should be the one who's angry, do you know that Robotchi zapped me with his antenna??" Officer Jiro gave a large sigh before he realized that it was inspection day.
"I'am very disappointed of your carelessness, this will not happen again! do you understand???"
"yes ma'am..."

"I don't think I have introduced myself, I'm Officer Jiro Namishima, born in Japan and I love tamagotchi!"
"and I'm single" Jiro winked to Anneliese but she was looking elsewhere.

Tinker jumped all of a sudden and shrieked happily "I found it!"
"found what?" asked Jiro
"the message!"
"What message?" Jiro was rather confused with the situation
"Jiro enough with the questions! what does it say Tinker?" Captain Fatefire and Anneliese was also quite excited.

Tinker wrote the translation down in a piece of paper and showed it to Captain Fatefire.
"I can't believe it! Who would write such horrible things?"Captain fatefire sat down in sadness
Anneliese stepped forward to Captain Fatefire with eyes filled with fear "Actually... I know who would..."

[Elana]

::Sorry this took a while - I needed to consult with Chi about how to address Jiro's cliffhanger so I had to wait for her to return from out-of-town.::

Rory squinted at Anneliesse. Sometimes connections show up in the most unlikely places. The pretty young lady, always sorrowful, was showing a more uncharacteristic expression: anxiety, and- nostalgia? She kept looking to one side, her thoughts clearly lost in the past.

Fatefire read the translation of the text to herself again, wondering how Anneliesse could ever know the writers of such a ridiculous message:

HEY LAMERRZZZ
WE NO UR GOIN 2 GET SOME TAMAGOTCHIES
WERE GONNA FOLLOW U
WERE GONNA TAKE UR TAMAGOTCHIES N BRING EM 2 R BASE
N FEED THM TIL THEY ALL DIE LOLOLOLOLOOLLLZ
PS R SHIP IS BIGGER THEN URS LOLOOLLL N WE CN CLOAK RSELVES SO U CANT C US LOLOL

Fatefire gagged a little bit, her eyes nearly rolling out of her head. But Tinker was still talking. His goggles reflected the green glow from the screen in his hands.

"...an alphabetic code from the early 21st century used by computer hackers to express elitism and conceal programming backdoors from users not in their subculture, recently appropriated by a militant anarchic group that calls themselves the 'Privateers Against Lameness' or 'PAL'."

"Yes, I've heard of them," spoke up Commander Namishima. "They recently released a statement about their position on Tamagotchi harvesting. They believe that it's a waste of resources and money to search the galaxy for creatures to bring home, and an even bigger waste to care for a dying form of life, on Earth."

Rory rolled her eyes and exhaled a "pfft!". Jiro nodded in agreement. "Of course there's nothing wrong with some humans seeking adventure and bringing back cuddly things for kids back home to enjoy, and learn responsibility. But PAL has declared Tamagotchis as 'lame', and under their charter, they are obliged to eliminate the practice of harvesting them."

"I'd like to see them try," Captain Fatefire growled.

"It's not a bad strategy," Jiro said. "A lesser pirate crew could be quite intimidated. They wouldn't want to risk leading the PAL to the Tamagotchi homeworlds, so they would give up the mission before it ever started. That would achieve PAL's goal of stopping Tamagotchi harvesting much more efficiently than an actual battle. Especially if they're bluffing and they don't actually have a ship." He winked.

"They have a ship," Anneliesse said, in barely a whisper. All eyes turned back to her.

"The letter's signed, isn't it?" she murmured. Tinker scanned the message pad.

"It's signed alright, but not in the same code. Looks like a scribble to me." He turns the pad back to Anneliesse. She took one look and squeezed her eyes closed, pain all over her face.

"I knew it. It's Philbert Reiter. He... used to work for my family." The whirs and thumps of the engine suddenly seemed so loud, since everyone in the small group was holding their breath, listening to Anneliesse speak. She almost never discussed her past on Earth. "I... once hurt him. Badly." She wiped her eye with the back of her hand. "I knew he'd run off and joined the Privateers. He's an... excellent pilot... and... I believe he still has the ship he stole from us. It's... a Rommel class."

Rory's expression darkened. Rommels were top-of-the-line German engineering: faster than anything in space - except for the Space Moth. But it would be cutting it really close.

"Did it have a cloaking system?" she asked briskly. Anneliesse shook her head. "But such a thing is fairly common on the black market," Tinker piped up. "I never installed one because this beauty deserves to be seen. And besides, she's so fast, no one ever sees her coming anyway."

Rory managed a fleeting smile. Tinker always tickled her with his unswerving calm and humour. But she was already stalking towards the bridge. "Tinker, I want you to figure out how to break their cloak. We need a better sense of what we're dealing with. Jiro, I want you to develop ways to better protect the Zoo Wing from invasion. Anneliesse... you're with me. We're plotting a course to Suboshi Beta."

"Home of the Gozarutchi," Anneliesse breathed to herself. The number of pirate vessels who'd come back safely from Suboshi Beta could be counted on one hand. Now those are some Tamagotchis that would not be captured quietly, either from the Zoo Wing, or from their homes.

[Chi]

Captain Fatefire and Anneliesse strode through the complex maze of machinery that made up Engineering, until finally they emerged through a pair of sliding steel doors and into the bridge.  Anneliesse gasped; the view of hundreds of stars and planets out the viewport never ceased to amaze her. 

"Annliesse," Rory broke into Anneliesse's reverie.  "Do you have everything that you need here to plot course?"

"...Yes, Captain," Annliesse said.  "I could have used...my maps of the Andromedan Systems...but I suppose I can do without..."

"That's preposterous!" the captain declared.  She quickly pulled out her walkie-talkie and connected it to Tinker's.  When she heard him pick up, she told him, "Send Vector to Anneliesse's quarters and have him get us her maps of the Andromedan Systems.  We're in the bridge."

When Rory looked up, Anneliesse was bent over the small table in front of her seat.  It was covered in maps, charts, and complicated grids that only she could understand, and a set of dictionaries and language references was stacked in one corner.  On top of it all, though, was an enormous map that encompassed all the known galaxies.  This map was entitled "Space Moth Course 001".

"The quickest way to get there would be.." Anneliesse's eyes were narrowed as she worked through all the possible routes.  "...through the Azwald Starstream..." As she spoke, she used a pencil attached to the end of a protractor to sketch a light line showing this route.  "...but that area is experiencing rebellion against its government...so it might be safer to take the Zatetsuken Curve..." This time, Anneliesse sketched out a semicircular line through a much less densely planetized area.  "...What do you think, Captain?"

"I think this would be a lot easier if we had those maps of the Andromedan Systems!  What has that Vector gotten himself into?" Rory replied angrily.

"I can just go...get them myself..." Anneliesse stood up and, with a respectful nod, walked towards the door to the brig.  "...While I'm gone, you can decide which route you prefer..."

Anneliesse slipped quietly back into Engineering and in minutes had reached the door to the Living Wing.  She trod quietly down the hallway until she had reached her room.  Unlocking it quietly, she quickly entered and picked up the maps she needed off of her desk.  She locked the door behind her and proceeded down the hall.  Sudenly, she heard a noise behind her that sounded like a footfall...not like that of Vector, or some other Tamagotchi...a heavy, human's step.

Seconds later, Tinker, Jiro and Rory's walkie-talkies hummed to life.  All of them looked down curiously, only to hear a single cry before it dissolved into static and went out.

"CAPTAIN!!!!"

[Elana]

Captain Fatefire almost thought she'd imagined the sound coming from her communicator device, so lost in thought was she while staring down at the star charts. But she glanced down and saw the blinking red alarm light that indicated that Anneliesse had lost her connection to the network. She sucked in a breath and launched herself to the door. Head down and arms pumping, she used all her hours of training to get to the Living Wing at top speed.

When she got there, Tinker had already arrived, since he was quite a bit closer in Engineering. He was puttering around with a handheld device, a tiny satellite dish whirling on its tip. Anneliesse was nowhere to be found. Rory punched the door mechanism to Anneliesse's room, but it croaked out a beep that indicated that it was locked. "She's not in there?" she demanded of Tinker, getting very short-tempered.

"No," Tinker said, in his eternally calm voice. "She locked the door herself, from the outside, just moments ago. I'm picking up the residuals of a transportation mechanism here in the hallway."

"They've kidnapped her??" Rory yelled, grabbing Tinker by the front of the shirt. He glanced down at her fist, balling the fabric of his coveralls. He looked back up at her, clearly nonplussed. She grimly let go.

"It would appear so," Tinker responded after regaining his dignity. "Furthermore, the only way they could have transported through our shields was if they had a specific bio-lock on Anneliesse's body. They wanted her, and her alone."

Rory looked off over Tinker's shoulder, her mind full of speculation. "She had a prior relationship with the ringleader of those ridiculous Privateers. Who knows what they want with her."

At that, Jiro came bursting in, quite pink in the cheeks from running over from the Zoo Wing. "What happened? Is she okay??"

Tinker resumed looking at his scanner. Rory refocused her eyes, on Jiro. She pursed her lips. "The PAL have taken her. Without our navigator, it's unsafe to proceed to Suboshi Beta."

"Not to mention that we're not leaving her behind," Jiro added, quite definitively.

Rory nodded to that, which was about as sentimental as she was willing to get. "We need a way to find their ship. Tinker, you know what to do. Jiro... ready the weapons."

Ready the weapons with Anneliesse on the enemy ship??

Fatefire left no space for questions, crossing her arms and moving to Tinker's side to hover over his shoulder.

[Lord Monkey]

::Sorry for the slow response time, RL's been getting in the way of anything fun lately::

Tink pulled a multi-tool out of a pocket located somewhere along his left leg and began unscrewing the control panel. He quickly began stripping and twisting wire pairs, resulting in little more than sparks and whiffs of smoke. Tinker didn't have to look over his shoulder to know that the captain was getting impatient, so he pulled out his panacea: a large ball peen hammer. Several decimating whacks removed all function from the locking mechanism, and Tinker wedged a steel bar between the jam and the door to force it open with a hydraulic hiss that was almost a whine.

"Hmm, how very curious." Tinker looked about the star charts nonchalantly, grinning to himself from beneath his welder's goggles. "He isn't here, Captain, and that might help us out a great deal."

"Who?!" Demanded Fatefire, her patience swiftly coming to an end as she glared down at him, an intimidating full two feet taller.

"Vector," he beamed.  "Whoever transported Anneliesse off the ship, must not have been very exact in their coordinate manipulation system. You see, the only way to have even been remotely accurate in transporting anyone off this ship while our shields were engaged, even with a bio-lock, would be to send a massive burst of anti-matter diffuser particles into a general location and hope for the best. They nabbed our navigator, but also grabbed every other sentient energy container, namely, Vector."

"So?" Fatefire shot back, but between Tinker's sly grin and a moment to think about it she put it together herself. Vector would be simple to find; he was as much a beneficiary of Tinker's tinkering as the Space Moth was. Find Vector, find Anneliesse, find the cloaked ship.

Tinker walked over to a control panel and began tapping at the built-in keyboard. Quickly, Tinker's finger taps became almost a low hum without any distinguishable beats. Short of the ship tearing itself apart, nothing was going to distract him. Coordinates and vector plots danced on the monitor before him, but hardly stayed still long enough to know what they were. "There. Captain, I'm sending their general coordinates to the bridge."

Tink spoke to the air around him, his hands were too busy starting on a second task to bother with his communicator. "Space Moth, patch into Officer Jiro's location." the Space Moth chirped in response, establishing a connection. "Jiro, I'm sending Annaliesse's coordinates to you. We'll need to act fast. If the PAL has any competence it won't take long for them to realize that they've transported a homing beacon up along with them."

Tinker spun around to see the captain already out of the room and on her way to the bridge. "Captain, there's one more thing!" Fatefire turned to face him. "Vector might actually be able to have a word with their ship's computer. He can transmit anything back to us, including what he's able to read from his visual, audio and tactile sensory arrays. Anneliesse may have to do some convincing of her own since Vector's usually so stubborn. Maybe we can control the situation with out having to blow all those wonderful spare parts into bits of protoplasm, eh?"

The captain grunted and continued toward the bridge. Tink knew that was as close to a "Good job, here's a cookie" as the captain ever gave so he grinned, then ducked into the ventilation system. He'd beat the captain to the bridge by almost 17 seconds taking this route, and she would need a prepared co-pilot while Officer Jiro manned the weaponry.

[Chi]

::Twenty Minutes Ago::

Startled out of her wits, Anneliesse dropped her walkie-talkie as the transportation device hummed to life.  All she could manage was a shrill shriek, and she hoped that it would carry through the communicator to the rest of the crew.  Suddenly, a subzero chill penetrated her (the result of interdimensional transport, no doubt).  She shivered and hugged herself.

When Anneliesse opened her eyes, she was in an unfamiliar bridge.  It seemed almost piecemeal, made up of pieces of all classes of ships, but it had the makings of a Rommel Class.  It was her family's ship, and she knew it.  She was surrounded by a horde of snickering crewmembers, who she also realized were the PAL.  One stood out among the rest.

"Philbert Reiter, you disgust me," she hissed.  Startled, he looked up at her.  Recognition gleamed in his eyes.

"You can't talk to me like that, Miss Weindmore.  Or should I say 'Prin--'"

"Shut up," Anneliesse whispered.

"Smack-talk later," another crewmember broke in.  "I don't care who you are, miss, but you are our captive now.  Tell us where your ship is headed!"

"Never," she replied, lifting her chin high.  "I would never betray my crew."

"Now see here!" a man raised his fist.

"Oh, enough of that," Reiter stopped him.  "We can always just follow them.  She'll be of other uses later.  For now, lock her in the brig."

A couple of burly men dragged Anneliesse to her feet and out of the bridge.  They walked along a high catwalk that looked over the bowels of the ship.  It looked a lot like the Space Moth, Anneliesse thought fleetingly.  Finally, they reached the back of the ship, which appeared to be a cargo hold.  One of the men shoved Anneliesse through the open door and slammed it behind her.  With a sigh, Anneliesse sat down on the floor.

"Zzzr!" an angry whir sounded from underneath Anneliesse.  Suddenly, she realized that Vector was clinging to her skirt!

"Vector!" She jumped to her feet and brushed the poor Robotchi off.  "Oh, thank goodness!  You...can hack into the ship, can't you?"  Vector gave a proud buzz.  "Good.  Now, if you can just...ah, that's right..."  Screen after screen of information showed up on the Robotchi's back, which was a small movie screen.  When she thought she had enough, she reached down to click "send".

Suddenly, the sound of ship guns sounded from outside.  Anneliesse jumped.  One of the ships was attacking the other!  But...which one?

[Elana]

::Sorry about the long lapse! We were trying to give Jiro a chance to post, but he's been very busy with school. Hopefully he can make time next turn.::

Captain Fatefire let out a whoop of exultant delight. She rarely got to engage in space dogfighting, and always found it a little thrilling. She gripped the armrests of her chair with white-knuckled fists. "Excellent work Jiro! Keep it up!" she called out to her First Officer.

The display on the viewscreen was very odd indeed. If you didn't know any better, you would think that the Space Moth was firing into empty space. The strangest part was that at a certain distance, just a few thousand metres away, the beam of their lasers stopped with a puff of explosive, apparently cutting in to a structure that wasn't there. Burst after burst of low-energy laser beam was firing into that empty space, following a moving dot. The Moth darted to and fro, dancing with an invisible partner, firing on some point that no one could see.

But of course, the crew of the Space Moth (and the PAL) knew very well what it was they were hitting. It was the Rommel class pirate ship holding Anneliesse. It was firing on a section of hull that they were gradually - and very precisely - wearing away.

Both of Tinker's hands were flying across two separate interfaces at his position in the navigator's seat. One was navigating the Moth, and the other was working at tactical. "Narrowing the beam to ten centimetres," he said calmly, his eyes darting back and forth between the screens.

Rory leaned forward, her lips hanging open as she stared at the viewscreen. "What's our proximity?" she asked gruffly, her gaze never wavering. "Two and a half metres," Tinker replied. Rory nodded to no one in particular. Her thumb and index finger twitched involuntarily on the armrest. Three. Two. One. And she slammed her thumb on a button on her armrest touchscreen as she shouted, "Ejecting the pod NOW!"

A cargo bay door opened, and a tiny package zoomed out under a miniature rocket propulsion. A cube was attached to the end of it. Rory typed frantically on her touchscreen, and the rocket responded by bobbing to and fro in space.

"Give me a diagram of the cloaked ship," she barked to Tinker. If the engineer could have grown a third arm, he would have; instead, he somehow managed to spare a few fingers to tap out a few buttons and trigger a green image in the bottom corner of the viewscreen. It was a line map of the cloaked ship, with one spot highlighted and blinking.

Rory chewed hard on her bottom lip. "Comeoncomeoncomeon," she chanted to herself, as the little rocket pod flitted in space erratically. The unsophisticated propulsion put all her skills as a captain to the test.

Suddenly, the pod seemed to vanish.

"Ha!" cried Rory, while Tinker raised his arms in triumph - giving his hands a rest from the onslaught on his control panel.

There was a long moment as all three officers held their breath on the bridge. "My calculations-" started Tinker, before they all jumped out of their seats in triumph.

A small, glowing blob had emerged from evidently nowhere. It was pearly white and glinting in the starlight. It shifted and changed shapes.

"Zoom in!" Rory shouted, and Jiro quickly modified the output on the viewscreen.

It was one of Tinker's new Tamagotchi containment units, set to be airtight and about 25 degrees Celsius - optimal conditions for a human being in space. And Anneliesse was inside. On her face was a mixture of terror and relief. She pressed her palms to the surface of the cube and stared in openmouthed wonder at the astral vista spread out all around her.

Vector blinked back at the crew, knowing he was being watched.

"Patch us through to audio," Rory said, and they watched Vector's lights pulse as he responded.

"It's so beautiful," they heard Anneliesse breathe over the bridge's sound system. Then Vector's tinny voice: "We're patched through to the bridge, Lieutenant." She didn't respond.

"You're alright," Fatefire said in a strong voice. "We're taking you home now." She tapped a few buttons and the Space Moth glided to intercept the cube, its cargo doors opening once again.

"Oh," Anneliesse responded, her voice regretful as she looked out into the wonders of space.