Major Clarke was shifting in his chair uneasily.

The Security Council had invited him to their session as a member, but he knew that he was not here because of his authority or expertise, but because he was a witness. There wasn't a lot of data to go on, other than his testimony. Surveillance footage, shipment records, scandroid camera feeds – everything had been tampered with. Under any other circumstances, his word on what had transpired on Essandrie Station would have carried more much more importance. But the fact that the story he had told his superiors seemed utterly impossible didn't help much to aid his credibility.

All things considered, perhaps he had to be glad that he was only a witness, and not a suspect.

The council probably thought that his story was a result of the prolonged hypoxia he had suffered. They thought the data would give them a hint as to what had truly happened. They thought that with enough data, even something as incomprehensible and impossible as these events could be made sense of.

But they were wrong.

The Security Council had been tasked with the investigation of what had come to be called the Aphelion Incident. It was a ridiculous name, for something just as ridiculous. It hadn't been an 'incident'. It had been a fucking heist. But nobody dared to call it that, because still, after being in session for over six hours, the council refused to believe that the ship had really been stolen.

Clarke wondered if they'd rather believe that it had decided to fly away all by itself.

He couldn't really blame them – it sounded utterly insane. It seemed impossible. Yet he had reported nothing but the truth. Everything, repeatedly. In spoken and written form. To his superiors, to their superiors, and their superior's superiors. After going through the whole ordeal for the thirtieth time, he was willing to fucking dance it before the council if they would just finally let him go.

Admiral Jenkins, who presided over the council, leaned forward now, lacing his fingers together and touching the index fingers to his lips as if in prayer. Perhaps he was praying that Clarke would be telling them something else when asked the thirty-first time.

"Major," the Admiral said, "You stand by what you wrote in your report, do you?"

"Yes, I still do," Clarke replied, not quite managing to hide the impatience in his voice.

The Admiral raised an eye brow.

"...Admiral," Clarke added quickly.

Admiral Jenkins heaved a heavy sigh and leaned back, scrutinizing Clarke for a moment.

"Please, tell us one more time, in your own words, what happened that day in the shipyard."

Clarke groaned and buried his face in his hands for a moment, but before he could obey the command, there was a knock on the door. One of the data specialists entered and brought a data tablet which he handed the Admiral. They exchanged hushed words, and whatever he saw on the screen caused the Admiral's brows to furrow.

"What is it?" General Bellevue, the woman sitting to his right, asked and ripped the tablet out of his hands impatiently. As she looked at it, her facial features froze completely.

"Data specialist Benson reporting in. Our data team has managed to restore a single still image from the scrambled security feeds from the bridge," the man explained to the rest of the council. "This is the image we retrieved, it's from just before the feed was cut for good..."

Jenkins took the tablet from Bellevue's hands and pushed it across the table to Clarke, fixing him with an intense glare.

"Commander, is this her?" he asked.

Clarke picked it up to look at the image and almost dropped it again. The photo was of bad quality, blurred and pixelated, but it was by far enough to make out the distinct features of the person on it. On first glance, the whole image seemed to be in black and white, but that was only due to the woman in it. This was it – the final evidence that he had spoken the truth. The only evidence. She looked exactly like he had described her.

"Yes," he answered, lowering the tablet and meeting the Admiral's incredulous stare. "This is her. This is the woman who stole the Aphelion."

~ ~ ~

Thirty-six hours earlier, Commander Clarke was walking along the deserted corridors of the Aphelion. The ship had been docked in the shipyard of Essandrie for its last routine maintenance and safety inspection for this cycle. There were also some minor repairs to be done to the ship's systems and servers, and it was his task today to oversee that they were done quickly and correctly.

Back in the day, when augments and interface technology had been used to operate space ships, the Aphelion could be worked by a skeleton crew of about a hundred and twenty people. After being retro-fitted to old-fashioned controls, it now required a crew of three hundred at least to get her so much as to move. There hadn't been much time, nor effort, to improve that kind of technology since the Purge, and most of it had been implemented in a hurry. That had made the hardware prone to defects and errors, and consequently, they had to return to the shipyard for maintenance much more frequently these days.

Over his past years of service, Clarke had often been tasked with overseeing various kinds of repair work. The mechanics and engineers of Essandrie were the best in the whole galaxy, but they were a strange, superstitious bunch. Most of them seemed to love the ships they worked on more than their own mothers. Many of them held on to the belief of the ships having a soul, or even something like a personality.

Certainly, back in the days before the purge, AIs had been employed to govern certain processes from within a ship's systems.But now the talk of the engineers of Essandrie made Clarke uneasy. He didn't want to think about what had happened to the AIs that had once populated the cyberspace of this vessel. These days were long gone. Yet the Essandriens continued to whisper, about souls and ghosts and echoes, as they walked the corridors of the ship.

Part of Clark's responsibility – one that he had chosen for himself – was to not let his own crew be corrupted by such ridiculous ideas. So he kept close watch over their work and tried to keep his own crew away from the Essandriens. But sometimes their talk got to him, too.

He was lost in thought on that day too, as he was walking along the corridors on subdeck three, where the ship's main servers were located. The workers had begun to clear out, repairs were almost complete, so he didn't expect anyone to be here. But as he turned around a corner, he almost bumped into someone. The girl, who came to a staggered halt in front of him, wore an ensign's uniform, and carried a toolbox in her arms. She looked up at him from underneath her reddish hair that half-covered her face, her one eye wide with surprise. The other was covered with a white bandage.

The girl blinked at him in confusion. She looked young, so he was willing to forgive her for not apologizing right away. She seemed to have realized her transgression, straightened her shoulders and cleared her throat.

"Apologies, sir," she said. "I didn't see you... well..."

She laughed nervously as he narrowed his eyes at her. She seemed distracted, and he wondered if some of these Essandrien proselytizers might have gotten to her.

"Ensign," Clarke narrowed his eyes at her. "What happened to your eye?"

"Arc welder malfunction, sir," she explained, "Down in engineering..."

A furrow appeared on his brow as he wondered what an engineer was doing on the systems subdeck, particularly after repairs had been completed.

She lowered her head, and a wave of auburn hair cascaded back over her bandage as she seemed to shy back under his gaze. He looked down along her body, from her wild hair over the toolbox she held clenched before her, down to her shoes and he finally realized why she was so nervous. She shifted her posture, but she couldn't very well hide it any longer. Her shoes looked nothing like the standard issue combat boots that were part of everyone's uniform. For whatever crazy reason, that girl wore a pair some kind of ridiculous plateau high-heels.

"What the fuck is up with those?" he asked with irritation, pointing at her shoes and fixing her with a stern gaze. "And your hair? Ensign, the ship may not be in the air right now, but that doesn't mean I will tolerate this breach of dress code. Tie back your hair and get yourself proper footwear immediately!"

She bit her lip and looked around nervously.

"Apologies, sir, but I was on an urgent call, on the way to help fix-"

"Am I fucking stuttering?" he lost his patience and snapped at her, "I said immediately! Get that hair out of your face!"

He stepped forward to emphasize his words, but the girl didn't back away this time. She heaved a sigh as she looked up at him from underneath her messy red hair, with her one, grey eye.

"If you insist..." she said in a low voice.

She ran a hand through her hair, and oddly enough, it seemed to flicker with strange shadows. He couldn't quite process what he saw, but suddenly, her hair was no longer red, rather it seemed black and white. In the same motion, she pushed the bandage away from her eye. There was something wrong with it, he realized in the split second he found the time to think about the strange sight before him. He wondered what kind of injury would have turned her eye so pitch black.

He didn't get a chance to ask and satisfy his curiosity. Even if he had expected her to attack, he would never have been fast enough to dodge or block. She knocked him out with a single, precise blow to the side of his head, and the last thing he saw before his vision went black, was her face framed by flickering black and white hair, and an uncanny grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth.

~ ~ ~

"Alright, Commander, but how did she pull it off?" Jenkins asked, resting his elbows and the table and lacing his fingers together once more.

The picture of the woman was displayed on the tablet in their midst, and despite the bad image quality, it seemed to Clarke as if she was still fixing him with her uncanny, mismatched gaze.

"She can't have operated all by herself. It's impossible," one of the engineers chimed in, "It takes a skeleton crew of at least three hundred just to get that ship to move. There weren't even that many people aboard for maintenance at the time. And it for sure wasn't mutiny, because all of them are still present and accounted for."

Unlike the ship herself, Clarke thought.

"What about the Essendrien mechanics?" Jenkins asked.

"They're... eccentric," the engineer began. "Most of them, at least. But they would never... I mean... these people, they don't just work on the ships. They worship them. Imagine... imagine you are a believer, into some kind of invisible, silent god. All you have to worship that god is an idol. And then, one day, right before your eyes, that idol begins to move right before you. And it turns its fucking back on you and disappears. No, ma'am, the Essandriens wouldn't have been capable of such a thing. They respect the ships too much. I suppose the mere idea of... stealing it like that would have been like some kind of blasphemy to them."

"Is that so..." the Admiral mumbled, sounding doubtful.

"But there must be something... something that we're missing..." data specialist Benson mumbled and rubbed a hand over his mouth.

"Perhaps we should stop looking for what's missing, and start looking for something that was there when it shouldn't have been," General Bellevue suddenly got to her feet and brought up some data on the big screen behind her for everyone to see.

"A cargo log entry. Three crates of miscellaneous tools and supplies from Atlas Corp," the data specialist noted, explaining the file for the other members of the council.

"Crates for which there are no shipment ledgers. No order confirmations. Crates which should not have been there," Bellevue elaborated.

"Ledgers get lost all the time," somebody chimed in. "What, do you think they somehow smuggled three hundred people aboard in three shipping crates? Seriously?"

Bellevue threw the man an icy glare. "I am still waiting for a useful contribution to this session from your side, Decker. While you pick your brain, mind if we continue our work over here?"

The man fell silent and Bellevue continued. "Now let us review what we have on those three crates."

"Well, but that's the problem, General," the data specialist said. "We don't have anything on those crates. Not even a receipt signature."

"No surveillance footage of the delivery?" she asked in disbelief. "Shipment tracking records?"

"Nothing. All footage from the shipyard that might have existed was scrambled... There were hundreds of crates brought in and out on that day, and we don't know where these three came from or where they went. So as far as we can tell..."

"...they might as well have never existed," Clarke finished the man's sentence. He had a mocking tone to his voice as he repeated the words they had thrown at him over and over again, when he had made his testimony about the impossible woman.

~ ~ ~

Down in the hangar bay, the grey-uniformed soldiers and Essandrien engineers in their yellow overalls were bustling around busily like ants. Cargo transport carts loaded with large shipping crates were zipping back and forth between the different sectors, moving quickly amidst the engineering work stations and the docking frames of the large mecha suits that the engineers used for repairs on the outer hull of the ship. From afar, it must have looked like utter chaos. But if there was one thing the Essandriens were really good at, it was performing their work with clockwork precision and accuracy.

Back in the day when androids had still been around, this kind of routine maintenance could be done in less than a day and the mechanical work was mostly performed by all kinds of AI. Essandrie Station had once been famed for being the home of generations of ingenious inventors, and the birthplace of the most sophisticated robots known to mankind. But with the Purge of all AI and augments, the Essendriens had had to adapt. So now most of them were mechanics. Nanomanipulators had been exchanged for welders and wrenches, screws and bolts had replaced transmission lines and microcircuitry.

Senior engineer Sira Jain had been born and raised on Essandrie Station, but she didn't quite share the same extent of respect, bordering on reverence, that many of the elders had for machines. She liked them alright, or she would have left the station instead of staying and becoming a mechanic. But sometimes she felt like her profession was lacking social interaction.

That was why she always signed up for bigger jobs, like maintenance of the Aphelion and other ships like her. That way, at least she got to meet lots of new people. The military folks she had met so far had been alright for the most part, and not at all how she had expected them to be – all stuck up and no fun. Of course, their engineers were the most entertaining to hang out with. She had learned all kinds of interesting things, and met the most intriguing people during those jobs.

They often went on breaks together, the mechanics from Essandrie and the engineers who came with the ships. It was nothing too unusual to see the gray-clad military engineers mingle with the Essendriens in their yellow overalls, chatting, joking, or sharing a drink together in a remote corner, out of view from their supervisors, after their shift was over. But on that day, she spotted something unusual.

A man was leaning against a large shipping crate close to their usual hangout spot, and he was typing something on a tablet. What stood out about him was that he wore neither yellow nor grey, but a dark blue uniform, just like the shipping crate behind him. She knew right away that the same logo that was painted to the side of the crate, a triangle within two circles and several dots, would adorn the back of his uniform as well. He was an Atlas courier.

That was not an unusual sight per se, but it was in this place of the shipyard, specifically. It certainly caught her attention, and upon closer inspection of the man, her unambiguous interest. He was tall and handsome, with dark hair and naturally tanned skin. A welcome change from the pale faces of the spacers she mingled with most of the time. She watched him type on his tablet, and couldn't help but notice the scars on his hands. An ex-augment, she concluded. That was even more interesting.

He lifted his head and caught her staring at him, and the wide grin he flashed her caused her to blush.

"Can I help you?" he asked her, as she approached him.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," she replied. "Are you lost or something?"

"Well... in a way, I guess I am," he sighed and pushed away from the shipping container with a sigh.

"I was supposed to bring these to cargo port fifteen," he explained, and gestured behind him. She could see that there were two more of the dark blue crates behind the first.

"...but as it turns out, the guys in the logistics center sent me off into a completely wrong direction."

"Fifteen? That's on the other side of the ship," Sira pointed out.

"Yeah, I know that by now," he said, scrunching his brows and crossing his arms before his chest.

His uniform seemed to be a half size too small for his shoulders, and spanned tightly over his biceps, leaving relatively little to the imagination of what he might be looking like underneath it. He wasn't overly bulky like most of the dockworkers and soldiers, nor lanky like the military engineers. He was lean muscled, just the right level of buff.

Interesting, she thought.

Realizing that she was staring at him, she snapped her gaze back up to his face.

"So... This your first time on Essandrie?"" she asked with a sympathetic smile. She impressed herself by how quickly she had managed to come up with something to say after her mind had blanked out like that.

"First time," he confirmed, resting his dark-eyed gaze on her for a moment. There was a strange spark in them. Curiosity, amusement, but also something else that she couldn't quite put her finger on. But she liked it.

"First day on the job, too," he added. "And the first time I get to see such a beauty up close."

She could feel the blood rush to her cheeks at his words, but his gaze had quickly moved past her and he was looking at the ship behind her now. There was a strangely wistful and longing expression on his face as he stared up at the Aphelion, and she wondered what he was thinking about.

"Those guys at logistics can be asshats sometimes," Sira said to break the silence between them, "They probably realized you were new and decided to mess with you. Sorry about that."

"Well...that's alright. No need for you to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong," he said and smiled his enticing smile at her again, that reflexively made her smile back.

"You're an engineer, working here on the ships, right?"

"Yep," she confirmed, "Been living her all my life. I-"

She faltered in her speech as he suddenly began to casually unbutton his uniform right before her. The shock of her surprise was quickly drowned out by a sense of disappointment at the fact that he stopped halfway down his chest, and was wearing a shirt underneath it. Nonetheless, the sight was impossible to ignore. She could spot the outline of something black that laced his skin, probably a tattoo of sorts.

Very interesting, she thought.

She caught herself staring at him again, and forced her gaze away, only to find him grinning at her. It was clearly too late to hide what she was thinking about, but judging from the sultry look he threw her now he didn't seem averse to the idea.

"What's your name?" he asked her, taking a step closer. A vaguely familiar scent emanated from him, something that seemed very misplaced in this shipyard that reeked of singed metal, oil and sweat.

"Sira... Jain," she managed to put forth.

She forgot to ask for his name, and for a moment she also forgot to breathe, as he leaned forward until his face was only inches from hers. He stared down at her with that strange look in his eyes and a smile that made her knees feel very weak, and the rest of her body very hot.

"Well, Sira," he spoke her name, making it sound like a cat's purr. It cast a shiver down her spine. "Do you think you could point me the right way?"

"Do I... do you... I mean, yes, of course, I... Eh..." she stammered. "What's in there, and who are they for again?"

"No clue. Some kind of tools or something. I'm just supposed to deliver them to cargo port fifteen," he said, his voice dropping to a low whisper. "After that, I guess I'm all done here..."

Her thoughts trailed away momentarily thanks to the husky tone to his voice. It took her a moment to focus again. Somewhere during their exchange – she couldn't recall when and how it had happened – they had switched places. She found herself with the shipping crate at her back now, his dark-eyed, hungry gaze pinning her against the wall behind her as he looked down on her.

"Fifteen's at starboard," she explained. "It will take you at least half an hour to go all the way around."

"Half an hour," he repeated in a low voice, sounding disappointed, "That's quite a while."

"And half an hour to get back here," she added.

He moved his hand up, but he didn't touch her. Instead, he placed it against the container, next to her arm, and leaned in close enough that she could taste his breath.

"Sounds like it might take a while," he whispered. "Seems like I won't have any extra time... to have another look around this shipyard before I have to leave again."

"I have clearance to move through sector C," she blurted out, "I mean... I could... I could just take these over right here, sign for them... and see them delivered to the other side of the ship from the inside. Should only take me... twenty minutes total."

He didn't reply. For a few, painstaking moments, he just looked at her, probably considering his options.

"Sira..." he said with that low and seductive voice again, and she sighed at the feeling that it evoked within her.

"This job is important to me... Tell me, can I really trust you with this? Can I trust you that you won't just drop them off somewhere where they'll get lost?"

"O-of course," she replied quickly, "I'll make sure that they get to their destination. I swear."

"Hmm. I guess we've got a deal, then," he finally said. "You'll have to sign here."

She blinked, not understanding what he was talking about, until she realized that he had pulled out his tablet again and held it out to her.

"Right..." she mumbled, pressing her palm against the surface so it could read her handprint.

He didn't move when she was done. For a few breathless moments, he just continued to take in her appearance, with that strange expression on his face, as if he was looking for something. Then, another grin washed over his face and he stepped away, giving her room to move away from the crates, too. She felt oddly exhausted, short of breath and with weak knees, as if she'd run a marathon.

"Twenty minutes?" he asked, throwing a glance past her at the shipment.

"I'll make it fifteen," she replied hoarsely.

"I'm counting on it," he purred, and flashed her a devious grin.

He stepped away so she would have enough room to activate the platforms that the crates were sitting on. With a humming noise, they came to life and began to hover slightly above the floor. Following nothing but a slight push from her hand, they began to move.

She threw a glance over her shoulder as she made her way toward sector C, where she could access the hull of the ship and get these across to the other side. He was still standing there, his arms crossed, watching her intently as she moved the crates.

She realized that she had completely forgotten to ask him for his name, and even more importantly, the shipment ledgers. But she could still do that afterwards.

She quickened her steps, the crates hovering next to her matching her pace. Without the ledgers, there was only one way to find out. Out of curiosity, she pulled a small, handheld scanner from her pocket and ran it along the side of the nearest crate.

Nothing but miscellaneous tools and supplies.

She didn't really know why she had expected anything else.

~ ~ ~

"What about the scandroid footage?" Bellevue asked.

"Don't... don't get me started on that," data specialist Benson raised his hands in a defensive gesture.

"It's the only footage we have, everything else has been scrambled beyond recognition, right up until all feeds were cut from within the ship," another data specialist explained to the rest of the council. "All fifty scandroids units that had been aboard the ship at the time were found outside, in the shipyard, after the Aphelion ... undocked."

"So?" Admiral Jenkins asked. "How did that happen?"

"That footage... it makes no fucking sense," Benson replied.

"Benson," Bellevue now addressed the man icily, "What happened to the scandroids?"

"It's hard to explain..."

"Try me, Major."

"Well, ma'am... Are you familiar with that old folk tale called The Pied Piper of Hamelin?"

~ ~ ~

Hovering around the corner on its routine patrol, unit 432-DH detected movement in the shadows.

This was unexpected. One hundred twenty three things were supposed to be aboard the ship right now, and none of them were supposed to be here in this place, at this time.

It hesitated for a moment. It had been about to return to its docking station to recharge, but now the core program beckoned.

Find. Capture. Kill, it whispered. But find what?

It scanned the area and detected a thing. A thing that was not supposed to be there.

<Compare visual data>

<Query: Subject H876-04 / Database>

<Result: Felis catus>

Such a thing was most definitely not supposed to be here.

<ALERT. Augments detected.>

<Result: transmission module 15-OA, systems implants Azure, Dreamweaver, Eldorado>

And it was not supposed to have any of these things.

<Status Report: All detected systems inactive. Threat level: 0.15%>

Meanwhile, the little thing that somehow had all these forbidden things had disappeared into a maintenance shaft.

Find it, the core program whispered

But how was it supposed to follow the little thing through such a narrow tunnel? And what was it supposed to do with it? It looked nothing like its prey normally did. It was below threat threshold, and yet it had things that were forbidden. It hesitated for another moment, while the core program and the systems report shouted conflicting orders at each other. Until the core program won, like it always did.

<ALERT. Augments detected. ALERT. Broadcast systems report to all available units. ALERT. FIND IT. FIND IT. FIND IT.>

Somewhere in the depths of the ship, the other units began to shiver, as their core programming awoke them all and sent them out to hunt the little thing.

~ ~ ~

General Bellevue rubbed two hands over her face and groaned.

"This is fucking ridiculous..." she muttered, and Clarke found himself agreeing with her.

"None of this makes any sense... none of this explains how she pulled it off. None of it..."

Data specialist Benson cleared his throat. "There is one more thing..."

He handed her his tablet again.

"What the-" she started.

"What on earth is this?" Jenkins asked, leaning over her shoulder.

"I believe it looks like-"

"Goddamit, Benson, I know what it looks like, but I wanna now how this is possible!" Jenkins snapped at him.

"That's... we haven't quite... we don't know, sir. Somebody must have hacked the station's systems, and we believe it was the same person who scrambled the security footage all over the station and the ship."

"Why do you think so?"

"There was, eh... something left behind. A clue, of sorts." Benson explained reluctantly. "In both cases, missing data was replaced by fragmented, encrypted files... we put them together and decoded them, it proved surprisingly easy, so we believe it is some sort of message."

"And what does it say?" Jenkins asked.

"I haven't got the slightest idea, Sir, and quite frankly, I don't care to find out. It's two petabytes worth of Alonian Opera Music."

~ ~ ~

Fifteen floors above where Ensign Darwin was roaming the maintenance shafts of the ship, Amy Larsson bent down to confirm that the man at her feet was really knocked out cold.

Okay. Can we get rid of this ridiculous get up now? Null groaned as she got up again.

All should be clear, Lars checked the results from their scanners, The corridors from here on out are empty.

She heaved a sigh of relief as she pulled the holo net from their head and the illusion of red hair broke completely. Then she slipped out of the uniform they had stolen from some unlucky girl who lay sedated behind a crate in the hangar. As Null stepped out of the pile of clothes, she caught sight of their mirror image in a nearby window pane. With a smile, she pulled off the rest of the bandage that had covered their black eye augment.

Much better, she noted, and combed through their hair with their fingers a few times, before she bent down to pick up the tool box.

All in position. Nova's voice suddenly resounded in their mind, almost causing her to jerk in surprise.

Thanks, Nova, she replied.

She caught herself smiling in the mirror-like window pane, and shook their head violently to clear it.

Did you manage to cover your tracks? She asked.

Yeah, it was surprisingly easy to convince one of the Essandrians to take that shipment over from me, he said, sounding smug. I didn't even have to step aboard.

Excellent, she replied.

How are things on your end? He asked.

She hesitated with her answer. Her first instinct had been to cut the comm link again immediately, to protect him from another of those horrific headaches. But he was so far away that she could barely feel their connection right now. Their conversation felt like a regular comm link, not that weird, residual Augur link that they had experienced on Astraphos.

Everything going according to plan, she informed him.

Well... mostly, she added, as she stepped over the grey-clad man at ther feet and continued along her way.

What about the scandroids? Nova asked, sounding worried.

They're taken care of, she replied.

Null, he started, and she could feel a shiver run down the back of their neck as he used her true name, There's about fifty units aboard. How do you intend to 'take care' of that all by yourself?

I'm not doing it by myself, she said. Ensign Darwin is helping.

Darwin? Nova asked in disbelief. Your cat?

She stopped for a moment and looked out of the window next to her. She could sense that he was somewhere down there, among the people that bustled busily around the containers and crates and workstations. And she could imagine – no, she could almost feel him looking up at the ship now, feeling her presence, too. It was a strange sensation.

Do you remember that day about five months ago, when you got completely smashed on that shipment of Malovian schnapps that I brought to Six? She asked him.

Ugh... I certainly remember the morning after that, he remarked drily. And not very fondly. Why?

Because while you were drunk, you boasted about how you once distracted a group of twelve scandroids by getting them to chase after an RC car with an active transmitter module strapped to it. And that gave me an idea, she explained.

Wait... so you're telling me... you strapped a transmitter module to your cat and used him as a decoy for the scandroids?!

Putting it like that made it sound somewhat less reasonable than when she had come up with the plan.

He volunteered, Null said defensively.

He's a cat! Nova exclaimed.

A very smart cat, Lars chimed in.

You're insane, Pirate Queen, Nova pointed out drily.

Thank you, Lars and Null replied in unison.

She could sense the grin on Nova's face now, and how he was shaking his head in a mixture of disbelief and amazement. Somehow, it filled her with self-satisfied glee.

So, once all of this is over... Nova started again, his voice in their mind dropping to a low, suggestive tone, Are we gonna meet on your ship or mine?

She stiffened at his words. Somehow, she had naively hoped that he would have finally given up on that, considering the pain their connection put him through. Then again, it was her own fault. She should have just cut all ties with him, yet she had once again asked him for his help. And once again, she could offer preciously little in return.

That thought pained her even more than the fact the she couldn't deny that she missed him. His self-assured smile, his stupid jokes, and his ridiculous ability to save the day by pulling whatever random crap was needed out of a hidden pocket in his jacket. But this was as close as she could get. Even the comm link seemed risky to her now, and she became more worried for him with every passing minute.

Neither. Null replied firmly.

It was for his own best, even if he didn't think so. It had been a bad idea to contact him again – it would only make it harder to get used to the idea of staying away from him for good. She would also have to find a way to avoid running into him on Six. Perhaps it was best if she didn't visit the Backside at all any longer.

Aww, come on. This is gonna be a pretty lame second date if I don't even get to see you, he complained.

Get the hell out of here, before I have to save your hide again and you owe me another favor, she ordered him. She couldn't quite manage to make her voice come out as stern as she had hoped.

Excuse me?! I clearly recall that it was me who dragged your sweet ass out of a collapsing cave, not to mention that I saved you from a mad NC trying to drill a hole through your brain! And then you kicked me off your ship before we-

Bye, Nova!

Wait! He called out, just before she cut the comm link.

She sighed again, sensing the familiar, strange tingling at the back of their head as the connection began to build up in intensity.

What is it? she asked wearily.

There's something important... something you need to see. Are you near a portside window by chance?

...Yes, she replied, furrowing her brow.

Look outside.

Unsure what to expect, she followed his instruction. She didn't know what to look out for, until she noticed that the lights of the landing strip below had begun to flicker erratically. It took her a moment, but she could soon discern a pattern in the way they rapidly shut on and off. The motion seemed to guide her gaze along the strip toward the wall at the far end of the shipyard. There, the lights continued to run upward and spread out towards numerous smaller tunnels that led to maintenance bays for smaller vessels.

Null covered their mouth in shock and stared at the lights outside with widened eyes. They were not blinking like they usually did to guide pilots along their way. Instead they formed a distinct, continuously illuminated pattern now. It was a heart shape, with something written inside in bold letters.

"I fucking love you." Lars read them out in their mind, sounding equal parts shocked and amused. The words sounded odd in his voice – she had never heard him curse before.

Wow, Lars commented. That's...

This isn't real, Null thought, completely shocked at the sight before her. Tell me this isn't real. This is...

Impressive, Lars noted.

...fucking ridiculous! She exclaimed at the same time.

But quite romantic, Lars added.

Nova! She snapped, ignoring Lars. Are you completely insane? What were you thinking?!

Well, I wrote what I'm thinking in pretty big letters on that wall over there, he answered.

She groaned, unable to decide whether to find all of this incredibly stupid, or incredibly sweet. At least in that regard, Nova's public display of affection actually fit him rather well. Not that it mattered much anyway, because she couldn't allow herself to indulge in any of the annoyingly fuzzy feelings that his gesture began to evoke in her. She banned all those emotions to the very back of her mind, until only utter embarrassment was left.

This was supposed to be an undercover mission, and you're being about as subtle as a fucking brick through a window, Null noted drily.

I had some extra time on my hands after that shipment was taken care of, and a friend of mine suggested I should make it clear how I feel about you. I figured, can't get any more clear than that, Nova explained.

Yeah, Null can be a bit dense sometimes, Lars chimed in nonchalantly. But I think even she should get it now.

Hey! Null snapped at Lars.

She could hear them both chuckle, Nova at the other end of the comm link and Lars in the back of her mind.

You're both insufferable, she grumbled sullenly.

Well, I just wanted you to know that if you change your mind, you know where to find me, Nova said, and she could imagine the self-satisfied smirk on his lips. You're welcome to visit me on my ship, and -

Thanks, Null interjected, But seriously, now get the fuck out of here. We're working on a timer here.

Alright, alright! I'm on my way out!

Good bye, Nova.

Hey Pirate Queen. One last thing.

What is it now? She groaned in annoyance, once again stopping a split second before she cut the comm link.

I have a heart on for you.

With these words, he cut the comm link from his end, leaving her in silence and disbelief. She kept staring at the glowing lights at the hangar wall for a few moments, unable to pry her eyes away and unable to form a coherent thought. It was all just too ridiculous.

Heart on? I... I don't get it, Lars broke the silence.

She groaned again. Nevermind... I'll explain it later.

It was ridiculously stupid. But somehow, Null couldn't suppress a grin as she continued to move along their way.

____
A.N.
My dear @Red_Leasia, I dedicate this chapter to you, because just like Null's plan to steal the Aphelion for Lars, this whole story has kinda started out as an insane idea that just grew so much over time, and it wouldn't have been possible without our brain storming sessions and your invaluable feed back 🖤 (Now I know that we're not done yet, of course the incident was gonna be more than one chapter, haha! but they're gonna get that ship, promise!)

Shoutout also to @cosmogyral-delirium, who so adequately described Nova as "as subtle as a brick through a window" 🖤

oh, and more credit where credit is due... the phrase "I have a heart on for you" is from the Celldweller song Heart On 😁

Side note number 2: This is chapter 60! can you believe my original outline had about.... 20 or so? 🤣