Galaxy's Edge Space Bar

[Myitt]

<<I'm trying, here!>> Mike yelps, suddenly afraid that Efaen will storm out on him.  He taps the hatch controls and the doorway hisses shut, retracting the ramp. 

In spite of his determination he can feel his heart hammering in his throat, and he seizes on the idea of Corliss taking control of the situation. 

"Yeah!" he replies, a little too loudly, plastering a grin on his face.  "Yeah, Illim, that's a good idea.  Sorry, Efaen, I need to check and make sure we aren't being tagged before making contact with an encrypted rebellion frequency.  You understand, I'm sure.  Illim, it's all yours."

He powers his feet toward the back of the cabin, through the door to the pool room and with a slam of his hand on the door panel it hisses shut behind him.

Mike exhales in relief, wiping sweat from his brow while he leans back against the closed doorway. 

"Right," he breathes.  "Now we can do this thing the right way."

Switching to internal thought-speech, he adds, <<But Terenia, will you be all right in here?  I just don't like the idea of...you know...I mean I'm sure we won't let anything happen to you...this is your future we're talking about here, too.  Look, I'll have Corliss turn the damn shipboard pool comm device back on, so you can at least hear what we're saying.  All right?>>

[Terenia]

<<Yeah, thanks,>> Terenia says. The idea of returning to the pool terrifies her, but she can't see another way of making this work. <<Corliss will look out for me. He'll...he'll make this work. C'mon, we have to hurry.>>

She takes control then, propelling him to the pool. A glance tells her that Corliss is still there, alone and blind. She takes a deep breath, leans over the edge, tilts Mike's head, and begins to detach.

Several moments later Terenia falls into the pool with a faint splash.


Efaen scarcely has time to react before the hatch closes and Mike is gone, running into the back room. She fixes her glare on Illim, the only person who remains.

<This had better not be a trap, Yeerk,> she threatens, watching him closely.

[Myitt]

Mike gives himself a few moments to steady himself before shaking his head.

"I swear, you blokes are going to give me serious ear damage one of these days," he whispers, pounding the side of his head with the flat of his palm.  Resigned, he dunks the side of his head into the pool.

Corliss notices Terenia as she slips under the pool surface.

<<Terenia?>> he asks, curious.  <<What...?>>

He hesitates, turning to her instead of to Mike's ear.

Mike winces.  "Me f*cking neck, mate, hurry up!" he hisses.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Salem was momentarily lost in looking at Jasper's carving. It didn't look completely finished yet, but the creature... was that based on something real? Its long, thick legs reminded it of a Vam-Chi, but the face...

Elayne's comment brought him back to the table. He smirked at her. "What is it you'd expect me to do with your genetic code? Having multiple instances of a species' DNA is usually most helpful for medical purposes. Or... almost-medical purposes. Having the first copy of a species' DNA is usually far more worthwhile." He looked her up and down, "You did say you were human, right?"

[Terenia]

<<Just go, Corliss,>> Terenia says, spreading herself out once she hits the water. <<You'll be able to figure it out from Mike's memories. We don't have much time. Hurry!>>

[Myitt]

Corliss doesn't wait to respond, rushing instead into Mike's head.

It takes him a few moments to reconnect, and he quickly begins processing everything that's happened in the last few hours, trying to focus the barrage of information on the last minutes.

"Oh dear," he murmurs, standing up and wiping Mike's ear with the back of his hand.  He steps back out into the main cabin, smiling at Efaen and Illim.

"Nothing to report," he says cheerfully, walking up next to Illim and swiping one of the holoscreens in front of him.  "Yes, we're all clear to continue the transmission."  Corliss gives Illim a sideways glance.

[Terenia]

Efaen has not moved since stepping nearer to Illim, and she does not do so now, other than to turn one fourth of her gaze to Corliss. Her expression is not one of patience.

<I expect that there will be no further delays, Yeerk?> she asks mildly. It is impossible to ignore the way she twists the word 'yeerk' into a curse.


Terenia lets out a mental sigh of relief when Corliss disappears from the pool. It is out of her hands now, and all she can do is wait. She's glad to put the responsibility of this onto someone else.

<Well,> Terenia says in her own open thought-speech after she hears Efaen. Thankfully, she finds it much easier to act like herself than like Corliss. All she has to do is say what she would have said if it had been Corliss bringing Efaen back instead of herself. <Sounds like you just can't stay away from me, can you, Efaen.>

<<Sorry,>> she adds quickly in private thought-speak to Mike and Corliss. <<Gotta make it sound authentic. I'll be nice...ish.>>


Efaen's expression changes to one of consternation at the sound of Terenia. She does not respond to the person she once shared a head with, but her tail twitches dangerously.

<Carry on,> she snaps at Corliss and Illim.


Trey nods, inspecting the knives with interest. Not that he has much use for them, but he is a teenage boy, and the alien instruments intrigue him. He says nothing in response to Salem, waiting for him to initiate conversation again, if at all.

[Chad32]

<Great. They closed the hatch.> Claxter said in irritation. Although with the hatch closed he didn't have to be so quiet. <If Efaen needs my help now, I won't be able to get to her quickly. Gremyyt, please try to gain as much information as possible. If Efaen is put in danger, we'll have to try to get inside somehow.> He glanced at Gremyyt's metallic tail, and the weapon grafted to his arm. Would he be able to force his way through the hatch? Was his weapon functional at all yet?


<Why did they close the hatch? Illim, tell them to reopen the hatch. I don't like this. These guys are going to pull something with that Andalite girl, and I don't want to be here when it happens.> The hatch closing was triggering his flight or fight response, and there wasn't anywhere to 'fly' to.

[KitsuneMarie]

When Terenia and Mike had left the room, Illim had stepped forward to piddle with the computer, but he had only just begun to inspect any possible breaches when Mike had returned, this time with Corliss in tow... at least so he hoped. "Trap?" he echoes Efaen with an easygoing smile. "No, see, we're avoiding the trap by checking into this. I don't particularly want us being traced by some kind of bounty hunter con man, do you?"

He steps back to give Corliss full control of the computer, leaning against the hull wall again with a mask of calm indifference. <<I don't think that's their plan... they seem like upstanding folks so far. At least Corliss is. I've trusted him, at least ever since he released Serid,>> he tells Derrel. <<If they're gonna be contacting Reven, we can't have passerbys listen in, anyway.>> He hesitates, reading his host's thoughts, but asking anyway, <<Is that okay? It won't be for long, hopefully.>>


"Perfectly," Elayne responds to Salem with a laugh. He is making her feel uneasy, but it isn't something she minds, for some reason. With a glance at Mar she thinks, Maybe I just like creepy guys. Still, her mothering instincts make her watch Trey nervously.

[Chad32]

<Well yeah, they do seem better than Efaen. Still, I have a string sense of self preservation. Maybe I should work on fixing that. Ok, let's hope this works out fine. Maybe Let Corliss get between us and Efaen. How fast can they move those tails, anyway?> Derrel said, getting over his initial panic.

[RAFrukh]

At his demands, we started to think of some way to get information without a direct intrusion.

Then we noticed Claxter looking at our SION claws and tail. Probably vying for a direct intrusion.

<If the hull alloy is of a sufficient sparseness, we may be able to weld, blast, pull, or lacerate our way inside.>

Afer a moment of processing, <We would...prefer if you called us Theta-Pi...and we don't feel like explaining why. Just...please.>

[KitsuneMarie]

<<It's best if I don't answer that question,>> Illim tells Derrel.

He is starting to get irritated with his host for always being so concerned about danger; it's certainly a stark contrast from Serid, a trained soldier. Still, he can't blame the guy. He had always been stuck in bad positions, always fearing for his health and safety, and now here he was about to enter a war.

<<No. You hang on to that sense of self-preservation, alright? Let's get behind the armed guy; good call,>> he says to him, his tone friendly. He straightens from the wall and, attempting to look as casual as possible, starts to wander past Efaen.

[Chad32]

Claxter couldn't help feeling concerned for Gremyyt. Was the alvie trying to subvert him again? Was he so indoctrinated that he actually thought he was the machine instead of an andalite? He would talk to Prince Ossanlin about it. <Alright...Theta Pi.>


<Ok.> Derrel said. He took that to mean the tail was fast. Illim told him to hold onto the self preservation, but hopefully he'd also learn to depend on others as well.

[Myitt]

Corliss bites his lip as he peers at the screens.  Of course it was impossible to reply to Terenia, but he trusted that she knew what she was doing. 

Keep up the act, he thinks, as he stands back and waits for the transmission to go through.  That's smart.  Here's hoping she doesn't suspect anything...

<<Corliss?>> Mike's voice interrupts his thoughts.

<<Yes?>>

<<Let's not do this again, all right?>>

Corliss smirks at the screens.  <<You've got yourself a deal, mate.>>

A bored-looking man with dark skin and short-cropped hair appears on the floating translucent screen, resting his head on his black-sleeved arm. 

When he realizes who is sending the hail he sits back and makes a brave attempt to look alert.

He clears his throat.  "Corliss," says the man in a deep baritone.  "Hey, man, what's going on?"

Corliss relaxes his stance a bit, speaking in a big exhale.  "You would not believe, Temeth.  Is our glorious leader willing and available to speak to me, for what I suspect is the fiftieth time today?"

Temeth frowns, glancing at something off-screen.  "Yeah, I'll see if I can patch you through, but there are no guarantees."

"Are there ever?" Corliss replies, as Temeth's face cuts out and a buzzing screen of Yeerkish text returns.  He glances at Efaen.

"He's a busy man, I'm sure you realize," says Corliss with a slant of his mouth.  "Thank you for your patience."

<<Oh, please.  You can't seriously be sucking up to that son of a-->>

<<Courtesy never hurt anyone, you know.  Besides, I sort of like feeding politeness back to her holier-than-thou act.>>

[RAFrukh]

We acknowledged Claxter's compliance.

<Beginning...now.>, We stated.

Walking over to the ship, we attempted to speed up the work of the nanoprobes on our SION implant. In the mean-time, we raised our tail.

We scanned the hull alloy of the ship. It was sparse enough to allow a tail-blade. We brought our's down on the ship's hull with 5 times the force of a nominal andalite tail. It made a medium dent, with an audible impact.

We walked back over to Claxter, <It might be preferable to wait for our SION implant to regenerate and we can go in quieter than to force our way in.>