The Princess Crisis

A Trip to Stindan

They looked at Sutons in amazement just as Seshama walked into the room.

"Did I miss something?"

"Just a little ..." Joy said with a smirk.

"We figured out who Dagonn is, and Sutons here was just about to tell us something.

All eyes focused on the tech sergeant after that. He looked a little gunshy, but after a moment, jumped right in and began explaining what he found. Based on Lt. Joy's instructions, he started looking for anything missing, which he didn't, then he began looking for anything added, and he'd found a file that had been added a couple of days ago, but it was password locked. Since he couldn't get into that, he started looking for anything different. That's when he found a message embedded in one of the files that had the princess's notes. This one was also added on the same day as the file. Everyone was looking at him to get to the point.

"The message starts 623602480 ..."

Before he could finish, Joy blurted out, "That's my ID number."

"The rest is, first dinner date ..." Sutons finished.

"What was your meal on your first date with him?" Seshama stated what was obvious.

"Shibi, he ordered for me ... let me think ..."

"There is an indication that we only have three tries ..." Sutons added.

"Well it was roast egork, but I don't remember if that was what the dish called ... I didn't really look at the menu."

"It's not 'roast egork'," Sutons said.

Joy started working on her stand tablet, trying to find the club Guldi had taken her to. "I don't even know the name of the place he took me to, it was some private club in the mountains."

"The Aurcos Club ..." Seshama blurted out.

Joy had a look of panic in her eyes, "I really don't know ..."

Seshama started describing it and Joy started agreeing with her. Both Joy and Bennett looked at Seshama for an explanation.

"Someone used to take me there ..." was all she said.

Joy quickly looked the club up on her stand tablet, looking for the menu. "The menu lists the dish simply as roast egork, but that didn't work, right?"

Sutons confirmed that as he waited to be told what to attempt next.

"Try to think like Guldi would think if he was setting a password." Bennett offered.

"Try 'theaurcosclub'," Joy offered.

That got a no-go response from Sutons and a reminder that they had one more try. Everyone was looking at Joy, hoping she could figure out what Guldi's thoughts were when he set up the password. There were ten minutes of silence as they all let Joy think. The only thing she could think of at this point was that it was the best night she'd had in a long time. Her mind started thinking about things he'd said during their time together. Slowly it came to her, he had often said that night was 'the best night ever' as they cuddled. The tears started slowly at first but soon she was sobbing again.

"Are you alright?" Bennett asked first.

Joy looked at him through the tears that were massing and nodded. "I think I know what it is ..." Using the back of her hand, she wiped the wetness away and looked at Sutons. "Try 'bestnightever'," she told him.

Bennett crossed his fingers and Seshama took a deep breath as Sutons typed what Joy had said into his stand tablet. There was a longer silence than previously and everyone was resigned that the system was deleting all the files they needed.