FALAHA'S JOURNEY: A Spacegirl's Account in Three Movements

Episode #62

"I thought things would be worse!" Father and Eyuran returned to the Control Center. "We can have our dive sim in half an hour and then a nap."

They approached us and sat down near on the floor.

"We're ready here, too," I replied. The Medan nodded.

After that, our next steps would be finding Orewen and getting in touch with Father's scouting guy, if that mystery guy had succeeded and was alive, that is. My father's attitude was strangely neutral in his regard—he both trusted that person yet didn't expect much from him. The actual Tjrnenagh dive test would come after that—I suspected Father wanted to get back the first Bradoh's Core, if possible. In the meantime, Tjrnenagh would have his repairs completed, since those were autonomous from an operating Core, so we could move in Bradoh.

I came to think that the second Bradoh, that was now Eyuran, wasn't intended for my spouse after all. It might have been prepared as a portable Core to reanimate the dead ship, and part of Orewen's initial task could have been to transport it here, inactive. Then the bloodless guy came into the game, and everything reshuffled. Or, maybe, Father had no plans to use Tjrnenagh at all and he was thought of as a reserve. Resource management, Danna style.

"I'm actually surprised they have no motion detectors or something in this place." Baro turned to my father. "Those would have already spotted our working bots."

"This place is a dump." Father shrugged. "The Enclave isn't a war ship nor a stronghold. It's a giant house, which loses all its cool functions without its resident crew. The 'motion detectors' here are the inhabitants. None of them would care if something small loitered around the corners of this Enclave unless you annoyed them too much, so the best way to avoid being detected is to stay away from interesting places deeper 'down'. The density of residents increases closer to the Core, and not many things can pose a danger to them." He threw a quick glance at napping Tagai and said, "Even their kids can tatter you into strips of meat and leather at the blink of an eye. So sure, you're free to walk into their nest." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "There's a reason why there weren't many ships in this place after Tjrnenagh got caught. It wasn't because he was one of the first to go. It's because he survived the rest that arrived later. An entire Explorer armada was detonated here, a total of fifty Cores. More than enough to destroy a star. But guess where you're sitting now." He paused. "The blast was swallowed in its beginning stage, barely grazing the trash here. The ship is an extension of their bodies and that's how effective their 'lazy' systems are. I'm pretty positive that thing knows where we are, or at least keeps in mind the selection of places we might be in. I'm also pretty positive he already knows what we are and where we'll be heading eventually. We should expect that much. And he's very creative when it comes to making others suffer and struggle, and fail."

That sounded like Shaamta would let us come very close to our goal and then deal the final blow, when we were the most vulnerable. Not only physically, but also emotionally.

So before that happened, he must die.

I shouldn't think about it as a Danna, but as one of his kind would. So planning for his assassination must begin immediately. Not in a few hours, not in five hours, not during the final stage of the rescue.

And what about our shadow guest? I had a strange feeling he was still here somewhere. Did he want something from us? From me?

We had a short meal while waiting for the necessary repairs to complete and none of us seemed to suffer from a loss of appetite—it witnessed major peaks instead, especially when it came to our most delicious supplies. We left some meat for Tagai, too, but we had no idea if he'd go with cooked food. Not that it would go to waste if he were to decline our offer.