The first room we arrived at was a medical bay.
A shtrillan was stationed at a console.  As we entered, he turned his pod so that he was facing us.
“Got something for us?” Tallou’s voice maintained its nonchalance, “this human’s missing a bit.”
The sight of unfamiliar eyes sizing me up, whilst unnerving and invasive, was something that I was getting used to ignoring.  I simply picked a spot on the wall or floor and stared at it until they were done.
“Oh, I see what they meant,” his voice was what I would expect a damp towel to sound like, yet the sarcasm made itself evident, “she looks intensely formidable.”
I dragged my gaze up from the floor to look into his eyes. 
Either he was mocking my appearance as meek or he was genuinely unaware of how powerful my ability could be.
Regardless, it was impossible to tell simply from looking at him.
His mouth, as with all shtrillan, was completely downturned, the shape of it suggesting his disapproval of everything.  According to my research, the colours of their luminescence indicates what they feel, like an internal mood stone.
The colour that radiated from the shtrillan in front of me was imperceivable due to the brightness of the room around us.  However, as he moved, I fancied I could see shimmers of orange, which indicated his being in a good mood.
He flicked his arm away from the console that he had been using and waved it towards a bench, “lie there please.”
I glanced at Tallou for confirmation or permission or some other indication that I should follow the instructions.  He seemed to be closely inspecting the back of his hand.
With a sigh and an attempt at a half smile that portrayed my obedience, I laid myself down.
“Am I allowed to use anaesthetic?” he asked Tallou over his shoulder.
Panic descended.
“She’s got medi-bots,” came the response from beside a supply cabinet.
“I see. ”  He moved off a little and came back with a glove over one hand, gently balancing my eye on the webbing between two digits.  Looking at it closer, he continued, “ah doesn’t matter anyway, this thing’s got a size adjustment.”
With an ominously slow movement, one of his hands pinned my head to the bench, “remove your glasses please.”
With shaking hands, I lifted my unfortunately hipster frames away from my face.  In my defense, my prescription was so strong that I was unable to get thin rimmed glasses because the lenses were too thick.  It was never truly my choice to don the ‘Clark Kent’ accessories.
Placing them cautiously on a ledge to my left, I moved my hands to clasp the edge of the bench.
With an uncomfortable amount of pressure, the shtrillan pried my eyelids apart as far as they would go.
There was a blinding flash of pain as I felt the skin next to my nose tear, before my nanobots numbed and clotted the area. 
Keeping my right eye open was inevitable.  Like a deer caught in the headlights, I could not pull my vision away as the webbed hand brought the shinning orb closer and closer, until I lost sight of it as it came in contact with the empty socket.
A little more pressure and it was all over.
“Tallou,” the sharpness of his voice came as a shock, “don’t even think about taking more zardiet, any more in your condition and you’ll become senseless.”
“I’m due more though, I haven’t had any in three units.”
“You’ve got at least three more until you’ll need it again.  Put the vial back.”
“Fine,” the sound of plastic tubs and tubes rattled.  I attempted to focus on the sound, however having a synthetic ball sat in one’s eyes socket without any kind of lubrication is not a comfortable sensation.  The sheenar’s hand still held my lids open, making it impossible to even blink.
I released my grip on the edge of the bench and raised my hand to speak, only to find my throat had gone dry.
Tallou must have noticed as he pointed out, “aren’t you forgetting something Eleoca?”
From the way my socket must have been twitching, he realized my discomfort and released his hand.
I let out a cry as my lids attempted to close themselves, the dry skin catching on the ball.
“Ah, yes, almost forgot,” he said before picking up a bottle and spraying the lubricant directly onto the ball.  He lifted my lids away from the surface and pulled them until they closed.  Massaging through the skin, the ball began to move about, spreading the relief around the socket.
The entire time, I kept balling and stretching my hands, releasing minute ripples of energy with each breath that was escaping in gasps.  Thankfully, the medi-bots were doing their job in keeping the most of the area more or less pain free, yet the odd burn of friction or pinch so close to my brain made me mush more nervous that I was comfortable being.
“Okay, we’re done here.”  Peeling the glove from his furthest hand, he turned his back on both me and Tallou and went back to the console that he had been at before we interrupted him.
Pushing myself off my back took enough effort for me to need to use a little energy to be able to make it all the way up without my wrists giving way.  Even once I was on my feet, I was still trembling.
I gingerly felt the area around my left eye.  It was more than a little swollen, with a thin trickle of discharge seeping out from the side.
Where the skin had torn, there would a tiny scar where my medi-bots had begun to stitch the tissue together again.
The eye itself was still lacking charge, it would take a few auxes to wake up again.  Until then, I was left with the half vision that I had not been getting used to.
“Back this way then,” Tallou was waiting by the door we had come in through.
Several lals into our stroll brought us to the passenger accommodation.
I reached the door only a few paces before my escort.
When he reached me, he grabbed my arm to moved me out of the way so that he could see the door’s controls.
As much as the sudden physical contact shocked me, it was a sharp pinch to the side of my elbow that caused me to flinch.
“Oww,” I sucked the air over my teeth and yanked my arm away, rubbing at spot from which a tiny bead of blood had risen.
“What?” his voice gave nothing away, however as he returned his had to his side he made a point to allow the injection device to catch my attention, nanoseconds before it disappeared into a hidden pocket.
In the space of a breath, I was being given a choice.
To trust that this hlorsiené wanted off the ship and had just given me the solution to facing the gas that would hinder any escape attempt, was a stretch, or to assume that he was setting me up to play into his boss’s hands.  There was also the possibility that he had just poisoned me or tagged me with a tracking device or given me something to suppress my abilities further.
Rationally thinking, I could have simply gone along with him, let him think that I trusted him and made the decision later on when I had more facts.
However, my gut was telling me that he could be trusted.  At least as long as my actions got him what he wanted, or claimed to want.
“Nothing,” I shook my head, “just a bit of static.”
I rubbed at my arm as though trying to dispel the imaginary shock.  Applying a minute amount of energy to the puncture wound, I was able to stop any further droplets of blood from escaping, keeping my hand over the area until I was confident that the first drop had been completely captured on my palm and the blood clotted by medi-bots.
Raising my hand to push my glasses up my nose, I again used the energy to move the bright red liquid into my mouth and down my throat.
Meanwhile, Tallou had been accessing the controls to the door.  It seemed that there were several layers of security locking the area.
“I’m sure your crew will catch you up, but basically you’re all to stay in here until we land in three units time.”
The door slid open to reveal an empty common area.
He waved me through.
Turning to face him before he closed the door behind me, in an over-the-top, dramatic voice asked him, “will I ever see you again?”
He took a deep breath, rolled his eyes and said, “yes.”
And he was gone, locking the door behind him.
He had given me an arsenal of information for me to use in my mission.
Yet, of course there were still many barriers in our way.
As soon as any kind of ruckus kicked off, the place would surely go into lockdown.  Even if I could force open any door, there were the lifts to consider, for those we would need access.
Tallou seemed to be betting on me simply trying to cause some damage and get away safely with some sort of evidence in tow.  Which had been my vague plan.
That was before I knew that there were still humans somewhere onboard.  Judging by their movement opposed to my own and their proximity to where I knew Bernard was, they were not much further along the corridor on the other side of where I was.  Unfortunately, I knew that could mean that they were in the second half of the double loop.
There was no way, in any version of my adjusted plan, that they would be left behind.
It seemed like a lot would be riding on Tallou’s cooperation.
The room in which I found myself was long and narrow with seats and consoles along one wall, windows along the other.
After the seating area ended, the corridor narrowed even further, giving room to sleeping compartments and hygiene facilities.
A quick sensory scan indicated that Bernard was in the third compartment along.
Therefore, naturally, I went to the first room and knocked.
A moment or two passed before the partition was pulled aside bringing me face to face with Desmosa.
Her face relaxed so completely when she saw me, that her previous expression had made her almost unrecognizable.
Quickly remembering herself, she smiled, “thank goodness, we were beginning to think that we would have to escape without you.  Are you okay?  Where did they take you?”
“They kept me in an isolated cell and then took me to, what I’m assuming was, the bridge to talk about how they weren’t going to force me to sign a contract,” I told her, “they asked me politely, I said no, they said ‘fair enough’, and that was pretty much it.  Oh, and they reinstalled my eye which was an entirely unpleasant process.”
“They took your eye?”  Orthus’s voice startled me from behind, “that doesn’t bode well.  When it comes back online, you should run a diagnostic to make sure that they haven’t installed any spyware or accessed its memory.”
I internalized the sarcasm that wanted me to say ‘it’s good to see you’re alright to, Orthus,’ and gave some thought to what he had said. 
The eyeball has a limited internal memory that stores ten units of images and console key strokes.  If they had gotten into its programming, it was possible that they also knew more of what we planned than we would have liked.
“Isn’t this this thing supposed to only respond to my d.n.a.?” I asked.
“It is,” Deia responded, having appeared just behind Orthus, “but there are ways around that with the right programmer, equipment and time.  All of which, I would be surprised if they didn’t have.”
“Well, we’ll know in a few auxes I suppose,” my thoughts were attempting to figure out a way to communicate the important parts of which I had learnt to the others.  My eye’s security was important, however there was nothing to be done until it was powered back up. 
There were no pens or paper in the area, yet then again, why would there be? 
We could access consoles, however they were set up to deny any kind of access to the galanet, they simply allowed us to control the lighting and temperature within our lodgings.
Whilst we searched the area for some means of silent communication, Bernard and Culpin also emerged from their rooms.
“Where’s Ishni?” I had to ask.  Each of the sleeping compartments were empty, he was not among us.
“He’s been upgraded,” Orthus told me, “I think they’re trying to woo him into working with them.”
“So he has relevant experience then?” an unfamiliar sense of elation that one of my imagined scenarios was proving to be true.
Orthus smiled, revealing his far left teeth, “he is one of the most efficient bounty hunters in the galaxy, borderline famous if I’m honest.  Fortunately, he owed me a favour which is how I got him to train you.”
A sense of disappointment seeped into my stomach.  I had assumed that he had chosen to continue training me because of some attachment or investment in his student.  That he was only with us because of some favour that he owed Orthus gave me an unavoidable knock to my confidence.
“Do you think that he’ll do it?  Even if not now, once he’s done with your favour perhaps?”
Orthus looked confused, “his favour to me was to train you on Kenglowe.  He has no more obligations to me, his reasons for leaving the Veroten with us were completely his own.”
My spirits were lifted instantly, “and those reasons were…”
“You’d have to ask him that yourself,” he paused, giving it some serious thought, “I suspect that he wants his name to be the one spoken when beings start wondering how you became so powerful.”
The ideas that came with that thought were certainly conflicting ones.
“Do you really think that I’ll become that well known?”
He eyed me carefully, “like it or not, Laura MacPhaid, I doubt that there are many beings in the galaxy who don’t already know who you are.  The galanet was crawling with gossip and rumours surrounding you before we even arrived on Kenglowe.”
I sank onto the closest seat, hands gripping onto the edge to steady myself.
Not only was the thought of being so dissected  by an entire galaxy worth of minds intensely paralyzing, it would also make moving about freely and uninterrupted very difficult.
Yet again, it was something that future Laura would have to deal with.
Like an answer to my prayers, Culpin’s voice appeared in my head.
“If I can offer an idea,” its head tilted gently to the left, the sheenar have very little by way of facial muscles, so they move their heads to display their expressions, movements which are understood by the translators, “I can relate conversations between everyone.”
I raised an eyebrow and was about to ask it out loud how it would be able to hear our thoughts when, up until then, we had always responded verbally, when I realized that such a sentence captured by any surveillance device would give us away.
I sighed, flapped my hands and instead said, “how are we supposed to communicate?” as though I were giving up on finding something to write on, yet sending Culpin a sideways look, before dipping my head and scratching my forehead in feigned despair.
“If you project your thoughts directly at me,” it told me, “I can pick up what you are thinking.  I will need a sign to let me know when you about to communicate and I will only be able to read one being at a time.  When I look at you, let me know what sign you will use.”
Deia flicked the tip of her tail.
Orthus scratched the back of his head.
Bernard twitched his nose.
Desmosa kissed her teeth.
I made a sigh that teetered on the edge of clearing my throat.
For the next half auxe, we all loitered around the communal area in, what we were hoping seemed like, frustrated silence.
I told them of what to had learnt, who I had learnt it from and what I suspected he had injected me with.  The question became whether or not Tallou could be relied upon.  We would need him to access the ships systems, open doors, get us to the bridge and then locate the proof that we would need.
Even with his help, there were still so many things that could go wrong; his clearance could be revoked, any evidence could be moved or destroyed if they figured out that we were coming and there were likely procedures in place that newer members of the crew did not know for that precise reason.
It would be easiest for me to get to the bridge on my own and take control of the ship from there, however it left those left behind vulnerable.  Yet if we all went together, they would see us coming, sooner.  In either case, they still had the other humans on board to use as leverage.
We could wait to see if Ishni reappeared, although no one knew how likely that would be.  He could refuse their offer and either be punished or sent back to us, or he could accept their offer under the guise of gaining the upper hand over them.  There was also the possibility that he would turn on us completely.  I refused to believe that and Orthus was adamant that we could rely on him.  During our time together it had become apparent that he had been holding something back from me, however anyone could see the weight that it put upon his shoulders.  I felt that I could rely on him absolutely regardless of his past.
If we placed our trust in either Ishni or Tallou and neither of them reappeared, we would have to take matters into our own hands.
If we could get Desmosa to a control dock, she could potentially access the controls by interfacing directly with the ship’s systems.  She was not skilled at hacking, however she would theoretically be  able to bring up a console that Orthus would be able to use to bypass certain systems.  Working together, they should have been able to get us to the bridge.
We settled upon three options.
The first two being that we wait for either Ishni or Tallou and rely upon them to navigate our passage through the ship.
The third being that, if neither of them appeared, we would go ahead without them.
We would wait for one unit before resorting to the third option.
The basics of the plan ran as such:
We knew that, including Tallou, there were at least seven beings on board the ship.  We would have to isolate and incapacitate each of them.
With Tallou or Ishni, I would leave the passenger area, warping internal components of the doors at either end so that they would lock without any way of opening.  Therefore, even if the gas was used, they would simply be unconscious with no way for the crew members to get to them.
Without either of them, we would all go together.  If we could make it to the med-bay, Deia would identify the compound needed to combat the gas.
If all went smoothly, we would gain access to the bridge from where we could take control of the ship; the doors and the gas.
Any crew members that were not found on our way there, we could locate and lock them into wherever they were, to be dealt with once we had complete control.
The whole thing felt very slapped together, with a lot hanging on placing trust in beings or skills that could all too easily let us down.
There was no lack of unease amongst everyone, it was all I could to beg them to put their trust in me and my abilities.
The whole of the silent conversation, I made sure to make as much steady eye contact as I was capable of and stop my hands from trembling.
We decided that if anyone was going to sleep, there always had to be at least one being awake.
The last silent sentence was thought and I stood.
I turned from one being to the next, holding their eyes and then finalizing the gesture with a firm nod of my head.
“Everything will work out as long as we rely on each other.  Stay together and stay strong.”
With one final sweeping look, I said out-loud, “we’ve got this.”