Of course, a Lumeris, taking a ship for this fitted them... Anyways, that was enough information for now.

Dhanyl straightened up, trying to look threatening and not failing entirely, his voice sounded harsh and he spoke slower that normally "I won't tell anyone about you because it wouldn't give me any advantages. But if you give me one reason to do so. Say, if you remove or damage one of my cameras, E.N.I will warn the crew about you. Or, if I die unexpectedly, E.N.I will warn the rest of the Crew about you. Or if I see you damaging the ship or anyone on board, E.N.I will warn the rest of the Crew."

He loosened up a bit again, his voice returning to its normal speed and tone "E.N.I, lift the lock up protocols."

"Yes, Doctor Abmaha"

"You may go n... what is your name?" He was surprised that he didn't ask this question earlier, better late than never...

((This should be Mokinokaro replying, but better this slight breach of protocol than a stalled RP))

"Shields are up, and I don't see any damage on the screen", Ylona commented after pulling up the diagnosis systems, "Doesn't mean there isn't damage, it's just all minor. We're talking wear and tiny fractures here. Not enough to make the snip snap at the next high-g turn, but it's going to help along with the aging. "

The gas cloud was by now visibly moving and coming closer. "We've got about a minute left til we hit", Ylona guessed based on the latest readings, "Then I'll check how much speed we lost and correct the course."

"So we've taken superficial damage and jarred the crew...so long as we didn't suffer any significant damage, I suppose all is well."

Turning around, Valorum's eyeless gaze bored into his navigator as he sternly added:

"What I'm more concerned with is why nobody knew about this except you and Dhanyl, Sister Ylona. When did you discover this anomaly and why am I only learning of it now?"

"We discussed it in front of —", Ylona began, then remembered: "Oh yeah, right, the other Captain. Well, that we'd be passing a cloud was in my flight plan which anyone can look at." To prove it, she pulled up the by now inaccurate flight trajectory with its hundreds of acceleration nodes and pointed at one near the middle which looked slightly different and had a different kind of label. "That we'd be flying through its rim, I'll be completely straight with you, I didn't know that. I based my course off the point Dhanyl wanted to go through, which was a good safe distance from what I could see of the cloud on visual. I trusted him that he'd not give me a point to fly through that's dangerous to the ship, but apparently he either didn't bother checking or didn't bother telling me. None of that excuses me for not looking more careful, I know. This cloud is huge. It just stopped glowing in the most parts."

Valorum studies the map that Ylona was showing him and eventually makes a sound like 'hrm'. Though now wasn't the best time to admit it, the Vodyani had been too preoccupied over the last few days, what with gauging the crew's feelings on him, to check the map of the starlane they were travelling on. So instead, he looked at Ylona and replied:

"I believe the human saying for this is 'no harm, no foul'. Nobody was hurt, so there is nothing to worry about, especially now that the shields are up and our course has been corrected."

Valorum takes on a graver tone as he looks between the two present officers, adding:

"However, we cannot have something like this happen again. Braving frontier space like this isn't a task to be taken lightly, and no anomaly can go unexamined. Henceforth, any discovered anomaly is to be reported to me and then to the other officers immediately. That way, we're all in a position to do something about it. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Captain, but let me say that if it hadn't been for the size, telling you about this cloud would have been useless. Well, unless you wanted pretty pictures like me. It is after all rather pretty to look at", Ylona rambled, then remembered her point: "Because that's the only thing we can do about this one, pointing a camera out the window. Trying to brake here in the middle of nowhere for more readings would be stupid."

Noticing the way her superior was looking at her, she sobered up a bit and corrected herself: "But the next one we'll definetly tell you about. I'll pass the word along."

((Given that there's little activity and most scenes are wrapped up, I propose we make another time jump to the arrival around Tanye. If you have complaints, please remember to put them in Recruitment and not here.))

Valorum nods to show his approval.

"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, it appears I need to speak with Dhanyl on this matter as well."

And with a short bow to both the ladies, Valorum leaves the bridge, striding towards the ship's lab.

Liam stood blankly, I could just check the crew list, he thought to himself. He started to walk around the ship, a part of him was hungry, another was just bored.

He pulls out a holographic map and spots the Mess Hall and changes his route accordingly.

For the crew, the journey through the gas cloud was not very notable, just a small lurch as the inertial dampeners got on their limit for a second. It was considerably more exciting for the bridge, as for that second of passing through even these wisps of matter brought the shields to their limits. From afar, it would have looked like a small new star shining for a second, as the gas was heated into plasma and pushed away from the ship at relativistic speeds.

After that, Ylona sat down and re-did her course calculations so that they arrived at Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli with only a few hours difference from the original schedule. It was a small, cold star that had only two planets in rather tight orbits. One was a gas planet that if it had about a hundred times its mass, might have ignited and turned this into a binary system, the other was an nearly completely ice-covered telluric planet that orbited the pair from a greater distance. After some discussions, it was classified as Arctic, somewhat disappointing for those who had bet on its type, as this way nobody had won.

Half a day before they would actually be inside the system, Ylona, who was currently watchstanding, already called down to Science: "Bridge to Laudmas. We're about twelve hours out from Tanye, so it's time to boot up the sensors and find out if we've got any anomalies around. Wake up Dhanyl, he'll probably be all giddy do to his job. Oh, and I'll need more accurate readings on the masses of both sun and planets so I can plot the course properly." According to her watch schedule, the robot was currently on call, so hopefully he'd react. But she'd learned that the science team ran on its rules most of the time. She wasn't even sure if Dhanyl ever slept at all.

The console in front of her told her that all systems were green and that the probe bay was fit to deploy, but she wanted to make sure and thus placed another call: "Bridge to Engineering: We're nearly at Tanye, and if things go well, we'll shoot a few probes. Everything okay with those systems?" If she wasn't mistaken, Zeros was currently on schedule, but given that it wasn't night time on the ship clock, it could be that Alice was around. One never knew.

Then, duties done, she leaned back in her chair and stared at the hologram of the system in front of her, playing with the chain around her neck. It was better than what she'd bet on, but that arctic planet was still a bit disappointing. She'd hoped to find a nice spot for her clan, somewhere they could put down their ships, but this wasn't one. Systems like these were for mining at best, and even then, getting a proper production going on a frozen planet like that would be painful.

Valorum was present on the bridge mere moments after the ship dropped out of warp, smelling faintly of incense and smoke. One could only guess what kind of prayer or ritual he had been performing prior to the Saviour's arrival. As it stood, he was standing with a communicator in one hand and contacting the Lab, Stormbreaker unsheathed and fully extended in the other hand, as the Sower entered the bridge.

"Bridge to Laboratory, this is Valorum speaking. We have entered the Tanye system and I want scanners active on all frequencies. We need anomalies detected and reported as soon as possible so we can probe them. Is that understood?"

Decius rumbles into the bridge as Valorum finishes his order. He moves onto the deck and taps the security officer in the gunnery recess.

"I can handle this one," The Craver rumbles. A trembling standing officer removes his headset and then moves quickly away out the corridor towards some other task. Decius slides down slowly and clumsily into the recess and calibrates the control sticks. Despite the fact that he was head gunner, it was mandate that a security officer be on deck to fire the guns at all times. Greasy control sticks slide underneath his hands, and he manipulates the touch pad with the other two hands making small adjustments to sabot and range for expected area of contact. His numerous glowing eyes monitor feeds from cameras piped onto screens for threats.

"Captain, You have the ship's guns ready to fire at command."

Valorum watches Decius work and nods his approval.

"Excellent. If you spot any ships in this system, I want weapons locked onto them until we know they aren't hostile. This is just the kind of system for a pirate outpost..."

Turning around once he hears a familiar mechanical voice, Valorum sees 7-4-1-N-7-3-D and cocks his head to one side, surprised and amused.

"A Sower? I haven't spoken to one of your kind since I left our constellation...very well, what is this important matter, friend?"

As 7-4-1-N-7-3-D enters , it is relieved , they are alone . It considered for a second to reveal its true nature mid conversation , but it was annoying to talk like a simple drone , so it wont bother doing so.

The Sowers voice was still clearly not from a Organic Being , but it sounded less monotone than what one would expect from a sower : " I am thankful for giving me this opportunity captain " the sower floats a bit closer to the ground and turns in a way which could be seen as a attempt to bow down . Then it floats up into the high of the Vodyani´s helmet "I am 7-4-1-N-7-3-D , first of its series , maybe the last . It now is obvious that i am not just a simple sower like the others , before we continue exchanging information, i would like to know if it is acceptable if the fact that i am more then a mere drone will not be official announced . " the spherical robot was now floating at its normal height again 

"Yes, Captain. I have the conn", Ylona confirmed his departure, turning around in her chair to make eye contact. It wasn't her shift for the watchstanding, but as the navigator, it was her job to plan the insertion into the solar system. After the last deceleration set, they were now on a slow hyperbolic orbit. Despite her planning, it was not a perfect one, barely reaching down to the orbit of Tanye II, so she queued a few more acelleration nodes that would force the orbit tigther and allow them to reach Tanye I by free-fall alone, if needed.

"Ease up there on the triggers, Decius", she commented towards the Craver so enthusiastically booting up all weapons, "Tianquitzli is isolated, and Tanye is empty. We're not going to run into ships any time soon. And even if, we'll wait for them to be hostile first before we start with the shooting. If you want to be useful, give me a firing solution for a probe to Tanye I, and keep it updated as we move. That way, the moment we know there's something, we can hit it." In the meantime, she started doing the same for Tanye II, carefully adjusting the trajectory to compensate for the movement of the ship.

"That droid is weird", Ylona picked up the conversation again shortly after, "I didn't think it could talk, or do anything except repair stuff. Sure, it looks like a Sower, but I just thought that was somebody's idea of a joke. And now it has 'information' about some crew member? I'll have to talk with Alice if she set that thing to snoop, or if she knows who it belongs to. It ran all over the bridge yesterday evening during my shift, and I'd rather not have anybody look through videos of me taken by that thing."