"I don't want to say 'do we have to'..." Dusty started.

"Then don't say it," Cassie said.

The dragon's ship was harder to track now that the bioradar had gone from the brightest star on their left to a dull, almost invisible glow. Dusty was more than happy to switch over to the more reliable "regular radar", but they all wanted to refrain from touching it, hoping the signal would suddenly blip back into existence with a joyful ping. That was enough to put a damper on the enjoyment of even a greater amount of scientific precision.

Cassie stared straight ahead as they went on the approach. Alexa pulled the ship into a long, sweeping turn. Grimacing, she asked, "Not that my excellence in maneuvering isn't of a prestige high enough to account for the difficulties we're facing, because assuredly, it is, but if we detached the central ship, we might have an easier time docking. The outer ring isn't meant to copulate with other ships, and I'm concerned about the structural integrity we'll be risking when we land."

"Who's going in?" asked Cassie.

Tabai, who had been prowling the back of the room with escalating fury, finally snapped back to attention. "I'm going in. We could reason with--"

"She's definitely dead," Alexa said, then paused. "Oh. No, that's a life signal. One signal. I suppose she acted out because she didn't like the fact that our completely democratic method produced a result she disagreed with. This is why autocracy is the way to go."

"G'ana wasn't an autocracy either," Cassie said, "And I can not begin to express how many ways you are wrong right now. The comparison was bad, but nothing else you said was any better, and that's actually almost beautiful in how shocking it is."

Alexa cast her a dry look.

"Sorry, have I mentioned that I get a little mean when I'm stressed? I can be a little-- oh, never mind, just please dock the ship. Dusty, Pechi, and I will go to the outer ring and sit at the upper terminal," Cassie said. "Actually, can we... never mind."

"What?" asked Alexa.

"Never mind!" Cassie yelled.

"Suspicious," Dusty mumbled, although the imitation was clear enough.

The whole group went deadly silent. Tabai hissed, a low, deadly rattle that could have been emitted by a Felis instead of a Canis. It turned into an exhausted groan, and she shook her head. "Let's just go upstairs."

The three of them clustered into the elevator, which lead them up to the outer ring. It was not long after that they heard the clunky metallic folding of the elevator withdrawing, making Cassie relieved, not for the first time, that she had gotten out a few beats prior. Dusty padded away down the hall, and Pechi looked to Cassie with her big, soft eyes, then to Dusty.

"I'm coming," Cassie said.

"A-a-and you're okay?" asked Pechi.

Cassie thought of the morning's schedule. She had missed proper sanitary techniques, and now her fur felt itchy and dry. She had to make schedules for everyone else for tomorrow, and they hadn't taken today's, so they were already messed up. She had slotted for something disruptive, in an incredible act of premonition, with the intention that the 'dragon affair' would take a while, but now it felt like she had sentenced Benn to death the moment she'd put it down. (Not that Benn would know. She had not used a single schedule the entire time they'd been aboard, which was distressing insubordination but also not very nice in general.) Most unfortunately, though, she'd missed breakfast, and right now she needed something in her stomach. Desperately. "I'll be fine when we've found Benn."

"Find her? I'm going to flay her. I can't believe she stole my escape pod," fumed Dusty, entering the room where the pod had been. It was empty, with wires and machinery strewn around like broken bodies, and smaller 'passion projects' littered the sides, half-finished. There was a large vacancy in the center, which Dusty turned from and situated himself in the corner. "Blew half my projects out the air vent, too."

"Could we go get them?" asked Cassie. "Was it anything important?"
Dusty cast her a dry look. "No."

"Alright," Cassie said. "I don't imagine, then, that you've gotten the comms working?"

Dusty looked down at the interface. "I started on that. Then it proceeded not to work. Maybe you should stop overscheduling me. Then there might be the barest chance that I actually accomplish something."

Cassie kept trying to meet his gaze. "You could talk to me about this! D-don't you dare blame my schedules!"

"Trust the machines," chirped Pechi from the back.

"What, are you going to reach out to them with non-local telepathy? If not, then you reserve the right to can it, Pechi," Dusty growled.

"I ac-actually want-t-ted to bring Voca Runes on board for that purpose, but there was a lot of concern about t-th-thought bleed... I guess th-this isn't like h-home, and the likes of you have someth-th-ing to hide," Pechi said, in a low, almost grumbly tone that was quite unlike her.

"There's a difference between having something to hide and wanting the right to privacy," Cassie objected. "Sometimes you do things that aren't... they're not wrong, but you just don't want others to know about them! And then there's the matter of intrusive thoughts. Would it really be productive to have your teammates privy to outbursts outside of your control? What good would that do?"

Dusty muttered, "I'm obligated to agree, I guess, but you know that what we have to hide probably isn't being harmless. I'm not trying to arouse suspicion, before the two of you jump down my throat-- I'm being honest. Now, should we be watching them, or not?"

Cassie looked at the dots on the bioradar. They were moving ever closer to the other dot, but as they merged together, their movement slowed to a stop. Tabai and Alexa were on board. The machines let out a series of irritated blips. The frustratingly small monitors on the dashboard all shone with light, observing, calculating, knowing beyond knowing while the Sentients sat with baited breath, watching.

A call rung through the comms from the dragon vessel.

"Well?" Dusty asked, answering.

Alexa's face shown on the screen. She stepped back, but the rest of the room was barely visible. Cassie leaned in until her face was almost touching and saw patterns of brackish color on the back walls... "Oh," breathed Cassie. "That's a lot of blood."

Alexa said, "Please try to remain at professional distance from the screen."

"I can't see," Cassie argued, pulling her face back. "And stop derailing. Did you find Benn? Is she okay? We're going to have to have a firm talk, by which I mean, can you talk to her? Or can Tabai? She's not going to listen to me. Okay. More importantly? She's not... is she okay?"

Alexa sighed. "Well, she's not dead." She looked back to someone out of range of the screen, "But we're going to have a hard time getting her to come back on the ship."

"Is this a mutiny?" asked Dusty, amused.

Alexa shook her head. "Worse. Petrification. Just like G'ana."

"Ah," Cassie said, bitterly.

Alexa nodded. "She should've see this coming. I don't think it's aggression that triggers it, actually, but even with my perceptive abilities, which are assuredly keen, it's been a hard time pinning down exactly what the criterion are. If it was to stop G'ana from dying entirely, well, Benn wasn't about to die. Trust me. If it was to punish adrenaline, all I'd have to do is sneak up and startle one of you to petrify you, which seems out of line with what the seraph is trying to achieve."

"You s-s-seem like quite an expert in wh-what the seraph is g-g-going for," Pechi said, from the back.

"I'm using basic reason based on what we already know. If you were capable of rubbing your multitudinous brain cells together to create as much as an idle thought, I'm sure you could manage the same," Alexa curtly told Pechi.

Pechi's ears slid back, and the Canira stuttered violently. "W-w-w-w-well... I... I..."

Tabai called in the background, "Alexa, you know what the proper operation of the comms implies. If you so wish to aggravate our allies, there will be time when you are aboard the main ship. I also don't trust that docking job, which is no accusation of your abilities, but rather a critique of the mediocre port we were provided."

"Alright," Alexa acquiesced, "See you all later."

Pechi was still mumbling when Alexa shut off the comms. Dusty looked in her direction, his dark eyes deeply unamused, and flicked his tail and levitated some screwdriver. He idly got back to work on some pile of junk.

"It's okay, it's just Alexa," Cassie said, comforting Pechi. Pechi nodded. Cassie stared at the dashboard, noting the time. Late. Those were big numbers. "So I suppose... well. Benn is..."
"Not unexpected. Unfortunate, but not unexpected. You have anything arbitrary for us to do to fill our time?" Dusty asked.

"Fix the comms," Cassie told him.

Dusty abruptly dropped his scrap, which fell with an irritated clang, and began fiddling with a small black bead. He pierced it with a smaller mechanism and began turning some internal piece. Casting a dry look over at Cassie, he asked, "Weren't you brought on board as a navigator?"

"Interdimensional, yes, but we're here, and given circumstances, I was allowed to use... my other talents," Cassie said. "Pechi, are we just going to--"

"We should be here for when they dock. I want to know the second of that they're back, so I can go down and talk to them," Pechi said. Her eyes were still intent on the screens.

Cassie pressed into Pechi's side, feeling immediately guilty for how forward she was being. Still, the Canira's fur was soft and curled, so that it seemed to be hugging Cassie back of its own accord (no blanket had ever been so kind), and when Pechi pressed back against her, Cassie felt the gnawing sensation in her stomach begin to subside. The bitter fear cooled into something almost imperceptibly small, although Cassie could still feel it there inside of her, like a rock under the hoof. One could walk with it, but you could always feel the shape of it when one pressed against the ground. It was much later that the docking procedures began. Cassie's fur left Pechi's as she went back to the dashboard, but Dusty placed a paw in the way.

"I have this," he promised.

Cassie looked back at Pechi. "Well, I should... I should go get lunch ready for us all. I think a good meal could serve us well at this point of the day." Cassie stormed out. Fortunately, the 'kitchen' was right there, lined wall-to-wall with food that for all intents and purposes might last years or longer in its current state. Cassie shivered, just imagining being in this limbo state for the rest of her natural life. At least she was still able to move and breathe... she had read up on petrification, admittedly in fiction. The idea of having thoughts race across her mind like raindrops, with no sensory information to distract her, was death itself. Worse than death-- death was silent.

Her mind was a hole.

Routine and sensation were a web spread atop it, thick enough that they would not let her fall into the abyss. Eight beats ago, they should have all been eating. They'd already missed the morning meal. They'd burned through the alloted "deal with dragons" time and then some. Cassie was doing a terrible job of scheduling out how long certain grievances would take to air, but then again, she shouldn't be planning anything in space, where time didn't exist at all. Cassie looked up at the white ceiling and took the longest breath she could, breathing in the freezing meal. She took the meat from the freezer and laid the packages, best she could, against her back, on a tray. Her posture was good enough to keep them aloft, which was an accomplishment she prided herself on, but the meat shivered.

Cassie's stomach twisted in on itself. The noise of the refrigerators around her grew louder, a chaotic drone that seemed to ascend and descend in pitch, simultaneously.

"Cassie!"

Meat spilled all across the floor. Fortunately, still packaged-- nothing perished. Cassie buckled down nonetheless as Pechi walked into the kitchen.

"Oh! Uh-- um-- d-d-docking's done. If you... if you want to..." she paused. "Cassie, are you okay?"

Cassie nodded. "I'm dealing."

"A-a-are you?" asked Pechi.

"Yes," Cassie said.

"G-good. I'm t-terrified," Pechi began taking the meat bags and depositing them back on the tray. She managed to scoot the tray under her forepaws and got up onto her back legs, pushing the tray onto Cassie's back as the Fauna moved to stand. She looked a little silly on her back legs, where it was even more evident how squat she was, but there was such a genuine kindness about her face that Cassie felt a warmth flood through her. "I know you're hungry. You g-got some plants, right? This is all f-for us."

"Right," Cassie said. "Almost forgot. Can you grab some of the dried meal for me?"

Pechi opened one of the fridges and got out a particularly large bag. She gave her tail a quick wave. "Lifve to serfve," Cassie said. Once Cassie was all saddled up, she clarified, "Ac-ctually, I'm onboard as a wa-alking reference manual on s-s-seraphs, but they also just wanted another crew member. I also handle the oxygen. Through the plants?"

"I knew. I've been reading G'ana's manuals," Cassie said. "Admittedly, they're sparse."

Pechi nodded.

Cassie looked towards the open door with a feeling of inimitable despair. "Do you feel, given the level of preparation we received, as if we've been sent into space to die?"

Pechi shook her head. "W-we weren't sent into space like this to die. We h-have to b-b-believe that they n-need us and the s-s-seraph horn back home. Right?"

"What kind of bad faith is that?"

"The kind you give those desperate enough to be willing to die in space," Pechi said, "Set apart from home by billions of timelines. You know, don't you, that if something happens up here, our spirits don't move on? Our souls don't go back to the soil. Our hearts don't go onto the next host."

"I'm aware," Cassie said.

"And why would you sign up for that?" asked Pechi, anguished, her eyes wide as two moons.

"I could ask anyone here that," Cassie said. The door still loomed over the both of them, unimpressed by their unprofessionality. "They'll need us downstairs."

Pechi gave an affirmative nod and followed Cassie into the hall. The two of them were still pressed uncomfortably close together, more by the lack of space than of any real intimacy (of course, of course) but there was still that lingering whine of dread that cut the air, indistinguishable from the hum of the multitudinous hungry machines. When they entered the inner ring, which had docked seamlessly, Cassie averted her gaze. She could still sense the sixth presence there, as full of ire as it had been in life, but something had changed within it.

"Cassie, is there a problem?" asked Alexa.

Cassie stared Benn down. The Lapnin-Canis was frozen in action, leaned awkwardly against the doorway since it was obvious the petrified figure could no longer stand upright.

The trays dropped from Cassie's shaking back. Alexa caught them with telekinesis and put them on the table. Dusty began cutting them open with a quick flick of his claws, prompting the heating magic to restore them to their full glory (although that mash was still looking unappetizing), and then he jerked his head over to the others, as if to tell them to sit down and eat.

Pechi muttered, "I g-guess I could handle these like I've been h-handling the seraph horn."

"That sounds fair enough to me," Alexa said.

"That's it?" asked Cassie.

"That's definitely it," Dusty said.

"I don't think that's all," Tabai insisted.

"Oh, it is," Alexa said. Her tongue stroked the now-heated... that had to be kaanin, which was ridiculously luxurious for 'mission food'. Cassie leered down at her mash. There were little berries in it. How quaint. Someone had asked her about her preferences back home, and she had lied. She didn't regret lying now, per say. She just regretted everything. Pechi had nervously placed herself at the table, and looked altogether to be a completely different Sentient from the one who had asked her why she was here. Cassie swallowed. There was an answer she could give Pechi, of course. There were all sorts of pretty little things she kept like glass shards in the stomach, and those things could as easily belong to everyone here.

Would Pechi tell? No.

She didn't know that.

Maybe later. Everyone was wrapping up.

Tabai looked up from almost untouched food, which made Cassie wince, and asked, "Can we be assured of our confidence in continuing?"

"No choice," Alexa said. She got up. "Day left to the second world. Cassie?"

"I--" Cassie thought about her schedules. "Day's just as good as perished, now, but you know what I want. Schedules have been up on the board all day, as long as you all are okay with them... you are okay with them, right?"

"I noticed you requested I run inventory on the on-board herbs for depetrification," Tabai said, and Cassie knew she wasn't trying to be intimidating, but her legs were still shaking like twigs. "Odd request."

"Your files said you knew herbology. In fact, they had almost everything under specialties checked off. It's a little bit intimidating," Cassie laughed nervously, but the sound was terrible, like someone trying to suppress a bad sneeze.

Tabai nodded. "Suppose I might as well be of service."

"Good, good. Dusty? You know you're behind. Pechi... actually, do you think you can help Tabai? And Alexa, that... well, obviously you always know what to do, so keep doing it!" Cassie beamed. "In the meantime, I'll-- I'll take this all back to the kitchen!"

"Without telekinesis?" asked Alexa. "Again?"

"Psh, you know no one's slotted in the time for it."

"You didn't slot the time in for us," Dusty said.

"I like it. It's a nice job," Cassie's ears perked. "Alright. Let's keep ourselves busy!"

The others looked like they might choke on how saccharine her enthusiasm was, but it looked like they were straggling off to do what she asked again. Benn didn't say anything, given as she was still slumped against the wall.

Cassie looked to Alexa. "You want her?"

Alexa shook her head. "Don't move her. Pechi will be back for her."

That she would. Cassie looked down at Benn and the mask of rage still on the sneering Canis's face. Above her was Lucil's tapestry, which had been tilted askew. Cassie hadn't seen anyone do it, and clearly it had been fine the night before... how had she not noticed blatant sacrilege like that while they had all been fussing together down here? Cassie tugged the weave of the Auspicia so it was upright again. "And there you sit, old girl," she whispered. Cassie placed all the remaining food onto one tray, slid the empty trays beneath it, and with careful readjustment, managed to get it just settled along her spine. She took another backwards look at Alexa and shut herself into the elevator, hoping for a quick, uninterrupted return to the kitchen. The white walls greeted her with their familiar indifference, leaving her to her work. Cassie removed the trays, carefully wiping off the trays using obviously meant to be telekinetically handled wipes (the taste of chemicals was bitter in her mouth) and then sinking them back into the dispenser. All that remained then were the food remains, those sumptuous, slumped piles of blood red that stood in contrast to the rest of the white room, an inkblot on Cassie's conscience.

It was such bad practice to throw it all away. Cassie leaned down, her awkward neck going fall over the table, and she dragged herself into a position where she could just get at it. Her teeth settled uncomfortably around the sinew, which she knew she would be in the bathroom later, throwing up, but at the moment she couldn't even force herself to care. Her heart grew wings and began trying to escape her ribcage. Cassie couldn't even manage this kind of visceral excitement for Benn, could she? So that was the kind of Sentient that made it into space. The bad kind. Maybe she was numb. That made sense. She just needed an anti-numbing agent. Some way to wake up. Cassie could feel the light shining through her eyes as she ground the meat down until the little threads that once held the organism together were all gone. The salt and sensation flooded her, sweet as the meadow flowers and sweeter, and she drew herself away, panting. She keeled over her work and began disposing of the emptied trays, feeling almost too full to think clearly. The lights were white overhead. She could almost eat out the anxiety when she got like this, so aside from the fear, there was almost nothing there. Just a hazy sensation of trespassing, as if she was on the wrong yard back home.

Anything was better than being empty.

Cassie was full of empty space, and no one knew, and no one had to know.