Familiarizing with the Kalia Greir

The Kalia Greir swam away from Central like a stubby eel. Within seconds they were already past the outer markers of the system and making their way towards Orthiax.

The air on the spacious bridge was beyond tense. Gerald looked to his left, where Trahzi stood, fumes rising up off of her shoulders and hair. He looked over to his left, where Zurra stood angrily, bubbles rising through her body like a boiling pot of water.

Gerald sighed. "How did it end up like this?"

Trahzi scowled. "Why do we have to be paired up with him?"

"...and we're back to that again."

The doors slid open and Ilrica strode in, a towel wrapped around her body after a fresh shower, Cadbury perched happily on her shoulder. "Well, I just got off the wave with Nathers. Can you believe it? He actually agreed to let me go. An awesome student like myself..."

She paused when she saw Cha'Rolette sitting at the navigation console.

"What are you doing here?" Ilrica asked, flustered.

"I might ask you the same thing, Faolan," replied Cha'Rolette.

"I'm on vacation. How did you even get on board, Duchess?"

Cha'Rolette tapped the crest on the wall. A pair of serpents, their bodies braided together into the shape of a wreath, a sword and sickle crossed at the center. "Who do you think built this ship?"

Ilrica stuck her thumb out at Zurra. "Okay, fine, you had the command codes, but what about her? She doesn't seem the type to specialize in system infiltration."

"Ha! As if you could stop me," Zurra boasted. "I don't need to know all that fancy stuff. I just wormed my way up through the sewage exhaust system."

"Eww." Everyone took a step away from her.

Zurra looked around stupidly. "What? I took a shower after."

Trahzi ground her teeth and her eyes burned.

"Crap, she's going to explode again," Zurra warned, hiding behind the projection tank.

"If she does I'll blow her out into space," Cha'Rolette warned, her hand hovering over the control.

"You realize that would not hurt us."

"No, but it would make me feel better. You gave Gerald second degree burns over three quarters of his body. I can't forgive that."

Cha'Rolette's resolve was iron clad. Everyone knew she was deadly serious.

"Our abilities are closely tied to our emotions," Trahzi admitted. "We lost control of them. That was a mistake."

"So was letting you into the academy. I'm not going to let you hurt him again."

Zurra stomped her foot. "Hey, I got burned too!"

"No one cares! Go jump back in the toilet you crawled out from."

Zurra's head inflated. "I CARE!"

Gerald stepped in between them and waved his arms. "Okay, this isn't going to work. We can't be ready to kill each other five minutes out. We'll never get where we are going in one piece."

Cha'Rolette sniffed and turned away. He realized he wasn't going to get anywhere with her, so he focused on Trahzi.

"Look, Trahzi, this is going to be a long flight, and it'll be miserable if we are angry the whole time."

"We are not angry!" she snarled.

"...right. So, let's do this. I'll apologize to you for trying to manipulate you, and you promise not to burn me again. I think that is a fair compromise."

Trahzi was surprised. "But you still don't actually believe you were attempting to manipulate us?"

"No, of course not."

"So, why apologize for it?"

"Because I'm trying to be a peacemaker."

She rolled that one around in her head. "But you're lying."

"Don't think of it as a lie, it's more like I'm pleading no-contest. I'm not admitting that I was wrong, I'm not going to argue about it with you anymore."

Trahzi rubbed her head. "Ugh, you others are so confusing. How can you achieve peace through surrender? We don't understand you. We would never apologize for something we hadn't done. We would press the point until they agreed with us."

"Yes, but peace doesn't mean you resolve your differences, it doesn't mean you agree with each other, it just means you put down the axe." He threw Cha'Rolette a knowing glance.

"Well said, Gerald," she praised reluctantly.

Gerald bent down and made Trahzi look him in the eyes. "Trahzi, I'm sorry, okay?"

Trahzi blushed and turned away. "Fine."

Gerald gave a friendly smile. "Good."

Ilrica gave a slow clap. "I never get tired of watching him do that. That man could tame a raxxa beast and teach it to serve tea and cakes."

Gerald was a little embarrassed at the praise. "It's really not all that impressive."

"It is to me. The Bertulf don't have a word for 'peacemaker,' you see. It's a completely foreign concept to them."

Ilrica jumped down off the podium and landed in front of him, her bath towel clinging to her shapely athletic body. Cadbury flapped down and started pecking at the communications station.

"You have no idea how impressive that is to me," Ilrica said sincerely, her eyes full of admiration. "You can win without fighting. I think that is amazing."

Gerald caught whiff of a pleasant sweet scent. "Is someone baking?" he asked, looking around.

Ilrica's cheeks become rosy. "It's... my new perfume," she chuckled nervously. "Do you like it?" she asked hesitantly.

"Well, it smells like cinnamon rolls, so, yeah, I like it. Before I converted, cinnamon rolls were like my favorite thing."

"You said you liked pink frosted cupcakes!" Zurra yelled jealously.

"Pink frosted cupcakes?" Gerald repeated, confused. "What are you talking about?"

Zurra stamped her foot petulantly.

Ilrica slinked in closer to him, her beautiful eyes hooded and dreamy. "I'm glad you like it," she said, reaching out to straighten his robes and fix his hair for him, her fingers lingering just a little bit longer than necessary. "I'll wear it all the time for you, then."

Cha'Rolette folded her arms, her eyebrow twitching in irritation. Zurra puffed her cheeks out like a puffer fish. Trahzi's eyes erupted into blue fire.

Gerald furrowed his brow. "Ilrica, why are you being so nice to me all of the sudden?"

She feigned innocence. "What are you talking about? I'm always nice to you."

"Uh huh, right."

She spun around playfully. "I don't know what you are talking about." She glanced back at him over one shoulder and flicked his nose with the tip of her tail. "But if you try hard enough, you might figure it out."

Gerald looked at the other girls. He could feel the tension coming back into the room.

"Okay," he said, trying to change the subject. "Now that all that is settled, let's get going on our mission. I'm actually pretty excited about this." He strolled over to the command chair. "Where do I sit? Is this chair mine?"

"NO!" All of the girls jumped to stop him.

He froze and looked around, his butt hovering over the seat. "What?"

Ilrica grabbed him and carefully pulled him away from the chair. "YOU do not touch the controls. EVER, okay? Go sit over there in the corner. Don't even lean up against the wall."

Gerald stuck out his lip. "But I've never had a chance to pilot a starship before."

"GO!" they shouted in unison.

As he sulked over to his corner, the girls breathed a sigh of relief and got to work.

Cha'Rolette pulled out a cable from her console and plugged it into the back of her neck, as did Ilrica and Trahzi. Zurra didn't have crystronic ports, she simply plunged the cable into her neck like it was made of jelly.

"I still don't get how that works," Gerald grumbled.

It only took the girls about three seconds to download all of the relevant data, familiarize themselves with all of the ship's systems, train and certify in each station, and setup all of the necessary security protocols. In the final half second, they each redecorated their rooms, which reshaped themselves into their personalized specifications.

"Holy trow, no wonder we're so heavy," Ilrica said, displaying a window with the cargo inventory. "Look at the manifest. We've got enough spare parts build a second ship."

"With Dyson on board that might not be enough," Trahzi observed.

"I've never see a ship with so many redundant systems before," Zurra remarked. "Backups, secondary backups, tertiary backups, quaternary backups, quinary backups."

"Now you're just making up words," Gerald teased.

"Ha! You've spoken English your whole life and I know it better than you do," Zurra teased. "Squeaky wheels who live in glass houses should not throw grease."

"Yeah, you're a regular expert, Professor Immestria." Gerald laughed and took off his translator from his ear. Lately, out of courtesy, the girls had been speaking English instead of Standard around him, although they still threw in their own slang from time to time. Now that it was just the five of them, he figured he wouldn't need the device at all until they arrived at Orthiax, which he appreciated. The darn thing gave him headaches.

"Faelan's claws, look at this, this thing uses the old nineeig manoeuvring fins," Ilrica laughed as she readjusted her bath towel.

Cha'Rolette nodded. "And the rapada drive, I'm still not sure why they wanted them both on the same chassis."

"Maybe so people will give us a wide berth. Should be able to see this thing coming from two sectors away."

Zurra stretched out her pigtail and plucked it like a rubber band. "I don't get it. It's like the whole ship has been redesigned to create as big of an aetherial wake as possible."

"Why was it built this way, Duchess?"

"I couldn't tell you. The specs were handed to us from Central Command, we just filled the order. Got to charge 'em quadruple for the rush job," she boasted.

Ilrica's eyes flashed mischievously as she brought up a window containing the ship's schematics. "Haven't you gals noticed yet?" She swiped her hand and copies appeared in front of the other girls, who leaned forward, intrigued.

Gerald looked on as the four of them had a silent conversation through the ship's internal network.

"What are you guys planning over there?"

Ilrica, Zurra, and Cha'Rolette glanced at him fiendishly.

A drop of sweat ran down his face. "What?"