“Tony, take whoever you need to lock you into position.” Two of the screens on the deck lit up and the crew before them unbuckled and got out. “You go help Officer Saar.” Captain Posey waved at Charyd with a finger without looking at him. The order felt too much like a dismissal. “The rest of you, look over the ship and make sure everything is right.” The main deck emptied quickly. Checking over the Darkstorm after that traumatic pass through the space waves was a must.

This was his chance to talk to her and figure out how she did it. “Yes, Ma’am. But I was wondering if I could have a chance to talk to you?”

“As your commanding officer, I’m always available.”

“I can’t wait to hear how you flew this ship. You handled it with such gentle ease.” 

Captain Posey’s face slumped. Her eyes looked at the navigational pin on his chest. “That was your definition of ease? I hate to see what your definition of hard is.”

“We got here without the security permission. Must’ve been your charm that kept them from shooting us.”

Her smokey topaz drawn-on eyebrow arched. “Security received a heads-up message. They did not have time to realize the pattern of waves for this season. We are on a crunch deadline. The pirates’ execution. Go take care of your fellow officer. Tony, send me the file information on each of the pirates to my comm. Starting with Alice.”

Ahh… Alice… She was a firecracker and a half. Charyd was secretly glad they did not have her real name yet. Hopefully. And if Posey was meeting with Alice, Charyd had to be there. For the entertainment value alone. 

“Yes, Captain.”

“Wait. Seeing you pilot and dance your fingers across the hologram.” His gut twisted at the memory, but he locked his earlier snack in place. “I need to learn to fly like you. That was a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

The Darkstorm hologram appeared. “It was mostly me doing the data processing, figuring out when the last crashes happened, etm. She flew ‘off lucky sense’.” The hologram’s fingers came up to draw quotes in the air around the words. It looked tacky. And with the hologram’s smooth face, it was a bit cute. 

“Tony.”

“Ilise.”

A Shicor’s teeth grinding sounds a lot like a sword being sharpened on the grinding stone. This conversation did not help. Charyd focused on Posey. “Wow, purely gut instinct. That’s only built on years of incredible experience. But you look so young. Was there a recent planet’s gravitational pull you compared it to?”

Posey’s face tinted a purple shade. “Training and the war flight as a medic pilot gave me experience. Excuse me, I have profiles to review and you have to take Officer Saar to medical.” 

Charyd watched her leave. Normally, ranking officers relished in praise, not dodged it. The Darkstorm’s hologram crossed its arms. “I, personally, will accept your praise. Getting to know me intimately keeps this ship sailing smooth.”

“Trying to do that.” Charyd wanted to curse the ship out. He had to hold his tongue knowing that every conversation was recorded. He adjusted his body structure to lengthen his legs and lower his density to walk around the ship to Officer Saar’s station. There was a soft gravity pull from the planet but nothing like his home planet. Home was simple with how everyone looked like everyone else to be in style, similar to how the military was with the uniforms. He had started his life as a cabin boy at the trading station. His race was in high demand for their communication skills. Thanks to that need, he rose quickly in position and left home to have adventures. He hit captain status when the wrong trade happened. 

Charyd stared at Saar’s board and screen trying to figure out his plan. A true captain always had one. A picture of Saar with his buddies riding a new satellite launcher sat on the desk. A mirror had been tucked away in the lower corner. Vain guy constantly checking himself or overly protective and watching his back. Charyd wanted to enter with the rest of the military crew to blend in. The prison did not have an open-door policy for visitors. Officer Saar had to stay behind to improve the code. Charyd was a laborer, not a desk jockey, he would not know a thing about AI coding. He could at least try to understand how to fly out of the invisible waves. Touching the screen he opened up a few files looking around. Why was everything capitalized randomly? Multiple applications began to open up on the display. The only program that made any sense to him was named database. He was hunting a needle in a haystack. “Darkstorm, could you bring up the latest flight log through the waves?”

Tony’s pixelated version appeared on the screen carrying a folder. It hopped with a “boing” sound and tossed the folder in the air. The face dropped off the bottom of the screen with its typical silent laughter. A text note popped up saying, “Change into Saar to have access.”