“Yaann!” Pearl shouted, the word torn from her throat the moment she heard that final affirmative beep. She pushed herself as far out of the cramped underbelly as she could as fast as she could, holding out her hand.

The hatch opened and Yaann grabbed it, hauling her up out of the darkness and shutting the hatch with her foot once Pearl was clear of it.

The entire ship seemed to be spinning and Pearl couldn’t tell if she was still standing. She seemed to be floating down the hall as Yaann rushed her to the exit, thanking her profusely. 

“You risked your life,” she said, awe turning her uncharacteristically serious. “Thank you.”

Pearl opened her mouth to respond but only a groan came out as she collapsed onto the holding bay’s floor. Everyone else had cleared the area, at battle stations and Luuu was saying something over her ship’s intercom but it all sounded like noise to Pearl. She groaned again, pressing her forehead to the ground.

“Here,” Yaann lifted Pearl’s hand and pressed something to her palm; a flower. It was unlike any flower Pearl had seen before - though there wasn’t fierce competition in that department given Opranov’s mostly barren surface. 

The flower was black but seemed to contain a shimmering blue throughout its elongated petals when moved under the light. The stem was gray and sturdy, unlike the delicate-looking flower, and for a moment Pearl forgot about how ill she felt, looking at it. 

Yaann smiled, wrapping both hands around Pearl’s closed fist and looking into her eyes. “Tell your crew to take it easy, my friend,” she said softly.

A horn bellowed and Yaann straightened, rushing to hop back onto the ship as the doors began to close. She waved at Pearl, down to the very last second, and then the ship was gone.

Pearl blinked, left alone in the holding bay with a flower in her fist and a ringing in her ears. She pressed her head against the floor again, closing her eyes and allowing everything racing in her to slow.

After a few minutes, as her nausea had begun to subside and she’d calmed, Pearl stood and walked hesitantly out of the holding bay doors to find the ship still at red alert. The alarm seemed paltry in such direct comparison to the one on the Kragorian ship. 

Upon entering the control bridge she found everyone in a manic state of terror, tension and growing confusion. 

“What is going on?” she asked the room in general, moving to the nearest display and peering down. It seemed that their engines were damaged in some way but there was no sign of a battle taking place.

“We’re dead in the water!”

“Not quite. If we reroute power from the weapons systems-”

“The Kragorians’d love that, wouldn’t they?”

“The Kragorian’s ship signature just blinked out of existence. The one approaching I mean, not the one you erased,” The crewman closest to Pearl said with a furrowed brow. “It doesn’t make sense. Were they destroyed?”

“By what? We’re not reading any other signatures in the area,” another snapped.

The rest of the bridge devolved into speculation and chatter.

“Could be cloaked, technology beyond our ability to…”

“A species with enough firepower to take down a Kragorian ship like that…”

“Calm down, we don’t know…”

“Extending the reach of our sensors…”

Pearl began to tune out the crewmen’s voices, holding the rather large flower Yaann had given her into the air. She admired its color, pulling the fabric of her suit back up over her mouth as the last dredges of her heat-induced nausea drained away.

“I don’t believe the Kragorians are coming,” she announced.

There was a moment of silence. Crewmen glanced at one another, unsure what to make of the declaration. Finally, the captain turned his head. Only the very top of it was visible from behind his high-backed chair.

“...And what makes you say that?”

“Just before she left I was told by a Teretiwelligan to…take it easy,” Pearl said, looking out at the front view. Stars sparkled on as far as the eye could see, calm as could be. “I believe it was an admission of some sort.” 

Again, there was silence. Then a heavy sigh from the captain’s chair, his hand waving to signal something Pearl couldn’t determine. Seconds later, the alarm cut off and the ship’s lights were cautiously restored to their previous color. Pearl’s posture relaxed.

“Reroute whatever you need to get us out of here. Quickly,” the captain said. “And I want a sweep done of the O.R.C.A. I’m not as easygoing as our guests.”

Taking this as her cue to leave, Pearl stepped off the control bridge and walked into the hall, watching as several crewmen spilled out and rushed off somewhere. 

Though Pearl reached for her Notepad, intending to check her to-do list, something stopped her. She looked at the flower again then turned and started towards her room. She needed to put the flower in water to preserve it, and after that she wanted to take a shower and sleep for a year. She’d settle for an hour.