Chapter 44 #2
Holly tilted her head curiously. “There was only one shuttle? How did you get in here?”
“Emergency release of the shuttle already docked,” Romival explained calmly. “Basically, we ripped it out of its spot and left it floating so we could replace it with ours. We can’t get it back though. Do you need medical attention immediately, vi Vakara?”
“Huh? No, I think I’m good,” she reached back, rubbing her head with a small wince. “I’m mostly just banged up.”
He smiled, pleased. For such a delicate appearing species, he was always surprised by just how durable they proved themselves to be.
“Let’s fly this thing back down,” Atem said, gesturing with his head. “I still want to get you to Donivi quickly, Holly.”
“Sure. Thanks.” She smiled first at him then at Romival who remained near, one hand on her back as he kept his third eye on her while the other two faced forward.
She leaned against his side, suddenly appearing tired as her adrenaline waned.
Romival put his arm around her, helping to guide her to the front of the ship.
Though, calling it the ‘front’ was a bit of a misnomer as this style of ship didn’t have windows pointing out of any kind.
All of the navigation was done by instrument panels.
He helped Holly into one of the seats in front of the communications array as Atem took the captain’s chair.
He could pilot it from there, leaving Romival free to move towards the nav panel.
He could help his Dominani set their course from there, but he could also figure out where the ship had come from – specifically, who had sold an unregistered ship to a rogue clavas.
Such a thing was definitely illegal, and they could offer the information to the ruler of the ratchi or report it to the Coalition so that appropriate measures could be taken.
“What are you doing?” Holly asked, curling up into a ball in the chair that was designed for a creature over twice her size.
He smirked. “Just getting everything we can out of their databanks.”
“Anything good?”
“No. Whoever was in charge of navigation only had a rudimentary understanding of how to travel through subspace.”
“Tragic.”
“Isn’t it? I’m not sure where they got their education, but if this kind of work came from my students, I would fail them immediately.”
“Suppose you can just get a second neural imprint.”
“No,” he grunted. “You cannot receive more than a single neural imprint over any singular subject.”
“Really?” She perked her head up. “Why?”
“The imprint is an average of the electrical patterns in the brains of a group learning the same subject at the same time. It’s taken while they’re learning, then averaged, and that is turned into the print that is then placed in another’s head.
Your own brain then takes that imprint and, as you’re solidifying it, alters it to better suit its own needs.
Trying to re-imprint the same information results in confusion in the electrical patterns and loss of information overall. ”
She hummed curiously, watching as he continued working even as he explained it to her. “You have to initially get the imprint while someone’s learning it? So, that means you can’t, like, get the imprint of my language out of my head, upload it, then learn it yourself?”
“Your native tongue? No. The only way for us to form an imprint of your native language would be to have a group of those who do not know it at all to learn it at the same time while having their brains monitored. And it would have to be a group of no less than fifty-seven to ensure that the average is sufficient to create an imprint good enough for others to accept. To make a truly perfect imprint, it would have to be done separately by species since there are always small differences in our brains.” He lifted his eyes, looking at her.
“Is this really what you want to talk about?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t really want to think about the whole getting kidnapped thing right now. I’d rather listen to you.”
Learning/teaching was his love language, as she said. She wanted him to tell her that he loved her in his own, comforting way, which included dry explanations of irrelevant topics. Something that wouldn’t have worked for anyone but her.
He smiled and focused back on his task, talking her through what he was doing, though it really wasn’t that exciting or complicated.
The clavas had been rogue and it looked like they sank the last of their credz into buying this ship – at least according to the records he managed to find in their database.
There were a lot of communications – all of it text, not recorded – discussing their plans for what to do on the surface, how to get to the surface, how to get to Turv in general.
Basically, everything the females discussed going backwards actually much farther than he anticipated.
There was the information they had gathered from the males’ of this clavas, their communication regarding going to Turv for their revenge.
And there was the moment Sizuka son’s heart’s stop beating when, just judging by the way his heart raced before his death, was a result of exsanguination at the hands – or even fangs – of his Dominani.
Then more. Much more.
His brows furrowed as he realized he was no longer going through this ship’s logs.
This ship had all of its own logs plus all the uploaded information from the clavas’ general database.
Every little piece of information that the clavas had collected.
Their own personal subspace net pocket that only they could access.
“Romi?”
He didn’t realize he had stopped talking until Holly spoke. He turned his head, his heart squeezing and pounding in fear at the sight of her. Those cute little brow tufts of hers were drawn in concern and she was sitting up a bit.
“Romival,” Atem barked, his voice much harsher. “What is it? What did you find?”
His fingers were numb. He didn’t want to answer that question. All his time promising Holly, he never actually thought he would be able to do it.
“Romival,” Atem said again, his claws digging into the captain’s chair as he prepared for a fight.
Romival cleared his throat, unable to breathe properly. “It’s the, er, clavas subnet data. Their personal data. It’s all on the ship.”
“I imagine it is.”
“No, vi Dominani. It’s all on the ship,” he stressed. “When the remaining clavas left Hr’ssri, they did it with the full understanding that they would likely never return. So, they took everything.”
Atem’s eyes flashed with the beginning of understanding, but Holly – who Romival could not keep his third eye off of – only looked confused.
“Is that bad or something?” She asked, looking between the two males.
It was potentially bad. For him.
“They included all the data that was lost in the ship vi Dominani brought you here in,” he said, tearing his third eye away. Unable to look at her when she realized what he was saying.
“I don’t get it,” she said, now sounding worried.
“It’s not a perfect set of coordinates. As I said, their navigators clearly weren’t taught well.” He turned to Atem. “I will have to do some hunting to get them exact, but it won’t take more than a tenday. Maybe two. Tops.”
Some of the very fear he felt crossed Atem’s face, and Romival knew he shared his same, sudden concern.
“Well, what is it?” Holly asked, uncurling from her ball, clearly ready to panic.
Romival could put it off no longer. He took a breath to steady himself before saying, “The coordinates include where vi Dominani had been ambushed and captured. They also include where they fell out of subspace in the wrong location afterwards because of their ineffective navigation. They include your solar system, Holly. Your blue and green planet, third from its singular, yellow sun.”
Her tiny gasp was like a dagger in his chest.
He had found her planet, but they were not mated. He knew how much she missed and loved her family, and he could not very well demand she not return to them.
He might very well lose his vakara.