Irillith drummed her fingers on her golden armoured arm impatiently while she waited for someone to let her into this ungainly spaceship. Compared to the exquisitely designed warships of her own people, Terran ships looked crudely angular, lacking any kind of grace or beauty. Still, she did have to admit it had a certain predatory brutality to it, but she would sooner go to her grave than say anything positive about their ship to these Terrans.
She hesitated for a moment, icy fingers of dread clawing at her heart as she abruptly remembered that the Mael'nerak was definitely not Terran. She remembered all the tales Tashana had told her, and she had barely slept the last two nights, her rest tormented by horrible nightmares. Having witnessed his true, terrifying nature back on Quanthos, Irillith still hadn't figured out why he seemed to be hiding behind this pretence of being some kind of benevolent Terran hero. Still, at least when he was pretending to be "The Lion of the Federation," she recalled, rolling her eyes, he didn't leave her quaking in fear.
The airlock door spiralling open drew her immediate attention, snapping her back to the situation at hand. John was waiting for her on the other side of the airlock, and he said in a friendly voice, "Welcome to the Invictus, Irillith."
Eyeing him suspiciously, she stepped through the outer airlock door, the cases containing her belongings floating along behind her. She glanced around, wary in case this was a trap, but everything seemed to be safe enough. She removed the golden helmet from her head, tucking it under her arm, and looked around the interior of the ship. The corridor ahead of her was spotlessly clean, and was flanked by heavy double doors, before it ended at some kind of tube with one side glowing red, the other blue.
John gestured for her to follow him down the corridor, and he smiled at her pleasantly, as he said, "I'll take you to your quarters. You can either stay up on Deck Two with the rest of us on the Officers' Deck, where the rooms are slightly bigger, or Deck Four, which we use as the Guest Quarters. The rooms are smaller there, but you'll have more privacy."
Irillith paused a moment, as she mulled over the choice. Recalling her mother's explicit instructions, she replied firmly, "I'll stay on Deck Four."
John nodded agreeably, and they came to a halt at the end of the corridor in front of the red and blue glow in the tube. "Step into the blue side to go up, the red to go down," he explained. "When you reach the floor you want, just step out of the tube."
He walked into the blue side, and then floated upwards, ascending smoothly and effortlessly. Irillith leaned in tentatively, and looked around before stepping into the tube. She felt herself lift off the floor, and she couldn't help but smile at the pleasant sensation of levitating through the air. She was impressed at this ingenuous replacement to the tedium of waiting for elevators, but Irillith quickly reverted back to her scowl when she neared Deck Four, to avoid letting John see her happy expression. She stepped out of the tube gracefully, and her luggage followed behind her silently.
"Take your pick of any of the rooms," John said generously. "We aren't using any of them, so use more than one if you need more space."
He picked a room at random, and strolled inside, then gave her a quick run-through of all the amenities in the quarters. Irillith sniffed with disdain when she surveyed the room, trying to find fault with it. It was spotlessly clean, without a speck of dust in sight, and was functional if not particularly aesthetically pleasing. She couldn't really complain about the utilitarian quarters, and it would prove more than adequate for the several weeks she would need to be aboard the ship.
She curled her lip with disgust and replied, "Fine, I'll stay in this hovel, if it's the best this crate can offer."
John frowned at her surly tone, and she felt a surge of delight at having upset him, but kept that pleasure from her expression.
He nodded towards a clock on the wall and said, "The ship's chronometers are set to twenty-four hour Terran standard time. We tend to eat meals at nine in the morning, one in the afternoon, and seven at night, but it varies a fair bit. You're welcome to join us for them, or you can eat here on Deck Four in the ship's Galley."
Irillith glanced at him and asked, "Are we leaving immediately? I want this over and done with as quickly as possible."
John leaned against the doorframe into the quarters, and asked her, "We can leave right away, but are we going to be escorted back across Maliri Space again?"
She shook her head and said, "Our patrol ships have been made aware of the nature of your vessel, and my presence aboard. We will be able to leave unhindered."
John looked distracted for a moment, then nodded with satisfaction. "We'll be departing in moments," he said confidently.
"How long until we reach Trankaran Space?" Irillith asked him impatiently.
John paused for a moment, looking away distantly, then replied, "Eleven days of travel time in total. Four days until we reach Geniya Space Station, four more to reach the Core Worlds, as we have business there. Then it will take three more days to get to Trankaran Space. Our business might take a few days to resolve, so there might be a small delay."
Irillith managed to stifle a gasp, expertly masking her shock. His ship was fifty percent faster than anything the Maliri had! To try and distract him from watching her expression too closely, she snapped imperiously, "I never authorised any detours. I demand we go straight to Trankaran Space!"
John's eyes narrowed and he said in a steely voice, "You're in no position to demand anything. This is my ship, and we go where I say, when I say it."
A shiver of fear ran up her spine at his tone, and she decided it would be wise not to push him any further. She turned away, and pretended to focus intently on her luggage. Taking the hint, John left the room, so Irillith darted over to the door, closing it behind him. When it was sealed, she breathed a sigh of relief, and then turned back to her belongings.
The first thing she unpacked was an electrical pulse detector, and she clipped the red-hued curved crystal visor over her eyes. She did a quick sweep of the room, and immediately spotted several audio and visual snooping devices, as she suspected she would. Removing the visor, she replaced it in her case, and then took out a holo-pad that she hooked up to her right vambrace.
It took her just under five minutes to create a convincing audio and video loop, which she could feed to the cameras, concealing what she was really up to. She engaged the program, which linked into the video and audio feeds of the devices in her room. It showed her removing her armour, climbing into bed, and then falling asleep. The program then called a looped subroutine that cycled a sequence of her sleeping on the bed, her chest rising and falling as she supposedly slept peacefully.
Once that was out the way, she set up the remote hacking portal, and hooked it up to her right vambrace. She removed the piece of armour from her arm, and set it aside carefully, then stripped off the rest of her armour. When she had changed from her form-fitting combat jumpsuit, and into a long, figure-hugging dress, she sat down again on the bed to check on the hacking portal's progress.
The firewall protecting their ship was crudely effective, she grudgingly admitted, but breaking through that would only take her a few more minutes that she had originally anticipated. She got to work, and eight minutes later she was in, their data network laid bare. She glanced through the summary of the Invictus' network and systems, eagerly searching for anything particularly juicy. She swore animatedly when she realised that links to a research and schematics drive had been recently disconnected, with that server physically separated from the network.
She was about to give up any hope of finding anything useful, when she noticed a fully intact camera footage database archive. Eyeing it hungrily, she rapidly tapped away commands, and a broad grin spread across her face when she realised it was fully intact. Irillith turned her attention back to her vambrace, and pressed several more buttons, triggering the extremely powerful computer system stored within.
