Vladie's eyes widen and his lips purse as he begins a low, slow whistle. "Didn't think she had it in her." He angles his lean body fully upright, redolent in a new, crisp, white jacket and spotless white sneakers. "Hey!" he whines, tossing his hands in the air when Aleksa elbows him out of the way.
"Konechno net," she exclaims as the image of Jupiter, suspended within a blue and golden glow above the deep red wood and gilt console, fades to empty air. Shaking her head in denial, Aleksa takes a step backward, her hand coming to rest lightly over her mouth, brows furrowed, and bumps into Aknet with an apologetic glance. Her attention shifts at the sound of Stinger's sigh, while he rubs a hand along the back of his neck, whereupon Aleksa turns her despair on him when he moves to stand beside her. Suddenly, she stops, staring at his back. "You have wings! You have wings? Of course you do." She looks over her shoulder at Nino, and they shrug together, before she returns to her heated subject. "My daughter is not this rebel!"
"Of course not," Stinger replies in a soft, aching tone. One hand inches forward, as if he would offer reassurance, if she would accept it. Yet, a wounded expression haunts his eyes, for he, too, has previous family tied to Jupiter's fate.
"And you?" Aleksa rounds on Caine. He stops cold, lifting his head from where he had just been watching Jupiter's speech. Caught off guard, after a thoughtful pause he replies.
"Never. She told me.." but Aleksa leaps on those words.
"You spoke to her? You've seen her?" Nino lays a gentle hand on Aleksa's arm, her round face both sad and wise.
"Seen, yes," Caine agrees, then looks hard at his own clenched fists, "but I couldn't get close enough. I only caught two words." He pauses, looking to Stinger. "Trust me."
"Sir," a grumbling voice interjects within their argument.
"Trust you?" Nino asks sharply.
"Sir," the voice like gravel is more insistent.
"No," Caine nods where Her Majesty Jupiter's image had recently floated, "trust her."
"Sir!" Aknet demands, waving her clawed hand toward the communications console. "There is more." All eyes turn to the stoic, yet agitated, sargon. Dwarfed next to her leathery bulk, Vladie throws up his hands as if to state 'it isn't me!' "Another signal hidden in the message."
"Hidden how?" Caine almost leaps forward, eyes moving rapidly over the data. "It's a scrambler code." Data runs over his fingers like glowing water.
"An Abrasax signature," Stinger agrees, sliding up beside Caine to investigate. A grin blossoms across his face and he turns to Caine while patting the console of their Abrasax light ship. With a few flicks of his fingers, images hover where Jupiter had just moments before.
"A message from Jupiter?" Aleksa asks breathless, moving beside Stinger, to stand just beyond the breadth of his folded, bronze wings.
"I'm not seeing anything addressed to us," Caine responds, engrossed in his work at the console. Stinger leans over his shoulder, apini eyes rapid scanning the information flashing over the console.
"It seems to be a set of instructions. Not any design I recognize, just pieces."
"Schematics?" Homing in on the images, Nino ruffles a few feathers as she squeezes between the men.
"Like you can read them?" Vladie smirks from behind her. She turns around to swiftly box his ear.
"In Russia I worked airline assembly." Her voice carries a tone somewhere between pride and sorrow. Vladie rubs his ear with a scowl and a question.
"I thought you just made crazy astrology chart stuff." Nino moves as if to box his other ear, then simply grimaces at him, too intrigued by the cascade of images.
"Schematics of an airplane. Schematics of the universe. Not so different. But this, this is," she leans forward squinting, then tips her head sideways, admitting some confusion, "different."
"Why would she send this to us?" Aleksa wonders aloud.
"The sheave," Caine whispers. "She must have found it after all." Aleksa looks as if she wants to know what a 'sheave' might be, but Nino chatters on.
"Definitely a type of machine," Nino nods to herself.
"Can you make sense of these?" Stinger wonders over Nino's shoulder.
"This is a chamber. And that describes some kind of heavy shielding. What does it do?" Her entire attitude a question, she glances up between the men.
"Titus Abrasax claimed he didn't know," Caine's growled softly, "and Seraphi's journals never said, not the ones Jupiter had. What ever it is, Jupiter was moved by this knowledge changed Seraphi's life. She hunted those answers. One on every corner," he muses, recalling when last he and Jupiter met with Titus. Stinger looks to Caine, curious and excited.
"Do you think her Majesty expects us to build it?"
"With what?" Nino looks up askance. "You have super special hardware store nearby?"
"We look for Jupiter, not waste time with some toy." Aleksa shoots an accusing glance toward Vladie. Giving his head a slow, negative shake, Caine points at the schematics still filing passed. Her name on his lips sounds like hope.
"Jupiter wouldn't have sent this, hidden like that, without a really good reason."
"Hey," Vladie begins from the back. He glances at Aknet, commiserating their shared experience of being totally ignored. With a grandiose flourish, he thrusts himself in between Stinger and Aleksa, a slight shudder rocking his shoulders as he brushes against the dual sets of wings, before he turns pointedly to face Aleksa. "Remember? Shoes? Game controller? Eh? Eh?" Aleksa offers him her most dangerous stare, and Vladie folds like wet paper. "Aknet showed me how this ship has a thing that can make... anything!" He turns to Aknet for back up.
"This is a royal conveyance. It's fabricators are capable of creating most any item." Vladie claps his hands together with delight.
"Then what?" Jupiter looks away from Vladie's gleeful expression with a more morose one of her own. "We still don't know where Jupiter is, why she says such horrible things?"
"Why?" Caine replies, equally somber. "To save everyone's lives." He spares a reassuring glance for Stinger. "As for where," he takes Aleksa's hands in his, "I know who took her, and I recognize the shuttle they escaped on. I know where to start." Aleka nods, wanting to trust this strange, alien man with whom her daughter had placed her own trust.
"This is a friend?"
An uncomfortable looks comes to rest on Caine's face and he releases her hands with chagrin. "Not so much, well, maybe, we're not sure."
"Where else would she go? The universe is... too big."
"That speech has definitely narrowed her list of allies," Stinger agrees.
"No," Nino says with a firm head shake. "When we escaped Russia, I did not reach out to friends or allies." Nino leans forward, eyes locked with Aleksa. "I sought those who we once considered enemies." Aleksa pauses beneath Nino's intent gaze, remembering the bribes to black marketeers, the cargo container in which they and many others had hidden. Together, the sisters turn to Caine and Stinger with expectant faces.
Caine's reply is a terse, comprehending nod.