Chapter Two

The /Sentinel/ drifted lazily through space, now several light-years from earth. The hyperdrive often stalled, so Conner Solo got right to work on it, while Freyja Y'Zarii got the kinks out of the computers. She watched him more than she did her own work, critiquing his progress.

"Those two cords are in the wrong ports," she said over the hum of machinery.

Conner glanced up at her from the manhole that he was in. "Which ones?" he asked, looking over the wires again.

"The red one and the blue one. The red goes in port 5A, and the blue goes in the one the red was in."

"Then which one goes in port 7F?"

"That's backup power." She frowned. "You not familiar with this type of hyperdrive?" she asked.

"I guess not. I thought I had them in the right places. Once I get familiar with the basic wiring, I'll be all over it."

"What model is it?"

"Uhh . . . Alpha-Pleiades Seven Hyper-Cylinder. Goodness, I didn't think they made those anymore."

"Watch what you say about my dad's ship. Have you working with that model before?"

"On several occasions. You're really confusing me, Freyja."

"Then why are you listening to me?"

"I thought you would know better, being a computer person and all."

"My dad says, 'If you're sure it's right, then it probably is.'"

"So . . . it was right as it was?"

"Yup. You're the mechanic on this ship. You should learn not to take advice on things from people you're not sure have experience in the field. If you have doubts, figure it out."

"You're a strange girl, Freyja. You found out that I had Lieutenant McKerracher helping me that one day." Conner began to replace the cords in their proper ports.

"And that's why the hyperdrive was stalling."

"I guess I get it."

"Take a break. Let's go to the mess hall and see if there's anything to eat."

Conner set his tools down and hopped out of the manhole. He wiped the grease from his hands onto a towel. Freyja set down the datacard that she had been working from with the computers. They left the engine room, not saying a word to each other. There was a voice from behind them and they turned around. It was Dallas McKerracher. He caught up with them.

"'Owdy, you two. What's up?" he inquired.

Freyja was tying her naturally streaked hair back. "We're heading to the mess for a break."

"Funny," Dallas said, "that's where I was 'eading. Say, Conner, are you really related to that 'An Solo we learn 'bout in grade school?"

Conner nodded. "That's right. There's a little bit of the blood there."

Dallas just grinned, and Freyja laughed. Conner frowned. "What?"

"You're awfully humble about it," Freyja quipped.

Conner shrugged and smirked. The three walked in to the mess hall, which was almost unoccupied. The food was a large supply of rations, since there were no cooks available. The rations had to last the trip to the Anubis territory and back, unless they were able to assimilate some supplies from the expedition team's transports. Freyja was the first to get her food. She spotted Seth Dai'vade in a corner and set her plate down at his table. The other men soon joined her.

"You aren't the same Dr. Seth Dai'vade I've seen on HTV all the time, are you?" Dallas asked. Freyja snickered.

"Don't answer that," Conner said, shoveling a fork-full of meatloaf into his mouth. Seth gave them a puzzled look.

Freyja took a bite of her mashed potatoes, which was mixed in thick Corellian gravy, and grimaced. "This didn't cook all the way," she said, standing up and lifting her plate from the table. "I'm gonna go nuke it again." She walked towards the culinary outlet in the galley.

Dallas turned to Seth again. "So, what kind of scientist are you, Rev'rend? Botanist?"

Seth smirked. "No, guess again. I have doctorates in two areas."

"Paleobotanist? It had something to do with plants."

"You're getting colder."

"Paleontologist?"

"No."

"Archaeologist?"

"I've had some classes, but that's not my main area."

"Nuclear Engineer?"

"Yeah, right."

"Quantum Physicist?"

"Keep guessing."

"Astrophysicist?"

"Colder."

"Genealogist?"

"Even colder."

"Oceanographer?"

"Not quite."

"Etymologist?"

"Antarctica."

"Biologist?"

"That's one."

"Zoologist? Am I on the right track?"

"Right track, wrong train."

"Wait! You had something to do with genetics! Geneticist?"

"You got it. My area is mainly genetic engineering. I'm a biologist and a geneticist."

Dallas sighed in satisfaction and leaned back in his chair. Freyja came back to the table. "Anything happen while I was gone? That microwave needs to be looked at, Conner. I think it's starting to short circuit."

Conner furrowed his brow and looked over at the appliance in the galley. He heaved a sigh and ran his fingers through his blond hair. "This ol' bucket is falling apart, if you want my say."

Freyja frowned and glared at him, but he didn't look at her. "Okay," she admitted, "so it /does/ need some looking at. Dad only bought used things. He didn't want to get anything too expensive. It still needs a lot of tweaking."

"Keywords: /a lot/." He winced when Freyja shot him a look.

She set her fork down. "I'll have you know--"

She was cut off by Mekal Syaoran running into the galley. "Hey, troops. Transon wants you all on the command deck. Especially you, McKerracher. I think we ran into something."

The four at the table looked at each other simultaneously and got up in unison. They left the mess hall and jogged the corridors leading to the bridge, Mekal far ahead of them. The ship jolted. The three men stumbled, but Freyja was knocked off her feet. The others pulled her to her feet and they all quickened their pace.

The rest of the small crew was on the command deck. Dallas groaned and put a hand on his head as he stared out the viewscreen. "Oh, man! I thought we /literally/ ran into somethin'!"

"Lieutenant!" Transon snapped. "To your post! We might need you."

"Right, Cap," Dallas responded, dashing to his control panel. "Torpedoes armed 'n' ready, sir. Canons loaded."

"Hold up! We don't even know what we're blowing up! You just watch your trigger-finger."

"Blast."

The ship jolted again with another impact from something. "Mekal, get the scanners going," Transon ordered. "Macon." The dark-haired young man at one of the front control panels looked up at Transon, his cold expression unreadable. "Macon, maneuver the ship so we can get this thing on the viewscreen." Sulley Macon turned back to his station.

"Sir," Mekal said, "it's a spacecraft. Maybe about fifty meters long. The signature scanners identify it as Anubis craft. They've targeted our engines twice, but it hasn't been able to get through the shields."

"L-let's get outta here," Freyja whispered loudly, slipping behind Transon.

"I've got it within view, sir," Macon said.

"Put it on screen," Transon said.

The small craft came into view. It was visibly ugly and not the most pleasant thing to look at, piping of some kind wrapped around it, with spikes sticking out here and there. Its twisted, disfigured structure suggested that it couldn't be of artifical material.

Freyja wrinkled her nose. "Could the Anubis 'grow' their spacecraft like the Vong did?" she asked.

"They could have been allies with the Vong, for all we know," Transon said, studying the ship. "It must be an outpost. It's too far from where the expedition stopped to be a starfighter. Unless they're planning on taking over earth. But then there'd be more of them."

Suddenly a golden burst came from the Anubis ship and sped towards the Sentinel.

"They didn't fire /that/ before!" Mekal said.

"More power to shields!" Transon said to Trent Zan-Aiden, who was seated at a console next to Mekal.

Unfortunately, the peculiar blast penetrated the shields and hit the hull. The ship jolted again. Trent looked up from his controls. "Sir . . . it's . . . it's eating away at the hull! We're losing oxygen and cabin pressure in section A5."

"Seal off that area, Zan-Aiden. We'll have to get a crew down there for repairs. Mekal, try hailing them."

Mekal gave him a shocked and surprised look. "Are you crazy?! Hail them?!"

"If you can't beat 'em, get on their good side."

"Very effective strategy, Jack," Mekal said sarcastically, tapping at her console. She frowned. "No response. What a surprise."

The outpost fired again, this time with its regular gray-colored laser, aimed at the engines. The shields again prevented it from reaching the hull.

"Permission to blow 'em up, sir?" Dallas asked with a wide grin.

"Fire when ready, Lieutenant."

"Yee-ha!" Dallas whooped. "Eat proton torps, ya scum!"

Two missiles launched from the /Sentinel/ and detonated the Anubis vessel. It exploded in an array of glowing shrapnel and sparks, spreading in all directions. When it faded away, the only object remaining was a small, round, brown object. It turned, then thrusters on its underside propelled it towards the /Sentinel/.

Freyja panicked and dug her nails into the headrest of Transon's nerf-hide seat. "It's coming here!" she squeaked. "Shoot it! Go! Do something!"

"Dallas. . . ." Transon began.

"I'd love to, sir, but it's not showing up on my targeting computer! I'll try to shoot, but I won't get anything."

"Do what you can."

Dallas fired the main guns, but they missed the object by several meters. The object went out of view from those on the command deck. There was a /thud/ as it hit the hull.

"It's attached itself to the hull," Trent said. "It's covering the hole that that golden blast made." He shrugged.

"I'm not gettin' this," Dallas said, running a hand through his dark hair.

"That's odd," Freyja commented. "They trying to repair the damage?"

"I doubt it," Transon mused. "It might be a tracer of some kind. Dai'vade, that thing looks organic. Try to get some samples from it to study. Loqr'yl, McKerracher: you two go with him. The spacesuits are in the cargo hold. Conner, you get your things ready to patch up that hole. Macon, get your Raptor ready for shooting that thing off when repairs are done."

There was a chorus of /yes, sir/s and the throng split up. Seth, Dallas, and the Trianii Loqr'yl headed to the cargo hold to fetch the bulky spacesuits. The suits had oxygen chambers and were made of a thick, metallic material that insulated the wearer from the freezing temperature of space and protected them from the radiation of sun-stars. There were comm units in the headpiece for communication between suits; they were also monitored in case of emergency.

The three fitted into their suits and went to where the portion of the hallway had been sealed off. They erected a force field outside the blastdoor before opening it. The sealed off hallway was maybe five meters long. Seth stepped forward first. "Looks like the grav-well generators are still working," he observed.

"Yeah, real bummer," Dallas said. "I was really lookin' forward to a space-walk."

"You know, we could always just push you out into space."

"Now, now, Rev'rend, that's no way to talk."

Seth walked slowly towards the hole that the Anubis burst made. Loq hurried to his side, her blaster rifle ready. The aperture was maybe two-thirds of a meter in diameter. Around the rim there was a glimmering gold substance that was slowly dissolving the wiring, metal, and insulation. Outside the aperture, blocking the view and effects of space, was the ugly brown Anubis object.

Seth pulled out a test tube and some small tools. "I'm going to get a sample of that chemical," he said. He began to walk towards to aperture when Loq grabbed him by the arm and pushed him back. "What is it?" Seth asked. "What's wrong?"

"That isn't a tracer," Loq responded, her tail lashing.

Dallas glanced at Seth, then hurried up to Loq's side. "Well, I'll be!" he exclaimed. "It's 'ollow!"

"It's not a tracer; it's a transport," Loq said, growling.

"And that means. . . ?"

Before Seth could throw his opinion in, he felt four, sharp objects--much like claws--ripping into his suit and tearing into the skin on his back. He yelped in pain and fell forward. Dallas shrieked and whirled around. Loq pushed Seth to the floor and pressed a foot against the small of his back, standing over him protectively. There were four, large, deep lacerations across his back, yet nothing else was in the hallway. She cocked her rifle, sniffing the air.

Dallas looked from Seth's wounds to Loq. "You didn't do that, did you?" he asked cautiously.

"No! It was something else!" Loq replied, her tone of voice indicating that she was shocked, alarmed, and frightened. A sound from behind them caused Dallas and Loq to spin around, weapons ready. There was nothing. A foreboding presence hung in the air. They were not alone.

The ominous silence was broken by Seth's crying out. "Look out!" he yelled painfully.

Loq and Dallas turned around again to face an Anubis charging towards them. Its lead-colored pelt gleamed in the dim lighting and its golden eyes glowed with hatred. It wore some kind of breastplate over its upper chest. There were various pieces of armor over other parts of its body. On its belt there were unidentifiable pieces of technology. The headpiece it wore looked to be more a decorative thing or status symbol than a helmet. Its pearly teeth gleamed. It was a lot smaller than a typical Anubis warrior, probably a sentry or scout.

Loq fired at it and it stopped. When the blast got within a quarter of a meter of the Anubis, it hit something invisible and disappeared. It made a ripple that revealed a transparent energy shield around the sentry-scout.

"They have shields?!" Dallas shouted in surprise. "This is /not/ good!" He stepped back behind Loq.

The Anubis snarled. It coiled and sprang at Loq, claws out and ready. Loq met it with a swift, powerful kick that connected with the sentry-scout's midriff. There was a loud /snap/ and the Anubis fell back, hitting the floor hard.

"Loq!" Dallas shouted from behind.

Loq whirled around and saw another Anubis bearing down on Dallas. Loq held her rifle by the barrel and brandished it like a club. When the Anubis prepared to jump, Loq swung her rifle. The shield must have been for high-velocity objects, for Loq didn't feel it hinder her swing. The butt of the rifle collided with the side of the Anubis sentry-scout's head, momentum sending it crashing into the bulkhead. It crumpled into a heap on the ground.

Dallas was panting. "It came outta the wall!" he gasped. "I swear it did! I swear to God it did!"

"Watch your language, McKerracher," Seth groaned.

"That's right, we need to get you to a medic, Rev'rend."

A growling sound caused Loq to face the Anubis that she had kicked. It was standing up, holding its midriff. There was a bluish-violet liquid--possibly blood--running down from the side of its mouth. Loq hissed at it, and it snarled back. She brandished her rifle again in a threatening manner. The Anubis stepped back, then jumped towards the bulkhead and seemed to disappear into the wall. Loq blinked. She then realized it went /in/, its location distinguishable by a silhouette a tint darker than the rest of the wall. Loq unsheathed her sword from its sheathe across her back and walked up to the bulkhead where the Anubis was hiding. She drove the blade, which had been sharpened to the microbe, through the position in the wall where the sentry-scout was. When she pulled it out, the Anubis fell from the wall to the ground. Loq sheathed her weapon and walked back over to Dallas and Seth.

The blast doors opened and two other beings in spacesuits stepped in. They were Mekal and Trent, both armed with blaster rifles. Mekal nearly stepped on the dead Anubis. "Whoa!" she exclaimed, breathing heavily into her comm mouthpiece. The sight of the blood and the conclusion that it was dead made her relax. "We . . . we . . . uh . . . heard the commotion over the comm. Zan-Aiden and I came as backup, but we might be a little late."

"Bio-scanner!" Dallas said. "Are there anymore of those things in here?"

Mekal pulled a scanner from her belt and looked at it. "I have our signs, and . . . uh-oh."

"'Uh-oh'?! What's that supposed to mean?"

"Th-there's still one alive in here!"

"Don't worry!" Loq said, kneeling down beside the other Anubis. "This one is still alive. It's unconscious."

"Then kill it," Dallas said. "I'd be 'appy to do it for ya."

"No!" Seth shouted from the floor. "We can use it to study!"

Trent furrowed his brow. "You don't /study/ sentient life-forms like lab rats, you . . . you. . . ."

"You kill 'em," Dallas repeated, flipping out his blaster pistol and spinning it around his finger like a professional gunslinger.

"I agree with Dr. Dai'vade," Loq said. "Analyzing an Anubis might help us determine a weakness."

"I think we should ask the captain," Dallas mumbled, holstering his weapon. "'E'd say to kill it."

"Don't be so sure," Mekal said, crossing her arms.

"What do /you/ think, Commander?" Seth asked.

"I agree with Major Loqr'yl."

"Good! I'll get to it right--" He pulled himself to his feet, but keeled over and cried out in pain.

Trent was at his side supporting him. "You should get to the infirmary, Doctor," he said. "I'll help you down there."

"I need my samples!"

"McKerracher and I will get them," Mekal said. "Major Loqr'yl, get those two Anubis to the science and research lab. Make sure the live one's strapped down or caged or whatever. We don't want that thing getting loose. Zan-Aiden, get Dr. Dai'vade to the infirmary."

Trent helped Seth to the infirmary while Loq threw the two Anubis effortlessly over her shoulders and quickly hustled to the laboratory. Mekal handed Dallas some test tubes and tools from Seth's dropped toolkit. "Get pieces of anything that's Anubis," she said.

Dallas began scraping some of the metal-eating substance from the hull and putting it into the test tube. Mekal leaned carefully into the hole and began to chip away at part of the pod. She put a piece in a small, transparent box. "That's done," she said. "Let's get this stuff to the lab and tell Conner we're ready for repairs."

Conner Solo got right to work on "patching" the aperture before Macon was given the go to blast the pod off. He carried his various tools and supplies, along with a large slab of scrap hull. The hull of the /Sentinel/ was seven centimeters thick with metal, wiring, and insulation. Fortunately there wasn't much wiring where the burst hit, so he wouldn't have to do much fusing. He found that Loq had made her own perforation that would have to be patched as well.

His first action was to cut the metal-eating chemical off so it wouldn't damage the hull any further. The pieces would be jettisoned later, so as not to present a greater problem. He then had to cover the layers in the hull, the piece of scrap being attached from the inside.

Pulling out a cutting laser, he began to cut away the infected metal, insulation, and wiring. He did it very slowly so he wouldn't cut himself.

"Don't cut yourself."

The sound of the voice in his comm made Conner spin around. "Who's there?" he asked, finding the hallway empty.

"It's just me."

"Who's 'me'?"

"You're Conner Solo, of course!" the feminine voice responded, following it with a giggle. "I'm just playing with you. I'm J'ai, the /Sentinel/'s computer artificial intelligence."

"How come I've never met you before?" Conner asked, going back to his work.

"Freyja doesn't like me all that much, so she deactivates me frequently. Jack . . . err . . . Captain Transon figured out how to get me back on."

"What do you do on the ship, exactly?"

"I just manage all the wires, logs, and so on. I do whatever Transon or his crew asks me to do. I'm the ship slave. I used to run everything--the weapons, scanners, system repairs, et cetera--but Transon moved me back now that he has a human crew."

"I've never really encountered a ship that had its own AI. Do they make Gibraltar-class ships with an AI?"

"Well, that's a long story. Jack hates droids; you can tell because there's none on here. I used to be a droid, JI7-7. But I was a human replica droid, so when I met Jack, he thought I was a real person. I helped him repair this ship during the Orgrea wars. When he found out I wasn't flesh-and-blood, he was pretty angry. Then one day I was seriously damaged beyond repair in a firefight. Jack had always liked me, so he extracted my conscience and put it in this ship. I'm someone he likes to talk to. He gets sick of me bugging him all the time to update his technology. He may be a troglodyte, but he has a good heart."

"A troglodyte, eh? That's a new one. You're not afraid of him probing your databanks for this type of stuff, are you?"

"Nope. I insult him all the time. It's pretty funny when we get into arguments. I have recordings, if you wanna hear them."

Conner laughed. "No, thank you."

"Oh! I'm so sorry! You're busy, and I'm rambling my cyberspace head off. I'll leave you be. It was nice talking with you, Mr. Solo."

"Likewise, J'ai."

"From what I observed from these samples, they /were/ organic. It was some large plant that hardens when it dies; it would be the equivalent of steel. The plant's epidermis is twenty cells thick. It has almost no density, so it's very lightweight. It's also very flexible, so it can be made into whatever. My hypothesis is that the plants are given some kind of steroid or a growth hormone like gibberellin so they grow at an alarmingly fast rate. It then can't handle the growth rate, so it dies once it reaches maturity. They're then used to construct the starcraft. Add some shielding, thrusters, and communications technology, and you've got a ship."

"That's just cool," Freyja said. "Wish we could do that."

"Heh," Dallas said with a smirk, "it'll be even cooler when you toss a cigarette and the 'ole thing goes up into flames."

"How you holding up, Doc?" Trent asked.

"Just barely," Seth responded. "Those medications Forsythe gave me are giving me a terrible headache. And my back feels like some vornskr's gnawing on it."

"You sure you can concentrate?" Transon inquired.

"I'll be fine. I've been able to concentrate under more difficult circumstances."

Conner jumped in. "What about that metal-eating stuff?"

"Now that was interesting. It was encased in the core of that golden burst. It's a chemical similar to rust, but it's much faster at breaking down weaker chemicals. It heats up the nucleus of the metallic atoms so that they disintegrate. That would explain why it was 'glowing.' /But/ it's only able to destroy metals or metallics."

"So it don't eat through their plant ships," Dallas added.

"I suppose that /could/ be the case."

"What about the Anubis?" Transon queried from across the laboratory. He stood about three feet away from where an Anubis sentry-scout lay on a table. An energy field surrounded it. "Is it still alive?"

"No."

"No?"

Seth walked over to the table and took down the field. "It /was/ alive. Its injuries weren't lethal enough to kill it. I found this device on its headpiece." He held up a small box that was crushed. The internal structures looked organic, protected by a now-dented metal casing. "When Major Loqr'yl hit it with her rifle, she disabled this device. There is a plant inside here that generates some kind of field that converts oxygen into carbon dioxide so it can breathe. It can also store it if it wants. My guess is that the Anubis engineered it so that the field is larger and it somehow protects anything inside it from high-velocity objects or projectiles. The metal casing, plus some devices inside, sustains the plant.

"I believe the plant was meant to breath oxygen, but the Anubis engineered it to take oxygen and convert it to carbon dioxide.

"The Anubis breath any form of carbon--carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbon trioxide--whatever. This would explain their purplish-blue blood: There's no oxygen in it. They use this carbon storing/converting plant to survive elsewhere besides their carbon-rich environments. Because of this ship's carbon filters, this Anubis didn't survive without its converting device."

"Do you think we could reverse engineer these things so we can use them?" Transon asked thoughtfully.

Seth smiled. "That might just work. I can take the undamaged one and split the nucleus--I believe they reproduce asexually--and use gibberellin or another growth hormone to--"

"Okay, Rev'rend!" Dallas exclaimed. "We get the point! But tell me: 'Ow do these things go into walls?"

"I'm not sure about that one. They could be multi-dimensional, for all we know. There are lots of things in this universe that we have not discovered yet. Speaking of that, I found this on one of the bodies." He pulled out an object that was thick, a greenish-brown color, and had a flat surface. There were white etchings on the surface. Transon took it and the others gathered around.

"It . . . it's a map!" Freyja said. It was an almost-side view of the Milky Way galaxy with certain points drawn in larger proportion. Small dots most likely resembled stars, while larger ones were probably planets. The writing, which was in another dialect, looked like crude, messy scratch-marks.

"That must be earth," Conner said, pointing to an etching that looked like a representation of a solar system on one of the galaxy's arms. "Or someplace with an identical solar system."

"I would this would be the outpost," Transon said, pointing to a marking that looked similar to the outpost ship.

"Would this be a base?" Mekal asked, motioning to a rendering that looked like a bunch of platforms and ships scattered near a station.

"Could be," Transon answered, deep in thought. "But what's this?" Far off the straight-line path between the outpost and the base was several small squares. Some of them looked scratched out, as if erased.

"Dad!" Freyja squeaked. "That's the expedition!"

The others crowded closer. "Well, I'll be!" Dallas said. "'Ow can you be sure?"

"Well, what else could it be? We should at least check it out. Dad?"

"We never know," Transon mused. "It might be a good idea."

"How can you be sure it isn't subterfuge?" Mekal asked dubiously.

"Don't be so pessimistic, Meke," Transon scolded. "Now, the expedition went /under/ the galactic core, and /we/ went to the /left/ of it. If we change course a few degrees, we should be heading in that direction. Macon's already finished getting the pod off, so we're set to go. Freyja, work with J'ai on deciphering that map and set the course. And no sly stuff. Seth, I'm sending Forsythe down here to help you finish up your research. The rest of you, get your things ready. Spacesuits are in the hold. You might need weapons in case any Anubis come back to plunder . . . use anything you can. Blasters won't work with these guys' shields. Then start scheduling talk-show interviews."

Freyja, carrying the slab of lightweight material they dubbed "the map," reluctantly went to the ships main control center, a now secluded area. She hated talking to the /Sentinel/'s loquacious artificial intelligence, but when her surrogate father asked her to do something, she did it. She set the map down on a control panel and inhaled deeply.

"J'ai, you there?" she called. "We have--"

"You don't have to yell," the AI responded rather curtly, the cheerful lilt in her vocal processors gone. "What's up?"

Freyja squirmed. "We found this thing on one of the Anubis scouts that was killed. We think it's a map. And the expedition's on there, too. Dad wants us to set a course."

"Well, what do you need me for?"

"We have to 'decipher' it, like find a key or scale or something so we know what direction to go in."

"Hmm . . . scan it for me."

Freyja took the slab and placed it face-down on a glass-like surface. A light under the surface scanned the map in, then a visual computer rendering of it appeared on a view screen on the wall.

"This is earth, correct?" J'ai asked, an arrow on the screen pointing to something that looked like a solar system.

"That's what we guessed."

"And we're on this arm . . . that looks right. And this is the galactic core, and this must be an Anubis base, right?"

Freyja nodded, then voiced, "Uh, yeah."

"These dots must be the sentries, and this must be the expedition. Let's see." The screen zoomed in with a digital enhancer on the area around the expedition where there were smaller, almost unseen dots. "These would probably be stars, and they're all arranged into constellations. The very noticeable ones are drawn on the map so that they act as landmarks or trail-markers. Those are what you follow. I'll download them into my database and set a course. That work for you?"

Freyja smirked slightly. "Yeah, that'll do. Thanks."