"So, where to first?" Spot asked.

"I'm not sure," Davey sighed. He and Charlie had joined the crew on the deck once they had left Proserpina's atmosphere, and now stood with JoJo and Spot near the ship's wheel and controls, watching the crew flit about the deck. Finch seemed to be either instructing or taunting the new additions—who Charlie seemed utterly fascinated by—while the others were going about their regular duties: Specs in the crow's nest, Skittery crawling across the arms to monitor the solar sails, Romeo checking control panels near the bottom of the larger mast. "I admit—I was hoping that 'In Time of Need' would actually point us in the direction we needed to take to find Katherine. While I'm convinced that our new friends will be helpful to the achievement of our ultimate goal, they unfortunately haven't given us anywhere to start besides what we already had."

Spot nodded and leaned against one of JoJo's command consoles, crossing his arms over his chest. The breeze of the air circulators ruffled the fur on his ears and they twitched slightly. He chewed on his lip as he thought. "JoJo?" he said finally.

"Yes, sir?"

"Set our heading for... for Hyrule."

"Hyrule?"

"Yes."

"In the Outer Rim?"

Spot arched a bushy eyebrow. "That is where we were heading anyways, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, but… why Hyrule?"

"I second that question," said Davey. "Why Hyrule, out of all the planets in the Outer Rim?"

"Technically, Hyrule isn't in the Outer Rim," said JoJo. "It's past the Outer Rim. Not terribly far from… Kamino, if I'm not mistaken."

"You're correct," said Spot.

"So why Hyrule?" Davey pressed.

Spot sighed. He hated having to explain himself—that was the worst part about working for someone. "I have a lead. An old friend—someone I served under in the Resistance. I've heard an alias she used frequently mentioned in relation to Hyrule several times recently. Well, technically, not directly in relation to Hyrule, but she and I both used to work in intelligence. It's a breadcrumb. A way to find her, if you know how to interpret the code."

Charlie looked up at Davey, who shrugged. "It's as good a lead as any," said the mage. "I trust the captain."

Charlie nodded firmly. "Then Hyrule it is."

"Course set, Captain!" JoJo sang out.

"Are the solar cells charged?"

"All cells at maximum, sir."

Spot stepped away from the ship's wheel, which he had taken over when JoJo moved away to run the hyperspace calculations, relinquishing it to JoJo. He stepped up to the hyperspace controls and did a quick check of the hyperspace route. He moved to the railing in front of JoJo's wheel and leaned out towards the lower deck to call out: "All hands, prepare to jump to hyperspace!"

In seconds, Skittery had shimmered down the mast to join Romeo, Finch, Jack, Race, and Elmer on the deck.

"Wait, what does that mean?" Elmer asked as he and his friends followed Finch towards the mast.

"It means we're about to jump to hyperspace," Finch called over his shoulder.

"So what do we need to do?" Race asked.

Finch handed each of them a length of rope and showed them where to tie onto the mast. "These are lifelines," he explained. "Their original purpose, back before these sorts of ships were able to leave atmosphere, and before they had the transparisteel bubbles around them, was to keep crew from floating or falling off of the ship, particularly in case of loss of artificial gravity. Now, they mostly just keep us mostly in place when we jump to hyperspace and the inertial dampeners have overcompensate, resulting in a brief period of time where we can either be pushed off of our feet or actually float off of the deck."

Elmer's eyes widened and he hastily tied his lifeline to the mast, then around his waist. Jack and Race did the same, and Finch checked all of their knots before turning to give Spot and JoJo a thumbs up.

Spot nodded at Finch and turned to JoJo to confirm readiness to make the hyperspace jump. She grinned and locked the wheel in place, then moved to the control console. "Permission to jump to hyperspace, Captain?" she called.

"Permission granted," Spot called back.

"Jumping to hyperspace!"

As the stars slowly stretched into streaks of light around the transparisteel bubble, surrounding the ship with whirls of flashing starshine, Jack felt his feet slowly lift off the deck. Sure enough, in seconds he was floating off of the deck, absolutely weightless. Beside him, Elmer laughed incredulously and waved his arms slowly. Finch rolled his eyes, but there was a definite grin on his beak. Race grinned and rolled onto his stomach, pretending to swim through the air. A few seconds later, when the ship settled into hyperspace and the artificial gravity and inertial dampeners kicked back on, he landed flat on his stomach on the planking of the deck with a thud and a groan. Romeo and Finch sniggered, and Jack had to hide a grin as he reached down to help Race to his feet. "Honestly; what did you think would happen?"

"I didn't," Race grumbled, accepting Jack's hand up.

Spot shook his head as he watched Jack pull Race to his feet. "Those new guys are going to wind up being more trouble than they're worth, just wait and see."

Davey shrugged. "I promise: they'll wind up being useful at some point."

Spot arched an eyebrow. "Hopefully that point isn't too far in the future."

.*.*.*.*.*.

"So, what are we supposed to do while the ship's in hyperspace?" Jack asked, trailing after Finch and Romeo, Race and Elmer on his heels.

"Well, we don't have cargo, and the ship's just been repaired, so honestly? not much," Finch shrugged.

"It may look like one, but this ship isn't much like an actual sailing ship," said Romeo. "Most of those needed a crew of about fifteen, and there was a lot that had to be done pretty much all the time. This ship, we just have to monitor systems and the solar sails, which only takes three or four people while we're in hyperspace."

"We take shifts in the galley, but there's really not a lot going on," Finch shrugged. "But don't worry—we'll find stuff for you guys to do."

"Since you're new, we'll have to train you on systems and show you how to do some of the regular maintenance," said Romeo. "Monitoring solar sails, hyperspace engines, shield generators, that sort of thing."

"Also, depending how far we're going, the ship may have to make a stop to recharge," said Finch. "The solar sails can't collect as much UV radiation when we're in hyperspace—I think it's something to do with the increase in shield strength—so we'll eventually have to stop and recharge the power cells. So if and when that happens, we'll be able to run you over some of the other stuff to do with sails, without the pressure of having to do it while we make port."

"I have another job for the three of you as well."

Spot's voice materializing behind them made all five of them jump, and they turned around hastily to face the captain, Finch and Romeo offering half-hearted salutes, at which Spot arched a single eyebrow. "Do the three of you have any combat training?" he asked, turning his attention fully towards the new hires.

"'Combat training'?" Elmer repeated.

"Yes," said Spot. "Hand-to-hand, with weapons—anything."

"I mean, Race and I can hold our own pretty well in a bar fight," Jack shrugged. "But nothing formal."

"I'm a pretty fair shot with a blaster," Race supplied. Jack gave him an odd look out of the corner of his eye, but didn't press the topic.

"Well, we'll have to get you trained up," said Spot. "Don't want you to be defenseless if we get attacked again." He turned and walked away.

"'Attacked'?" Elmer repeated.

"'Again'?" Jack asked.

"Didn't you wonder why there were openings on the crew?" Romeo asked.

"We had some run-ins with Metalbeard's crew before we came to Proserpina. Lost a few of our crewmates." Finch ruffled the feathers on his arms, preening at a spot on his left shoulder.

"Yeah, Davey mentioned something about that," said Jack. "He failed to elaborate on exactly what happened though."

"Well, if you knew we'd had run-ins with pirates, why are you so surprised to be fighting them?" Romeo said.

"I guess we just didn't realize that you thought more attacks might be imminent," said Jack slowly.

Finch finished preening and shrugged. "Any trip through the Outer Rim risks running into pirates. It's just that… Metalbeard seemingly may—or may not—be after us…"

"Great," Jack muttered. What exactly did we sign up for here?