-Hey guys. I know it took me a while but here´s a new chapter. Actually two new but short chapters. Hope you have fun with them :)-

"Dammit Duds…" Laughed René and ruffled through the dog´s hair. "Good prank, really good one."
"Thank you." Smiled Dudley and indicated a bow while sitting. "But I wouldn´t have made it without Mike´s help."

"Good ol' Mike. You just have to love this AI… well, except you´re Isaac." René laughed again and then looked at the handcuffs around his wrist. "You don´t know the time, do you?"
"40 minutes until Alpha, 60 minutes until Delta, 61 until Phi" Dudley recited a schedule he knew perfectly well. "You´ll hear the alarm when it starts."

"That means we still have a lot of time to kill…" René grinned.
"I wouldn´t call 40 minutes a long time." Meant Dudley annoyed knowing what his friend would ask now.

"Enough time to tell me the story about you and Liz." René grinned expectantly at his friend and received just a face full of indignation.
"No."

"Aww, come on." René nudged Dudley gently with his shoulder. "I want to hear it!"
"I said no." He meant tonelessly. "That´s none of your business."
"Come on, don´t be like that…"
"No, it´s none of your business, René. That´s a thing just between her and me." Dudley stated seriously.

"But I´d really like to know…" René sighed but Dudley interrupted him again
"Everyone likes to know it." He snapped. "Why are all of you space travelers are so dead keen on gossip?!"
"Well, we are explorer and researcher." Shrugged René.

"So you explain that with your gossip cravings with scientific curiosity?!"
"What? No." Laughed René. "With boredom. As I said, we are researchers and explorers. We travel on ships through space almost isolated from the civilization. We either work or… try to kill time. The holo-deck is barely free. I mean one hour per week for every crew member is simply not enough. So… we have to kill time in another way…"

"For example gossip…" Sighed Dudley and completed René´s sentence. He understood it somehow though he had never experienced the boredom his friend talked about. The captain of a ship had a manifold of things he had to care about.

From smaller things like routine walks to check the condition of the ship to time consuming things like individual talk with every crew member. It sounds odd but every crew member has the right to talk to the captain if he wants to. Especially in times in which critical decisions were made, decisions with that not everyone agrees, a long line of people stands in front of the officer´s mess waiting for their turn to talk to the captain.

Dudley knew that this was current practice on all ships except on the Leviathan. Powers always had a sympathetic ear for his crew in calm times. But when the times were rough he didn´t discuss his decisions with the crew. His word is law on his ship. And no one dared breaking the law. Not even in the few months after he had recovered, in the months in which he was still easy to confuse.

"Okay, I understand your point." Meant Dudley. "But you won´t get anything out of me. What happened between me and Liz is none of your business."
"Boo! Boring." Said René while he grinned provokingly. "Tell me!"
"How about another story?" asked the dog. He hoped that he maybe could distract René´s attention so that he would stop asking him about Liz.

"About Liz?"
"No, about… uhm… about my homeworld."
"I thought you don´t believe in your homeworld." Said the scientist with an overly suspicious tone of voice. "I thought you said it´s just a false implemented thought by someone you don´t know who gets help from Powers."

Dudley looked at him confused. "I never said that to you. How do you know?"
"Well…" René said and grinned. "Powers said that. I once eavesdropped a conversation between him, Isaac and Ryan."
"Ryan talks with Isaac again?"

"Not really, Isaac just asked him how possible it is that your memories are real. He said something about a theory…"
"What?!" Dudley looked excited into his friends face. "Tell me more! Please!"
Again René grinned. But this time wide and more evil than Dudley has ever seen it. "Of course… for a price."

"Whatever you…" Dudley would have given him everything in this moment but then he realized what the engineer wanted. "Son of a…"
"Tell me about your little adventure with Liz, and I tell you about what I heard." Said René and turned his´s unspoken suspicion into hard words.

Dudley growled a bit and thought. "Just if you promise that you won´t tell anyone…"
"Of course." Meant René still grinning.
"That´s not enough. I want a promise. And you tell me the thing with Isaac and Ryan first."

"Just if you promise me to tell me about Liz even if you have the information from me." René crossed his arms and so did Dudley. Both looked at each other, eying their faces for any trace that could give the others plan away.

"Deal." Meant Dudley after at least 5 minutes of continuous staring. "I promise."
"Same here." Nodded René. "I promise."
Both shook their hands as an obligatory gesture to seal their contract.

"Okay." Said René and took a deep breath. "It all began after the crew of the Leviathan intervened on the Stardancer..."