A week had already passed since we’d gotten the order from the Admiralty, so we started on our way back home, albeit with quite a detour. The crew was understandably upset, everyone had signed up for a trip that was meant to last for several years after all, and that all without them knowing the finer details of the order we’d received. In the meantime, the officers had all banded together in trying to find ideas that might save our Dokazuuk friends from facing serious investigation and harm back on Earth. But until now, most of those ideas were just not feasible or realistic enough to fool the admiralty with.

Luna and I were in the comms room as doctor Eva had requested our presence. She sounded pretty enthusiastic, so the both of us hoped she’d come up with a good idea.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Eva walked into the door, followed closely by Jacky. “There were some rather annoying last-minute visitations at the infirmary.”

“Understandable. Ellie, could you commence the silence protocol, please?”

“Already on it, Commander.” Ellie closed the doors and started the protocol we’d normally use during these kinds of meetings. “Protocol completed.” She notified us.

“Please tell me you’ve got a good idea, Doctor.” Luna said. Luna was also getting considerably more stressy the longer time went on without a good idea. Even more so because she’d probably have to report about this all to her superiors and that wouldn’t shine a bright light upon humanity if we failed to protect our new allies. Even though we would have tried.

“I think we do, at least. Jacky thinks that it sounds promising as well.”

“Yes, Commander. The Doctor and I think this might be the best option yet.”

“Alright, out with it.” I sat down on the edge of the comms table.

“Okay, so when the Dokazuuk first came aboard the ship we ran several tests on their physiology, right?”

“Yeah, so we could find a way to make their life on board more comfortable.”

“Yep.” Eva nodded. “So during these trials I also experimented a bit with the medicine we had aboard, in very small doses of course. One of those medicines were proven harmless to the Dokazuuk, however…”

“We developed a slight rash because of it.” Jacky finished the Doctor’s sentence.

“Mhmm.” I nodded. “So…?” I urged them to continue their explanation.

“Jacky mentioned this to me the other day so I got the idea to inject Jacky with a considerably higher dose than that. Which still didn’t cause any other effects than the rash.”

“However, this time, the rash was a lot more pronounced and took almost two days to withdraw.”

“And that’s where I think we can try to fool the Admiralty with.” Eva smiled brightly.

“Uhh… I think I’m following, but can you explain in depth what exactly the plan is.” I scratched the side of my head.

Luna raised her hand a bit. “I think they want to fake a deadly disease or something like that to get a viable excuse to get the Dokazuuk off-board.”

“Exactly.” Eva smiled. “And to make it even more viable of a plan. I’d like to fake the disease being dangerous to us and transmissible, too. In that way we can send some of our people off-planet too, to accompany the Dokazuuk, so we can come and pick them up later.”

“If we can find a suitable planet and if we are ever allowed to return…” I said.

“Yeah…” Eva’s demeanor grew a bit sadder. “That’s the main risk involved with this plan… But I think it’s still one of our best options.”

“What do you think, Ellie?” I asked our AI comrade.

“It sounds promising, Commander. Quarantine programs and biohazard alerts aren’t hard to falsify. ”

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“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Risky, but definitely promising.”

“Have you already started experimenting on crew members to see if you can get similar symptoms to show up?” Luna asked.

“Not yet, although that will be rather trivial compared to finding an actual planet for our crew members to, temporarily or permanently, settle.” Eva shook her head.

“I guess we can already start recruiting willful crew members to go along with the idea, so the second that we find a suitable planet, we can go ahead with the plan immediately. I think five to ten crew members should suffice.” I proposed. “Jacky, you should also start telling your people what the proposed plan is. If we find a plan that’s more suitable to our circumstances we’ll always be able to change but at least we have a somewhat decent option now.”

I hopped off the table and walked over to Eva and Jacky, putting a hand on their shoulders. “Good job coming up with this.”

“Thanks, Commander.” Jacky said.

“Glad I could at least be of some help.” Eva smiled.

“I’ll try to get an even bigger detour charted back to Earth so we can get a slightly higher chance of encountering a suitable world. Let us pray to all the gods of luck and try every kind of superstitious means to increase our chance of success, except when it involves sacrifices. I’m drawing the line at that.” I joked.

It took Jacky a couple of second but then he finally laughed. “Hah, that’s a good human, joke, Commander.” He has definitely been learning about our rather weird sense of humor.

After that, Eva and Jacky left the room as they still had other things to do today, and spending more time than necessary here could draw some unwanted attention. Luna and I stayed behind however, since we’d made it a custom for us to debrief after meetings, no one would question us staying behind a little longer. Before I continued the conversation I told Ellie to leave us alone for a while.

“Luna, you were sure there were no records of other habitable worlds in this sector, right?”

“I can look again but I don’t remember seeing anything about it.” She replied. “This sector of space is really not something we’ve done much exploring in. We just went directly to Earth once we’d found out about you. There are plenty of uncolonized worlds in our proximity so it wasn’t a high priority to look for even more.”

“Sadly, we can’t go and settle those…” I started pacing around the room for a little bit. “Must be nice and comfortable to not have to worry about settleable planets. I mean, we have Mars… but Mars is Mars.”

“Yes, terraforming is not optimal, that’s why The Conglomerate hasn’t really spent any efforts in doing that.”

“None at all?”

“I think there were a couple of smaller moons that have been terraformed, but nothing the size of your Mars.”

“Huh, you’d think that such an advanced civilization would be way further ahead of us.”

“Convenience beats required effort. I’m pretty sure that’s a galactic law.”

“Hmm… fair enough.” I shrugged. Though, the entire idea of warfare did pop up in my head for a second. One would think it’s way more convenient for wars not to exist like they did for the Dokazuuk, but then again… wars can be very convenient for the elites… That’s practically the entire 20th, 21st and 22nd century of Earth’s history for you. “Want to go grab some food after we go to the bridge to check on the crew? Our shift’s almost over after all.”

“Sounds like an idea.” Luna got up from her seat and smiled. “Ellie, can you please unlock the room again?” Her command summoned Ellie back into the room’s mainframe.

“Yes, Lieutenant-Commander.” The doors slid open shortly afterwards.

“Let’s hope Zu hasn’t spilled any coffee again…” I rolled my eyes and laughed as we left the room.

Everything looked calm and orderly on the bridge and with the arrival of the officers of the other shift we could go and head out to get some food without having to worry much. Ellie would notify me directly if any habitable planets were found so it’s not like we had to be present at all times.

“What would you like for food today?” I asked while Luna and I walked through the hallways.

“Hmm, I’m not sure… I am in the mood for something with a lot of spices.”

“General Asian foods and snacks?” I proposed. “I do have a small appetite for spring rolls with good old chili sauce.”

“That does sound good. Yeah, let’s go for that.” Luna nodded enthusiastically.

“Alrighty, I’m already looking forward to it.”

When we arrived at the cafeteria, I started randomly pressing buttons on every single tasty looking and sounding Asian-themed snack I could find. From yakitori to takoyaki and spring rolls with chili sauce that came in a nice bottle. Some Korean fried chicken and then another entire list of other snacks and street food. I didn’t order a lot from each dish, but we did end up with a lot in the end.

“Oh well, I guess we can heat up the rest on a later date. That’s why fridges and microwaves exist over all.” I chuckled with two paper bags in my hands, filled almost to the brim with food.

Luna was also carrying a third bag. “Are you sure your fridge is big enough?”

“Hey, we can always use yours too. That one is empty anyway.”

“Oh yeah, fair enough.” Luna giggled. When we got to the elevator, she gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Let’s make it extra cozy this evening.”

“Aye aye.” I smiled and gave her a kiss back. As much as the Dokazuuk situation worried me. Having this time with Luna managed to keep my spirits up. -It’s going to be okay.-