Upon returning to the mess hall I found that a line of tables had been set up at the back. Each was covered in dishes. Casseroles, pies, bread, soups, rice dishes, pasta, salads and more that I could not put a name to.

The visitors from the Pride lined up, dishes in hand as Doctor Delveccio and her new assistants served everyone that went through, like the cafeterias back on Walker. I searched the tables for meal bars with my eyes. There were none to be found.

“Real food only, Z. Those meal bars can’t be good for you.”

“They provide the recommended daily allowance of calories, vitamins, and minerals to keep an active adult healthy,” I replied.

“You know that individuals vary in their caloric and nutrient needs, though, right?”

Ileane had remained nearby as my companion loaded my plate with various things. I nodded.

“Meal bars and nutrient paste have been sufficient to supply what was necessary for me to survive these past several years.” And quite a while before that, as well, I added privately.

“That does not mean that they are the best thing for your health though.”

I looked to the stack of pies at the far end of the tables. Doctor Delveccio gave me a firm look that seemed to me was intended to keep me from commenting on the pies.

“Off with you now. We will join you in a moment,” she said, directing us to the tables where everyone else was waiting.

After sitting down in one of the open spaces I noticed that everyone else was still waiting as well. Our servers joined us with the four children in tow, and everyone else bowed their heads as Magnus said a prayer over the meal. Then everyone began to eat.

I noted that it seemed everyone had chosen a salad in addition to everything else that was on their plates. Most of the men were even taller than me and Magnus and Conner were just as broad shouldered and fit as Sam while being at least a foot taller. Between the three of them they seemed to consume as much as the rest of us combined.

Then they went back for seconds.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, Doctor Zolnikov. Have you been keeping that kitten with you the whole time?” Ileane asked, dabbing a napkin over her lips as she put her cutlery down.

“Yeah, what’s its name?” one of the children asked.

“She’s been with me most of the time since she got out of her stasis box. As to a name, she currently doesn’t have one,” I replied. Doctor Delveccio gave me a dirty look at that.

“And you’ve been feeding and caring for her for over a week. That Wampus Cat deserves a name, Z. Before she starts thinking her name is ‘Experiment Number One.’” That got me several other dirty looks.

“Can we name her?” the youngest child asked. The Wampus Cat meeped at me as I pulled her out of my collar so she could be seen. She’d already been fed and looked to be getting sleepy again.

“I don’t see why not. It is probably past time for a name.”

“Raspberry!” Two of the children said at once. The others nodded and laughed at this.

“Are you sure that is what you want to name her?” Doctor Delveccio asked curiously.

“Raspberry seems to me to be a fine enough name.”

“Why though?”

“’Cause her eyes are red! She doesn’t look like a Ruby or a Scarlet though. She’s little and cute and fluffy!”

The newly named Raspberry yawned, showing off her tiny but sharp looking teeth. Six paws wrapped around my hand as I tried to put her back in my collar so she could rest. She’d been bouncing off the walls all morning before the visitors had showed up.

“Alright then, the name is finally sorted.” I ignored a catgirl snort from a few feet away.

Everyone else had finished eating by this point. The older woman whose name I still had not remembered was putting away the food.

“Going forward, we’re going to need a plan for what comes next. What to do about Walker, the Maggie’s Pride, and everything else. This affects all of us and while we three have discussed things a bit, I’d like to hear your thoughts as well.” Doctor Delveccio put her previous levity aside and looked to Conner and Magnus and everyone else still at the table.

“We need to know more about what we’re getting into with Walker. Tentatively, I’d like to have the Pride repaired and that ice delivered to Deimos. We’ll probably have to square things with the military, but I have a few ideas to try on that point.

“From what Sam tells me, you have enough parts to do a full replacement on both of the main engines and much of our patched together system repairs besides. The only problem being that they’re locked in warehouses on the docks that are the main hunting grounds of a massive horde of zombies.”

“That’s true,” Sam added. “If we could somehow clear Walker of zombies, there’s an entire station’s worth of parts and supplies. Heck, there are factories that have lain dormant for years there that could be started back up, only needing ore and raw materials to turn into all sorts of things.”

“But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Can we get the Pride going with what parts and supplies we can get without risking the horde?” Conner asked.

“Doubtful,” Magnus replied. “The number two has been patched together with spit and duct tape for too long for me to trust it without a full yard rebuild. One we could probably cobble together a fix, but that would leave us with no backup and possibly drifting.”

He looked around at the group with his brows lowered.

“I do not want us to be in that situation ever again if I can manage it.”

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“What about the Hog Mauler?”

Everyone else turned to look at me. The solution seemed obvious, but no one else had mentioned it yet.

“This ship can push not just the ice but your entire ship as well. Is there any reason you could not use it to deliver the ice?”

Magnus frowned. Conner’s eyebrows rose as he looked at the ceiling, tapping his chin.

“Be a bit more difficult to convince the military. The Mauler was infested, no question of that. Anything infested is a potential threat, in their eyes. They lost too many men and ships to the zombies and won’t want to risk more.”

I nodded at that.

“Yes, I know. But what if we were able to detect what ships would infect their crews and which ones wouldn’t?”

“You can do that?” Vera asked, leaning forward.

“Theoretically, yes. I’ve discussed it with Sam.” I paused, reconsidering my words.

“Not quite right. We began the discussion. The nanites that might be the source of the infection that keeps breaking quarantine seem to come from inside the ships, congregating around what I’ve been calling ‘power nodes.’ Those are-”

“We think those might be ZPE devices. They keep the nanites alive and powered.” Sam broke in.

“Zero point energy? How’d you figure?” Magnus asked.

“No fuel. They’re not batteries or capacitors or fuel cells. The power they produce is not of any great magnitude, but it seems to be endless. If they’re not ZPE, I don’t have a name for them.”

“So where you have these nanites...”

“You have the ZPE power nodes, and vice versa.”

“This is just the only theory that I have that fits with what facts we have found thus far. It is also not perfect. There are likely still flaws in our understanding. We need to test it out first. Rigorously.”

Ileane nodded sharply at this in apparent agreement.

“The first step will be figuring out how to reliably detect these ZPE nodes, then.”

“Theoretical ZPE nodes,” I wanted to stress that point. Without proper testing to prove or disprove our theories they were nothing more scientific than guesses.

“Right, theoretical. They’re low power, so you’d have to separate them out from the noise when you are doing your detecting.”

“And not touch the device where you suspect they are.” I cautioned.

“Wait a moment. Just how far can these nanites travel? Would they be able to, say, infect you through your boots on the deck if you were near one of these theoretical ZPE nodes?”

“The nodes seem to always be deeper in the devices that I’ve found them in. On the occasions that I’ve found them it required direct contact with the device in question. Standing near the device did not result in infection.

“However I must warn you that my sample size is pitifully small at this point, so that may or may not be the case in the future.”

“In that case, we will probably need you to test out whatever detection system we come up with.”

I nodded in agreement with Magnus and Conner. There was no reason to risk anyone else when I could perform that task.

“That will mean going where the zombies are.”

“Yes.”

“We have four nodes on this ship that have already been cleared of rogue influence. They cannot infect anyone. I have since learned that my own colony can survive while occupying those nodes and defending them from rogue influence. This might provide some protection from whatever method was used to infect the devices.”

“Can we take a look at them?” Vera asked.

“Sure. The ones Z told me about are right near the main engineering console. I’ve been thinking on a way to detect and examine them more closely.” He sat forward, gesturing animatedly.

“But if these things are what we think they are, and we can somehow replicate them or transport them this could change the face of technology in the system. It could be revolutionary, the way that power storage was in the early twenty-second century.”

Matching grins and fierce smiles answered him from Vera, Magnus, and several others.

“That’s getting a bit ahead of ourselves though,” Doctor Delveccio said. “You still need to actually make the system that can remotely detect these theoretical ZPE nodes, right?”

“We do.”

“So it sounds like we have a basic plan to work with. One, create a device that can detect the presence of the ZPE nodes. Sorry Z, saying theoretical every time is too much,” she raised an eyebrow in my direction. I did not reply to this.

“Two, test it out to make sure it works. This will involve Z going out into zombie territory and trying to use it once he finds rogue nanites. Three, once we’re sure it works, share the technology. Keep testing it, but let other people know.

“I don’t know how anyone else can test it without risk, but that’s going to be on them if they try. The military might do it-” a complicated expression crossed Magnus’ face.

“And they might not. But we have to share the technology so that other people have it just in case they need it at some point.”

“Then we can start hauling the ice out to Deimos and finishing our contract,” the older woman said, returning from the stasis closet.

“If you will allow us the use of the Mauler for the trip, we can work out a contract to compensate you somehow. It will cost more in fuel, though. Would you consider either a lease agreement or something like?

“This ship can haul a great deal more than just ice. With this, you could fill up the hull, load up the exterior cargo racks, and push a cargo train all at the same time. Fuel would be a bit pricey, but we could do the work of several ships with just this one.”

The economic possibilities were something I had not considered to this point, but it made sense. I looked to Sam and Doctor Delveccio. He shrugged at me while our catgirl companion pursed her lips and tapped the table, her eyes distant.

“Possibly. Very possibly. We can discuss it, and I believe we can work something out between us. I look forward to seeing what your offer will be, Kalinora,” she smiled at the end of her statement. The older woman smiled back

“Beyond that, I’d like to take a look at just what the situation is on Walker before we decide just what we can do about the station itself,” Conner said, bringing the discussion back to what I considered the main topic.

“While you’re doing that, I think we’ll retire to see what sort of contract we can come up with together,” Doctor Delveccio said, standing up.

“And I think we need to occupy these little monsters for a bit. I believe someone mentioned a gym somewhere on this ship. It has been too long since we last put them through their paces. That should keep them out of your hair for a while,” one of the other women whose name I could not recall said.

She and a man that looked something like an older and even bigger Sam led the children away. The kids looked excited. There probably wasn’t as much room to run around on their ship.

“So, Walker. You mentioned that there was a power issue aboard the station.”

“I did, yes. Sam could explain what he found better than I, though.”

“The reactors are not the issue, really. They were made to last, with redundant safeties and internal monitoring. The problem is a long term lack of maintenance in some areas has overloaded parts of the station infrastructure.

“We’re getting rolling brownouts and blackouts in places like the docks because some components have failed and others are getting overstressed with the load. There are a thousand small issues that aren’t critical at this point, but the most pressing are the substations scattered around the station.

“I don’t know just how bad off they are without looking at them, but I know that at least some of them are approaching critical failure. If one fails that’s supplying the hab deck, that’s not such a big issue. There are five of them. If three of them fail...”

“Big problem,” Vera supplied, lacing her fingers together and bowing her head, a complicated expression on her face.

“And even before that, we need to clear the zombies away from the substations. That is, if any are present there. And we need to clear a path to actually get to the substations.”

“We also need to make sure the substations are clear of these rogue nanites, too.”

“Yeah.” Sam replied.

“Do you have a candidate in mind to test your tactics on how to take a substation and repair it?”

“I do. Level 5 holds the upper engineering offices and Laboratory section. It has three substations. Only one of those is active, and that one was already failing when we left. It may be gone by the time we get back.”

“That would mean clearing zombies in the dark.” Magnus frowned.

“We’ve done it before. This ship was mostly dark when we took it.”

The engineers talked back and forth after that, worrying at the problem. After making sure they did not need me for anything else, I left them to it. The obstacle course in the gym was calling me. I’d not had a chance to use it since we’d first gotten underway, and I missed my daily exercise routine already.