Bob stood up carefully, stretching slowly as he did so, his eyes focused on the eldritch glow of the ritual pattern covering the hull of the ship. With his mana sight active, he could see the energies that reached the hull, only to be reflected away, although a small portion of the energy that struck the shield was absorbed.

He cast his Flight spell, lifting himself off the hull as he began to move along it, intent on inspecting the ritual in its entirety. Assuming everything was as it should be, he'd set up an array to pull what energy the shield could channel into a bank of mana crystals, which he would then use to power, at least partially, the force spells he would create to function as engines to move the ship around.

He didn't know how far away the colony ship was, as the System had given him a compass of sorts, as opposed to a map.

'Trebor,' Bob mentally projected as he slowly moved around the hull, 'go ahead and file an anomaly report. The compass is nice, but a map would be better.'

'Done,' Trebor replied.

Bob glanced up from the hull for a moment, staring at the kaleidoscope of swirling energies. "I wonder how long it's going to take us to get them," he mused.

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Kharvic tore his eyes from the image on the screen on the far wall of the bridge, noticing that the bridge had filled to capacity, with a little bit extra.

While the bridge was designed for a crew of twenty, there was room for another dozen or so. He suspected the designers had never considered that the consoles and chairs were nearly perfect perches for the Dharlings.

There were another thirty or so Dharlings staring at the screen, and while their tails weren't synchronized, they were all swishing in the same tight, slightly upturned pattern that indicated curiosity.

The man on the hull of the ship had just completed what ever magic he'd been working, and was now, Kharvic suspected, inspecting his work.

Kharvic stood, drawing the attention of those behind him, before clearing his throat to alert the rest. "Our new friend put on quite the show for us," he began, smiling lightly. "I know that I'm looking forward to meeting them. Hopefully, they'll be able to offer us a helping hand. But that meeting won't happen until we can actually reach that ship, and until then, I know that everyone has work to do."

He raised his hand to quiet the wave of discontent murmurs. "We're recording everything, and I'll make sure it's front and center on the trunk so that everyone can watch, although I suspect that once our friend goes back into the ship, it will make for less than riveting viewing."

Kharvic sat back down as the bridge began to clear out, turning his attention back to his console. He had a notification from Ensign Jibruil, and he opened the report.

His smile broadened as he read. He'd been concerned that the engines, which had been shut down for the better part of two years once they'd truly given up on navigating in this place, might have been damaged. As they'd been shut down and the spaces unoccupied, there hadn't been any way of telling how much damage the incursions might have caused.

It appeared the damage was minimal, which in hindsight shouldn't have been surprising. The engines, along with cryo beds, and the reactor, were the most heavily fortified of all the Hurry's systems. Hardened against meteor impact and the ravages of the deep cold of space and the dangers of the radiation shielding degrading, those three systems had been designed to ensure that the ship's precious cargo made it safely to their destination.

While the reactor was down to twelve percent of its projected lifespan, and was only able to operate at forty-one percent of it's maximum output, it was enough to power the ion drives.

According to Ensign Jibruil, they'd completed diagnostics on all sixteen drives, and while six of them were marginal, the other ten appeared to be operational and ready for testing.

Kharvic replied immediately, authorizing the test.

If the sensors were to be trusted, something that they'd had trouble with in this place, the strange ship was a mere four hundred kilometers away. If they could engage as few as two of the engines, the Hurry could conceivably reach it within half a day.

He schooled his expression, just in case any of the junior officers were watching him.

More than anything, he desperately hoped that whoever was on that ship was here to help, however ridiculous that hope might be.

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"Done and dusted?" Jessica's voice called from the entrance to the room where Bob was working.

"Almost," Bob replied absently as he checked the drain on the ten by ten rack of mana crystals that were being constantly being filled and drained by the shield and the engines, respectively.

"Dave and Amanda whipped us up some tucker, and I reckon you could eat, yeah?"

Bob's stomach grumbled unhappily at the mention of food.

Jessica laughed, the sound light and airy. "Sounds like you could. Come on then, we found the kitchen quick enough."

He turned away from the array, satisfied that each of the one hundred crystals was being drained and refilled evenly, catching sight of Jessica as she leaned against the doorframe.

He blinked.

She'd changed her clothes, now wearing a light blue and white sundress that drew attention to the brighter blue of her eyes, which, if he wasn't mistaken, were also enhanced by a touch of makeup. Her hair had been drawn up into a messy bun, from which a few tendrils had escaped to artfully frame her face.

Her smile widened as she shifted slightly, releasing the door frame with one hand to crook a finger, beckoning him toward her.

"You did promise me dinner, yeah?"

Bob nodded, clearing his throat as he walked to the door and offered her his arm. "I didn't forget, I was simply stunned by the sudden appearance of the Lady of Light," Bob said.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"I am rather radiant," Jessica beamed.

"Yes, yes you are," Bob agreed, glancing over at her as they walked down the corridor. "How are the rooms?"

"Bigger on the inside," Jessica replied happily. "Also, mostly furnished with size-appropriate furniture, so that's a bonus."

"Mostly?" Bob asked.

"I think the skill works off of you, and while you're a great bloke, I don't think there's a single mirror in the entire ship that isn't mounted at head height above the sink in the bathroom," Jessica shook her head. "A lady needs a vanity and full-length mirror."

Bob raised the hand that wasn't attached to the arm Jessica had captured and ran it over his head. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted.

"No worries," Jessica replied. "Domestication is a process."

"At least I'm toilet trained," Bob rejoined, then sighed. "I wish I'd toilet-trained Monroe earlier," he lamented. "I don't know if it's just easier because of his stats, but he took to it so quickly. All those years scooping litter and the last couple were with a pitchfork."

"Strewth, that's something I bet no one considers," Jessica laughed.

"No, no, they don't," Bob agreed as she steered him through a doorway where he paused as the smell of lasagna wafted over him. "Now that smells good," he sniffed appreciatively.

The room was thirty feet by forty feet, with a table occupying the center, upon which rested four massive casserole dishes covered in aluminum foil.

"It's Vera's recipe," Amanda announced as she came in through a door at the opposite end of the room, carrying an armful of wine bottles. She deposited two of the bottles in front of each plate and gestured for them to take a seat.

"She made it for that first night, and it nearly burned when we were off curing Talima's cancer, remember?" Amanda asked.

"I do," Bob nodded as he took the indicated seat, Jessica taking the one to his right. "It definitely received the Monroe stamp of approval."

"Speaking of the feline of mass consumption," Jessica interjected, "where is Monroe?"

"Napping," Bob said dryly. "He really likes that bed you commissioned for him. I'll drag him out when we're done eating so he can have his share." Bob paused. "Well, his several shares anyway."

Jessica's smile wasn't exactly smug, but it did manage to convey a bit of self-satisfaction.

Bob hadn't even considered a bed for Monroe when they were furnishing his inventory. The super-sized floofer had always adhered to the feline philosophy of 'if I fits, I sits' and viewed Bob as his own personal heating element when it came to naptime. Jessica had insisted that Monroe deserved his own custom-designed and heated bed, as befitting the Divine Feline Overlord.

"Did you get the engines working?" Dave asked as he entered through the same door as Amanda, with Mike right behind him.

"I did," Bob confirmed. "We're headed toward the Colony ship, although I don't know how far away it is."

"Do you have a proximity sensor or something on this thing?" Mike asked as he settled into the chair on Bob's left, with Dave and Amanda on the other side of the table.

"Or something," Bob agreed.

That the something was Trebor, piloting a miniature UtahRaptor that was manning a telescope, he left unsaid.

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"Captain," Ensign Corrial approached his console. "It appears the ship is moving in our direction, albeit slowly."

Kharvic looked up from his console. "How slowly?"

"Assuming an accelerate then decelerate pattern, almost a full day," she reported.

He frowned. The Hurstall'kalwin hadn't been a fast ship when she was built millennia ago. The strange ship was small, somewhere between a luxury yacht and a light cruiser, and should have been significantly faster, assuming they were using Ion drives. Of course, if they didn't, that might be something the Lovar could offer in exchange for assistance in escaping this place.

The Empire had a set of rules, established before the Lovar had even escaped the gravity well of their first world, for making contact with an alien species. To the best of his knowledge, the Dharlings were the first alien species they'd ever encountered. The scientists and philosophers had a theory they called 'The Great Filter,' which suggested that most species never managed to colonize another planet and thus perished when an event they weren't able to predict or control devastated their planet.

There was evidence of this, as evidence of prior civilizations had been found on four separate planets, and that was before the Hurry had begun her nearly two millennia trip across the galaxy. Who knew what had been found by now?

Regardless, there was a protocol, one which the Dharlings had gleefully ignored. To be fair, the Lovar had tried to limit contact with them, not wanting to disturb their natural advancement, but the Dharlings had effectively invaded their settlements and won them over. Officially it was their natural aptitude for mechanical repairs that had done it, but Kharvic had always suspected it was also the overwhelming cuteness the Dharlings could exude when they wanted to. Some of the medical personnel had run tests to see if there was a biochemical reaction inside the Lovar's brains, but they couldn't find anything. There was just something about the Dharlings that caused the average Lovar's mind to short-circuit.

Kharvic repressed a wince as he remembered his own childhood and his rather enthusiastic propensity to hug or pat any Dharling he saw.

He shook his head. The First Protocol had been happily abandoned in the face of sheer adorableness, and he would happily disregard it if that meant that the people he was responsible for made it out of this sea of energy.

"We should have the Ion drives online in the next half an hour," Kharvic said. "We have that long to determine their likely acceleration and plot a course to match. They haven't responded to any of the signals we've sent out, so it's likely that their communications run on something vastly different from our own." He sighed. "We'll have to hope that we can communicate when we finally meet each other."

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Bob was dozing off. He knew he was drifting, but he didn't care. He'd had a busy day, and according to his wristband, he'd been at over thirty hours on the hoof when they'd finished up dinner and settled down for a movie.

He was sitting on a loveseat, leaning back and against the arm with his legs stretched out, while Jessica was curled up next to, or rather into him, with her legs beneath her as she leaned against him, her head on his shoulder while his arm stretched across hers.

He could smell the light scent of her vanilla shampoo.

The movie was some sort of romantic comedy, apparently an older one, but a favorite of both Amanda and Jessica. He'd been happy just to sit down and relax after a delicious meal. He'd warned all parties that he might doze off so he didn't feel guilty.

'Bob,' Trebor's voice rang across his mind, drawing him away from Morpheous' sweet embrace.

"Yeah?" Bob murmured sleepily.

'First, you're speaking aloud, and second, I have spotted the colony ship,' Trebor replied.

Bob blinked and sat up, shaking his head to clear it, drawing a discontent grumble from Jessica.

'How far away is it?' Bob asked.

'It is currently decelerating, and I recommend we do the same unless we want to make a rather enthusiastic introduction,' Trebor suggested.

"Gotta reverse the thrust," Bob muttered, "we're gonna smash into the colony ship otherwise," he offered as an explanation to Jessica's pout and Dave and Amanda's questioning looks.

He rushed out of the room, heading to the engines.

"Should have included a transciever in the array," he shook his head. "Stupid. Need to be able to control this stuff from our wristbands."

Reversing the thrust was easy enough. He redirected the energy from the rear-facing emitters to the front-facing ones.

Bob made sure his NASA-provided collar was active and portaled out to the hull of his ship.

The miniature Jake stepped away from the telescope Bob had anchored to the hull, allowing him to peer through it.

The colony ship was... not what he'd expected.

Bob hadn't been an ardent fan of any particular sci-fi franchise, but he'd been exposed to them. He'd expected either a cube or a sphere or maybe a huge long rectangle.

He hadn't expected a giant, double-headed mushroom with a bulb in the middle of the stem joining the two caps.

"How big is that thing?" Bob asked.

"Roughly ten kilometers long, with the front and rear measuring five kilometers in diameter," Trebor replied.

Bob looked at his sixty-meter-long ship and shook his head.

"We might need a bigger boat," he muttered.