We finished a fairly awkward breakfast and then everyone stood.

“Gleas, I'll take the co-pilot seat again today.” Deborah said. “I'll get changed and meet you in the cockpit.”

“I better get changed, too.” I said and left at a fast walk as I went to my room. I picked up my own large box and opened it up to see the same type of helmet. When I lifted out the suit underneath, it looked like a deflated balloon. No wonder it fits so snugly.

I took off all of my clothes, even my underwear. The directions recommended nothing between the body and the temperature regulating cloth, and I sighed.

I guess that's why Gleas' breasts moved so freely. I thought and stepped into the neck hole and it stretched out. I slid my bare feet through the suit and into the soft boots attached to the legs. I pulled it up and over my waist, adjusted myself so that the suit wouldn't hook onto anything, then pulled it up to my chest and slipped my arms inside and through the right holes. I was glad the gloves weren't attached, because it let me keep the use of my hands, then I pulled the suit up over my shoulders and it snapped into place around my neck.

It was surprising that an entire suit could be made in one piece like that. I had expected clasps or zippers or something, like a standard space suit. I hadn't expected that a custom suit would be just that. A custom made one piece suit to fit just one person. I grabbed my belt and attached it around my waist, so that I had one bag of holding, mostly empty, and my Light sword were easily accessible.

I picked up the gloves that would magnetically lock when I put them on and put them inside the helmet, then tucked it under my arm. I went to my room door, fully prepared for what was going to happen next, then opened it.

“Woooo, baby!” Deborah exclaimed and waved a hand in front of her face.

“Oh, my.” Kalina said as she took in all of me, from head to foot, then she started to slowly clap.

Sandy put her fingers in her mouth and let out a wolf-whistle.

“Hey, you never did that for me!” Beatrice said and laughed.

“That's because I get to see you naked.” Sandy responded and Beatrice blushed.

Unlike the others, who were hamming it up at my expense, Gleas just stood there and stared at me.

“Try not to fall in love with what you see next.” I warned them and stepped out of my room, then I started to walk down the hallway and away from them.

“Oh, for the goddess' sake!” One of them exclaimed as they watched me walk away. “No wonder he said that he was in so much trouble! Look at THAT!”

Giggles and laughter continued as they followed me to the top of the stairs to go down into the cargo hold. I stopped there and exaggerated the movements as I slowly pulled on each glove, then I lifted the helmet and put it over my head. My short hair made it a simple matter and I locked the helmet into place, then I took each step down and made sure to jump a little each time to make my butt jiggle.

*

“Oh... oh, my goddess!” Deborah said as Hunter disappeared down the stairs. “What a show!”

“He definitely made sure that we all enjoyed it.” Kalina said with a huge smile.

“You know, I actually did enjoy that, and I love Beatrice with all my heart.” Sandy said.

“He didn't get after us for staring or for making fun of him, either.” Beatrice said.

“That's because he knew we would.” Gleas said. “Once he saw me...” She looked down at herself in the skintight flight suit and then looked back at the stairs. She wasn't sure how to finish that statement.

“I wonder why didn't he just wait to change downstairs?” Deborah asked.

“He knew he was going to be on display.” Kalina chuckled. “No matter where he wanted to change, he knew we would be there to see it the first time.”

“That's why?” Deborah asked and then laughed. “Okay, I have to admit that I would have tracked him down to see it.”

“We all would have.” Kalina said and looked at Beatrice and Sandy. “Even just out of sheer curiosity.”

“You know it!” Sandy laughed and hugged Beatrice. “I doubt there's a handful of people on the whole planet that wouldn't want to see Hunter right now!”

*

“Why are you showing me this again?” Uzahne asked, confused.

Sheph tried not to laugh. “I'm the public relations specialist, remember? This is a gold mine!” She said and pointed at the members of the group that the military had rounded up, thanks to Hunter tipping them off about it. The unfiltered shuttle data, which included its gravity sensors and internal and external camera pickups, had let them be rounded up in only an hour. All of them. They had even recovered the stolen data and items the group had taken, before the criminals could do anything with it.

“I thought we agreed not to bring attention to him anymore.” Ahaen said, her scowl quite apparent.

“You're just upset that your department hadn't caught them first.” Sheph said and Ahaen crossed her arms and didn't respond. “We can keep most of this confidential if you want and give the credit to the military for the whole thing; but, the military will know that Hunter was instrumental in their capture.”

“I think that would be best.” Uzahne said. “You remember what happened the last time we let Hunter overwhelm the media.”

The three women's faces darkened as they remembered what Hunter had looked like the last time they had seen him. All of them were relieved to see him healed in the footage. Sheph had felt bad that he hadn't gained his hair back, though. She remembered the bar and burying her face in its golden splendor, and she secretly despaired that it would be the only time she would ever be able to do it.

“I was going to ask you to let me run with this; but, I guess I can't.” Sheph said, disappointed. “I'll drop it into the propaganda machine and have the Hunter parts removed.”

Uzahne and Ahaen nodded.

“Do we know who these people are?” Ahaen asked. “This just seemed to come out of nowhere.”

“Out of nowhere?” Sheph laughed. “You do realize the story that broke a week ago, right? The scandal involving Vilshalis and that quarter-breed that coerced him?”

“You mean that weird woman-fish and her suggestion powers?” Uzahne asked, and Sheph nodded.

“These people have been on the other end of their schemes for a long time, especially the woman pilot.” Sheph said. “I can't go into the details, mainly because I haven't been fully briefed yet.”

“What? Why not?” Ahaen asked.

“This thing goes pretty deep into our government.” Sheph said. “It's hard for people to trust each other in this kind of environment.”

Uzahne let out a sigh. Unlike the other two, she had met the woman-fish about four months ago during a state function, then she had failed the test to show if she had been coerced. The treatment hadn't been pleasant; but, at least she didn't suffer the day long headache side effect afterwards.

“You mean trust the locals.” Ahaen said and voiced their concerns. “Who knew they had abilities like that?”

“I doubt it's just the locals that have abilities like that.” Sheph said to try and mitigate the prejudice.

“We're straying from the subject here.” Uzahne and tapped the folder of documents. “What do we do?”

“We charge them with sedition and treason, of course.” Ahaen said.

Uzahne and Sheph gave her a pointed look and then looked at each other. They knew she always suggested the worst thing to happen.

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“Are we including Hunter in the charges?” Ahaen asked.

“Wh-what?” Sheph looked back at her with shock on her face.

“It was his shuttle they used to...”

“Are you crazy?” Sheph almost yelled. “He's a planetary hero!”

“He's not above the law.” Ahaen said and her eyes darted to the floor, where the headless body had dropped in front of her. She shivered and crossed her arms again as she hugged herself. Despite her protests and desire to use another office to gather in, they still used this one.

“Actually, he is.” Uzahne said and the other two women turned to look at her. “As soon as anyone gets word that he's been arrested... for anything... the entire population will turn on us in a heartbeat.”

The three of them sat there in silence as they thought about that. It might not have been that way, except someone had leaked a photo of what Hunter looked like after he had saved twelve adults and two children from that explosion. It gave him that last one percent he needed for his approval rating to reach one hundred percent.

Everyone loved him.

The government was bombarded daily with requests to see him, talk to him, have him visit their businesses, visit the hospitals, and have dinner. Uzahne's aide had lost count of all the birthday party requests they had for Hunter to attend. In fact, that was where her aide was at the moment. She was in the side office and combed through the hundreds of messages they received daily, just to find the ones that were relevant to the government and to route them where they needed to go.

“Ahaen, whatever you think of him personally and about what he's done, you can't speak out against him.” Uzahne said. “It would be political suicide.”

Ahaen squinted her eyes at her for only a moment, then she sighed. “Yes, I know.”

“Sheph, send Hunter a message and...” Uzahne stopped talking and thought about what to say.

“It's difficult, isn't it?” Sheph said and let a smile touch her lips. “How do you word something like that, without either insulting his intelligence or downplay his involvement in things he shouldn't be involved in?”

Uzahne leaned over her desk and took out a huge folder that was filled with papers and flipped through them for several minutes, then she pulled one out and handed it to Sheph.

Sheph read it and her eyebrows raised up. “Are you serious?”

“It's a formal request from the head of the medical association.” Uzahne said. “I didn't have the heart to say no right away and I've been sitting on it for a while. Send that to Hunter and he can be the one to say no.”

Sheph had an angry expression on her face for a second, then she sighed. “All right, I'll send it.”

Ahaen stood and plucked the paper from Sheph's hand and quickly read it. She smiled and handed it back. “I can't wait to see the public's reaction when he says no.”

Sheph looked at her angrily. “Why are you so vindictive?” She asked. “You even apologized to him for treating him unfairly and you're still doing it!”

“He keeps doing things for me to hate.” Ahaen said. “I can't help it if you can't see him for the menace he really is.”

Sheph opened her mouth for a second and then closed it. “You keep telling yourself that.” She said and walked towards the door. “When you're sitting alone tonight and thinking about what happened today, I want you to ask yourself something.”

“What's that?”

“If he really was the menace you claim he is, wouldn't he have just killed us for what we tried to do to him when we first arrived in this system?” Sheph asked and opened the door. “Now that we're the ones in charge, if it had been our ship and someone tried to take our shuttle, wouldn't you have them killed?”

Ahaen didn't respond, so Sheph left the office and closed the door.

*

I was carefully detaching a medical console from the large diagnostics machine when my suit com beeped at me. I hit the button with my chin. “You may speak.”

“Thanks for your permission.” Gleas chuckled. “We just received a gold priority message from the Udelis.”

“I don't know what that means.” I said and popped the last connector out, after marking it of course, then used Presence to unscrew all of the bolts that held the console in place.

“Among priority messages, it's at the top.”

“Well, that can't really be true.” I said and picked up the console. “How would they know what I think is a priority message?”

Gleas laughed. “Are you heading back yet?”

“I just popped out the medical console, so yes.” I said. “It's going to take me all next shift to get the scanner removed and the associated computer banks mounted in the walls.”

“I can't believe they had that extensive of a setup in a freighter's hull.” Kalina said. “Who does that?”

“Stupid aliens.” I said and they chuckled. “I'm glad it had a low threat level and they only took out the bridge and the shuttle bay.”

“I hope Luxea's software adaptations can work on it.” Gleas said. “If we can get it working, that thing is worth a fortune!”

“Hey, don't get your hopes up for a big payday.” I said. “I'm installing it in the new ship.”

“You're WHAT?!?” Gleas yelled. “Dammit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell on a closed circuit.”

“It's all right.” I said and carried the console through the ship to the main hatch. “I'm taking everything I can to make our ship the best ship it can be first. Why would I pass up having a top of the line medical scanner and treatment room?” I cycled the hatch and hopped out into space and then floated up and around the wreck to head towards the ship. “It saves me from having to buy it later, too.”

“You... were going to buy one?” Kalina asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I've only got a basic med-bot on the Udelis, and there's no way we can keep meeting up every time someone has a boo boo.”

Gleas chuckled. “Okay, I guess I can't argue with that, not if you were going to invest in getting one. You can keep it for our use.”

“Thanks for your permission.” I parroted her words that started to conversation and she laughed. “Approaching bay doors.”

“How can you keep doing this in just a flight suit?” Kalina asked. “I'd be nervous flying a shuttle through that!”

I landed just inside the force field of air in the bay as the gravity grabbed me. “You've seen the footage of the rescues, right? This is a cakewalk compared to that.”

“Only you would think this is easy.” Gleas said. “Now get your ass up to the cockpit and read this message.”

“Someone's in command mode today.” I said and carried the console with me and brought it up the stairs and picked the last room at the back of the ship to become the full service medical bay. I left the console inside and walked to the front of the ship. “All right, show me this message.”

“Have a seat behind me.” Kalina said and hit a button to shunt the message to the display there. I sat down and read through it, then wondered why it had taken so long to get to me.

“What is it?” Gleas asked.

“You didn't read it?” I asked, surprised.

“It's a message for you, so no.” Gleas said.

“I've been invited to visit a children's hospital.” I said and stood up. “Apparently, one of their patients is a big fan of mine and they want to meet me.”

Both women turned to stare at me with surprised faces. I walked between them and used the communications console to send a response to the medical facility. It wasn't the same one I had been in, so I knew it wasn't a ploy to get me back to examine me. I would still have to be careful, though.

“I'm tempted to not respond; but, I'd rather have them get some security and stop people from swarming me when I show up.” I said and waited for a response. “Okay, they can have everything prepped by the morning.”

“You're really going?” Kalina asked.

“Sure, why not?” I asked.

“But... but you... didn't you say that you're really busy with getting all this salvage done?”

“I'm not that big of an asshole to say no to a sick child.” I said and gave her a smile. “I'll have to hurry and get the rest of the medical equipment transferred over though.”

I left the cockpit and quickly made my way through the ship, down the stairs and back over to the bay doors. I jumped out and floated at a pretty good speed towards the wrecked freighter.

*

“I really didn't expect him to agree to that, or to tell them that he just received the message.” Sheph said with a sigh as she looked at the medical facility's heated response to the government's delay in getting the message to Hunter. She could see in her mind's eye as the government's approval rating dropped even more because of it. She held in another sigh and closed her display, then made the decision that she wouldn't make an appearance and she wouldn't send a government representative in her place.

It wasn't that she didn't want to see him, it was the opposite of that. She wanted it very badly. Unfortunately, she also knew that if she was there or sent someone, it would be too obvious that they were trying to associate themselves with his appearance at the hospital. That would backfire on them even more than if they publicly tried to distance themselves from him like Ahaen wanted them to do.

Sheph thought about the best way to see him without interfering. After several minutes, she couldn't come up with anything. Instead, she initiated the office's security features and recorded a private message for him. She knew she couldn't tell him everything, since a lot of it was confidential and had been declared state secrets, so she settled for generalities and tried her best to express her own feelings about what had been going on... and about him.

*

It took me the rest of the shift to strip everything from the alien's medical bay and get it transferred to the ship. Nothing was installed, and I had to leave a lot of the larger components in the cargo bay beside the stairs, that way they were easily accessible. I was tempted to call Luxea and ask her and Simone to come over and try to start the room's conversion, then decided that it would be best to get the same crew that Luxea had hired back in the Dizahl System to do it.

Why half-ass it when we can get it professionally done? I asked myself as I walked up the stairs. I unhooked my helmet and took off my gloves and put them into the helmet.

“Is it true?” Deborah asked when she saw me. She had been leaning on my room door and stood up straight. “You're really going to visit the children's hospital in the capital?”

“I was just going to my room to pack for it, actually.” I said and waved at the door behind her.

“Can I come with you?”

“Are you on shift first thing in the morning?” I asked and she shook her head.

“I've got the co-pilot shift tomorrow afternoon.”

“Then grab your things for a quick overnight stay.” I said. “They've got a guest room ready for me.”

Deborah nodded and walked away with determination in her steps. I had read her surface thoughts and knew she had some kind of deep need to go and visit that particular hospital, so I didn't argue about it. I stepped into my room and popped off my helmet and used the ship's intercom.

“Gleas, take the ship out of the debris field and give us a nice parking orbit close by.” I said.

“You got it.” Gleas said and the ship started to move.

I quickly packed a small suitcase with clothes and added a few of the engraved wooden plaques that might be useful to my bag of holding. I didn't bother taking off my flight suit, since I would be taking the shuttle, then I picked up my helmet and my suitcase and stepped out into the hallway.

Deborah was there and she wore her flight suit as well. I nodded to her and managed not to stare at her as we went down the stairs and across the partially filled cargo hold to the shuttle bay. We climbed aboard the shuttle and I had her do all the pre-flight checks and told her to take us out. She gave me a look that said she hadn't done it in a while, and I smiled.

“If I can fly it to the planet from here, you can, too.” I said. “Plus, I need to call Rhubin and see how the search for another shuttle pilot is coming along.”

Deborah nodded and flew the shuttle out of the bay and I placed my call.

“Nothing yet.” Rhubin said with a smile and I couldn't help but laugh. “I'll let you know when I know.”

“All right. I'll keep waiting.” I said and cut the call.