Fresh out of Delana's chair, my hair cut in a short pixie, and blended into my bangs. I headed toward Corvalax's office building, where Mr. Dunn said he would be waiting. He had only come to visit me the once, but apparently he had been in contact with Ms. Fern, and they arranged this meeting.

It felt good to stretch my legs, and walk the six blocks from the hospital to the office. The nice summer day felt good on my exposed arms. The red tank top exposed some of the enchantment ink on my back, its unmistakable copper-green color letting everyone know I had permanently enchanted by body in some way.

I opened the door and was face to face with a team of twenty smiling faces, that immediately began applauding as I entered the building's lobby. At their head was the short man who arranged this.

"Ms. Biggs, Welcome to Corvalax. I know its only been a couple of months, but would you mind visiting the Serendipity with the engineering team today?" he smiles a hopeful smile, but one I can tell isn't genuine. He wants me to say no.

"When do we leave?" I asked. He smile falters, he hesitates, then regains composure as he extends his arm to his left. The group behind him immediately begin filing through the door he pointed to. We enter the parking garage, and get onto a pair of busses, marked with the yellow and orange Corvalax logo.

The bus I get in, leaves second; and although the man in charge of this is talking to me, I have tuned it out. The twenty minute ride to Davidson's Bar went by quickly. I watched the men and women in the other bus get out, and seemingly take up positions pertaining to various sections of the ship, then enter the hulking mass, still listing toward its port side, barely hanging on the bar.

"Looks like we need to make this quick." I said as we filed off my bus. It was then that I noticed the mobile cranes coming in, they were going to attempt to stabilize it on the bar, so it could be studied in place. So maybe not so quick.

A young lady, probably twenty or twenty one, walked up to Ms. Fern, and then me. "Ms. Biggs, we would like for you to start on the bridge, if you don't mind." she asked meekly.

"What is your name?" I asked her.

"I am Erika Elliot, Miss." she said respectfully, and still with a bit of shyness.

"Call me Trillion." I smiled at her, "and sure, the bridge is as good of place as any." and I started walking toward the back of the ship.

"Trillion, the bridge is in the center." Erika says, and points to the ramp about mid way down the vessel.

"Erika, your bridge is there. Not the one the rats had us make, the one we called the battle bridge. The rats originally wanted to ransom the passengers back to their families, and convert this into a warship, which I can tell you isn't that difficult, so as soon as they came on board, they began designing, programming, and building their own bridge. Its the one I used to land the ship. That's where we are going."

Ms. Fern was obviously paying close attention, and Mr. Dunn seemed to be bored, but Erika seemed stunned, and excited.

"I didn't know there was a second bridge on board." she seemed to open up a bit more, and wasn't as shy.

We walked through the ramp at the back, and began going through the engine maintenance causeways. A few were fairly tight, but we quickly came to the bridge nestled between the center four main engines. I walked around the makeshift chair that was probably in the worst possible position to control a ship of this size, but it worked.

"Erika, have a seat." I said pointing to the only chair here. "don't trip on the wires, it may cause a short, and then you wont be able to get any data from back here." I pointed to the trunk of wires that were just laid across the expanded steel of the causeway the equipment was bolted to.

"This is the place you piloted this ship from?" she asked after being seated.

"yes. Now, I am going to push some of my mana into this capacitor bank on the back of the chair. Don't be alarmed when the screens move." I told her. She nodded, as I extended my hand toward the six capacitors that provided power to this control point. I felt the familiar pull of energy in my body, its even flow throughout my self, I condensed the feeling, forcing the flow to move toward my arm, and imagined it slamming through my hand, and into the bank I was aiming at.

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In the instance of thought, the green glow I had become so familiar with left my body, and entered the capacitors, making the equipment come to life. The screens moved only slightly, aligning themselves with Erika in the chair, and began showing the data for each of the major stations of the bridge, as well as a view of the top of the ship, facing forward. The view I had when landing this hulk.

"so all of the systems are powered by a person, not the ship?" Ms. Fern asked.

"No. If it were that simple, we could have returned sooner. We had to stop the reaction in the boosters first. But we didn't know that for a while. Lets head there next, but I'll have to ask that you not record anything there." I told her.

"I agree with Trillion, Ms. Fern. Our systems in that room are proprietary, and the patent for the changes the missing passengers made to that room hasn't been granted yet." Mr.. Dunn said.

"Cory, stop worrying about the bottom line, and start worrying about PR. That's your job." Erika said to him, seeming to be annoyed with his demeanor. "Okay, Trillion, can you walk me through the Interface, and why you placed these things where you did? I mean, I can understand some of it, but we can't mimic your design, at least not without understanding why you placed these things where you did."

"I didn't design this. Crystal Tillisman did." I say, and see Ms. Fern quickly jot the name down. "she was a robotics designer, and made this whole setup back here. If anyone's name should go on the patent for this, its hers. She was the fourth to last, she almost made it back; and she was a good friend."

I spend the next two hours explaining how everything worked, why Crystal had placed stuff where she did, how to change things if you wanted to, although even Ms. Fern agreed that she could even understand at a glance what was going on. When the energy ran out of the capacitors, and the seat shut down, we decided to move on, partially because I didn't have enough energy to turn it on again, and then it would last another two hours, and we wouldn't have needed that time.

We moved on to the booster room next, and there were six other engineers in the room, with clipboards, calipers, micrometers, protractors and angle-finders, measuring everything in the room, but staying away from the shields on the photonic capacitors.

I pointed to one of them. "these were designed by Blake. Blake Boyd. He had been a professor of microphysics, and figured out how to shield the chain reaction from expanding, and to eventually stop it. He died placing these here." he died only minutes before planetfall. He and I were the last. But they don't need to know that.

I went over how he explained to me they worked, and why they were important, telling me over and over again for the week leading up to them being placed how important certain aspects were, he knew he would die by placing them, and it wouldn't have been a pretty death. So he made sure I could tell people, if I survived, how they worked. The six engineers in the room were scribbling notes as fast as I was talking, and even Erika seemed to be pleased about something.

Next we went to the room where the rats experimented on us. I pulled up the artificer's notes, how he conducted his experiments, what he did and why. Ms. Fern handed me a data cube, and I saved the notes for her, asking her to give them to someone who could make heads or tails of the enchantments on me.

The next room was life-support, the room I ultimately became responsible for, well I say room, it was more like the hallway in the center, and running the length of the ship. The most protected objects of the entire ship were the scrubbers, and oxygen tanks dedicated for lifesupport. Everything in this room was broken. I had pulled parts from every single pump in this hall to keep only one station alive. Every station, except that one, in this hall had been cannibalized to keep that one running, and even it was on its last legs.

We went to the normal bridge next, and I showed Erika how we tied into the control systems here, as well as explaining that we went to the source itself, creating parallel bridges, that could override each other. This wouldn't have worked with a full crew, but made it to where the whole system could be controlled by one person, if multiples were available, that was still best.

The last place I took them, was a room that had been voiceprint locked, the Starboard, amidships observation deck. The blast panels had been closed from the inside, and as it was, I was the only one who could open this room. I stopped at the door, and placed my hand on it.

"Goddess, forgive me." I said softly. But that was the code for the voiceprint, and the door opened right up.

Erika went to walk into the room, and I barred her way. "No." I said firmly. "Do not enter this room." I said looking at the inner door, the airlock in case something was amiss, and the large window vented the room. I looked past Ms. Fern, at the camera behind her, she didn't say a word. "In this room, are the remains of everyone who wasn't spaced, or left remains. Preserved with ice magic to the best of my ability, then refreshed as often as I could. Even standing here, I can feel the chill of the room, after two and a half months of not being on this ship. All but three of the pirates who captured this ship, are also in here. The three that arent, are their captain, their artificer, and their pilot. I am sorry for all of the loss, and I am sorry that this is the best I could do for your families." I turn and walk away, leaving the voicelocked door open.

I walk straight back to the bus, and sit in the seat which brought me here. And that's when it finally hit me. Three centuries of living on that ship, all the people lost, all the good and bad memories, and only I survived. I sat on the bus, and cried.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I knew something was up as we walked to the last room. Trillion became quiet, she had been pointing things out the whole day, and seemed excited. But when she turned down this hallway, her expression became somber. She prayed at a voicelocked door and it opened.  A wave of cold air brushed across me as it did; but the air didn't seem to warm back up.

Her arm barring Erika from going into the room surprised all three of us, and she looked at the camera floating behind me as she explained what was there. I was stunned. I had never thought to ask what had happened to the bodies of those who didn't make it.

When she said her peace, she turned and walked away, making it obvious she didn't want to be followed. I pushed the camera up to the inner airlock door, and had it peer through the window. Perfect rectangular blocks of ice stood there, various colors shown through them, but the faces were covered. I shut the camera off, and walked through the door; assaulted by the super chilled air of the room. The blocks closest to the walls were obviously the oldest, there was a lot of red peeking through those.  

The ones closest to the door seemed to be placed in reverence, and only one of the blocks was the face visible, a young girl with every button clasped on a neck length blouse, and a refreshing smile on her face. I looked down, and her arms were missing from the elbows down. A black charring visible on the remains of her arms. This must have been crystal, the woman who designed the second bridge, we had already been told, while examining the battle bridge, that she died while connecting the main power trunk to it, we weren't told that she had passed with this peaceful expression on her face. 

Her face looks just like the young witch that has been visiting Trillion. Then it hit me. The young witch's name was Susanne Tillisman.