I awoke on the second day of our journey to Ion alarms going off, and Fuego taking itself out of hyperspace.

I approached the bridge wearing little more than the nightshirt and underwear I had went to sleep with. Boss had told us that this was an escort mission. well, its not like I hadn't expected it, Candice was my target all along; but to think that she would decide to go home on her own.

"How bad is it?" I ask as the door closes behind me. the small four person bridge was still silent.

"Castle sent us a message to dock." Ben, the new comms officer says to me.

"Do it. larger ships can handle this better than we can." I tell them.

"Kat, Castle said she was going to transfer us back to Tetin. she can't take this abuse either."

"Shit, follow her instructions to the letter, get us out of here; preferably in one piece." I sigh and turn back to the door. "Its going to be a long night reporting an Ion Storm to Tetin. I might actually need pants." I hear the few people here laugh as I say that. Being John's second doesn't make this any easier.

I quickly put on a loose pair of jeans, then wen't to Boss's room, and knocked on the door.

"John, its Kat, there is a problem." no answer, so I knock again, harder. "John, are you in there?"

I lean over to the control pannel, and enter in my personal code, and the door opens.

laying on his side, is Boss, but something doesn't look right.

I touch the side of his face, and its sweaty, and clammy. I immediately check for a pulse, its there, but weak.

"Shit." I run back to the door and hit the emergency close button, and the thin metal door slams shut, and a blast door slams in from either side. I hit the bridge intercom button, John's and my room are the only ones that have it, "Troy, get us inside Castle as soon as you can. John has Ion poisioning." I announce to the bridge crew.

"We need you on the bridge Kat." I hear him say.

"I can't, I'm the one who found him, we are both sealed in his room right now; you are on your own right now."

"Understood." I heard Troy announce back.

it took nearly ten minutes to get inside the Castle's cargo ship hangar, it would have been too close of a fit otherwise. as soon as the docking ring connected, I heard the tell tale ring of our ship's intercoms interlocking with another vessel's. this usually only happend at space stations, but right now it was a blessing that Castle could do it. I held down the station intercom button, and relayed the situation to castle. within minutes, a medical support bot was standing outside the, now, open doors.

"Do not worry. I will carry him to Castle's medical room." as it spoke, it walked over to John, and changed shape. within seconds, it looked like the naked Boss was wearing a mobility frame, the bot then got him out of bed, and walked to Castle's med room. I had never seen something like this; and being an officer in the Tal Oz Medical Corps thats saying something.

Stolen novel; please report.

entering Castle's med room right behind the bot, I took a look around and realized that this was a fully equiped facitly, and was capable of performing every major surgury I knew. this room would be a dream even aboard our modern medical vessels; and its on this ancient warship.

"Kathrine." I heard someone use my name, and not the nickname that the crew uses, I looked around and saw a girl of about 18 looking at me in earnest, piercing azure eyes, violet hair, and what looked like a tatto of a vines in pink ink going up her arms. "have you returned to us? you dazed out there for a bit." she says to me.

"I don't know you." I said plainly.

"I'm Castle, John's ship files list you as the first officer, and as the medical officer; is this correct?"

"Yes." I answer quickly.

"Good, I can clean some of the radicals from his system, but he still needs a medic's hands. are you calm enough to operate the equipment in here?" she asks, obviously poking fun at me zoning out at how well outfitted this room is.

"alright." I start moving toward a bed that was closest to the machines that looked like they were all designed for Ion Poisioning.

"at least you recognized where we needed to go." she says with a grin, as the bot unfolds itself from around Boss, leaving him laying on the bed. Castle holds her hands level with her shoulders over John, and the vines flair to a bright pink, a white light eminates from her, and I start seeing little black dots appearing and disappearing above our patient. she really is removing the radicals that are causing his condition. it seems like that was the trigger for my muscle memory to kick in, because I don't remmber much after that, only being awoken by a smiling John, handing me a tray of food. I was told that I had slept 22 hours, Castle had already reported the severe storm, and we were back underway.

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"Are you sure of this, Castle?" I asked her.

"As a heart attack. Look, I know you don't want to hear this, Candice, but that girl was considered a medical prodigy. she was trained by your father's personal medic, and was inserted into John's crew only a week after you joined. she was under strict instructions to not report anything to the family, and to make sure you were safe. those were her orders."

"how sure are you of this?" I asked again, not wanting to belive what I was hearing. I know Castle wouldn't lie to me, not about things like this anyway. me asking for the third time is probably why she is standing there with her hands on her hips.

"Are we going to keep going around and around about this? her presence is only evidinced by your father protecting you, and the fact that she was orderd to not report about anything on this mission only means that its either so cloak and dagger that she wasn't notified of the true purpose, or your father was genuinely concerned about you. I interegated her for a solid twelve hours while pumping gasses into that room to keep her lucid, but not awake enough to remember telling me anything. be glad that john had an oxygen mask on at the time, otherwise he would probably be brutally honest for the next three days like she is going to be."

"Alright, I understand. lets leave her be for now, see how it plays out." I see Castle finally nod to my desicion. "how many more days till we cross this storm and can return to hyper?"

"Twenty, give or take half a day."

"do we have enough food supplies for Fuego's crew?"

"I have enough to supply a fully staffed ship for a decade, and thats not counting the emergecny rations that have been in a time-stopped dimension since the war."

"so I don't really need to buy food for now?" I stare at her. me getting food was the only reason why I decided to go home in the first place.

"Nope. but, the decision has been made, escorts hired, and you have a battleship to protect you." she looks away, toward the front of the bridge. "yes, I hid information from you, but I just have a gut feeling that something is about to happen, and we need to be inside the capitols's hyper barrier before it does."

"Alright." I grudgingly agree. "lets make these guys feel as much at home as possible. from the interigations, is there anyone else we need to keep an eye on?"

"no, she was the only spy among the Fuego's crew."

"would you have a problem letting them help you in operations?" as quickly as the question leaves my mouth, she grins, and i begin hearing her call the Fuego's bridge crew up to the bridge through the hallway intercoms.

"Well, Boss, it looks like our roles are reversed." I mumble to myself.