A rush of data flooded Ryan, no, Keeva’s mind as the Gateway leading to Luna opened. It had only been a few hours since leaving, and she realized she felt empty being away. Yes, it had been nice not having so much running in the back of her mind constantly, but she felt more whole coming back to Luna.

Becky rushed through the Gateway first, “You got that map ready for me to look at?”

Keeva accessed the data with just a thought, “Want a hologram in the mess hall or your room?”

Becky immediately replied, “Mess hall’s fine.”

Charlotte went through next, “Can I watch?”

Keeva glanced behind her as Saki shouted, “Mikan, hurry!”

Saki was pulling Mikan by her hand, and Keeva felt no need to respond.

Saki rushed towards the access hatch to the deck above and disappeared just as Keeva stepped through the portal.

Anton went through last, “Want to bring up my projects in the mess hall too?”

Keeva brought up holograms at the tables Becky and Anton each used the most, “Got it!”

Keeva finished bringing Luna’s systems back online and started checking the surrounding area just in case an unexpected visitor had found them in the vast expanse outside the galaxy.

She obviously found none and focused on bringing the telescope array back online.

Keeva was getting sleepy and headed for her room, “You guys sure you don’t need some sleep?”

Anton plopped down on his usual chair and shook his head, “Says the one that can still run a ship while she’s sleeping.”

Becky nodded her agreement, “Must be nice having a digital brain that doesn’t have to sleep.”

Keeva had been surprised the first time she had to sleep in her current body. She expected everything to shut down, but her computer brain kept going even if her flesh and blood brain weren’t. Of course, it was mostly automated and she’d have to be woken up if anyone needed anything, which was often considering everyone but her, the fairies, and Charlotte often went on less sleep than they should have.

Keeva yawned at the thought of being woken up constantly, “Just don’t stay up too late, ‘K? I didn’t realize how nice it was having you guys gone until last night when I got a full night of sleep.”

Becky laughed, “No promises!”

Anton crossed his arms as scanned through the database of tech, “I’ve got it. That drag-and-drop feature we figured out seems to not bother you while you’re sleeping.”

Keeva accessed the memories of the last night she’d slept with the entire crew there. It was strange. She didn’t remember any of it happening at the time, but her machine brain had still recorded everything and kept it until she could review it and decide what and what not to keep. This included every second of sensor data, every camera, status reports from every system, etc… Of course, she deleted most of it after inspecting it for abnormalities.

Saki looked exhausted and went straight to her bed, finally letting go of Mikan..

Keeva wasn’t surprised. She’d finally got let out of her cage and played as much as she could and it showed. The only reason she wasn’t passed out on the grass like Aoi was because Mikan had kept going. Keeva would have let her stay at Niamh’s place with Aoi, but she couldn’t leave Mikan there, which meant Saki would come too.

Keeva went into her room and stripped out of her clothes before taking a shower.

She still felt uncomfortable using the toilet and shower, but it was getting easier every time ever since her talk with Étién. In a way, it had been easier not having a body over having one of the opposite sex. This was because, besides the obvious different body parts, everything felt different, from the feel and texture of her skin, the shape of her bones, the way her wider hips made her walk, the long ears that she kept hitting with her arms. She was sure she’d keep finding minor differences for a long while yet.

After her shower, she changed into light pajamas and sat on her bed.

Her room was still barren and she wondered if she should check some shops in Ildathach next time she went. She recalled several places that sold decorations in both the human and elven districts, and since she didn’t have to worry about money, she wouldn’t need to be picky. Although… after the amount of gold they’d been handing out it was possible they could crash the value of it if they weren’t careful.

As soon as she lay down, she decided to look into getting a mattress. Perhaps she could bug the Ullians after she got back into contact with them tomorrow? Maybe looking into some of their art too?

Becky’s shout of excitement brought Keeva’s attention back just as she was on the verge of falling asleep.

Keeva sat up, but didn’t bother getting out of bed, “What’s up?”

Charlotte cocked her head to the side as she studied the spot Becky was pointing to, “What’s that?”

Becky was grinning from ear to ear, “Home.”

Keeva felt her jaw drop and her eyes widen, “But… how… it’s only been an hour...”

Anton looked stunned too, “Yeah, what Ryan… Keeva said.”

Becky had two maps of the universe open in front of her, one was the raw data, and the one she pointed to altered, “It was easy with the maps you made for me. All I had to do was look for familiar voids, superclusters, filaments, and other structures.”

Keeva recalled Becky’s request when analyzing the data, “Oh, that’s why you had me checking the motion of the galaxies.”

Becky nodded, “Yup! By tracking the movement of galaxies and predicting where they’ll be and where they were, we can estimate what the universe will look like from different spots in the universe. Of course it won’t be perfect, but it helps.”

Keeva recalled all the data crunching it had required, “Part of my brain is a supercomputer that makes those on Earth look like a calculator, and it still had a hard time calculating all that stuff.”

Becky pointed to six flashing dots centered around their current location, “Pretty interesting seeing what the galaxy looks like from seven different spots.”

Keeva highlighted the galaxy supercluster in the southwest quadrant of the map that Becky had shown where she thought the Milky Way was, “So we head here?”

Becky nodded and pointed to a small filament in the center of a void next to the supercluster, “The Milky Way’s a galaxy in this void, I think.”

Anton raised an eyebrow and looked at Becky, “Ya think?”

Becky’s smile became uncertain, “Well… Our map of the universe back on Earth is probably inaccurate and we can’t know how accurate this map is… but out of everywhere on this map this is the closest match.”

Keeva wasn’t worried, “I think it’s worth looking at. Just a few dozen…” she checked the distance to the spot and compared it to the range of the wormhole drive, “...thousand jumps.”

Anton whistled, “Whoa, how far away is it?”

Keeva answered immediately since she already had the number in her head, “Almost two billion light years.”

Anton’s mouth dropped open, “Uh… Isn’t the range on the wormhole drive somethin’ like one and a half million light years?”

“If we used every bit of fuel, yeah, but if we upgraded Luna with more capacitors and charged while refueling, I bet we could up it to two and a half.”

Becky shook her head, “Not worth the risk. We don’t know how much power the drive can handle.”

Anton nodded, “Yeppers. Although… maybe we could slowly increase the power and see what happens?”

Becky shook her head again, “We don’t have any way to replace most of the parts. If it breaks down, we’ll be stuck.”

Anton’s face brightened, “Maybe we can borrow parts from a Gateway? They look pretty similar.”

Keeva recalled Niamh’s Gateway and the fact that it looked extremely similar to Luna’s but on a smaller scale, “We’ll have to ask Niamh about that next time we see her. Maybe she has some spare parts we can scan.”

Anton nodded in agreement, “Or print a portable scanner.”

Becky smiled, “Alright! So, Rya… um… Keeva upgrades Luna, and builds a portable scanner while we work on our own thing?”

Sounded good to Keeva, “I think there’s room in the cable room for some capacitors.”

Anton glanced at the two maps of the universe before heading back to his table, “I’ll get back to work on my drone controller.”

Becky sat back in her chair, “I’ll look at these some more before heading to bed.”

Charlotte yawned as she wobbled in place. She looked thoroughly confused during the entire conversation and started falling asleep, “I’m going to bed now.”

Becky turned to Charlotte and waved goodnight, “‘Night!”

Keeva said goodnight to everyone and laid back in her bed. Tomorrow she was going back to Mljos Tersa to see off the expedition and check on the Builder, so she was a little excited. She wished she could go on the expedition too, but she had things on Luna to take care of, so she was only going to stay long enough to make sure everything went okay with that unless something happened with the Builder.

Keeva fell asleep easily and the next morning her machine brain woke her up exactly when she had wanted.

Anton had fallen asleep at his table, but Becky had gone to bed about an hour after everyone had said their goodnights.

Keeva got out of bed and stared at her meager selection of clothing, where her eyes stopped on the dress Shina had given her. It was a blue sundress the color of her eyes. Until then, she had felt too embarrassed to wear something so feminine and only wore the nanotube cloth jumpsuit that sort of had become the uniform of Luna’s crew.

Keeva took the dress from where it hung and put it on. She still felt slightly uncomfortable, but once she looked in the mirror and saw how cute she looked in it, she kept it on. There was still that pain of seeing Étién every time she looked in the mirror, but it wasn’t so unbearable anymore.

Keeva smoothed out the dress as she stopped in front of her door, then left.

Charlotte’s room was just to the left of hers. Charlotte had turned on all of her privacy settings so Keeva had to meet her the old-fashioned way and knocked on her door, “It’s Keeva. You awake?”

A very sleepy cat girl appeared at the door about a minute later, “Mmm… Good morning…”

This wasn’t the first time Keeva had seen Charlotte’s unkempt, just out of bed look, but it was pretty cute with her disheveled hair and pajamas, “Morning! Just thought I’d make sure you had time to get ready.”

Charlotte yawned and rubbed her eyes, her tail still drooping from drowsiness, “Thanks.”

Charlotte closed the door with a look that made Keeva think she might have to come and try again later.

Keeva woke Saki up through Mikan at the same time as she woke Becky and Anton through Luna’s comms.

Becky arrived in the mess hall a few minutes after Keeva and ordered a coffee-like drink they’d found in Ildathach’s market from the food dispenser and it looked like she needed it.

Charlotte came last and ordered a simple porridge breakfast.

Anton looked at Charlotte and Becky, “You two not waitin’ to grab some food in town?”

Becky took a sip of her drink and sighed, “Maybe.”

Charlotte swallowed a mouthful of porridge and shook her head, “This is fine.”

Keeva’s stomach growled as she waited for Charlotte and Becky to eat, “I’m with Anton.”

Saki looked disgusted at the sight of the coffee and seemed unimpressed by the porridge, “Saki and Mikan will get some food from Momma Mayu.”

Anton turned to Charlotte, “Let’s open a gateway to Shina’s.”

Charlotte yawned as she fished for the Gateway device in the pouch she’d tied to her leg since she was wearing a simple green dress with no pockets.

The Gateway opened to Niamh’s place, and they all rushed through, including five attack drones and the Mk. II.

They had figured out that if everyone rushed through in less than ten seconds, there’d still be enough power to open a short range Gateway for almost thirty seconds.

Once the Gateway from Luna closed, Becky walked over to the controls, “Niamh showed me how to use it yesterday.” She put her hands on the controls, “Hmm… Shina’s… right?”

A new Gateway appeared, revealing the inside of Shina’s restaurant.

Saki fluttered through immediately, “Momma! Saki’s hungry!”

Mikan fluttered through just behind her.

Charlotte went through next, “I’ll be back!” and ran to the back room.

Keeva noticed the surprised looks of several diners as they turned towards the Gateway and giggled, “Maybe you should have opened the Gateway behind the diner… Can’t fit the attack drones through, either.”

Becky smacked her forehead, “Whoops…”

Anton walked through, “Hope no one accidentally walked through the other side.”

Keeva walked through just after the Mk. II, and around to the back side of the Gateway just as it closed, “Hope not.”

Keeva lost contact with the attack drones still at Niamh’s place, though she had moved them to the garden just before.

River walked towards them, “Mornin’, ya’ll have a good sleep?”

Becky grinned, despite shaking her head, “Didn’t sleep much. I found out where the Milky Way is and kept running things through my head all night.”

River pulled Becky in for a quick congratulatory hug, “Congrats! Hope it’s not too far.”

Becky deflated a little, “It’s not as far as it could have been, but still pretty far.”

River patted Becky’s shoulder, “That’s too bad. How long will it take you?”

Becky shook her head, “Probably a couple months unless we can make Luna’s wormhole drive jump farther each time. As it is… with Luna’s current max jump range of one and a half million… it’ll take around one thousand two hundred and ninety-three jumps.”

Keeva had gotten the same numbers, “Yeah, and between recycling the cables and making new ones we’re talking about one jump every eight hours.”

Anton cleared his throat, “Actually…” He looked around, “Where’s Evan?”

River shrugged, “I think he’s at the Aos Si embassy. I offered to let him stay with my idiot brother last night, but he said no.”

Becky’s face became lecherous, “So… you two do anything… exciting last night?”

River laughed and shook her head, “No way. That man’s too much of a cherry boy to do anything like that to a woman.”

Anton cleared his throat again, “So… um…”

Everyone turned their attention back to him.

Anton looked slightly irritated, “So… Evan, and I were talking about what we could do with the upgraded fabricator, and he thinks we can make cables that won’t burn out after every use.”

Keeva recalled them having several conversations about why they thought the cables burned out, “So you figured out how to shield the cables from the electromagnetic bursts?”

Anton nodded, “Yeah. There’s an alloy the dwarves work with that uses their weird magic tech. Evan is thinking it can block the bursts, which will help keep the cables superconducting, which will keep them from burning out.”

Keeva smiled, “Sweet! I’ll have to upgrade the cable fabricators after I go back.”

Anton scratched the back of his head, “No need to rush, it’s still just an idea.”

Keeva shrugged, “Okay. I guess we still got some business to take care of in that galaxy, anyway.”

Becky was about to speak when Charlotte came back with Eclair. They were carrying a large wooden chest.

Charlotte set the chest down, as did Eclair who went back to the back room.

Charlotte looked around the room, then leaned in to whisper to Keeva, “It’s a Gateway device. Looks like my sisters stole one a while ago.”

Charlotte didn’t look happy admitting that.

Keeva patted her on the shoulder, “We’ll have them take it back after I’m done with it.” She then looked at the chest, “You know… you could have left it in the back room.”

Charlotte looked a little embarrassed, “I wanted to bring it before I forgot.”

Keeva put a foot on the chest, “Oh well. We can just take it back.”

Keeva noticed something as she looked around Ildathach with the Mk. II, “Oh, I found Evan. He’s riding the dwarven airship.”

Anton ran to the window, “Yes! It’s really flying!”

The rest of the crew ran to the window to look outside.

Keeva found Galette watching them while cleaning a newly vacant table, “Hi, Galette. Havin’ a good morning?”

Galette nodded and grunted in affirmation.

Keeva smiled and thought how it was kinda cute how Galette was answering, “Mind taking my order?”

Galette nodded again, and Keeva gave her her order.

Keeva moved the Mk. II along the side of the dwarven airship where Evan was looking over the railing on the deck, “Morning! Surprised to see you with the dwarves.”

Evan sighed, “They accosted me on my way to Shina’s and insisted they take me with them to the expedition meeting spot.”

“Cool. I’ll let the others know. I just ordered breakfast for everyone, so if there’s anything you want…”

Evan nodded, “I’ll let you decide.”

Keeva ordered the Japanese style breakfast for him, “Done.” She walked over to the window, “I ordered breakfast for everyone.”

Becky turned to Keeva just long enough to give her a smile and say, “Thanks!”

Charlotte leaned through the window, “I see it!”

The airship wasn’t big, maybe a third the size of Luna, so it was hard to see until it had flown high enough to crest Ildathach’s wall.

Becky squinted, groaned, then laughed, “Is that a pirate ship?”

The ship looked like an armor-clad pirate ship without sails or masts, and had a fishbowl where the ship’s steering wheel should be. A dwarf sat inside, operating several levers and foot pedals. There were also several spheres protruding from the bottom and aft that protected the anti-grav crystals that lifted and propelled the ship.

Anton put his hands on his hips and beamed with pride, “I made the dwarves into sky pirates!”

Keeva laughed, “No, the Three Stooges will steal it, and then it’ll be a sky pirate ship.”

Charlotte gave Keeva a scowl, her ears pulled back, and tail swishing angrily, “Don’t give them ideas!”

The airship cleared the wall and descended to where Luna had made it’s landing spot.

Everyone but Keeva and Charlotte ran outside.

Keeva turned to Charlotte, “You’re not going?”

Charlotte shook her head, “No. I… there… I… I don’t like being around Adventurers.”

Keeva wasn’t surprised, and waved her to an empty table, “Alright. Let’s let the others have their fun. I wanna check on the Builder while I eat.”

Charlotte studied Keeva for a second, “You’re not tired of always doing so many things?”

Keeva shook her head, “Naw. My machine brain does most of the background stuff. My meat brain’s sorta like the supervisor and watches and tells it what to do while getting to relax and focus on the more fun stuff.”

Charlotte didn’t look like she completely understood, “Okay. I don’t think I would like that.”

Keeva shrugged, “Takes a while to get used to.”

Keeva chatted with Charlotte about what it was like until the food came, after which she focused on the Mk. II as it made its way to see if the Builder was home yet.

By the time the others came back, including Niamh, an irritated Keeva greeted them, “Builder’s still gone… Looks like we’re on our own against the evil spirits.”

Niamh stepped forward, a smile on her face, “I found something last night after looking through the items we procured during the raid of the evil spirit’s base in Ildathatch that might help, but we have to return to Luna.” She turned to Anton, “Your help would also be appreciated.”

Anton looked uncomfortable at being singled out by Niamh, but it soon turned to curiosity, “Okay.”

Niamh nodded in approval, “Good! The item in question is hidden in my home. We should have time to finish it before the expedition arrives at the target.”

Keeva nodded, “Alright! Just gotta wait until the Gateway recharges.”

Anton’s face turned impatient, “What’d ya find?”

Niamh looked around the room, “That is better left unsaid in a place such as this.”

Keeva nodded her agreement, “Whatever it is, we’ll make sure the evil spirits aren’t happy about it.”

 Almost done with evil spirits. After that, it's the Meatballs and Dregasi before heading back to the Milky Way. So... getting close to finishing then getting to work on the story from the polls. I'll probably take a month off of posting to work on backstories and world building.