The scientists near the anomaly packed up the last of their monitoring equipment, working in efficient tandem, the sounds of their voices a low buzz.

"Cutting it a little fine, aren't you?" Jennifer asked.

One of them looked up, a young looking thing with an unfocused face and hair the colour of fine dirt. "We wanted to record as much as we could right up until the moment we left. This is very exciting data. Our readings constantly change as the anomaly does. Do you realise..."

Jennifer sighed. "I imagine you're about to tell me how meaningful this research is, but I get meaning from protecting your lives. Please, gentle creatures, hurry it up."

The man grumbled and turned back to his work. Beside Jennifer, Lily Bow laughed.

The vans that Mr Ash had provided for this job were filling up quickly with equipment and people. Unpleasant work, for sure, with the anomaly crackling only 50 metres from them, but at least efficient.

Jennifer squinted at the anomaly. Looking at it, over-bright and hard to understand, hurt her whole face. She looked away again and tried to ignore its too present noise and heat, the strange purple light that danced across the ground in front of it.

She ignored the temptation to yell at the researchers to go faster. Instead she pulled out her communication device and contacted Dr Fortuna.

"Captain?" Fortuna said.

Jennifer assumed her voice implied complete shock at being contacted. Certainly, she shouldn't get too used to it. Jennifer cleared her throat and said, "I may have to make a small appointment with you later."

"I'm surprised. I wouldn't have expected you were someone who welcomed psychological advice."

"Oh, I'm not. I would prefer people to keep themselves out of my head. Unfortunately, I think the physical stress of standing so near the anomaly might have an effect on my temperament and I would prefer not to take that out on the crew. You can advise me about meditation or, oh," Jennifer said, waving a hand through the air, "chanting or breathing exercises if that's what it takes. No need to ask about my childhood."

Dr Fortuna was silent for an uncomfortably long moment. Jennifer looked around at the organised chaos, and at Solaris at her side, tall and poised as she contributed to folding up some sort of device.

"That's acceptable, I suppose," Dr Fortuna said.

"I do have respect for your..."

The anomaly grew too loud for Jennifer to hear her own voice. It reached out limbs of lighting, and then they were running, and then with a crack Jennifer found herself in a different place.

A quiet place, abandoned, plants growing through the buildings around her.

Jennifer turned to check who had been displaced with her. Lily Bow, looking entirely unruffled. Commander Solaris, still holding a piece of equipment. One of the researchers, his white hair standing straight up.

"Commander Solaris, report," Jennifer said.

"The street lights here are still on. We cannot be far from the town borders."

Jennifer nodded.

Lily stepped forward. "Oh, Captain, I know this place! I can help you find your way back."

*

The buildings along the street were empty homes, old cafes starting to fill with weeds and abandoned corner stores.

"I used to go there everyday," Lily said, pointing at one such hollow shell of a building. "I really liked their blue algae lattes. And there was a cat that used to appear in the late afternoon as the setting sun turned everything an orange-y gold."

Jennifer looked into the building to see what Lily was so nostalgic for. Unlike a lot of the buildings on the street nobody had removed the furniture or fittings when they left. This old cafe still had everything it must once have had – the pastel purple lacquered chairs and cheap plastic-looking tables, the ageing cappuccino machine, the white cups and saucers piled up on the counter.

"It must have been a nice place," Jennifer said.

She turned back to the path. Lily hadn't gone any further forward while waiting for her to come back from sneaking a look into what was left behind. Jennifer tried not to show her impatience with Lily's slow stroll and frequent pauses. She was a nice woman. There was no point making her feel worse about leaving her home.

"The owner was one of the later people to leave. He didn't want to go until enough people had gone he couldn't keep the business up anymore. It's sad, really," Lily said, eyes pointed up at the street lights, face lovely in spite of the ugly yellow-brown light washing over them all, "that this had to happen to such a lovely place."

Behind them, the white-haired scientist was silent, refusing to help.

"Sad, indeed," Jennifer said. "Commander Solaris, any luck reaching our crew?"

"Unfortunately not, Captain." Solaris closed her communication device and tucked it into her belt. "The anomaly continues to interfere with our communications. From this I draw the conclusion that we must be within a reasonable range of it."

"I still can't see the light from it," Jennifer said.

"Indeed. From that I draw the conclusion that neither are we too close."

Jennifer couldn't help but smile to herself.

*

Even from a distance Graham could hear the comms signal shorting out.

Joan Fortuna reeled from the device as it sent out a high pitched screech next to her ear, before it went silent. She held it at arms length and shook it. Nothing. She pulled it closer to peer at the display.

"This particular communication device is not in range. What does it mean it's not in range? The entirety of this rock should be in range," she said.

"Try Commander Solaris," he suggested.

"Why can't you try to reach her? Is your device not working?" Fortuna asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Maybe we need to check if your device isn't working," he said.

Fortuna heaved a breath and tried a different code number in her device. "That particular communication device is also not in range."

Graham swore under his breath and pulled his own comms device out, typing in Jen's numbers with hard jabs, but he couldn't reach her either.

He turned on the spot and walked from one end of the shuttle bus to the other, then back again, hand on his face. "Great, the anomaly got them. They're all going to die."

"They're not going to die," Fortuna said.

"Who's going to die?" asked councillor Ash from where he sat, strapped into his seat.

"Nobody," Fortuna said, her voice cold. "Murray and I are having communications problems."

"We've had lots of problems with medium to long range signals since the anomaly got bigger," Ash said. "I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Almost nobody goes missing."

Graham turned to glare at Ash, though Ash was already back in a rambling conversation with a young boy in the shuttle bus.

"We have to go looking for them," Graham said.

"I think you and I need to have a private talk a few metres away," Fortuna said, and grabbed his elbow to drag him away.

"Do you have an issue with Commander Solaris?" she hissed at him.

"I barely know her. How am I supposed to have an issue with her?"

"Answer the question, Mr Murray."

"I wouldn't have thrown Captain Li towards her if I had an issue with her."

Fortuna finally let him go. He crossed his arms and looked down at her. She crossed her arms and glared up.

"Thrown Commander Solaris at Captain Li in what way?" she asked.

Graham rolled his eyes. "I thought Captain Li would like to work with an officer as talented and as inquisitive about the universe as Commander Solaris was rumoured to be. Jen respects the pursuit of knowledge and appreciates competence. I assumed their working styles would be a good fit."

Fortuna deflated in front of him. "Ah, I see. I assume you've known the Captain for a long time."

"Since the academy. What about it?"

She stepped back and smirked. "You're quite cynical and paranoid, Mr Murray."

"Not as much as you."

"We should finish sending this load of residents up on the first shuttle," she said, and turned away.

"No, we should look for the Captain and Commander Solaris," Graham said. "Richards, take care of things here."

Richards, busy talking to one of the research team and fondling one of their strange devices, startled and looked over to them. "Uh, me?"

Fortuna put her hands on her hips and stepped in Graham's way again. "I believe our first priority should be..."

"If the Captain and her second in command cannot be reached I am the person in charge," Graham said. "So I say you and I go looking for the Captain and Richards takes charge of things here."

"You want to search the entirety of Rommys?" Fortuna asked.

*

The signs of former civilisation began to thin out but they reached a point in the road with signs saying they were reaching the limits of Miseriphae.

"Do you still have access to the map?" Jennifer asked.

"I promise, you don't need a map when you have me," Lily said.

Jennifer looked at Solaris, eyebrow raised, anyway. Solaris nodded.

"Though the provided map will not sync and allow us to check where we are in relation to the rest of Rommys, the electricity from the anomaly did not completely damage that part of the comms device's functions. I can see from the map that Miseriphae is not far from where we were before in Orphusville. However, I cannot tell which edge of the town this is. We have either walked closer to our party or further from it," Solaris said.

"That's not very helpful, Commander Solaris."

"I am unable to give you information I do not have, Captain."

Jennifer resigned herself to a longer walk. There did not seem to be any other options – the few vehicles they passed in the town had likely been abandoned long enough ago that the fuel would have gone off, and neither she nor Commander Solaris had had the foresight to carry some. If only the anomaly had given them visions of this unfortunate circumstance instead of only giving them headaches.

Jennifer allowed another approximate half hour of walking and vague conversation before she decided to check her comms device again. After a restart and a whining noise, it did start to search for signals again.

Once she was able to each The First Breath of Spring's distant signal and log in again, she tapped in Graham's code and hoped for the best. The night air was fresh in her lungs this far from the anomaly. It didn't feel so bad to breathe in and wait.

"Captain? Is that you?" he yelled, as soon as the secure call went through.

"No need to be so loud, Graham," she said.

"You're alive! We don't have to search the entire planet after all!" he said.

"Yes, I would hope you wouldn't attempt that. We seem to have just passed the edges of Miseriphae by foot on the Great Eastern Highway. Either we are coming towards you or getting further from you, but we'll find out one way or another when we hit the edges of the next town."

"We can get a car out to you," Graham said.

"Wait until we're more sure of where we are," Jennifer said.

In her peripheral vision Solaris was regularly switching between carefully scoping out their surroundings and checking on the status of her comms device.

"One way or another, it shouldn't take long," Jennifer said. "And, please, put me on speaker so I can advise Fortuna and Richards on the next steps as well."

"I told him not to search for you when we have urgent orders to assist with the evacuation, sir," Fortuna said. "And better search facilities aboard ship."

"Good woman. I think you might actually be a good influence on Section Leader Murray," Jennifer said.

"I would prefer to use my influence elsewhere," Fortuna said.

"Captain, I was able to sync with online maps using a non-UAP wireless protocol," Solaris said. "I do believe we are on the right path."

"I did tell you I knew where I was going," Lily said.

"Should I worry about this non-UAP protocol?" Jennifer asked.

"I have further encrypted my device to minimise the chance of information leakage long before this point. However, I understand the worry that with the damage from the anomaly this may be less secure. In addition, my device does not seem able to connect to ship's systems. I judged that the risk of information insecurity was lesser than the need to judge our position in space. If you would prefer me to..."

"That's an acceptable risk, Mr Solaris."

"Given the damage, this device will need to be wiped and reconfigured before we..."

"I would like you to give Section Leader Murray and Dr Fortuna our coordinates, first, so they can judge when we will return to the rescue mission."

"Yes, sir," Solaris said, her gaze turning to her feet.

"I'll let you use my device as yours is damaged." At Solaris's incredulous look Jennifer added, "If I could not trust you with this, I would not be able to trust you to be my second in command. Surely you're not surprised."

At North Port station they'd grasped hands. Solaris had to have seen enough of Jennifer's memories to have seen deep into the heart of who she really was. Why was it still so hard to settle into working together?