Harmonia, Lab Space
It isn't really a lab, just another storeroom that's been converted for use. It has a quarantine zone where only robots operate, and stations with scientific gear that was originally brought by Dr. Zerachiel.

When Tasha and Shojo arrive, they find Katie and Remiel watching a display, as a progmat robot inserts a probe into oozy alien flesh. Neesa is actually watching the process through the sapphire glass wall that delineates the quarantine area.

"It looks like we're late to the party," Tasha remarks to Shojo. The two became closer after their heated talk and subsequent cooldown period. While concerns remained on both sides, the two Vartans at least have found a place to move forward from and some part of the means to be mroe useful to each other. The hybrid in particular has been mulling over what was said, about leadership and what is leadership, and about her personal failings that seem to have grown -- or resurfaced she's not quite sure -- over then past few months. That she's under inordinate pressure hasn't helped things.

"Sorry we're late," the teen offers, deciding to lead off with an apology as a first step to acting better, " ... how is it going?"

"Weird," Remiel says. "Still haven't found what the goo is for, exactly. Pretty sure this things uses a charged cold plasma for blood."

Katie smiles to Tasha, and comments, "It's a giant pancake made of smaller pancakes made of living semi-conductor. But I may be mistaken. Pancake biology was never as interesting as waffle biology."

"That would make the goo syrup," Neesa offers, not even the tiniest inflection of humor in her delivery. For a mage, the notion of giant flying breakfast foods of doom probably isn't that outlandish.

Tasha returns the smile; she even blushes, though it's difficult to tell given how red she already is. "Well, anything practical to our project, then?" The young woman advances to join Neesa, knowing from long experience she won't understand what's on the displays and opting for the visual tour.

"Well.. not yet," Remiel admits. "Pretty sure it's some sort of silicon-carbide based lifeform, which would primarily be using electricity for energy. But.. fine tissue analysis needs to be done on it. Some of this stuff could be brain matter, or a distributed network nervous system. There doesn't seem to be a lot of physical differentiation, but that could just mean there was computational differentiation instead. It doesn't seem to use the same rules as the critters on Sheol do though. It may have developed in the absence of an atmosphere.."

"Basically nothing's come up yet about how it energized or grew that magic crystal," Katie translates.

"I think I understood most of that, too," Tasha informs Katie, nodding to her. She turns to Remiel and says, "Should I begin herding experiments, then? Give you time to work while I manage things from the bridge? I can still pilot the ship, be here and, well, be everywhere really, from there."

"You shouldn't spread yourself too thin, Tasha, it's bad for your brain," Remiel notes. "But it would be good to practice herding from a distance with Harmonia's maser. We'll definitely need to study a live one of these creatures to figure out what's going on."

Tasha nods to that as well, wrinkling her nose at the mention of things bad from her brain. It seems, to her, she has engaged in a lot of poor brain health activities in her short lifetime -- especially recently. "I'll take it easy then, Remy. If I stand here and space out, you'll know why!" She then glances to Shojo. "Want to come to the bridge or stay here and enjoy all the science?"

Tasha's muzzle splits in to a grin. "Well, it's definitely worth seeing! This way." She reachs over to squeeze Katie's arm as she walks by, then heads for the door leading Shojo on to the conveyor that leads to the bridge -- at least when directed to do so.

The Vartan observes the passing scenery in silence. The flowing molten floor may or may not make him uncomfortable - his condition makes it impossible to tell. The bridge itself, with its huge open space and infinite gears does seem to give him pause. "It is very large for only seating a single person," he comments.

Tasha bobs her head to this; she thought so too, once upon a time. "It's Khattan. What I mena is, the design and cultural drive are Khattan. The culture of the Khattan Trade Emirate likes to flaunt its power, wealth, and automation as a source of pride. Since this would be a waste of space on a ship like the Bellerophon, the idea is that by having such a wide open space and so much detail, the Trade Lord or who ever designed Harmonia could show their superiority." Rounding the command dias and ascending the steps, she then turns and drops back in to the chair. Part of her wonders at the power behind Harmonia, but if that power menat her harm or control then she had long since dropped herself in its cluctches and it's a bit late to worry about it now.

The fanciful brass and crystal connection arm unfolds from behind the seat and connects to Tasha's skull. "Welcome back to the bridge, Captain," the voice of Harmonia purrs out loud, since it sees Tasha isn't alone.

"It's still funny being called 'Captain,'" Tasha admits, glancing to Shojo with an apologetic shrug she hopes conveys her sense of not having demanded the title. "Not that I don't like you, Harmonia, but you know how I feel about captaining a sentient being and beyond that I don't feel ready for the title." She sucks in a breath and settles back in; feel like it or no, she's still in charge. "Well, I'll just sya what I'm doing then. Main screen, display externals with broad spectrum overlays as needed. Ready the maser array. Spawn ProgMat avatar in sector ... Uhm ... 31G central repository and guide it to 'Lab 1'."

The big squashed-sphere of a space becomes a giant display, showing the area of the volcano. Like the display in the conference room, it shows the movements of the smaller crab creatures. There's no telling how many there actually are though, since they vanish and appear through various openings in the ground. They seem to avoid the actual active areas of vulcanism though, mostly keeping to the crash site of the giant creature.

The display isn't necessarily for Tasha's use, either, as she can have teh entire situation projected directly in to her mind. As it is, she limits herself to simply augmenting her vision to give her brain 'a break.' "We'll repeat the earlier tests and then try and direct them using a list approach, I think. We'll go through the spectrum and and frequency and all the rest and see what we get. Once that's done, we'll see about directing them to do things."

Elsewhere on the ship, ProgMat Tasha steps in to the makeshift Lab and offers a little wave. Tasha doesn't really see from its eyes, of course it's all a simulation. She can just as well see from the ceiling, or from a whole-ship view where she might move an army of herself around like pieces of a game board. As it is she maintains a little window from her avatar's view, letting her interact without seeming too robotic.

Harmonia isolates a group that is breaking down part of the giant. False-color overlays show which bands and pulse rates are being used, along with power-on-target. For a while nothing seems to be happening, and then the creatures all being to move in inward-facing circles. They don't drop what they're carrying though.

"It reminds me of my earliest experiences with machinery, pushing all the buttons and wondering if I broke something," the Captain admits. "It's more unsettling when dealing with living things."

To relieve herself of some of the unsettling feeling, Tasha directs her avatar to stand beside Katie. Wgen she's not looking, she redirects the ProgMat format in to a copy of Katherine herself, waiting to stick her tongue out when the other woman looks over.

Katie does eventually look over. She raises her ears, and then goes into an odd act.. raising her hands, striking poses, and so on, as if she expects the copy to mirror them.

Obligingly, Tasha has the avatar go through the motions. She doesn't direct them personally -- that would require direct mapping and she isn't sure should could even move Katherine's form without immediately falling over -- so she relies on director control. In this state she merely gives orders to a drone, not unlike what she plans to do with the hovering creatures. When the rountine ends, the figure says, "I never tried this before. They can look like anything, right?" And then the avatar is Neesa. "From Fudgy," Remiel, " ... to Remy." And then it's Tasha again.

Meanwhile, Harmonia has found a few other frequencies to elicit responses from the crabs. So far, the library of commands includes 'turn', 'up', 'down', 'left' and 'right' - but not reverse or anything to change the angle of the creature or control its actual limbs.

"That's interesting, I wonder if they have to maintai their alignment with the ground to maintain their anti-grav? Alignment towards mass. I wonder what would happen if there were two massive objects. Oh well, we don't have those lying around." Tasha makes a note of progress, then switches back to the lab.

"I don't think so. Not far anyway, all energy is beamed and local battery power is minimal," the avatar responds. It turns to watch the show, although it's mainly for Katie's benefit. "I miss this sort of functionality on the Dark Horse. Being able to be everywhere is very handy."

"Multitasking is a myth," Remiel notes. "It just means you're doing multiple things less effectively than if you'd done them one at a time."

"Instant golems can be useful though," Neesa counters. "They can usually be a bit autonomous. Although the talking door handles I can do without. I remember someone tried to make singing teapot that actually still served tea by itself. It ended up swearing and spraying hot water all over the place. Then it exploded."

"Ah ha, but my dear Remiel," counters Remiel ... from a copy of Remiel in remiel's voice, " ... but if I wasn't connected I couldn't be on the bridge running oversight and here teasing all of you. What do you say to that?" The avatar then crosses its arms and assumes a unsettlingly accurate reflection of Remiel's questioning expression, straight from Tasha's memory. The avatar then becomes Neesa, though not nearly as accurae in her expression and motion. "See? Fudg-- Neesa supports me. I have the backing of the College."

"You must not be doing much on the bridge then," Remiel counters. "And Neesa's stories always end with something exploding, I think. She has explosion envy, as a Dream Mage."

"Hey, I've made thinks explode before," Neesa counters, crossing her arms. "Not by magic, admittedly. But really, they didn't have to ban me from the kitchen."

"I think you should convert one of the empty spaces here into a soundstage, and hire it out for filming movies that need realistic monsters," Katie suggests.

"To be fair, a lot of mine do too," the avatar of Neesa insists. It then resumes beign Tasha, who spreads her hands. "There's not much for me to do. I'm running a broad item-by-item list check. I can't exactly adjust the maser array by hand, you know."

To Katie, Tasha Avatar explains, "Well, Harmonia isn't common knowledge. Even the nations only know a little about her. You get to know because, uh," the replica wrings its hands in a particularly cliche manner, " ... because I'm recruiting you?"

The avatar glances to Remiel after and nods. "Yes. Directional control except attitude. So far no way to make them tilt or use their hands-- tentacles? Maybe they require more complicated signals? Like a -- what did Nora call them? -- a ... basket? A signal basket?"

"Or those aren't part of the system that controls the toporgic," Remiel suggests. "It just may not be possible to completely remote-control them."

"That will make having them do things difficult, but maybe that have a 'default setting' for anything they're directed at? If they are drones, then they may be drones for a special purpose and already have their commands loaded for working with a certain set of situations." The avatar holds up a balled fist, directing it to its other hand, whichis full of wavy fingers. "Like resource extraction or cleanup. I always thought they were some kind of 'terraforming device'."

On the bridge Tasha lifts her head off her hand and tells Shojo, "I'm now switching to the control experiment. I'm narrowing the beam and selecting a target ... Uhm ... that one." A particular hover snail is highlighted in a recticle, helpfully, "And lets see if we can move it around." A distant spot is highlighted with an arrow and commands are sent.

The targeted creature moves about as commanded. Varying the strength of the signal seems to affect speed - stronger means faster. When it's far enough away from the others, Harmonia stops the signal to see what it does.. and after a minute or so the flyer starts heading back to where it started from. "I have not isolated a signal that tells it to stay in one spot yet," Harmonia apologizes.

Tasha scruncheds up her muzzle. "Well, lets keep trying to find that. We'll direct it back and then try signals until it stays. Maybe we'll even find the signal that tells it to 'do something,' and even 'do something with the something,' because they seem to be collecting the wreckage. If they're not eating it, then mnaybe they're using it for something. That reminds me, we should send a probe and let them try and gather it. Then we can see what they're doing down there." Tasha glances to Shoji and asks, "Any ideas, 'AI II'?"

"You don't have to make it stop," Shojo suggests. "You merely need to create a state of dynamic equilibrium by sending alternating low power movement signals that cancel each other, so that it is constantly moving back and forth very slowly over very short distances."

"A probe would need to be placed into something already being carried," Harmonia replies. "This is done by isolating a creature that is carrying something, immobilizing it, then inserting the probe into its burden before releasing it."

Tasha nods slowly. "That sounds like something you've learned to do." She glances towards the display and the advice becomes reality. "I hate to tire them out by making them move constantly, that might be a problem later, but who knows how they work? Maybe constant motion is more efficent for them." She pauses to listen to the next set of advice, this from Harmonia, and nods again. "Shojo, feel like a mission?"

"Do we have any probes?" Shojo asks. "We would need to be near the entrance to the tunnel in order to maintain contact with it, due to the interference. Unless it can be cabled."

"I can order their manufacture. In fact I already did, ETC is about four minutes." Tasha reaches up and rubs her nose. "The core systems are being build now from space materials but there's time to add extras I'll attach some high strength wiring and assign it to a spool connected to a transmitter unit. Your datapad should be able to interface with it -- I'll add that. Done!"

"The radiation from the maser will not be high enough to penetrate your armor," Harmonia notes.

"I'll be keeping a close eye on you, don't worry," Tasha ssures the Vartan. "I know I was a little, um, excited earlier but I take the safety of my people very seriously. I'm going to be anxious, though. Be careful."

"It should be simple to isolate our operating area for the duration of the scan," Shojo points out.

Tasha nods to this, head going back on her hand after. "While I haven't been doing it, it should be able to direct a large amount of the creatures. I can keep them away from the site. If things look dangerous, I can always switch the maser to much higher power and adjust the wavelengths in to something fearsome. I know the maser can destroy aircraft."

Back in the lab, Tasha's avatar annoucnes, "Remiel, Shojo will be departing to deliver a prode to one of the creatures, in order to give us a look at what's going on down in the holes. I thought you'd want to know." The rather robotic copy of Tasha gestures towards a nearby wall and a smaller version of the bridge display blossoms to life. "You can monitor progress and activity here. The probe is under construction now."

"That should be useful," Remiel says. "I assume you're going to use the Basket, then. We'll need to put in a signal generator when it's time to capture one of the things."

"I can order that construction too." The avatar turns to appear to study the wall display, then points. "Shojo will deploy to this isolated 'hover snail' that has been heading in and out of this," a dark spot is highlighted, " ... hole. The round trip is about ten minutes each leg. We don't know if it's waiting down there and the hole is shallow, or if that's how long the whole trip is taking and it heads back immediately, so I've arranged for the heavy duty wiring to extend a ways over ten minutes worth of the creature's observed max speed."

"How close can you land the basket to that hole?" Remiel asks. "We'll have to see if they react to it."

"If active denial is used to restrict movement towards the area, then I can place the basket as close as you like," Harmonia responds.

The avatar lowers its heada nd spreads its hands. "There you go. I'm already preparing a test site and have dispatched the basket. We'll have results on the denial test well before the basket gets anywhere near the site."

On the bridge, Tasha lefts her free hand and waggles it at Shojo. "Go ahead and get ready, suit up, use the bathroom and whatever you need to do now. You'll be departing from ... " Her ears flick. " ... Pad Two, hangar bay. There are some weapons on board if you feel like you'll need them."

"I prefer to flee than try to engage an enemy whose response will be unknown," Shojo says, and then exits the bridge. The Basket is on its way, with some overlapping circles to delineate the separate microwave beams being used for 'propulsion' and for creature control. At the moment, Harmonia has allocated six beams for defense, since there never seems to be more than that many of the flyers in the area of interest.

With Shojo off the bridge Tasha switches to a stronger focus on command utility, the display changing to multiple angels and even a top down display. The creatures and all objects of interest are highlighted and she switches her mode of thinking to one more in line with the disembodied sense of control that the neural link encourages. Despite it all, her free hand drums along the arm rest. She's never remained behind in command, having sent another in her place.

In the lab her avatar walks to a corner, turns, and leans back. Its expression becoms pleasant but not entirely natural to the person whose shape it has taken. "I'm devoting more of my mind to watching the operation, okay? So Ii'm releasing director control and switching to audio and will be watching from a more standard view." It points towards the ceiling.

After loitering in the area, only a few of the crabs seem to take notice of the Basket by slowing down as they pass it. If it's over their path, they alter course to go around its shadow as well.

The avatar remarks, "There's something important in how they align and relate to the closest massive object." The overview screen neary shows one of the crabs evading the pass over. "I think they might sense mass and use it to navigate? They must also see around them somehow. But as you can see they don't react except to avoid it. They may consider it another one of themselves."

The view of the hangar shows Shojo arrive in his armor. A mobile palette has the probe and its fiberoptic spool. The probe itself is not elegant - sensors are exposed, with the battery and other guts just held in a simple cage, with a barbed spike coming out of the back for embedding into the odd inorganic flesh of the fallen behemoth.

The hangar resounds with Tasha's voice. "Sorry the probe isn't up to Khattans standards. I'll try and make sure the next one is gold plated with filigree next time. The basket is returning and will arrive in five. Want a chair?"

"It may explain why their motion is controllable," Remiel suggests. "The maser may not be giving it commands so much as altering its perception of where it is or what's around it."

"I am fine without one," Shojo notes. "The armor is self supporting." Most of the parts of the probe are Expedition make, using some of the spare parts supply that was brought back from Orpheus. The cable is probably Silent-Ones in origin.

The avatar pus a finger to its chin, head tilting. "I know worlds produce heat, but do they produce other EM spectra? Or reflect it, they must reflect it," it muses. "I wish I could remember my lessons. How much of Nora and Fred will I lose, Remy?"

Tasha's voice again fills the bay. "Well, if you need anything else let me know. I finished the denial and basket checks and everything looks good for touching you down. Don't do anything I'd do."

"Depends on how much you exercise the knowledge," Remiel notes. "Different worlds have all sorts of EM phenomena. They even sing."

The avatar frowns. "So some will remain, the rest is probably going to vanish." Its head tilts the other way. "Sing? Do you mean gravity or actual sound?"

"Radio waves," Remiel explains. "You usually have to very close to hear it though, and bigger worlds tend to be louder. Everything from soothing chimes to... wails that give you nightmares."

"I think I know those wails." The avatar shrugs in a measured sort of way. "The singing too. Maybe the wailing ones are the ones with you-know-what." And then it wiggles its fingers.

The hangar door irises open, and the Picnic Basket lowers. Once it's down, Shojo steps in and closes the cargo door. "I am ready," he reports.

"Then you're on your way," the hangar insists in a cheery tone. The basket lifts off and Tasha shifts even mroe of her focus to the mission at hand.

Several minutes pass, and the Basket sets down near the chosen hole. The door stays closed, however. One of the crabs exits the hole and flies off. It isn't until one approaches carrying a chunk of island-monster that Harmonia uses the masers to stop it and lower it close to the ground. Only then does the door open to allow Shojo to exit.

Tasha's voice has migrated to Shojo's powered armor. It rings from his helmet. "Harmonia command, I know you can hear me Shojo. Your suit is reporting your vitals and I have your positionals, just fine. You're cleared to go about things." She almost thinks to add, 'don't pet the aliens,' but it makes her think of Gabriel -- which hurts enough -- but also how many times he had to remain back while she marched off to inevitably get in trouble. That makes her stomach twist, her teeth chewing in to her lip. If she had only known ...

It takes a few minutes for Shojo to make his way to the crab. He doesn't bother looking left or right, relying on Harmonia's overwatch. His camera does show just how big the things are - it's the first close up view that's not from the perspective of a Titan. The surface of the creature shows signs of erosion, scarring and cracking. The Vartan raises the probe and stabs it into the hunk of meat the creature is grasping, then turns his back to it to set the spool at the edge of the hole.

Watching and waiting is as unpleasant as Tasha anticipated, even though nothing is happening. She decides she's firmly of the do rather than command mindset, possibly and partially just to avoid this unpleasantness. It's so much easier to her to be doing it herself, where mistakes mostly just hurt her. At least she's satisfied with Shojo's performance, even impressed by his ability to logically deduce his safety and act on that deduction. She leans in when he turns his back, however; the gesture pure anxiety.

"Probe placed. Live feed directed to display." The lab's own view spawns another subwindow, this of the monsterous floating creature. "There's a lot of surface damage, they might be very old."

"Could be corrosion from our atmosphere," Remiel notes. "We'll have to try and date it when we get the chance." Meanwhile, Shojo continues running the spool-connection line back to the Basket. Once he's back inside, the door closes partially and Harmonia reports that she is ready to release the alien.

"I though Eli was the one that needed the date," the avatar remarks, smiling a in a plastic sort of way. The joke helps -- just a little.

The mental order to release the alien is give shortly after. "Feeling okay, Sho?" Tasha inquires.

"A bit warm," Shojo says. "Very alert as well. No warnings on the radiation detector however."

"Warm?" Tasha's mind brings up the suit's environmental readings. "Keep me informed. Remy is watching, too." The young woman vows to contact Gabriel immediately after this and apologize. Profusely.

A minute or so after the control beam is dropped, the crab begins to move on its own again, heading into the hole. The probe displays lidar and sonar mapping of the tunnel, along with infrared and chemical analysis of the air. No active sensors though, due to the power limits of the battery and necessity of not making 'noise' that its bearer might notice.

The air in the tunnel is quite nasty - full of sulfur and volcanic gasses, as well as levels of odd elements like cadmium and selenium, which aren't usually gaseous.

"That doesn't sound very roboty," Tasha chides, though she smiles on the bridge. "I'm drumming my fingers and chewing on my lip, if that helps any." The probe feed erupts in the young woman's mind and appears as a rectangular sub-display full of readings and imaging. She can't make sense of it all, or even most of it, but the bizarre elemental traces are highlighted against expected values. "Odd, the tunnel's really unpleasant, but it's also not what crust surveys would predict for a volcanic or drilled hole."

"Something else may be producing the chemicals," Remiel suggests. "Metabolic byproducts of the creatures, maybe.."

Five minutes in, the tunnel seems to dead end. The hunk of flesh is dropped, and cameras show the crab retreating back up the tunnel. Then the 'wall' moves, revealing it to be another creature - one with a face like a tunnel-boring machine. A rather horrific feeding tube extends and begins grinding and consuming the flesh.. right up to the point where it eats the probe.

"Sooo.." Katie comments. "I guess they still serve a master, just a different one now?"

"I wish I knew what that would mean. Do you, Remy? At the very least it seems like it's a creature from this reality, or at least a reality like ours. Probably not a planet like this one. Can't you get a rough idea what planet it might be from, from its combination of structural materials?" The avatar cocks its head in question; it's lifelike enough, but clearly a generic motion. Tasha could have it use more lifelike one's based on her own behavior, but having it appear robotic serves her purpose in showing her attention is elsewhere. "With that maybe we coul go to the planet annnnn-" The remark cuts off when the new creature appears.

A second later and the avatar remarks, "Wow. Okay. Maaaybe. We've never seen those before. Remy, can you get anything on them from the brief scans?"

"Nothing much," Remiel notes. "If I had to guess though? That may be the larval form of the island-monster, which means they're working to make a new one. Like how worker bees can create a new queen."

"A new one. Well, I hope the new one doesn't think too poorly of us for what happened to the last one. We shouldn't interfere with this, though. It is our fault the last one is gone." The avatar taps its nose, twice. "We can attempt to communicate with it later but this suggests the small ones and large one form a whole. It also makes me think the smaller oen is communicating on a level we haven't tried, especially given they avodi anything that blocks their line to the ground. Harmonia?" Head goes up. "Are you detecting any control from the surface, from where the head was spotted, or elsewhere?"

"There are no EM emissions in play that I can detect," Harmonia reports. "This does not preclude other particles or non-local modes of data exchange."

"Could even be chemical," Remiel suggests. "We need a live, captive specimen to determine more, I think."

The avatar frowns, matching Tasha's own on the dias. "More quantum tangles and mysterious data lines," the copy remarks. "Well, time for that later. I'm recalling Shojo and preparing a capture plan."

Shojo's helmet rings with Tasha's voice once again. "Sho, abandon the cable and get ready to head back. We can get more cable."

The end of the cable is ejected from the Basket, and the door closes fully as Harmonia reels the platform back in with the maser.

"Shojo's on his way back. When he's half way I'm going to direct three of the creatures in to formation with us and engage planetary drive. The triangle spread will let me keep the greatst amount of masers on each of them," the avatar reports.

"I think we have enough to build a containment system for one of the creatures," Remiel says. "Whether we can keep it alive long enough to learn more is unknown."

"You'll need to guide me through to production, or else I can assign a task to your ID for your use in constructing it," the avatar explains. Helpfully, part of the wall near Remiel lights up in the ship's default logo and idle console colors. "Should I direct Sho to you for review? You already have his vitals and scan data available, same as I do. Oh," the replica holds up one finger to indicate pause, " ... Shojo is at the correct distance. I am already capturign the three, they are mocing in to formation and moderate speed."

"Better just grab one," Remiel says. "It'll be best if we use our own gear to set up the radio field, that way it'll be portable and use power sources we're familiar with. I've got the specs here from Harmonia."

The avatar cocks its head again. "Only one? I can maintain several others externally in formation. If the one we capture dies, we'd have to return. But it's up to you Remy, just be aware we may not have time for a return." It lifts its rigth hand, pointing at the console. "Design control has been released to the workstation I've assigned to you." Inwardly Tasha wonders at how she steadily sounds less like herself and more like, well, like Harmonia or other ship's interfaces the longer she engages in neural interface use, but she chalks it up to being Vartan: when in a culture, act like that culture, fit in. She's fitting in to being the ship's voice.

"We've brought what we expected to need, so it shouldn't take long to assemble the 'leash' for one of these things. And remember, they are large. We still have to keep it environmentally isolated until we know what chemicals and radiation it produces. We don't need to keep it alive for long.. just long enough to observe how it interacts or produces the toporgic."

"So if you're going to bring one here, be sure to bring it in through the ventral hangar," Remiel concludes.

"I'll maintain the otehr two at a safe distance until we have the one under control, then, as backups and to monitor them for any reaction or reaction from the underground." The display flicks, showing the ventral hangar bay. Even now Remiel can see machinery assembling for the production of the cage and the control mechanisim, while unused bulkheads have sealed with their emergency doors. "Shojo is landing. We can begin at any time. I'll remain on the bridge to keep an eye on everything. I can't react fast enough, in person."

It takes nearly two hours, but at the end of it one of the crabs is ensconced in the cage, and kept in place with the pulses from the portable radar unit attached to the cage itself. The alien is still huge, comparatively speaking - nearly 25 meters across and half as thick at the center, a flying saucer with legs, claws and tentacles.

"It looks like the strangest spaceship," the avatar remarks as it 'watches' this display. On the bridge Tasha has curled in to a ball, largely for comfort, eyes close with data feeds filling her mind's eye. "But everything looks stable and Harmonia confirms it my assessment. I have released the other two and engaged drives, we are underway. The return trip will be the same as the departure, though I think you'll all be busy with the new JEF mascott. I'm going to report to Gabriel we're underway, then drop my control to minimal and engage dialation."

After tucking her head under her wing, Tasha makes contact with Bellerophon -- albiet with difficulty given Harmonia's relocation. "Hi Gabriel ..," it's all audio except a little icon attached to it showing Tasha's stylized head and what appears to be an equally stylized Terragen's captain's hat, complete with a little flying watch badge on the front. She made it during a lull in ship's activity, to cheer him up. "I am very, very sorry."

The response isn't immediate - partly due to the differing relativistic timeframes involved. "Has something gone wrong?" Gabriel replies, his voice slightly distorted.

"Yes," Tasha answers, a few images being sent along of Shojo on the ground -- and safely back. "I got to play captain, sending someone down. I was chewing my lip off. I'm so sorry. I didn't know what it was like, having to stay behind!"

"Because all the times I went down and wasn't thinking of what it was like!" Tasha's groan doesn't carry over, nor her chewing of her lip. "Or how it must have been when I was in the tank, or ... or ... gods, I don't know Gabe, but I'm sorry for all of it! I'm sorry for being short sighted, I'm sorry for being insensitive. I'm sorry for not being around."

"It's alright," Gabriel says. "You weren't trained, or taught how to deal with this."

Tasha's ears flatten. "Come on Gabe, yell at me a bit. You sound so tired. Tell me what I can do. Tell me where I've gone wrong, and I'll fix it."

"You can't fix everything, Tasha," Gabriel says. "That is the key lesson of leadership. You can't predict every outcome, and you can't go back. You do need more patience though. Take more time to narrow down the possible outcomes. There's no need to rush if rushing doesn't solve anything."

Another sigh, but Tasha pushes herself to sit up and take the advice -- literally and figuratively.

"I understand, I think. And I think I'm going to try and lead from the rear for a while. Watching Shojo down there, alone, with only Harmonia and I to watch over him made me think, made me slow down. Because I had too, it wasn't me anymore." She sits back, looking skyward at the oddly colored world. "I'll work on it. There's a lot I need to fix; at least I can fix myself. Well ... " There's a puse, though it's not communication lag. "Harmonia reporting: tests and capture succesful, we are returning."