Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Six

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Ellie frowned a little at the question. "Yeah, I've talked to them. They're glad to know I'm okay. It's so strange how much older they are now, though." In the photos she'd seen, they both had a lot of gray hairs she didn't remember from before.

~~
Ethan looked amused. "The library's always open. You can stop by any time you want, as long as you don't get sugar on the books."

"On the bright side, it means everyone should be in a good mood for a while, hopefully," Ethan said. "Oh, and the station itself is fine, if you were wondering. Nobody tried to stab me while I was out there."

"We do now." Starr relied then shrugged. "The floor the crew used to be on was too damaged in the last fight to use until it's repaired, so we decided to move into first class and use those rooms."

~~~
Rigel liked hearing her giggle and headed for the ramp so they could go to 'town' together. (to Unity?)

Zara nodded. "Makes sense. That must have been a huge fight, to do so much damage. Slavers are awful."

They arrived on the floor where Zara would stay. It was less fancy than First Class, but still pretty nice. There were lounges and occasionally decorations along the hall, interspersed here and there by doors to rooms where people could stay.

Zara looked around curiously, admiring the spaciousness of the hallway. "I can stay in one of these rooms?" she asked Starr.

Starr nodded. "You can pick from any of these rooms. Slavers are horrible people, we killed most of them including their leader in that fight. They tried to kill us for rescuing one of our people and escaping them twice before." She said as she looked at Zara. "I have been captured three times, escaping with my friends' help each time. When you are a part of this crew, we will do all we can to keep you safe or help you to escape if we are taken. We are family of sorts now." She was honest on this part, though still wouldn't tell what she and her people were. Not until she felt she could trust her or someone accidentally was seen.

"I'm sorry. That you were targeted like that, I mean. I haven't heard of many slavers who were so fixated on one group before," Zara said, with sympathy. She wondered if the attacks had been related to the powers some of the crew had, Starr had mentioned that some of them had magic after all.
She smiled a little at the reassurance though. "I'm not too worried. If you guys have fought them off before, then you can do it again. And if it comes to a battle, I'll do my part. That's what a crew's for, right?"
She headed for one of the doors, although she made sure to keep Starr in sight.

Starr smiled softly and nodded, following her "Yes that's what a crew is for." She agreed, wondering if she would like this room. There were certainly plenty to pick from.

The room wasn't as big as the ones in First Class were, but it was comfortably furnished and had an adjoining bathroom and a large closet.

Zara didn't seem bothered by the fact that it was smaller than the First Class suites, on the contrary, she seemed pretty impressed. She set down her backpack on the floor, and spent a few minutes investigating the place.
"It's wonderful," she told Starr. "A lot of ships have tiny rooms or bunk beds, nothing like this."

Starr chuckled and nodded "Our original crew rooms were smaller than this, but since we decided to let people sleep wherever, we have the large rooms and these."

"Must have been a nice upgrade," Zara said. "Those suites in First Class are really something."
She hesitated then added, "You know, if there's anything you need to be getting back to, then I don't want to keep you away from it. I saw when you guys were disembarking, and it looked like you had kids, maybe? I wouldn't want to keep you from them."

Starr smiled softly and nodded "I have five kids." She said then chuckled softly "Four are adopted, but still mine." She looked to the camera "Can you figure out what job would best fit her and what it would entail?" She asked Vestia

Zara's expression softened. "Four adopted kids? That's wonderful, there are so many kids out there who deserve a family."

Vestia's camera tilted to look at Starr in response to her question. "Yes, I can help her find a job, no problem."

Zara looked up to the camera. "Sounds good to me." She looked to Starr again, "You should definitely catch up with your kids. Especially since it seemed like you hadn't seen them in a while."

Vestia nodded her camera in agreement. Although she hoped she would get a chance to talk to Star as well, because she wanted to discuss how they were going to handle having a new person on board, and keeping everything secret from her.

"Why would anyone stab you?" Esk asked incredulously. "it's a science station. full of accademics." He was a little slower on the uptake these days, he wasn't really running at his usual capacity.
He shook his head. "I'm sure i'll see it at some point. Whether I want to or not."

Ethan shrugged. "Hey, someone shot Dawn on that other space station. And one time some cop got pissed at me for not wearing a badge. Some space stations are pretty sketchy, so this one was a nice surprise."
"Maybe you can convince the doctors to come see you instead of you going to them," he suggested.

Starr smiled softly and dipped her head. "Yes, there are many kids that need a good home. I guess I will see you later." She said, waving then turning for the door.

Zara nodded. "See you later. And thank you." She watched Starr head out, before turning her attention back to her tablet. If she was going to talk jobs with the ship, that would be the best way to do it.

Vestia watched Starr, waiting for her to be farther away. She wanted to talk to the dragon about this.

Starr walked down the hall, thinking about where the kids would be and if she should take the time to look up that info before finding them again.

Esk shrugged. "They have better equipment there to poke and prod me with." He rolled his eyes.

"Starr?" Vestia asked after a bit. "Are we going to try to keep our names and identities secret from her? And if so, how are we going to do it?"

~~
"True enough," Ethan said with a wince. "Sure to be lots of fun." He added, "Still, if it helps then I guess it's worth it."

Starr paused and looked to the camera before shrugging a little. "I think just not saying what we are should be sufficient. At least until she figures it out on her own. Secrets like this don't stay secret for long."

"Yeah, I guess not," Vestia said. "We'll just have to hope that if she figures it out, she won't tell anyone. Even if we did try to use fake names, we'd probably mess up eventually." She sighed. "You don't think she has dangerous magic, right?"

"She's hiding something, but I don't think it's too dangerous." Starr said with a shrug

"If you think she's safe, I guess that's good enough for me," Vestia decided. "I like giving people a place to stay."

"I think so, but as I said, she is hiding something." Starr said. She smiled softly and nodded "I know you do, I think she is like us. Hiding as we all are."

"Yes, I think she's like us too. We're all running from something, who are we to keep someone else who's running from joining us?" Vestia sighed. They had a lot of reason to be wary, but still, it felt better to make new friends than to avoid everyone.
"Where are you headed?" she asked Starr, watching her walk down the hall.

"I thought of going to the station to look for information on the empire boundaries." Starr replied then shrugged

"Oh," Vestia said, "I suppose that's a good idea. I assume the Imperium is still expanding. They seem to do that a lot."

"That's one of the things I am going to look up while we are here." Starr replied with a shrug