Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Eight

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"Cause Esk is lazy and he wants someone to wait on Dawn, even though he has a massive crush on her and could wait on her himself," James grumbled. "At least that's what I assume was his motivation," he amended. "Your brother is weird. So Dawn's probably okay and not infected, that's good at least."

Dawn nodded at that "We never know when a situation will arise where we need these rooms." She said softly. "I just hope the kids are still safe when we get there to pick them up."

~~~
"She isn't a death trap, she's our Devil." Rigel said with a chuckle on his way to his room. He would pick out one or two of the prizes to keep, but brought the rest of the bag out. "We got prizes, I figure the kids would like them."

~~~
Starr dipped her head and smiled then looked over to Moriah. "Alright, One of my people will watch my egg while I am out." She had talked to them already

Luka made a face at James. "Don't provoke her." She smiled at the prizes. "the staff at the stalls didn't like us much." She laughed. "we kept beating their games."

---

Matt flinched ever so slightly at the mention of the egg, nope, it was still icky. But for Starr's sake he hid his discomfort. "is this everyone?"

---

Kay nodded. He wasn't sure about resupply places, their route out of the imperium hadn't exactly been that direct.
He frowned a little at the mention of the kids being safe. He worried about them, and his brother who was still incommunicado. He chewed his lip. [Let's get to work.] otherwise he knew he'd sit here and fret.

"The children will be safe, they're in good hands," Asher said. He nodded to Kay and wheeled toward the door. "Yes, let's get to work."

Tori looked like she wanted to ask a question, but she followed quietly instead.

~~
James looked at all the prizes, impressed. "Darn, you guys are good. You must have had fun out there." He picked up a stuffed toy cow. "It looks like Tala!"

~~
(I forgot a post. Sorry!)

Shane looked to the door when Ellie found him, standing and closing out the tablet. "You get everything sorted?" He asked curiously.

"Everything's sorted! Come on, we're going to PARTY now!" Ellie told Shane with a grin.

Dawn nodded and followed to help with the inventory as well as she could. She noticed the look from Tori "Something bothering you?" She asked curiously

~~~
"Right, we did. Those games were very fun." Rigel agreed and chuckled "Maybe we should give that one to her instead of the kids?"
~~~
Shane chuckled and got up, taking her hand to go with her. "Sounds like fun, let's go."

Tori shook her head. "I'm just wondering why someone on this ship has children in or near the Imperium." Kay had the skin and hair color of a Satare, but she didn't see why he'd have left kids there.

~~
James snickered. "Oh yeah, I'm sure she'd love a plushie." He looked at Luka and Rigel, he soo wanted to interrogate them right now, he was barely holding himself back.

~~
Ellie grinned and practically dragged Shane along toward the ramp.

~~
"The last few people are just about here!" Vestia said cheerfully to the group preparing to leave.

"It was a place that the magic people that were after us wouldn't go" Dawn explained and shrugged. It was the safest place we could put them."

~~~
Rigel chuckled and headed for the ramp. Yeah, he did not want to get involved in that conversation.

~~
Shane waved to the others when they arrived at the ramp. "Hey everyone"

"Let's go!" Matt yelled, throwing his arms up. "nightlife!"

Silence frowned a little, well he was excitable wasn't he? She tugged at her clothing, she didn't much like having to wear clothes but apparently wandering around in humanoid form naked upset people. So Hytar had obtained a charm for her to avoid such mishaps.
She touched the necklace around her neck, musing on how reliant on magic items she'd become of late. After a lifetime of shunning magic, it was strange.

---

Luka laughed at the plushie thing. "But it has four legs." She didn't really know what cows were.
It had never come up.

---

Kay followed Asher, leaving Dawn and Tori to chat.

Tori frowned. "It's true what the other androids said, this is a strange ship with a strange crew. "Are there many children?" She started following Kay and Asher, although at a bit slower a pace because she was talking to Dawn.

Asher headed for one of the teleporters to go to the main level.

~~
James grinned. "Other than the number of legs, it looks just like her." He looked to Rigel, who seemed to be leaving. "Am I being too racist for you? Sorry, man!"

~~
Ellie looked around at the large group, grinning. "This is awesome! Let's go party!" She scampered for the ramp to lead the way.

Moriah smiled and followed, Tobias not far behind.

(To Ottawantreal?)

Luka tried not to laugh at James' ridiculously. "How'd the meeting go?" She asked.

---

Silence shrugged and followed the others.

Matt waited till there was nobody in the way, the free wheeled down the ramp with a whoop.

Rigel laughed and shook his head "Nah, just heading to give these to the kids."

~~~
Starr chuckled and walked along with the others out of the ship and to the city.

~~~
There's four kids and a pregnant woman" Dawn said "And a couple of others that aren't either of those but didn't want to fight either."

"The meeting went good, I think they found all the loopholes Hytar tried to leave, but we'll see," James said. "Nobody shot anybody, and everyone got a say if they wanted it, so it went well." He nodded to Rigel, "Aww, I'll miss your handsome face, but I guess you can deliver toys to the needy children if you want."

~~
Tori blinked. "A pregnant woman? I hope there's a doctor she can get to easily out there." She and Dawn would take the teleporter down.

"I hope so" Rigel said with a shrug "See you around" He waved and headed out.

~~~
Dawn nodded then shrugged "We planned to get her and the others back before even this long." She said then sighed. "I know Skye is missing her sister."

Tori shook her head. "I don't know how fast this ship is, but that's a long trip. I guess it's going to be a while longer before we get there."

Kay frowned, listening to Dawn and Tori talk. He hoped it wouldn't be much longer too. He had no idea what would happen if Thalia went into labour, it was pretty risky as he well knew.
He really hoped the fear of that wouldn't lead the keeper to do something foolish and endanger the lot of them.

---

Luka nodded "good." She watched Rigel go. Right, straight back to business.

(I think I missed an Ethan post too, oops?)

James looked at Luka. "So you guys flew and played carnival games? Sounds like fun."

~~
(Oh yeah, I think a reply might have gotten missed. Is this the last one, or did I miss your reply?)

Ethan nodded. "Fair enough. So, now there are so many baby dragons on board, are you still planning to teach them astrophysics?" They'd be old enough really soon, those little dragons grew like weeds.

"it was." Luka smiled softly then shook her head, frowning "sorry we missed the meeting."

---

Hewitt chuckled. "Ah now there's a thought. Supposedly Star Dragons have to understand the mechanics of the universe to manipulate it, but i'm not convinced. Magic users seldom seem to bother with the how and why and just do things because they can." He shook his head.

---

"We were able to teleport them there, but we can't teleport them back as easily." Dawn said cryptically but honestly.

~~~
Rigel paused and came back to the ramp, peeking in "Are you not coming?" He asked Luka, much as he didn't want to be in that conversation, he didn't want to leave Luka alone for it either.

"It's cool, sometimes organics forget," James teased. He looked at Rigel as Rigel came back, "Oh hey, you want us to help deliver toys to the children?"

~~
Ethan smiled oddly."They're smart little critters I'm sure. You might have fun making sure they don't break the universe."

~~
Tori looked confused, then nodded. "You guys have a lot more magic than I'm used to. Why can't you just teleport back again?"

They reached the med bay.

Asher started going to begin inventorying. Just the lower shelves, since that was all he could reach. Humph.

"Yeah, it'll be good to have y'all with me." Rgel said, he didn't want them to feel indebted just to him or anything.

~~
"Well, one guy integral to that is unavailable, and the other is injured from the war." Dawn said with a shrug. She picked a shelf to start inventorying too.

Hewitt smiled deviously. "Perhaps...." He was seriously considering it. Uh oh.

---

Kay got out the step stool because they were ALL short, and got to work on inventory.
He flinched a little at Dawn's explanation, damn he hoped Web was okay.

---

Luka dipped her head. "oh.. okay." She looked to James. "Let's go hand out toys?"

"If you say so, Captain," James said with a salute. He followed Rigel. This was totally a plot to keep him from getting Luka alone and interrogating her, wasn't it? Darn.

~~
Tori frowned. "Oh. I'm sorry." She started inventorying higher shelves, after finding a second step stool.

~~
Ethan snickered. "I'm sure Starr will just love you filling the heads of her people with crotchety old man thoughts. And I wonder if your knowledge of astrophysics is up to date enough..." Hey, Hewitt liked needling him sometimes, Ethan was going to try needling back. Although he'd love to watch a class of ridiculously cute tiny dragons learning astrophysics.

Rigel chuckled and headed for the dragon's level again.

~~~
Dawn stuck to the shelves she could reach without stretching too much.

Luka followed along. "So did we miss anything else?" luka asked James. Trying to make conversation to fill the suspicious silence.

----

Kay took notes on his tablet as they went through inventory.

---

Hewitt huffed. "Of course it's up to date!" He protested, looking a little ruffled. "I'll have you know I have an ongoing digital subscription to the latest Aketi research papers" He looked smug. "Certainly more than those dragons."

James considered that. "Ah... let's see. The dragons moved in. I haven't seen them yet, but I hear the babies are adorable as usual. And Helen bought up four new androids, so they're here now. One of them is even trained in medical stuff, so that's awesome."

~~
It took a while to get everything inventoried. Well, most of it had already been counted before by Kay and Asher, who both had a bit of a problem with trying to find work for themselves, but a couple things had been quietly taken by people, so it was good to double check the exact numbers.

"This is going to be a big purchase to stock the larger med bay," Tori mused, looking at the numbers.

~~
Ethan looked smug at Hewitt's indignation. "I don't know, the aketi aren't always right..." he said. They usually were, but he was annoying Hewitt here. So there.

"more androids!?" Luka looked surprised. Where the heck did Vestia get all this money? "has Mourn gotten to them yet?"

---

Kay nodded and did some rough calculations. Vestia seemed to have an extraordinary amount of money available to her, but even so, he'd run the approximate costs by her before ordering anything.

---

Hewitt sneered. "Science will always triumph over magic."

"Yeah! More androids. Apparently nobody here can resist a sad android when they see one for sale." James looked pleased. He was all for buying every android they laid eyes on. "I don't know if Mourn's found them yet, but he will soon I'm sure."
He kept pace with Rigel and Luka as they headed toward the dragon level.

~~
"Maybe aketi science isn't all it's cracked up to be any more. I've heard that terran science is pretty cutting edge these days," Ethan said. He looked amused. "Anyway. Did you explore the city at all today, or did you just stay on the ship?"