UPON VESTIA: CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

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Asher considered his words for a few seconds, glancing around the room as he thought, then looked to Kay again. "I've been thinking over everything that's happened today, and I feel like it would be wrong for me to leave Terra before the androids have been granted their freedom," he said. "I think it might be in the best interests of the children and the androids if I stay on Terra while Vestia goes on to the Imperium." He wished he could have phrased it better, but he just didn't know how. Ugh.

Kay still looked fretful. [Can the magic find Vestia wherever we might be?] He asked. He liked the idea of Asher being able to return asap like that, rather than months of travel to meet up, but was it actually possible?

"More as a safety measure than anything else. Dragons can survive even in space if necessary, as can androids, so long as you don't get too cold." Starr said.

Asher winced a little, the idea of ending up in space by accident wasn't overly appealing to him. He could certainly survive longer than a Terran could out there, but still, he'd rather not experience that. "Teleporting should definitely be an emergency measure then," he said.

"Magic is an incredible force, but it is not foolproof." Starr said with a small smile. "Though we do our best whenever we use it."

Asher smiled sightly. "Of course. I'm grateful for magical abilities, even if they do have risks." He hesitated then asked, "How are the kids doing, Danika and the others, I mean?"

Kay frowned, he wasn't so sure about this.
He looked like wanted to write something but thought better of it when Asher mentioned the kids.

"Well enough, they want to get back to us though." Starr said honestly. "The Imperium space is just so far from here.

"Well, just a while longer and they'll be safely back on Vestia," Asher said. He tried not to look sad, he did miss Danika and his kind-of-siblings especially, and was sorry it might be even longer before he saw them again. Still, they'd have the people they were telepathically bonded to, and that was the most important part. "Please send them my love."

[I take it they still haven't heard anything from Web?] Kay asked. He knew full well if htey had they'd have already told Starr. Still, it sucked not knowing if he was okay and honestly? He didn't much trust Thalia with those kids. He trusted Moone though.

Starr smiled softly and nodded. "I will Asher." She said gently then looked to Kay "No, there's been no word and they are as worried about that as we are."

Asher frowned at Kay's question and Starr's words. It was disappointing and worrying to know that Web was still inexplicably absent after so many weeks, and he knew it was much, much worse for Kay. This situation was just awful in every way.

Kay nodded, looking grim. [If we need to send the Silver Devil into Imperium Space, it may be worth having Vestia wait at a neutral station or something. Potentially, it would make a decent meeting point for Asher and Nova as well, should they decide to return before we're due to leave ] He preferred the idea of having Asher not stuck on terra for goodness knew how long. And if something delayed them, having a set meeting point at least meant Asher and Nova knew where to come to find them.

Asher nodded. "That seems sensible. Do you know of any good stations out there? You're probably more familiar with the region than we are."

"We should ask Esk, he'd likely know of some good ones." Starr said with a small frown.

Kay frowned. Honestly they had made rather a hasty retreat from Imperium space. He nodded at the suggestion. [Matt travelled that region for a few years before he got me to join him, he may know a few places as well. Esk left more recently though, his knowledge of the area is likely to be a lot more... current.]

"We should ask both of them then, see what ideas they have," Asher said.

Kay nodded. Much as he'd rather not have to talk to Esk, he did know the region better than Kay did.

"Vestia, can you ask Matt and Esk to meet us somewhere?" Asher asked the nearest camera.

"Of course." Vestia would ask Matt and Esk if they could go to to a lounge, saying that Starr, Kay, and Asher wanted to discuss something with them.

Esk wasn't doing much important, he looked suspicious but headed quietly for the lounge.

Matt was definitely curious about what that was about. Starr, Kay and Asher? Usually that meant it was something 'important'. He bid goodbye to everyone else still in the cafe, downed his last beer and wheeled off to the lounge, a little tipsy. Dum de dum.

If Mourn had woken from his nap, he might notice that he'd received a notification from the same server that had sent him those supposedly incriminating encrypted files earlier this week.
Looked like Celia was trying to contact him.

Mourn had gone to get a snack and came back to find a notification. He spooned tuna into his mouth as he sat down and clicked on the message.

[Hello. I had a box with the necessary hardware delivered to your ship today. If you have the time, I think it might be wise to transfer the files into it sooner rather than later] the message said simply. It didn't have a lot of information about the sender attached, but that was kind of to be expected.

Mourn stopped eating, looking at the message, then at the can of tuna in his hand. Finally he looked up at Vestia's camera "Ship, we got box from big robot computer yes?"

--Yes, we have a big box in the shuttle bay,-- Vestia said. --I figured it was either from her, or else you were off ordering robots again--
Her lights turned a bluish purple with amusement.

Starr asked Nova to come to them too as she went with Asher and Kay to a meeting room after saying bye to the babies.

Mourn cackled, buying more robots hadn't occurred to him. Huh. He hastily finished his tuna.
Then he picked up his laptop and headed for that shuttle bay.

"Maybe should buy more used robot, safe here." he mused aloud. He'd briefly caught up on the news when he woke up, idiot terrans were being idiots, figured.


---

Kay nodded goodbye to the dragon babies and headed after Asher and Starr.

Asher smiled softly at the young dragons and told them it had been fun to visit them, then he went with Kay and Starr to the meeting.
They'd reach the room pretty quickly.
Asher smiled when he saw the others there. "Thank you for coming to this meeting," he told them. Another meeting, yep. "We need to decide a meeting point near Imperium space, so the Silver Devil can rendezvous with Vestia somewhere after picking up the children."

~~
--I think at this point, we need to hope the robots will just be freed,-- Vestia told Mourn. She got the box out from where she'd put it, so it was easy to see in the shuttle bay.