After consoling herself with Nora, refusing to get into why she needed to be held so desperately after her mind-bending experience and feigning ignorance as to why Skoll had a full-blown panic attack, Morrigan spent the following few days making good upon her promises to both Havoc squad as well as to the crew of the Archangel to distract everyone from the events of that day. Luckily for Morrigan, Nora and Sigurd kept Skoll’s erratic behavior under wraps by partially encasing the large beast in ice and using Sigurd as a makeshift lightning rod in one of the storage rooms on the upper decks.

  Since that day though, Skoll glued himself to Morrigan’s side and refused to let her leave his sight, including each time she showered insisting on laying on the bathroom floor watching the frosted glass like a hawk. Morrigan didn’t mind the neediness though since Yekku discovered independence, so having Skoll by her all the time was something of a comfort for her. The ship crew gave an extra wide berth for the shoulder-to-shoulder pair as Morrigan made her way through the ship arranging times for battery crew target practice and asking various divisions of workers for ideas for off-duty activities to keep morale up.

  Late into the day as Morrigan stalked the upper decks of the ship in search for department leaders. A series of cheers coming from the mess hall on her floor caught her attention, Skoll too lifting his head to attention by the noise as he emitted a sense of playful curiosity. She watched Skoll stamp his paws as he prepared to chase something only for Morrigan to place her hands on his shoulder, “Let’s go see what it is first, buddy. If it's anything special then you can chase it.”

  Her only response to that was a husky growl before letting his tongue hang out of the side of his mouth. With a snort, Morrigan walked down to the mess hall to find the large room devoid of life except for a moderate group of soldiers crowded around an extremely focused Ebony, her fingers dancing across the screen of her data-slate furiously as everyone around her cheered her on. Morrigan smiled in amusement as she recalled the discussion she and Sister had about Ebony’s request.

  To her surprise, Sister was rather excited about the proposition as she assured Morrigan that an entire separate and fake system could be constructed where Sister could put Ebony and her trainees to the test. It turned out that an A.I. of Sister’s caliber could succumb to boredom, to which she eased by selecting random crew members on a daily basis and badgered them with discovery questions to help her understand the behavior of an intelligent creature more.

  The crowd around Ebony groaned animatedly as she slammed her fists onto the table with a slew of curses. Morrigan held her breath to keep from laughing only for Skoll to stride into the room and howl in mimicry to everyone’s complaints. Morrigan lost her composure as everyone looked to the giant canine in surprise however, Skoll’s company was well received as many of the soldier cooed at him to garner his attention. Skoll made no hesitation to receive free scratches as he wiggled his way into a section of the soldier all the while Ebony sulked over her data-slate.

  “Did everyone see what I was doing?” she asked aloud in frustration. To Morrigan's pleasure, every single soldier stopped and confirmed for her before returning their attention to lovable killing machine in the room.

  “I see things are going well?” Morrigan asked as she sat across from the hacker.

  “Oh! Sorry, Inquisitor, I didn't see you come in. When Skoll came in I just assumed the Tin Man was with him since he normally walks him around…” Ebony stated after being startled.

  “The Tin Man?” Morrigan snorted.

  Ebony smirked shyly as she eyed Skoll distracting her trainees, “Yeah, they came up for the name for Sigurd and it just kinda stuck.”

  Morrigan considered the name for a moment before asking, “Does he know?”

  Ebony shrugged before lifting up her data-slate and showing the screen to Morrigan. On the screen was four dozen sets of statistical data with the names of soldiers for each, all mixed with several varying sets of data points meshed into a single reading for each soldier.

  “I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” Morrigan stated as she looked up at Ebony.

  “This is the progress I was hoping for, you see this?” Ebony asked as she pointed a light blue bar at the top of the screen that overextended past a green bar, “This is an overall 22 percent increase in efficiency, with two days! I hate to admit it but Sister is a far better instructor than I am.”

  “That is because you lack the processing capacity to develop a proper training regiment all the while counter attacking several individuals simultaneously,” Sister interjected over the intercom in the mess hall.

  Ebony pursed her lips while all of the trainees booed at Sister, Morrigan cracking up in disbelief that the ship’s A.I. was smack talking Ebony.

  “Sister, be nice. Ebony has done a fantastic job at training our own hackers,” Morrigan scolded mildly.

  “Through various studies as well as my own observations, “smack talking” is an excellent tool for inciting competitive behavior in humanoids, regardless of their level of inexperience,” Sister countered with an underhanded insult.

  Morrigan bit her lip to stem her laughter as she watched Ebony’s face turn beet red in irritation, proving Sister’s theory correct as Ebony flipped her data-slate over and begin tapping way with renewed ferocity.

  “Oh, you’re going down you smart mouthed bitch,” Ebony muttered to herself as the rest of her trainees pulled out their own data-slates and began supporting their trainer in her vendetta. Morrigan simply sat there in amused surprise as she watched everyone focus on taking down the A.I.

  Skoll took offense though as he let out a sharp yelp at the group of soldiers that abandoned him, his dejection radiating to Morrigan. Morrigan snapped her fingers softly commanding Skoll to come to her, “Come on sweetie, looks like they’ll be busy for a while,” she stated before stepping away from the table.

  Skoll obeyed, following Morrigan as he sulked only for one of the soldiers to call out, “Bye Skoll!” which cheered him up before he left.

  The next stop on Morrigan’s vast list of check-ins was the R&D deck five floors below. The Research and Development division made up an entire deck of the Archangel broken up into subsections for various manufacturing purposes from general every day goods and clothing for the crew to use, to weapons and ammunition for both personnel and ship use to even some pharmaceuticals used to fill in requisitions submitted by the med bays. With the R&D division being its size, the Archangel was nearly self sustaining except that it lacked an agricultural deck that would allow the production of food and constantly needed raw materials for the production of everything else.

  Morrigan found visiting the busy, three-mile-long factory to be a breath of fresh air even if it was a cacophony of grinding metal, loud machinery and constantly moving heavy equipment. Where ever Morrigan went, she was normally met with high levels of regard and respect that reminded her of her status but whenever she went to R&D, no one cared who she was. It wasn’t that the workers did not care but they were often too busy to give her the formal respect her station deserved which allowed her to feel like herself once more, just an ordinary girl walking through a factory floating through space.

  Morrigan bee lined for a large white walled building that sat in the middle of the open floor deck, sticking close to the marked walkways for foot traffic while avoiding passing bipedal loaders and electric trucks used to carry both raw materials and finished product alike to their proper staging areas for storage or production. With the occasional greeting from the workers who happened to look up, she curiously inspected some of the things being made as she passed through.

  Morrigan avoided the main entrance of the building and stepped through a side door towards the back to reveal a long, thin office with a panoramic window the revealed a large chemistry lab on the other side while the opposing wall was filled with monitors that had cameras overlooking various points of production. To her pleasant surprise, she found Yekku in Danson’s office chittering away while looking over a schematic.

  “So, what do you think? This new design should give our men and women more maneuverability without the loss of fire power,” Danson remarked as he watched Yekku analyze the drawing.

  Morrigan and Skoll remained silent and watched the quirky S’randin work. Yekku looked to Danson, who sat in his chair, then back to the drawing before setting it down and grabbing Danson’s right arm, holding it aloft to simulate where a gun would sit then grabbed his left arm to “hold” the weapon steady. Danson let the spastic creature man-handle him as if having been through the process before as Yekku chittered to himself. He looked back at the drawing before moving both arms closer to Danson’s chest for a moment.

  Yekku then turned to the drawing with a red pen and began quickly, yet accurately, drawing an entire redesign. Morrigan couldn’t help but smile at the fervent work Yekku put into his job, as within several minutes, Yekku produced a whole new drawing he presented to Danson.

  “Wow, that’s a lot shorter… nine-millimeter? That would cut down on armor penetration significantly,” Danson stated in disbelief only for Yekku to point out something on the sheet with an annoyed cricking noise.

  “Oh, hmmm, okay, brass bullets would make them harder but they’re significantly… oh I see you changed the rifling as well and this is… the formula for Teflon? I see, you want Teflon coated brass bullets in 9mm okay, okay… double stack banana clips- that makes sense especially for a bullpup style… you do realize this is not a good design for extensive ranges, right?” Danson asked.

  Yekku huffed indignantly letting out another annoyed cricking noise as he stared down Danson which made Morrigan giggle, finally drawing both of their attention.

  “Oh! Mori.” Danson managed to say before Yekku darted into her with an excited squawk and gave her a hug while rubbing his face across her shoulder and cheek.

  “Hey sweetie, look at you working hard,” Morrigan cooed as Yekku snuggled into her, laughing as Skoll wedged his nose in between them and pried Yekku away from her to force the S’randin to give him attention as well.

  “What brings you in?” Danson asked as he watched the interesting interaction between the three before looking down at the drawn-over schematic.

  “I just came to see how everything is going, especially with Aleksei,” she mentioned as she backed away from Skoll who began to spasticity lick Yekku’s face, toppling the lanky lizard as he let out an alarmed warble.

  She skirted around them and stepped towards Danson. “Here, have a look,” he said holding up the drawing.

  Morrigan looked over the drawing to see that Yekku had cut the barrel length down to six inches and shortened the entire weapon down to 14 in bullpup submachine. She considered what she overheard with her knowledge of ballistics her father had taught her as she inspected the finer details Yekku had drawn against the original design.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I mean, given what it is we’re doing… we should still be able to get a good 250 meters of accuracy and penetration, especially ship to ship or raiding stations,” Morrigan stated before handing it back only to have Danson sigh in defeat.

  “What?” she asked in amused confusion.

  Danson chuckled briefly before gesturing to Yekku who now laid underneath Skoll as they cuddled each other which only made Morrigan smile when she looked. “Honestly, it’s almost degrading how intelligent the little bugger is, nearly everything we’ve shown him he has come up with a redesign for or some kind of improvement…” Danson paused and looked at Morrigan, “Did you know he came up with an entire rewire of our cooling systems for the lance batteries?”

  Morrigan furrowed her brow in confusion as she cocked her head to the side, “What do you mean?”

  “Essentially, he came across the wiring layout drawings for the cooling units on our lance batteries and, with a single look, managed to do the same thing he did here,” he stated holding up the drawing in his hand, “And we ran the numbers; theoretically, his design puts out a 40 percent increase on fire rates meaning we could fire our lance batteries faster without worrying that we’ll overload, we haven’t implemented it yet but… I mean, Yekku, he’s a bloody genius!”

  Morrigan grinned as her heart swelled in pride for the quirky alien before considering something, “Well, to be fair, the Marmuro’k use a lot of plasma technology, especially on their warships which from what I’ve been able to guess, takes a significantly high cooling output. Despite looking primitive, they’re actually a highly advanced race,” she stated proudly.

  “Yeah, no kidding… Hey, Yekku,” Danson said changing directions. Yekku looked up from underneath Skoll with wide eyes.

  Danson rolled up the drawing and held it out, “Make a drawing of the ammunition requirements, a drawing of the internal workings you have in mind and have areas seven and eight begin making a prototype for us to try out.”

  Yekku perked up and squirmed underneath Skoll’s hefty weight which only made Skoll groan unhappily and set is head down on top of Yekku, further entrapping him.

  Morrigan shook her head though she couldn’t keep from smiling at Skoll’s apparently joy in cuddling Yekku, “Skoll, let him up,” she commanded through a giggle.

  Begrudgingly, Skoll sat up and let Yekku scramble out from underneath him letting out a high-pitched whine of a yawn as Yekku approached Danson and snatched the schematic out from his hand. Before darting out the door, Yekku approached Morrigan and gave her one final hug. With a quick flicker of his forked tongue across her cheek, an action that left Morrigan smiling, Yekku left to fulfill his duties.

  Danson pushed a button on a wide panel of glowing buttons next to him before glancing towards the monitors at a specific screen that switched over to display the towering giant of a man leaning over a work bench, “As for him, he’s another genius you managed to bring on board… as far as I’m aware, he’s building himself a new grenade launcher but over the past few days, he submitted his own recipes for an unholy array of explosives, both physical schematics as well as alchemical formulas, frankly I think he’s even holding out on us but, we now have a ridiculous amount of manufacturing options that use readily or easily obtainable materials.”

  Morrigan snorted as she listened, watching the monitor to see that Aleksei was respecting her wishes about safely creating anything remotely volatile, given his past history, though bribing Danson with a bunch of options amused her slightly.

  “Well, that’s definitely good for us, between him and Ebony I’m already getting a return on investing a bit of trust in them… kind of glad I didn’t shove them out an airlock like Sigurd suggested,” she commented offhandedly.

  Danson snickered at that, “He would… you would, for that matter.”

  Morrigan feigned insult and smacked Danson in the arm gently, not wishing to actually hurt the man, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Danson laughed as he leaned back, pushing his glasses up his nose as he looked down to see Skoll staring at him motionless, as if trying to pierce into his soul with his gaze.

  Danson furrowed his brows, “Nothing honestly. Dog, that's creepy,” Danson stated sharply as he scooted back an inch in his chair.

  Morrigan looked at Skoll and could feel the desire to chase the man next to her coming off of the giant canine. Morrigan simply shook her head and stepped towards Skoll, “Its fine, but I gotta go find Nora, it’s date night.”

  “Isn’t every night date night? You share a bed and she’s usually attached to your hip when she’s around,” he pointed out.

  Morrigan placed her hands on her hips and looked sharply at the chief technician, “That’s pretty insinuating… why do I feel like everyone assumes all I have is wild sex whenever she’s around? Most people on this ship rarely see me and her together!” she said as she blushed, realizing that she said that out loud.

  Danson simply shrugged with a sly smirk, “Just seems like the natural order of things between you two, especially with that mouth of hers.”

  Morrigan rolled her eyes and stepped to the door, “This is why you’re single, you perv.”

  “Yet, you’re the one blushing!” Danson called out in a snarky tone, Morrigan blushing even deeper as the door closed behind her and Skoll before making her way towards the freight elevator.

  Morrigan sighed with relief as she headed towards her quarters, mentally exhausted from the long day of check ins and getting to know more and more of her extensive crew.

  After taking up the mantle of Inquisitor, Morrigan found her life to be filled with mundane tasks and responsibilities that Lord Inquisitor Solomon had neglected to tell her, the unspoken background work of leadership that came with running a starship. Morrigan had always felt like the neglectful partner ever since their union and with her job as an Inquisitor, felt even more guilty about how little free time she had. Thankfully, Nora understood her position and respected the amount of time her title took from her despite Nora’s clingy personality which led to the suggestion of establishing date nights to satiate their roles as a couple.

  With something to look forward to that did not involve work, Morrigan’s excitement grew as her stress finally began to wane. However, stepping into her living room, she found herself standing in her lightless quarter.

  The sepia tint her of night vision, a gift from Apollyon upon their first encounter, told her that all of the lights were oddly off as she scanned the room. Morrigan’s anxiety rose once again as she saw the curled-up figure sitting on the couch as a subtle wave of disappointment washed over her.

  Morrigan raised her hand as Skoll let out a high-pitched whine of worry, equally concerned about Nora who held herself tight in a ball of depression. With a silent command, Morrigan shooed Skoll and watched him pad his way across the living room, eyeing the back of the couch intently as he walked past and slipped into their bedroom.

  “Nora?” Morrigan stepped closer to watch Nora sniffled and wipe her eyes with her wrist in response to her name.

  “Hey babe…” Nora responded a moment later. Morrigan instantly recognized the strained tone in her voice of someone who had spent a considerable amount of time crying.

  “Hey, hey, what’s going on, hun?” A new wave of confirmed worry crawled down Morrigan’s spine as she quickly shuffled to Nora’s side and sat beside her, her own tone laced with concern.

  She watched Nora crack a disbelieving smile as her breath caught, sniffling again before shaking her head. “It’s nothing, I’m sorry. It’s our night and I’m sitting here like a fool…” she said as she began to get up only for Morrigan to gently grab onto her arm, stopping her for a moment.

  “No, it’s not nothing sweetie...” Morrigan stated firmly as she gently pulled Nora back down and reached up placing a hand on a tear-stained cheek. A subtle anger came to life underneath Morrigan’s emotions as she felt the salty damp skin before forcibly ignoring the feeling with a deep sigh, “Forget about our date, Nora, I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

  Nora shook her head but Morrigan placed her other hand on her opposing cheek and gently turned Nora’s head towards her, “Listen sweetie, I hate being so busy all the time but I’m here for you now, so, please let me be here for you,” she pleaded softly.

  Morrigan could feel the vibration as her words made Nora’s chest quiver before let out a strangled breath, reaching up and sliding her fingers into Morrigan’s hands and pulled them away from her face, holding her hands as she closed her eyes and nodded.

  “I… tried to talk to Stephy today…” she forced out as she hung her head in dejection, her shoulders shaking as her emotions slowly came around in full swing.

  Morrigan pursed her lips in irritation as that subtle anger began to slowly grow. She knew she should have known that it would involve Stephanie, seeing as she was the only person she had ever seen to stir negative emotions out of her eccentric and joyful girlfriend even after her clear warning to the dread headed woman on their first meet. Morrigan knew better than to say anything without taking another deep breath though, “What did she say?” she asked softly with a serious undertone.

  However, Nora shook her head as she wriggled a hand free to wipe her eyes, “Nothing um… I didn’t uh, I couldn’t do it… I tried so hard…” Nora choked up as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, “Each time I just… God, I’m such a coward!”

  Morrigan watched as Nora curled up once again as she realized what was truly the matter. Nora, a woman who faced inevitable odds and dangers throughout her life with a smile, had come face to face with something she didn't know how to confront and more so, recalling her reaction to their reunion, it terrified her. Morrigan considered how Nora felt that day, the palpable joy and excitement to see her own family that she thought was dead, that she had killed, only to be understandably rejected by her sister.

  The anger subsided with Morrigan upon realizing that Nora wasn’t hurt, but ashamed and scared. Though Morrigan wished to see Nora and her sister reconcile because it would make Nora happy but Morrigan knew two distinct things about trying to force something that wasn’t ready having been forced to face many things in her life that she had not been prepared for; forcing things like hindered emotions upon situations tended to make things far more complicated and, in the case of involving more than one person, both sides needed to be on the same relative page or things would fall apart before they could even begin.

  She expected a snarky comment from the deity deep within her mind however, Apollyon had been silent within her for several days even when she attempted to speak to it, apparently taking the recent and bizarre changes seriously and spending its time contemplating the new developments.

  Morrigan scooted as close as she could before pulling Nora into her chest just in time for her to begin sobbing. “You know, sweetie, you have to give it time; both for her and yourself. I know your excited that she’s here but there is plenty of time for you and her to make up and act like sisters again, you don't have to rush it,” she said as she ran her fingers through Nora’s hair and along the shaved side of her head to help sooth her.

  “But, she hates me… she doesn’t say it but… I feel it, every time we see each other…” Nora croaked out as she shook, her sobs pausing as her nerves got the best of her.

  Morrigan rested her chin on the top of Nora’s head and shook it in disagreement, “No, love. She may hold a grudge against you but… I may not have siblings but I've seen Torvil and Mo’Emori's relationship and I believe there is no chance in any world or galaxy that Stephanie truly hates you. If I had to guess, she probably needs time to cope and come to terms happened rather than just living with it, if that makes any sense.”

  Morrigan could feel Nora relax a little as her words seemed to get her thinking. After a moment, Nora leaned into her, “Yeah… I just, I’m so ashamed of what I did…”

  Morrigan nodded as she accepted Nora into her arms and held her close, “We’ve all got things we’re ashamed of, love. The most we can do is either seek forgiveness or try and do better than those moments. But nothing can be fixed within a day,” Morrigan added thoughtfully, wondering what she could do to make up for her long list of past sins.

  To her surprise, Nora snorted and began to laugh softly as Nora lifted her head from Morrigan’s chest slightly, “Except maybe Sigurd, I doubt he even knows the definition of shame,” she interjected, “Or Xol. No one that broody could ever think they’re in the wrong!”

  Morrigan chuckled at that as she shook her head again, “Oh, I’ve definitely seen Xol ashamed with himself but Sigurd… yeah, you’re probably right.”

  Both women shared a laugh at the expense of the absent Berserker. The soft light hearted sound a call sign for Skoll that it was safe to approach as he stalked around the couch to stick his nose directly into Nora’s face and insist on licking the salt from her cheeks, which only caused Nora to giggle even more as she tried to move away from his massive tongue.

  After spending enough time laughing at the both of her lovable companions, Morrigan rubbed Nora’s arm to gain her attention, “Why don’t you go wash up and I’ll get dinner started?”

  Nora smiled as she looked up at her with a wide, devious grin, “Okay but first you have to give me a kiss!”

  Morrigan scrunched her face in faux disgust before giving her a tender kiss to satisfy her lover. Jealous, Skoll whined and planted a massive paw against Nora which made her smile, smooching his nose animatedly, “There you mangy brat, now I gotta go wash your slobber off,” she stated as she got up.

  Skoll snorted indignantly at her as he watched her walk away before turning his gaze to Morrigan.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she commanded sharply with an undertone of amusement, “Now, chicken or fish? You choose, buddy. “

  Skoll raised his left paw letting out an excited yelp indicating his desire for fish, which made Morrigan smile brightly as she swatted at his muzzle, “Good boy, it seems raiding that ship was a good idea after all.”

  As she began preparing their meal, Nora kept Skoll occupied by teasing him relentlessly as her new found calm and energy came back in full swing, making the experience far more entertaining for Morrigan.

  However, just as Morrigan began to cook, Sister chimed in over the speaker system, “Mori, we will be exiting FTL transition in five minutes. We will be arriving at Gelia momentarily.”

  Morrigan sighed at the interruption yet her excitement went through the roof by the news. It had been a childhood dream of hers to see Gelia in person but also, it also meant she would see her mom and Mo'Emori once again along with the rest of her family. Morrigan looked to Nora as her eyes shined with enthusiasm, “Want to go see the most beautiful planet in your life?”