Sunshine knelt on the sick-bay bed and asked her father, who looked moody in his heavy armor, "Daddy? Why can't mom be here,too?" Thistledown waved a hand,"She's busy on the bridge. Thus ship wasn't finished when they took off. She has to make sure everything works, so she's helping the other crew set up everything so we can rescue our friends on Hel." Sunshine pouted. Thistledown said, "Don't pout ,Sunny. I have her linked to me, so it's just like she's here." Snowflake patted Sunny on the shoulder and said, "It'll be alright. Your big sister won't let anything happen to you!" Sunny looked over at her. "You look funny in uniform. Are you a general or ...specific?" Snowflake laughed. "I'm a specific! Specialist, because I'm one of the Four Sisters! That sounds like something that Toxic would say." Snowflake suddenly looked alarmed at that thought. Thistledown looked at Snowflake and Snowflake looked at the Captain. Captain Tkarro shrugged. "It can't be helped, in any circumstance. Might be due to us being in hyperspace, makes Toxic seem closer or something. It would take Narchi or Neblae or the Measure to know or explain it. We'll get underway as soon as Neblae gets here." Neblae waved from the doorway to the darkened hallway. "I consulted with Narchi in the regeneration tank. He had a worthwhile hypothesis." "Since Sunshine has the hyperware that contains Toxic's soul in it INSIDE her--it cannot interact with the universe because Sunshine's body doesn't have any more exotic matter in it than any normal person's! AS SUCH--that hyperware CAN influence hypermatter. As in ATTRACTING it to Sunshine's body like a black hole sucks in normal matter." "We ARE traveling through a lower level of hyperspace where a lot of hypermatter hydrogen is floating about and we are moving through it at speed. Draw your own conclusions." Thistledown said, "The sooner we take care of swapping Toxic's soul back into TOXIC, and getting Chalchilaloq out of there, the better. Supposedly Chalchilaloq's spirit is lower energy than Toxic's, and wouldn't be as dangerous as Toxic's would be to Sunshine? Is this correct?" Neblae got over into position between Sunshine and Toxic's body. "Chalchi-la-la doesn't have enough OOMPH to even wake up in Toxic's body! Sunny'll be alright with Chalchi-chinchilla's spirit in her." Captain Tkarro asked, "'Chalchi-chinchilla?'?" Neblae rolled her eyes and sighed, "I can't remember the woman's name half the time! Gods!" Snowflake laughed,"Alright here we go!" Sunshine laid down and clasped hands with Snowflake and Neblae. She said, looking at her father,"Don't worry. I'll tell Toxic to remake you like Lime did Mommy!" Thistledown shouted in panic, "LIKE A CYCLOPS MAN!" Sunshine giggled and kicked her feet. "You're funny, daddy!" Then she fell quiet as they fell into the virtual world of the ancient Nunera system of the forerunners. Thistledown looked over at Captain Tkarro. He was smiling a bit and raised an eye-brow. Thistledown scuffed a foot on the deck-plates and muttered, "I might be a machine. Machine -life, actually, but I AM a male of my species. As much desirable as my mate's new form is--I DON"T WANT TO BE A COPY OF HER!" Dokka Tkarro laughed, "I know people that would pay good money to see THAT!" Thistledown rolled his eye and shrugged, "All you humans think of is pornography!" Dokka laughed. "You'd understand if you were biological." Thistledown shook his head. "I'm NOT. Thank goodness for small favors. Sir...does it take this long? It's usually over in an instant." Dokka darkened and looked at his watch. After a moment of looking at the readouts over the bed, he said,"Something's wrong. You are Toxic's 'anchor'...order her to come back." Thistledown said loudly,"TOXIC! WAKE UP!" Toxic snapped awake in her own body. Fire alarms went off in the sick bay as waves of orange energy blasted from her. --TO BE CONTINUED!--