C: Fragments

"Do you want to use the access code to transfer the data that Brennant recovered?" the ship asked hopefully. Its avatar on the screen was bouncing a gold coin on its palm.

Rafaela rubbed her face without answering immediately. It wasn't just access to the data that the piratical genius had recovered, she needed to sort out the entire confusion of concerns that she'd been putting on hold. As she identified each one she mentally filed it into her 'unwritten' priority list, or added it to a new 'written' list in her memory library.

Some people actually had to write out anything they wanted to store, as though they couldn't record anything that they couldn't actually see, while others could freely store anything they could think of. Rafaela fell somewhere in-between, with average capabilities, and pictured herself writing the list that she stored.

The visual representation of the ship's AI stared at her beseechingly from the main display, and she realized that the data that had come from the old core was probably far more personal to it than it was to her. She hadn't transferred all of the prize money to SkyWater, just half, since she didn't quite trust Elektra.

"Yes, let's unlock it," she agreed.

It didn't take as long as she'd expected for the ship to report grumpily, "I've acquired all that was available."

An incredibly high quality anim began to play, filling the display while the AI continued to complain, "There is no time data on any of these files but this one is labeled mission acceptance."

Despite the fact that she could see her mother's image just as clearly within her own memory library, Rafaela couldn't help staring at the screen as it showed her mother proudly receiving orders from a dragon. Her mother was quite easy to identify. Not just because of her distinctive bi-colored hair, but because her appearance hadn't changed significantly between when it had been recorded and when her daughter had known her.

Her appearance was so identical, in fact, that Rafaela actually wondered if Brennant had created the anim instead of recovering it from the core system. On the other hand, both her mother and the dragon were speaking English with perfect fluency, and Rafaela suspected that would be very difficult to imitate with only the list of defined words that she'd left with him.

The dragon sounded like it was sending Gabriella off to war, despite the fact that no enemy was ever named, and Gabriella sounded… proud, eager, and uncertain. They were emotions that were rare in the mother Rafaela had been familiar with, and yet they were also too real to seem like mere gameplay, which was what the dragon made the scene resemble.

When the anim ended, the ship let the screen remain empty until she asked, "Are there more anims of my mother?"

The plump pixie shrugged as she said, "It wasn't an anim, it was a file created from a series of saved pictures and sounds, like an archaic old film. There are no anims in this data. There are also no more films that display either of those characters as far as I can tell."

Rafaela blinked, but then suggested, "Play another then?"

The next one was not nearly as high quality as the first. An unknown couple smiled at the screen. The woman had the same pattern of bi-colored hair that Rafaela and her mother displayed. The man had black hair that was cut very short in geometric patterns along the sides of his head, but stuck up the width of a hand in the middle. It was not so strange that Rafaela would have stared at someone on a station the way she stared at the film, but his face resembled her own and her mother's so much that she knew they had to be relatives.

A few minutes in, they were revealed to be her mother's parents when the woman swore, "My wildest daughter seems determined to prove herself the most stable. Your last message said that it had traveled for over a decade to reach us. I can't even imagine how far away you are right now, and that this message won't reach you for so many years, if ever…"

The man reached out and hugged the woman tighter against him when her voice stopped for a moment, before adding, "Love is timeless, whenever you get this, we'll still love you."

Both of them talked more, speaking the names of people that Rafaela had never heard of. Family members that she'd never seen or heard of before beyond simple, casual titles like 'mom' and 'dad' were speaking of others who might also be related. It was strange. It was wonderful. It was also perplexing.

Her mother's home system was startlingly close to her own, a mere handful of light years separated them. Surely her mother's message shouldn't have needed an entire decade to reach her home, even if the reply might have taken much longer to receive if communications were sent to where her ship was expected to be according to a preset schedule of some kind.

The next message was from a man who sounded entirely too familiar and affectionate for Rafaela's comfort, but it also mentioned that her mother, presumably, had only been gone for a PiYear. There were dozens of messages, not all of them mentioned any kind of time frame, or contained the same people, although there were several from Gabriella's parents, who always appeared to be about the same age, though the comments they made changed each time.

"There is no system data among these files," the ship complained. "And someone is requesting entry."

Rafaela stared blankly at the screen as it switched to show an exterior view of its own airlock, and then she asked worriedly, "Did you hack into this station somehow?"

"No, we were given access to the external monitors shortly after docking," her ship assured her. Her eyes took in the odd perspective as she identified the young man who'd been standing with Doris at the announcement ceremony, and she drew a sharper breath as it asked, "Would you like me to attempt to gain access to more of the station's system?"

"No!" Rafaela replied quickly and firmly. "Don't give him access to us either," she added a second later.

On the screen the sharp green eyes narrowed with irritation as the young man turned away from the airlock. He didn't retreat though, instead he seemed to be getting out some kind of tool from the bag he carried.

"I asked the station to identify him," the ship announced calmly.

Rafaela actually turned away from the main display screen and stared at the column where the core was mounted for a moment. "Who is he then?" she asked warily. Her eyes moved back to the main display as the man held the tool up to the airlock's access panel.

"Arturius Nebel, the current heir of Nova Corp," the ship informed her with interest.

Rafaela stared blankly as the heir to one of the solar system's main corporations fiddled with the device in his hands at the outer airlock access. A moment later she panicked and instructed her ship, "Disengage! Undock!"

"We don't have enough reaction mass to leave the station yet," the ship argued.

Doris appeared in the camera's viewing angle a moment later. She hurried up to Arturius, yanked on his arm, and looked like she was speaking very rapidly.

"There's no sound?" Rafaela asked suddenly.

"Not from the station transmission," the ship agreed, but a moment later Rafaela could hear her stepsister's words, although they sounded strangely muffled. "I'm amplifying the sound that's leaking to the ship's outer surface along the airlock tube connection," the ship announced.

"…curity is coming," Doris insisted.

"Let go, I've almost got it!" Arturius argued. Doris gazed at him in confusion, and his expression softened a little as he added more calmly, "They won't do anything even if they find us here."

Doris looked as doubtful as Rafaela felt as they both listened to the words of Nova Corp's heir.