She supposed she'd just have to do what she'd done at Midpoint Station: physically go aboard the next time the ship stopped, find an allnet terminal, and report in from there. At least it would be much easier to cover her tracks doing that, even if the adult companion hacked the station's computers as suggested.
So, that would be her plan.
Until then, there wasn't much to do but continue to build trust with the crew members and take what opportunities presented themselves. At least the Blank Slate, with all the genuine innocence of having no knowledge of the Dormant's existence, was enthusiastic and effective in that particular duty. And, although it hardly mattered to the mission, she seemed to be happy.
She'd be less so, when she was triggered and proved instrumental in destroying her new home and all her friends, including the man she loved. Thankfully her suffering would be brief.
The Blank Slate's ultimate state of mind was hardly the Dormant's concern, however. The mission would be successful . . . nothing could be allowed to prevent that.
* * * * *
The next month was just as uneventful as expected.
Which wasn't to say it wasn't enjoyable. After Aiden's miserable failure of professionalism when it came to Lana, he'd resolved to resume making it a priority to strengthen his bond with Ali. A second honeymoon of sorts.
He could admit that appreciating what he had seemed like the safest and most rational course of action. Not to mention the best for his mental, emotional, and certainly his physical wellbeing. And Ali was as accommodating as ever, dialing up her own enthusiasm and affection to increase the passion.
In spite of his focus on his own pastimes, he couldn't help but notice that Lana and the gunner seemed to be enjoying their time together as well. It was sometimes hard to be around them when they were constantly making googly eyes at each other, although Aiden made an effort to repair his relationship with the young woman.
He even joined her and the rest of the crew for meals, grudgingly admitting that she was doing an impressive job of improving crew relationships and cohesion. To the point that even Barix was less intolerable than usual.
Aiden couldn't help but wonder if, slow as Lana's progress was in learning the ship's systems, he shouldn't just make her the morale officer. That was generally considered a joke position, to the point that only laughable militaries actually had one: case in point, the Deconstructionist Movement fleet staffed one for every capitol ship, and at least one for flotillas of smaller ships. Just one of their many useless positions, generally bureaucracy padding or seat fillers.
So no, he needed Lana to be something more than a pencil pusher. But that didn't mean he didn't appreciate her results.
As for the Ishivi twins, they spent most of their time either calculating rift jumps, tinkering in their lab or at their workstations on personal projects, or in full immersion. In fact, they both clocked in more than double the time anyone else did, usually when the rest of the crew was sleeping or on duty.
Aiden could hardly begrudge them that, since unlike him with Ali and Lana and the gunner with each other, the twins didn't have anyone on the ship they interacted with much, and certainly not romantically. Belix did spend as much time as she could with the only other human woman on the ship, whenever she could manage to pull Lana away from her boyfriend, but Barix mostly kept to himself, same as he had for the last seven or so years he'd been aboard the Last Stand.
Feeling sorry for the obnoxious Ishivi was more than Aiden could manage, but he did sometimes wonder if the man got lonely. Or, for that matter, if Barix hated his own company as much as everyone else did.
To be fair, Aiden supposed he technically spent most of his time alone, too. Although even if Ali was just an AI, he still considered her more real than most people he'd met. She was certainly more pleasant to be around.
A couple weeks into the trip, Aiden ordered a stop for a day or two and shooed everyone but the gunner out of the ship, ignoring the very vocal complaints from the twins. He then put his crew to work changing the Last Stand's hull profile to be more in line with what you'd expect to see from a light freighter.
Specifically, it was time to de-uglify his ship.
Hull damage, from major buckling to superficial dings from micrometeoroid strikes, was repaired, buffed, and painted over with bright silvery paint. Extra plating was removed, aside from the ones that hid the Last Stand's unusually high number of weapons. And the remaining plating was shaped to give the light cruiser disguised as a freighter sleek, visually appealing lines.
It would never look as a good as a vessel straight out of a shipyard, not when they were trying to disguise the ship like they were. But when they finally finished the job, then drifted far enough away to get a good view of their ship bathed in the light of the floodlights they brought with them, Aiden was ready to announce that it looked pretty good.
“I never would've believed it, but the old girl actually looks legitimate,” Barix said.
Belix had her arm hooked through Lana's as they looked at the results of their hard work. “What should we call her while we're pretending to be honest?”
There was a thoughtful pause. “Phoenix?” Lana suggested.
Barix snorted. “Deeks would blow it out of the sky just for that name. Or any name of anything mythical or historical.”
“Well that kind of limits our options,” the young woman said, a frown in her voice.
“Statistically speaking, the name Capitulation has increased the most in popularity in
