The woman begins signing again, her eyes still closed.

    "DZ-twelve-Q", the droid offers in her own language, tapping her chest indicatively, and then gestures to her companion. "Deskyl, my master."

"It is good to meet you, DZ-twelve-Q and Deskyl." The melodic voice plays again from the speakers. "I am Culamine. The woman beside you is Shreya."

Shreya hangs on her master's every word, making a translation of Culamine's speech via Shreya's surface thoughts possible.

"It is good to meet you, Culamine."

"How did you get here?"

"Deskyl. Sith," she offers, in case the word has made it out here, wherever 'here' is. "Adjust position."

"You haven't spoken any words in our language yet that were not first spoken to you by Shreya or myself. Do you need us to vocalize words before you can make use of them?"

Shreya had only just delivered her cockpits latest recordings to her master a few seconds ago. There was almost no lag time between Culamine receiving the relevant data and making that observation.

"Yes, or."

"--or you could acquire words through another means? Perhaps by holographic display or wireless upload?"

"Yes, display."

"Shreya, I am taking direct control of your SLAYER."

Culamine draws closer, fanning her wings to properly angle a dozen maneuvering thrusters along their length.

"Yes, Master."

Shreya braces herself.

The padded white room rocks as Culamine's enormous form bodily envelops the 'SLAYER' that Shreya's piloting.

And then the other fives walls of the room--the ones not being used to display the forward view of outer space--light up with streams of letters in the alien language.

Words. Pronunciations. Definitions. An entire lexicon scrolling past too fast for the human eye to follow.

Deskyl steadies the three of them against the room's movement. She leaves her eyes closed against the flickering display, but relaxes slightly when it begins.

"I'll need a moment to process, Ma'am."

Culamine stands by patiently, as does her vassal.

(Well, neither of them are actually standing per se, but...)

She floats silently for a couple minutes.

"Thank you for your patience, Ma'am. Deskyl is a Sith; a kind of person who can do magic. She was being threatened by a more powerful Sith and escaped by teleporting. We won't be followed; Sith can't teleport under normal circumstances." DZ signs along as she speaks, translating for Deskyl.

"I see." Culamine gives an inquisitive nod. "And what would you like to do now?"

Deskyl and DZ consult via sign; Deskyl is terse, and the conversation is short.

"Deskyl is still injured from a previous attack; she should rest and recover. She expects to need at least half a cycle to be functional, and perhaps a cycle or two to regain her full capabilities. She'll need to know more about this place before she makes any other decisions."

"The nearest medical facility is within the borders of my own vassalage. If you don't feel comfortable staying in a dragon's domain, you could instead be brought to the central hospital of the unpledged holdings. In either case, Deskyl will receive access to treatment for any injuries we have the technology to repair and may rest for as long as she needs."

"We appreciate the offer, but her injury is magical, not physical; medical treatment is unlikely to help." She pauses to ask Deskyl a question, "and she's not interested in checking." Another question. "She'd prefer to stay here to rest."

The dragon makes a sound that might be a laugh.

"Do you know where 'here' is?"

"No, Ma'am."

The words on the walls fade away to give a full panoramic view of their surroundings, plus holographic overlays for the trajectories of nearby debris fragments, plus the wireframe outline of the SLAYER they reside within (which has a rather bizarre layout, more akin to that of a Very Large Droid than a space ship).

Some of the debris fragments are lit up in various colors, colors that Shreya associates with foreboding words like 'nanocontamination' and 'ionic discharge'?

As the SLAYER drifts there, jostled back and forth occasionally by short bursts from the dragon's maneuvering jets, hundreds of micrometeorites whiz past it on not-quite-collision-courses.

There are no planets here. A constant state of deadly flux surrounds them for thousands of kilometers in every direction.

"I think I misunderstood. Where is your vassalage, Ma'am?"

A shimmering arrow appears, imposed upon the holographic panorama, that points off the direction of... a place that Shreya associates with the word 'home'?