"This is Deskyl, Ma'am." She gestures. "She's a Sith, a type of person who can do magic. She teleported us here a few hundred degrees ago. Ladriel may have heard about her, Culamine was going to talk to the others about us."

“I see.”

“Keep your movements minimal. I’ll relay your claims.”

Dheto cuts the transmission.

"Nilam, could you go let the soldiers know what's going on here, please? And tell them that we don't expect a fight, but there might be one. It'd be safest for you to go back to your bunk when you're done, but you can come up here again if you'd like."

"Sure thing!"

She unbuckles herself and kicks off the dashboard (careful not to inadvertently mash the controls this time).

Back to her bunk for safety? Yeah right. She'll bunk when she's sleepy, if even then.

Deskyl takes the vacated pilot's seat.

    "Can you relay this conversation to Devika, Ma'am?", DZ asks Reva. "Preferably without Dheto knowing, but Deskyl would like her on screen."

"Okay. I can make that happen."

Reva begins swiping at an interface on the dashboard, setting up a nonstandard transmission protocol for her ally.

Devika appears on the opposite side of the view screen from where transmission windows usually materialize.

She says something, but her audio is muted.

"We can't hear you, Ma'am. We've been talking with the Draco contingent; Deskyl wanted you to be able to listen in. Nothing very important has happened yet, though we have learned that we're dealing with Ladriel, who is one of the most restrictive dragons in terms of how she treats her vassals."

Devika nods. She makes no attempts to speak further.

    "Deskyl doesn't intend to let her have you."

Mmhmmm.

That gets another silent nod.

Well, that's about the best she can do. She puts her Sith face back on and waits for the hail.

Dheto calls back after a couple minutes.

"We've confirmed your identity. I apologize for my earlier aggressive bearing."

Deskyl nods her acceptance of the apology.

"What happened here?"

"We teleported here a few hundred degrees ago, as I mentioned, and were brought to Procyon Station. Deskyl spent most of the time between then and now recovering from a magical injury she sustained before we arrived; at some point during that time, a spy on the station learned about us and contacted the United Colonies. They attacked the station, and then boarded, claiming to be a rescue team; Deskyl believed them, helped them evacuate the civilians, and then boarded their ship. When she learned that they were kidnaping her, she hijacked the ship, which resulted in the colonial SLAYER you see here being sent to retrieve us; Deskyl fought her, won, and decided to keep her to interrogate; she's curious about the colonists' motives. We then returned here, helped Shreya collect the remaining escape pods, and waited for assistance. We also learned while we were waiting that we have the spy who reported us on board."

“I see.”

”The surviving Hound said that you know for sure all escape pods were accounted for. And she said that those within the pods were all successfully transferred to your vessel. Is that correct?”

    "Yes, Ma'am - assuming that there weren't any outside Deskyl's sensory range, but they seemed to be clustered closely enough, she's reasonably confident that we got them all."

Nilam reenters the cockpit.

“Okay, the soldiers know what’s up.”

“How did you end up with children aboard?”

“I’m not a kid!” Nilam balls up her fists and barks out a knee jerk protest. “I’m a full vassal and... and...”

Her voice started out at full shout, but by now has diminished to a mumble.

”...and Deskyl is gonna give me sword lessons.”

“Well. I stand corrected.”

“...”

(Emotion Read: mortified.)