"Stop me if I'm wrong, Captain, but Mr. Dexter said we needed to dock here in order to fix something…"

When the nobleman paused, Rachel turned from the cabinets lining the common room's kitchen wall. "Y'ain't wrong yet, you can keep talkin'."

"And as soon as we docked, said mechanic left the ship without warning or explanation."

"Why do I not relish the direction this conversation is heading…"

Sir Anderson forced a smile. "I'm simply trying to work out what part of this cunning strategy I'm missing."

Rachel turned from the wall a second time, a small food bar clutched in her hand and a tight smile on her face. "There's no need to get snippy." She let the square cabinet swing shut with a click, and began to walk toward the forward corridor as she peeled back the silver wrapping on the bar. "'Sides, you got somewhere pressing you need to be, your lordship?"

"I'd just rather get underway, Captain, and I thought you of all people would share that sensibility."

Rachel sighed and turned on her heel. "Dex is a very good friend, which you coulda noticed is a mite rare out here." Sir Anderson was about to respond, but she cut him off with a wave of her hand. "I trust him. Implicitly."

She turned back toward the bridge, leaving the nobleman shaking his head. The garish cuckoo clock that hung on the wall, a gift to Daphne from a grateful client, had advanced over an hour since Dex and his friend had left. The captain exhaled deeply. She trusted him. To a point.

"So what are you doing here? This far out, I mean. I thought you always wanted to go to Greenleaf."

Carmen shrugged. "I did, but…things never work out the way you plan, right? There's no work anywhere, these days; had to take the first offer I got."

Dex chuckled. "Yeah, you're tellin' me."

The mechanic took the ensuing pause to glance up at her again. She looked much the same as she always had, he supposed: except now her honey-colored hair flew freely instead of staying plastered to her forehead with the day's sweat, and the smile that he was used to see