I Don't Actually Know How Holograms Work
26 Oct 2021User319792
"I found a comm that was basically just a black box with the name Etienne Dorn on it. I'm heading out there now."Coral was seated in her SRV, the strange light on the moon's surface casting her face a sickly greenish hue. She scanned the horizon slowly, calmly. The look on her face was a mixture of serene wonder and sharpened awareness, as if she was exactly where she was supposed to be and when she was supposed to be there. I couldn't tell you if that's what she was feeling, but I'd never before seen her with that look on her face and that's what she looked like. I realized what she'd said after studying her face for a while.
"What? What are you doing flying?"
She looked at me with irritation, her eyes heavy-lidded and her nostrils slightly flared.
"I found a comm from dad to someone named Etienne Dorn in Los and I'm heading over to find out if there's anything he can tell me about dad."
My eyes looked toward the comms panel on my desk in Ovid, resting for a while. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise before looking back at Coral.
"Did they clear you to fly without clearing me?"
Coral had already returned to scanning her surroundings, taking in the landscape.
"No, but I figure if anyone says anything I can just tell them I'm you and leave dad to sort it out. I'm sure he's got it covered."
I looked away again, tucking my chin into my neck and pursing my lips.
"Are you sure dad isn't gonna-"
The man in the black suit's face appeared in our holofac and, without looking up from his desk, he asked,
"Coral, you're violating a grounding order from the organization."
Her eyes widened and darted back and forth from her comms panel to me.
"I... I had a project I wanted to work on."
The man in the black suit looked back and forth between two things on the opposite ends of his holo sensor.
"Don't get caught."
Coral looked at me, staring with widened eyes, her mouth shut but the left corner of her mouth twitching.
"Does this mean I can get back to flying, too?"
"No, it does not. I'm still working on getting you two out of this. You'll remain in docked in Achenar until I... You're floating around in Alacagui..."
The man in the black suit looked at me, his eye brows bunching together, before looking back down at his desk.
"... You're safer out there than at Dawes, anyway. Keep your beacons off and your ship powered-down. You should have plenty of reserve energy to last through to the end of the grounding. Coral..."
She looked back at me, her eyes still wide, then looked down at her desk, avoiding a glance over at the man in the black suit.
"Yes?"
"... don't get caught."
And with that, his holofac vanished from our comms.
I looked at Coral, who was staring back at me, her eyes wide and her mouth tight. She looked away and her shoulders rocked upward. I could hear her breathing settle into a rhythm.
"So what, you're just gonna fly all the way to Los and then speak to this guy?"
"That's sort of what I had in mind, yes."
"You do know he's one of the Pilot's Federation engineers, right?"
"Is... I did not know that..."
Coral looked away and squinted.
"... Is he gonna let me dock at his station?"
"I don't know. I've never visited an engineer without being invited. How'd you even know where to find him?"
She'd taken back to scanning the horizon, her calm restored. I couldn't tell if she was turning something over in her mind or if she was scanning for prey.
"It was on the comm. His name, Kraken's Retreat, and 'Etienne, it was a' and then a huge black box covering the rest of the comm until the end where it said 'with' then a small black bar then 'regards'"
I looked away from her toward the Ovid's comm panel again, squinting.
"Hey, do you think he can hear us when we're talking to one another?"
Without looking over, she said,
"Who, dad?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know. Probably. I mean, maybe not. He didn't know about the kill-switch code on Galileo, so he probably doesn't have access to everything, but my bet's that if he doesn't have access to our signal, to the degree that he can hear us, he at least knows when we're communicating with one another."
I studied the comms panel on Ovid intently. I figured I'd have been a safer bet for him to overlook violating the suit's orders, all things considered.
"Hey, are you gonna be ok?"
Coral continued with her measured surveying of the surroundings behind her holofac sensor.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll send you a picture in a second."
Coral shut off her holofac.
I watched Ovid's comm's panel for any indication of activity, studying the way the light shone from the desk panel and the patterns in the beams of light as they changed with my orders. I'm not sure how long I was at it before the comm alert from Coral scared the crap out of me.
Coral in her SRV