It was the third morning of their little jaunt toward the patch of space where The Twins were located, the ship holding together with Teagan's expert assistance, Willa and Paladin taking turns "flying" her (though in point of fact, the computer was doing most of the flying at this point). He'd taken over the bridge from Willa so the tall Athenian could get some sleep and had just finished his system checks when he sensed the quiet presence at the door behind him.

"Hello Paladin. Mind if I join you for a bit?" Qamala murmured, smiling gently. She wore her usual clothing -- pearlized pale violet tunic belted at the waist, hem rippling over her thighs, soft indoor sandals -- though she'd obviously left the robe hanging in her quarters.

The young man was moving his arm through the physical therapy routine Dr. Paayt had setup for him, when the Magellen arrived. He wanted to regain the use of his arm as soon as possible. He followed the good doctor's instructions to the letter, because he knew that if left to his own devices he would push too hard and set back his recovery.

Normally he would save such personal matters for his quarters, but each day of traveling meant less traffic and obstacles to deal with. That meant the shifts got less and less interesting. So he needed something else to help him stay sharp and focused, without impairing his ability to do his job.

When Qamala appeared and asked to join him he quickly rescanned all the instruments. Then with a nod he replied, "Things are quiet for the moment. What can I do for you?" He wasn't entirely comfortable with the Magellen, but she was crew and he was captain (for however long that lasted) and so he needed to listen to what she might have to say.

"Just some company, if I wouldn't be in the way," she replied, moving into the cockpit and seating herself, careful not to touch anything. "I haven't had much of a chance to get to know you. I'd like to change that." Her eyes, which had been scanning the granar with lively interest, locked back onto him with disconcerting brightness. In truth, light seemed to follow this woman wherever she went, though of course that was a scientific impossibility. "Willa says you're a top notch flier -- high praise, coming from someone like her."

"At times like this there really isn't much to flying. The course is plotted. Space is big and mostly empty. The chance of running into anything out here is very slim. Even then we should see it coming a long ways off." She said she wanted to find out more about him, but he didn't really didn't feel like answering some personal questions.
So he took the offensive. "So.. is the big wide galaxy everything you'd hoped it would be when you left home?"

"Well, I don't know," she admitted, a smile of almost angelic innocence on her face. "I haven't seen much of it yet. I spent most of the last five months aboard a small yacht with two young Duranaki officers. Can you imagine?" Her eyes began to twinkle. "My first ever exposure to the `big wide galaxy' and it was Duranaki. Five whole months of them. I nearly died of boredom."

"Heh," he did smile slightly at that. "Fair enough, but I think once you got on the station you more than made up for five months of boredom?" He then rubs his healing shoulder, "I know I did."

Her head tilted, pale hair reflecting the shifting lights from the displays. "Is life out here in the big wide galaxy just like that, Paladin? Long periods of boredom, broken up by a brief flash of something exciting?"

"That could be considered a fair generalization. Most of the time excitement is caused by something unexpected and unplanned for. Many people of almost all the races like to feel like they have some measure of control over their lives. So when something 'exciting' happens then they spend alot of time trying to regain that feeling of control. However as they try to gain more control they will eventually run into someone else who is also trying to control things and then things get exciting again as they resolve who is really in control. So it cycles. Even if you manage to get really good, there
is always going to be someone who is out to prove they are just as good or better by taking you on."

That was so far out of her experience it took her a long moment to process it. Even so, she had to table it for later -- too much there based on too many erroneous conclusions drawn from faulty data. Not that it was Paladin's fault, he simply seemed to be describing a view of life in the universe as he (and probably a lot of others) saw it. Unable to address that in the moment, she brought it down to a level where she could.

"Is that what happened to you?"

So much for avoiding it getting personal... "Yeah.... and I lost...." His gaze goes out the view port... He didn't really want to talk about it any more.

"I'm sorry," Qamala murmured, impulsively reaching over to place a comforting hand on his arm. "I didn't intend to touch a sore spot like that." Regretting the question, she glanced around the cockpit, settling on the granar. "Willa told me how that works, sort of. But what about some of these other displays? They're all providing information, and I don't know what any of it means."

Paladin looked up at the 'water fall' display of the granar. He didn't say anything for a long while... "Most of the other sensors are in standby mode right now. This is because many of the sensors work at the speed of light and are less than useful at Warp."

"They are broken into two large categorizes. The Passive EMS Array. Which is the laser sensor, radar direction finder, radio direction finder, radiation sensor, passive IR, light amplification, and image enhancement. Basically anything we can use to find out information without giving out anything about us."

"Then there is the Active EMS Array which is the radar, all-weather radar, ladar, radar jammer, radio jammer and active IR. These can provide alot more details then the passive stuff, but they all have the down side of being noticeable to anyone with a passive array"

He's shut down again, she thought to herself, listening to his text-book explanation of the equipment. I could get this much from the computer. "All weather?" She then asked, picking up on one of his phrases. "There's no weather in space -- does that mean this ship can go into atmosphere? Land on a planet?"

"Yes..." he paused. "Depending on the planet. It's a common tactic to hide and refuel in gas giants. For more habitable planets it usually will not be much different then docking at a station like we were. Except for the influence of the gravity well."

"Is that a good way to hide?" Her questions were genuine -- there was so much to know in this universe! "If you were looking for someone using that tactic, how would you go about finding them?

"Yes it can be." Paladin thought for a bit trying to think of a way to explain why it could be a good place to hide. "Let's try an example... Let's say space is like a large uniformly colored piece of black fabric, like a bedspread or curtain or wall covering. Now let's
say you take a fluorescent orange marker and put a small dot representing a spaceship on the fabric. That dot is really easy to pick out; really the only way to miss it is to have your attention be focused somewhere else. Now there are many ways a ship can make its dot larger or smaller, but it can't stop being a dot on the fabric.

"Now gas giants, asteroids, other ships and planets all also make dots on the fabric. If you have many small dots from asteroids and other ships finding one dot that is 'your' ship becomes much harder. Planets make it even worse. They are huge dots and the smaller space ship dot can overlap it. How easy is it to find one small orange dot on a larger almost the same shade dot?

"Now to find a ship we have to wait for it to do something that expands its size. Weapons fire, active scans, even thrusting up out of the gravity can change their size enough to be noticed. That means to find it, we have to wait and watch and hope they do something to give themselves away."

Qamala's eyes lit up again at this, her sudden comprehension illuminating the cabin around them. "Oh that's marvelous," she breathed, referencing both explanation and tactic at once. "And the same would be true for us, wouldn't it? If we hid in a gas giant and someone was looking for us -- they would see us if we fired a weapon, or the moment we began thrusting for space. Is there a way for a hot pilot to counter that?"

Paladin blinked back as the room lit up, he did a quick glance around the room. Seeing nothing he chalked it up to the attractive, smiling, woman being just more interesting to his tired mind then the black of space or the sensors. Focusing back on the question, "Kinda... You can't make the 'increase' any less but you can try to hide it or mask it under something else. The planet itself is still your best ally..." He made a spinning motion with one hand while using the other as a fixed point. "It's rotating, you can try to make your escape when your enemy is on the opposite side. They will be slower in detecting you and they would have to get around the planet before they can attack."
Again his hand moved in a semi circle around a pretend planet.

Putting his hands down he continued, "That gives you a big head start. The kicker is that the planets 'hiding' ability works both ways. If they can't see you then its a good bet you can't see them either. That makes it a bluff and strategy game, with each other trying to out guess the other." Then with a grimace, "As I am sure you can imagine, guessing wrong is really... really bad."

"Yes," she murmured, brow crinkling in sympathetic pain. "No one likes explosive decompression. So for all of the computers and electronics and sensors, it really still comes down to one being's intellect and intuition pitted against another's. With all due affection for Audacity here, I think I like it that way."

"Indeed" The young man nodded. "The technical arms race helps keep things in balance. So one designs something new and brilliant, and in a short time someone figures out a way to counter it."

Then with a slight smile he said, "Of course that mind against mind thing goes along way to explaining why 'hot shot' pilots have the stereotype of being arrogant, blow hard, thrill seekers." He wondered if she would rise to the bait.

Her soft laughter threaded through the dim cabin. "Possibly. It probably has more to do with the insecurities of those saying such things, though. In that, the race hasn't changed much at all..."

Qamala's voice drifted off, but rather suddenly, as if she were uncomfortable with what she'd just said. "Every other person on board this ship is so talented, knows so much about their respective fields of endeavor." Her smile returned, but it was inflected in chagrin. "I feel like a very young, very ignorant hanger-on. But I do thank you for putting up with me. I'll try to be an asset, rather than a liability."

The young man grinned at her answer. Then as she started her little bit of self doubt, his smile faded just a bit. "We all feel that way from time to time. You simply have a different set of skills then are needed right now. I mean you talked your way pass the senator, and I am reasonably sure you weren't part of his original plan. And you
handled Ekhart. So you clearly have skills dealing with people. Which could very well make you more important then all the technical know how or piloting skills the rest of us have."

Then with a slightly sly grin, "Of course that is my hope for Lawrence as well."

"He's a puzzle, that one is," the Magellen allowed, delighted to share her observations. "He is not what he seems -- but he is very convincing at seeming to be what he is. Very strange. Even stranger to me than Morgan, in some ways."

"Oh... You find Morgan strange?" It was a leading question in hopes that she would explain more. Paladin had already 'figured' out Morgan. At least as much as he thought he needed to. But he had just finished commenting her on her people skills, so it would be wise to listen. He wondered if maybe it was more of a Magellen-human thing
then him being strange.

"Mmmm. Are all young human males so angry?" Her question was again quite sincere, but there was something just under it, threading through the words. "He is like an explosive, and I'm never quite sure how he gets detonated."

"Not all," He answered, "But more then you might be used to depending on how Magellens handle things, and not just males. Willa has it too, to a lesser extent." He wasn't apologizing, just explaining, "It's really an individual thing on the trigger and I can't tell you for 100 percent what will set them off." He shrugged.

"In a very simplistic and general though it can be traced to back to attempts to protect what is 'Mine' from outsiders and lost. 'My' ship, 'my' stuff, 'my' friends, 'my' family', 'my' job. It can even extend to things like 'my families' stuff, 'my friends' jobs. If they
see a threat or think they see a threat they will respond with what has worked for them before."

"As much as anger gets a bad rap, it can be very effective as a tool. If you can master it instead of it mastering you." He looks at Qamala's eyes, which were fixed on him with a mixture of fascination and horror, and asks, "How do Magellen deal with such things?"

"One moment." The words were barely whispered aloud and preceded the lids closing over those glorious eyes as Qamala found herself suddenly in over her head once again. The differences between human and Magellen in this, as in so many things, were so wide as to be inexplicable. It was distressing for her to think of an entire race living in that kind of emotional turmoil from something as simple as an error in perception, literally pained her in ways she couldn't entirely understand yet, herself.

His explanation is likely as good as I'm likely to get from a human and yet he offers it as if the premise for it is the most natural thing imaginable... and would be offended if I told him how horrifying it truly is. Oh Paulos... at every turn I'm up against this kind of thing.... the gulf is unbridgable... and I did not come here to teach, it is not my place...

Abruptly, Qamala knew she was close to tears. She took a deep, steadying breath, and then another. A memory fragment from several decades previous surfaced in the turmoil of her thoughts and she let it flow into her consciousness. **Your heart is made to break, loulloudi. That is its purpose -- let it break over and over again, so it may hold ever more wonders...**

"Magellen achieve more and more control over all facets of their beingness as they mature," she finally said, forcing the words through a throat that was still a little tight from unshed tears. She knew she wasn't supposed to talk about her people or her planet to mortals, and in truth there was little she could tell them that they were prepared to understand. "I'm sorry, I didn't intend to pull away like that. I am not very old at all, really. I have almost no control over my body yet, and my emotions still get away from me at times, as you can see."

Paladin was a bit confused. He wasn't sure what had set Qamala off. "No need to apologize. In fact I must apologize whatever it was I said that triggered it. It was not my intent." He had read up on what he could find on Magellen's when Qamala joined up. There wasn't a whole lot, mostly about them being mysterious. And that was proving to be the case with this one too. "I must confess though to not being sure what it was that I did?"

"You did nothing wrong," Qamala assured him, another few deep breaths doing much to restore her usual equilibrium. "I think I'm more than a little homesick," she said, smiling ruefully. "Are you from Midgaard? Do you ever get homesick?"

"Homesick? For Midgaard? No." He thinks for a bit before responding, "I've been wanting to sit in this chair for as long as I can remember." It was pretty clear he was talking about the chair in a more symbolic way. "I enrolled in the military to receive the
training to fly and gain practical experience, and I do miss that lifestyle, from time to time. But in a way I've come to think of that cockpit as home."

Realizing what he just said he smiled a bit ruefully, "Huh. That sounds a bit twisted doesn't it."

"It does?" He'd managed to startle her into smiling. "I don't think so. It sounds like you found a dream to follow, and make come true, to me. I don't find that `twisted' at all. Did you choose the name `Paladin' or was it chosen for you?"

"A bit of both really. After passing the basics at the academy, it was time for us to choose our call sign, some picked good ones, other not so good. Some like myself where having a hard time with it. So all of us pilots got together and then over more beer and bad jokes then is really healthy we worked them all out." He smiled fondly at
the memory talking about it brought back.

"I'm not sure who originally brought up the name, but by the next morning I was Paladin and I have been ever since."

Qamala chuckled softly. "So what is a Paladin, anyway? That they thought the name was appropriate for you? I'd never heard the term before."

"It's a really old earth term and like many old earth terms its meaning has changed over time. Usually it's defined as a king's or ruler's champion, and can be held up as a standard for all of the other warriors to match."

He shrugged a bit. "At the time I was at the top of my class and I was the one beat or match so it seemed like a good choice." Then his voice softens a bit, "It also has aspects of a kind of holy warrior, one blessed by the gods, as it were, to stand up for
all good and true and proper. That causes all kinds of problems."

"I should imagine so, in an age when humanity has outgrown its old gods, and seems to have no desire for new ones." One long brown finger curled over her lips as she gazed at him, enjoying a quiet moment to talk about the small things -- when it came down to it, she knew those were the things that really mattered. "It is likely challenging enough to live up to the first definition, though. Shall we leave the second one in the graveyard of human history and move on?"

"Love to, but the graveyard of human history has a tendency not to stay dead." he smiles slightly. "I mean I took this job because it would pay well and allow me to fly. Then everyone on board decides I am to be their captain, some did it because they thought I'd be the best, others maybe because I seemed the least objectionable. Whatever their reasons, here I am, leading the charge to save the princess, and
who knows how many countless others as a repercussion of that. Although no one really wants to put it like that."

She chuckled softly. "That fits in well with your first definition -- we should be led by the best of the best, after all -- but not your second unless you're going to insist you've been blessed by the gods and are on a personal crusade for what is `good and true and proper'," Qamala said, giving his words back to him with a smile. "So leave the second, as I suggested. The responsibilities of the first are quite enough, I should think. I don't envy you them."

"I'm not thinking we are blessed by the gods." he grimaced. "But if by some 'miracle' we succeed other people are going to want to know our story, and they aren't going to want to know about all our little frailties. They are going to want us to be larger-than-life heroes. Not because we are, but because they need to believe that we are." He paused for a bit, "That's why it will not stay dead."

"You may be right," the Magellen murmured, eyes drifting over the lights on the displays without really seeing them. "Some things never change, it seems. Humans still need to know that they can transcend their own humanity, when they must. They no longer get that through religion... or patriotism (always excepting New Home on both counts, I suppose)... but there are always heroes..."

Qamala started upright, as if just realizing she'd been musing aloud. "I must be more tired than I thought, rambling like that. Well, if we are to be larger-than-life, I simply must know more about this ship than I do. Will you teach me how to read all these displays?" She asked, smiling engagingly.

"All of them? That would take some time."

"We appear to have quite a bit of it," she chortled.

With a smile he continued, "Let's start with the only one we can use in warp. The GRANAR short for GRAvimetric NAvigation and Ranging...."