Calming A Racing Heart

Chapter Thirty Two

          TDQ 77035 continued to drift through space surround by the wreckage of the other ships abandoned in that area. Evee dozed lightly. She wasn't waiting exactly. Time didn't have a lot meaning to her as she just drifting here. She did feel a sense of aloneness without the navigators.

          Joshua and Larcin. They had given her the precious gift of their names before they left and she treasured it. Over and over she revisited the images of their brief time together. Most of all, she savored the intense emotions that filled their minds to the exclusion of everything else when their mouths touched. Was this what was meant by the word love? Evee pondered this and other questions as she drifted.

          Then came a time when Evee felt several smaller vessels surrounding her. Tethers were attached to her outer hull and she felt herself being towed through the debris field. A lead ship used it weapons to clear path for her so she didn't sustain any more damage.

          She was in a panic. What if the navigators came back and she wasn't here? There wasn't anything she could do to get loose from the ships that were moving her. She didn't have access to the space drive and she couldn't use the warp drive without a navigator to show her where to go.   Where were they taking her?  She despaired that she would never see her Joshua or Larcin again.

          Once outside of the wreckage area, Evee was loaded into the hold of a large freighter. She tried to reach the A.I. on board the freighter but she was still very weak. Her energy cells had been partially filled before Joshua and Larcin had left but she was far from full strength. Too many of her internal systems had been removed. Either she was too far away from the onboard A.I. or it was ignoring her. She was trapped in the metal prison that housed the circuits and wires that made up her existence. She now understood the anguish Joshua had projected in his thoughts when he feared he would never be reunited with his other. They had given her their names, establishing a bond between them. That was why the navigators never gave the A.I.s their name. If her navigators couldn't find her, if that bond couldn't be reestablished, Evee would parish in a state of despair.

          She felt them fall into warp space. No one responded to her cries of desolation as she was moving farther and farther away from where her navigators would look for her. She put herself into deep sleep, not wanting to know what tragedy would befall her next. She resigned herself to never waking again. Occasionally she would become aware enough to notice people swarming over her shell but since none of them were her navigators, she ignored them and retreated deeper into her sleep. She no longer cared what happened to the hunk of metal that surrounded her. An extended period of time passed before the incredible happened.

           "Time to wake up Evee. Come back to us Sweetie." A gentle mind touching her consciousness drew Evee out of her deep sleep. She was slow to respond, afraid to face her new situation until a familiar presence enveloped her like a warm embrace.

            "Joshua?" she questioned, not yet fully aware.

           "Yes dear. It's me. Larcin's here too. Time to wake up. We have work to do."

          Evee snapped to attention. She didn't know what a broken down wreak like her could do but whatever they asked of her she would try her upmost to accomplish. The mental image she carried of herself danced in joy.

         "You found me! You found me!" Joshua and Larcin both reeled back with the force of her jubilant projections.

          "Easy there, little girl." Larcin sent out calming thought to rein in Evee's powerful exuberance.

          "I told you we shouldn't leave her dormant for so long. We almost didn't get her to wake up." Larcin fussed at Joshua while keeping up a stream of soothing thoughts to Evee. This was his job and why Larcin was considered one of the top navigators.