At his murmur, more thoughts were sent his way, affirmation, happiness and still a bit of confusion. It didn't take a genius to realise that the Voyager was worried about him, he wasn't in the best state of mind after all.

  "It's alright big girl," he said, trying to focus his thoughts as he said them, trying to calm her down, "I'm alright, it's just that some things happened. You don't need to worry about any of it."

  He almost laughed out loud after saying that. He couldn't believe that he was having a conversation with the Voyager. It was so surreal.

  At that, another thought was sent his way, it was confusion followed by... worry? It wasn't quite like the one she sent before, though. It took Dan a bit of wrestling with it to understand what she meant. She was asking about the worry he was feeling when he entered the room, why he asked for her in the first place.

  "Oh, that." Dan tried to focus his thoughts on what he meant as he spoke, "Someone left a mark through a skill and they are tracking us using it. I was wondering if you can feel, and maybe, deal with it?"

  This time the Voyager didn't send anything back for quite a while. Just as Dan was wondering if maybe his words were too much for her, he got a thought sent back, a tiny bit of confusion, as usual, and affirmation. Following that he could feel the misty aura that was still filling the cabin start to churn. Covering every nook and cranny of the room.

  Dan was waiting for the Voyager to do something about the mark, but he didn't expect to start feeling the cabin himself! Everything that got touched by the misty auras was felt by him in a weird sense of the word.

  "What the..." Dan was glad for the chair that was just below him as he fell back onto it. The sensation was so out of this world that his mind couldn't handle it.

  As he fell into the chair, the sensation he got disappeared as the Voyager sent more thoughts and feelings, fear, worry and anxiety.

  "No, no it's alright," He said as he massaged his aching head, "I just wasn't expecting it that's all. Okay, go again, I'm ready this time."

  With a hint of hesitation, the connection with the aura in the cabin was established once more, and Dan found himself under that bombardment again.

  This time he tried to focus on what he was feeling, ignore the weirdness and instead try to link them or relate them to his normal senses, using what he knew was in the cabin to try and find something that was out of place.

  As he started linking the objects and senses, and started getting familiar with how the auras from the Voyager let him see the world, the layout of the cabin started making itself clear in his mind. Unfortunately, though, he still couldn't feel anything out of place.

  The Voyager, maybe sensing his feelings, brought more of those auras and filled the cabin, the misty feelers that extended from him growing denser. The effect that had on Dan's senses was instant, it was as if he raised the quality of a video he was watching, everything got much much clearer. That didn't come without any negative effect though, because the headache he was feeling got even worse.

  Just as his headache was reaching a point where he could barely focus on anything any more, he finally sensed something. In a hidden corner of the bathroom, something out of place was felt, it was like a cancerous mass of energy stuck to the wall.

  It was hidden extremely well. If not for the Voyager focusing only on that small cabin and with Dan working as the program studying those readings, they might have never been able to find it. Dan didn't have a way to sense it normally, and the Voyager, even though she might have been able to sense it, didn't have much experience or intelligence to recognize it for what it was.

  "That's it, big girl," Dan said as he focused on what he sensed. "See if you can destroy it."

  Dan watched as the gentle warm aura retreated from where that blob of outsider energy was, and the dark oppressive aura took its place. That aura seemed to be offensive, or more precisely, predatory. As it surrounded the blob of foreign energy, the latter seemed to instinctively contract on itself, as if it met a ferocious bloodthirsty animal. And it seemed that the blob was correct in its reaction, because as soon as the aura touched it, it started being ripped apart savagely. Just a few seconds later, nothing was left of it.

  Dan sighed as he felt the pressure on his mind relax, the Voyager cutting the link between him and the room.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Thank you, Voyager, you did well," He said gently. And the Voyager sent back feelings of happiness and contentment.

  "See if there is anything like that anywhere else," he said, before adding a bit hesitantly, "You can do that on your own now, right? You're familiar with what you're searching for?"

  The Voyager sent back happiness and affirmation. Dan found himself smiling at how innocent she was as he stood up.

  "You could have done this ever since we got here? Connecting with me I mean," he asked, wondering if this was something she just got or if it was always part of their connection as a Bonded Captain and his bonded ship.

  The Voyager sent him what he could only describe as how she saw the world at first. Everything seemed to be confusing and messy for her, but that seemed to be changing the more time they spent in this world. The biggest jumps in her self-cognition seemed to happen after each level up.

  "You're growing so fast," Dan joked, he didn't know if she understood the joke but she sent back bubbly happiness so he guessed it was alright anyway. He guessed that the more her consciousness grew the easier it would be for them to communicate, maybe she would even be able to talk using words one day.

  Just as he was still thinking over such things, the Voyager sent back a feeling of tiredness and lethargy.

  "Oh, you're getting tired. I should have guessed that doing this for the first time wouldn't be easy on you. You can cut the connection off if you want."

  The Voyager sent back her approval. Dan watched as the cocoon of auras around him started disappearing. Just as it was about to disappear for real, he remembered something and shouted,

  "Wait Voyager, there's something I need to tell you!"

  The dispersing auras stopped for a second as a feeling of curiosity was sent back, Dan could imagine her looking at him with question marks floating around her head. Ignoring the ridiculous mind picture of a cruise ship with question marks floating around her, Dan said what he just remembered,

  "If you ever get a skill about using other types of fuel or anything like that, you should take it!" He tried to make his voice as serious as he could, "It's very important, you should never let such a skill go, understood?"

  The Voyager still sent back a hint of confusion even though she also sent with it her approval. Dan sighed as he sensed that.

  "Thank you for that big girl. Also, you might have saved our lives just now, know that."

  With those words passing just before the auras disappeared for real, the last thing Dan got from her was happiness and relief.

  Once the room returned to how it was before, Dan released a deep breath as he felt a huge weight being lifted off his shoulders. The mark's problem was dealt with and he just had a conversation with his ship. What could be better than that?

  The absurdity of that thought just registered in his mind as he had it. Making him start laughing uncontrollably in that cabin.

  "Captain." A knock was suddenly heard from the door, followed by a concerned voice, "Ar-are you good? Is everything alright there?"

  Dan finally remembered himself as he stood frozen in the middle of the cabin for a few seconds. He could feel his face heating up as he tried to imagine how it must have looked to see him lock himself in a room alone, start talking to himself for a few minutes then start laughing like a maniac. He would have worried for himself too.

  "I-I'm alright," he said as he covered his face in embarrassment, "I will be coming out soon."

  "Okay..." Dan recognised the voice as Hank's. He sighed in relief as the young man seemed to be just like his sister, Fleta, he doubted he would be running around telling people about what he had heard from the cabin.

  Calming himself and opening the door, Dan again felt like finding a hole to hide himself in. Waiting for him outside wasn't just the still form of Hank, but also the worried face of Robert and Old Raily, Dan could almost swear that even Marcus had a hint of worry on his face.

  "Is everything alright?" It was Robert's question that brought him back to the land of the living.

  "Yeah," Dan cleaned his throat as he answered, "I'm good, I just had to try something."

  "That's good to hear," Old Raily nodded slowly, before continuing with an expression Dan hadn't seen in his face since all this mess started, "I think that you should go and take some rest for the night. I doubt we are going to get caught while specifically moving away from shore, we should be good."

  Dan massaged his head as he felt a headache as big as the one he had when the Voyager shared her senses with him mounting.

  "As I said, I'm really alright," He tried to make them understand, "I just tried something. And guess what, it worked, I've dealt with the mark!"

  Dan thought that that would get him some surprised reactions from the men in front of him, but as he saw the worry on the faces of at least two of the men grow, he almost died of shame.

  "Guys I'm serious..."