Dan chuckled at her reaction before explaining his class and what happened when he got it.

  "That's something..." she murmured as her hand went again for the coffee cup on the table.

  Dan hurriedly stopped her before she could take a sip then said,

  "Why don't you start with your breakfast before we head to the bridge and see how to deal with all this, okay?"

  Keith just nodded and focused on her tray, she had a few bites before saying.

  "The Voyager is still growing right?" As Dan nodded, she continued, "So that means that we probably have no hope of hiding the fact that she's alive forever. It's going to come out one way or the other, I see no future where it wouldn't."

  "I know. That's why I'm going to talk to a select few at first, and see how it's going from there."

  "Just let me finish this and we can head back," Keith said between bites.

  With her breakfast done and after cleaning their plates, Dan and Keith made their way to the bridge, debating if they should add any other people to the first few they were going to tell about the Voyager, but decided against it for now. They would first see the reaction and thoughts of this group before deciding on what to do.

  "Captain on bridge." Dan heard someone shout once they made it inside. He turned around in surprise to see Robert giving him a huge grin. He smiled at his friend's antics and the few laughs here and there from everyone on deck.

  "At ease!" he replied seriously, leaning into the joke. He then greeted everyone before turning to his chief officer and saying, "How was your sleep? I expected you to be absent for at least a few more hours."

  "It was good." Robert nodded at Keith in greeting before continuing, "And I couldn't just sleep with all that might be happening here."

  "Well, it's good that we met you actually." Dan patted him on the shoulder, "I was going to talk to some of our group about my Class, you being there should help."

  "Oh," Robert gave Keith a look before asking, "she...?"

  "Yes she knows," Dan answered the implied question, "She found out on her own, well, kinda."

  "There seems to be a story there," Robert chuckled, "Anyway, who are you going to tell? Any names yet?"

  "Old Raily, Marcus, and William," Dan rattled out the names, "Those are the few we decided on, what do you think?"

  "They are enough for a first batch," Robert nodded. He then turned and called, "William, do you have a moment?"

  The old engineer had been talking to Rose, one of the engineering officers, but at Robert's shout he said a few last words to her before turning and heading towards them.

  "Good morning everyone, what's the matter?"

  "We just needed to talk to you about something," Robert said. He then turned to Freddie and shouted, "Freddie, keep an eye on things here, we will be back soon."

  The second officer just raised his hand in acknowledgement before returning to whatever he had been doing before.

  "So what is this about?" William asked as Dan led everyone out, "Is something wrong?"

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  "Not really," Robert calmed the old engineer down, "We just need to talk to you about something."

  "Let's first get Marcus and Old Raily before doing anything else," Dan said as he pulled his walkie-talkie and reached for the chief security officer, "Hey Marcus, where are you? Over."

  "Keeping an eye on the islanders. Over," the reply came back fast, with no delay.

  "Is Old Man Raily there? Over,"

  "Yes, he just got here. Is anything the matter? Over," Marcus asked.

  "Nothing urgent, don't worry. We just need to have a conversation and ask for your opinions about something," Dan comforted him, "We are coming your way, make sure Old Raily stays there. Over."

  "Roger, over," Marcus said for one last time before the line got cut off.

  "Now I'm getting interested," William laughed lightly, "What is all this smoke and mirrors about?"

  "Oh, it's beyond your wildest imagination," Robert said, "Just you wait."

  While bickering back and forth, the group eventually made it to the corridor cluster of deck 4 where the islanders were kept, Marcus and Old Raily waiting for them.

  "Good morning everyone," Dan and the group greeted the duo who greeted them back, before saying, "Let's go some place more private."

  Marcus didn't ask any questions, he just nodded and after giving some instructions to the guards he turned around and led the group to a different section of deck 4. All the rooms there were empty and the group chose one at random and entered it.

  "So," William said as soon as everyone was in, "You've kept me waiting for long enough, what is this about? Why all the secrecy?"

  "I will get there old friend," Dan chuckled weakly. Honestly, he didn't know how to start with this. So he just decided to be straightforward, "I've gathered you here to get your opinions about something. You see the Voyager is alive."

  "Is that figurative or..." William asked, then added in confusion, "Wait how would that even work figuratively?"

  Dan didn't answer, he knew that his friend got what he wanted to say, he just had a bad habit of reverting to jokes when things got a bit too complicated.

  "The ship is alive?" Old Raily asked. At Dan's serious nod, he cursed and said, "How would that even work? How did a freaking ship become alive?"

  "That's what I want to talk about next," Dan then went and started explaining all that happened during his class selection and the system announcements he saw then.

  "So we still have no idea what brought the ship to life?" William said, his initial shock gone, "Your class isn't what gave the Voyager that first push towards sentience, it's just nurturing it."

  "It was most likely just a result of whatever brought us here," Robert shrugged, "It's some magical shenanigans, I'm sure that one way or another, that sentence explains it."

  "Well, in a way, this means that the ship will get stronger, separate from you I mean, right?" Marcus said.

  "Yes," Dan nodded, "The fog isn't actually a skill I acquired or chose, it's Voyager's. Each 3 levels she will get another."

  "That's great to hear," Old Raily said in his gruff voice, "The stronger this ship gets, the better for us."

  "Yeah," Dan said, he then mentioned something that had been on his mind for a while, ever since he knew about how the Voyager's skills affected her, "I hope that eventually, we will get something like an alternative fuel source or whatever, I'm just hoping for something like that."

  "Again, magic," Robert said with a chuckle, "There is probably something like that out there, so see if you can get your ship to choose it if it ever comes up, we don't want her to miss out on it because she didn't know how important it would be."

  "Yeah, I will try."

  "So, you've dropped this bombshell on us," William interrupted their conversation, "What do you need our opinions for? I remember that you said you wanted us here not just to tell us about all of this."

  "Oh yeah," Dan scratched his chin in embarrassment, "Kinda forgot about that. I wanted to ask you about your opinions concerning telling everyone about this. Should we keep the fact that the Voyager is alive and only getting more and more so, a secret or share it with everyone else?"

  "Honestly," surprisingly, it was Robert who spoke first, "I don't think telling everyone about this is going to be that much of a problem. They most likely won't care about it as much as you fear they would."

  "I agree with you," Marcus said, the short chief security officer pacing around the room as he talked, "But we don't only have our people here, there's also the islanders. And who knows what this world's take on living ships is. I doubt the Voyager is the first of her kind after all."

  Dan was glad he decided to ask for advice about this, having more opinions was always a good thing, and it meant that his attention could be brought to things he hadn't looked into before, like that exact point.

  "So what?" Old Raily questioned, "We wait till we get rid of those islanders before telling everyone?"

  "Seems like a good idea," Dan said, and no one disagreed.

  Bonus chapter is gonna be in an hour or so~~