After the episode with Old Raily, Dan continued onto the bridge. Once he was inside, his eyes moved around as he sought the two he was there for.

  "Freddie, Keith," he called his first and second mate as he walked towards them, "How are we doing?"

  The two greeted him first before Freddie said,

  "We are good so far, nothing too dangerous has appeared at all."

  "No red dots then?"

  "Yes, we haven't seen any of them." Keith nodded. "But orange dots are way more concentrated than around the waters of the Empire, so I wouldn't be surprised if we met some reds eventually."

  "I guess that's to be expected," Dan said to himself, then asked, "So what do you think we should do now?"

  "We should probably move through the day and rest at night," Keith said, both Dan and Freddie nodding. It seemed that they all had the same idea. "We have no reason to move at night right now. Monsters are too dangerous and numerous at that time, and there's no reason for us to take that risk now that we aren't moving through established routes and our chances of meeting other vessels are infinitely tiny anyway. Moving during the day is safer and the obvious better option."

  Dan was happy that everyone seemed to share the same concerns and ideas, which was what he, Marcus, Old Raily and Robert had come up with after discussing possibilities for their coming journey too; moving at night was too risky, without much benefit. They would try to move as fast as they could during the day while resting during the night.

  "We thought so too," Dan said, "It's decided then. What about our route? What are we doing about that and how are we going to reach the Dynasty?"

  "That's where I come in," Freddie said as he led them to the screen with his skill, World Map, "Even though we don't know that many routes from the Empire to the Dynasty, we still have a few. We also have some maps for the Dynasty waters and shores. With all that, we have an endpoint to aim for, we will try to move slowly and surely to the Dynasty while being mindful of how the Voyager reacts to the areas ahead of us. If she shows any signs that a stretch of the ocean was too much for her, we would let her change course."

  "So," Dan said slowly, "We will be feeling around blindly as we make our way to the Dynasty."

  "You can look at it like that." Freddie shrugged. "I doubt we have a better option. And besides, the Voyager is pretty sensitive to such things, I don't think she would lead us to our doom mindlessly."

  Dan remained silent for a bit as he went through things in his mind. He felt that there most likely was no better choice for them to go with, so eventually, he just nodded and said,

  "Okay, we will go with it. Get us moving."

  "Right now?" Freddie asked in mild surprise.

  "No better time than the present." Dan smiled. "The faster we cross the ocean the less our chances of meeting some freak accidents are. There's still a bit of time before the sun sets, let's not waste it and move a bit more."

  "Well, onwards we go!" Keith cheered playfully.

  Dan then updated the others on what was happening as the Voyager started her journey. He even talked to and told her what they needed from her, to be extremely attentive about the waters ahead of them and to change courses if she noticed anything suspicious or dangerous on their path. He made sure to let her know that she had the final say in the matter.

  With the Voyager understanding what was needed of her, sending back her determined and resolute emotions, Dan smiled as he patted a nearby wall gently.

  That first part of their trip went well. They moved for the remaining half of the day without facing any trouble before being forced to stop to rest after sunset was close.

  As night fell and darkness consumed the world outside, Dan watched the screen with Keith's skill as it filled with more and more orange dots as time passed. Those dots were so dense, and with how some of them disappeared every few minutes, Dan was sure that the battles underwater were pretty bloody.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  No matter how worried Dan was about the matter and how things could turn out for them, he still went to sleep not long after having dinner. He had a shift that day and staying back on the bridge for no reason wasn't really productive.

  Dan was almost certain that he would get woken up by the alarms blaring after a monster or something like that targeted the Voyager. Surprisingly, nothing like that happened and he found himself waking up due to his alarm instead, a welcomed surprise honestly.

  Washing up and changing his clothes, Dan headed to the bridge where he was met by Diana and Robert, who had clear signs of being tired.

  "How was the night?" he asked the two after greeting them.

  "Tough," Robert said with a weary smile, "There had been a few red dots here and there. Fortunately, they seemed to be passing by only, they all kept at the edge of Keith's skill, so 4 nautical miles away, and we decided that we didn't need to wake everyone for something like that, so we didn't sound the alarms."

  "Only your shift had to deal with that?" Dan wondered if that had happened because it was deep into the night and those monsters were more active at such a time.

  "No." Diana shook her head. "We were warned about that by the people before us too. The first pair didn't notice such a thing though, so the monsters most likely aren't active in the first half of the night, or at least, not as active."

  "Hopefully none of them gets too curious about us." Dan truly wished for that. Looking around, he added, "I take it that William already came and went to get a coffee or something like that?"

  "Exactly." Robert smiled.

  "Well, you two go rest, I'm sure that it was quite nerve-wrecking watching out for those monsters." He patted his chief officer.

  Watching the two leave, Dan sighed before focusing again on the screen, making sure that he missed nothing.

  Just like the last time, Dan heard the unmistakable sound of William's footsteps before the old engineer entered the room with two cups of steaming coffee in his hands.

  "Thanks a lot," Dan said as he took the cup from him.

  "You're welcome," William said as he took a sip from his cup.

  "Did the two tell you about the reds that passed by us?" Dan asked as he kept his eyes on the screen.

  "Yes." William nodded seriously. "It was concerning, this world is really quite dangerous. Something like this would happen and you would find yourself rethinking your priorities."

  "For your projects I take it?" Dan asked.

  "Yes. I wonder if I should get Francis to work on something strong that could do some pretty serious damage to one of those reds."

  "Speaking of which." Dan suddenly remembered something. "I don't know if you've heard, but the Voyager got a skill called Armoury, which lets her store weapons and their ammo in a special space and calls them in any of the empty rooms she has, shooting from there. I was wondering if you could make something for that."

  "I did hear about it." William nodded slowly as he seemed to be deep in thought. "And I had been going through things that we could make for that."

  "Any ideas so far?" Dan asked.

  "A few," William said, "We can go with the obvious and build a simple cannon for the Voyager to use, that's the obvious solution and it wouldn't take us many materials or time to make. Or we can go with the most insane design and go for a modern shell and artillery."

  "You can do that?" Dan asked in surprise, "The second one I mean."

  "Don't get me wrong, it's something to build towards." William waved his hand as he chuckled. "I doubt we would make something like that any time soon though. It's doable, just not at the moment. Though I do wonder if..."

  William didn't finish his words and instead fell into deep thoughts, Dan let him be for a while, waiting for him to continue his line of thoughts eventually, but when he didn't, he decided to nudge him a bit,

  "What is it? What did you just think of?"

  "Oh sorry, I just had an idea and got lost in it." William was jolted back into the present as he apologised.

  "It's alright," Dan said, before pushing more, "What is it though? What was your idea?"

  "I won't say much," William said mysteriously, "Just that it would involve Dex."

  "Huh." Dan didn't know what to say to that.

  Dex was the Voyager's main electrician, and from what he could remember the Class the man got was called Current Savant. It was a Class that dealt with currents, electricity and possibly even lightning later on. It seemed to be focused on fine control rather than destructive power at the moment though, so Dan didn't know what would come of it in the future.

  That did make him wonder though, just what kind of weapon would have William need the help of Dex?