As that idea flashed through his mind, Dan glanced at Marcus before focusing again on Graham. With a new possible path to go with, he needed to clear a few points.

  "How frequent have the attacks on the island been?"

  "It is around once every two to three days now," Graham answered, "There was a longer period of time at first, but it got shorter soon after. I wouldn't be surprised if there's going to be another attack tomorrow."

  "What about the direction of their attack?" Dan asked again after thinking for a short while, "Do they always come from the same place and attack the same portion of the shore?"

  "Yes." Graham nodded weakly. Dan could notice the tiredness catching up to him, he doubted they had much time in their current meeting. "They always come straight at us from one location only, never diverging from it."

  "When the attack happened, did you notice if the other locations along the island's shore were protected?" Dan pushed more.

  "I honestly can't say for sure." Graham thought deeply. "At first they might have had someone watch over them, but as the number of guards dropped, the intensity of the attacks rose and they became overwhelmed, they would have had to stop doing so. They probably can't even if they want to."

  Dan nodded, that was about what he had expected. As he was about to ask the next question, he noticed that Marcus was looking at him. When their eyes met, he realised the short chief security officer must have caught on to what he was leading to with all his questions. He gave the man a light nod and he returned it.

  "How long do the attacks usually last?" Marcus asked.

  "Again, they were short at first." It was pretty obvious as Graham spoke that he was getting quite tired. "But as the number of bugs got bigger, the attack got longer too, I think they are pushing on 1 hour at the moment."

  "That's all for now I fear." Fleta interfered at that moment. "He needs to rest."

  "Okay." Dan didn't object as he could see clearly how tired the man was. "Thanks for your help Graham, rest well."

  "No, thank you," Graham said, the fire in his gaze still there even though he was barely keeping his eyelids open. "If you're going to do something about that island, I will help in every way I can, even if it were the last thing I would do."

  Dan didn't answer him, he just nodded and turned to leave the room. The man fell back down into his bed and Fleta approached him about getting him something to eat. As he left the room, he heard her murmuring something about possible side effects, his thoughts went to how she had said once that she wasn't sure if medicine from our world would work the same way on the humans on Talia. Back then, after a deep discussion, they decided not to risk it and leave the medicine they had for themselves and only use magical healing on the natives.

  "It's a good idea," Marcus said from next to him, "Using the time when the guards are busy with the Harvesters to infiltrate the island is the right way to go about this, we will use it."

  "I thought so," Dan said with a smile, "It gives us a safe window to operate during."

  "Yes," Marcus said as he frowned in deep thought, "We now have a possible one-hour window tomorrow or the day after to go down to the island."

  "Would you look at that," Dan said as he shook his head wearily, "It seems that we don't have as much time as we thought."

  "It's enough," Marcus said seriously, "If it's not, we are going to make it so."

  The Guardian of Peace then looked to have decided on something as he said:

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  "Follow me, I have something to show you."

  Dan didn't ask him what it was, but as they walked and talked about a few points that they needed to pay attention to, he noticed that they were heading to where the tenders were being kept; the place that Rose took as her workshop.

  Dan knew that the Vessels' Runesmith had taken over the area where they were keeping the tenders in, and that she had been using it for her projects. Though to be honest, he hasn't been keeping an eye on what she had been working on, just that she was modifying the tenders using her skill, he was looking forward to seeing what she had come up with.

  "Hey Rose, you there?" Marcus called once they were around that area.

  "Wait for a bit, I'm coming," the reply came from behind a tender ahead of them.

  "Oh, Captain, hello," Rose said as she stepped into view, wearing a messy work uniform; it was full of different dyes and had weird splashes here and there, with a big brush in her hand.

  "Hi, Rose," Dan greeted her back then nodded to her hands, "I see that you have been busy."

  "You have no idea." She chuckled. "I have been working on a few different designs for the tenders. I actually was wondering when you would come to see me about that."

  "Truthfully," Dan said a bit embarrassed, "If Marcus wasn't dragging me here, you would have needed to wait for a few more days."

  Dan wasn't lying, there were quite a few people and matters that needed his attention on the Voyager, and there was only one him. Even though he loved to be able to do so, he couldn't check on everyone and their projects in a small amount of time.

  "I can see that," she said as she glanced at Marcus, "So what is it? What made you remember my existence?"

  "How are the Phantoms?" Marcus asked. Dan could almost feel the eyeroll as the man said the word Phantoms.

  "Ohh!" Rose clapped excitedly. "You're here for those bad boys? I should have known that, what with all the talk about dealing with the island and such."

  "What are the Phantoms?" Dan asked as he looked between them.

  "Rose here had been adamant on giving the types of tenders she's working on names," Marcus said with a sigh.

  "Phantoms are for the stealth tenders," Rose said excitedly. Then her excitement dropped a bit as she added, "Though I've only finished one of them so far."

  "Types of tenders? Stealth tenders?" Dan's confusion was clear to see, he had never heard about their tenders having types.

  "I'm not strong enough to just layer every type of buff and effect on one tender," Rose said dejectedly, "My runes are still too big and take too much space. Plus, runes with different effects interfere with each other, it's much easier to add runes with similar effects to the same tender."

  "And that gave birth to tender types," Dan said in enlightenment.

  "Exactly!" Rose looked at the tenders behind her with a big smile. "I can't make the one tender to rule them all, but I can for sure make the other kind of tenders. The Tanks were the first I made, after all, the two tenders we had were already geared towards being defensive, so I focused on layering defensive rune combinations, I even asked for help from William and Jackie. Jackie's approach to runes is too far removed from anything I or William can do, but his Class seems to give him an instinctive understanding of which rune to put where and the best way to combine them. Phantoms were the second type I decided to work on, and I'm aiming to make them so hard to detect that it's not even funny!"

  Dan truly was seeing a new side to Rose the more he interacted with her about this matter. That made him remember how the system said that it scanned them thoroughly before giving them their Classes, it seemed that they were truly the most suitable for them.

  "That's really the best way to go at it," Dan said as he looked at her, "We don't need one ultimate tender, having different types is more than acceptable."

  "One Phantom is ready?" Marcus asked, bringing the conversation back to the right track.

  "Yes, I completed my first just today," Rose said as she pointed to the tender she had been behind, "I'm just putting the finishing touches on it, it should be perfect and ready to go in a few more hours."

  "That's good, cause we might need it by tomorrow."

  "No problem, I promise you that it will be ready for you."

  "Then we will leave you for it," Dan said, "Good luck."

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