Elsewhere....

Ayaka found herself standing in a bright white nothingness. If she didnt feel a hard surface under her feet, she would have been incapable of telling up from down. But even with that as a reference point, she could see absolutely nothing anywhere around her.

She looked down to see what she was standing on and a part of her mind absently noted that she was naked. For some reason, though, her nakedness didnt bother her in the slightest. Her rational mind knew that it SHOULD be bothered, but for some reason she simply couldnt muster up any fear, nervousness, or anxiety at all, despite everything that had happened over the past few days giving her plenty of reasons for those negative feelings to have latched on to and taken root in her psyche.

Looking past the obvious, it soon became apparent that whatever it was she was standing on was so perfectly camouflaged with the glowing white mist that blocked her view in every other direction that she could see nothing. But the mist itself was so... comforting. It was like being in the arms of her mother, whod often held her as a child when her fathers strict discipline had had her in tears. Or perhaps, she imagined, what it would feel like in the arms of a lover.

The comfort itself made her rational mind scream that she should be terrifiedalone, naked, and in a place so far removed from where she had been moments before as she was. But she couldnt. It was as if fear had become an alien concept, something she could rationally know existed, but never experience for herself.

Hello? she said in a loud voice. Is there anybody out there?

The mist around her absorbed her voice with nary a swirl, much like molten mercury would absorb a grain of sand.

Im Commander Takahashi Ayaka of the Terran Exploration Fleet ship Farsight. Please respondis there anybody out there? she called out again.

But there was no response, so she simply sat down on the... whatever it was she had been standing on and awaited a response. If she had been brought somewhere, it was done by someTHING, and it thus logically followed that it was for some purpose.

And all she had to do to discover that was simply wait.

......

Sickbay, mobile fleet hospital ward 3, TFS Proxima.

Ayaka drifted along, phasing through bulkhead after bulkhead and occasionally crossing passageways in front of dumbfounded sailors, marines, nurses, and doctors. Her brightly glowing eyes stood out against her uniformed figure, which had itself begun glowing in that warm, comforting white light. Occasionally, as she passed a room, an arrow of that glow would shoot out from her and pass through obstacles in its path until it touched, and merged with, an ailing patient. Those whom the light touched were restored to peak condition, all aches, pains, bruises, and scratches caused by whatever had sent them to the hospital completely healed.

The doctors and nurses watching it happen were completely mystified, as was the AI of the Proxima itself.

[Admiral, there is an event taking place in the mobile fleet hospital that you should be aware of,] it reported to Fleet Admiral Bianchi, who was still in his ready room pondering how he should read people in on the emperors capabilities, or at least a part of them.

The admiral groaned, fragrant cigar smoke escaping his nostrils and causing his eyes to water and a sneeze to build up in his sinuses. What now, Proxima?

Instead of verbally answering him, the AI threw a data recording of Ayaka floating through the hospital ward like a ghost, healing people as she passed.

What the fuck.... Admiral Bianchi was speechless. First, sapient trees, then a warrant officer who didnt have the good graces to stay dead when he died, and now an expedition leader had turned into a ghost? Just what the hell was going on with his command!?

He stood with a groan, then squared his shoulders and pulled his uniform jacket and beret from the peg they were hanging on. As he squared his appearance away, he grumbled, Someones gonna explain just what the fuck is going on if I have to reach into hell and choke them to within an inch of their lives.

He stalked through the flag bridge and out, headed toward the hospital, where he would give... whatever that thing was a piece of his mind.

......

Ayaka finally reached her destination: a medical pod deep within the quarantine ward of the mobile fleet hospital.

Oh you poor, dear boy, she said, an echo in her voice as though hundreds of people were softly speaking the words shortly after her. She stroked the pod and triggered the manual emergency release and causing the lid to slide open and away. Inside the pod was the recumbent, sleeping form of one Warrant Officer Second Class Lee Joon-ho.

What have they done to you, my sweet child? Ayakaor whoever was currently inhabiting her body like a meat puppet

murmured. She stroked Joon-hos brow, pulses of the bright white light surrounding her penetrating his forehead with each pass of her fingertips.

Rest now, child. Youll be fine when you awaken. She bent over and softly kissed his forehead, then turned and drifted toward the armorglass separating the quarantine ward with the observation station.

She tilted her head to the side and blinked, then gave the observers a brilliant smile and brought her legs up to sit cross-legged in mid-air as she waited for someone or something. It was obvious that she knew she had provoked a reaction, and was simply waiting for it to arrive.

A few minutes later, the hatch in the quarantine ward opened and a squad of marines in full battle rattle stormed in, surrounding Ayaka at gunpoint. Following them was the stocky form of one pissed off Fleet Admiral Marco Bianchi of the Terran Space Fleet.

Who, or whatever you are, you have some fucking explaining to do, he growled as he stared daggers at the softly glowing form of Commander Takahashi, hovering in the air before him.