Their tiny stowaway woke up from her shock-induced nap a few minutes after they went to Warp and immediately panicked, flailing about in her seat, attempting to escape, before realizing that Nico had locked her in with an electronic lock and not a physical latch.

She noticed Max before she tried to pick the lock, though, and began to apologize immediately.

"Commander Keres. I'm really sorry, I am. I just heard that there was a new ship design in the bay, and everyone was busy today on other projects, and there shouldn't have been anyone here, and I didn't know that you were coming to inspect it." She blurted out in one extended breath.

"Inspect it? We're halfway across the Alliance Galaxies right now on a research mission. Don't worry, we told your mother that we have you in custody, so she won't worry that you've gone missing for the next week." He informed the little girl, who promptly passed out again.

"You're good at that. She knows to fear me, but you only needed a few words to overload her brain." Nico laughed.

"It could take some time to tell the whole story if I'm going to tell it one sentence at a time." Max sighed.

This time, the girl was up much more quickly but too frightened to move.

Max smiled at her. "I was serious about the Research Mission, you know. We don't have time to drop you back off at Absolution, so we will keep you with us for the week. I'm sure Nico needs a research assistant."

"Is this a reward? Or is it a punishment? I'm not sure how to respond to that statement." Annabelle answered.

"Both. Welcome to our happy fun trip. Where we go search for signs of the origins of the Klem infestations within the Alliance." Nico informed her.

"So, not new technology?" she asked hopefully.

"Nope. Nothing new here except the ship, and you've already started to explore that. Instead, you will get to spend many hours analyzing data on Warp signatures and organic protein samples that may belong to the Klem or might just be random bits left on the surface of asteroids by centuries-old shipwrecks." historical

The little one was definitely not happy about that, but there wasn't anything she could do to escape her punishment. Nico could have locked her up in a cell since breaking into a secure hangar in a secure area of the ship was actually a rather serious crime. Data Analysis might be mental torture for a hyperactive Innu child, but it was better than solitary confinement.

Well, most of the time. If this were a ship without provisions for Innu, she could still access the ship's computer while in isolation, but the cells that she had passed by were completely isolated by an alloy that blocked her mental senses and cut her off from the technology around her.

[You're not really going to rely on a middle schooler to analyze data are you?] Max asked Nico silently.

[Of course not. But I am going to grade her homework when she finishes and then make her redo all the parts that she got wrong.]

That was just evil, knowing how much the small girl hated sitting in a chair and analyzing data, but it was an effective punishment. After this incident, she would think long and hard about doing anything that would lead to a situation where she might be caught doing something wrong by Nico again.

"Alright, I will let you out of your chair, and you can come here and look over our course. We're about ten minutes away from our first stop. What can you tell me about it?" Nico asked.

"Um, asteroid field, primarily iron-based, high carbon content, unattached to any solar system. It appears to have been partially mined in the early days before Replicator usage was widespread?" Annabelle answered.

eaglesnov?1,сoМ "Not too bad. We are in the sensor range now. Would you like to analyze from a data tablet or a console station?" Nico asked.

"TABLET. Sorry, I would like a tablet. Please, Lead Researcher Nico," the girl begged.

"Here you go. The first hundred points of analysis are on your tablet. Inform me when you are done, and I will check your work."

Max took a seat at one of the stations and started checking for Warp signatures in the area. Further out, there were quite a few, but this close to the Asteroid field, there were barely any at all, as it was too close for the default safety settings on the freighters which frequented the region.

Other than their own, Max only found a half dozen other signatures, none of them particularly recent, but the furthest back that he could trace them with the sensors on this ship was three months.

That was more than enough to go back to when the ship would have had to be here to set the Klem pods in motion, so he recorded everything that he could find and then sent a mining probe out into the field as cover for their presence.

It wasn't looking for ore composition, which would be the expected search for a company looking to reduce their energy consumption by removing molecular fusion from the creation of their Iron parts, but for specific organic compounds which the Klem pods would leave behind when they touched a solid surface.

Nico was doing a similar search for other compounds and energy signatures using the ship's sensors, and the cockpit of the ship fell into a comfortable silence, broken only by the occasional sobbing of Annabelle as she looked over the number of questions she had completed and mentally calculated the number remaining and the time it would take her at the current rate to complete this one assignment.

"You're thinking too hard. Just work through the questions and ignore the clock. In fact, it's best if you just turn off the clock on your tablet since Nico isn't going to let you stop until you're done. You're not at school, so there will be no saved by the bell, and Nico only needs to eat once a month, so you'll have to rely on my meal schedule to get yourself a break." Max informed her.

"Not even snacks? I'm not sure I can survive without snacks. I'm on a strict hourly snacking schedule." She pleaded.

"You know I can read your mind, right? I know exactly when you usually eat and even what you usually eat." Max reminded her.

"Gah, it's like being stuck in a room with Professor Pile and an Illithid. I can't get away with anything."

Nico laughed at her assessment. Professor Pile was an Innu and had exceptional skills, just like young Annabelle. No form of digital cheating escaped her notice. If you added an Illithid to that, you couldn't even think about it without getting caught.

"You can count this as a life lesson then. But you are going to learn so much this week. Think of how far ahead of your classmates you are going to be in organic chemistry by the time we return." Max reminded her.

"I'm in the seventh grade. We don't start organic chemistry for three more years." the girl reminded him.

"Then you're three whole years ahead. Who knows, maybe we'll extend our mission, and you can get ahead on other subjects as well." Nico suggested with a wink at Max.

"Please, Miss Nico, not more homework. I already said I'm sorry."