Our protagonist quickly noticed that her Rodent friend is showing an interest for topics other than sex or business, and she quickly notices the real reason is because Toki wants kids before she will become too old for that, something that pisses Toki off when Erma touches the topic, while Erma ask if Toki has a schedule for that, something that the Danetii Rodent simply says that's something she cannot plan something like that so easily, and that's one of the reasons Toki acceptted to go to Ish-Tako, so she could find a man that could get her pregnant. Erma points out if Toki wants to stick with a single mate, rather than her likely offspring will have to deal with too many fathers, something that Toki already considered as well.
Meanwhile, the crew of the ship were trying to keep the passengers busy by making them doing exercises around the ship so they don't suffer of any health problem due of the lack of gravity in the ship, while Erma discuss with the crew about what to do next. Later one, a young Canine (wolf) boy approaches Erma and talks with her, asking her if she is a spacer and a EDF officer, and he ask if he could be one. Erma replies he could be one as long he study and work hard for it, but in the meanwhile, Erma decides to consider the kid as an honorary EDF commander in the meantime, something that makes the kid really happy.
A few days later, the EDF rescue ship reach Erma's derelict ship and rescued their passengers and crew. Meanwhile, Erma talks with the Mission Commander of the rescue ship and she request an update of the current situation in the system. The Mission Commander, a Canine named Wooni, resumes Erma the whole situation and how the attack on Erma's ship caused all the sides of the conflict to stop hostilities when they figured out they attacked innocent civilians along the way. Wooni also explains how Erma's presence in Ish-tako will give the soldiers a morale boost, and along the rebel forces, a warning that the EDF is planning to go serious if they're bringing someone like Erma to the conflict. He also adds the EDF is right now nothing more than a Paper Tiger in Ish-tako, since all the antagonic forces seems to know the weakness and quirks of the EDF. Erma ask if the whole Ish-tako system is connected to The Net, something that Wooni replies that only some planets with major population centers had access to it, and there's no access to The Net in the hostile areas because they disconnected themselves from it years ago, something that puzzles Erma a lot. In the meantime the damaged spaceship when Erma was on it is hauled to another planet of the system for repairs via robots.
The rescue ship, named DH284, went into Ludicrous Speed (albeit without reaching Faster-Than-Light Travel speed) causing everyone inside the ship, especially Toki, feeling really heavy and nauseous. Erma decides to go to eat, something that Toki can't do right now because she is busy unloading her last lunch into the next hygiene unit near her. We see Erma talking with another EDF officer, an Anteater, discussing about personal matters, but before she could get deeper into the conversation, Erma receives a urgent distress call from the bridge of the ship.
Once inside the bridge of the ship, Erma and the rest of the crew see something incredibly unusual outside of it: A derelict, unknown ship that appears to have been severely damaged for some unknown reason and it remains motionless in the middle of the space and without any kind of visual sign that could give them a clue about its whereabouts. The only thing they know about it is that vehicle doesn't belong neither the EDF, ILR or anything known for them to this date. The captain of the DH284 decides to sent a message torpedo to the central EDF HQs requesting for help for investigating the wreckage of the ship, since they don't have the means for doing that job themselves, while keeping the discovery as top secret.
Erma returns to her quarters searching for Toki. Since she wasn't there in that moment, Erma request to talk with The Net inmediately and she ask it about the ship and what the Net know about it. Erma asks if the ship has something to do with her and the anthropomorphic civilization's Creators, and the Net just says it doesn't know, but it says that the ship has being around there for about centuries ago, with basis on trajectory analysis. When Erma ask about what The Net knows about the Creators, the AI said it only holds common knowledge like everyone else, but it reveals that the whole civilization has existed since more or less 200 years ago, with no other evidence of earlier origins or the sole fact why everyone else are so different from each other at biological and physical level. Erma finally adds if the Net has existed since the Awakening, and the Net answer with a plain yes.
A month later, another EDF spaceship, the DH112, was brought out there for the sole purpose to investigate the mysterious derelict spaceship. Inside of it, we see a woman, a Feline (bobcat) xenobiologist named Dr. Elaki Kalahahaii, who works for the MegaCorp Enchawah Corporation as a part of a joint EDF/Enchawah mission for research what's inside of that ship. She is completely flabbergasted for what she saw, as she waited all her life to see something like that. One of the crewmembers asks her if the ship belonged to the Creators, but Dr. Kalahahaii answers that she doesn't know yet, since the ship could had belonged to anyone, like the ILR or even unrelated alien beings and that's why she's there to find out the truth. The crewmember asks her how she could now if something is really alien, and she answers there's lots of things that are too universal, like levers and electric conductors, but for the really alien stuff, she must make precise records of the info she finds and make sure those records survive all the way home.
Later on, we see Dr. Kalahahaii discussing the details of the mission with the rest of the EDF crew and the upcoming plans. Along the crewmembers there's the captain of the DH112, another Feline (lion) named Shima, two Marsupials (kangaroos) named Ed and Wally, and an Avian (penguin) named Bob. They decide it's a better idea to send a robotic drone for the meantime to check the mysterious spaceship, while she will check if there's nothing inside that ship that could endanger them. After that, Dr. Kalahahaii and her crew sent that drone to investigate the derelict ship and take some samples from it. Once she and her men finished the inspection, they analyzed the recollected samples from the ship and Bob deduces the ship could had belong to the Creators since most of the samples aren't too different from their own technology and also its age, but Dr. Kalahahaii warns about making any conclusions regarding the ship, since the ship still could be dangerous because it could had been a military battleship, since it had what it looked like turrets and the ship itself could still had automated defenses or even a self-destruct device on it. Captain Shima agrees with her on going in a more slower pace because that ship was starting to creep the hell out of him and he leaves the command of the mission on her, rather than the EDF.
The whole issue ends with Dr. Kalahahaii discussing who should go to the mysterious ship to check what is inside of it, along with a drone. The EDF crewmembers volunteered for the mission, but she politely denies their help, because none of them had the experience to deal with such discovery in a personal level. That leaves only one candidate for the mission: Elaki Kalahahaii herself, who was already in the space for that job...
Tropes:
- My Biological Clock Is Ticking: One of the main reasons why Toki accepted to go into Ish-tako is because she wanted to have kids before it become too late for her.
- Hidden Depths: It's later revealed Erma is also a Warrior Poet just like her father Kanoc, and the whole Net is full of her poetry. According with Toki, she writes poetry as a way to calm her violent tendences as a soldier.
- Ludicrous Speed: The DH284 went into this, but without reaching FTL speed, causing everyone to feel very heavy inside the ship.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Toki pukes offscreen when Erma asks her if she wants to eat. We only hear her vomit in her bunk.
- Wham Episode: This episode definitely changes the whole status quo of the story so far, as they found a very alien spaceship that doesn't belong to neither the EDF nor the ILR. How that ship ended there is still a mystery.
