Move 15 Recap

Fluffy, Istradez, Mikodez

Istradez has had one too many head injuries and collapses into unconsciousness.

Mikodez tries to hack the station for evidence of past visitors from out of time, and plays tag with the baby mothling, whom he nicknames, variously, 'Baby', 'Crowned-With-Eyes', 'Pompom', and 'Noodles'. Around 01:00 he receives a message from Sasha, requesting that he retrieve Fluffy the Vraselian pseudo-dragon. He heads to the magistrate's quarters, where he finds two bored guards. Fluffy is making obnoxious teakettle sounds because she wants her evening snack. The guards are happy to make Fluffy into Mikodez's problem. He takes her back to the visitors' quarters, where he collects a DNA sample from Istradez and feeds Fluffy lots of candy.

Ashari, Gerae, Sasha, Sulen, Virmad

Around 02:50, Sasha returns Gerae to his room and secures him by the expedient of asking the grid to disappear the door. She asks the Rahal what Gerae meant by referencing signifiers, and is irritated that Virmad describes her as "Broken-Winged Moth"; she objects to characterization both as 'broken' and as a moth/Nirai. She heads back to the comms room and sets alarms to warn about weapons or unauthorized technology in the airlock of the Wasp.

A few minutes later, Sulen joins Sasha in the comms room, and asks her for assistance in printing a gun or gun replica. They explain that if something goes wrong in the conversation with the station administrator the following morning, they'd like to be able to make a plausible threat, but that they don't actually want to shoot anybody. Sasha is convinced that threatening violence without the ability to follow through is the worst of both worlds; the two argue.

At this point, Teo calls Virmad to complain that the teenager (Mikodez, posing as "Avrayen") has been attempting to hack the station grid, and asks Virmad, with a wink, to look into the matter. Sasha and Sulen listen to the conversation from the comms room. Sasha displays a message with advice on Virmad's screen during the conversation, irritating Virmad, who didn't think his conversations were being monitored. Teo and Sasha cut off Mikodez's access to the lattice by tablet and lokwor, respectively.

Virmad storms into the comms room to yell at Sasha about eavesdropping. Sasha pages Ashari, then explains that Teo probably wrote the spy virus that has been plaguing the ship and infected Iawa's tablet; Virmad is somewhat mollified.

Sasha tries once more to persuade Sulen to take a deadly weapon (she suggests an airgun), if they must have a weapon; this alarms Virmad. Sasha makes an emotional appeal to Sulen, asking "as a personal favor" that they protect themselves, and suggesting that Ashari would react badly if their "friend" Sulen were endangered. Ashari arrives just in time to overhear this appeal. Sulen sends Sasha a message agreeing to use an airgun, in an attempt to calm her. Sasha distracts Ashari by explaining the situation with Mikodez and asking what to do next.

Commitment to the Rebellion

The squad's behavior follows the rule of thumb that changes in ideology tend to follow, rather than precede, membership in an insurgent organization. The conversation between Aricura Sulen and Zuhrovet Sikandaret (Sasha) is a case in point. Though Sulen defected from the heptarchate in a dramatic fashion, at this point they lack an ideological commitment to armed rebellion. Sasha, on the other hand, is by temperament prone to violence, but her opposition to the heptarchate is vague: her primary reason for joining the rebellion was curiosity, rather than ideology.