15653/Titans 3023: Part One

Titans 3023: Part One
Date of Scene:	19 August 2023
Location:	Earth, 3023.
Synopsis:	In 3023, Caitlin Fairchild travels across the universe to retrieve Troia from her travels. A problem is unravelling on Earth that only the Titans can fix.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Caitlin Fairchild

---

Donna Troy has posed:
    The sky is filled with great arches of purple and green, fringed with red, the churning outer fringes of a stellar nursery that spreads filamentary nebulae across a great arc of space , intersecting with much older star systems. A few dozen parsecs from the M92 cluster, it is a region where primitive peoples look to the sky with awe in the years before they have developed the technology to understand the beauty of their skies, and a region that has given birth to a thousand strange religions, and one small but notably zealous space empire.

    Drifting quietly through a tendril of dust and gas a mere few hundred thousand miles wide, a small fleet lies hidden in a zone of extreme sensor noise. At the edge of the dust zone, a series of stealth probes drift hidden amongst an asteroid field, monitoring the field and transmitting sensor data back to the hidden fleet via narrow band laser pulses. In their sights, a crippled vessel of the empire leaks a trail of plasma, and broadcasts a desperate plea for help.

    Aboard the command vessel of the small rebel fleet, a communications officer turns to the rest of the bridge crew. <<Warp signature detected, general. We've caught someone's attention.>>

    <<How many ships?>> the general answers. She stands from her seat, to approach the monitors. She does not look like the other crew; they are shorter, and have more arms. She's human, or at least human appearing, and they are not. She wears an armored bodysuit that is plainer than the baroque styles of her crew, deep black with a spray of glowing stars covering the surface. Stars dust her hair too.

    <<Just one so far.>>

    <<A scout then. Let's see if they call for help. We want to catch more than one of them. Show me the vessel.>>

    An image forms on the view screen. A sleek vessel, painted with a distinctive yellow T along its spine. <<Not a familiar configuration,>> the comms officer observes. <<Looks like they're maneuvering to rescue the stricken ship though.>>

    <<It's familiar to me," the general replies. She sighs, and brushes the comms officer's hand away from the controls to activate the communicator.

    "Titans vessel, do not continue rescue. Repeat do not continue rescue. That ship is rigged to blow." She pauses a few moments. "Cait, is that you?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
There's a moment of crackling silence between the vessels. "<Donna?>" It's hard to tell if the respondent is wary, tired, or both. "<Figured I'd run into you sooner or later.>" It seems there's little time to waste on polite banter.

"<I'm not abandoning the ship's personnel,>" she declares. "<I've got five minutes to evacuate them and get to a safe distance before it blows.>" There's a long beat. "<This is a maritime rescue, Donna,>" Caitlin reminds the Princess with a subtle edge to her tone. "<I don't give two toots about the politics in this theater. They requested help; they're getting it. If you can't help, then stay out of my way.>"

The Titan's craft comes alongside the other ship with a deft touch at the helm. Mag-grapnels launch and grab hold in three locations. Hatches open and Themysciran space marines start zipping along the cables towards the other ship, clad in their distinctive environmental suits and armor. Caitlin can be see ripping the portside door off the hinges with her bare fingers before going inside ahead of the rest of the evacuation team.

Donna Troy has posed:
    <Cait, there /are/ no ship's personnel,> the reply comes after a few moments. It is Donna's voice. The accent is no longer that mix of Themysciran and American it had been for the first century or so; she has spent so much time wandering the galaxy that it can't really be classified as any one accent though. After a millennium you don't mistake a voice, though.

    <I've deactivated the traps so if you really want to waste time by searching for the non-existent crew then go ahead. But please make it fast, I don't want you scaring off the people who were /supposed/ to take the bait.>

    On the bridge of the rebel vessel, the captain has been listening in. <<Donna?>> he asks curiously.

    <<It's a name I used to go by,>> she replies. <<A long time ago. This is an old friend.>>

    <<A friend who rescues murderers?>>

    Troia sighs quietly. <<She rescues anyone, Nzar. That's what she does. Also she has no idea of the political situation here, she's from a different spiral arm.>>

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"<...God damnit.>" Caitlin sighs audibly before the audio cuts out.

She's true to her word; the Themyscirans are done in three minutes exactly, leaving the ship with empty hands. The emergency transponder abruptly shuts off, and moments later Caitlin exits, the last one out the door. The rescue team returns to their ship and loads up, and less than a minute later they're pulling up alongside Donna's craft.

In the distance, the abandoned craft lurches once before it is blown apart by its malfunctioning reactor core. Purple light flashes silently for a long surging moment, and then the ion wash from the explosion reaches the two vessels and makes their shields shake and roar in response.

Donna's ship is hailed and Caitlin appears on the communications monitor. She doesn't look all that changed since the last time Donna saw her, perhaps two-hundred years ago. Hair cut shorter, more efficient, and wearing the same armored suit as the rest of the Themyscirans on board. "I'm just glad no one was hurt. I heard you were somewhere out in this region of space; what are you doing booby-trapping Imperial ships?" she demands. "Using distress calls like that is a war crime, you know."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia does not respond to the hail. Instead she activates a device worn on her belt, and teleports onto the bridge of the T-Ship and glares daggers at Caitlin.

    She's unable to hold the expression long before a smile betrays her stern expression. "Cait. It has been a while," she says. The young man at the nav terminal, a relatively recent recruit to the Titans who's unmatched ability to navigate hyperspace derives from a possibly unique hyperspace sense that has yet to be successfully reproduced through technological means watches her with wary curiosity, intrigued by the opportunity to meet one of the founders of the Titans, but nervous too. One of the Themysciran space marines waves to her.

    Troia breathes out slowly. "Sure. It's a war crime. So relativistic bombardment. So is genetically engineering the children of conquered races to produce mindless slave-soldiers you set upon their parents to punish them for rebelling. So is the use of neural multiplexers. You have no idea how bad it is here, Cait. The Imperium is a monstrosity, and they need to be stopped. The rebels here need every edge they can get."

    Troia walks around the bridge, studying the instrumentation visible. Little has changed since she was last on a T-ship. The fleet has followed a common design for several centuries now. "Did you come here to be disapproving at me, or is this a social visit?" she asks.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's lips thin, but she doesn't argue the point with Donna. She knows the Titanian well enough to realize when a topic is just going to result in an argument going in circles. The redhead just sighs finally and shifts her weight to a more neutral position, one hand resting on her hip.

"If I thought it'd help, then yes, I'd come badger your conscience," Caitlin tells Donna. "But I'm here on Titan business-- which involves *you*," she clarifies.

The redhead gestures at the screen. It brings up a picture of a city block on Old Earth, the planet badly overpopulated and full of towering skyscrapers. The narrow view of the alleyway shows a flickering light appearing from nowhere, one which rapidly expands and flashes in ugly, unnatural colors. There's a low roar and the tower partially collapses in on itself. The recording runs out and Caitlin reverses it, slowing and then stopping at the moment the first light flashes. It shows a humanoid figure appearing out of nowhere, with no tell-tale shimmering to indicate transportation or boom tube or any similar mode of translocation.

"The entire area is saturated with chroniton particles," Caitlin explains to Donna. "Time is slowing down, and the field is growing and becoming more powerful. And it's created a tear in space time to some area inhabited by..." she hesitates. "Well there's an old Earth novel about monsters who eat time-displaced matter. I'm calling them Langoliers."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "I don't need you to be my conscience Cait," Troia says with an amused grin. "I do have one of my own, you know. If it helps assuage your worries somewhat, I traded my aid to the rebellion here for guarantees there would be no attacks on civilian populations. I have seen situations like this a hundred times. Without me, it'll either end with the rebellion crushed and billions punished for their actions, or if the rebels win they'll visit several generations worth of hatred on their former oppressors. I don't just intend on winning this rebellion, I intend on teaching the rebels the importance of not becoming the thing they hate so much while I do it."

    Troia steps closer to the screen. "Titan business is no longer my business. Not the Titans you mean, anyway," she says. Nevertheless, she studies the image intently. After a while she shrugs her shoulders. "I don't get the reference," she says. "How fast is the spread accelerating? This looks like an Earth problem, Cait. Earth hardly has a shortage of heroes. I don't see what you need me for."

    She turns from the screen to look at Caitlin questioningly. "Are your scientist struggling to reverse the tear? I can send word to my uncle and see if he's prepared to intervene, but he probably won't. And as you can see I've got my hands rather full here right now."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin smirks at Donna's question. "I wouldn't have come looking for you if I didn't have a plan of action," she reminds Donna. The redhead gestures at the screen and the image vanishes, replaced by positively ancient two-dimensional recordings. In it are the Titans-- the /original/ Titans. Donna, Caitlin, a handful of other faces long since dead, gone or missing. "One thousand years ago," Caitlin explains. The Titans can be seen closing the gap around a single individual, a man carrying a duffel bag overflowing with old physical currency and wearing some stylized jumpsuit. They draw closer and closer-- and then the man touches something on his belt and vanishes, leaving behind the same flickering lights that were seen bringing down the building.

Caitlin's face softens a little watching the recording play. It brings back old memories, of a much younger pair of heroines and the friends long since gone. She lets it go twice, then pauses it with a gesture and looks at Donna. "I've figured out how to reverse the problem, but we need the original Titans who were present when the time-traveller first appeared. Once we have them all, I can set up a resonance field that will destabilize the chronological field. But we have to have everyone, or it won't work." She looks at Donna and gestures at her with a palm, a plaintive request. "I know Earth's not your home anymore, but it's still mine," Caitlin reminds Donna. "And if something happens because /we/ didn't stop this guy a millennia ago, that's on us, too."

Donna Troy has posed:
    The Amazons Space Marines captain who had waved earlier speaks up. "It /is/ still her home, General." She turns a pleading expression to Troia. "Themyscira was your first home, princess. Don't forget that you have two families. Your other family has not forgotten you. "

    Troia looks away. "I had not forgotten, Chara," She says. "But perhaps it would have been nice if my oldest friend had said it was nice to see me before trying to tell me how to fight my wars." Her eyes go back to the image frozen on the screen and studies it a while.

    "I remember," she says. "He vanished and we never found out where to. Figured the damage to his device meant he got lost in the time stream. So. He came forwards a thousand years, and the chroniton cascade is centered on his device? Then we will need to get close. Inside the field. And you need to tap into the residual field absorbed by the people present when his temporal field collapsed. It's very dubious that after all this time there will be enough field residue left to even detect, let alone utilize in that fashion." She shakes her head. "Gaia, the number of times we've been exposed to chroniton fields since then, I don't believe you could reconstruct the original field at all. And it's not like all of us who were there are still alive today."

    She turns back to Caitlin, tilting her head. "So you mean to bring them forwards," she concludes.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
A subtle frown crosses Caitlin's features at Donna's chastisement, but she lets it go with little more than an irritated clenching of her fist. Donna's not /wrong/, but...

She lets that thought go and opts to nod agreement with Chara. At Donna's conclusion, the redhead sighs, but acknowledges Donna's summary.

"You figured that out pretty fast," she tells Donna, a little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Yes. The two of us are required for completing the resonance field but we need the amplitudinal modalities of the rest of those present. That will get me in spitting distance of enough energy to collapse the chronal displacement vortex. We can do the rest with the tech available to us."

Her smile fades away and she sighs heavily. "Unfortunately, the Federation of Planets has signed a treaty with the TVA that forbids independent use of time-travel technology. They're still pretty blind to magic, though," she supplies. "I was hoping you might have a few ideas we can kick around on the way back to Earth. I really don't want to spend a few centuries in prison-- or worse-- for stealing unlicensed technology."

Caitlin's expression hardens with a resolute mien. "But if push comes to shove, and that saves Earth-- I'll do whatever I have to."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia shakes her head. "I am not a subject of the Federation of Planets, I have little interest in what treaties they sign. However the TVA is not a threat I would take lightly. My... /older/ family has a few tricks when it comes to time manipulation though. The TVA won't detect it directly, and as we would be /fixing/ the timestream rather than breaking it, they shouldn't notice the effects either. "

    That sounds like a yes, but she's still deep in thought staring at the display, the ancient 2-D of their former selves. And she suck her teeth and muses, "If it was not for these intruders -- I forgot already what name you gave them from some novel -- I would say let this field spread. If it was simply a matter of Earth being frozen in time, we could leave it until I am done here." Troia breathes out slowly. "Every day I spend away from this war is a day more of cruelty and deaths. A decision like this should be made on the calculus of suffering, Cait. Not on some notion of loyalty to the world where we spent our earliest years. I know you think that is... inhuman. But it is also what is right."

    Finally she breaks away from the screen and looks back to Caitlin. "Well. Since you ruined my current operation we'll need a few days to prepare the next one anyway. I am sure they can manage a few days without me. It's... good to see you again, Cait."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Well, thank goodness Manhattan City is being wracked by tremors, loss of life, and collapsing residential housing," Caitlin mutters. She shakes her head-- not because she's disagreeing with Donna's (cold) logic, but because she can see the reasoning behind it.

And she hates it all the same.

"We've got guest quarters set aside for you," she tells Donna sidestepping the compliment. Caitlin beckons her along towards the aft section of the bridge. Chara starts to follow, and Caitlin holds a hand up to forestall the other woman. "I'll got it handled, Chara," Caitlin assures her. The blonde hesitates, looking from Caitlin to Donna, back again.

"Are you sure, General?" she asks, scanning Cait's face carefully with a worried expression.

Caitlin smiles and gives Chara's fingers a warm and familiar squeeze. "I'll call if I need backup," she promises, and flashes a reassuring smile. It seems to relieve the captain, who sits back on her heels. She looks at Donna and nods once, her expression more welcoming than her posture would otherwise admit. "It's good to see you again, Princess," she tells Donna before the lift doors close.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "You too, Chara," Troia replies with an open smile that's much more... Donna... than she had been so far. The doors close and once the elevator has started moving, she observes "She's very loyal to you, Cait." It's a statement with layers, and possibly a question too. She's obviously content to leave the question unspoken though, if so.

    "You know, I never left the team. Not officially. So I'm not sure 'guest quarters' is the correct terminology here." Her eyes are fixed on the door and her delivery matter-of-fact, but she can't quite help the traces of mischief from finding their way to her features. Just a little friendly needling.

    "However we /are/ in a hurry, and unless you guys have some new drive tech in these things since last time I rode in one, we should probably take my travel-sphere. Especially as we'll need to make a stop over at New Kronos. You can bring Chara along, if you think the T-Ship can make it back home without her. I wouldn't want her to think I'm kidnapping you, after all."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"It goes both ways," Caitlin assures Donna. "Chara's been with me through the worst of it. It's why she captains this vessel, I know she'll do Themyscira proud. After a thousand years with someone, you get a pretty good idea of what they're capable of." She keeps her eyes locked on the door, not looking at Donna, but unable to conceal a subtle reddening of her cheeks under that too-knowing stare.

The lift disgorges them two levels down. The interior of the Titan's vessel is a departure from the military; it's built with more curved surfaces and natural corridors that follow the contours of the vessel, rather than the rigid architecture most fabrication installations use.

The lift delivers them to the transport room, a Zeta Beam tower humming readily in the middle of it. Caitlin nods at the protective screen that guards the crewman manning the station and brings up a wrist holo. "Chara, it's Caitlin," the redhead says, hailing the captain. "We're going to need to take Donna's travel-sphere to New Kronos. Can you get the /Athena/ back to home base?"

Donna can almost see Chara's face over Caitlin's shoulder. "Yes, of course, but-- are you going to be OK without me?" she asks with a note of concern in her voice.

"I absolutely will be," Caitlin assures her, and flashes a smile. "I'll rendezvous with you outside the Orellia Cluster. And bring you a bottle of wine from home," she offers.

"Only if you help me drink it, General," Chara says.

"Deal. Caitlin out." The redhead cuts off the communique and turns back to Donna, marshalling her expressions. "All right, the travel-sphere sounds like the faster option-- especially if we're dropping in on your folks," Caitlin tells Donna. She gestures at the Zeta transfer mats, stepping on to one.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia does not say anything during the conversation between Caitlin and Chara. She has perhaps learned more tact in the last thousand years, and while it would be easy to fall into the old habits of gentle teasing that was once a hallmark of the conversation between herself and Caitlin, she refrains.

    Troia had noticed that there was more than friendship in Chara's feelings towards Caitlin before Chara herself knew. Certainly well before Caitlin had figured it out. There had been a time when she had the habit of dropping small hints to Caitlin that there was something she was missing, but that was a long time ago, before Caitlin had really grown into herself. She does not feel the need, at this point in time, to ask what ever came of that. Chara is, at the least, a very loyal friend to Caitlin. In Troia's eyes, that's something to be glad of.

    When Caitlin steps on the transfer pad, Troia shakes her head. "Still using Zeta?" she asks. "You don't really want to try Zeta porting into the inside of a Travel-Sphere, Cait. The internal dimensional distortion isn't just an expansion field, it just looks that way to mortal perceptions. The interior is dimensionally chaotic. I'll bring it here instead."

    Troia leans casually against a console to await the Travel-Sphere's arrival. There's no need for her to send a signal to bring the sphere to her -- Travel-Spheres know where their owner wants them to be. "It'll be a few minutes," she says. "I left it a system over. How... how's things back on Earth? Titans doing well? Last time I heard a report of what you guys had been up to I didn't recognize any of the names. Made me realize just how long it has been. I'm glad you have the Amazons, Cait. Immortals need immortal friends. Otherwise it's just too... uncomfortable.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin folds her arms across her stomach, the defensive gesture a little at odds with how her hips face Donna. "We're doing pretty well," Caitlin acknowledges. "Upside of a population of a sector-spanning Federation, we're at no shortage for talent," she says with a wry tone. "The waiting list to get on board is pretty fierce, so much so that we have to hold talent tryouts on a dozen different planets so we only have to review the very best." Her smile falters slightly. "You and I are the only Titans who remember it back in the Old Earth days," she tells Donna.

A beat passes. "Queen Sophia bid me send you her regards. She misses Auntie Donna," she informs the Titanian. "Don't worry-- I told her that a visit home wasn't likely in the cards for you," she adds, then shrugs a shoulder. "It's changed a lot. Sophie's finally coming out of her isolationist shell. I told her after two centuries, it's probably time to forgive and forget. We took some real pains to make sure the Cult of Skaro was *thoroughly* eliminated," she emphasizes. "So it's nice getting to see some tourists back again. The Hall of Welcome was getting pretty run-down."

Cait's green-eyed gaze flicks away, back to Donna. "How about you? I mean aside from the Rebellion," she clarifies with a roll of her wrist. "Are ... you in touch with anyone?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "There must be a Kryptonian or two who's still alive," Troia says. There's a brief pause. "And of course there's Raven."

    Of course there's Raven. Not a casual subject to broach though.

    "I... might find a little time to drop in on Sophia. While I'm in the area. Just to say 'hi'." The words come like a concession, but there's no hiding it from Caitlin. Troia wants to, and it's really just a question of whether she will allow herself the time. "You could have asked me to help deal with the cult, you know. I have my differences with the Amazons, but Chara is right. They're still my family. "

    Troia waves a hand to dismiss Caitlin's final question. An old familiar gesture to indicate she doesn't see something as a problem that perhaps other people do. "I am in touch with a lot of people, Cait. I get around a lot, you know. The Work keeps me busy, but it's not like I'm working at home." You can hear the capital letters in the phrase 'The Work', and the fact that Donna views her life that way is perhaps the biggest reason the two have not remained close. "Every day I meet new people. Save some of them, kill some of them. "

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's face falls at Donna's casual quip about the people she meets. "Yeah. I know," she says, softly. "I keep track of sightings and reports where you crop up," she tells Donna. "I just wish you--" She thins her lips and looks away, shaking her head. "Sorry. I don't want to have that argument again," she says, aborting that line of thought. "We've pretty much talked it to death."

She stubs a toe against the ground, a familiar old gesture few people have seen. "I didn't think you'd want to come home," Caitlin admits. "Or... maybe I didn't want you to come home," she admits with that innate sense of honesty. "I remember being pretty mad at you, at the time," she adds-- though the weight of centuries has removed any true ire from her voice. "I know The Work is important, I do, it's--"
% She exhales and looks away. "Sorry. Again. Anyway," she says, pushing her hair back behind one ear. "If you want to visit New Krypton, we could drop in on Kara Danvers," she offers. She's one of the few people who uses that ancient nickname. "Karen's gone... I don't know, she said something about 'getting away from it all'. Last report I saw she was riding a Blink drive out past the Noble Galaxy. About as far from the center of the universe as it's possible to get," she adds with a wry chuckle. "I guess she and Kara flipped a coin for who'd be in charge this century, and Kara lost."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Troia holds up a hand in a 'stop' gesture. "Don't apologize Cait. It's not necessary. Rivers don't flow backwards, and those particular waters flowed beneath the bridge long ago. Earth is no longer my focus the way it was back when I was young, but I'm not /avoiding/ the place. It's just that you don't need me as much as other places in the galaxy do."

    "I tend to avoid Kryptonians these days," Troia says, happy to trip to another subject. "Kara was a good friend once, but they just make things a lot more complicated. The more they are left alone, the more they leave the rest of the universe alone. That's a good thing in my eyes. It was a mistake freeing them back into this universe, we should have sent them somewhere else, instead. I still regret I didn't do more to sway Alura's actions back then. It's one of the few things I think I was right about back in those days. We might not have won the War of Light without their aid, it's true. But then that war would probably have never happened without them around."

    The interior of the Zeta room is momentarily lit by a flash of light, and the familiar metallic orb, little bigger than a softball, drifts in the air in front of Troia. "Our ride is here," she comments with a smirk. She opens her palm towards the sphere and it appears to split open, projecting an illuminated rectangle the approximate size of a door into the air in front of it. Within the rectangle can be seen the bizarre jungle of slender columns, elongated spheres and sweeping curves that makes up the interior space of a Travel Sphere.

    Troia gestures towards Caitlin and gives her a slight bow. "Your chariot awaits," she says with a grin.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin tries to return Donna's smile, but it falls a little flat. The emotionless way that Donna dismisses a dear friend-- an entire civiliation-- seems to crush something in Caitlin's heart. She's doing a fair job of keeping her emotions withheld, but some leak through. Then again, Donna and Caitlin haven't shared much time together for the better part of two centuries. It's possible for Donna to miss those old tells entirely.

Instead Caitlin nods at the invitation and steps into the Sphere's interior, looking around cautiously before stepping deeper into the machine. "Love what you've done with the place," Caitlin tells Donna with a wry tone. She rubs her shouldered arms as if chilled. "These things always give me the creeps," she mutters. "Something definitely non-mammalian designed it."

She turns back, looking at Donna when she collapses the portal behind them. "How long to Earth?" she inquires. "I saw a Blink Drive on the astral cartography maps. That'll get us within a few million light-years," she offers. "I'm still not entirely clear on how this thing -actually- travels."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Someone as mammalian as I am designed it, Cait," Troia answers mildly but pointedly. "So I suppose strictly speaking you're both right and wrong. As for how it works, you could ask him yourself, because before we go to Earth, we're going to meet it's maker."

    Caitlin has met Kronos before. The idea of asking him how a Travel-Sphere works isn't all that appealing.

    Troia leads Caitlin along a curving pathway that spirals up to a higher 'ground' level, where there's a display screen. Or possibly a window, it's hard to tell for sure. In front of the screen is a curved, angled wall, which Troia leans comfortable against, semi-reclining, and gestures to Caitlin to join her. Some parts of the internal structure of the ship has a strange organic texture to them, but thankfully this part feels more artificial. The ship as a whole still feels oddly alive, but at least this corner of it doesn't feel like you're leaning on something's internal organs.

    Through the screen the strands of dust and gas they'd been hiding inside have already receded into the distance. The Athena and the rebel fleet are no longer visible, and the larger structure of the nebula those strands had been a part of are becoming clear. "Distances just don't mean a whole lot to a Travel-Sphere," Donna says. "I feel like the further I need to go, the faster it takes me. A few hours if we were flying direct, but the stop off on New Kronos may take a little while. This thing can in theory travel through time, but it won't. Not without uncle Kronos' permission."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Well you think like a lizard," Caitlin mumbles under her breath. en Donna asks her to repeat herself, Caitlin looks over her shoulder. "He thinks like a wizard," she clarifies.

Caitlin starts to get into the pod, thinks better of it, and collapses her battle-armor with a touch to the breastplate. The angled folds relax and smooth out until it sits more like a piece of clothing than heavy mail plates. She wriggles her shoulders into it and leans back, adjusting herself to get comfortable.

The silence between them stretches until it's awkward enough for Caitlin to start fidgeting. She snap-pops her hand against her palm once or twice. "Soooooooo," she trails off. It feels like there are a *dozen* elephants in the room, none of which can be casually addressed. She starts to say something, stops, does it again. After a few more seconds she activates the display in her left eye. Lights glitter against her dark pupil as she starts up a datastream.

Inside one of the techno-magic wonders of the universe, and Caitlin is clearly trying to ignore All of It rather than poking around the machinery.