Var was not surprised when<i>everyone, </i>including Unka, showed up on the bridge in spite of her only paging the Captain and the scan op. After all it was the bridge where things happened, and if they needed to move fast this was the place everyone was needed, except possibly the doc and the cargo-monkey, but they had as much right to know what was going on as the rest.<br/><br/>She nodded to the Mrinka pilot. They were on first name terms, jockey to jockey, but it was the tough tattooed tangle navigator she was really waiting for.<br/><br/><<Hi sweetie, you're looking ravishable today!>> The nice thing about chip-to-chip communication, that was banned by the Empire except for between a tangle-navigator her pilot, was that she could think in Singing, her native language, and her chip translated the thoughts into a binary signal that Charlie's chip translated back into Standard. (And all t-navs were female, even the Mrinka. Only the Zegomori were the exception being monogendered. As for the Gantrah, who knew? The race were basically an enigma, the collective were almost impossible to communicate with and individual's like Unka didn't understand the question!)<br/><br/>Of course on all<i>legal </i>tangle vessels, the ship's computer monitored the signals and presented a log to the captain or first officer or whoever. But on a pirate ship? Ha ha! A tentacle shot out and snaked between Charlie's legs. <<I missed you. I hate sitting watch on my own. I wanted to do that thing you like with three tentac... Oops, later babe!>><br/><br/>"Captain on the bridge..." It was protocol. It was, after all, Annika's ship. As The red Queen issued her orders, the Bruthie tried not to roll her eyes. The woman was as flamboyant in her strategy as she was in her attire. Where Var was as minimalist in her preferred strategy as<i>she</i>was in her attire...<br/><br/>"A suggestion, if I may, Skipper?" She had moved to her own seat but slid back with surprising speed, to speak in a low voice. "If we stay on passive sensors and don't light up the drives, even if that's a fleet carrier, they'll never know we're here. But if you run for it, they'll see us, and with all due respect to the old girl, the Bunny is still just a freighter, so I doubt we'd be able to out-run a warship! So if it's not our target, we should sit tight and let them tangle out..."<br/><br/>Var waited for the captain to at least acknowledge that she's heard, then slid back to her own seat. As acting first officer it was her duty to try and keep the skipper's eccentricities from getting them all killed. "Tangle drive is off-line but on cold-start. If you want us to make a short hop I'll need one minute. You want us the hell and gone from here, I'll need five."