Zey patted Mallory supportively on the shoulder as he passed her on his way off the Bridge.  As soon as the doors closed behind him, she collapsed into the Captain's chair, and it spun her round to face her command interface.

She'd felt the tension burning off her XO, but ultimately someone had to take charge of whatever was happening on the ground. She'd done it last time, and now it was up to him. Zey also needed the bridge to herself so she could monitor the situation without giving away how unwell she felt. Thankfully Anselm was helping out with the passengers and Newmont was off shift, so she was alone up here. Apart from Wodan, of course.

She drank deeply from the sippy bottle she'd taken from her quarters, and gingerly felt the chem port on the back of her neck. It was quite tender. Zey didn't fancy running diagnostics by herself with everything else going on, so she connected with Feng privately.

"Doctor, come to the bridge when you have a minute please."

The Captain then turned her attention to the variety of windows that Wodan had carefully arranged across her screen. One was a collage of camera angles from inside the shuttle bay and outside. Another wasoan audio feed with a rolling transcription and annotation. Small digital folders contained a dossier that the AI was building on all the aliens, as well as the crew members. The most intriguing was this colossal lizard character who had shown up with some others. It seemed to somehow understand how their cameras worked.

Despite her sore neck, Zey felt a chill run down her spine.

[hr]

On Ezra's command, while the Kanth-Amerek natives were chatting among themselves and with the Humans outside the shuttle bay, Wodan's two Jotuns (as it had affectionately nicknamed them) moved into line of sight. They kept their distance, and walked as innocuously and quietly as they could to avoid startling the locals. They still focused part of their sensory arrays towards the ship's aft, though there was now a small blind spot in the Ertiseda direction.

Some animal called in the distance, and a few of the smaller bushes rustled. Ezra looked around with night vision active in the dusk but couldn't see anything.