Raptor's eyebrows crushed together. "What are you doing?"

"Getting my vectors." Lullabied by quick beats, Jess pondered the state of traffic as she mumbled, "A-polar-signal-could-be-redistributed-through-a-small-slit-in-the-command-console." She no longer felt crunched by the weight of anxiety, or Raptor's intense gaze as he interrogated his microphone. Upon constructing the scenario in her head, the next series of events played before they happened:

On the ...