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They all walked together, through some of the corridors that hummed with beginnings of construction and past crews installing new conduits and environmental systems. Jere was completely silent through it all as they made their way closer to the cargo hold. Reyna glanced at him twice but said nothing, only admiring his whimsy as Elena told him all about what the cargo area and the plans they had for the modifications based on their work, where they were in the process, and how much longer they'd be docked for the refit. Jere just stayed silent, a silence Reyna understood of taking everything in to process it at conversational speed. She'd felt it too during her first time walking through the refit and seeing the foundation of what they were building.

Then the moment had come where they arrived, and Elena made a big deal of creating a moment where she dramatically opened the cargo hold doors in front of Jere.

"Feast your eyes, Jere!" Elena exclaimed, her smile shining off of her like a beacon.

Reyna felt the awe from the dramatic reveal herself, and even if she'd seen this hold all day long for months at this point in preparation, her awe was still genuine. As she looked through the hold, she remembered what had once been a cavernous, empty space, and what it was working toward now as a full transformation. She looked over all the dividing walls that were going up, each section being for different atmospheric conditions, temperatures, and ecosystems. It had just been last week when the environmental control nodes lining the ceiling had been installed and began their process to turn over the vegetation systems, organic water filtration, and natural temperature adjustments to become its own functioning regulation system.

Reyna had overseen every stage of the build up to this point. She would continue doing so, but would now have Jere by her side to help with all the needs going forward. He was the quality checker, and Reyna felt as though she was in the best hands, not to mention that her own meticulous style would ensure they worked cohesively towards the final goal. Reyna knew every conduit, node, and structural compromise she and the crew were planning in order to fit Elena's vision inside the ship's aging frame. She knew where the budget would probably need to be stretched and where engineering would need to be creative.

Jere stood in the doorway, not speaking, while his eyes moved across the massive entry to the entire hold. She saw him staring at the areas waiting to become forests, deserts, wetlands, and oceans, all in miniature, of course, but still fully functioning. Reyna watched his throat bob in his neck and noticed how his eyes were bright, making him blink once, and then again. Then he turned directly to Reyna.

"Rey, do you know what we coulddowith this?" He said tenderly. And suddenly, she didn't trust herself to answer as she watched his emotions display so clearly on his face. So, she just nodded.

And then, a switch was flipped and he was off, walking through the almost-finished habitats, talking faster than anyone could follow, the ideas pouring out like they'd been stored within him for six months and the bottle had just been busted open. He started talking about all the species they could house, what ecosystems they could replicate, all the rescues they could assist. He touched the walls, the nodes, and the empty spaces where parts of the self-regulating system would grow and change and maintain. Reyna knew he was already seeing the creatures in every corner of the entire hold, listening to the sounds of them wherever he turned.

"We could sustain a whole reef system in this section alone," he said, spinning in the center of an empty enclosure. "And here, look at the ceiling height! Hells, Elena, we could do canopy species! Arboreal! They need this kind of vertical space in order to—" He stopped, catching sight of her and Elena, and looked intently at both of them. "You're staring."

"You're spinning," Reyna said with a soft laugh.

"I'm excited."

"You're going to walk into a wall," Elena said.

"Well, that's half of why walls exist. To ensure you don't cross into spaces that aren't meant for you. And, sometimes, to walk into while having important thoughts." He grinned at them both before turning to Reyna. "Rey, thank you," he said, reaching out his hands for Reyna's. She gripped his fingers and her eyes softened.

"It wasn't built for us," she said.

"It was built for them," he said, finishing her sentence as he turned his gaze to look out over all the habitats. He said it simply because that is exactly what it was: simple and straightforward. It would always be for the creatures that deserved every chance they could still be given to survive and thrive.

The refit tooka total of fourteen months to complete.

Fourteen months of construction crews, supply runs, and arguments with the Coalition about funds and budget. Fourteen months of watching the cargo hold on the Emberkind completely transform, section by section, from the empty cavern it was into the living center of the ship. Jere was there with them through all of it, his expertise shaping every enclosure,every atmospheric zone, every water filtration system that would sustain the creatures.

By the time it was finished, the Emberkind was something completely new. No longer was it the Coalition's forgotten cargo hauler, but now, an intergalactic animal rescue vessel. The habitats were fully operational and Elena had spent the better part of the last six months hiring the crew to ensure it grew to meet the mission. They were one week away from the first displaced species arriving, the final environmental seal being tested. Jere cried and he would never deny it. But Reyna and Elena would be in the next millennium before they admitted they cried, too. Jere never told them he had the footage.

The years that followed were good ones, in fact, the best Reyna had known. The rescue missions became routine in a way that felt extraordinary because every single day they were meaningful, urgent, and woven into the rhythm of daily life, saving creatures from extinction was what they did on a normal Tuesday. The three of them fell into a pattern that fit like Novahall all over again, but in a formal capacity.

Elena excelled at leading and commanding the ship as its Captain. The entire crew loved and respected her, and you could feel the energy throughout the entire vessel of energy and capability flowing, all through her leadership.

Jere took up the post as Chief Animal Specialist aboard the Emberkind, a position Elena had said was 'made for him' and he had smiled, until she said, "No, it wasreallymade for you. I made sure of it. So we could keep you." Jere was so much happier aboard their ship than off at research stations, traversing the galaxy like a nomad. And he ate. Regularly.

Reyna kept to her position as the Operations Officer, keeping everything running and operating like clockwork. She'd had the opportunity to be on the hiring committee with Elena for the entire Engineering team, and she was ecstatic about theingenious, talented team they had brought aboard, ensuring the ship ran effectively and at optimal levels. She would never want the ship to be operating below what it was capable of accomplishing.

It was during these few years that the Coalition assigned the Emberkind its first Protected World observation missions, using it as a way to preserve elements of other worlds to keep for their archives and ensure that all life on those worlds could be listed for protection should the time ever come. Protected Worlds were planets whose populations hadn't yet achieved interstellar contact and didn't know the Coalition existed, yet sometimes required Coalition assistance. Non-interference was policy, but observation and necessity was permitted, particularly for species research and preservation. The catch for these missions was that someone on their crew had to go down to the surface and blend in, which meant looking like the locals. And the Coalition had a very good reason for asking the Emberkind to take on these missions, for they had a Qorrathi, the species of shapeshifters.

Jere was the obvious and only choice. And frankly, he was ecstatic. His Appearance Shift could make him pass as Droven, human, even Brontari for weeks at a time, if not longer, and his natural curiosity about other species made him ideal for the work. Elena approved the missions be administrated by Jere, with Reyna logging them. She kept it to herself how she felt about sending one of her two favorite people to a planet of no contact, where nobody knew he existed and nobody could help him if something went wrong.

But being the man he was, Jere went anyway, with passion, curiosity, and a thirst for knowledge only he could possess.

The full effectof the missions to the Protected Worlds wasn’t clear until the first time Jere saw Earth.

He came back a changed man.

He was still himself, that bright and warm young man, still incapable of experiencing any event in his life without needing to tell everyone about it immediately and at maximum volume.

But upon his first return, Reyna noticed something new underneath his usual enthusiasm when he stepped off the transport. He vibrated with an energy he must have picked up on that little blue planet, like a fascination that ran deeper than curiosity, and Jere's curiosity already ran deep enough to drown in.

Reyna was on the bridge, running diagnostics on her console for some small maintenance upgrades to be completed the following, when she heard him approach before she even saw him. She heard his voice carry through two corridors, talking to someone.Probably himself, Reyna thought.But it's just as possible that it's a wall panel. But what she could confirm was that he was gaining volume with every step toward the bridge.