Inside the gigantic structure, it contained nothing worthy of mention, at first glance. It was opaque and mostly empty, no signs of systems at all. Alberto, confused of what Rex told him, tried to think upon what happened, during the encounter in the shadows. The old man reflected frightening thoughts towards Rex, before he was convinced forcefully to stand down. However, there was a pattern that he always followed:
“The warden tried to stay in the dark as long as he could. He seems to be always like that, at least since we know of him. His behavior pointed towards self-preservation instincts at all times, always trying to hide; except when dealing about Julia: All the gloomy rooms that he wanted to leave them as it is, no willingness for making improvements on that regard; the charred consoles intentionally disabled where light ran before; the terrible speech about your presence was just the cherry on the top. Maybe in his proudness, he wanted to test himself.”
Cruz looked all over the dome, a scenario of pure technological wonders ready to be used. He contemplated the sphere one more time and reached a reasonable conclusion for him:
“No…I think that Julia told you that question as some sort of riddle for you to decipher. I believe it was not a question for you exactly, but for him. As far as I know, something particularly terrible occurred between him and Julia. Did you get close enough to him to see his face? Distinct marks of severe burns. Perhaps, she wanted to use you as a catalyst for a triggering response, making it to look like an accident. Most likely, she did not tell you about it explicitly to avoid a blatantly obvious trap or trust you too much on this; the warden is a clever man, after all…favorably for you, Alpha Command desired you to have your training, compromising your status would be unacceptable. An outsider that would unintentionally cripple the old man, a person coming for training without any apparent problems or guilt, capable of disrupting the mind of the warden exclusively; as he fears no other Maltese, especially those who come here. Yes, that must be…if I knew Julia better, I would say that she would had been more than glad with that triumph.”
Cruz shrugged to the final words and ended his convoluted theories to focus on the console and what was going to happen in the sphere. After a couple of minutes setting up different types of configurations, he acknowledged to himself; expecting that the training was suitable enough for the Starflier. He scratched his head a bit, looking the noticeable injury of Baker, wondering if Rex would be up to the task after all what happened, but hoping for the best in the end. Cruz tried to change the subject to the main purpose that gathered both men:
“Do not take my comments so seriously, I am just speculating here; maybe the truth is more complex than that. To be honest, I just prefer the numbers and the solitude given by some of my tasks. I am lucky enough to stay away from the predatory sights of Julia and her schemes. She can be a good cold friend and all…but sometimes, she is just a wall. For many of us. Here and here, there you go. Let’s proceed to the simulation.”
A couple of buttons pressed and the sphere inside shined itself with an allegory of sounds and colors. Haptic and conventional interfaces of different systems emerged in a white and sudden blink; the software verified each of its algorithms to make the training the most accurate experience as possible. The database loaded the configuration for the Kujira-class, as it was promised; and the hardware changed physically its initial configuration to the one that resembled the transport ship. Holography, mechanical constructions behind the sphere or apparent magic; the sphere just hatched a whole transport bridge in seconds, set for training and more.
![[Image: 0WfuF9g.png]](https://i.imgur.com/0WfuF9g.png)