Everyone fell into silence for a moment.
"You have to give him at least one more day, Jake," Jordan broke the silence and tried to assure Jake.
The Captain sighed, "That would be impossible."
"I plan on sending someone back to Arcadia. I'm not sure if it's even possible, but we need reinforcements. We only have two spaceships now. If one will be used by the Saviors to land on Earth and the other one will be used to send someone to Arcadia, Aksel has no choice but to join the Saviors," explained Jake.
"W-what if… we pick up Aksel tomorrow after we land on Earth, Captain?" Rosemarie uttered her suggestion shyly.
"What? That's ridiculous. This is not a home-to-school journey," Cole quickly expressed his objection to Rosemarie's idea. He was a bit harsh about it, which made Rosemarie embarrassed.
"I-I'm sorry…," Rosemarie apologized as she looked down.
"I'm sorry, but it's true, Rosemarie. That scenario would waste so much of our fuel. We wouldn't be able to return to the station once we finish the Mission as a result," Jake replied to the girl, who didn't dare to say anything anymore and kept looking down.
"All right, I think I need to make it clearer. I'll explain my plan," stated Jake.
"Aksel, Rosemarie, Cole, Chandler, Jane, Sean, Blake, Curtis, Cheryl, and I will go down to the Earth using Unit Two. We'll run the Mission, eliminating all the danger there and saving the planet. Meanwhile, one of the crew members will go back to Arcadia using Unit Three, and this person will be hibernating so that they won't need food supplies. Unit Three will be in autopilot mode and reach Arcadia on its own. On the other hand, two crew members in the station will also hibernate. Only one will be conscious to monitor everything, and all the food supplies we have left now will be used to feed this person. If this person fasts, they could survive for around seven months, which is the amount of time needed to reach Arcadia through the Portal near Mars."
The Captain went silent briefly, looking at everyone else, "Does anyone want to say something?"
Aksel turned his eyes to his stepmother.
Jordan knew what the look meant, so she nodded softly.
"Why wouldn't… the conscious one get back to Arcadia, too, Captain?" the boy asked Jake as his eyes returned to the Captain. Compared to Rosemarie and Chandler, Aksel was a more fearful individual. He was often silent due to worrying or fearing this and that.
The question itself prompted every pair of eyes to look at him, which fastened his heartbeat.
"I, I mean… Unit Three might get to Mars with the autopilot mode, but would it be able to reach the Portal? Let alone Arcadia," he added, nervously. The boy was worried and looked at everyone's faces at the end of his sentence.
As Aksel finished his question, the crew and other members of Saviors turned their eyes back to Jake, except for Jordan and Jane. Jordan frowned a little, looking at the table. She covered her mouth with her right hand afterward, but instead of looking shocked, the woman seemed to be concerned. Jane's dark-brown eyes were still on Aksel, without any specific look. However, Jane's eyes scared Aksel still, especially when he realized that the girl was still looking at him.
"Nice question, Aksel," said Jake, "But you may forget that the station is the central navigator. The navigations of every spaceship we had were dependent on and controlled by this station. So, as long as the spaceships are still operating, they'll need a navigator in here. I plan to make one of the crew members a sole navigator, so we could reach the Earth and the other crew member could reach Arcadia. Afterward, this navigator would enter their hibernation, waiting for the reinforcements from Arcadia to come," the 34-year-old man elaborated.
He took a break for a moment to look at Aksel to make sure that the boy understood. All Aksel did was look at the Captain, too, and Jake soon assumed that he got it.
"Now, the main issue of this plan is the reinforcements. We might have food supplies in Arcadia, but Unit Three won't be able to get back here without any navigator. We'll need a new spaceship since all the spaceships that we had were Units Two to Seven, and it could take years to build a new one. As long as we don't have the reinforcements yet, the Saviors won't be able to get back to the station in any case of emergency or whatever it is. But hopefully, we'll never have to get back as we're trying to resettle the Earth permanently," concluded Jake.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think that's the only main issue we have. Even with fasting, I would say for one person, our food supplies could only be enough for around four months, five at maximum. Seven months would be extreme fasting with some days of no food at all, and I don't think it's a good thing," Eric added his opinion to the discussion.
"No, either Jordan or I can do seven months easily," stated Liz. She sighed, moving her body forward, "It's just a matter of how much men and women eat. I knew the navigator couldn't be you or Flynn since the beginning."
"That actually makes sense," Flynn threw out a comment.
"But could you navigate, though?" Jake questioned Liz.
"Of course. I've learned quite a lot about the station's control and everything," Liz replied to him confidently.
"Oh, surely Lucas taught you a fair amount of things," Curtis giggled, not even caring how Liz would react.
"All right, I think it's all settled. Flynn and Eric will hibernate here in the station, while Jordan will return to Arcadia with Unit Three. Liz will become the navigator as it would be too risky for her to come back to Arcadia," the Captain proclaimed.
Elizabeth May was the name she adopted to sound more human. She was an aardean, a native race to the planet of Arcadia. Born with the name Zli, Liz was lilac-skinned like all the other aardeans. As an aardean, she also possessed a pair of eyes that were rich in color. The iris of her eyes was circular like a human's, but blue, green, and yellow in colors, with the dominance of blue. In the middle of the circular shape surrounding her pupils was the sunflower-shaped iris, which was purple. Her features were 100% aardean, but to her, her soul belonged to mankind.
"Does anyone oppose this?" Jake made sure as he took a look at everyone one by one.
"I don't," Jane gave an immediate response.
"No, Captain," followed by Chandler.
"Nope," then Eric, Blake with only a nod, and everyone else besides Aksel and Jordan, who were making eye contact.
Realizing that they would be separated was hard for both Aksel and Jordan. They knew this would happen eventually because the boy was a Saviors member, but they didn't anticipate it to happen this fast.
"No, I agree," said Jordan, still looking at Aksel. Her eyes expressed sadness as well as worry.
"No, Captain," Aksel became the last to answer.
"Okay then. Flynn, Eric, I need both of you to prepare Units Three and Two right now. Take some of the Saviors members if you need help," Jake ordered Flynn and Eric immediately.
"Understood," Flynn and Eric responded to the Captain simultaneously.
"Remember, Unit Three is the priority. We'll send Jordan out to Arcadia first," Jake added as they got up. This time, they only nodded in response to it.
The two men took Cole and Curtis with them. They left the hall quickly.
"Now, we need to discuss Aksel's condition," Jake spoke to the remaining people in the hall, especially Jordan and Liz.
"I've noticed that it has been going on differently with him so far, starting from how long it took for his system to be completely attached. What is going on, really?" he questioned both Liz and Jordan as his distinguishable pair of golden eyes looked at them alternately.
The question prompted Jordan and Liz to look at each other. They were silent, seemingly not knowing what to answer.
"I'm afraid we'll never know what the answer is, Jake," Liz uttered after ten seconds of silence. She turned her eyes back to the man.
"There's still some time left for the Saviors to be here. I can check Aksel's condition up one more time, but it will most likely give no actual results," she continued.
"Yeah. I've spent so much time trying to solve what went wrong with his attachment progress, and I found nothing. I can still try to solve it, but given my previous attempts and how limited the time I have right now, expect nothing for the result," Jordan added to Liz's statement.
For a moment, Jake was silent as he stared at Aksel, "Is it possible that his attachment failed?" he turned to Jordan, "And that he didn't fuse with the Beast Monster System?"
"No. I can guarantee that it succeeded," Jordan answered the question confidently; she also stared at her stepson afterward, "Perhaps there are some unknown side effects regarding this one particular system."
For a while after that, it was quiet.
"I guess everything is still worth trying," stated Jake, implying to Jordan and Liz to do what they have told him previously.
The two women looked at each other and then nodded. They both understood what the Captain meant.
"Sean, could you please help us carry Aksel?" Jordan asked the tall, tan-skinned Sean politely.
"Yeah, of course," the 19-year-old young man didn't hesitate.
"No, wait," Blake let out a voice for the first time in the meeting and surprised everyone. They all turned to him soon after.
"I don't know if it's intentional or not, but you seem to be ignoring the most crucial thing here," the curly-haired boy told Jake, "What did you find out there? What about the explosion? What is the conclusion of it?"
Jake didn't answer the question immediately. Instead, he was silent with no specific facial expression while staring directly at Blake's emerald eyes. The emerald eyes did the same thing to Jake's golden eyes. For some reason, the atmosphere became a little tense.
"There is nothing to conclude," stated Jake.
"We've heard from Flynn right after the explosion that he didn't detect any wrongs from the cockpit. He would've known it if there was any trouble in the machines. Eric and I also didn't detect any trace of comets or space debris that could cause such a big explosion. So, it can be anything at this point. It's possible that there was undetected trouble with the machines; who knows? It doesn't really matter anymore now. The outcome of it should be our main worry," continued the Captain, leaving Blake silent.
"I need the rest of you Saviors members to prepare yourself for our departure later," concluded Jake a few moments later, before leaving the hall.