"We just need to find a leader, a strategist, a giver-of-orders who knows why they are doing what they are doing. They could be on a planet, or in the Bleed, or parked in some other dimension, but that's who we need to get information from. Somehow." She thought of drop missions, physically hooking a crack box into enemy hardware to get at the AI's inside, but an organic ship was an entirely different proposition.

"There could be any number of reasons. To hide us from the Ohm. To hide us from people who could tell us what is really going on. To protect Stacy from cyberattack - she may be particularly vulnerable right now. Or - dear me, that's a nasty thought. What if the Ohm can detect the Threads, and they're all pointing right at us and at Stacy? Although if that were the case," she gestured to the wide plateau dotted with multicolored trees, and the laughing aliens strolling about, "you'd think she would tell us to get in here, get the map, and get out."