As evening approached, the setting sun painted the sea a magnificent orange-red.
Kael, enjoying a rare moment of leisure, walked onto the bow deck for some air, hoping the cold sea breeze would dispel his accumulated fatigue and… that indescribable, elusive vexation.
He had just leaned against the railing, taking a deep breath of the salty air, when he heard light footsteps behind him.
"Kael! You came to watch the sunset too!" Theresa bounded over to him like a happy little bird, naturally resting her arm on the railing next to him, her body leaning slightly towards him. "It's so beautiful!"
Kael: "..." He half-suspected Theresa had planted a tracker on him.
Before he could respond, a cool voice came from another direction.
"Captain, Ms. Theresa."
Kael and Theresa turned simultaneously, seeing Olivia emerge from the hatch leading to the research area.
She was still in her impeccable research uniform, her golden ponytail swaying slightly in the sea breeze. She held a data pad, looking as if she had just finished work.
"The data will show subtle changes at sunset, so I'm here to record the environmental parameters," Olivia explained, her tone professional, but her gaze quickly swept over Kael's silhouette, outlined by the setting sun.
She walked to another section of the railing, neither too close nor too far from them, and indeed began operating her data pad, as if she truly was just there for work.
Theresa immediately became wary, instinctively leaning closer to Kael, almost pressing against his arm, then glared at Olivia with an expression that said, "Look, she's at it again."
Kael suddenly felt completely uncomfortable.
On his left was a predatory Theresa, practically clinging to him, and on his right was Olivia, seemingly focused on her work but with a gaze he constantly felt on him.
He felt as if he was caught between two invisible walls; even the sea breeze couldn't dissipate this strange atmosphere.
He tried to find a topic to break the deadlock: "Uh... have the preliminary analyses of the mission data come out yet?"
"Still processing; the final report will be ready tomorrow morning," Olivia replied without looking up, her fingers sliding across the data pad.
"Kael, look! Dolphins over there!" Theresa suddenly shouted, pointing to the distant sea, trying to capture Kael's full attention.
Kael looked in the direction she pointed and indeed saw several dolphins leaping out of the water, tracing elegant arcs.
"Hmm, I see them," he responded, but his gaze unconsciously flickered towards Olivia next to him.
She also seemed interested in the dolphins, gazing in that direction. The setting sun cast a soft halo on her delicate profile, and that focused expression... for some reason, made him feel a little familiar.
Seeing that Kael's attention had been partly diverted by that woman, Theresa immediately pouted and tugged at Kael's sleeve: "Kael, I'm a bit cold."
Kael helplessly took off his jacket and handed it to Theresa: "Put it on; the wind is strong on deck at night." He was only wearing a thin uniform shirt underneath.
Theresa happily took the jacket, still warm with Kael's body heat, and put it on, then proudly jutted her chin towards Olivia, as if declaring her claim.
Olivia seemed completely oblivious to the subtle actions, still diligently recording data, though her fingertips gripping the data pad tightened slightly.
Watching this scene, Kael felt a headache coming on. What was all this…
At dinner time, Kael deliberately went to the mess hall a bit late, hoping to avoid certain people.
As he carried his tray, looking for an empty seat, he saw a scene that left him speechless.
Theresa and Olivia were sitting at the same five-person table, each occupying an end, with three empty seats between them. There was no communication between them, and they didn't even look at each other, but the invisible low pressure made people at the surrounding tables instinctively move further away.
Theresa saw Kael and immediately waved: "Kael! There's a spot here!"
Olivia, though silent, also looked up, watching him quietly with her emerald eyes.
Kael paused, instantly feeling an urge to turn and leave. But he still braced himself and walked over.
He looked at the two empty seats, one next to Theresa, one next to Olivia. Sitting on either side seemed likely to ignite some strange situation.
Ultimately, he chose a compromise—sitting in the middle seat, exactly one seat away from both of them.
Theresa immediately grumbled in dissatisfaction and nudged her tray closer to Kael.
Olivia, meanwhile, continued to eat quietly, though her movements seemed a little slower.
Kael found the meal tasteless. Theresa constantly tried to engage him in conversation, attempting to cut off any potential interaction between him and Olivia.
Olivia, however, would occasionally interject a sentence or two about mission data in a highly professional and calm tone during the lulls in Kael and Theresa's conversation, precisely capturing Kael's attention.
"...So, what principle does that algorithm use to effectively resist that specific interference?" Kael couldn't help but ask Olivia, a question he had pondered for a long time.
"It mainly utilizes the harmonic characteristics of the interference source itself for inverse cancellation..." Olivia put down her cutlery and began to explain seriously, her eyes fixed on Kael.
Theresa couldn't understand any of the technical jargon. Watching the professional atmosphere between the two, which others found difficult to penetrate, she angrily poked her steak with her fork...
Late at night, Kael was finishing up paperwork at a private terminal in the officers' lounge.
Theresa had finally been persuaded to return to her assigned guest room on the grounds of "needing absolute quiet." Olivia also seemed to have returned to her research cabin.
Just as he was about to complete and save his report, the terminal screen suddenly went black, then displayed a series of complex error codes!
"What's going on?" Kael frowned, trying to restart the terminal, but found the system seemed to be stuck in a loop, unable to operate normally.
It contained the results of his entire evening's work; losing it would be a problem.
He immediately tried to contact technical support on the ship, but only static filled the communication channel.
"Damn it..." Kael cursed under his breath, getting up to go to the technical department himself.
The moment he opened the lounge door, however, he saw Olivia standing outside, her hand raised as if about to knock.
"Olivia? What are you doing here?"
"Captain," Olivia's expression held a perfectly measured touch of surprise and concern, "my data terminal in my cabin seemed to receive an abnormal system broadcast signal from the officers' lounge. I was worried it was a malfunction and came to check. Is everything alright here?" Her reason sounded perfectly logical.
Kael, flustered by the malfunction, didn't think much of it: "My terminal crashed, and the report might be lost. Communications with the technical department are also down."
"System malfunction?" Olivia frowned slightly. "May I take a look? I know a little about system maintenance."
Kael was too preoccupied to care much else at this point, stepping aside to let her in: "Thank you for your trouble."
Olivia walked to the terminal, her fingers rapidly manipulating the error screen, which still displayed parts of the code, her expression focused.
A few minutes later, she let out a sigh of relief: "It's a deadlock caused by a low-level data cache overflow, not a hardware issue. I can try to force clear the cache and restore to the last stable save point; that should recover most of the data."
"Really? That's great!" Kael's heart lifted.
About ten more minutes passed. As Olivia entered a final string of commands, the terminal screen flickered a few times, returning to the normal interface, and his report file lay neatly on the desktop.
"It's recovered. I recommend you save it to a secure storage area as soon as possible."
Olivia stood up, her tone calm, but a faint bead of sweat seemed to glisten on her forehead, and her breathing was slightly hurried, as if the operation had cost her considerable energy.
"Thank you so much, Olivia! You've been a huge help again!" Kael expressed his heartfelt gratitude; this time, he was genuinely thankful. Otherwise, an entire evening's work would have been wasted.
"It's my duty to assist you."
Olivia bowed her head slightly, the light casting a small shadow under her long eyelashes, making her appear less aloof than usual, and a little more delicate.
She secretly glanced at Kael, then quickly lowered her eyes. "If you have no other instructions, I'll return now."
"Alright, thank you for your hard work. Get some rest," Kael nodded.
Watching Olivia's retreating figure, Kael once again marveled at the exceptional capabilities of this new researcher.
He didn't know that, from an angle he couldn't see, Olivia, as she walked out of the lounge, was curving her lips into a triumphant smile.
"A small system 'glitch' can buy me time alone with you and your gratitude... quite a bargain."
She murmured to herself, her fingertips seemingly still retaining the sensation of "accidentally" touching Kael's hand when operating the terminal earlier.
And almost simultaneously with Olivia's departure, Kael's personal terminal rang. It was a communication request from Theresa, her tone anxious: "Kael! I think I heard some noise from your side just now? Are you alright? Did that Olivia go to find you?!"
Kael: "..."
He looked at the terminal, which had just returned to normal and saved his report, then at Theresa's message, and suddenly felt a profound sense of powerlessness.
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