Joah Maroon 1

after reentry.  Shall I schedule the task?"
"Yes," I told her as I left my seat.  That got me some strange looks from Lin and Nancy.  Typically, we remained in our seats during jump.  But I wasn't convinced that the icy touch life form had departed.  I was determined to search the ship.
I systematically entered every room and corridor looking for the ghostly presence.  I never found anything, but the hairs kept standing up on the back of my neck.  I got the feeling that something was watching me from behind.  Swirling around each time I couldn’t detect any presence visually or otherwise.
Still, I was not convinced.  An eerie feeling told me that there was something with us in our ship.  I had been sensing it all along but dismissing it as my imagination.

Chapter Five
I anxiously held my breath as we shifted back into real space.  Instead of waiting for an alert, all four of us monitored the system for issues.  Fortunately, our connection to jump space was relinquished cleanly by our engine this time.  Everything appeared normal, functioning properly.
Yet I still had a chill running down my spine.  I just couldn’t tell if it was a physical reaction to the alien entity’s presence, or my mind’s representation of the eerie feeling.
"No evidence of the strange life form aboard," Nancy told me.  I could hear relief in her voice.
"Deceleration looks good, Joah," Lin told me.  "We won't enter Pegillas controlled space for another couple hours.  I’m lining up our path now, but we'll need to adjust when they provide instructions."
Though the rip-jump engine did all the work for transitioning us from one realm to the other, our ship needed to be at a high speed during the transition.  Braking was standard procedure when entering a star system.  We came in a little extra hot this time by my choice.  I had no idea if it actually made a difference in severing the jump space connection, but it made me feel better.
"Nancy, can you adjust the ship's internal sensors for me?" I asked as I glanced around expecting to find some remnant of the ghostly creature.  "Find the frequencies and so forth that the shadow monster appeared on and increase the sensitivity on just those."
"Shadow monster?" Lin asked, cracking a smile.
"I'm not sure that I know how to do that," Nancy admitted.  She was never one to claim to know something that she didn’t, but that didn’t keep her from being embarrassed about it at times.
"I am fully capable of making that adjustment for you, captain," Portia said.
"Of course, you are," Nancy responded with an attitude.  "But it is not your job, bitch.  It is mine and I'll figure it out soon enough."
"I know that you will, sweetie," I supported my wife momentarily.  "But let Portia handle this one for me so you can focus on more important matters.  She'll send a report of how she did it to you, so you'll know how in the future.  If we start getting false readings, we'll need to change those settings back or at least tweak them."
"I have made the adjustments, captain," our android announced after only a few seconds had passed.  "The sensors are heightened in several areas that may cause what you call false readings.  Use of our wrist communicators may trigger a tag, as will use of the crew's personal electronic devices.  I have added an infrared component that will block an alert when a trigger is within close proximity with a human life form.  Does this meet with your objective?"
I told her that it did.  Hopefully, if the shadow monster returned, he wouldn't just be in my proximity.  Both times the thing appeared it only made contact with me.  If you could really call that contact.
I needed to put that matter aside for the moment and focus on future business.  The purpose of the heightened sensors was so I could concentrate on other things until I got an alert.
Peggies were reportedly much friendlier and welcoming to humans than the Maedas.  There would be no physical barriers outlining a comfort zone for human occupation, I was told.  We would be able to roam their cities freely, but only capable of visiting the ground floor of their structures.
Their buildings were constructed onto huge trees, and in some instances grown instead of built.  Dozens of levels, maybe even hundreds if the tales were true, rose into the sky on the thick and sturdy plants.  Unfortunately, there were no stairs or lifts to get us to the higher levels.
The local intelligent life forms of Pegillas resembled monkeys from earth in many ways.  Feet that were shaped more like hands, including thumbs.  A tail that could assist in climbing.  A short fur instead of hair covered most of their bodies.  They came in a variety of colors, races I assumed.  Or perhaps different species even.  But the average adult height wasn't much more than a meter.  I didn’t know if that was while forced erect or in their natural hunched over stature.
When the Peggies were first contacted by humans a hundred years ago there was no hostility.  Despite several documented occasions of exploitation of the creatures, they always maintained an agreeable attitude.  Eventually they were rewarded for it.
As intelligent as humans, scientists claimed, the monkey-like people learned our technology and duplicated it in many ways though never quite straying from their own culture.  Most of them never leave the star system, but it wasn’t uncommon for adults to spend at least some time in space.  To continue the bond with our kind they taught their children Galactic Standard in the cities with spaceports.  Supposedly, we should never encounter an individual that wouldn't understand us.  That was even better than traveling to a lot of countries on old Earth.
Population of the planet was in the billions.  Wherever there were strong trees, they