A Wag

The pulses occurred fairly regularly and I was sure I recognized the Wig-Wag pattern. Looming in the soup, and shrouded buy the sea of Eights, the high-speed tagged 5-ring had recovered lost velocity and was cruising smoothly through the soup. Not keen to get knocked about this time, I spun the Eights away from the approaching 5-ring.

I had scanned the ring portion, and was sliding the beam along the trailing tag. No extra Neutrons were detectable, and I was counting the sub-pulses in the second Six of the tail when another pulse fired. I bumped the beam to where the Seven should have been, and missed it. Expanding the beam, I found the Seven making a different angle with the second Six. Tucked in a bit tighter, the Seven and it's Ones had moved closer to the ring, and a One-Eight-One neatly locked into place a the tip of the tail.

Within moments of being aligned, a shudder occurred in the first Six of the tail and the 5-Ring flipped their One to the other Seven. Emitting the lower Wag pulse, the tail was released and the springy Sixes in the tail flexed, pushing the Seven and its Ones against the nestled One-Eight-One.