“Well, that's not a very nice thing to say to the conquering hero that made it safely out of that ambush.” I replied offhandedly, feeling a little insulted.

  “No, seriously, how are you not feeling Crippling guilt and emotional dysregulation? People died, and you seem not to care at all, you are even making light of it. The first time I went through combat, I was a mess for days until my commanding officer eventually pulled me aside and explained I was defending the people on my ship, I was a protector, not a killer.”

  “Oh, that wasn't my first kill. My first was when I was 10. My dad made me join the family guard and I spent a year learning self Defence and strategy, It was mostly designed towards the escape and evading pursuit. Anyway, on the last day, I woke up to a gun to my head. There was some sort of speech about how I was a tyrants' daughter, and he deserved to know the pain of losing a loved one. Anyway, I reacted before I even knew I had, all the guards sleep with weapons, and before I knew what I had done the dagger I slept with was in the young man's heart. I then, in the span of a few seconds, grabbed onto the gun he had, and used it while his falling limp body still held on to it, to shoot another looming figure that was guarding the door. Before rolling off my bunk and flipping it into a barrier. The gunshot, of course, woke all the other guards and a few more guys came running into the room, resulting in a fire fight between the guards and the terrorists. 12 guards died, 4 of them were friends I had made over the last 12 months, even cracked a few jokes with before we had gone to sleep.” I paused, feeling a twinge of pain and regret at their loss, even now, so many years after the event.

  I shook my head trying to push away the dark thoughts that were trying to creep into my mind, I knew there was nothing I could do to change anything. I let out a slow breath as I centred myself before speaking again.

  “The gun fire woke up the entire estate and the terrorists were quickly killed. Many people died that night, both on the bad guys and estate side, we even lost people like gardeners, maids, and cooks. Those that surrendered were quickly tried in court and found guilty. People I knew were gone, people I loved would never speak to me again, it took almost four years of therapy and psychiatric help before I slowly started moving on with my life and accepting what had happened wasn't my fault.” I opened my mouth to say more, but I couldn't bring myself to talk about it anymore and closed my mouth instead.

  “Okay, that is a lot…” he said slowly, it took a few moments before he suddenly added “wait, what happened to the pod after it followed the homing beacon away?”

  “Oh, it exploded once it caught up with the beacon.” I replied before my brain started processing the implications. “Why would it do that? Unless it was unmanned and meant to disable my ship or…” I trailed off as I reviewed the power of the explosion and began to consider the amount of damage it would have done to the ship. “I… I need to go follow up on what the prisons have said!” I declared as I quickly ended the call then told the AI to follow the navigation route and call me if something came up and quickly exited the deep dive by pulling the helmet off.

  I quickly stood up and got out of the pilot's seat, seeing the bridge was mostly empty I turned towards the door I had entered from and walked a few feet towards it before realising I didn't know where the prisons were being held or how to get there. I spotted the guards standing on either side of the door staring at me and walked over to them.

  “I need to speak with the prisoners, can you or someone please take me to speak with them and the one who got any information from them.”

  For a few moments, neither of them reacted until one of them nodded and lifted a hand to point at a new door before speaking to me.

  “Aye commander, captain Itshu Biyu, will be with you shortly and has asked if you could please wait in the captain's briefing room just off the bridge.”

  I nodded my head slowly and turned, walking over to the door, it opened on its own, and I passed through, listening to it close after me. My eyes had quickly taken in the small room with screens hanging on the walls, one showed space as it went past the ship, the two others showed a forest and grassy field. I turned my attention to the table in the middle that looked like a black marble with golden veins running through it. Even the 12 surrounding seats looked the same.

  “Wow, that is beautiful.” I whispered as I ran my fingers across the surface before sitting down in the seat furthest from the door. The second I sat down on it, I felt it shift and mould itself to become perfectly comfortable to sit in, it even warmed slightly. I felt like I was sitting on something extremely luxurious and high-tech instead of hard cold marble.

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  “I think I just fell in love with this seat.” I muttered as I shifted trying to get a good look at it without standing up and watched it change shape to accommodate my new seating position, trying to remain comfortable for me.

  I was so distracted and enjoying myself as I played with the chair, by moving around in it, and watching it mould itself to remain comfortable, that I didn't even notice Itshu Biyu enter the room, or sit down at the other end of the table until she spoke.

  “Having fun there?” she asked.

  I instantly froze and looked up at her before smiling sheepishly and nodding my head. Before shifting myself to sit in the seat properly and leaning back against the back rest with a happy smile on my face.

  “Yes, it was an enjoyable experience, but I guess it is time to stop playing with it.” I paused before deciding to get straight to the point. “Tell me, how many prisoners did we capture and what have they said?”

  She gave me a knowing smile before she spoke. “We captured twenty people, the only one missing was the co-pilot.”

  “I'm guessing this missing pilot was on the pod that exploded.” I replied as I let out a loud sigh, thinking about another poor soul losing their lives too early. I watched her nod before I asked a new question. “Alright so he died, can you tell me how he died, was the pod designed to explode? Wait, why was the ship flying weird after the pod was launched?”

  “Oh, the exploding pod may have been our opsie. When we found the homing beacon, we kind of saw how close the pod was as it went past the bay door and panicked. There was a missile on the side of the ship so we pulled the side panel open, tossed in the beacon, stuck the panel back on and dead dropped it out the bay door.”

  My mouth fell open as I stared at her for a few moments. “You are kidding me! Right? The pod exploded because it ran into a missile!” I almost shouted in disbelief.

  “Yep. Clean nuclear one.” she replied simply.

  “Clean nuclear? What's that?” I frowned trying to figure out what that meant.

  “It's the same as any nuclear thing, except it's all the boom and none of the radiation.” she replied, shrugging.

  “Right,” I said slowly before frowning slightly. “And the reason the ship was flying weirdly?” I prompted again.

  “Oh, it's a twin pilot ship, sort of. The ship is cobbled together from a few different ships and because all the systems don't match up properly, it requires two pilots to fly it properly. With one of the pilots missing…” she trailed off as I began to nod knowingly.

  “I'm surprised it flew at all” I muttered before tossing out one last thought. “I'm going to go ahead and assume they were pretending to be pirates, but since they attacked us and let the bigger ship go, then that is a lie, and we were targeted?”

  “Indeed. One of the idiots actually had their military ID tattooed on their skin just below the collarbone, we ran it and found out they were still in active duty and on a black operation. It didn't take long for us to piece together who the others were.”

  “Alright, and?” I asked curiously.

  “Right, we have not been able to get out of them why they were out there or why they attacked us, but thanks to the ID we have them as members of the Verunomium Military which serves the Verunomium family, owners of seventy-three star systems. We are on the edge of their territory. I was on my way up here to call the family and ask them what in their idiotic minds give them the balls to allow their military to attack a sect ship in their sects own territory.”

  “Yes, please do ask… how pissed about this should I be? I mean, back home there are a lot of stories about cultivators, and how angry with a lot of stabbing they get when you annoy them even slightly.”

  “Uh, well, I as a deacon of the void walking Sect would not be satisfied unless 60% of the families' territory was turned to dust and everyone in those star systems died with the celestial objects. However, as the personal disciple of a Void Walking Sect elder… I honestly don't think there is a place that family can hide from your cultivation master's wrath.”

  “Basically pissed enough for everything.” I commented as I let out a sigh, turning my head to look out the window at space for a few moments while I considered it. “I don't want innocents to die, call the family and find out what the fuck happened, then encourage them to throw themselves at my mercy. Perhaps they will give enough to keep my cultivation master from dispensing his wrath, and in the process, save all those innocent lives.”

  “I will get on it immediately.” she responded as she stood up and quickly left the room.

  After staring at the screen enjoying the view of space for a while, I slowly got to my feet and exited the room before heading back to the pilot's seat, dropping into it. I quickly checked the systems, making sure everything was working properly, before placing the helmet on my head. I breathed in and enjoyed the feeling of diving back into the ship, becoming one with it again. I quickly spotted the Lazarus ahead of us. However, it had stopped moving and appeared to be waiting. I quickly accessed the communications and opened a separate call to their pilot to find out what was going on, making sure not to disturb Itshu Biyu’s call.

  “Kenna! Did you manage to find out what was going on?” his voice asked with hints of worry.

  “Yea, so some crazy person thought dead dropping a clean nuclear missile out a bay door with the homing beacon inside was the perfect way to get rid of it, we also found out who the crew was and my ship's captain is currently screaming her head off at… well, whoever is in command of them. So, you know, nothing to worry about.” I replied happily. Before continuing in a curious tone. “But why has your ship stopped?”

  “Oh, we are waiting for the right moment, then we will follow the star hawk through the void and into the next dimension,” he replied calmly.

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