I looked at Jasper and he looked at me.

We exchanged our thoughts with a mutual glance of our eyes.

The distress beacon indicated that there were surges of magical energy nearby, likely representative of some kind of violent encounter. Most airships were outfitted with emitters that pulsed at a variety of different frequencies, and these signals came from an allied wavelength. Something was attacking multiple airships in our faction, which meant we were headed towards imminent trouble as well.

"Please." I said with an imploring look in my violet pupils.

@Jasper nodded slowly.

"Okay. I'll head up to the bridge."

I sighed in relief. It sounded like @Jasper was willing to take command of the situation, and he wasn't going to wallow in alcohol all day again. While I knew the theoretical basis around aerial ship-to-ship combat, the mercenaries were much more likely to listen to someone they respected. As much as Jasper deprecated himself, his leadership skills were genuinely excellent, and his judgement in hot emergencies was precise and cool-headed.

It took a certain degree of talent to be successful in Vetita, and it was no accidental fluke that @Jasper had thrived in this hostile world for so many years.

My master stood up.

"Will you be okay?" He looked concerned about my ugly and wretched state.

"I'll be fine. I'm just going clean up here a little and join you in a bit."

I smiled wryly and pushed myself up into a sitting position.

The conversation turned brusque and a little awkward. There were very few extraneous words, and we exchanged the bare minimum of information necessary to fulfill our official roles. The sentimentality was absent from @Jasper's vocabulary, and he was clearly uncomfortable about our new elevated level of communication. We had essentially spoken more in the past 24 hours than we had in our entire relationship. @Jasper still wasn't used to my human form, or even my voice.

@Jasper nodded reluctantly and pulled a shirt over his tattooed torso.

Then he left.

⚘ ⚘ ⚘

A short while later, I made my way to the ship's bridge and squeezed myself through a small crowd of mercenaries who were crowded around the MagiCom sensor interface. I had transformed into my cat form for mobility purposes, and it was easier to slip in between peoples' legs rather than pushing myself through a throng of well-armed men.

The air was tense with apprehension.

"Can you get Tower on comms?" One of the mercenaries asked impatiently.

"Negative. No signal. MATIS is silent on all frequencies."

"Pulsar jamming?"

"Presumably. Must be a powerful emitter."

"We have sixteen... now seventeen... active distress beacons in the vicinity around Tower Anchorage... Multiple high-energy magical surges consistent with Tier 9 explosive spells on MAWD, around 80 kilometers southwest towards waypoint November."

"That's basically right inside the city limits."

"Any idea on the number and quality of hostile contacts?" @Jasper asked.

"It's impossible to know. We have no visual."

I slipped my way through the crowd and pressed my feline head against Jasper's leg.

I had only caught the tail end of the briefing, but I could infer the gist of the situation. Tower Anchorage was one of the major settlements on the Northern Beltway, and it was a capital city for a number of slave-trading factions including our own. Although @Jasper and I no longer called any particular place 'home', both of us had spent many years living in the city, and we regularly docked in port to participate in the slave markets. By some regards, it was one of the largest commercial hubs in this entire quadrant of the server.

The defenses around Tower Anchorage were extremely robust, which was typical for a permanent settlement so close to Spawn. The city was controlled by Hades Rook, a powerhouse faction that maintained a formidable fleet and military garrison in the region. Due to their strength, Tower Anchorage was considered a stronghold, and the city was widely regarded as virtually impenetrable. Incurring the wrath of a powerful faction like Hades Rook was essentially equivalent to starting a war with one of the most influential alliances on Vetita. An Earth-related analogy would be like bombing London and drawing the full retaliation of NATO¹The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 European and North American countries. (see Wikipedia).

It was such a far-fetched notion that terrorists were the only plausible culprit.

Only radicals on the fringe of the server would attempt something so risky and audacious.

Moreover, their surprise act of mass destruction seemed to be immensely successful.

⚘ ⚘ ⚘

@Jasper looked down at me and froze, as if he didn't expect to see me so soon. A flash of insecurity passed through his eyes. He suddenly seemed afraid to touch me. I could sense through our telepathic link that he was still disturbed by our intense episode in the bedroom earlier, and he still hadn't yet reconciled his feelings towards me.

I pressed myself harder against him as if to convey that I wasn't upset with him. If anything, I wanted him to pick me up.

Jasper hesitantly bent down and pulled me into his arms.

I purred softly at a low volume to express my positive feelings.

He pet my head gently while his brow furrowed farther. My master was thinking hard about the present situation, and he needed to come up with a plan of action. It wasn't an easy decision. Many of the options carried long-lasting ramifications. It was easy to make dozens of enemies in a blink of the eye, and certain people you couldn't afford to piss off.

He slowly turned back to the rest of the mercenaries.

"Set our transponder to squawk²“Squawk” is the term used to describe any transmission that comes from the aircraft’s transponder. 711 independent. We'll broadcast neutral colors." Jasper said.

"We're not flying in to assist? Those are NCU, HRS, and SVB distress beacons." One of the mercenaries looked confused.

"This is the goddamn capital we're talking about, @Jasper. Avoiding the battle is desertion. High Command will strip your membership and place a bounty on your head if you ignore those beacons. You can't just run away like a traitor."

"Tower Anchorage is our home. You're just going to let it burn...?"

@Jasper had an expressionless look.

"My ship, my rules. Do as I say and change our transponder code, @Shim."

He placed a hand right behind the navigation seat, and the dwarf sitting in the chair swallowed. 

@Jasper was a very tall man. Even though he was a human, there was a dark aura to his appearance, and the cursed tattoos that snaked around his arms elicited some kind of foreboding atmosphere. A player with any degree of mana sensitivity could immediately tell that the mysterious markings on his body were practically overflowing with sinister magical power. It gave most players the instant impression that @Jasper was not any ordinary stranger to be trifled with.

The dwarf nervously leaned forward and hit a switch.

The mercenaries looked conflicted and distraught. Many of them likely had homes or other property in Tower Anchorage. If the city was burning, a player could easily lose years of savings, assets, and other valuables. It was also entirely possible that they had loved ones and others close companions living in the city. 

They stared at @Jasper as if struggling to come up with something to say.

I curled into @Jasper's arms happily.

It was nice when @Jasper took charge. Everything worked so much more smoothly. If I had been in the same position, the mercenaries surely would have protested or even mutinied. A large scale fight would have resulted in extensive collateral damage to the Felicity, and it was stupidly expensive to get an airship repaired. Unlike the way it is in video games, it costs a small fortune to fix every dent and hole in a ship's hull. If you thought that minor automobile repairs on Earth were expensive, it was a hundred times worse on Vetita. The damage could easily get out of hand with people effortlessly slicing through titanium with their Zanpakuto³An exaggerated reference to the swords used in the Bleach fandom. greatswords while simultaneously shooting lasers out of their eyes.

My owner scratched my head, and I melted into a comfortable cloud. Honestly, I was just happy that @Jasper seemed okay. Moreover, I wanted to make it abundantly clear that I was happy with him, and I wanted to demonstrate that I supported him 200%. This relationship was extremely precious to me.

I dozed for around fifteen minutes until one of the mercenaries broke my reverie with their cry of alarm.

"Uh, Boss. We have hostiles closing on our position from the southeast. They're coming in hot."

"Pegasus knights. A full unit. They have a Laguna with them."

@Jasper immediately frowned.

It didn't make sense why they were engaging us, especially since we were flying neutral colors and maintaining a good distance away from the zone of conflict. In theory, there should be no reason to dispatch a rapid response unit to intercept an inconspicuous freighter like our ship.

"Shit." One of the mercenaries said.

His face seemed to pale.

"I recognize the colors on that insignia. They're radicals."

"What? You mean like abolitionists? The anti-slavery radicals?"

"No. This group is far worse. They're misandrists and they're hell-bent on pursuing a total genocide of so-called 'toxic' men."

"You mean like 90% of the server?" Someone joked. "You slip up a single word and they send you straight to the guillotine."

"Ah, the feminazi⁴Feminazi is a pejorative term for feminists which was popularized by politically conservative American radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. (see Wikipedia) trannies. They're a very pleasant bunch." An orc mercenary remarked sarcastically.

"They call themselves Ovum and they're intolerant bigots who only deal in absolutes."

"Spicy stuff. Are they cute by the way? Seems like it would be fun to break a couple as slaves."

"If there's a redhead, I call dibs."

"Be careful not to underestimate them." One of the older mercenaries narrowed his eyes. "They don't negotiate with men. Don't let them capture you alive, or else you'll end up with a fate far worse than death."

⚘ ⚘ ⚘