Edited by: Kuro and Lille

While Grey and Cyan were in casual, civilian clothing, Marshal Elio was surrounded by his highest-ranking officers in military clothing. They stood out quite a lot… 

“Now that everyone is here, let’s start the meeting,” Kai said, directing everyone’s attention toward the center of the large meeting table. 

As for Grey and Cyan, their faces were on the wall behind Marshal Elio who was sitting at the head of the table. 

“Valen, a citizen of XU239, living on planet XU003, sent us valuable information about the Seore family. It was much more than we had imagined.” 

Elio didn’t talk and had Kai do most of the talking. 

“Last year, after an assassination attempt against the Dawn family, Marshal Dawn has been trying to get, not only the evidence for the attempt but any other incriminating information that could be used against the Seore family in the court of law.

“Now, we have information not only on the attempt but the illegal human experimentation farms that the Seore family has been hiding for over 300 years.

“In the Federation’s law, all indigenous people are protected from discrimination and enslavement. In the human experimentation committee, everyone, even indigenous people, is protected from harm. 

“The Seore family had not only violated the laws of the Federation but had been breeding people to continue their human farms, allowing scientists to gather data from their inhumane experiments. Not only that, we found they have been using the organs of indigenous folks in the black market organ trade.”

Kai took a deep breath before continuing with the information that was given to him by System 225. 

“Now that we understand the severity of this situation, we, the soldiers of the First Legion, will team up with Valen and Cyan, citizens of XU239, to liberate all the illegally enslaved indigenous people under the Seore family. Are there any questions before we begin the planning?” 

 “I have some questions.” A man with black hair and brown eyes raised his hand. He had a large build, showing that he was definitely an Alpha. He also had a scar going down the left side of his face, showing that he was a seasoned warrior who had lived through many battles. He looked like he was all muscle and no brain, but since he was a high-ranking officer, he had to be a bit smarter than average. 

Elio nodded for the man to speak. 

“Thank you, Marshal Dawn. The questions I have are: Can we guarantee that these two citizens are reliable and are not contacting us on orders of the Seore family? From what I can see from the data, we have no information about them. How do we know they are trustworthy? Where did they get all of this information and how do we know it hasn’t been tampered with?” 

Grey couldn’t help but respect this man’s caution, so he answered the man’s questions. 

“I understand your concerns so allow me to elaborate on the situation within XU239 and how I came to get this data. My husband, Cyan, works at the City Hall that controls every aspect of our lives. We are monitored through cameras and microphones, as well as in our electronic devices. 

“I have experience in hacking and coding, which is how I am able to contact Marshal Dawn. If you look at his terminal, he’s unable to hang up the call. It can only happen on my end.” 

He couldn’t mention System 225, so he had to take System 225’s credit. He didn’t like to, but in this case, it was needed. 

Everyone looked at Elio’s terminal and found Grey was telling the truth. 

“I’ve been planning to help the people of XU239 for years and finally, I was able to gather everything I needed to contact the Dawn family. 

“More than a hundred people died this year because of the experiments on building materials and the vaccine. There are a lot more this year than in recent years. The population of XU239 barely reaches ten thousand people. I do not want any more innocent lives to die at the hands of the Seore family. 

“Even if Marshal Elio decided to reject my offer, I have another way of liberating the people of XU239. So there’s no need for me to trick the Dawn family and the First Legion. Although implementing plan B can take some time the results would still be quite similar.” 

Listening to Grey’s last bit, another officer scoffed, “Then why didn’t you go with your plan B if you are so sure it would be successful? You wouldn’t need us.” 

“Out of the two options, teaming up with the Dawn family would bring faster results. Who wouldn’t want to speed up the time it takes to complete a task? As they say, work smarter, not harder. Why should I make my life more difficult if there’s a faster method? Moreover, the citizens of XU239 have suffered  for so long, even if it is a day sooner, isn’t it better to end their suffering early?” 

His words were blunt and a bit rude but they made sense. Anyone would take the chance to do the fastest method possible to finish their goals. No one was idle. People had other things to do too. 

“But how does that prove you are trustworthy?” 

“You can ask Marshal Dawn and look at the contract. I am willing to bet my life to complete this goal.” And with that, Grey stopped talking. 

Kai coughed to get everyone’s attention. “This is the contract that Marshal Dawn and Citizens Valen and Cyan signed earlier today. There are three copies of it.” He forgot to show this to them because the information he got from Grey took all of his attention away.

“Any more questions?” 

“None.” The others began to say. 

Elio nodded. “Good, then let’s begin planning…” 

For the next few hours, people argued back and forth on what should be done while taking into consideration everything that Valen and Caspian described XU239. 

*****

The next several days became a waiting game for Grey and Cyan. There were things that Marshal Elio had to do on his end, so there wasn’t much for Grey to do. 

They continued their daily life, all the while preparing for the operation. Everything Grey needed was thrown into his system space. He also had some stuff from the other interstellar universe like their mechas and other weapons. He kept them for safe keeping but he didn’t think he was going to need them so quickly… 

However, he didn’t know if he could use those mechas or weapons because they relied on spiritual and physical energy from that universe. He didn’t know if the people of this world had that. 

[You can use them. After they came into the system space, I modified them so you could use them without all of that. They do have a different energy system, so you will have to use them sparingly.]

Then the mechas and weapons could only be used in emergencies… 

It was better than nothing though. 

He had System 225 monitor Marshal Elio to see when he needed to contact them. Elio still couldn’t contact them from his end, so this was the only way to do it. 

Meanwhile, Marshal Elio gathered his men onto the largest military spacecraft. The citizens thought the Federation’s military had a secret mission that wasn’t disclosed to the public so they still cheered for their triumph. 

Only the people working under Marshal Elio and the leader of the Federation knew what exactly they were planning to do. 

All spies of the other founding families were forcefully kept on the Capital Star. The higher-ups knew who the spies were, but having spies in the military was quite normal. Since this was a secret operation, they made sure there were no spies for this. 

The spies contacted their employers, but they didn’t know what was going on. 

The army would be stealthily moving toward Seore’s territory. The Seore’s territory was a bit far from the Capital Star, taking 12 days to get there. 

They had to get there without alerting their enemies, so they used camouflage technology to make it so that the ship was not detectable externally and internally. 

Their fleet would split into two groups when they got to Seore’s territory. The team Marshal Elio would bring with him was in charge of going after the scientists that were on the neighboring planet. As for the team led by Kai, they would be going to XU239 with the help of Valen and Cyan. They had plans to evacuate the citizens onto large spacecrafts. 

Before that though, Grey and System 225 will take over the entire network of XU239. He hoped with the information that he had collected, the citizens would follow him. 

He hoped that these citizens would finally be able to voice what was on their minds. It was sad to see them navigating the world like robots who didn’t have any free will — especially the children. Seeing them so lifeless was heartbreaking.

There was going to be a lot of generational trauma to unpack for the citizens of XU239. He hoped that they would have the resources to overcome that once they become citizens of the Federation… 

Grandpa Marky: Hello my lovely grandchildren! I hope you are all doing well :D I saw my neurosurgeon on Thursday and it went alright. He said that the tumor/cyst, in his opinion, was not as close to the spine so that's not his area of expertise. I'm being passed on to a different surgeon haha. Well, he did say I can come back when my Chiari Malformation type 1 gets worse so I guess that's good XD 

Anyway, that's it from me! I will see you all next Sunday :D <3 have a beautiful day/night, my grandchildren!