"My head hurts…." Sylen moaned. She was sitting in the cockpit with Omega while Miyon and Keshnar were in the cargo hold. They kept up the facade of overseeing the ship's travel through the Astropath. In reality, everything was handled by the Dawn herself.

"You are not used to too much thinking, are you?" Omega teased her, reaching out, rubbing her head, and scratching behind her ears.

"Say that again, and I am going to bite you!" She quipped, but she was enjoying the scratches. "I am fine with the parts that are used in practice. I can visualize it, see what goes where and how to do it…."

"But you just can't memorize the theorems," Omega said for her, chuckling a little. "Nobody can help you with that. Just try and memorize the theories the professor hands out to you as much as possible. It seems like you are gifted with a natural affinity toward engineering. That is my only advice."

"Haahh… that is not much of advice!" She moaned. "And why do I even need to learn it? I won't join his little science club!" She scoffed, leaning back on the pilot's chair and placing her bare feet on the main consoles. "I have fun working on your Xanthe! That is enough for me!"

"My Xanthe?" Omega chuckled.

"Of course it's yours! And by extension, it is also mine~" She giggled as she stuck her tongue out.

"If it is also yours, then it is much more of a reason to study the stuff the professor dumps on you!" He countered her. "Didn't you notice? All the books he gave you are connected to the theory behind the Xanthe's programs."

"Huh?" She blinked her eyes, tilting her head from left to right, back and forth.

"He is a smart man! Or jelly." Omega explained. "He already realized the building blocks of the suit's programming. He is reverse engineering it with an incredible speed; I was surprised at his aptitude! But seeing his work, I feel that he is right! So he wants you to learn how to familiarize yourself with the Xanthe's non-physical parts. Those that you can't touch and fix with your hands!"

"Oh… I didn't realize that!"

"That is why I am telling you!" He laughed, flicking her big ears.

"Hey! Don't do that! They are sensitive!"

“Ahahaha~ Sorry~”

"And… How's your head?" She asked after a brief silence, looking at him from the sides.

"Nothing new. Surprisingly few came to me in the past weeks." He said, a bit disappointed, which was showing on his face. "I expected to know much about the Xanthe after they started to take it apart. But nothing. It seems I knew the general gist of it, and that is all. I was familiar with what it could do and how to pilot it, but that is it. The moment we got into the nitty-gritty parts, I lost it. Nothing popped up in my mind! Some things were even explained to me by Keshnar!" Omega said with a small smile. "So I came to a conclusion: I was not a scientist nor a mechanist!"

"So you weren't smart." She said with a slight grin.

"Hey…" He rolled his eyes, flicking her ear again. "Bad girl! But you may be right! I knew enough to be a good pilot and do the basic repairs if I were stranded. I guess… It was expected of all pilots… so stop moaning that you don't understand things! How will you pilot the Xanthe if you can't control it?"

"Huh?" Sylen flinched. "You were serious? Of me driving it?"

"Of course I was! So go back to learning! I help with what I can, but if you don't improve yourself, I can't let you sit into it!" He laughed, reigniting Sylen's drive to learn. She truly wanted to experience the feeling of sitting in the Xanthe's pilot seat and flying through the stars.

…
….
…..

It took the Dawn two weeks to arrive at one of the Alliance of Free Systems border territories. They took many different routes to get here as they ensured that if someone looked at their records, it would show where they had been in the past week. Nobody looked any further than that most of the time, not when it was about such a small, lone vessel. The place they arrived at was named Ebnia, ruled by mostly Keshnar's species. It had a mild, orange-colored star in its middle, with three planets orbiting it. The first two were rocky mining worlds, while the third was habitable. It was called Ebnia Prime and was a continental planet, with whole continents preserved in its green wonders.

Keshnar's species was picky about where they liked to settle down; if the planet was too hot or too cold, they immediately passed on it. But if it was a temperate planet like Ebnia Prime, it was perfect. Only one type would be even better. The one likes Saphir. To them, it would be their dream to live on a planet covered by an ocean. It was one of the main reasons that Keshnar was happily part of the Neo-Hegemony's camp.

"Aaaand we are being hailed!" Keshnar laughed, occupying the pilot seat as Miyon was relegated to being his co-pilot. Omega and Sylen were sitting at the back, playing the role of Keshnar's 'little helpers.' The message they received was automated, obtained by the Dawn when they came out of the Astropath. They continued flying towards a forward-placed defensive platform while Keshnar sent out their reply with security codes attached. Before them, the Alliance's military, a dozen warships were patrolling the area, and two were already targeting the Dawn with their weapons.

"Shouldn't we…" Miyon said, but Keshnar was already tapping away with the multiple tentacles of his.

"It is standard procedure." He replied. "I am sending over our new identity. Aaaand~" He chuckled as the sensors beeped, signaling that they were no longer in the targeting reticles of the warships. "Easy! The old codes are still active!"

"What's old codes'?" Sylen asked with a grimace on her face.

"The ship I left the Alliance with back then! Around 180 years ago. I use the same codes now. They have not been deactivated!"

"Are you mad?" Miyon gasped, trembling at the thought of what would have happened if it had been denied.

"Hah!" Keshnar laughed. "My kind lives for 4-500 years! Do you think we are reissuing licenses every 5 years or so? Don't make me laugh! Well, you do make me laugh, but stop it!" He said as they flew past them, heading straight towards Ebnia Prime. Keshnar was already asking for permission to dock at one of the orbital stations, communicating with them while talking to Miyon.

"You are more daring than I suspected," Omega said suddenly.

"Of course! You have to take risks! Both in life and in science, if you want to progress! By the way… the Dawn has an incredible response time! Sometimes I got the feeling it would beat the Veil's computers… yet my team designed that ship…." None of them said anything to his words, and he dropped the topic without asking any more questions. At least, not yet.

"Oh… how nice! I thought the planet had a ring around it… but… Is it a station?" Sylen asked, looking at the images of their scanners.

"Yep!" Keshnar said. "We usually do it this way as it is much more practical! It keeps the air much cleaner than usual. See its 'legs'? Those are space lifts! They can take people up and down from the surface, cutting back the number of ships entering and leaving the planet's atmosphere.

"Yet you bathed in oil, inspecting the Xanthe." Sylen grinned.

"That was to analyze the components used to lubricate its moving parts." He explained. "We like being clean and proper, you know! Unlike most species, we leave little to no trash behind!" He proclaimed proudly.

After finally docking into the ring-shaped station, they had to go through a molecular cleaning tube that removed all contamination from their bodies and clothes with a quick scan. Only after that was, they allowed stepping onboard. Before doing so, Keshnar ditched his signature lab coat to that of a black leather jacket, hiding multiple bandoliers under it. He was not lying.

"Where to?" Omega asked, looking at Keshnar as they stood on a busy corridor, being passed by two kinds of species. Seven out of ten were the same, jelly-like creatures, the same as Keshnar. The rest looked like birds, with hands hiding below their folded wings. Their heads were decorated with colorful feathers and differently shaped beaks, which amazed Sylen as they walked past them.

"Try not to look too much," Keshnar said as he started to roll forward, leading them along. "They won't ask much because you are with me. But if you look too much at them, they will start asking questions. Let's not do that, okay?"

"Um." They nodded, excited, a bit afraid but also curious.

"Before you ask," Keshnar continued, mainly saying it to Sylen, "They can fly. They are called 'Ikanir.' Their home planet is only two systems away from here and has been a part of the Alliance for around 200 years. They have a pretty effective military force and are responsible for guarding the borders here. So the ships you saw were manned by them. They like hunting prey… Very much so. So please, do not look into their eyes for too long, okay?" He chuckled as they got into an elevator.

"I am not in the mood to get my eyes plucked out; thank you very much!" Sylen sighed after the door closed, and they were traveling downwards.

"Where to now?" Miyon asked, patting the hands of his granddaughter.

"I already sent word for my contact here. He is waiting for us in his warehouse." He said he was hiding under his jacket as his tentacles checked the pistols. He was even presenting one to Miyon and Sylen.

"Are you expecting trouble?" Omega asked as he watched them taking it. Miyon was familiar with using one and quickly hid it on his belt while Sylen got a feel for it.

"It never hurts to be cautious," Keshnar said, giving one to him too. "These are low-powered laser pistols. They can shoot rapidly, but after 20 shots, they need 10 seconds to cool down. Less if you shoot slower. They won't damage the constructs of the station but can still hurt anybody you aim it at."

"Mhm." Omega nodded, looking at Sylen, telling her with his eyes to hide it already.

"The one we are going to see is called Totora. I met him after my studies and wanted to have some fun… oh, and yes…." He stopped when the elevator's door opened up. "Don't make a scene. Please. Let me handle it."

"A scene?" Omega asked, but when they stepped out of the elevator, he froze for a long moment, his eyes turning much darker. "..."

"Yeah," Keshnar said, going forward once again, passing by the first window of a shop. It offered different, not just young slaves of human-hybrids for sale but also weapons, drugs, gambling, and whores for rent. "The Alliance has an open market. For everything." He finished as they walked through the corridors, passing by different shops, providing services from relatively normal to extremely weird.

Miyon and Sylen were much more reserved but not that shocked. They knew this was the better outcome for their kind when captured in the outside world.

"I know what you are thinking," Keshnar said with a low voice. "The Alliance has 11 species under its belt with a jumbled mess of a legal system accompanying it. If you make a scene, you won't change anything; just endanger us. If that makes it easier, you have to know that the Alliance has strict laws that ensure the owners take care of their pets."

"Pets…" Omega murmured, and for the first time ever, Sylen could feel the anger in his voice.

"Keep your cool… okay?" Keshnar stopped, looking back at him for a moment before they continued their travel.

Even as he said nothing more for Omega, his anger rose as he walked behind Keshnar, watching the different offers of the shops on this level.