Chapter 1 - 12: Business First

"I'm pretty sure you have no clue why I called you here. Since you are in the military, you should know this is the only room here without surveillance that we can both access," Pandora immediately informed Cassandra. "What is this top secret thing you have to tell me anyway?"

"Erse intends to meet with you when we arrive at Nakamura. You are to take a shuttle to the Aegis as soon as possible. When you arrive, your PDD will automatically tell you where you need to be."

"I don't even have clearance to get on the Aegis."

"You will have temporary clearance when the time comes."

"Can't you tell me anything?"

"Not on this ship, not here. For now, let's just enjoy a light VR session. Whatever I told you is to never leave this room."

It wasn't long until Kanya showed up.

"Pandora is here?"

"Just get in and start playing."

The two rookies Cassandra was supposed to train showed up later. It wasn't long until they decided to determine how good Pandora really was with space combat.

"Yo Pandora."

"What?" she replied as she was busily, but easily cutting through swathes of drones with missiles.

"Wanna show us your skills? Four of us versus you."

"You do know that would be pointless, right? Get real. No human pilot in this piece of junk simulated ship can evade 4 other skilled pilots."

"You're just afraid of losing to us."

"I'd say rather than duelling each other, let's see who can kill more drones in 20 minutes. I'll reset the count and our positions now. 20 missiles."

"You're on."

Chapter 1 - 11: The Other End of the Trade Gate

Pandora immediately relays a command to the ship's commander: "Depart for Nakamura at once." The ship's commander, John Hummings, immediately passes the order on to his crew. "What's the hurry? The pirates weren't here to attack us."

Pandora replies, "They weren't. Something else was. If we don't leave soon, that something else will."

"Understood. I'm going to assume Erse still wants everything classified as high as I can put it?"

***

An announcement boomed through the halls of the ship: "Attention to all passengers, we will be making a jump soon. Please note that all Meganet activity will cease until we have completed the jump."

A comment escaped from Cassandra's lips, "That was hasty. She must have gotten information about something."

"I wonder what Nakamura looks like."

"You'll know soon enough. Maybe more of your memories will return when you see it. You should've been through the Dekaten System plenty of times."

***

Within less than an hour, the MV2904 made the jump. It would have to travel another day or two to reach Nakamura.

"My crew will be leaving for the Aegis soon. I'll be staying behind for a while," Pandora told John.

"What for? Your services are no longer needed on this ship. Anyway, wouldn't you have matters to attend to on the Aegis? You are pretty important."

"I have things to discuss with Ms. Atlam. I believe she's the head of your fighter crew."

"Erse has took an interest in her, huh?"

"Unfortunately, I cannot divulge any further information to you. Pointless TRi protocol."

"At least it's more lenient the GMTi ones. Under the GMTi protocol, you wouldn't even be allowed to tell me why you came onboard."

"I wish I didn't have to be military staff."

"Your piloting skills are superb. Everyone knows that. Of course, you are Chief Engineer for the TRi."

"I'm still wondering why the Gifted don't want to recognise me. It doesn't make much sense."

"Nothing you could do about that. Even Erse wasn't let into the GMTi although she's recognised."

"They've turned into politicians more than the 'Gifted'."

"Heh."

"OK, I'm going to head back to my temporary quarters. I'll be gone as soon as we dock with one of the Nakamura's orbital stations."

"Understood. We'll prepare for Erse's visit as soon as possible after we land."

"You'd better."

***

"We're so close to Nakamura I can smell it," Harrison said jokingly.

"It's still at least 24 hours before we get there. That's assuming there wasn't any damage to the engine systems during the last incident," Cassandra said sharply.

"What's Kanya doing now anyway?"

"He's in his quarters. God knows what he does in there."

"Oh yeah, by the way, Pandora asked me to pass you some message."

Harrison hands over a piece of folded paper.

"Who in the world still uses paper? What in the world be so important that she couldn't send it to my PDD?"

Cassandra read the piece of paper.

"She wants to meet me at the VR room tomorrow?"

"Any idea what for?"

"I don't know. Maybe she wants to make up for having to disappear into the middle of nowhere today."

Chapter 1 - 10: Mercenaries?

A small shuttle suddenly appeared on Cassandra's and Kanya's sensors. Kanya asked, "What's that?"

"Hold on, I'm running a scan. It's just one of the ship's shuttles."

"What would a ship shuttle be heading off in that direction for? The ship is due to leave in several hours, right?"

"I'm trying to get the identification code of the shuttle, but its computer doesn't seem to be responding."

"Let's follow it."

The shuttle then suddenly disappeared off the screens.

***

The shuttle was obviously not an ordinary one. Pandora was the one commandeering it. It did not take long before she found the people she were looking for.

"Hello, Pandora. Took you long enough."

"The interrogation took a lot more of my time than I thought it would. Those basic military officers just don't know when there is no longer any useful information."

"I'm pretty sure you're fuming over what happened, and I'm here to apologise."

"Just give me what you came here to give me. I heard from your boss that you managed to intercept an assault team. Not bad, although I'd have to say coming within sensor range of the MV2904 was pretty stupid. The TRi did not hire you to scare the MV2904 into hauling itself all the way to Nakamura."

"Both of us know the dangers when a rogue fleet attempts to attack a supply vessel."

"Your boss told you what's on the ship? Your sarcasm is terrible. Just send me the data before I decide that you guys shouldn't get paid for your makeshift job."

"Uploading it now to your PDD. Patience, Pandora. Someone of your age shouldn't be so temperamental."

"I'm getting far too old for this kind of stupid things to happen."

"As if anyone would believe that."

"Tell your boss the supplies are coming in a few days. Make sure he prepares a good crew to unload the stuff. I'm returning to the ship."

***

Back on the ship, Cassandra and Kanya wrangle through the launch records. They find nothing, but see a shuttle entering the hangar.

"That has to be the one!", Cassandra exclaims.

Her pleasure over the discovery is shortlived as she discovers the one who gets off is Pandora.

"She's as mysterious as she can get apparently," Kanya stated the obvious.

"There's no way she could be the one who gave us up. She didn't come on the ship until after the failure."

"There's goes your... lead."

Cassandra pokes Kanya playfully in response to his joke. They watch as Pandora heads to the bridge portion of the ship.

Chapter 1 - 09: What People Don't Know

"I think there's something they're not telling us," Cassandra muttered through the radio as she was taking Kanya for a practice run through space. The MV2904 still had to stop temporarily to resupply, so she had decided to take Kanya for a practice run. "Like what?" Kanya replied.

"I don't know, maybe they put something on our ship before the last stop or something."

"What was our last stop?"

"Oh right, you don't remember. Anyway, it's all a little mysterious. What could possibly be so important that even the Aegis engineering team would be looking around our ship?"

"But they were just nearby. It's possible they just thought of helping out."

"It's obvious the last pause in our journey was due to sabotage. They didn't mention the pirates I saw on the long range sensors in the announcement. They just mentioned a security concern."

Kanya was silent. He already guessed correctly about the 'security concern'.

"Apparently among the engineers in the team is a expert pilot. I asked her if she would join us, and she said she had to attend to more 'pressing matters'."

"So they're not ordinary engineers?"

"Chances are they're all heads of some kind of engineering department on the Aegis. They pounce on 'away' missions whenever they come along. All of them are supposed to be pretty well versed in combat."

"Even the young girl?"

"That 'young girl' is the expert pilot. She's supposedly a prodigy of some kind when it came to anything. A lot of people on the Meganet say that she might as well be the 30th Gifted. Of course, she's a mystery of her own. All her files are classified, even to most of the Admirals in the Terran fleet. Some databases even deny her existence. Then again, it's probably some bug concerning her age. She's supposedly still below the age of majority, which would make the secrecy around her files sensible. A child in the military is extremely rare."

***

In a makeshift interrogation room on the ship, the supposed culprit was caught. He was being interrogated, for obvious reasons. Behind the scenes, Pandora was watching.

Within several seconds, she drew a conclusion. "It's obvious he's not the one behind all this. He's just the scapegoat."

"A very well prepared one at that. Even a memory scan didn't yield anything."

"This is pointless. Send him back to his holding cell. We'll drop him off at Nakamura and have him rehabilitated."

Having said that, she leaves the room and heads for the MV2904 hangar. She had an appointment to keep.

Chapter 1 - 08: The Team From Aegis

The following morning, Kanya's PDD had a message. It came from the central system of the ship.

The crew that came to aid us yesterday will stay onboard and not return to the Aegis due to safety concerns. Hence, do not be alarmed if you see some new faces onboard. They have been instructed to wear their official uniforms whenever possible to prevent any misunderstandings.

We will rendezvous with the Aegis at Nakamura, and the Aegis will escort us out of the system from then on due to recent security and safety concerns.

- MV2904 Central

Kanya was not concerned about this, since he had nothing to do today. He lazily made his way to the cafeteria. Along the way, he saw a 16-year-old in what appeared to be an Aegis uniform. She was frantically walking through the corridors when she saw Kanya.

She immediately headed for him and asked, "Could you lead me to the cafeteria? I generally don't carry a PDD since I have to lug around all these other devices."

Kanya obviously replied, "Sure."

Of course, no one would be without suspicion. Sure, it was not a strange thing to have extraordinarily young engineers, but to have them on any ship like the Aegis was very rare. Either that, or she was just tagging along on some parent on the ship. But would a child follow their parent on a away mission?

"By the way, my name is Pandora. What's yours?"

"Kanya."

Pandora had obviously sensed Kanya's intention to not have a conversation. She then kept quiet and followed him to the cafeteria. While Kanya did not notice, she was always looking around the ship, making mental notes.

It did not take long for them to arrive at the cafeteria where they parted ways. She went to a table that was obviously filled with people from where she came from. Their uniforms were distinctly different from medical vessel staff, who didn't wear uniforms to begin with. Only military or security personnel were required to wear uniforms. Kanya didn't have one - yet. He wouldn't need one until he got onto the Kirkor.

The Aegis was run differently since it was an exploration ship with heavy military staffing. Of course, Pandora was obviously a civilian who was trained lightly under military protocol. Or at least, that would be the conclusion any ordinary person would draw, considering the circumstances, there wouldn't be any time for her to have gone through proper military training anyway.

Of course, no one would be preoccupied with thoughts such as this. However, all of this coursed through Kanya's mind as he pondered how long it'll take to reach Nakamura. The delay would be minimal, but it still meant an additional week to travel from the trade gate to Nakamura.

For now, no one else on the ship knew that something was going to happen soon enough. That is, except the Aegis engineering team onboard.