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.

Exams Are Coming Soon

My exams are coming soon. Great news, isn't it? I have one on the 7th, one on the 16th and one on the 20th. They're in June of course. If they were in May, I would now be celebrating freedom. But that'll happen next month. And when it does happen, expect erratic postings, terrible fillers and horrendous style changes. As you are seeing, the story is progressing, I think I might be stretching Chapter 1 a little to put a little more story into the thing. It will be a little longer than I intended, but all is good. From the way I'm dragging it, chances are that I'll either split what I intended among Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, or stretch Chapter 1 until I reach the point I intended. As to what that point is, it'll end close to when Erse boards the MV2904 at Nakamura.

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.

Chapter 1 - 07: Pandora's Arrival

Classes were over, dinner was finished and Kanya was tired. Of course, nothing could beat the timing of the announcement that was to come at 10pm. A loud voice boomed through the speakers. "This is an announcement regarding our arrival at the trading station. Our arrival at the trade station will be delayed indefinitely due to an issue concerning our engines. We have an engineering team from the TRi Aegis to assist our own in order to expedite the process."

Kanya was too tired to bother.

***

Meanwhile, an investigation was ongoing in the engine room.

"Someone tampered with one of the limiters on the one of the zero point control modules," one of the engineers said.

A girl, probably not much older than 16-17 years of age, was next to him, looking at the same thing. "It looks like it had to be someone ranking pretty high on this ship. No ordinary engineer could have gotten access to the innards of these systems."

"Whoever did it replaced an entire board here so force it to overload."

Another engineer suddenly rushed in. "Pandora, our long range sensors just detected a group of pirate ships closing in on our position."

"The nearest pirate base is way too far off for them to have not planned this attack."

Pandora replied, "I have my suspicions, because I'm quite certain we don't have any pirates on this ship. Something else is up. Either way, this ship is ready to go. Inform the Aegis of our findings."

"Aren't we going back?"

"It's way too dangerous to return now."

"But all the equipment is back on the ..."

"I will not have all of you risking your lives over something as trivial as the analysis of the control board. An operative aboard a medical vessel is of a small concern. I've contacted the adminstration of this vessel, and they've agreed to house us until we arrive at Nakamura."

"Nakamura? Isn't that a lot further into the Dekaten System?"

"This ship cannot be allowed to dock this close to a possible attack. The upcoming trade station has been warned, and we are immediately making a jump from the trade gate from there to Nakamura. Erse already knows of this plan. Move along."

***

A loud voice boomed through the speakers again at 11pm. "Due to the risk of pirate attacks, the MV2904 will be making a jump as soon as we arrive at the trade gate. We will make a longer stop at Nakamura instead."