As the sun rose from below the far horizon, Emery and Annara made their way to the teleportation gate and went to one of the smaller colony planets named Kabrone. It was the designated meeting location the bald man from the tavern told them about.
Yuria informed them that the organization the bald man was related to was the Space Rats, a notorious group of smugglers and pirates in their galaxy.
Upon arriving and looking at the scenery filled with undulating hills and vast tall forests, Emery realized why the party had chosen this place as the meeting location. With such obstructive and complicated terrain, even if the Magus Alliance knew about the Space Rats' existence on this planet, it would take a lot of time and effort to find their hiding place.
After half an hour of traveling to the coordinates given to them, Emery started to sense multiple figures observing his arrival until, finally, he saw a group of people who seemed to be waiting for them. The person who caught his eye was a thin-looking magus with long, messy brown hair leaning against a tree.
The man was with more than a dozen people, presumably his crew, which consisted of Saint and Sky realm fighters.
"Welcome. You must be our cargo."
The man introduced himself as Kotook. It turned out he was one of the Space Rats' captains.
"I'm sorry for having you walk all the way here," the man told Emery. With a smile that showed his golden teeth, he explained, "Given the urgency of your request, we need to make sure that you are not followed."
Certainly, the word 'follow' meant something else to them. They just needed to make sure that Emery didn't come here along with the Magus alliance enforcers.
Emery responded with a nonchalant tone, "Just do your job and take us there."
Hearing the curt reply, the man chuckled before saying, "Alright. Your wish is my command."
With a sharp whistle that reverberated across the hills, the ground was suddenly shaken by waves of tremor as a spaceship was seen rising into the sky. It was a small jet-black ship not much bigger than Annara's interceptor-type ship.
The rear door of the ship opened in midair and the magus made his move first by jumping into the ship. Emery and the others promptly followed suit.
As soon as the doors closed, the magus called out the command for the ship to bolt, ascending into space. A booming sound was heard followed by an intense vibration that rocked the ship as it shot upwards, through the planet's atmosphere.
The Magus turned his head and looked at Emery smilingly saying, "Don't worry... My baby here may be old, but she is very reliable."
Since Atrium was still located within the same galaxy, the journey to reach it should take at most 12 hours. However, due to the problematic nature of their group, they had to be extremely careful and take a lot of precautions, especially when entering restricted spaces.
Along the way, the Space Rat bunch made no attempt to strike a conversation nor did Emery and Annara have the intention to do so, resulting in an atmosphere of complete silence going on for hours.
Just as they were getting closer to their destination, Kotook looked at Emery and Annara, a smile on his face as he said, "Did you know that among the eleven restricted planets, Atrium is the most strictly guarded by the alliance?"
Despite clearly seeing Emery and Annara had no interest in responding and sparking a conversation, the man continued speaking. "I wonder if it's because the alliance suspects that the fugitives will one day return."
Again, the two of them remained silent and ignored the man's words, which seemed to finally irritate the latter.
Feeling annoyed at being ignored, Kotook pointed his finger toward Annara as he said, "You… Do you happen to know the previous master of the planet? Being obviously a Bat half-blood and stuff."
This time, the words managed to trigger a reaction from Annara as she stood up from her seat. She stared at him with an intimidating gaze as she said, "If you keep spouting nonsense, don't blame me for being rude."
Her actions made the others of Space Rats rise from their seats as well. The atmosphere inside the ship quickly turned tense, until it was broken by Kotook's chuckle. He motioned for his men to step down and then said, "My apologies… I'm just feeling bored. Don't worry about what I said. We may be smugglers and robbers, but we still have a code that we adhere to."
Before Annara could say anything, the voice of the pilot came from the cockpit saying, "We have a situation. The radar detected an enforcer ship."
The gold-toothed magus smiled at the two who looked over and said, "Don't worry. We have it all under control," before then turning to the pilot saying, "Activate the jammer and cloaking device."
Emery and Annara were quite surprised to hear that. They didn't expect that such an old spaceship would have that sophisticated technology installed. Based on Kotook's words, it appeared they would remain undetected as long as their distance from the enforcer ship was more than 100 miles.
The two of them watched as the pilot directed the ship to avoid the enforcer ship. But a few minutes later, the pilot said, "Captain, the ship is still heading towards our position."
Still maintaining his calm, Kotook said it might be a coincidence and told the pilot to bring the ship in a long circle. After several minutes of intense waiting, the pilot finally heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that the enforcer ship was not on their tail anymore.
Kotook looked towards Emery as he said, "See, I assure you, that you will get your money's worth."
Feeling proud of what had just happened, the man bragged how ever since the Magus Academy was no more, their business was booming like never before. The enforcers were not as fearsome as before and his gangs even managed to get an insider to bring the patrol schedule to their hands.
"Should you need our services again, we will be happy to fulfill it," ended the gold-toothed magus.
It wasn't long before Emery and Annara could see a planet that was seemingly enshrouded in darkness – Atrium – through the window of the spaceship. As they got closer, Kotook opened a door on the floor and pulled out two dark human size pods before quickly preparing them.
Looking at Emery and Annara, he said, "You will enter this pod and we will fire it at the planet. That's your entry."
As it turned out, it was nearly impossible for the ship to land directly on Atrium without being detected. Hence, these pods would be Emery and Annara's method to enter the planet.
"When you are done with your business, simply activate the pods again and they will shoot back into space. Then, we will pick you guys back to the ship." Kotook said as he ended his explanation.
To be honest it wasn't what Emery was expecting, but since it still made sense he had no problem.
With that, the two of them entered their respective pods. Before closing the lid, the man said in a cheeky tone, "If you find anything valuable down there, don't forget my bonus. Anyway, good luck."
The two pods containing Emery and Annara shot out of the Space Rats' spaceship at breakneck speed. It penetrated the planet's atmosphere successfully, making its landing near the Darkness Institute.
Floating in space beyond the orbit of the planet Atrium, just when the pirates thought the first part of the job well done, they were suddenly startled by the panicked voice of their pilot.
"Captain, an enforcer ship just entered our radar again!"
"What!? How could this be?!" Not believing what he had just heard, Kotook rushed to the control panel.
"It's... it's the same one as before…" The pilot in horror said. "I think we're discovered!"
The gold-toothed magus' eyes rapidly scanned the nearby area and quickly pointed in a certain direction. "Hurry up. Hide the ship on that moon!"
Without further ado, the pilot took the ship to said moon and hid it in one of the caves on the surface. Everyone had their eyes on the radar that showed the enforcer ship's position, hoping they wouldn't be discovered.
They were only able to relax when they saw the enforcer ship start to fly away after a few minutes of hovering around the area.
Now that they should be in the safe, Kotook turned to his subordinates and said, "Check the ship registry. Which enforcer squad was it?"
After obtaining the series of numbers belonging to the enforcer ship earlier, the gold-toothed magus immediately compared them with the data he had. A deep frown appeared on his face when he realized who the other party was.
"Dammit, we're so unlucky. It's an elite squad, the Violet Flame squad."
Kotook's face darkened at the pilot's words.
"Captain, they are descending to the planet."
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