According to Temos, it was dangerous to stay docked in the city, so we decided to hover a good distance away from it, watching ships come and go. I was trying to get the registered owner of each entering ship checked, but it seems Whisper was wasting no time in kicking me out of the system and denying me all access to the records.

Thankfully, Temos' skills came in handy. I noted down the license plates of the ships passing us by, as well as arrival and departure time, and read them out to Temos, who had hacked into Whisper's agent profile to read the registration info back to me. Obviously, we didn't expect any of Wisp's vehicles to be registered in his name, but certain clues could give hints to false identities being used, such as no other registrations to the name, like insurance, or accommodations for example or even pets and dental care. The problem was that I did expect him to keep using the same identity for all his paperwork, which would then pretty much render our current procedure useless.

But so far, sadly, this was our best bet.

Every day at noon we would hang around the port, hoping to be able to catch conversations, that would give us an idea, as to where and when Wisp would be docking next. I was usually strolling about, while Temos was mostly sitting on the same crate every day, trying to regain access to Wisp's log book, where he was able to get his intel from before, but it seemed that Wisp had heightened his security. I was slowly getting used to the rough ways of the people inhabiting this port, it wasn't too hard to not get involved with them if you just stayed out of their way. Sometimes, I even had pleasant conversations with the older folk, who eagerly told me about their past, mostly illegal, adventures.

The days were passing us by in a blur, and I grew more restless with every new ship we checked. This wasn't going anywhere.

„Hey Temos, I'm heading out for a little while.", he grunted in reply, as always, glued to his little tablet that he used to hack himself into other people's business.

It was a fresh morning out in the port and there seemed to be some sort of market happening that day, as people were bustling about, setting up small booths in a hurry to sell their wares.

Squeezing through the mass of people back into the alleys we used on our first day, I could only hope I wasn't about to get lost in the maze-like infrastructure that this city had. After many turns, and me getting more and more insecure about my whereabouts, I finally stood in front of Ms. Chessfield's little shop. I opened the door but paused as I heard familiar voices. I couldn't place them, so I quickly squeezed in and ducked behind a shelf before they could notice me. There, I watched the front desk through a gap in between crates, that were filled with fruity-smelling candles. She was talking to a tall, cloaked man. I knew his voice, which made me extremely suspicious, as I couldn't remember where I've heard it before. Was it someone from the Space Force? Have they caught up to us already? Why else would the man hide his identity in a place where only thugs were out and about? The guy turned, making me quickly duck behind the shelf again, hiding from his sight in a shadowed corner. He walked past me, spiking my anxiety, then left the shop.

„Lovely morning to you, Mr. Quinn." I jumped at the voice, ashamed at having been caught listening in on their conversation. Ms. Chessfield watched with a smile as I made my bashful way to the front.

„Did you need something? The same prices apply as last time." I stopped at the realization that it would be horribly rude to come in and question her without even buying anything, so I grabbed the crate she held out to me before looking back up.

„You know how we've been trying to take Ryan Wisp in for the bounty put on his head?" her loving smile turned into a smirk. She hummed in agreement.

„Well, we were hoping maybe you knew something more about where we can...find him." I made my way through the shelves, grabbing random items and throwing them into the crate, not able to look her in the eyes after asking her to rat one of her probably good paying customers out.

She chuckled, „You might wanna run after him before he's gone then."

My head snapped up, pointing from her to the door.

„You mean?", She nodded and started laughing heartily, as I dropped the crate and flung open the door, sprinting out into the dingy roads. I nearly tripped over trash bags scattered on the floor whilst informing Temos of what's happened via a missive. I had to catch up to the Captain. I was praying he was headed towards the port, where Temos should already be stationed to keep an eye on where Wisp was headed to.

I didn't spot the Captain anywhere as I pushed several complaining creatures out of my way.

After minutes of tiring myself out sprinting, I finally burst into the busy marketplace, standing on the tips of my toes to see over the many different beings bustling about on the makeshift marketplace. Then, on the other side of the mass of people, I thought I caught a glance of the beige cloak that I saw Wisp wearing earlier in the shop, so I started squeezing my way through. A hand grabbed me and pulled me a little ways off, to the side, into a less crowded space. I was about to shout at them for making me lose sight of the Captain, but then I realized it was Temos who still held onto my arm.

„It's quicker to sneak past the people behind the booths.", he explained to me, already moving towards where I saw Wisp last. Behind the booths were still a lot of people, but it was considerably easier to push past them, as they weren't standing in lines waiting to be tended to by merchants.

We saw Wisp stop at one of the booths, where he seemed to have a conversation with the salesman, taking a look at the things on display.

„There's only a couple of ships that stopped at the port today. I think only three of them are still docked right now. Did you maybe see his ship when he attacked us?", he pointed towards the part of the port where most ships and shuttles were currently docked at. I looked at Temos as if he was crazy. Why would I go for his ship, when he was right there in front of my nose? But then I realized that he was right. Thinking about it I wasn't even sure what I've been thinking, just running after Wisp like a madman. What would I have even done if I caught him? We had to go about this with a plan.

I wasn't sure if I could pick out which ship was his, but it was worth a try.

We sneaked our way past the booth Wisp was at, my fingers were itching to just turn back and shock the man unconscious in the middle of the marketplace, but I had to contain myself and hope I wasn't about to blow this chance that just offered itself.

Temos went around the docked ships, checking the license plates and comparing which ones were the ones that had arrived the same day. I kept my eyes open for anyone who could get suspicious of our sneaking around, and when I deemed it safe enough I eyeballed the ships, trying to remember if they were the one from the day he invited himself onto my shuttle.

I wished I had taken a closer look at it, as I didn't recognize any of them. So, we had to go by guesswork. One of the three had some pink-colored hull components, which I was sure weren't on Wisp's ship, so that left us with two remaining.

„Good enough I guess." Temos mumbled after my explanation, as he started typing again on his tablet.

We started walking down the docks to not seem like ship thieves but instead some guys on a stroll, admiring some vehicles. It was definitely better to seem like a nerd rather than a criminal.

Temos shoved some weird drive into his tablet and after a couple more minutes of furious typing, he startled the crap out of me by letting out a victorious scream.

„I hacked into the database of Ms. Chessfield's customer registry. Wisps' registered name in there is the same as the one registered to the big Meteorbreaker at the far end of the docking bay. Some...Hana Renguard?"

Perfect. Temos had figured out his ship and his alias.

We ran over to the vehicle, which I now learned was called a Meteorbreaker, and checked the perimeter for any unwanted company. Temos removed the wrapper off the sticky tape of a tracking device and pressed it tightly against the hull in a place where one wouldn't easily notice, then he scanned the code written on it with his tablet and gave me a thumbs up with a boyish grin. The tracker was functional and we were set to continue our plan.

Temos has proven himself useful several times already, so now it was my turn.

I sent him on lookout and wedged one of the skewers of my gauntlet underneath the handprint scanner, that was responsible for opening the hatch. The cover came off after a couple of minutes of prying and wiggling, and I carefully set it on the floor. Inside was a big computer chip and a mass of cables. I had to dig around a little before I found what I was looking for, which was the reset slot. Carefully, I inserted one of my claws into the slot and pressed down for a couple seconds until a small light started blinking slowly. Then, I quickly lifted the cover back onto it and with a good smack of my palm, it snapped back into place.

There was still no one in sight, but regardless I kept my voice down when I issued the voice command, „New registry".

The scanner lit up and the machine answered.

„Please press palm, or similar appendage, on scanner for ten seconds."

I did as told until a small beep sounded from the speaker.

„Registry complete."

Temos was now watching over my shoulder, his gun pointed at the hatch in case pirates were already waiting for us on the other side as I pressed my palm on the scanner again and watched the hatch open, extending a plank.

The entrance area of the ship was thankfully deserted, so we quickly pushed the button responsible for closing the hatch before Wisp returned.

There was some weird blue mist on the floor. Probably emitted by a cleaning substance, which meant we had to watch our step or we could slip if it came down to us having to run away but it seemed the further we walked down the corridors, the more it cleared up until it was gone.

Inside the ship it was eerily quiet. Only a couple of emergency lights lit up the walkways that we crept down and the ship was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. Finding the prison cells, where Temos crew mates were hopefully kept inside, as well as the treasury, where I assumed Wisp kept the Breath of the Earth would take us too long, considering the Captain was probably going to return within a short amount of time.

"I think we'll have to split up to cover more ground. Shoot me a message if you find anything." Temos spoke my mind. So, I nodded and we agreed to meet back here in the med bay, where we seemed to have snuck into.

I wished Temos good luck before we split up, each going down different corridors. A couple more minutes had passed and I was starting to feel insanely suspicious about not having spotted a single member of the crew yet. This could have been a trap but then why would they even let us wander around for this long. Maybe they were all out in the city. I've heard some pirates don't stop at ports for a couple months at a time so it was possible they all wanted to get off the ship onto solid ground now that they have docked.

My footsteps were echoing off the steel walls surrounding me as I opened door after door without finding anything of importance. If only I would have known what I was looking for in the first place. How does the soul of a planet even look? The search went on for a long while and I was growing more and more anxious by the minute. I started hearing voices a while ago which meant it was only a matter of time before someone was bound to stumble upon me, but then I noticed it. A blue mist came wavering out from under a door to my right. This had to be it. Checking that I was still in the clear I pushed the button to open the door and came face to face with none other than Captain Ryan Wisp, who looked less than happy with me.

It was probably time to run.