Ryoji clutches his chest, his heart racing from pure exhaustion after running from the Humphrey Estate all the way to Dreamer Base 01. Nobody told him that Volt had already rescued the boy and his entire family was on the ship.

The only way he even knew Volt was snooping in his work was cus’ he found his baseball hat at his house, just near the wreckage of a car he was able to identify from the Humphrey Estate.

“Ryoji, contacting Ryoji-chan,” Luna says over the earpiece now lodged in his ear.

Before he departed, Luna gave him an earpiece so that she could instruct him with whatever her lieutenant commanded.

Ryoji groans, displeased at the use of the word chan in his name. 

“What do you need?”

“Where are you?”

“Dreamer Base 01, and please… don’t use the word ‘chan’ in my name.”

“But I thought you're Japanese?”

“I’m Japanese-British; that doesn’t mean I follow Japanese culture.”

“Oh,”

“Well anyways, infiltrating an enemy base—wow, your work is way above what we pay you… Maybe I’ll ask Cap to raise your pay.” 

Well, he better after the hellish day he’s had.

“Look, can I update you later when I find what I’m here for?”

“Okie Dokie!”

Finally peace and quiet, no bombs going off above, below, or around him. Just nice silence with the hums of the ship easing off the tension he feels.

“There you are, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Rex says, looming over Ryoji.

Never mind…

“Rex, where were you?”

“Trying to find you all over town after I found Kaori at the host club, also we found your colleague mangled in an alley… We were all worried something happened to you.” 

“Well, I’m completely fine. I had to run from one part of town to the other, and nobody even told me my family was here,” 

“So how did you find out we were here?”

“The trail of destruction Volt leaves,”

“Look, Commander Reinhard is calling everyone for a meeting on the bridge. I suggest you make your presence known or at least keep your father in control.”

Ryoji rolls his eyes; he didn’t exactly want to be on a leash by dogs, but he already is on a chain by Ruidhri. The money is too good to pass up, and Lord knows they need it. 

Meeting with the commander on the bridge could help him keep his cover. Nobody knows he’s a galactic spy currently, and pretending to be a crew member here will help him build trust with everyone.

Even if it means betraying that trust.

“Sure, I’ll come up and check what's going on, even if I don’t want to.”

Wolf sits in the commander’s chair; no wonder he sat here all day, it’s hella comfy with its soft cushions and the fact the chair even reclines—he could sleep here.

The commander himself paces back and forth in the room, hands clasped behind his back. Deep in thought as to what to do after losing all of his pilots in the previous battle, not to mention the number of refugees currently on board.

They were currently cruising past the Goddard Space Colonies, located within Goddard’s outer atmosphere. Goddard being the fifth planet closest to the sun within their solar system, just after Marshall and Houston.

The main purpose of the Goddard colonies was for mining materials used in the production of war machines like the pod fighters.

Like Houston, these colonies have claimed themselves as neutral airspace and are protected by both the Galactis and the Defense Force. Mostly due to how valuable the materials within the planet are for both factions. 

The moment they exit the airspace, they’re not going to have a single moment to relax until they get to the Kennedy Colonies.

“I’ve summoned you here for an update. Most of you here are refugees who have been displaced due to the recent attack on Westlin Town. Most of Britannia was attacked as well; however, the majority of casualties stemmed from Westlin Town due to the nuclear explosion from the battle.” Commander Reinhard says, closing his eyes, not daring to look them all in the eye. “It’s likely you're the only survivors left.”

Many of them cry from the loss of loved ones and their homes; others mumble and chatter to themselves about what shall happen next.

“Quiet!” he orders, silencing them instantly.

Noah steps in, “On arrival to Kennedy Colony, you will be sent to immigration, who from there will grant you refugee status and relocate you to one of hundreds of colonies spread across the galaxy.”

“For others, you will stay here.”

Others?

Wait… did they mean people like him, orphans?

Oh no… this is not what he wanted whatsoever.

Ruidhrí sits high and mighty on his chair in the bridge, a cup of coffee beside him and way too many idiots working beneath him. Except Luna, she was a shining star within the void of evil this universe is polluted with. 

“Sir, Ryoji is on the enemy base,” Luna says.

Ruidhrí blinks several times, processing that, “So he’s failed to capture the boy?”

“No, on the contrary, sir, Marcas is on the ship with Ryoji,” she replies.

The man has gone above his pay grade; obviously some complications happened regarding the capture of Marcas that led to needing to sneak onto the enemy base. He’ll pay him well.

He was honestly shocked the base even survived considering what happened to Battlestation Zeus and the rest of that town. Taking that into account, though, meant it was very likely the base was undermanned and defenseless.

The best plan of action is obviously to shoot down one of the ships engines in battle, forcing them to dock at one of the colonies; from there, they can conduct a raid.

The first job is to get them out of Goddard airspace and back into hostile territories between planets… if possible, they can derail them from the path of the Kennedy Colonies in favor of the Lyndon Colonies that are within the Galactic’s territory.

“Johnson, when is our ETA for exiting the Goddard airspace?”

The man who sits at a computer replies, “A good twelve hours, sir.” He hiccups with a nose bright red. Even a fool could notice that the man is drunk, and everyone could notice the bottles of cider under his desk, trying to pass them off as water bottles.

Twelve hours, though, is plenty of time to prepare an attack as well as kick back and relax. The less time around these fools, the better; he was about to lose all his brain cells because of them.

Ruidhrí gestures with his finger for Luna to follow him to his study.

The cadet stumbles along behind him, clutching a binder filled with files that are on the verge of spilling all over the floor. She desperately tries to catch the papers slipping out.

Luna trips on her own feet, landing face first and spilling the contents of the binder all over.

Rolling his eyes, Ruidhrí turns to her and sighs, “I’ll handle it.”

“I’m sorry, Captain!” She apologizes, over and over.

It doesn’t take long for Ruidhrí to scoop up the pages in a neat paper block. “We can organize them better in my study,” he softly smiles at her, patting her head condescendingly.

“Well, they’re papers from Red Rocket Electronics, well, more like the bills we have from the repairs,” she replies, standing back up.

Ruidhrí reads the paper, the Red Rocket logo marked onto the pages. 

Dear Lieutenant Commander Saturn,

Here is your invoice regarding repairs for your RX-78 Pegasus and RX-79 Jupiter.

Problem: Faulty landing gears and boosters

Replacement: Installation of G9 boosters and R8 landing gears.

Cost: 10,000 G-Credits (Pre-Tax)

Cost inc. tax: 20,000 G-Credits

That was only for his main units; he hated the thought of looking at the price for the destroyed units he had to rebuild.

Asking Prince Kai about the current costs isn’t going to go over well with the man.

Noah never had great sleeping habits since joining the military; Commander Reinhard’s cruelty only made it worse. So to say he’s having a great sleep is a lie; he’s snuggling up under the covers with a data pad in hand, watching movies to pass time. 

This one is called E.T.; it’s about crew members of a spaceship being awakened from stasis after a mysterious alien infiltrates their ship and starts killing them off one by one.

It’s a pretty thrilling horror movie, all things considered.

Ring, Ring, Ring

The alarm clock goes off, Noah rips the bed covers off him, and looks at the time. It’s currently 6AM Solar Central Time. Which is their wake-up call: if he isn’t at the bridge in around ten minutes, he’s going to get punched.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Noah stands up from his bed and quickly slides open the tiny closet in his room. The closet is filled with U.S.D.F. uniforms; his was the standard cadet blue and white yet lacked any badges displaying his rank... Reinhard never bothered ordering him his badges after his promotion to first-class cadet.

Due to the previous circumstances as well, he’s now one of the only first-class cadets alive now. Everyone’s dead; the already undermanned base is even more so now.

They went from three pilots to one.

They went from having four senior and second-class cadets to none.

They went from having a lieutenant to a dead one.

Most of them were shot down during the raid on the base, the raid they didn’t tell the refugees happened. 

The amount of gunshots he heard from the bridge, the amount of dead bodies they had to clean up after. Rosie, Janis, Cameron, etc., all young men and women who were now dead along with the Galactics they killed.

What did his commander do?

Sit his ass on the bridge, dictating what they should do, clutching to a failed strategy.

Noah pulls up the zip of his uniform, buckles his belt, and adjusts his collar so he’s neat and presentable, even if the bags under his eyes say otherwise.

He couldn’t bother right now to even use the communal showers; it’s best to let the refugees and kids use them. Give them at least some form of comfort.

With a yawn, Noah slides open his door and sees Kasumi standing before him, her arms behind her back as she swings back and forth.

“Kasumi, why are you up at this time?”

“Ryoji is back, so I wanted to tell you!”

“That's great, Kasumi. Can I see him?”

“No, he’s fighting with your boss again alongside my dad.”

Great, just what he needed first thing in the morning.

“Make way!” The Nekoguin triplets cheer as they carry that Cammy girl through the hallways; she is sitting proudly on a piece of cardboard that the triplets struggle to hold up.

“What's all this about?” Noah asks.

“We’re carrying the princess to the bridge!” Terry exclaims. 

“You must respect her highness!” 

“Yeah, skin blobs!”

Ah, skinblob, a common slang among buddymon that refers to humans.

“Princess of what? A whole three buddymon?” Kasumi says bluntly.

“Shut up, pipsqueak!” Cammy yells, banging on the cardboard for the triplets to march forward.

She’ll most likely be humbled within a few days by the military codes.

Noah takes Kasumi’s hand and slowly walks to the bridge to report for duty; he didn’t mind taking Kasumi with him as Mateo was up there anyways.

“You think you dogs can just come into our homes, do secret weapons development, and then kick us all out!” Cooper yells at Reinhard’s face. “You had no right to be there in the first place!”

“We have every right to do so, Robinson,”

“What right? the right to stay cus' our tax credits fuel your pockets?”

Wolf was tired from hearing this for the past several hours; he was yet to even check into the medical bay for his injuries. Yet this family is so interesting; it's like an ongoing train wreck you can’t look away from. 

“It’s like everytime I think it ends, it somehow gets worse,” he says to himself.

“You can say that again,” Rex replies, drinking from an oil can, seemingly hearing Wolf’s outspoken thoughts.

The argument becomes more tense as Ryoji tries to mediate between the two. “Dad, come on now, how about we go down to the civilian area and rest?”

“Shut up, boy!”

“No, cus' you’re causing a scene!”

“I said shut up!”

The smack echoes throughout the bridge, yet nobody pays heed to it; for a lot of them, it seems to be a normal occurrence. The only ones to flinch were he and some of the girls.

Ryoji rubs his cheek. “What the hell was that for?”

The lift doors slide open as Kasumi and Noah step off, their pleasant faces only to be replaced with pure confusion as they see the aftermath of Cooper hitting Ryoji.

Kasumi runs up to her father, “Dad, you shouldn’t hit Ryoji!” She puffs her cheeks and lightly hits him over and over.

Cooper’s face relents as he lowers his hand. “Ouch… alright, I won’t hit your idiotic brother, but that commander, on the other hand!” he says, his voice quickly rising again.

Before Cooper could charge at the commander, Noah quickly held him back but struggled, but Ryoji quickly stepped in to help.

Commander Reinhard sighs and shakes his head, “I’ve seen enough here… Blaise, I want you to report to base and inform them to remove the Yuki children from the custody of Cooper Robinson and whoever this kid is.”

“Y-yes, sir!” The young girl stammers; she was a civilian like him and was barely composing herself. The young girl runs over to Wolf himself and pushes the chair he was on away so that she can access the computers.

Wolf slides across the room, only being stopped by Rex, who catches the chair. Kasumi runs over and hides behind Rex.

All he can hear is beep beep beeping, so he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Yet the sounds kept attacking his ears, and then he could hear yelling. What they were saying was something his ears couldn’t process.

Then there was a gunshot.

“Ryoji!” Rex yells,

Wolf snaps open his eyes, the smell of smoke coming from the gun filling his nostrils again. From the corner of his eye, he could see blood pooling on the floor, and the blood was coming from Commander Reinhard.

It didn’t take long for a group of crewmembers to tackle Ryoji to the ground and put some handcuffs on him.

He… he couldn’t stand this any longer.

Without thought, Wolf jolts away, repeatedly pressing the lift button. Come on, why is it taking so long? The lift dings, and out pops Volt.

“Hey, dude, are you okay?” he asks him before looking up and seeing Ryoji being arrested.

Wolf merely pushes him out of the way; he couldn’t deal with Volt’s obnoxious ass right now. As he steps into the lift, he quickly presses the button down.