Balthazar was quickly escorted by Albert and his team to the transport ship in the middle of the night. The ship immediately launched into warp and Balthazar dozed off.
They managed to reach Asklepian and entered Blyth mansion by the early morning of 31st January without any incident. He was greeted by Anubis and Thaddeus as soon as he reached the mansion. They were immediately followed by Salazar who pulled him into the combat room for his usual training.
Robert was already at the gym waiting for them. "Thank God, I missed you the past week more than the last five years. I don't know if Salazar was missing you or if he was worried by my injury, but the last week was very exciting. My daily training increased to four hours."
"Other than the two hours, he used to take, he got Donatello to help him for two more hours. Now, there is another guy Lucius whom Walter asked to help me instead of Donatello. He seems to be a very old guy but is larger than me and very quick and experienced. Now, we can get beat up together."
"Wow. Training got worsened? That is not good news at all. I didn't think that was possible. And you still were that excited to fight in the V.R. arena?" asked Balthazar surprised.
"Ya. Once, someone tries to lop off your head, you would probably be into training and fighting too," replied Robert.
"They tried to blast me to pieces and then tried to put a blade through my forehead, I still get tired after fighting with Salazar and was more than satisfied with one hour per day," said Balthazar.
"Maybe that is just me then," said Robert. "Come on, let me introduce to you to Lucius."
"OK. Let me meet the second guy who is going be beat me up, every day from now on."
As they reached the combat room, Balthazar saw Salazar talking with a large man. He was a bit taller that Robert and had white hear with streaks of auburn. He was holding a large stick and it looked like they just had a bout and he was giving advice to Salazar about someting.
"Hi Salazar, look who is back," said Robert pointing at Balthazar. Both Salazar and Lucius looked towards them.
"Oh Good, we were just waiting for the Colonel to come back," said Lucius. "We were just discussing schedule of your exercises. It is tiring for us and probably would be for you guys too if we continued to fight for four hours per day."
"So, we suggest that Salazar would take an hour in the morning and me in the evening," said Lucius.
"I'm cool with it."
"But that would reduce the amount of time we spend on it, why don't we stick to the schedule of the past week?" asked Robert.
"Cause we got other work to do. We just indulged you because you had a near death experience recently. But this can't continue further," said Salazar. "Get on the platform with your long blade. You will be sparring for the first half hour today."
As Robert went to the platform, Lucius joined sat beside him. "So, you are feeling all right?"
"Yeah, I am just glad that I am free to walk around again."
"Good, I am Lucius by the way. Walter asked me train you guys after the sighting of the Nirbaadh pirates."
"What pirates?" asked Balthazar confused. He had never heard of them before as they were never active after he was born. None of his peers at he same generation as him knew about them.
"Oh! You don't know? Don't need to worry about them anyway. But he is concerned about your capability to protect yourselves," said Lucius avoiding his question.
Balthazar decided to not push on his query further and continued to watch Robert and Salazar on the platform. He contacts Sophia every night these days. He could just contact her and have her check the name. He noticed that Robert had improved a lot over the past week. He never noticed it during his bouts in the V.R. arena but he had become very aggressive when fighting.
After the usual exercise in the morning, he went back to his room with Anubis and later spent most of his time working on the eulogy. He also made a call to Sophia to check out on the 'Nirbaadh pirates'.
By four in the evening, a number of tables and chairs were fitted into the gardens in front of the mansion for Max's funeral. Balthazar walked through the garden and out of the family grounds to meet up with Rudra and the rest.
As soon as he entered the cybercafe, he was greeted by Nancy who was serving as the manager. She immediately bought him a beverage and offered her condolences for Max's death. It was a very weird experience for him to have being consoled for the death of a person who tried to kill him.
Soon, Rudra and the rest of his team also joined them, asked about where he was last week and offered their own condolences. Balthazar was being creeped out by their concern for Max. So, he quickly changed the topic to how the cyber cafe was faring over the weekend.
He quickly came to know that even though the customer traffic went down for a couple of days after the day of opening, it pulled up later as many were interested in creating new apps and such on the new Samsara technology.
"When is the funeral ceremony starting?" asked Rudra.
"At 5.30 pm.There is still time for it. No hurries," replied Balthazar.
"Are you all right? You seem to be a bit callous whenever we talk about your uncle," asked Rudra.
"It is nothing. Max was a moron who got himself killed," said Balthazar. "Don't ask. It is best left secret."
"OK. You want us to come to the ceremony?"
"Yeah. I was stuck up in a bunker for the entire week. I would like to have some drinks and fun. Why don't you dress up, we can get going right now?" suggested Balthazar.
They soon got to the mansion ground and Balthazar took them to the ceremony. He decided that if he had to give a eulogy about his backstabbing uncle, he best be drunk to make it look convincing. He began swallowing drinks like water. Rudra and the rest had to forcefully stop him from drinking so that we wouldn't be wasted.
Soon, more people began to join them in the grounds. Most of them were Walter's old acquaintances who came to offer their support but were received by Robert who told them that Walter was tracking down the culprits. It looked like quite a bit of them already expected that of Walter.
Later, they had Robert, Balthazar and Winston talk a few words about Max. They talked about how Max was a generous and loving uncle and finally Winston ended the speech saying that he was very grateful for all the people who had come to attend the funeral and that he would make sure the culprits would be penalized for their offences.
The rest of the night, Winston introduced Robert and Balthazar to various friends and acquaintances who had come to the funeral. Balthazar could identify a few of them from his own parent's funeral and met a few new faces too.
Notable among them was an emissary from the Price family, Yassin Achaemenid, Bruce Kane's daughter and a few other dignitaries from other families. Balthazar soon took an interest in Bruce's daughter Barbara and her husband Dick and spent most of his time talking with them.
He came to know that Dick and Barbara had set up a security group with the help of Bruce's connections and have recently come from a mission. He also came to know that they were being recruited by Winston to protect Bolena over at Apropos.
While Balthazar was chatting with Dick and Barbara Kane, Bruce, Yassin and Winston were discussing something very serious at Winston's office with the emissary of the Price family. She was Evelyn Price, the younger sister of the prime director of the alliance, Harvey Price.
"So, is it true?" she asked looking at them.
"Walter thinks it is. He seems pretty convinced," said Bruce.
"Well the description of the vessel is quite close to what we know of the Unhindered. Their methods are similar to what I have heard," added Yassin.
"So, what do we do about it?" asked Evelyn looking at Winston.
"I really can't say Eve. Walter just sent back his team and left with Rupert on a shuttle. He has gone completely incognito and told that he would contact us only if necessary."
"The best we can do is to announce that the Nirbaadh pirates have returned. By my estimate they would have already made their presence in all the black markets, underground and assassin service and discussion forums. We have already noticed their presence on a few of them," said Bruce.
"Yeah. If we have the entire alliance forces looking for them or at least aware of the resurgence, we can avoid a lot of trouble. Even though it might look a bit bad on the alliance governance especially since the alliance prime director had been focusing mostly on the alliance and reduced the resources provided to the law enforcement personnel. I think it would be worse if you didn't inform and the Nirbaadh pirates decide to make a grand entrance sometime in the future. They would just catch you with your pants down in that case," said Winston.
"Yeah, that makes sense, but Harvey is not really sure whether he wants to do that," said Evelyn.
"You mean to say that he is worried about his supporters mainly the Malik and Khan families. They don't want to believe that the Unhindered and Nirbaadh pirates are back. They had an irreconcilable enmity with Asuragana Veeraprasad. His followers wouldn't let them rest in peace," said Yassin smiling.
"If they have such enmity with the Nirbaadh pirates why would they be against putting out a notice that their sworn enemy is back. It doesn't make sense at all," said Bruce.
"Because most of their families are filled with cowards who would rather be happy hoping that their enemies were extinct rather accept that there is a bull's eye on their back and prepare against it," said Evelyn angrily. "The Maliks especially love maintaining a false sense of peace over their territory. Even when there were rebel attacks or power plant accidents, they refused to let the truth out. I had no small amount of troubles with them regarding such incidents."
"I know that it is trouble to deal with them, but as you have noticed they have no issue in taking any assignments against other families too. Even ones considered to be among the 20 most powerful families in the alliance. Why don't you suggest to him that if he continues to delay this, they might end up making another attempt on some others and it would quite worse for him in the scenario that their target is from a family with more influence than the Maliks or Khans?" suggested Winston.
"That would be a really good way to convince him. I can assure you that even the Achaemenid family supports you in this regard. The way they used the Orthrus Guardian Group is an affront to us," said Yassin supporting Winston.
"That definitely would be the way to convince my brother if any. But it would still be hard," said Evelyn thinking of way to present it to her brother.
"OK. I have kept something secret from you guys, that is one of the main reasons for us to invest a lot in this."
"You have another big secret than your nephew betraying your family to kill his brothers and nephews?" asked Yassin surprised.
"You really wan't to let them know about Balthazar?" asked Bruce. He was one of the few people privy to the knowledge of Walter rescuing John and Jordan and raising them as his family.
"Yes. It is time. But this information can't leave the room. Maybe just tell Harvey about it but don't let it spread," said Winston looking at Yassin and Evelyn.
"We didn't know that the Nirbaadh pirates were involved. We actually came to know about Max during Balthazar's and his lieutenant Jane's investigation. He was working along with the knights of the Old Republic and the most recent employers of the Nirbaadh pirates are the same," said Winston.
This sudden reveal from Winston stumped both Yassin and Evelyn into silence. They couldn't believe that Winston had kept something so important a secret till now.
Evelyn quickly composed himself before looked very seriously at Winston and said, "You should have started with this. The Nirbaadh pirate's client are the knights of the old republic. I have half a mind to have your grandson court martialed for hiding it in the first place."
"Wait a minute. I thought the reason that Asuragana Veeraprasad was killed because he was forced by the knights to fight a losing battle. Why would they work for him again?" asked Yassin.
"The Asuragana family are a bit weird and have some crazy customs. They probably chose to plan their rise with the help of the same organization whose actions led to their downfall," said Bruce Kane.
"That's just poppycock. You just made that stuff up," said Evelyn laughing and pointing at him.
"It could be true. We all know how ridiculous they could be. And the atmosphere in the room had become too serious. It was begging for a joke," said Bruce.
"Well it was a good attempt as always Bruce," said Evelyn getting up. "But it was enough for me to go and convince my brother. Why don't you accompany me on the way back Bruce?" said Evelyn as she stroked his neck.
"Sure. I would love to," said Bruce getting up to follow her.
"Don't let others know about the knights. The fewer people that know about it the better," reminded Winston.
"I can't really speak for my brother, but I will make sure that I don't spread it," she answered cheekily.
"Just tell him that Samuel and Ethan insist upon it," said Winston.