The next morning, Kita got up to the noise of Noir purring. He was sitting on his chest as she watched Kita in his deep blue eyes. He wasn't purring anymore. But kept looking at Kita with his unwavering eyes.
Her pupils were so dilated that it felt like he was looking into his soul.
"What happened buddy?"
"Meow." He said before coming closer to his face and giving him a lick on his cheek.
That was when Kita realized that he was drenched in sweat.
Kita was sleeping in his pajamas and he realized that everything down to his bead underneath was drenched wet.
He had been sweating profusely throughout the night.
But why?
"Am I sick?" Kita asked himself.
He got up and checked his comm to see if he had a fever or something. But everything seemed right.
He checked his sleep metrics. It showed that last night he had a really elevated heart rate and a high body temperature.
This shouldn't be possible as his room was around 15 degree Celsius. Kita liked sleeping a bit cold. So he had set it up to get down to 10 degrees while he slept. Which was specially cold.
But to sweat like that in such temperatures, Was weird.
"Did I have a bad dream or something last night?" Kita asked himself as he tried to remember last night's dream. To no avail.
He couldn't remember the dream no matter how much he tried. It had fleeted from his memory as soon as he had woken up.
"It probably wasn't anything noteworthy then. I should get going." Saying that he got up and quickly took a shower before wearing his normal attire. He gave some food to Noir before heading out.
He didn't like eating in the morning. So he decided to skip breakfast. And headed straight to his office.
Upon reaching it, He found Nova waiting for him.
"Nova, What are you doing here so early?" Kita asked surprised.
"Sir, I need to show you something."
"Okay, let's head in."
Both of them entered the office as Kita took seat.
Nova took a seat himself as he eagerly presented a tablet to Kita.
"What's this?" Kita asked as he looed at the tablet.
"Sir, I may have an Idea on who's behind our recent predicament." Nova revealed.
That successfully caught Kita's attention.
"What do you got?" Kita quickly asked.
"Sir, After learning that the main person blocking our permit was Colonel Grills and understanding that he had received his orders from somewhere high up the food chain, I called up some of my old contacts still in the military. But it didn't reveal much about Colonel Grill. But In the process, I was able to gain a contact to someone within the Border patrol. Although he didn't want to talk with me first, But when I revealed that it was about Colonel Grills, He became quite interested. He suddenly became so talkative and began to ask questions."
"Did you answer his questions?" Kita asked sharply. Depending on who it might've been, Kita might find himself in between of a faction war.
He didn't want to get involved into something like that so, he was determine to avoid anything related to them.
"I answered a few, But rest assured, I only answered those that I deemed fine to answer and didn't reveal any critical information." Nova assured him.
"I see, So then. What did you find?" Kita asked.
"Well, after some prodding back and forth, I was able to gain quite a few insights into the border patrol corps and colonel Grills."
"Okay."
"To start, Colonel Grills is part of the Cosmic Wardens faction inside the Border patrol grills. The Cosmic Wardens is also among the most powerful and the second biggest powerful faction within the Border corps. They have great sway inside the corps and have great sway in internal decision making. There's also rumors of them being involved with many other factions within the other military corps. Their leaders are quite well connected and have built up their network over many decades in the service."
Kita listened to everything really carefully.
"According to the guy I spoke with, The order that Grills received should've come from one of the leaders of the faction. That made it increasingly important to follow and made sure that he didn't fuck up. That's why he was so eager to deny us passage without giving us a proper reason. It seemed that the order had caught him off-guard and he had to do what he could do quickly." Nova explained.
"So that explains why they were so off handed when they wanted to keep us inside the border but couldn't come up with proper plan. They didn't have enough time to plan against us."
"Exactly, sir. Grills had received the order only a few minutes before we arrived in the star system. So it gave him no time to plan."
"Okay, But, what does the Wardens want with us? Although I don't know about them much, But I heard the name once or twice before, They should be a pretty upright faction if I remember correctly."
"Oh yes sir, They are a pretty popular faction among the Border corps. They are known to being loyalists to the crown. And would do anything to protect he empire from outside threats."
"Then? Why did the suddenly decided to go after me? I don't have anything to do with them. Hell, I barely know about them!" Kita threw his hands in frustrations.
There was nothing he hated more than an unwarranted fight.
"That... I can't answer. But it's evident that for some reason, One of their leaders decided that they wanted to go after us. More specifically, It should be you sir. You're probably the one they're after."
Nova said as he gave of a convinced conclusion.
Although Kita didn't want to believe that and live in ignorance. He couldn't hide anymore. He needed to face the truth. Whatever the Wardens wanted had probably something to do with him.
"But what?"
That was the question he asked himself.