[Moments after Rimora took off.]
[GRA Central]
A room was on the highest floors of one of the various skyscrapers in the GRA. It was well furnished. There were two sofas facing each other, a bookshelf and tonic's official flag were on one side of the room, and a big screen along with an achievement board on the other side. On another side of the room, a big window allowed one to see the whole GRA; in front of the window was a table and chair.
A figure was sitting on the chair, looking through the window, his back turned to the rest of the room. The darkness in the room made it difficult to discern his looks.
Standing on the opposite side of the table was a young man—probably in his mid 20s—who was currently reporting to the man clouded in darkness.
"A ship illegally left the atmosphere, you say?" The voice of the man sitting was slightly old but had hints of his authority.
"Yes, sir."
"Killian. Tell me. Which ship was it?!" The old man's voice was now filled with obvious rage.
"The port reported it to be the dropped Prototype Light Cruiser, sir. I've assumed that Arwan was on it. People monitoring him said he disappeared almost within the same time frame the ship left," Killian calmly replied.
The air of the room became thicker. Little objects were slightly shaking.
The man turned his chair and looked straight at Killian. With light now touching his face, his appearance could be discerned.
He was in his late 40s, tall, had a modest build, and raging black eyes behind round glasses. His well-packed white hair showed how responsible he was. His face had little wrinkles and a beard that had been well shaved. He was wearing a suit that screamed authority. And most of all, he and Arwan had matching features.
"How did you let him do such a thing?! A team of elites didn't notice a ship take off?! That's absurd!" His delicate, raging voice rang throughout the room. It would have been very intimidating to look at his eyes, yet Killian stood there nonchalantly looking him eye to eye.
"This isn't a good job you're doing, Killian!"
"I'm sorry, sir," Killian bowed.
The man calmed down and sat back.
"Mobilize a unit. Find Arwan. That's top priority. Tch, Seems like I've given him too much freedom," he sternly said, turning his chair to face the window again. "You know well to make it confidential."
"Noted, sir. My apologies once again," Killian excused himself from the room.
Outside the room door, the red-haired Killian stood looking up at the ceiling.
'I'll buy you a little time. Enjoy yourself, Arwan.' he murmured to himself.
*****
Immediately after they left Mars' atmosphere, Arwan drove at top speed.
Once outside a certain region, a spacecraft was usually hard to be detected by radars. Only the paths of the spacecraft could be predicted, and the predictions were nothing close to perfect, unless there were variables.
Not long into the journey, Femi grew impatient.
"Where are we going now?" Femi was bored. "Are we going to start exploring now?" He didn't have much knowledge of how Galactic Wanderers really worked; he was only familiar with what everyone knew.
They were involved in things like planet exploration, bounty hunting, mining, creature hunting, etcetera. Planet exploration mainly dealt with going to unexplored planets, checking for life forms, how the climate changes were, and many more; bounty hunting was basically hunting for criminals all over the galaxy; mining was going around planets searching for minerals that existed in crazy and dangerous environments; creature hunting was the killing of evolved lifeforms that threatened the various races and had body parts that were useful.
"We will be going to register ourselves as unaffiliated galactic wanderers," Arwan replied. "If we don't do that, we will be treated as unofficial wanderers and in some cases, illegals. That will lead to us being deprived of lots of things."
"Arghhh," Femi groaned as he jumped from his seat. "This is boring! I want to get to the fun part."
"We'll be there soon." Arwan couldn't rebuke Femi. He had already expected him to complain a while ago. "We'll be in the alliance star system soon."
After that little fuss, Arwan briefed Femi on what they were going to do and how they were going to recruit members. He had already accepted he would travel with Femi, so he had mentally prepared to handle this handful.
"I'm certain we will meet a new member sooner or later," Femi's voice was packed with certainty.
"Your… hunch, is it?" Arwan made it sound like he was very familiar with Femi, which he now was. They had 'bonded' a lot in the last 8 hours. Femi wasn't a hard person to get familiar with because he lived a very straightforward life.
"It whispers that I'll meet someone interesting. So its definitely a crewmate!" Femi affirmed.
He stood up from his chair, then walked towards the door. "Ehhh, I'll just tour the ship again. It's better than sitting here. Maybe even get a bite."
With that, Femi left the bridge.
'I don't think' that's how instincts work, though,' Arwan thought.
"Alright Arwan. You don't care about those stuffs. Pay attention to what is at hand!" Arwan was tasked with operating the ship, but what was on his mind was way more. He was thinking about plans he never would have thought he'd have this soon or ever.
*****
It had been around 64 hours since they left Mars.
After realizing the bridge wasn't really interesting, Femi had spent time in other parts of the spaceship, finding ways to keep himself busy. Training, sleeping, gaming, and eating.
He only really went to the ship when he wanted to make small talk with Arwan, or Arwan asked him to come to the bridge. Like now.
"Hey, come back to the bridge."
Femi, who was snacking, was startled by suddenly hearing Arwan's voice from nowhere.
'But I'm eating,' Femi scratched his head and made his way to the bridge.
~DING! DING!! DING!!!~
Those were the sounds that welcomed Femi to the bridge.
The ringing sounds alerted Femi. He didn't seem to be familiar with a lot of things. All he knew was the sounds came from the captain's panel.
"Pick the call. It is definitely from this planet's port. We just entered our destination's atmosphere. And eh... just talk to them normally.."
Arwan drove at a high speed; he really wanted to settle on a planet that wasn't close to Mars as soon as possible. That was when he'd really accept that he had escaped.
Femi nodded as he sat on the captain's seat and pressed an input. A holographic screen appeared in front of the panel. A woman was displayed on it; she was wearing a uniform like Tonic's, but it had a different color and design.
"Mhm, ship's mate," Femi said to the woman.
"This ship is unregistered in the alliance's system. State your ship's name and purpose."
"This is the Rimora ship. Purpose: Galactic Wanderer Application," Femi was spoke calmly, like an emotionless machine with automated reply.
"All scans and verification confirmed. Record is clean. Permission to land granted. Note that until full registration and confirmation have been made, caution is advised." The holographic screen broke down immediately as she finished, and Femi let out a sigh.
They had just crossed the images of the Rimora spacecraft to other unauthorized ships, confirming that there was no match; they had been granted access to a landing site.
"Your actions shock me most of the time. Who knew you could act so… calm?" Arwan mocked.
"I'm more familiar with indifference than you'd think. One could even call it my second nature."
Arwan simply shrugged at the statement. He was already used to this weirdo and his random statements.
"Brace for landing." Arwan stated.
Finally, Femi and Arwan were preparing to land on their first destination—Terramoribus, the land of adventurers.
Terramoribus, a planet in the Galactic Alliance's sector—a section of the galaxy where the alliance mainly operated in areas relating to hunting and exploration. Journeys of majority of Adventurers started here and rarely, journeys of wanderers too.
The night sky of Terramoribus was littered with stars, and occupying most of the sky were two vibrant moons—one was right in the middle while the other was barely above the horizon.
Receiving the vibrant rays of the moons was a domed city— it was one of the five cities of this planet — Moribus City. Situated right behind the domed city was a fire-armed demarcation fence with a range almost as wide as the city. In the middle of the rectangular fence was a similarly shaped but way smaller fence. These fences were around 20 meters high.
In the smaller fence stood two majestic skyscrapers that had the Alliance logo mounted on a platform that linked them. The bigger fence was basically a big parking lot for vehicles, mainly spacecrafts. That was where Rimora was going to land.
"There's a landing spot that's marked B-8 and it's currently glowing. That's your landing spot, follow the light and land there," a spaceport marshaller said to Arwan through the comms.
"Affirmative."
The landing spot had demarcations. Half of the inner area of the rectangular fence was designated as an "A" landing spot; this was the spot for associates of the Galaxia Alliance. While the 'B and C' spots were landing spots for passenger spacecrafts and other spacecrafts that weren't associated with the Alliance.
"Oi Arwan," Femi, who was standing beside the pilot's— Arwan's —seat pointed, "Is it just me or are all the guns on the walls pointed at us?"
"It is. Security measures," Unlike his tone, Arwan's face had beads of sweat rolling down. "They... they wouldn't suddenly shoot at us."
"I've seen the landing spot." Arwan immediately tried switching his concentration on something else. The guns would be less intimidating that way.
Rimora was passed the fencing demarcations, entering the field within. Directly underneath it was a big space that had a B-8 light glowing from it. Rimora's support legs extended as the spacecraft's hovering reduced, bringing it closer to the ground.
"We've landed. So, are we going to the Alliance headquarters now? Or we'll stay here for a while?" Femi inquired.
"The earlier—"
"Hey. All crew members alight now!"
Their conversation was interrupted by an amplified voice that came from outside the ship.