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”I need a favor.” The Lightbringer asked the next day. She had returned to her ship to look after her crew and to organize the rest of the fleet. The reinforcements had shown up more than an hour after the black ships had been turned around. The commanders of the reinforcing fleets had not been too pleased that they had come essentially for nothing, but they really only had themselves to blame.

“There’s no harm in asking.” Selendil prompted over the communications. This time they actually got video as well. “I can’t promise that we’ll do it without hearing what it is of course.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything different. I’ve been summoned to the capital world of Zakynthos to deal with the aftermath of what happened here. As we expected, someone is trying to create trouble for me. However, here’s where things get interesting. They aren’t making as big of a deal about it as we thought. It seems I’ll have to attend a hearing that the brass told me is supposed to be a formality. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen, but they did manage to rightfully point out that this system is in danger. The reinforcements will stick around, which is fine, and even my ships will stay here, which is less fine.” The Lightbringer explained.

“So how are you supposed to get back then?” Amaterasu asked, already guessing roughly where this was going.

“I’m to find my way using civilian shipping. I have the feeling someone is hoping that I won’t be able to make it. There’s also the problem that it would take almost a month for me to arrive with any but the fastest civilian ships.” The Lightbringer explained.

“So you need a ride to the capital? I’m not sure it’s a good look for you to arrive on our ship. Not to mention they might not take kindly to us arriving there at all.” Selendil pointed out.

“I agree. And I have a feeling the hearing might take a more interesting turn during the time I’ll be in transit. Fucking politicians. I need a ride, but I don’t want you to take me to Zakynthos. Instead, I’d like you to take me back to the homeworld of the Eriads. Both me and my family have influence there. If the other side wants to play power games, I can do that too. Let’s see how they’ll like having one of the oldest Prime races breathing down their neck.” The Lightbringer’s expression showed her willingness to take this fight.

“Doesn’t that go against your orders?” Amaterasu asked.

“Well, spirit yes, letter no. I wasn’t actually told to go directly to Zakynthos, mainly because civilian shipping goes where it needs to go. And I’m pretty sure they can’t argue if I tell them that I simply chose the fastest and safest way to fulfill their orders. Your ship is likely going to be faster than the average civilian ship, right? I know for sure it’s safer.” The Lightbringer asked with a grin.

“Almost certainly. It will be even faster if we get access to maps on phase lanes. Or if the Eriad homeworld happens to be near one of our beacons.” Selendil stated.

The Lightbringer sent a starmap with the Eriad homeworld highlighted. “How about it?” She asked.

“Unfortunately we’ll have to do it the slow way. I’d say about a week without maps, a few days shorter with them.” Selendil shook her head a bit.

“That’s good enough. I personally wouldn’t mind giving you the maps, but they might make that into an issue and they might ask me questions with a Truth-Reader checking my answers, so I have to be careful. I can probably give you those maps after the whole thing blows over. Incidentally, if you do come to my homeworld, I can also handle my part of the bargain as that’s where you’ll find the people with expertise with AIs, their sensory interfaces, and true mind-machine interfaces.” The Lightbringer promised.

“Sounds like we have a deal. When do we leave?” Selendil agreed.

“Tomorrow. I’ll need to give some orders and do some organizing to make sure whoever takes over doesn’t fuck things up too badly. The brass were right about this system being in danger and I don’t like the idea of losing my crew.” The Lightbringer decided.

After the connection was cut Amaterasu turned to Selendil. “We might want to drop a beacon somewhere nearby. I have a feeling we might have to return here in a hurry. We might also want to do it somewhere they won’t notice.”

“We can drop a beacon in phase space after we leave.” Nox suggested.

“That sounds like what I had in mind. By the way, Nox. If we at some point choose to turn over a map with all the active beacon locations listed, leave this one out of that map. I doubt we’d do such a thing lightly, but it might be better if even our current or future allies aren’t aware of all our beacons. They might be tempted to destroy or disable them, just in case.” Selendil liked the Lightbringer and while the woman didn’t seem like the type to betray them, she was also someone with a strong sense of duty. Getting rid of a potential extra-galactic threat might be something she would have to agree to if pressed.

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“No wonder you can have fresh ingredients. Your hydroponics are stellar!” The Lightbringer, now preferring to go by her name Yrala, expressed excitedly as Lilly was showing her around the ship. They had initiated phase jump only moments before and Lilly had offered to give her a tour. Yrala was thankful for that as she had half expected to be confined to her quarters the whole trip.

"The Guardians would be happy to hear that," Lilly replied and waved at one of the moving plant beings that were taking care of the plants. The hydroponics were obviously one of the areas of the ship that benefitted from spatial expansion and were rather massive.

"Some of these plants are radically different from what I've seen before," Yrala admitted and sniffed at one of the flowers hanging from a tree. Or she had assumed it was a tree until it started moving.

"Hey, Cherryblossom!" Lilly greeted the guardian that had just awoken from slumber.

“Lilly.” Cherry blossom greeted. The Guardians really liked Lilly’s name unlike the Mrrroww herself, so they had quickly memorized it. The large combination of bark and shrubbery turned towards the Lightbringer. “She seems to radiate warmth. You can bring her around more often. The plants like her.”

Yrala laughed at the irony considering her rank. “My thanks, Cherryblossom was it? We Eriads live on a cold world. Heat production is important to us.”

Cherryblossom spoke again, and it sounded like pieces of bark rubbing together. “Not what I meant. The little warmth from your body makes little difference, albeit pleasant. You’re warm inside, in your soul. The plants can tell.”

Yrala looked a little confused. “I…see. Well, thank the plants for me.” She mumbled. Cherryblossom just nodded and went back to sleep.

"Interesting crew you have," Yrala said to Lilly as they walked away.

"Oh, you haven't seen the half of it. The next place we'll be going to is the sickbay. A word of warning. The doctor is a complete pervert and a degenerate gambler. He tries to hit on anything female no matter the race, and I had to bail him out of jail twice the last time we had returned home for some R&R.”

“And you keep him around because...? Don’t get me wrong, he sounds fun, but also a liability.” Yrala didn’t seem all that bothered.

“Well, when he does get serious, he’s a very competent doctor capable of adapting to many situations. And with a crew as varied as ours, a normal doctor doesn’t really do the trick.” Lilly explained. They had already reached the sickbay at this point.

“Lilly my darling! It’s so nice of you to speak so highly of me. Yet I feel the need to point out that it’s impolite to badmouth me to people I’ve never met.” Khaemwaset said with a wide smile.

“You have no idea what I told her! You weren’t there to hear.” Lilly argued. They had been out of earshot just moments before.

"You say the same thing to everyone. Also, these corridors carry voices pretty well if you're not careful. Also, I might or might not have asked Nox." Khaem pointed out.

“Nox, how could you?” Lilly feigned being deeply hurt and betrayed.

“He asked, and I thought it only fair. You were talking about him to someone new, so he deserves to know what you said.” Nox replied light-heartedly.

"I get the feeling your AI is more playful than ours," Yrala muttered again.

"Nox is turning into a gossip," Haven stated in the more masculine voice he had adopted.

“And you have two of them on one ship.” Yrala continued in half questioning tone, though she was ignored.

“Did I say anything false?” Lilly asked Khaemwaset after getting over the heart-wrenching betrayal of Nox.

“My darling, that’s not the point. It’s unsportsmanlike to warn them beforehand. You predispose potential partners against me before we even meet.” Khaemwaset retorted.

“You’re not hitting on the Lightbringer!” Lilly stated firmly. “She’s a guest on our ship, and we won’t have you start a diplomatic incident!”

“I’m fairly confident that the people on the bridge can do that all on their own. When have I ever caused a diplomatic incident? Exactly. Never. I haven’t caused a galaxy-wide war with anyone, unlike some.” Khaemwaset argued, quite confident with his argument.

“Hey, don’t blame that on me! That was all Selendil. And the reason you haven’t started anything is because I keep warning everyone.” Lilly wasn’t about to give up though.

"About that," Yrala interjected. "I've heard people mention starting a galaxy-wide war before. Could you be so kind as to provide details?”

"My, I'll be happy to provide you all the details over dinner," Khaem said suavely and moved closer to Yrala, before being thrown away by some invisible force.

“Huh. You even react to Khaem the same way Selendil does. You two really are similar in more than appearance.” Lilly asserted. “Though you were more gentle than Selendil usually is.”

Khaemwaset was already getting up from the floor and no blood was visible anywhere. This hardly counted as a rejection to him. It was simply a challenge and he had pushed a bit too hard a bit too fast. “He tries to hit on Selendil as well?” Yrala asked, weirded out by the idea of someone like Khaemwaset making overt passes at a being as powerful as Selendil.

“He tries. Probably sees it as the ultimate challenge. Keeps ending up bloody on the ground though. He’ll survive. The nanites will keep him alive and regenerate the damage.” Lilly just shrugged and guided Yrala away before Khaem could try again.

“So the war?” The Eriad woman prompted.

“Ah yes. So one of the galaxies we visited had a race that had taken the name of Selendil’s race and their old empire. As Selendil’s people used to be their overlords, Selendil considered that sacrilege. Things escalated. There were other issues as well, but we dropped the Shinzen on them to deal with them. Not necessarily the way I would’ve handled it, but if it works…” Lilly shrugged again.

“Shinzen?” Yrala sensed there was something more to the whole debacle, but decided to save further digging until later.

“A sort of hive mind species. Breed quickly and adapt technologies even faster. Nasty stuff.” Lilly gave a small shiver. “Anyway, we’re coming to the guest quarters. We have a small group of Mrrroww Deities on board to learn to become stronger psions. They will join you in the guest quarters. If you want to know more about Shinzen, then ask Kurnau. She’s the one that looks similar to Moonshadow.”

Yrala was filled with questions at the various terms she had just heard. Deity? That had not translated well. Surely these people didn’t have divine beings on board. She was soon led to a room with three feline beings. One looked similar to Lilly, except male, one looked similar to Moonshadow, while the third one had golden short fur and a mane of reddish-brown hair. They spoke some language she didn't understand. Lilly placed a paw on her face as if she was developing a headache. "What?" Yrala asked.

“I forgot. Nearly everyone on board got your language package, but these three did not. They don’t have the nanites for it as they are just guests.” Lilly grimaced.

“Ah. Well, you could give me their language information. I assume you use nanites as a conduit to rapidly learn languages since you mentioned them? We do something similar.” Yrala suggested.

“Oh? Nox, could you…?” Lilly requested.

“Already on it.” Nox stated. “I’m giving her Mrrroww language, the Basic of your galaxy, and the standard for Eternal Empire she can use with Selendil.” She was simply taking advantage of the situation.

“Three at once?” Lilly felt a pang of sympathy.

Yrala on the other hand simply blinked her eyes for a few moments. “Ah. You’re much more efficient than our AIs. They need at least ten times the time.” She said in clear Mrrroww language.

“That’s it? No pain?” Lilly asked, feeling a little cheated.

“She’s a strong psion. They can absorb information more easily.” Nox explained.

“Can she understand us now?” The male that looked like Lilly asked.

“I can. A pleasure to meet you. I’m Lightbringer Yrala of the Confederation of Allied Systems.” Yrala introduced herself.

“The grumpy one there” The male pointed at the one that looked like Moonshadow. “is called Kurnau. The douchy guy next to me is Prince Hazeem, while my name is Clawsome.”

“Grumpy?” The female asked surprised, while the Prince also protested irately. “Douchy?!”

"That's fairly accurate actually," Lilly commented in the language of the CAS, before returning to the Mrrroww language. "The four of you will be spending a few days together, so make the most of it. This is a chance for both sides to learn things about a different galaxy.”

“So who’s banging who on the ship?” Yrala asked straight out, shocking everyone, though Lilly grinned at the thought as a fellow pervert.

“Khaem is trying for everyone with limited success, though I heard he’s getting pretty close with one of the nurses. The Prince here got it on with one of Moonshadow’s aides. I’m pretty sure Ka’eo is banging at least two of the female Dashane, and Guardians are definitely pollinating or whatever it is that they do.” Kurnau replied, shocking everyone again. They had not expected the grumpy Panther to know such things.

“Oh, the Prince finally succeeded?” Lilly asked with mirth. “I thought he was too shy to get there.”

Prince Hazeem decided to escape at this point, followed by Clawsome laughing at him the entire way, leaving Kurnau with the two. “No one in the bridge crew is getting frisky? Such a disappointment.” Yrala seemed genuinely disappointed.

“Amaterasu tried to take a shot at Selendil. We even have pictures and video of the attempt. Sadly it seems that she didn’t succeed.” Lilly rubbed her paws together.

“Why are you asking though?” Kurnau questioned a little suspiciously.

“Well, I’ve found that such things are almost always the most interesting thing that happens on a ship. It also says a lot about the crew. You know a multi-species crew is really integrating when they start romancing across racial boundaries. Of course, some ships don’t allow such relations at all, but that’s fairly rare and you didn’t seem the type.” Yrala explained. “Which reminds me. So all of you Mrrroww are really the same species?”

“Yes. We don’t quite look like it, but…” Lilly replied.

“Interesting. One of the Prime species is very similar. They are even more varied than you though. We always assumed they aren’t actually the same species, but they could just cross-breed for some reason. They don’t really like answering that question, so I asked you because you seem like the closest comparison.” Yrala explained.

“Well, there’s some speculation about the origins of our Clans as well, but as far as we know, we’re all one species," Kurnau confirmed.

“So what’s next?” Yrala asked Lilly.

“Well, there’s the Dashane, but you see them across the ship and they aren’t really focused in one place. They’re the security group. Hunters all of them. They might want to figure out if you're prey or a predator at some point if you stick around long enough." Lilly mused.

“I’ll look forward to it. Anything else?” Yrala prompted, clearly driving for something specific.

“I don’t think so. You’ll meet others like the Zlorth over time. Oh right! There is one thing. The people working at the cantina!” Lilly suddenly remembered.

Yrala suddenly smiled wide enough to light the whole room. “Now you’re talking! I was afraid you’d forgotten.”

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