There were intermittent flashes of reason that passed while I endured the pounding of mana waves. The rest of the time, I fell into a sort of blank state, simply enduring without thinking. Memories occasionally bubbled to the surface, of better times and worse. Mostly of worse times though. My parents resurfaced often, along with some of the things I’ve done over the years. Not all the memories were my own though.

I wonder, is it a type of reincarnation when someone else takes on your memories after death? You pass on all your knowledge, all your experiences, and some of your personality. Wouldn’t that be kind of like living again, even if you personally don’t benefit from it? After all, you’d still be dead, and whoever got your memories wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves to be a new ‘you’. They’d cling to their previous personality, grab ahold of their name and solidly declare a line between them and you.

But still. Would the five people whose memories I inherited be happy about this?

Wait, no, I know the answer to that question.

Four of them would likely try to kill me from the afterworld for using their hard-earned knowledge, while the fifth would simply accept it and move on with grace. That old saint really was an interesting person.

All five of these people help me now, though. Their memories surface while undergoing unholy pain, bringing me to a different time, a different place. The remnants of their personalities help me to endure—even if said remnants were assimilated into my own self long ago.

In reality, my taking their memories isn’t reincarnation, nor anything else so pretty sounding and grand. Simply put, I stole their everything. Nothing more, nothing less.

Shuddering as another wave of mana passes though me, my well fills up just a little more. Sure, this could be seen as beneficial to my cultivation, but it’s painful as all hell. If I don’t at least break into the next realm after this, this little lady is going to be pissed.

It’s likely to happen sooner or later, and all this pressure is only making it come sooner and sooner. Well, until then, I’ll just have to suffer through this pain. I can’t exactly quit halfway through, right?

~

~

“We can’t hold them off much longer, sir!” Yelled a man wearing a military uniform, wrestling with the controls of a navigation unit.

“Do whatever you can to just get us out of here! Don’t worry about anyone else, charge the mana engines!” Yelled back the woman sitting in the ship’s command chair. Explosions racked the ship, rocking it’s interior violently.

“It’s no use captain, they’re gaining.” Spoke the navigation officer calmly. He seemed unusually calm given the situation. “I would advise that we prepare for boarding action, Ma’am.”

The captain looked at the computer console in front of her for a long moment, weighing her options. Sighing, she came to a conclusion.

“Crew, ready yourselves. It looks like we can’t avoid being overtaken by those rebel scum. Open the arms cache, make sure the firearms are distributed among everyone.” Commanded the captain succinctly. Her orders were instantly carried out, and everyone waited tensely while watching their screens, showing the enemy vessels creeping up on them little by little.

“How are the bastards so fast?” Murmured one of the bridge officers, voicing what everybody was thinking.

They were in a top of the line scout ship, designed for getting in and out of situations as quickly as possible. It shouldn’t be possible to meet a ship capable of overtaking them at sub-light, but the sight greeting them on their monitors’ flies in the face of common sense. A force that should by all rights be underequipped, undersupplied, and incapable of developing their own technology had created ships faster than current military vessels. Perhaps only the Great Families had ships able to outstrip their pursuers.

None of them could understand it. Strictly speaking, they didn’t need to. All they had to do was get away somehow, and let the higher-ups know about this new threat. Preferably, they would have let their superiors know about the situation a while back, while having first lain eyes on the rebel crafts exceeding common sub-light speeds with ease. However, it seemed that something was preventing word from getting out.

The captain had already drawn a few conclusions in her mind. The rebels likely had a way to prevent communications from going out—a jammer of some sorts. Coupled with the mysterious disappearance of so many patrol units over the last few months, it was easy to figure out what’s been happening. It was slightly discouraging to think about the fact that nobody had come back after vanishing. The captain didn’t think the rebels were taking any prisoners, either.

She looked around at her crew, deciding to not burden them with these realizations, even though the smarter ones among them had surely figured it out by now.

“Captain, all preparations are done!” Yelled one of them.

“Good! Everyone, be ready for when the enemy catches up! Expect boarding action when they arrive!” She yelled back. The captain knew that boarding was more likely than outright destruction. Even while the enemy ship was faster than them, she didn’t anticipate them having any weapons capable of breaching military-grade energy shielding. Besides that, destruction would waste many of the precious materials which go into the building of a ship. Most would capture enemy vessels intact and return them to a scrap yard for parts and materials.

“Captain, I think you might want to see this.” Called out the navigation officer.

“What is it?”

“Something’s in a light-speed route, approaching us fast.”

“From the rebel’s side?”

“No Ma’am, it’s coming here from Federation territory. It looks like a civilian ship.”

“Hail them, get them the fuck away from here.” Said the captain. The navigation officer nodded, and attempted to contact the quickly approaching ship in a bid to change its course. Having an unpredictable element in the middle of such a high stakes chase could lead to disaster, and the military crew didn’t wish to drag unrelated peoples into their own crisis.

“It’s no use. There’s no response, and with their current speed, the ship will end up warping by us at light speed in about 3 minutes.”

“Shit! What can we do?”

The captain knew full well that traversing the stars at light speed is a delicate process, and all but the very smallest of spacial disturbances would forcibly disengage a ship’s mana-engines, and drop them down to sub-light speeds. Unfortunately, the energies excluded by their ship’s escape attempt and the furious pulsating of the sub-light engines is plenty enough to drop a ship from light speed.

“Captain, I advise we not worry about the civilians. Perhaps their sacrifice would be able to buy us safe passage?” Said the navigation officer coolly, seemingly incognizant of the incredible amount of callousness and disregard in his words.

The captain’s gaze fell upon him angrily, but the consoles on front of her began to beep violently before she could rebuke the man.

“It seems the ship arrived faster than anticipated. Do you wish to continue fleeing, captain? Or shall we turn around and protect a civilian freighter at the cost of our newfound information, and the lives of everyone here? To be frank, that freighter has very little chance of surviving even with our assistance.” Concluded the officer. His frank examination of the situation left the captain stricken for words.

Eventually, clenching her teeth painfully, she gave the order to retreat just as the freighter dropped out of light-speed.

“Wait!” Called out the weapon’s officer as he peered down his scope at the freighter that had just appeared in the midst of their battle in a brilliant flash of light. “There’s something off about that freighter!”

“Jose, do not worry about it. That ship will not be intact for long. We need that time to build distance and hopefully engage our own mana-engines.”

“But…”

Frustrated, the captain cut off her gunnery officer.

“Don’t bother. Let’s just get out of here as fast as possible.” She said.

The gunnery officer debated bringing up what he had seen anyway. After all, any ship bearing the torch insignia of that Pantheon group has to have been special in some way, right?

In the end though, he played the good military officer and did his duty.

~

~

My meditation was broken by flashing red lights, and a shrill siren going off right above my door. A moment later, the mana waves which had continuously bombarded my body ceased.

There could only be one reason for that. We had dropped out of light-speed—and judging by the sirens, it wasn’t intentional.

Groaning slightly, my bones popped one after another while standing. My clothing smelled disgusting, having worn the same things this entire time while sweat had poured off my body and soaked into them. Thankfully, I hadn’t been wearing my Halo protective gear while meditating, otherwise fighting in them later might have been a miserable and smelly experience.

The odorous and sweat-caked clothing got tossed into a corner of my tiny room before my Halo gear was pulled out and on, immediately giving some peace of mind. Knives were also strapped all over the gear, of course, and that sword Godard gave me was slung over a shoulder like a backpack hanging on one strap.

Outside my room, the communal room was bathed in flashing red lights, and the warning sirens warbled even louder. They didn’t quite cover up the sounds of retching coming from several of the other rooms though. Apparently coming out of cryo-sleep for the first time is a traumatic experience. I don’t envy them, especially with all the chaos right now.

Heimdal stepped out of his room a moment after I did. He looked around, confused. Apparently, he doesn’t know what’s going on either. Isis appeared right after him, stumbling out of her own room.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“We appear to have encountered some spacial turbulence.” Replied Heimdal, who was looking at a computer screen. “It knocked us out of light-speed.”

“W-what was the…disturbance?” asked Isis.

Heimdal frowned. “I…would get ready for combat. It looks like we chanced upon a fight. Hmm, yes, ships are approaching our position, and there is a Federation vessel fleeing as fast as it can. They must have been running from the other ships, and are taking out intrusion as a chance to break away.”

I nodded, understanding the logic perfectly, even if it is slightly despicable.

“What to do?”

“Unfortunately, this vessel does not have the strength to repel serious attackers. Had I known we would encounter such a situation, perhaps a Pantheon warship could have been requisitioned.”

“You could not have known, Heimdal. That would require a prophet, no?” Chimed in Jvorg, who had walked up behind us.

“Did you know this was coming?” Asked Heimdal, staring at Jvorg frankly.

“I had a feeling. Do not worry, things will be fine. Those ships are only able to handle Federation vessels, and the people inside the ships are not strong enough to oppose us, disregarding any nasty surprises.”

“Then why let this happen?”

“Good question, Revy. It is because I doubt there are only humans on board those ships. Or, at least, human technology. I think we need to see this, to understand some things.” He said, dropping a small bombshell on everyone.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, something has not been quite right with the way humanity’s border colonies have been acting, no? They have by and large cut communications with the Federation and Great families, and any patrol sent into their space has vanished. I have long suspected that there was more behind these things than it would appear, and I want verification of this.”

“So, you did not tell us about the possibility of meeting a combat scenario because you are curious?” Asked Heimdal.

“Yes. I want answers—answers which, I should mention, hold great significance to humanity as a whole.”