I apologise for this chapter. You will find that it is abit rushed, but i wanted to move on with the plot. There are also a bit more location skips than normal and i hope you enjoy this.

“Kiefer, where did you go after the battle? My men said that you disappeared soon after the pirates fled.” Palmer asked, worried that Kiefer might somehow be involved in the conspiracy. Should he really be the culprit behind the attack, she knew that there was pretty much nothing she could do, considering the reports that came in from the 7 destroyers and countless civilians about Kiefer’s spectacular display of abilities.

“Oh, nothing much. I followed the pirates back to their base and picked out some new toys for myself. Did you know that they have an entire base near a foggy mess of islands near the north? I don’t think it’s their only base, but if they wanted to, they probably could overwhelm you with the ship’s I’ve seen. My guess is they were just biding their while tracking your movements to ensure a 100% chance of success.” Kiefer enquired, wondering if Palmer knew just how tiny her ‘magnificent’ fleet was.

Kiefer genuine surprise at the presence of a pirate’s cove seem to put Palmer at ease. She knew for certain now that Kiefer was not actually a spy for the pirates. However, that still did not quell her suspicions of a mole within her ranks and she was determined to find out. All she needed was a plan to leak fake information out to her subordinates while keeping the actual plan only to her most trusted captains.

“Kiefer.” Palmer called him as he was busy talking to his family. “There is something else I need your help with. Of course I haven’t forgotten that you just saved my entire fleet, but I feel that I need your help to root out the main cause of the problem. I am quite certain that there is a mole in my fleet who alerted the pirates of my ship’s departure. Is there any way that you can act like one of my soldiers while I carry out a plan to lure the mole out? You just need to make yourself known as a secret soldier that I’ve been keeping hidden as a trump card.” Palmer asked sincerely, praying that her plan works.

“Oh? I don’t particularly mind, but what is your plan exactly? From the way you are telling me to act, I’m assuming that your plan lies somewhere along the lines of attacking the pirate base with your destroyers and Me staying behind to protect the rest of the civilian fleets? Then when the pirates actually retaliate knowing that I will not be there, you will use the ooportunity to decimate them and capture their leader to interrogate him?” Kiefer speculated smugly, as if mocking Palmer’s predictable and almost childish plan.

“Wha… just who are you Kiefer? Yes that was the gist of my plans. What do you think?” Palmer was astounded by Kiefer’s foresight and intelligence. Of course, this came naturally to Kiefer, given the amount of scheming and planning he had to do during his stay on Aioa.

“I think it’s pointless. There is no need to waste so much resource on something that you can get for so much cheaper. If you think about it, fighting with the pirates in a full scale marine battle will probably lead to you losing a few destroyers and maybe even subs. So this is what I’m proposing. I will find out who the mole is, and then you will give me a destroyer and a Sub for my services. Of course, for helping you in the battle, I want access to all your ship’s schematics, logs and any data about the world and its former technology that you have. Do we have a deal?” Kiefer struck up a bargain that seemed reasonable but was clearly hidden under a veil of deceit. He knew that Palmer would not agree to such expensive terms in exchange for something as ambiguous as a promise.

“Sorry Kiefer, but I cannot provide you with any of my ships. If that is what it’s going to cost me, I’d rather go with my plan. With careful control of the battlefield, I’m sure I can escape with less collateral damage than a destroyer and a sub. However, you can have any data and information stored on the Savior. That is, of course after the computers are fully functional again, considering your titans fried our circuit boards.” (Palmer)

“The titans fried the circuit boards? How is that even possible? They don’t have any sort of equipment on them…” Kiefer thought silently to himself, before an idea struck him. “Palmer, is there any disposable electronics that you can lend me? I have a vague idea on what might have caused the electrical failures.” Kiefer spoke up, a rough idea forming in his head.

Palmer reached into her side pocket on her pants and pulled out a familiar triangular device that was used to display a holographic image. She handed it to Kiefer who held it in his hands and inspected the thing before turning it on the same way Everns did when they first met. As the blue LED light began racing along the edges, Kiefer released a thin mist of mana around the hand that held the display device. Almost instantly, sparks began flying out of small gaps in the plastic casing and they were followed quickly by a wisp of smoke and a smell of charred plastic.

“I know what is causing the problem Palmer. It is the mana that is being released by the titans that is interfering with the electronics. Do you have a voltmeter or a multimeter I could use? I intend to bring some of these technology home so I need to tweak the systems to withstand the mana on Aioa. I need to study the effects of mana on electricity.” Kiefer requested.

“Sure, but can we address the more important issue first? Are you willing to partake in my plan to flush out the mole?” Palmer asked once again, irritated that Kiefer did not seem to care for her fleet in the slightest bit. However, deep inside, she knew that he had no reason to do that, considering how they were treated and that he had no intentions of staying with the fleet.

“Haaa…” Kiefer sighed audibly. “Here, take this scumbag and interrogate him. There is no need to sustain collateral damage. He is the leader of the pirate fleet that attacked us. You can torture him for the information, or I can too, it doesn’t really matter.” Kiefer continued, pulling out Valares from his PD.

“VALARES!” Palmer exclaimed in astonishment. “You are the one that led the pirates!?”

“Oh you know him?” Kiefer asked, impressed by the unbelievable yet undeniable coincidence.

“Yes, unfortunately. This asshole was exiled from our fleet when he attempted to start a mutiny against our former commander for being ‘too passive’. He was the first mate back then until he was exiled and I took over.” Palmer explained, keeping her eyes locked on the traitor.

“Well, I don’t blame him. He does have an aggressive attitude and from what I’ve seen, your fleet is comprised mostly of people who are too good to the point of being a little disgusting. They actually let the pirates go without chasing or killing anyone during the battle earlier. Which is also why your threats don’t really work on me, or on anyone for that matter since we know you won’t pull the trigger in the end.” Kiefer complained. The goody-two-shoes attitudes of everyone he’s met so far had been bugging him to no end, and seeing the fleet let pirates who just attacked them swim back to their ships without shooting them dead was just a little over the top.

“I’ll pry the information out of him for now. But when I get back, I expect a your team of engineers and scientists to be ready to work with me to deal with this electrical hiccup.” Kiefer ordered, yanking Valares into the air as he took off once more.

Returning when the sun began to rise the next morning, Kiefer tossed the broken Valares onto the deck of the Savior. The moment he stopped bouncing on the cold metal floor, Valares quickly scrambled on all fours and cowered behind palmer, shaking so hard that he seemed like he would crumble like wet sand from the intense shaking.

Palmer inpected Valares, but could find no scars or bruises, and yet Valares was obviously tortured somehow, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, all the while muttering one word – Armstrong. As Kiefer stepped into the cabin, Valares shrieked in terror and clutched Palmer’s pants even tighter, shaking his head and staring at the floor, as if Kiefer was the demon himself.

“Well, the good news is, I got a name out of him. The bad news is he is too broken to respond to anything else, so I’m going to find this Armstrong guy to try and squeeze more information out.” Kiefer announced, smiling as if he had an enjoyable night.

“WAIT!!” Palmer yelled as Kiefer began to turn around. Kiefer turned back to face her, only to cause Valares to shriek once more and scamper to the farthest corner of the cabin and curl up into a defensive ball.

“Yes? What else do you need?” Kiefer asked nonchalantly.

“Did you just say Armstrong?! He is the captain of one of the destroyers! Kiefer, I’ll handle this. To think that bastard would betray me.” Palmer cursed as she gave out orders to Everns. Thus began the manhunt for the captain of the destroyer Dauntless and his crew.

The Spectres were the first to arrive on the particular destroyer and what followed the tip of the spear was an entire raid party from the Savior. However, the efforts were fruitless as Armstrong could not be found anywhere near his destroyer. While the records show that he had been injured in the battle and was in the medical ward, they could not find him anywhere. Eventually, the search expanded to all the ships within the colony by the end of the day.

Kiefer however, could not be bothered by the fleet’s internal affairs and proceeded to test out the effects of varying concentrations of mana on electronic equipment. The experiment was fairly easy, testing the voltage across junctions in a circuit board as he flooded the air with his mana. One thing he noticed was that the concentration of mana did not seem to affect the current of the electrical system. Instead, it energised the electrons to raise their voltage. Furthermore, the mana seemed to raise the voltage by a fixed percentage, with higher mana concentrations only leading to more electrons being energised instead of individual electrons being energised to a higher voltage.

The man hunt lasted over a week, with most of the crew from the Dauntless detained and questioned. It would seem that only Armstrong and his first mate were responsible for the pirate ambush, but both were nowhere to be found. In the end, Palmer decided that it was in the best interest of the fleet to appoint a new captain of the Dauntless.

Kiefer on the other hand was enjoying his time perusing through Exabytes of information all stored on board the Savior’s quantum computer. Things ranging from human genetic modifications of futuristic super soldiers to discovering methods of manipulating the higgs field and detecting Attoscopic wormholes. The treasure trove of knowledge did not seem to end and Kiefer was eager to soak it all up. Of course, he was not the only one.

It started with Rashael begging Kiefer to teach him how to read English. What followed was daily English lessons for all 3 titans to fill in the gaps between meals and reading the data on the screens. Kiefer had also developed a way to neutralise the Titans’ leaking mana to enable them to access the computers.

With Rashael’s help and a little ingenuity from the science crew of the Savior, Kiefer remodelled parts of his armour with an activation triggered mana link. Sher received brand new wrist guards while Isana acquired Kiefer’s greaves. Rashael equipped Kiefer’s armour while Kiefer himself wore the gauntlets to siphon the mana from the armour pieces the titans were wearing.

Kiefer would drain his own mana almost entirely and then siphon mana that is stored within the armor pieces that the titans were wearing every morning. It was enough to store the mana leakage from the titans for a full day before the armour turned black from full capacity the next morning. With this, the Titans ceased being walking EMP bombs and it came as a great relief to the mechanics and electrical engineers of the fleet.

With this, the daily life of the Titans started on earth as the fleet began to depart from new Manhattan, with the titans staying on the Savior. They spent most of their time learning how things worked on earth without mana and customs and cultures of earth. Rashael especially, was eagerly coming up with designs on improving the current machinery based on the schematics of advanced ship architecture from the data banks in the Savior.

[[Back on Hope]]

[Sir, we are approaching the outer reaches of the target solar system. As per my previous reports, it is conclusive that this planet is able to sustain life. There are no observable detriments to human health due to short-term exposure to the radiation. Shall I launch the probes to investigate the surface of the planet?]

Captain Palmer watched the drones outside the colony ship complete the installation of the new radiation shields made from the newly synthesized Ag-110. While the isotope was naturally unstable, in the presence of the unknown radiation, it seemed to be able to stabilise its nuclei while storing minute amounts of the radiation. However, a dissipation system was still required to extract the radiation to enable the shield to keep working.

Wellin and Vladlena’s teams had designed an ingenius way to adapt the new radiation shields. While the new silver isotope could store and block off the radiation completely, it could only do so for a short amount of time. The best way to ensure the continued function of the isotope was to run an electric current through it that led to a heating coil. The electrons would be excited to a high voltage from the radiation stored within the new isotope and they would dissipate the energy from the radiation in the heating coils.

“Launch the probes Rowanda. We need to determine if there is already life on the planet. That would be the final indicator that the planet is able to sustain our species. Run the protocols on the probes for detecting intelligent lifeforms as well. If there are indeed extra-terrestrial life on this planet, we need to determine how advanced their world is and decide if we can get along.” Captain Palmer ordered the Ship’s AI.

Instantly, a series of explosions reverberated from the side of the ship, with 20 large projectiles flying off towards the planet ahead of the already colony ship.

“Rowanda, also begin preparations to put us into orbit above the planet. Make is a geostationary orbit if possible. If not, calculate a path that would be easiest to retrieve the probes from the surface. Give me an overview of the colony status whenever you are done.” Palmer continued, admiring the rest of the ship that was the culmination of the last of humankind’s technology and knowledge.

The massive ship that housed millions of souls was carrying the last hope for humankind’s survival as a species. This was the ark that fled from a dying planet in order to find a new rock to call home. After multiple failed planets and uncountable random wormhole jumps later, they have finally found another habitable planet in the far reaches of the universe in an unknown galaxy not even registered in the maps of the known universe when they first left Earth.

As Palmer yanked a lever down to open the blast doors to the airlock, he took one last look at the ship from outside, his pressurised suit keeping him safe from the vacuum of space. Praying that the planet this time would be what he was looking for, Palmer closed the blast doors behind him, allowing the ship to re-pressurise the airlock before removing his helmet.

“I hope I did not wake up the civilians for nothing this time.” Palmer muttered as he undressed his spacewalk suit and began making preparations to arrive at the planet. It would be more than a year before they settle into orbit, but it was still safer to make preparations earlier.

[[Back on Earth]]

Numerous weeks passed with this lifestyle and soon, Kiefer felt that he had learnt as much as he could. Amongst the sea of information were key studies on dark matter expansion, antimatter weaponry, as well as higgs field manipulation which caught Kiefer’s attention. More so than that was the attoscopic wormhole detection, stabilisation and expansion theory that seemed the most useful to Kiefer.

Naturally, Kiefer did not spend the entire time holed up inside the Savior. At one point, Kiefer stunned the crew with his supercarrier, which only impressed Palmer who was used to Kiefer’s nonsensical antics that was beyond normal human comprehension. They worked to fix the systems on the Supercarrier to adapt to mana, with every single computer and harrier jets altered as per Kiefer’s instructions and the engineering team’s calculations.

That, together with a couple more shopping trips to various Pirate coves made it feel like an early Christmas. Everyone received presents. The fleet obtained new parts to upgrade and maintain their ships; Kiefer himself acquired a sub and 2 pristine condition stealth destroyers which Palmer gladly traded with him for 2 of her own normal destroyers. Kiefer agreed to the trade since he had no use for stealth technology on a world where radar was a concept still centuries away.

Rashael received the supercarrier from Kiefer while Isana received a priceless Diamond studded necklace that one of the pirates salvaged from a deep sea trench. For Sher, Kiefer promised to take her anywhere he went from now on. Finally, Kiefer presented Isana with a single ring that was part of a pair. It signified their bond of marriage. The ring was of a simple design, with the main body made out of platinum encased on the edges in mithril silver that shined brightly in contrast to the greyish platinum body. On the inside of Isana’s ring, was a rune carved to act as a communication device dedicated to Kiefer’s ring.

Having copied and transferred as much information from the Savior onto the super carrier, Kiefer stored his own fleet away into his ever growing PD and thanked Palmer for all her assistance. Armstrong was never found despite the numerous raids on multiple pirate bases and Palmer decided to let it go.

After a final farewell, Kiefer fired up Icarus, who lit up the evening sky like a second sun with a beam that tore through the heavens deep into the void of space. Kiefer easily spotted the beam and picked up the titans before sprinting into the clouds in the direction of the beam.

“Well, are you ready to go back home?” Kiefer asked Isana and Sher as they stood below the portal.

“Yes!” (Isana)

“Nnn!” (Sher nodding)

“Noooooo…” (Rashael)

Ignoring the reluctant titan who was unwilling to leave behind such an interesting world, Kiefer dragged the 3 of them back through the portal, into the same humid cavern. The familiar sound of rushing water could be heard in the distance. Kiefer smiled at his family, and started heading out towards the exit of the cave, excited to see the changes in Mutatis as well as glad to finally be back home.

Kiefer closed the portal and felt the refreshing mana in the air as he rapidly began refilling his own mana. Holding a girl in each hand, Kiefer set foot on the banks of Shearwood Lake with a reluctant Rashael still trying to claw his way back to the cave.

It might be a little confusing because i did not know how to organise it. but the part about Hope lauching the probes actually happens during Kiefer's stay on earth, roughly a few weeks before Kiefer returned. The organisation of my segments might have made it seem like a lot of time passed from when Hope reached the outer regions of Aioa's solar system, but in actual fact, it happened not long before Kiefer left Earth to return for Aioa.