A week later, we were back at our temporary base of operations in the Dizahl System. Rhubin, Luxea, and I sat in our favorite restaurant and ate like kings. The place had become busy, mainly because we kept telling everyone how good the food was. The owner had tried to give us a discount on the food and the three of us laughed and paid twice as much, then we warned him that if he tried to give us more free food, we'd keep paying double. He had laughed and his wife thanked us for keeping him honest and then dragged him away to stop him from bothering their best customers.

“All right.” Rhubin said to get us back on what we had been talking about. “You had how many kids?”

“Just three.” I said, and Luxea gave me a look. “Hey, don't look at me like that. It was over a hundred year span, okay? I'm surprised we kept it to just three!”

Luxea huffed and Rhubin laughed.

“Who was who again?” Rhubin asked.

“Malik was first and Maylia was his mother. Second was Alosa, and Afyne was her mother.” I said. “Last was Jasina, and Maylia was her mother.”

“Hold on.” Rhubin squinted his eyes. “Didn't you say that Afyne was like an adopted daughter or something?”

“Something like that.” I said and Luxea gave me another stern look. “She was only five years younger than me when I appointed myself her guardian.” I said. “Since I was already a couple with Maylia, she also became her guardian.”

“That just sounds weird, Hunter.” Rhubin said.

“In my defense, we did love each other.” I said and Luxea's look hadn't changed. “It took ten years for us to get together 'like that', remember? I told you what she meant to me.”

Luxea's eyes softened slightly. “I've read the guardian protocols.”

“Wait, what?” Rhubin looked at her. “What are those?”

“It's The Order's fostering program.” Luxea said and took out a datapad and brought up the file. “Apparently, depending on the age and maturity of their recruits, guardians can be changed, brought in, or rotated, depending on the functions that each are needed for.”

Rhubin had to think about that for a minute and I hid my smile as he finally got it. “You have got to be kidding me!”

Luxea held up the datapad. “All of their needs are met as they appear, no matter what they are.”

“When she was younger, I helped raise and train her to be one of the best combat fighters on the planet. She grew up quite a bit during that time and started to understand all those weird feelings she felt for me, so our relationship changed to be on a more equal footing. When she was old enough to realize what she actually wanted, to take the next step with me...”

“We get the idea.” Luxea said cut me off before I mentioned starting a physical relationship.

“Well, damn.” Rhubin said and sat in silence for a minute. “I'm kind of wishing I had a guardian now.”

I chuckled. “I doubt that.” I pat his arm. “You wouldn't have grown up like you did and you definitely wouldn't be the man you are today.”

Rhubin laughed. “All right, you got me there.” He said. “I wouldn't change who I am just for a constant and convenient bed partner that was hired to do it.”

Luxea and I exchanged knowing looks and he tossed a piece of bread at us. We laughed because we all knew that he had no problem paying for that particular service whenever he had the chance. We sat and kept talking, since there was a lot to discuss, and I used Presence to keep our conversation private, despite being out in pubic and surrounded by people. A few people looked at us and wondered why they couldn't hear us, and I didn't pay them any mind. One person wondered if they could duplicate the effect and was debating with themselves whether or not to approach and ask about it.

Luckily, we had finished eating our meal already, so we paid the owner's wife and tipped her well, then left before anyone came over. We did some shopping and picked up some replacement parts, some supplies, and headed back to the ship. That night, Luxea and I were cuddled up in bed.

“Hunter, I... I think I...”

“I love you, too.” I said and she caught her breath. “I was pretty ignorant at the time and didn't realize how rare it was for a woman to caution a man about using his abilities on other women.” I turned in the bed and faced her, and she stared into my eyes. “I think that's when it started. It built up from there, and I knew it was something special, especially after my encounter with Ohazith, which opened my mind and prepared me for the real thing, then with Lashina, who used that preparation to show me what it could be like to be with someone I love.”

“H-Hunter.” Luxea's heart was beating quite fast. “I've been with...”

“I know.” I said. “I also know you had feelings for some, had fun with others, and regretted a few.”

“You don't have to keep reading my mind.” Luxea said and frowned a little.

I chuckled. “I'm reading the situation and guessing.”

“You're not picking at my brain?” Luxea asked, surprised.

“I don't need to.” I said and gave her a kiss. “I've known you for a couple of years here, and hundreds of years where I was.”

“Wait, are you saying that...”

“Maylia told me to never give up about seeing you again.” I said and Luxea's eyes starting tearing up. “So, I never did. It took almost two hundred years for the specialists I had working on the teleportation ritual to reverse engineer it. Once it was done and we knew the right components to add to take me where I wanted to go, well...”

“You waited.” Luxea said and her tears stained the pillow.

“I promised Maylia that I would stay and not abandon her or our family if she was alive.”

“I can't believe there were so many of them.” Luxea whispered.

“It took a long time to get there.” I said with a smile. “But, I'm not going back.”

“Why not?”

“The ritual is very specific.” I said. “It seems that you can only appear at the point that you disappeared from previously, if there was a significant event that happened to you, usually a very traumatic one. I was only allowed to go to Earth because it was the tragic end of my first life. When I left after planting the seedling, it was just me leaving like I left Maylia's planet after her funeral. No almost dying myself was needed. Just poof, I was gone.”

“That's why you appeared back here at the point that you thought you died, and Kara has no idea that you stayed on that other planet all those years.” Luxea said, her tears pouring out.

“I thought I had died, yes.” I said. “I'm sure I wasn't supposed to be that hurt; but, I was and that's how things turned out.” I wiped at her tears and gave her another kiss. “Now I'm back to live my life like it was supposed to be.”

“With me?” Luxea asked, her voice barely above a whisper and full of hope.

“Do you see anyone else in my bed that's about to ride me like a hover car flying over choppy water?”

Luxea laughed, despite her tears, and her hand moved down under the blanket to touch me. “Vroom, vroom.” She said as she found my control stick and she really liked that I was ready for her. She rolled over on top of me and she moaned as we joined together.

The water was quite choppy for most of the night.

It took another week for The Order to completely dismantle the shuttle and shut down the computer. It stopped the direct link to their control tower and the main communications array; but, all of the stealth relays were still scattered over the system and her programs still sent data out. The data flow only slowed down and didn't stop, mainly because the signals were piggybacking on The Order's own communications signals and blended right in.

I properly thanked Luxea for her hard work by telling her that we were going to build our own super computer. Luxea wasn't sure why we would need such a thing, then I told her that every super computer needed its own network of satellites and communications relays in every system that we had people stashed in.

She didn't let me leave our room on the ship for three days while she 'properly thanked me' back.

Of course, you couldn't just buy a computer like that. The core components were easy enough to pick up from various distributors, in order to hide what you were doing. We also had the full use of a space station near the super gas giant planet. It had been practically abandoned until I had factored it into my plans for creating a meeting place for people that were opposed to The Order. Now it had a slow but constant flow of people and shipments going through it. It was quite easy to route the parts we needed through there.

After talking about where to put this new main installation we needed to make, Rhubin suggested we buy a habitat to put in orbit next to the transshipment containers that our company The Wave used for trading goods. Once he mentioned that, Luxea reminded us about all of those enemy ships that were still in orbit around Fogaris' star. They didn't use normal standard parts because they were alien space ships, which was why we didn't strip them before; but, the system that did use them wasn't that far away from where all the derelicts were.

“Oh, you beautiful brilliant woman!” I exclaimed and kissed her. “We can get some easy capital from it. I doubt we can salvage a good hull though, considering the mess of the wrecks.”

“We can try to contact someone through an intermediary to find some of the software to run the weapons and equipment we can salvage.” Luxea said.

“What about what's his name and his girlfriend?” Rhubin asked. “Uh... damn, what was it?” He looked at our confused faces. “You know! The bounty we got shafted on for that corporation? The one we sold all those other ship weapons to?”

“OH! I know who you mean!” Luxea said and brought up the files she had. “It's the Bogorum Corporation and the guy that woman poached on us was named Ernas.”

“Then give him a call and see what he can do for us.” I said and touched her hand to stop her. “Wait, I just had an idea.”

“This should be good.” Rhubin said.

“Ask to buy one of their shuttles or even a small fast ship.” I said. “Our shipping company is looking for another ship and hoped they would have one for sale.”

Luxea's eyes sparkled. “Oh, that's sneaky!”

I chuckled. “We'll get their software first hand and we can salvage pretty much anything else hardware-wise from the wrecks.”

“If we can get an entire intact ship and I can decode their software, we should be able to adapt everything over for our use.” Luxea said and stood. “Oh, that... we need to go right now!”

I laughed and kept my hand on hers. “Relax. Start with communications first. Contact Ernas and see if there is anything his company can set up for us.”

Luxea nodded and she brought up the man's contact information, then she went over to the console at the side of the living room and started the necessary inquiries.

“Rhubin, while we wait to see how that turns out, we need to make a quick run to the Granis system.”

“The tourist attraction? Why do you need to... oh. Right.” Rhubin said. “I guess we should finish that delivery.”

“I'm tempted to call ahead and warn them that we're coming; but, where's the fun in that?” I asked.

Rhubin laughed. “All right, I'll get the computer working and move the ship out to the jump point.”

I nodded and he left to go to the cockpit to start the hyperspace calculations to take us to the white dwarf and red giant binary stars safely. Luxea turned off the console and came over to me.

“Ernas says he will make some... discrete inquires... and he'll get back to us.”

“Oh? Are the tensions that bad?” I asked, curious.

“The Fogaris system government... namely Uzahine and the other two delegates we delivered there... have released propaganda videos about the attack on their home planet.”

“They actually took my advice?” I asked and Luxea nodded. “What about those bounty jobs they tried to pawn off on us?”

“Cancelled.” Luxea smiled. “It seems classing the targets as 'vermin' just didn't sit well with the core systems and they cut them.”

“Ha.” I barked a laugh. “I bet it was the one about 'president vermin'!”

“You got it.” Luxea said and looked at the door warily. I could tell what she wanted to do and that she was afraid of embarrassing herself, so I put my arm around her waist and pulled her down onto my lap. Her face started to go red until I snaked my hand around her neck and pulled her in for a kiss. She forgot her embarrassment and put her arms around me to kiss me back. We stayed that way even after the ship jumped to hyperspace.

“We're on our way to the Granis system.” Rhubin said over the intercom. “Sit back and relax as your pilot takes you on a week-long journey across a dozen star systems with both expertise and panache!”

That made both Luxea and I smile and we had to pause our make-out session.

Luxea reached over and touched the intercom button. “If I didn't like you so much Rhubin, I could swear that you're interrupting me on purpose.”

“Who, me?” Rhubin asked, then he laughed. “I'm coming back to grab a bite to eat, so I'm just warning you to move your antics to a more private area before I see something you don't want me to see.”

Luxea glanced at me and I nodded. “Point taken.” She said and let the button go. I held onto her and stood up, then carried her to our room.

*

“Welcome back, Wise One.” The Order member said as the eleven foot tall alien with what looked like the giant head of a housefly stepped out of the shuttle. “Did you enjoy your vacation?”

“I was in a catatonic state the entire time.” The Wise One said and he almost coughed his signature laugh. “It was fine.”

The Order member sighed and picked up the alien's bag. He walked a respectable three feet behind the giant alien and followed him to his residence. He didn't enter, though. That was The Wise One's private space and only those he deemed worthy could enter.

“Send for Master Moor.” The Wise One said. “I wish to see her on a matter of some importance.”

The Order member bowed and put the bag down, then left at a fast walk.

“Greetings, Master.” The woman that was his receptionist said.

“Now, now. No need for that.” The Wise One said and touched the woman's shoulder and shared some of his Presence with her. “Are the recordings on my desk?”

“Y-yes.” She said and stared up at him. “You should find a few interesting things on them.”

“I know.” The Wise One said and let her shoulder go before he shared a bit more with her than he should. “Let Master Moor in when she arrives. I won't be busy.”

The woman nodded and The Wise One walked by her and entered his office to look over the things that had happened while he was away. He knew a lot of it already, because he had 'seen' it while he was in his catatonic state. Watching it with his actual eyes would give him a better perspective than the floating murkiness he had suffered through. He had known he would be under some kind of forced meditation when Kara returned with Hunter, as he was calling himself now, so The Wise One took a vacation to seclude himself and to remove his influence from the event.

The Wise One sat on the floor behind his desk, so that his head would be at a normal height when Kara came in. He always liked to minimize his height advantage when possible. He watched the main event inside the council chamber and it was just as startling as it was the first time. He hadn't felt the Presence waver then and Hunter's words had struck a deep chord within him. Discovering so casually that the Gruskluan was involved with (Undecipherable), was both masterful and upsetting.

If anyone would have been helping (Undecipherable), it should have been Kralish the scaly alien. The Wise One thought. His anger was always just below the surface and he should have been the one to be easily turned to worship one of the Dark divine beings. There was a knock on the door and he paused the file and turned off the viewscreen. “You may enter.”

Kara opened the door to the office and she was struck by The Wise One's ugliness. Her hand twitched to grab her Light sword to strike the creature down, just as she had for over a year, because hesitating could mean being maimed or death. She calmed her nerves and tucked her hands into her robes to stop herself from killing the monster in front of her. The Wise One both saw the twitch and felt the killing intent. His long life had flashed in front of his eyes and he knew that his death would be at her hands if he wasn't very careful.

“When Lashina returns in two months, you will stay with her until you get your impulses under control.” The Wise One said and Kara winced. “Whatever you went through has changed your perception of things. Was it for the better or are you worse for it?”

Kara didn't respond right away. She thought about the question and spoke. “I was doing the Goddess' bidding and did it gladly. I was her emissary and helped cleanse an entire kingdom of the Dark's influence and Presence.”

If The Wise One had eyelids, he would have blinked them several times. As it was, he just sat there unmoving and stared at her with his segmented eyes. Kara was surprised by this, because she had assumed that as The Wise One, he would have known where she had been all this time. The silence stretched on for several minutes and then he spoke.

“Please explain.” The Wise One said and a chair appeared in front of his desk.

Kara held in her sigh as she sat down, much closer to the thing than she thought she could stand, and started to tell the story.