It took another four days before Anji and her escorts finally arrived at the Eden System.

To Anji's annoyance, she calculated that they could have probably arrived at the fabled solar system if not for the continuous challenge from patrolling starship that roamed the outer perimeter of the system. Almost every 2 hours or less, the ship is stopped by a security patrol and demand authorization clearance. To Anji, the first four interference was intriguing but the next 14 of them were simply annoying at best.

"Ship 728-103 is requesting authorization codes for us to continue," said the ship AI.

"Send my authorization codes, Command One," Said Alpha Codex 4.

"Acknowledge," Said the new Command one, while Anji stared at the source of the voice with narrow eyes.

Apparently, the designation 'Command One' goes to the ship that actually holds the physical body of the human, and so the previous smaller ship that carried her before and fought with her lost the designation 'Command One.'

"That's it?!" Anji raged when he learned about it, looking at the monitor that shows her previous ride who is now simply escorting the bigger ship. "You gave the ship a name when it is doing an important job and then you yanked that name away from him the moment the ship had done its job? and quite admirably I might add! I fought with that ship!"

The great warrior was taken aback. "But the ship still has a name," he said baffled.

"Oh? and what name is that?"

"Ship 219-806."

"That's not a name! It's a freaking serial number!" Anji said raising her voice. When the warrior just stood there flabbergasted, Anji sighed and forced herself to calm down. "look, I understand that the designation Command One must be transferred to this ship since I am here and I'm very important and all that shit. But the former Command One is very good to me too, and he fought with me side by side and I like him... well, relative speaking, but the point is I don't want to lose him in a sea of anonymity. So please, can you just give him a new name?"

"... What name do you have in mind?" asked her guardian.

Anji just stared at Alpha Codex 4. Despite her anger, she never really actually thought about beyond the injustice of taking her ship's name. "Let's see... how about..."

Command One beeped and Anji returned back to the present. "Ship Bob, you are out of formation by .000214 degree to my starboard side."

"Acknowledge, Command One," said Anji's former ship.

"If it pleases you Command Alpha," The new Command One announced. "We are passing by the farthest planet in our solar system called Anzio. It is an ice planet approximately the same size of Agradah. A hundred and 56 years ago, no living thing can survive on its surface without proper equipment, suit, and support, but now we are able to introduce cold resistant seed variants and even now a sizable frozen forest is spreading."

"Aah, Agradah ?" Anji prompted.

"Oh. This unit assumed you know about the planet of Agradah . A preliminary scan of everything you read in the database mentioned the planet Agradah at least 7X. I assume with your level of intelligent-"

"Command One," Alpha Codex 4 said wearily.

"Oh, sorry. I believe I have strayed from the subject at hand, please forgive me. Agradah is the capital planet of Bumishi, an old race, well not as old as humans of course, but considered old since they are some of the first species that expanded during the exploration age. Anyway, Agradah is now considered one of the central hub of finance, culture, and information in the galaxy today. There are 9 bil-"

"Alright, I get the gist of it," Anji said, not really interested in alien planets right now since she still can't wrap the idea in her head that she is now the owner of 9, no 10 planets in the galaxy right this moment. "Any major places on the planet you think is worthwhile for me to visit?" She asked.

"No," Answered the codex bluntly. "The planet is dangerous."

Anji could almost feel the AI shrugging. "The planet doesn't have much in terms of tourist attraction. There are no major facilities in the area except for the planetary defensive fortress, an underground science facility that is responsible for most of the cold resistant fauna found on the planet, and the ice extractor factory."

Anji willed a monitor to pop up in front of her and she checks the ship scanner. "You mentioned a fortress?"

The Codex next to her sighed. "They are simply massive defensive complex designed to defend the planets. Most of the Eden plants got at least 1 or two of them. Gaia has 6 while the massive gas giant Zeus has 18. Once you meet 'Mother,' you will have access to all the blueprints and defensive capabilities of this fortresses."

"And the artificial planet that is our destination? how many fortresses thus it have?" Anji continued.

Alpha Codex 4 simply snorted. "The Planet Aegis doesn't need one. By definition, it IS the fortress."

It took another 2 hours before they reached the artificial planet Aegis where the AI known as "Mother" is stationed. It was not like what Anji envisioned beforehand since what she is thinking of is a freaking death star, but the "Planet" is more like Halo. Several massive structures of rings one inside the other while the very central structure is a sphere 3x the size of the moon. Each ring generates their own gravity which somehow does not affect the gravity of the next ring next to it.

This made it possible for an inner and outer layer that support massive structures and space that has its own atmosphere. Anji can see in the scanner that the outer ring supports a massive forest and a lake big enough to be considered an ocean. There is even a mountainous part of the outer layer that resembles the Himalayas.

Despite herself, she was impressed.

The rings are moving around the central sphere but the place is so massive that a fleet of nova battleships can pass through the ring without a problem as its goes to the central part. As far as Anji can observe, there is nothing that attached the ring from the sphere, but even she can feel the stableness of the massive structures as if nothing can fry the ring away from the sphere.

As they get closer to the sphere, Anji realized that the sphere, who looks so solid farther away, is actually hollow and made of a black smooth metal cage-like structures that surround a relatively small black sun. They went closer to the sun cage as Anji started calling it in her mind and found out that at least two hundred other Nova class Battleship plus several dozen even bigger starships are moored in the giant structure. Anji watched in her monitor as first Ship Bob moored itself next to its bigger brethren. Then it's their turn, at first despite being awed and fascinated by all the structures around her, Anji remained calm. But then the new Command One AI maneuvered the ship ever closer and closer in the structure and Anji can see that hey are about to collide with it. "Whoah, whoah!" Anji said, then Alpha Codex 4's hand rested on her shoulder, steadying her. The battleship collided with the sphere and the structure absorbed the starship whole.

Anji blinked and next thing she knew is that she is inside the sphere, her ride is gone and no one is there except Alpha Codex 4. The place is made of flush marble stones and resembles a fancy office or hotel reception lobby, except for the fact that the reception area is the size of a football field. Alpha Codex 4 led her into short stairs that lead into an elevator. They stepped inside and the elevator went down very smoothly and very fast.

Even then it took a long time for the elevator to go down. Feeling a bit awkward, Anji turned to her companion in the hope of glinting any insight with her upcoming meeting with the Mother, but the bastard just stood there stoically as they went down. Anji sighed and waited the rest of the journey in silence.

Eventually, the elevator stopped and deposited the two of them in a garden. With a freaking waterfall on one side and actual birds twitting around. In the middle of all this, sat an old woman on the ground as she continues to dig a shallow hole in the dirt to dump beautiful flower's root in it, then covering it again.

They took a step closer towards the woman. She finally noticed them and smiled a warm welcome.

"Hello, I am Mother," She said simply.