“Commander, all ships have been accounted for as reported from the squad leaders,” the communications officer stated.

Arisa nodded as she commanded, “Alright, start the warp engines back home! We can’t waste a single second that our brave warriors have spared us. Send the battle report to my office after we have fully retreated from the battlefield.”

“Acknowledged,” the communications officer replied with a bow.

‘I wonder how Belle’s squadron did during this battle? She said that Luon had an interesting tactic to use and from what I could see from before it was quite effective. Too bad I couldn’t witness the rest of it since I had to oversee the battle… it looks like I’ll have another reason to talk to him about this and his future promotion,’ Arisa thought.

It was too bad this chance will never happen as the fleet warped out of the sector.

…

“So you were the spy that the commander set up?” Zythos asked as he peered into the eyes of the newly arrived personnel.

Opo nodded as he said, “Reporting to young master, I am indeed the spy that he had arranged to sneak into the military division.”

“I wasn’t aware of how we got our intel before, but it’s quite surprising to see that you would be willing to put yourself at risk like this,” Zythos commented as he recalled the number of bystanders at the scene of where Opo had attacked Luon.

According to the Alliance’s military law, people who committed acts of friendly fire, especially ones that had to do with death, were to be executed regardless of their excuse, that is before being tortured on the reason why he did so.

There was no way for the Mythos clan to protect such a person. Zythos knew the amount of power the Alliance laws have. If they were to step up, they would be condemned by the other superpowers.

In the future, they will come seeking for Opo from the Mythos Clan who can only give him up.

“That is not a problem young master, I have been trained for this for my entire life.”

“That’s right Zythos, you don’t have to worry about anything. We’ve already made arrangements with the assassins guild to take care of Opo while he is in prison. Before we let him go, we’ll also do a memory wipe on him.”

Laughter echoed in the room as the Fleet Commander of the ship came in. Zythos turned to him and asked, “Who’s Opo and why is he so willing to do this?”

“It looks like Sir Daimon hasn’t told you anything. He’s very similar to you, one of the first few specimens of the Descendant project which you originated from, except he doesn’t share the same genes as you. You could say he’s your predecessor. We were going to dispose of him eventually but decided that he could be put to some use, so we trained him to become a spy and faked his identity inside of the system.”

The Fleet Commander revealed everything without a missing point of detail, he thought that by saying so he would be able to make a better impression of himself for the future head of the clan.

However, Zythos was shocked at how easily he and his other brethren in the Descendant’s project were discarded. He had fought hard to survive the project and become useful for the Mythos clan, and after his purpose is spent, will he end up exactly like Opo?

Zythos shuddered at the thought but secretly kept it to himself, maybe one day he’ll go to bed and never awaken again because his family had assassinated him in his sleep. Unlike Opo who knew a lot about his family but was trained never to reveal anything, Zythos was kept in the dark of everything.

‘At least I won’t be dealt with for now...’ Zythos thought as he recalled the fact that he was an inspirational public figure. His attack on the Inzektor core will boost him to greater heights in reputation.

Zythos resolved himself to become stronger to the point where he will be untouchable, or at least to the point where his family wouldn’t kill him.

…

“That Opo! Who knew he would turn out to be a spy for the Mythos Clan!” Bendan madly smashed his pilot helmet on the ground as he got off of the ship.

The helmet flew several meters before crashing into a bundle of materials stored into a corner.

“Hey watch the equipment, the stuff is expensive,” cried one of the engineers who was assisting the docking process.

“You watch yourself! It’s not like we need it anytime soon!” Bendan shouted as he postured himself forward only to be held back by Gizmo who replied, “Ah, sorry about my teammate. Some crazy stuff happened on the battlefield… you idiot why do you have to mess around with the support staff like this? Don’t worry about it. I’m sure Belle and Arisa would do something about it.”

“I’ll try, but it’s not guaranteed. Seeing how they were able to execute this publically I am sure that the Mythos Clan has already planned out how they will escape punishment, and since Luon wasn’t already promoted, I am sure that the governing forces won’t do any further investigation. It will be written off an accidental friendly fire between two soldiers. With both of them dying as a result,” Belle explained as she intruded into the two’s conversation.

Her words dimmed the atmosphere.

Belle let out a short sight before continued, “All we can do is wait for now. Arisa hasn’t read the report yet, but I am sure she won’t let this case rest. Let’s just rest up for now. I’m sure we’ll all stressed from the battle we just had.”

“Will we be able to rescue Luon from the Inzektor planet?” Gizmo asked.

Angela who was silent the entire process responded, “No, I am sure that this expedition is over. We’ve already tried taking the planet a few times and failed to do so. Luon, if he’s alive, is on his own.”

…

It was dark, very, very dark. Luon felt his conscious mellow out as if he was resting in the comfort of a warm blanket starring at the cold winter night. His mind was completely relaxed, it was to the point where he didn’t want to do anything.

The comfort soon came to an end, it was as if someone had jerked away from the warmth and tossed him into the frigid cold bare naked, his mind woke up from the shock, and before his eyes, he could see the dangling electrical cable only a few centimeters away from his head.

The shocking sight scared up for a moment until he realized that there was no sign of energy being emitted. He let out a sigh of relief as his memories soon caught up to him.

“It seems like your awake, well it’s not surprising to see you dead especially from that height, but death isn’t anything new to either you or me.” As he was taking all of this information in Thanatos began to talk to Luon.

“I was betrayed,” Luon said out loud as confirm his beliefs.

“Yes, you were. So what do you need to do right now?” Thanatos assured him and prompted him to take action.

Looking at the ship component’s Luon realized that none of it was salvageable. Luon checked his BMPU only to find out that he was unconscious for a few minutes.

“I need to find out what’s going on,” Luon spoke as he started to fiddle with the opening mechanism on the ship. Unfortunately, it was disabled. Luon grunted as he attempted to pry open the door, but stopped as he found it fruitless to do so.

As he stopped to think about what to do his BMPU made an alarming sound, Luon read the report and found that the oxygen levels of the ship were dropping.

“Did the ship bury itself in the ground? I need to get out of here! Looks like there’s no choice.”

Luon pulled out his rifle and starting blasting holes from inside of this ship, the parts that may be recycled were decimated as Luon desperately tried to escape. However, filling in the gap, a large quantity of water came spewing in.

“Water? How is it that my ship can be so damaged if I landed in water?!” Luon cried as he figured his ship had landed on some kind of solid surface becoming damaged before falling in the water.

“My suit only has an hour of oxygen left. I should be okay for now, but I need to get out as soon as possible.”

With the water coming in Luon wasn’t able to use his rifle anymore. He pulled out his sword and infused it with mana as he hacked at the opening he made with the rifle. Aided by the pressure of water coming into the ship and his sword hacking at the opening, Luon managed to make a large enough gap for himself to exit.

Fortunately, as he exited the ship, he didn’t meet with any sea creatures that may have harmed him.

Luon rushed to the surface only to meet a starry night sky, void of the unnatural light of civilization. The dream-like atmosphere made Luon dismay as he was able to spot his hope vanish into the darkness of space.

Luon managed to awaken to the sight of the Alliance ships warping out of the region.

Luon wanted to scream for it to wait for him, but he knew they wouldn’t do so. As the last ship vanished, Luon felt desolated and all alone. This feeling was all too familiar with him.

“They say that the stories you’ve read and the experience of others isn’t relatable, but that isn’t the case now, is it?” Thanatos words whispered into his ears.

“You're saying that my simulated experience is similar to my current state?”

“Is it not?”

“No, this time I’m not alone. I have you, and you have me, and just maybe we’ll manage to get out of this situation.” Luon stated as he got out of the water and arrived at the shore of a nearby island.

Examining the marks on the ground Luon found that several random parts were scattered as it was trailing his ship that skidded off to the ocean.

“How are you going to get home?” Thanatos questioned.

“There should be some ancient relics of our past civilization on this planet somewhere. Although this planet is filled with Inzektors, I am sure that they won’t destroy everything since they won’t be able to understand it. We’ll have to find a hanger with a ship and fly out to a nearby allied solar system for help.”

“Quite optimistic aren’t you?”

“Somehow I am finding myself more similar to you by the second could the betrayal be accelerating our synchronization process?” Luon asked as he found Thanatos to be quite talkative.

“... it’s better than being alone isn’t it?”

“...” Luon couldn’t find a way to retort to that remark.

Looking at his intraspatial bag, Luon had enough food for a few weeks and several parts for a spaceship that he kept to the side. It wasn’t enough for the whole thing, especially if it needed to travel for a significant amount of distance, he needed to find a hanger as soon as possible or find a way to survive on the planet.

Luon didn’t have any hopes of the Alliance ships would come to save him, if they could, they would have won the battle already. He knew from the previous battle records that this attempt was just one to build experience for the newly arrived personnel as well as damaging the Inzektor hoard.

“It might be better to be alone though,” Thanatos added on to the conversation.

Luon was confused at how Thanatos contradict himself like that, but he soon found out the reason why.

“At least it’s better than hanging out with these things.”

A crowd of Inzektors who were scared at the crash landing appeared out of curiosity. Luon armed himself for combat expecting the worse possible scenario.

On an Inzektor filled planet, it’s not surprising to find Inzektors.

The way home is very far away.