Incoming Press Report, Eleven Light Years Away (Cryesa System Comm Network, Independent Controlled).

Pirate fleet routed in the orbit of Lucynthia! A three-hour space battle was won by Commodore Himmel Nelson against an attempted pirate raid on Lucynthia Station. Initially, the surprise attack almost overwhelmed the station’s defense flotillas, with the pirate ships coming in dangerously close to the station, with port authorities already commencing evacuations. Commodore Himmel Nelson of the Republic of Saint Cruz however arrived and rallied the battered Lucynthian ships back into the fight, all while coordinating with the Lucynthia Station Orbital Defense Network, cracking the pirate’s assault. Approximately twenty-eight pirate ships were destroyed or disabled in the orbit of Lucynthia post-battle when the Lucynthian response fleet arrived. Pirate activity in the Cryesa System is now plummeting as a result.

- Sector Updates

+++

+++ Jonathan Jones +++

Jahellios System

New Krakow

Artowisz City

The descent down the atmosphere was a relatively calm one. The City of Artowisz, the capital city of the New Krakow colony, was a massive one. Well, to be quite fair, New Krakow was a massive colony, populated by at least twenty million people. Well, not exactly quite the same as the Titans that were Rubenfolt, Trianta, or Avantia, but still quite a massive regional center.

Landing down on the eight floating island spaceports of the Artowisz, we made our way out of the terminal and spaceport straight to the wide roads of these small city-like receiving areas, where inbound and outbound atmosphere-rated ships docked or undocked. But our eyes were looking at the true jewel of this place, Artowisz, connected to these eight artificial islands that surrounded it by these gigantic covered bridges that stretched for miles.

The skyline of Artowisz in all its glory, with the blue waters of New Krakow and the shining daylight sunlight from Jahellios, a yellow star, and one could almost imagine that he or she was on Atlantis itself. Well, New Krakow was practically that anyway. A relatively calm and wealthy planet covered fully by water, outside of its artificial cities.

“Certainly beats my shithole of a homeworld,” I said, eliciting a laugh from Juliett. “No, seriously, Loran is practically a crapworld. I wonder why people even lived on it. Well, I guess they did that because it was brimming with mineable minerals making it a good place for a heavy industry, but did they ever at least consider how much of a shithole it still is?”

“You always find a lot of things to be salty about,” she continued laughing. “Who goes down straight to a good place, and his first reaction isn’t to be happy or amazed by it, but go ‘What?! I can’t believe my place of origin is a crappy place!’ with an elaborate frown to boot?”

“Me.” I looked back at the skyline of Artowisz, before turning back to her to reaffirm my previous claim. “Also, Loran is still a shithole.”

“I guess spite against everything just lives rent-free in your brain,” she sighed. “Such a hopeless guy. Anyway, to Artowisz! I think I want to see a lot of places in this city. Hey, do you think there’s someone important we can meet, like, I don’t know, the Governor?”

I didn’t even bother correcting her at this point. The Colonial Governor, seriously? What did she even want to do with whoever that guy is? I swear, this AI really needed a software update or something. I almost felt pity for her, as whoever designed and created her was long dead. Which meant no software update to fix her faulty logic.

“Yeah, yeah, keep dreaming. Anyway, let’s just go.”

Luckily, it seemed that people offered a lot of services at the port of Artowisz. We stepped inside an auto shop that offered rent for land vehicles, which we could use to travel around the city for the duration of our stay. I had already shelled out two hundred SCs and converted them into the local New Krakow Colonial Credits for our expenses here, so it wasn’t much of a problem to rent one.

“Well, I guess this driver’s license still helps even here,” I said, as Juliett sat beside me, placing the seatbelt on her. “I thought it wouldn’t.”

“It’s quite strange how your license is only a few months old though. You must have made quite a big jump,” Juliett pointed out. “Now you’re already a ship captain. Or at least, a captain of a semi-autonomous ship.”

“The thing is, the Sector is bad at tracking stuff,” I smirked at her. “Do you seriously think I only started driving cars four months ago? Or, god forbid, flying a ship a few months ago? I had experience before.”

“Well, I guess that wouldn’t be surprising. Still, you’re hiding from something, aren’t you?” Juliett asked. “I mean, I knew that a long time ago already, but this one just tells me even more. Your identity isn’t what it seems, no?”

I sighed. “It’s a long story…”

“A story that I don’t want to hear if you don’t want to tell me yet,” she smiled at me. “Keep it to yourself if that’s what you’re comfortable with. I just wanted you to know, you don’t have to feel like you lied to me. And I’m alright at you hiding things for now, just as I do.”

“...Are you just giving me a pity party after I almost panicked while they were verifying my license?”

She laughed to herself. “Maybe.”

“Ah, god…you know what. You do whatever you do.”

I drove forward, straight into the grand bridges to Artowisz.

+++

+++ Jonathan Jones +++

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This…wasn’t what we expected when Ms. Kalista said that someone needed our help down here.

“So…it’s the two of you then?” My eyes were twitching at how this haughty pink-haired brat was almost looking down at the both of us disappointedly. “Gah! I told that old hag that I needed more capable people! I swear, commoners.”

She looked at me with an icy stare, though her eyes softened upon seeing Juliett. “But I guess at least she sent one that’s half decent. Say, are you perhaps a noblewoman as well?”

“Huh, me?” Juliett asked, all while I was being pushed to my growling mode at how she belittled my arse in favor of the tin can beside me. “I…w-well, I guess I am, yes!”

“Good! Because I need someone who can really help me out well. Now, about this guard of yours,” she pointed at me, and I really wanted to bash her into the heavens now. How’d I have the luck of being lumped with brats all the time? They said the purgatory was in hell or something, not here! “You two would—”

“Um, he’s not really my guard—”

The young woman corrected herself immediately. “You and your servant. You two, I need you to help accompany me to this place…you see, I have something important to retrieve.”

Juliett then smirked. “Yes, alright! I’ll honor Ms. Kalista’s orders. Me and my servant would escort you really well toward that. This guy’s armed even.”

Did you just grab the opportunity to troll me again? The backstabbing. The absolute backstabbing. First I get demoted to a resident of my own ship, and now I’m her servant?

The absolute swine, she even shoved me lightly on my side when she said that. I just groaned. “Yeah, I’m armed. Look, I’m not sure why you even asked her for help, and why she even asked us to do this, but I guess if we’re paid good money, we’re in.”

“He’s surprisingly polite, for a commoner I mean.” The young woman said to Juliett, and Juliett nodded.

“Yeah, that he is. He’s an asshole sometimes though.”

How the heck are they even so close that quickly? The two of them already looked like two conspiring schoolgirls against me. This…I guess this was my life then. Always outnumbered, surrounded by hostiles. She told me her socialization skills were at rock bottom, that has to be a lie!

“Anyway, what’s your name?” The young woman asked curiously, already seemingly comfortable at meeting her nearly equal peer.

“Juliett. Just call me Juliett. This guy is Jonathan Jones. Think of him as a gunslinger, but in space, except he’s a little bit of a major downer.” What the hell was that description even?

The young woman nodded before she smirked arrogantly at the both of us. “Well then, I on the other hand is Louise Florentine de la Fleur! The one and only daughter of the Duke of New Krakow!”

“You know, I think I can see why she sent us here,” I almost facepalmed. “I know we’re in a deserted alley, but who the hell announces their importance outside in the middle of nowhere? Yeah, a baby. Juliett, our task is quite literally going to be babysitting.”

Juliett kept her smile when she turned to me. “I wouldn’t mind doing some babysitting!”

“Don’t call me a baby!” The other brat responded, yelling at me, and I sighed.

“And Harold’s out there drinking in comparison. At least he’s having a good time,” I looked up at the sky, and up there, was a fairly massive and distant dot, most likely the New Krakow Station. “Woe is me.”

Ms. Louise Florentine de la bla bla bla crossed her arms, frowning at me. “See, commoners. I bet if you hadn’t straightened him well, he’d just drink himself to death.”

“Hehe…I don’t think he’s that bad though,” replied Juliett. “So…now that we know each other, Ms. Louise, what exactly do you need from us? Help you retrieve something?”

At that, Ms. Louise uncrossed her arms, looking at Juliett seriously this time. “I need help. Say, since you’re an aristocrat too, that means you have the ability to access the Fed-System…and by extension, you have ‘arts’, right?”

Juliett, in complete surprise for me, nodded in response. “Yes, I do.”

The Fed-System’s “System Arts” was something that both “officially” didn’t exist but also actually existed. It was both highly censored, and unknown, but also implied to exist by some authorities, usually by those that ruled similarly to those old feudal lords in the old history of Earth. Essentially, these people had the ability to truly “tap” into the anomalous Fed-System, that apparently only appeared three hundred years ago, right after the collapse of the Link-Gates.

It was why there was an, at first, unofficial revival of a noble class across the Sector. They were essentially the “gifted” ones, as the Fed-System seemed to have mostly activated amongst the important people of the Sector—the administrators, high-ranking military officials, politicians, and the rich. Essentially, it turned the one percent (who were mostly Earthlings, unlike us lower colonials) into something more.

What could “System Arts” do? I didn’t know. It was very hidden for the most part from the general public, especially since it was an ability limited to the elites. Essentially, the rumors said that it allowed them to do “magic”.

They thus distinguished themselves as nobles, in order to separate them from us—the lower ninety-nine percent. But of course, that was about it. Officially, the use of the Fed-System’s magic soon became illegal, mandated by a populist takeover of the FEG military, and it was banned for decades during the “Great Repression” when the FEG military centralized their rule on every planet.

At least, until the First Revolutionary War, when Avantia and multiple socialist-aligned planets kicked them off from the lower end of the sector due to their hardline rule, and during the Second Revolutionary War when many of the disgruntled “noblemen” and “noblewomen” of the “autonomous worlds” kicked them off from half of the Sector’s remaining planets to declare independence.

So what surprised me was first, this young woman openly told me about it, when the FEG’s official stance on it was that “it didn’t exist” or reportedly, you’d even get killed for even mentioning it, and the fact that Juliett, a literal ship-AI that was already anomalous in many ways, also had it too.

Plus, the FEG is literally cracking down on their nobility. They had always had an antagonistic relationship for some reason with the local elites of their planets, which was literally why the Union and the Independents formed. So why is she being so open about it?

I listened to her next words carefully, as I had to really hear this one out. This just turned serious…really fast. I knew this wasn’t just a simple mission.

“Ms. Juliett, I beg you then, please help me. They took my brother. And my father was…randomly poisoned. And my other friends and family are disappearing without explanation. I…I can’t trust the authorities, except for her, Ms. Kalista. And if she sent the both of you…I think she has a good reason why.”

+++

Booting up Orion Spacefarer Identity Interface…

Name: Jonathan Jones

Credits: 8,600 Sector Credits (-200 last chapter—converted to New Krakow Colonial Credit).