Jack had spent the night at the imperial palace, he got shown to his room, one of many marked with his name within the same hallway which was sure to cause confusion at some point. Which Jack went where? Nobody truly knew. He awoke to the sound of a small holographic man playing the tuba on top of his nightstand, the most appropriate of alarm clocks together with the bass playing cat of course. He stood up and walked to the wardrobe the tuba still blaring in the background as he knew not how to turn the playing off. Inside the wardrobe was a single outfit repeated at least ten times, Jack stood in front of the assortment for a surprisingly long time before deciding which one to take. He was determined to make the right choice even if every choice was identical.

  Dressed and ready to depart Jack met with Ted in a small room attached to the ship bay. Ted wore a similar uniform to Jack’s only that the outlines on his were black. They spoke of the mission the chancellor had entrusted to them, apparently, the Bakans had developed a new unique source of energy that some sort of evil space ruler was out to steal. For what purpose Jack did not know, but giant sources of energy in the hands of evil space rulers wasn’t something that sounded too positive to anyone. Jack had seen too many movies to see where this was going, and planet-destroying laser or worse was not something he wanted to be aimed at him. The only issue was that chancellor Jack wanted them to steal the energy from the Bakans themselves before someone else did it. Now, Jack was charming, at least he and his grandma thought so, but he was not a master thief and even if he was he didn’t know anything about the Bakan planet. The latter would be resolved by a guide on site, which only left that one single problem, not a bad start.

  As they spoke Lyra and the older Jack appeared through the large grey sliding doors. The chancellor wore the same uniform clothes as Jack and greeted them with a friendly smile. Lyra wore her hair loosely today as she did not need to run away from any laser blasts. Having long hair getting into your eyes is not usually recommended when running from laser blasts. After some typical morning small talk such as the never changing talks about the weather and being woken up by the tuba man, typical stuff. The clock was ticking and the older Jack finally decided to lead them into the hangar bay.

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  If one were to describe a hangar bay the first words that might come to mind would be, “ahhh my eyes!” immediately followed by “ahhh my ears!”. All of this is understandable as the galactic trait for hangars seemed to be to aim giant bright lights into the entrance which were powered by deafening generators. They quickly moved past the lamps and stood face to face with their new ship. The ship if it could be called that, looked at them and moved its head side to side, yellow eyes peering at them out of an entirely black frame.

  “Thank you for providing us with such a great ship, supreme chancellor,” said Lyra.

  “That’s a bird…” Jack said.

  “Well spotted, it is a falcon class,” Ted replied.

  “No no no, that is a bird, it’s moving on its own. I think it wants to peck me.”

  “Did you expect the ship not to be able to move?” asked Lyra.

  “I expect the ship to move when we want it to move, not when it wants to.”

  “The ship will open up so we can get inside if we want it to and Ted can pilot it once inside. You should thank the supreme chancellor for giving us such a modern model.”

  “Oh please, no need for the formalities after all you don’t refer to me as that either,” the older Jack said pointing at the younger, “besides the ship is a gift from Kevin, but I shall pass on that it was agreeable.”

  “With all due respect, he isn’t the supreme chancellor of earth,” she pointed at the younger Jack.

  “Yet,” said the older Jack with a smile, “or at least he will be in a similarly important position and I hope that by then you see no need for such formality either,” he said and now turned to look at the ship and their gazes followed, “I believe it is time to let you go on your first mission, young Jack. You are in good company so I wouldn’t worry. You will be pleased to also hear that Ted has been granted official piloting licenses from the Empire, so no more illegal flying is that understood?” the chancellor chuckled and left into the bright light while waving.

  The three heroes went into the ship through the back flap that opened a ramp to the inside of the metallic bird and moments later the engines started roaring, the ship's wings started flapping and they shot out of the hangar towards Bakania.