Kali couldn’t believe no one seemed to know sign language. Wasn’t it considered a good idea to at least have the basics down? It wasn’t even a very hard language to pick up in her opinion. There was no conjugation or any of the usual grammar stuff. It was very primitive in a sense with only base words.

So why did it seem like no one on the whole damn ship knew it? Philip, she could understand, he probably thought it beneath him or something, but even he had known a few basic words.

It didn’t matter now anyway, as magic and gravity were back. They were not running, but almost, towards the hangar. She had originally hoped the magical blackout would last longer, long enough to check if they could take a ship and load it with the slaves.

With the confusion, it wouldn’t have been that hard to escape. But it hadn’t lasted longer than twenty minutes at most, and she had hesitated in her plan. Now? They might as well check things out. Philip was with her and people looked at him, but not because they recognised him, but because his look was… unique.

His beard wasn’t long enough, but with his bald hair and tacky glasses, it would be hard to recognize him for sure. It was such a wild change. Also, no one seemed to be really looking for him right now as everything was mostly chaos and confusion.

People walked around asking others what had happened, some demanding to know or being entitled and it was clear everyone wanted to talk or vent about what had just occurred. Strangely, some blamed Birds Of Prey while others seemed to understand that this was a natural catastrophe unlike anything that should happen.

It made their fast walk towards the hangar easy. No one stopped two people in a hurry, and they barely even looked at them, so engrossed in their discussions, or looking for someone themselves. Not everybody had made it.

As they arrived in the hangar, a strange sight greeted them. The ships, normally locked in place, hadn’t been. Apparently that was a magical system too, and they must have floated around until magic was back and they had crashed down.

Which meant the hangar looked like a kid had played with the ships and just left them there on the ground without any regard for order. Some even looked broken to a degree. It looked like they could repair them, as it wasn’t catastrophic, but still, it would take some work.

There seemed to be a few ships that hadn’t really moved much and looked whole and functional. One of them was rather big, and she knew they could pack that one up with everyone. So she turned around to look at Philip.

“Alright, so here’s what we’ll do. You see that ship over there? The white one? It’s big enough to get all the slaves onboard and it looks like it didn’t get damaged.” She said in a low voice.

“We’ll bring the slaves here, pack them in and leave.” She finished. Philip's jaw opened slightly at her plan.

“That’s your plan?” He asked incredulously.

“You do realize that is called wishful thinking. There is no way they’ll let you just walk the slaves out, and even less of a chance they’ll let you board all of them on a ship.” The worst part was she knew it was a shit plan, but with the chaos maybe it might work. But now that Philip had shot it down completely, she wasn’t sure what to do.

“We can’t just let this opportunity pass us by, Philip. Look, this is our chance. Everyone is distracted, doing whatever, but soon, people are going to start putting things back in order, meaning we have to hurry the hell up. I’m pretty sure that if right now we go by the slave quarters and say they are to be moved to a new locations, no one will bat an eye.” She explained.

“While you are right that this is our opportunity, I don’t think we should ruin it by trying to free the slaves. Look, we could take a ship right now and be out of here Kali. So why don’t we do just that?” He asked her. It actually looked like he might go for it with or without her, and maybe he was right and it was his only way out of this mess.

Before they could discuss what to do further, she saw a group of four, no five people, charging into the hangar and getting shot at from behind. They did not look like crewmembers, but more like adventurers or bounty hunters or something.

They came in the same way they did, and almost collided with her as they ran past. To her side, she saw Philip actually failing to move out of the way fast enough and get pushed to the ground, his glasses falling off and getting trampled in the same process.

A group of guards were shouting after them, but as Philip got up, a bystander looked at him without his glasses and shouted words she had hoped not to hear.

“Wait, isn’t that Philip?! He is wanted for ten thousand gold!” He had shouted it loud enough that the whole hangar had heard it, and everyone had turned to look at him.

There was a tense moment where it seemed like the whole room had frozen and everyone looked at Philip, and he looked around at them. More than a few people seemed to be nodding to their friends in his direction, pointing fingers, confirming his worst fear, he had been found out.

In response, Philip ran after the group of five and Kali followed him despite knowing it was a bad idea. But she couldn’t just abandon him now.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Philip shouted after the five running from the guards. They had a huge Karkaris holding a two handed axe that lowered it dangerously as Philip ran towards them.

“I can help you guys out of here, alright? All I ask is that you take me with you.” He asked, panting, as he finally caught up. Damn, Kali thought, he was fast on his feet. No hesitation, but in truth, it was a gamble. What if they wanted his bounty? But it was clear from the others in the hangar, staying there would have been a death sentence. Several civilian groups started to circle around them just to try to get that juicy bounty.

“We don’t have time for this! We have to find her ASAP.” Another one of them said. It only took a moment for Philip to latch onto this new information.

“Are you looking for someone? I can help you! I know the whole ship!” Philip pleaded with them. Kali had caught up to them as the other group had slowed down.

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“And who is she?” A rat man asked Philip as she joined him.

“Ah, she is with me! Completely trustworthy and competent. What do you say, let’s get out of here so we can talk? I’m sure we can help you out. We know the whole ship and everyone on it. If you are looking for someone without us, you’ll be looking for hours.” He said while looking around frantically at all the people eyeing him.

There was a moment of hesitation as the group didn’t seem that keen to take in strangers right now, but one of them looked desperate enough not to care.

“Yes, we’ll take all the help we can get. Boys, it’ll only help and it doesn’t look like they are part of the ship anyway.” One of the blonde ones said as he showed the reaction to Philip’s discovery around them. People were staring with that hungry look in their eyes. Greed.

A lot of people had taken the opportunity to get closer to them, some ready to jump in, but the huge Karkaris stepped out and let out a roar. They all stopped to look at him, taken aback by the display.

“I’ll say this only once. We could easily kill all of you, even the guards. We are not simply because we do not have the time, but if you force us, we will take the time to deal with you.” His deep and booming voice was impressive.

“Do not force us to make that time. Understand?” He glared down at the closest civilians who backed off, intimidated by the blue brute.

The guards had caught up and were shooting, but now that they stood still, it was clear that they didn’t need to run to avoid the shots. They all had anti-ballistic shields blocking the bullets. Which made it clear to everyone present, that they were equipped for battle, and probably knew something about it too. Kali and Philip however moved behind the others to get cover from the shots.

Still, the guards continued and pulled out batons and other melee weapons to charge them. A few brave groups of civilians joined them in hopes of claiming the bounty. They all stopped as soon as the Karkaris was done swinging his first swing.

No one wanted to be cleaved in two, like the first three guards who had charged. The swing had been so fast, probably a skill? Still, the sight of the three guards separated in two pieces by the mid section wasn’t pretty to see. Guts spilled out and blood poured out of them. A boy in their group heaved heavily at the sight, and from the crowd's reaction, he wasn’t the only one who had a hard time looking at what had happened.

It had stopped them all from continuing the charge towards the group. Kali herself could barely believe it. It had been effortless on his part. One second they had stood there, the other they had been split in two. The naked brutality had been shocking in its swiftness. But it had been effective too.

The group of five started to jog away, and no one moved. Even her and Philip took a second before they regained their senses and moved after them. Those were some high level people. Close or maybe even level thirty. This might actually be their best shot out of here.

For the first time since her failed escape, Kali started to believe she might actually make it off this system forsaken ship.

**********************

Admiral Parker had several reports in front of him. The room around him was busy. People seemingly ran about going in and out. It looked like the whole place was hurrying around to get things done, and with direction. His direction.

It was slowly taking place. He knew it wasn’t going to be a fast process, but with his years of experience, it was certainly faster than anyone would anticipate.

Of course he had several skills to help him out, making picking someone for a role easy, knowing who to let do what, and even skills to ensure some people did their jobs correctly. There was nothing more heinous in his book than someone doing a sloppy job.

Because it might look like nothing, oh, he forgot to clean the floor this time. But he knew that it was a slippery slope. A person doing something half-assed once, would only continue, and in most cases, it wouldn’t only continue but become worse over time unless detected and addressed.

He had learned long ago that perfection attracted perfection, but it was also true that decadence attracted decadence. Take a perfectly clean bathroom where everything's in order and working. The place is spotless.

Someone walks in and uses the bathroom. Because it’s already clean, they are much more likely to show respect to the work done and not spill water everywhere or whatever. They are extremely more likely to keep it clean.

Now, that same person goes into a dirty bathroom? He doesn’t make an effort now. He spills some water on the floor? Put soap everywhere? Maybe, but who cares? Look at the place, it’s already a mess, which makes it okay in their mind.

A ship was much the same, if everyone was strict about their orders and what to do? Others are much less likely to fuck about seeing all the others adhering to protocol strictly.

So in order for the ship to run smoothly, he simply had to show everyone a good example, and mercilessly enforce a strict conduct. The higher up a person is? The better he expected them to perform. No one should think they could do the job better than a superior, or they probably should have their job.

That was his vision, and it was how he saw himself too in Birds of Prey. He was the tool to make things work, and damn was he good at it. But amidst the different reports he had asked for, to get an idea of where things were at, an unasked for report had grabbed his attention.

There had been a commotion with intruders, and Philip had been spotted going with them, meaning he had an opportunity here. He honestly didn’t care that much about Philip, but intruders?

No that wouldn’t do. He was trying to bring order back to this ship, and having people running around causing chaos was the opposite of what he wanted. He had two different options, but he had already decided. Admiral Parker wanted things to be done efficiently, and there was no one on this ship more efficient than him.

Yes, he wouldn’t send security as he had no faith in them, they were untested and probably low level. He would go himself with his personal squad to deal with the situation. Plus, it would be a good example of what happened if he wasn’t happy with anyone.

The report in question had a small visual recording of the end of the altercation as someone had had the presence of mind to record it. Looking at it, he could see that these were either mercenaries or adventurers.

Apparently they had even killed some of the guards, confirming his suspicion. Well, they were idiots for attacking without any kind of plan. It was obvious the group was at a rather good level. It looked something akin to active suicide to him but he knew others wouldn’t see it like that.

Nothing more interesting happened in the recording and he got up and signaled to his men to get ready. He didn’t specify why, or anything else, but they all picked up their gear and weapons to stand at attention. They were used to following orders without asking stupid questions.

It had taken him a long time to assemble such a good elite force, and it did seem overkill for this small group, but he couldn’t underestimate them. Contrary to what most people believed, he was not gifted in combat.

Of course he had fought his fair share of fights, but his true strength was in command. His personal guard was a force to be reckoned with, with him around. Of course he could fight, probably even take on a level twenty [Warrior] himself, but why bring a sniper only to club your opponent in the face with it? No, he would use his strengths and be efficient about things.

Giving a few last orders, he got up and walked out, his guards following after him. Now that he knew about the intruders in more detail, it would be a lot easier to track them. Of course he had skills that helped him have a very good awareness of his ship, only the system, or was it himself? Didn’t really consider this his ship yet.

So most of his skills that would have made it trivial to find his opponents weren’t available to him. Now that didn’t mean he had no other way to find them. It would just take a bit longer.

He did know the general area of where they had been seen, and information that they were looking for someone from the report. Sadly, it didn’t specify who.

It didn’t matter. He would do as he always did and throw out the garbage once more. Simply another day at work.