Philip cackled as he looked at the fleeing assassins, continuing to take potshots from the safety of the ship. They hadn’t even seen him coming! Idiots! It had been the obvious move to make, but they had completely underestimated him. The fools. He continued to shoot and managed to get another one before they got out.

He turned to look at his group he had so intelligently rescued and saw that they were coming towards him. He lowered the ramp as he tried to keep the ship stable, which was honestly harder than he would have thought. It made him think whoever had made this hadn’t been that good.

He heard footsteps behind the cockpit and turned in his seat. He soon spotted them coming into the ship with worried expressions instead of the smiles he had expected. Hadn’t he just saved all of their asses? Couldn’t they at least pretend to be grateful? Or was something else going on he didn’t know? It was Xar that came up to him with a huge smile.

“Great work Philip! Couldn’t have made it better myself!” He exclaimed with a huge grin plastered on his face.

“Someone had to bail your asses out of that mess.” He said smugly, clearly happy with himself. Finally the recognition he deserved. Xar’s smile started to dip as he looked behind himself and Philip saw that Matt was helping Maya onto the ship while the others looked on with worried expressions.

“What happened to her?” He asked the small Skraa.

“She got hit pretty hard.” Xar said as he frowned at Maya’s pained expression. Matt was helping her lay down. Kali told him not to remove her pants yet as they wanted to assess the damage first. It was impressive that her pants had held because it looked like a bone or two was trying to poke through it. His stomach was making flips at the sight so he looked elsewhere quickly.

“Yeah.” Xar agreed as he saw him look away.

“Why haven’t you used a healing potion yet?” He asked the skraa as he deliberately did not look in her direction.

“She refused, plus when bones are broken, the flesh will heal around broken bones which you’ll have to get fixed by a healer either way. But yeah, we could have used a potion to stabilize her if she didn’t refuse it.” He said as he shrugged. She would be fine it seemed, and he bet they didn’t have that much time.

“We need to get out of here no?” He asked his smaller companion.

“Mhmm. But shouldn’t we at least buy a ship or something first? And no offense, but I’m not sure this ship is the best for a trip to the old world.” Xar said as he looked around. It was true. He hadn’t chosen a ship with a long trip in mind, but the flashiest he had seen. It was rather small. It didn’t look like there was more than one bed in the main room, and it was clear that it was for emergencies. It was more of a joyride than a ship to explore space with.

“Kro! We’ll go and get another ship to leave, can you keep an eye out if they come back?” He told the blue brute who nodded as he squeezed through the almost too small doorway to the cockpit, taking his eyes off the girl on the ground.

“Take this, you’ll need it.” Maya said between clenched teeth as she handed them a credit shard. Xar hesitated as he took it, a bit embarrassed.

“Thanks, we’ll pay you back as soon as we can.” He told the girl. What a stupid promise. Just take the money and do whatever. Well, not everyone had his foresight for these kinds of things. Maya didn’t even say anything as they left, clearly in pain.

Philip was vigilant as he followed Xar to the office where a sole terrified employee was looking at them. Xar hopped up to the counter and took a rather relaxed pose in front of the terrified young man.

“We’d like to buy a ship.” Philip almost scoffed at how slow this guy was. It was like he hadn’t heard the rat man at all. Xar repeated his words with a slow diction, enunciating every syllab. Somehow it worked and the man brought up a terminal with ships on sale and handed it to them silently. His hands had trembled all the way. It was like he couldn’t believe what he had seen, which might be true.

“Thanks.” Xar said as he took it. He scrolled through the first entries. He paused to check the credit shard to check what they had to work with. He almost dropped the terminal at that.

“What? Not enough on it?” Philip couldn’t help but ask. Were they fucked? She had teleported here, so she was probably loaded, no? So why was he making a face?

“It’s a full access shard. We could buy any ship we wanted.” He said in a deadpan voice. Philip was about to retort something scathing but paused as the words sunk into his brain. Any ship they wanted? He turned to look at Xar who seemed rather excited. Behind them, they heard footsteps and they both whirled, ready for a fight. Kali stood there, looking at them with a knowing look.

“You guys are too predictable. We are not buying the biggest ship.” She told them as she crossed her arms. Damn her, Philip thought. Always there to ruin his plans. At this point it felt personal, her mission was clearly to ruin his fun in life.

“Let me guess. You just want to take a small little shit ship, where we are cramped for space for the whole journey?” Philip asked, already exasperated. For once they could live in luxury!

“No, but if we take a huge ship guess what? We’ll get tracked by every fucker that is after us. No, we take a ship big enough for six, but not bigger or with fancy magi-tech.” She said and her tone was final. The worst was that he knew it was the right call, but he couldn’t help but think of sitting on a large sofa drinking something refined in a dressing gown, having just come out of a magical massage. Alas it seemed it would have to wait.

“Fine.” Xar said and rolled his eyes as he handed her the terminal. She scrolled through it for barely thirty seconds, picked one and gave it back. Xar took it and Philip craned his neck to see what she had chosen.

“That piece of garbage? Oh come on Kali. We could at least take something a little larger, no?” Philip groaned.

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“Do you want to stay discreet or leak enough mana that everyone in the sector can follow your sorry ass?” She challenged him. He groaned but didn’t argue. Xar handled the transaction with the mute clerk and they were out of there.

It still felt wrong to him to take such a basic ship. Sure it seemed large enough for them, but he couldn’t help but want to cry out at the injustice that had just happened. They had enough money to buy any ship, and they took the most boring, bog standard piece of shit. It would get the job done, obviously, but come on. The demon’s voice sounded once more and he turned to her.

“I never asked Philip, but how did you get into that ship to begin with?” Kali asked him as they walked to their new ship.

“Oh you’d like to know huh? Think you are the only savvy one maybe?” He shot back.

“No, but seriously. It’s not that easy or fast to break into a ship, and somehow I doubt you have the technical knowhow.” She insisted. Couldn’t she just leave it? Maybe she had a skill to make sure he couldn’t have fun. They continued to walk as he tried to ignore her, refusing to answer the question. At some point she had even started poking him in the side with her horribly pointy fingers.

“Would you stop that? You’re like a kid! Maybe there is a good reason I’m not telling you!” He yelped at her as she poked him again.

“I’m not stopping until you tell me, and this is actually a lot of fun.” Her smile would have made the worst demon shudder with the amount of malice that was there. He knew she wouldn’t stop, and sighed.

“Alright, fine! It was open alright? The owner forgot to lock it…” He grumbled. Kali was laughing her ass off at his side while Xar also grinned at him. Traitor, he was supposed to be on his side.

“Real savvy huh?” She teased him. Curse that woman, Philip thought as they were finally in front of their new ship. It didn’t look impressive at all. It had enough weapons to probably not get into too much trouble. The ramp came down and they entered the main room. It was fairly big, he would admit. But the layout of the ship was so… boring.

It was basically like a fat sausage. Of course it wasn’t smooth and more rectangular, but he couldn’t get the image out of his mind. Some weapons poked out here and there, but the general shape was… not sexy. He guessed it was good for transport and long transit, but damn if he didn’t want to run back to the clerk and… That was it! He was a genius!

“Guys! Why didn’t we buy two ships?!” He exclaimed as they stopped their inspection of the ship. He was a genius! While they rode this boring garbage, maybe he could be on a nice ship, simmering in luxury! They could still cancel the buy until they left the station, so it wasn’t too late. His hopes were dashed as they both turned to look at him like he was stupid.

“Remember what she told you about leaking mana for all of the system to follow our ass?” Xar started. Oh. His elation left him as fast as it had come. Sure two ships left more mana than one, but was it really that much? Sadly he didn’t know enough and the other two clearly seemed to think so. Maybe next time, once they had laid low enough to be able to live a normal life.

“Fine, but I still hate this sausage ship.” Both Xar and Kali rolled their eyes at the expression.

“It’s not a sausage ship.” Kali defended, but Xar hesitated a bit more in his reply. Kali turned to him.

“Really?” She said, sounding betrayed.

“Well, look at it. It’s kind of a sausage design, more square for sure! Which I like, but it’s definitely a functional design rather than a nice one.” He said and Philip couldn’t help but smile. Maybe Xar wasn’t really a traitor.

“More like a flying brick.” Philip added and Xar chuckled.

“Well at least it’s going to get us to where we need alright? And what’s wrong with a simple design, sure it’s not pretty from the outside, but we’ll be inside for over a month. Maybe even two.” She said, arms crossed. Philip groaned despite himself. Of course the look was more important than functionality when it came to spaceships. Everyone knew that, but in this one instance, he would admit the interior was rather practical. Rooms and living space on the sides in the middle section, cockpit and weapons in the front, thrusters and other things he didn’t know enough about in the back. Simple but effective he would admit. Even a decent cargo hold.

“Fine, can we get going today?” Philip shot back after a pause. Xar nodded and jumped into the cockpit while they buckled up. They slowly flew back to the other ship. They still had to be careful just in case. Eyes darting left and right in search of the assassins, Philip sighed in relief as they arrived next to the other ship. It seemed they truly had left. It wasn’t that surprising as there wasn’t much to do without ships of their own.

Matt and Krovukk transported Maya into a bedroom where they put her down.They looked at each other meaningfully as they exited her room which made Philip raise an eyebrow. Had something happened? Shrugging it off, he buckled up as they took off. First stop, a station close by, after all, they had a lot of supplies to buy, like food and a shit ton of mana crystals. This was going to be a long trip from what he understood.

“Can we also buy gear maybe? Isn’t that girl Maya super rich? We could buy a shit ton of stuff no?” He asked the group as they were slowly flying through boring space.

“It takes too long. We can’t stay on a station unless it’s for a quick resupply, and once we are set, I’d rather not board another station as it might give away our path.” Xar told him from the cockpit.

“Yeah, we could buy some stuff, like scrolls, potions and the like, but good enchanted gear? That’s something you have to order, and we can’t really risk it now, can we?” Krovukk added.

“I guess, so one stop and then straight to the old world?” He asked, and it was clearly an uncomfortable topic. There was an awkward silence before Kali spoke up.

“Yepp, and pray we somehow manage to find this thing, and survive over there long enough for this to all blow over.” She tried to say it like it was a joke, but it obviously hit too close to home.

“And Maya, doesn’t she need a healer or something?” He asked and to his surprise, both Krovukk and Matt chorused at the same time.

“NO!” That was definitely unusual. They looked at each other and Krovukk continued.

“No need, she has a healing skill already working, so she’ll be fine. No need to worry.” He said a bit embarrassed. Strange, but he couldn’t care less right now. He just wanted to be out of here and out of danger right now.

“Alright. Fine. Good. So this is it? We’re off to the old world?” He asked them and they looked at each other.

“I guess we are. Just load up on mana and food and we are good to go. Might even buy some books for training too.” Xar said as he looked at Matt.

“If anyone of you wants to train in any specific style, tell me so I can take some related books. We might as well train on the trip. It’s going to be a long one.” Xar said as he sighed.

“Could you buy a variety of weapons for me to try?” Kali asked and he raised an eyebrow at that. Xar seemed pleased and nodded.

“I mean, if you want to see what style fits you, I can buy a lot of different things if you want. As I said earlier, nothing is going to be amazing, but you’ll get a feel for the weapon at least.” He said and she nodded. Trying to find her style huh? Maybe he should too. Combat was clearly not his strongest suit, but he also found it inelegant. He was a more cerebral man. Why fight when you could win before a fight even broke out? That was what he told himself as Xar looked at him, clearly thinking about how fun it was going to be to bully him in the name of training.

The trip was going to be long. Too long for his tastes, but it wasn’t like he could just run off on his own. It was too late for that now. He was stuck with these five idiots, for now.