Rika Fujimaru and Somney used a teleporter to board the bridge of the Lion's Mane, so now Conrad Cotz is the only one left on the Storm Frontier who can move freely.

This wonderful fact made Coates want to laugh a little.

He would say that the strategy was stupid and short-sighted. None of his other brothers, or even anyone with basic judgment, could have made such a decision. Leave a former rebel against the Empire, who has not regretted it, who has never truly repented, who is not yet 100% sure of his friendship, and who is left alone in his most important command unattended. No one in their right mind can do such a thing.

However Rika Fujimaru ...... Sometimes it's really hard to say she's in good spirits. At least that's what Koz thinks.

If there was one more living person on this ship, this would not have happened. It's just that Coz himself will not refuse this kind of decision in his favor, and Somney is not a "living person" in every sense: he may put forward a little opinion or suggestion of his own, but when it comes to implementation, he always chooses to follow the orders of Rika Fujimaru.

Coates didn't know if it had anything to do with the pact between them, and he didn't care about it. He just walked down the hallway as he pleased, like a shadow slipping by, silent and without a trace.

The Storm Frontier is a "different" ship on many levels, as Koz has long understood. First and foremost, it is clear that it did not come from the Empire. The technology, equipment, overall layout, and even the size, functionality, and decoration of any ship in the history of the empire are far from them. The second is that it's bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside.

Much bigger.

From the outside, this silvery-white, simple, sleek boat is very small, no more than 70 meters long and less than 10 meters wide. This is an awkward size by Imperial standards: it is neither large enough to crush other aircraft capable of fighting in the atmosphere in aerial combat, nor small enough to be nimble enough for enemy attacks to miss. If one day the ship had to be put into combat, Coates would say that he was not optimistic about the Storm Frontier's combat effectiveness.

But in reality, the ship was not only used for combat. Judging from the bow impact angle and electromagnetic shield, the Storm Boundary does have some combat capabilities, but in the actual combat in the past few months, it is obviously used more as a command to collect intelligence and sit in the rear to support. And when there is no fighting, the real unbelievable place of the ship is revealed:

This small ship, which can be considered a troop carrier in the definition of the Empire, is used to "live".

Private rooms, cafeterias, libraries, simulation training rooms, music rooms, small theaters, ...... The ship is uncharacteristically packed with space that is significantly larger than it seems, and contains too many amenities that can only be used for the enjoyment of life. This in itself wasn't surprising, as was the Nightfall, or the vast majority of ships built by the Empire for long-distance voyages - but the problem was that the Storm Frontier was much smaller than the behemoths.

On the one hand, this design idea is very inconsistent with the concept of "everything has to make way for combat effectiveness" of Imperial warships; On the other hand, the Storm Boundary did succeed in accommodating the volume it shouldn't have been. It's like now: Coetze has walked a hundred and fifty meters down this straight corridor in the "dormitory area", but he hasn't reached the end of it yet. On the outside of the ship, that's enough distance to walk around the entire Storm Frontier.

In a sense, the interior of the ship...... How much with a little bit of subspace in nature. While inside the Storm Boundary, Conrad Coz often felt a sense of harmless disobedience, as if a person accustomed to living in a square room was suddenly transported into a circular room, which was essentially the same, but somewhat unaccustomed.

Perhaps it was because of this peculiarity and some effect that Koz didn't know about that Rika Fujimaru dared to leave him alone on the ship. The thought flashed through his mind, and was immediately dismissed by himself: he did sometimes feel a sense of disobedience aboard the Storm Boundary, but he didn't think there was anything on the ship that could really threaten him.

He stopped at a door that seemed indistinguishable from the ones he had passed before. He knew that one of his genetic offspring was closed in that door.

This may be some kind of ability that he shared from her through his contract with Fujimaru Rika, some kind of control over the "contract". It's funny to put it in words: he's strengthened his ability to make a contract because of a contract......

Okay.

Coetzes didn't succeed in making himself laugh. He just stood quietly in front of that door, quietly feeling the invisible bond between the primordial body and the heir of the legion, which Rika Fujimaru called the "base contract".

It was a strange feeling: he had never known and never cared about such trivial things as where his theoretical heir was being kept on the ship, what he was doing these days, and how he was doing. But when he started to inquire, he naturally came to the right place, and the corresponding information flowed into his mind without delay when he wanted to know.

He didn't have the ability to let his gaze penetrate the building materials, nor was he free to let himself pass through the solid during the Trials Illusion. But he just knew that behind the closed door was a room that had been destroyed by a natural disaster, and that one of his genetic heirs reigned over it like the eye of a typhoon.

The renegade Astarte, like any prisoner, was unarmoured, and wore only a simple mass-produced robe. He had pale skin, messy scars, dark pupils, and a tyrannical demeanor, just like any Midnight Lord should be. He stayed quiet, not because of the calm, but because there was really nothing around him that allowed him to continue to destroy. Conrad Coetzes knew this, for he could read the shame and anger burning in his heart.

This man still harbors a certain sense of revenge, some dark and weak thoughts that cannot be put on the table. Koz scoffed at these things, but for the Astarte, they were enough of a motive to keep him going. As long as he is given even the slightest chance, a violent wind will blow again around the seemingly calm eye of the storm.

Ten thousand years later, his genetic heirs are still this virtue. And this has even been cherry-picked.

Coetzes was not impressed. If he wanted to know, he could immediately know who the man's last name was, but he didn't want to. He looked away from the door, but the sense of the contract was not broken. He continued to walk forward silently, but he could still feel Astarte hesitantly looking at the door in the room that he could not open by himself, and there was a hint of hope in his eyes—as if he could see Coz himself quietly coming and walking quietly in the hallway through the completely opaque material.

This made Koz feel a kind of repulsion, and he couldn't help but complain in his heart: how Fujimaru Rika's contract strengthened this thing still went both ways.

Then, he chose not to "see" so closely. He walked around the small corridor unobtrusively, "observing" all the Legionnaire heirs he had found so far. Eighteen rooms, neatly arranged in two rows on either side of the hallway, nine in a row - given their current situation, it's hard to say that nothing has ever affected this reality.

Some of these people were as irritable as the first, some were desperate for some reason, some had unrealistic illusions about the future, and some even knelt down in prayer for some reason—but none of them realized their past mistakes, and none of them sincerely repented.

This made Koz feel a little disappointed, but at the same time relieved. It's not that he still has any vague hopes for the character of his heir, he just thinks that Rika Fujimaru might be able to do something about it. Theoretically she could, and apparently, in fact she did nothing.

Since she hadn't done anything, he should have no qualms about doing it when the worst of the future foreseen by Conrad Coetze came true.

He saw an omen, which was why he suddenly searched for the place of his heir on a whim:

He saw that he would soon kill all the Midnight Lords on the ship. And he would, if necessary.

-----------------

"So during the Great Expedition, there lived on this planet an alien civilization that worshipped the blue bird god?" Rika Fujimaru struggled to hold the data board that suited Astarte's size, frowning as she read the Lionmane's battle report.

Fortunately, the ship was also involved in orbital bombardment at the time, and was part of the Firewing, so it retained a large part of what it was at that time. It's hard to say how combat operations 10,000 years ago would have helped to understand the current situation, but Rika Fujimaru still decided not to let go of the slightest detail.

She even regretted a little, but it was a pity that neither the STC of the data board nor the compilation of the Firewing had been successfully preserved until 10,000 years later.

"Yes." Ranmarok had no way of knowing her thoughts, but dutifully presented what he knew, "Also, at the time of the orbital bombardment, there were ships reporting that they had detected perverse subspace fluctuations. ”

"Do you still have the waveform from that time?"

"The Dark Angels won't be missed."

The corresponding data is even stored in the attachment of the same data board. After successfully finding it, Rika Fujimaru only glanced at it, and then handed the data board to Somney behind him: "Please, please fit the data at that time and the subspace fluctuations that can be naturally monitored now, I feel that this thing that is happening now is most likely not an isolated case." By the way, remember to consider the impact of the 'Great Rift' on today's real-world environment, and consider the magnification when comparing the data from 10,000 years ago. ”

Somney took the data board: "Analysis is underway...... But I don't think that will help the current situation. ”

"No, it's important to figure out whether it's the 'first time it happened' or 'it's already happened,' and the symbolism is completely different." Fujimaru Rika explained, and shrugged her shoulders indifferently, "It's okay if you don't understand, you are a ship in the material world, and there is no need to think so clearly about the affairs of subspace." ”

…… It's really stressful when you think it through. Rika Fujimaru, who finally realized that she had already unknowingly stood on the chessboard, smiled bitterly.

It can only be said that it is okay, she has long been mentally prepared - after all, it is for this that she left the Star Torch.

-----------------

It was almost dusk when the lights suddenly lit up in the cargo station's hangar.

"Jacob, the march has been suspended due to security concerns." Aelita's voice was calm, and she couldn't hear any sense of emotional leaning.

"Didn't you say it last night, martial law in the whole city." Sevita narrowed her eyes and adjusted her vision blurred by the change in light, and responded in a similarly calm tone, "But I thought your reaction would be greater, you did seem to want to go to the inner city before. ”

He didn't look up, still busy with his own business. According to the original itinerary, they were supposed to leave the First City at noon on the ninth day of the celebration, after the speech of the original Hastings technical officer, and return to the Fourth Agricultural Production Planning District, where they originally belonged. He started a day in advance to check the condition of the transport vehicles he was responsible for and make the relevant preparations, and there were no problems at all.

Although he is not just doing these jobs.

Sevita waited for a while while doing something, but didn't wait for Aelita's next sentence. This is a bit unusual for a girl who is always energetic and seems to have endless things to say.

This abnormality made Sevita deign to stop what he was doing while being inexplicable, and raised his eyes to care a little about the little girl who was always glued to him: "What's wrong?" ”

He asked aloud, and Aelita seemed to wake up from a trance: "Ah! It's okay. I was wondering if Rika would be able to find us if we left for the Fourth District. ”

Sevita stared at the little girl for a few more seconds before turning back to face the mechanical structure at her hand, "Who knows, I can't say. Maybe she'll be there tomorrow before we leave, maybe she'll be so powerful that she'll be able to find out where we're stationed after we're gone, or maybe she'll never be there again. ”

“…… Don't you know either? Aelita's tone sounded a little unwilling.

Once again, Sevita looked over inexplicably: "Should I know?" ”

"But you seem to know everything......"

"I don't really know everything, and besides, all you asked in the past was something intellectual."

"What will happen in the future, do you really not know?"

Sevita stood up abruptly—

…… But she ...... To put it this way...... Any questions......?

His mind seemed to start to rust, and he didn't realize it.