"So I'm not the only one that's starting to suspect Empress Revi, right?" Stacey asked as she and Lorelie sat together in Spector's mess hall, looking at a large holographic screen of Adam undergoing his upgrade in the med bay.
He had informed them all about his plans to undergo the first in a group of genetic upgrades that would let him breathe and talk underwater just after departure.
Spector had departed Oceana Seven Space Station a few hours ago and was currently travelling at FTL towards Oceana Six.
On the space station before they departed, Lady Erkath had bid them all goodbye as she was going to use her own ship that she arrived on to return home to Deverinian Prime. She had only stayed on Oceana Seven so long because she wanted to attend Lorelie's concert, and now she needed to return home to work on the clothing designs that Adam had provided her with.
She had already sent a few preliminary designs back to her employees and told them to start work on some samples, but now she had to return and oversee their manufacture and the launch personally.
Rowena and Tephe were both travelling with them and were currently in the middle of playing a game on Adam's gaming console, a short distance away.
"No, you're not. I find it suspicious that a woman like Empress Revi, who has spent her life refusing all betrothal requests and keeping herself pure for 'that special someone,' as she puts it, would be so friendly with Adam.
Sure, he helped save her people and holds the title of Phoenix Friend; however, she is nowhere near as friendly with any of the other few individuals who hold that title.
She is well known for politely keeping a distance between any men and women she is not close with, and yet it seemed to me that she was flirting and making suggestive comments with Adam when they spoke before.
At first, I just thought it was her playful nature since Adam is the one who saved her race and is a friend of her goddaughter, but now I'm starting to think it's more." Lorelie answered.
"I'm starting to think her 'special someone' is definitely Adam.
People have always assumed that she meant she was waiting to meet someone special for the first time; however, maybe she meant she was waiting for that special someone to come back into her life."
"I agree, it's definitely not something people would consider. We wouldn't consider it if we didn't learn that they had met in the past.
I mean, how can she be waiting for someone to return into her life when she has lived twelve lifetimes? If that were the case, then the other person would also have to be a phoenix or one of the long-lived races.
However, as an empress, she would have surely made sure that they had met again by now if she could."
"Who would have thought that she would wait twelve lifetimes, or two thousand years for Adam? I have to admit that it's kind of romantic."
"It definitely makes her worthy to join his harem; the question is, what do we do about it?"
"For now, I think it's best if we do nothing and let nature take its course. If she has waited this long for Adam's return, I'm sure she has made plans and has ideas on how they can be together.
As long as she doesn't try to take him for herself, we should just watch and enjoy the show, maybe lend a hand when necessary."
"So we're both agreed that she is worthy of joining?"
"Although we will have to talk to her in the future, and also need more time to judge her character, but from what Tephe and Rowena have told us about her, I think she's a good candidate to join.
Also, having an Empress as a lover and girlfriend will dramatically help Adam in the future."
"What are you two whispering about? Come help me beat Rowena, she is too good at this game," Tephe suddenly called over."
"Fufufu, you're still a thousand years too early to beat me, little Tephe," Rowena replied as she imitated the sensei from an anime they had watched the other night.
"She got way too into that anime, didn't she?" Stacey commented before the two took one last look at Adam, and seeing that he was fine, they went to join the other two.
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"What?" Sakura asked in an annoyed tone when she saw who called her.
"What progress have you made on the job? The client won't stop bugging me for updates."
Ichiro replied while ignoring Sakura's rude greeting.
"My progress is that I have made no progress," Sakura replied in a dull tone as she continued what she was doing before the call came in.
"What?" How have you made no progress in so many days?"
"Well, I was all prepared to depart for Oceana Seven when I heard the news that Diva Lorelie's next stop on her Genre Tour will be the Felidae Galaxy.
So I thought to myself, 'Why travel all that way to steal something, only to come all the way back?'
I mean, the information you sent me states that the target ship is the very same ship Diva Lorelie is travelling on for her Genre Tour.
Why go looking for the ship when it will come to me in a few weeks anyway?"
"You can't be fucking serious." Ichiro cursed before saying in an annoyed tone, "This is why no one in the family likes you, you have no professionalism."
"I thought no one liked me because I'm a bastard child and only half Panthera?
Also, how can I be professional about a job I despise?"
"You may be a bastard and only half Panthera; however, you are extremely talented, more than any of your siblings, and even your mother can see that.
Why can't you just focus on the family business? If you did, you would become one of the most famous thieves in the history of the universe."
"And get me nowhere, you know as well as I do that the elders will never accept me since I'm only half Panthera, even my mother shows little interest in me, and yet you say she sees my talent."
"You know, as the leader of the family, your mother can't show favouritism."
"Bullshit, she showers my siblings in praise whenever they do a good job, and yet I don't even get a well done from her.
Honestly, I'm curious why she even bothered to have me if she was never going to love me or show me any attention."
"Fine, fine, think what you like.
I will think of an excuse to tell the client, just get the job done as soon as possible." Ichiro said before ending the call.
"You think I don't know what you're scheming.
There's only one reason you told me about the cloak in the first place." Sakura said in a cold tone.
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"What is it? You were told not to risk contacting me unless it was an emergency." A distorted voice said from a black screen.
"The TISF found one of the labs on Trillion."
"And what of it? They won't get anything from it, and they are bound to find them eventually. Don't tell me you contacted me just because of this?"
"You don't understand, they found a lab that wasn't hit by the EMP blast."
"Impossible, the EMP blast covered the entire planet; that's already been confirmed."
"Yes, it did, but somehow the lab wasn't affected by it."
"How is that possible? We didn't protect the lab against EMP, just in case we had to initiate the Ghost Protocol."
"That's still being investigated; however, the current hypothesis is that the protection we used to shield it from ships scanning the planet also protected it against the EMP blast."
"That wasn't supposed to happen. What about the other labs?"
"They have only found one so far."
"Fuck. What have they discovered from the lab?"
"I don't know, everything is being kept classified after what you had that lieutenant do. Only the Admiral, Administrator and those they have chosen have access."
"Damn, keep me informed about any further developments you hear."
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"What now? Don't tell me there's another problem."
"We might have to abandon the research station in the Sandanar Galaxy."
"You can't be serious, we only just got that thing fully operational, and now you want us to abandon it, you better have a damn good reason."
"At least one of the labs on Trillion remained unaffected by the EMP blast."
"What! How's that possible?"
"I don't know, but it did, and now the TISF have the lab consoles and are going through the data on them."
"Shit. Won't those consoles have logs regarding the transfer of test subjects to the space station, fuck.
Contact the station and have the personnel there abandon it before destroying it, before the TISF shows up.
Also, try to have our people in the TISF find out why the fuck the EMP didn't work on our own base. We can't let something like that happen again"