Location: Magicon Empire; Armortec Duchy; Cintman System; PAS Andala

After Maja and Ellie left, we all rush to our respective rooms to put on something nice. Obviously, I go with a dark purple dress that almost looks black when there's no direct lighting. The outfit is finalized with my trusted magnetic heels and a few vanity spells for my hair and make-up.

Some ten minutes later, I'm back out in the hallway and almost collide with my waiting friends.

"Finally," Lucy sighs and starts walking toward the elevator. She wears some dress pants and a white blouse together with the same heels I'm wearing. We bought them together after all.

I look at Alina and Lydia and shrug, then we all follow Lucy. Lydia went with a dark green dress while Alina also chose a pant and blouse combination. The four of us make a nice-looking quartet, I'd say!

A minute later we're back at the airlock and Clara opens it. We step through and enter the tube that connects the two starships. The Andala's airlock opens as soon as we're close to it and I cry out in excitement.

"Tommy!" I rush forward and grab my oldest friend in a big hug.

"Hi Sari, long time no see," he replies and returns my hug. Lucy and Lydia exchange their own greetings with Simon and Shay in the meantime. After a few minutes, we switch and I greet the others and introduce the three of them to Alina.

After that, Thomas leads us into the Andala and slowly toward the hangar bay of the ship. On the way, we talk about the things we did in the past months which causes a few laughs and shocked looks on both sides. Especially our most recent adventure in the Vexton System amazes them.

Simon is the most vocal on this. "Hell, now I wish I would be attending FBC as well," he chuckles.

Lucy playfully shoves his shoulder. "Say that again when you look a T-Rex in its maw."

He gulps. "Yeah, true…"

Then we arrive at a big double door with the letters hangar bay above it. Thomas stops before it. "The crew is inside, are you ready, Sara?"

I nod at him. "Yeah, let's get It over with. I'd love to get to know the people who'll go to Earth with us."

He chuckles and waves his hand which opens the door. We're immediately assaulted by a clamor of lots of voices in a confined space. We step over the threshold and I notice Maja and Ellie standing atop a few crates to the right.

Our gazes meet and she waves for me to come over. Ellie sees me as well and gives a sharp whistle which silences the room. "Please make way for our guests."

A small corridor opens between the assembled Peacekeeper cadets and the four of us follow it toward Maja and Ellie. Thomas, Shay, and Simon stay behind. Maja extends her hand and helps me atop the crate. The other three stay down below. I look over the assembled crew and smile.

Maja clears her throat and starts speaking. "Thanks for coming here so quickly. We have an important announcement to make today. As you probably have guessed already, we made it into the Earth adventure as predicted by Commander Lackney a few months ago."

She waits a moment for the inevitable cheers. And cheer they do. The noise is almost deafening in the confined room. Maja smiles at her crew and waits for the noise to die down.

"I'm proud of every single one of you! You made this possible, and without your hard work and support, I wouldn't be standing here today to make that announcement. This is for you!" Both she and Ellie start clapping when another round of cheers emerges from the crowd.

"Today's weird encounter with the other starship in sector 68 ties into that and is also the reason why I called for the assembly here in the hangar bay." She points at me. "This is Sara, an old friend of mine and a very strong Space Mage. She's currently studying at FBC right in the center of The Empire on planet Terra. You can probably guess why she's here with us… Now without further ado, please give her a warm welcome!"

Wow, Maja certainly learned how to rally up a crowd. The cheers are even louder than before and I give them a shy wave. Finally, the noise dies down and I clear my throat.

"Thanks, Maja… Err captain." That earns me a few chuckles which breaks the last bit of tension among the crew. "As my friend pointed out already, my name is Sara Green. I'm a Space and Utility Mage and also the captain of the Stargazer which is currently connected to your ship. I could tell you a lot more about myself, but that's not why you're here for… Now, I can happily confirm what Captain Yarin hinted at already. The Andala and her crew will be joining me and my team on the Earth adventure as our protective detail!"

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I wait out another round of cheers and whistles before I lift my hand. "But that's not all. There's one more detail that even your captain doesn't know about yet." I pause for a short wink at Maja.

"You are not the only ones who will join our group during the Earth adventure. There will also be a transportation company led by other friends of mine who will be taking care of our supplies."

A popup on my interface greets me. It's a text message from Maja. She's asking me if I'm talking about Jack, Alex, Greg. I smile and give her a quick nod. She grins broadly.

I focus back on the assembled Peacekeeper cadets. "And finally, I'm not the sole leader of our Earth team as it will be supplemented by Lisa Song who will also be taking on a leadership role."

Now that causes a reaction that almost overshadows everything that happened before. There are whispers of "Big Five," "Lisa fucking Song," and who knows what else. I'm too distracted by watching Maja and Ellie's faces losing all composure as well.

"You're kidding me, right?" Ellie manages to blurt out and I shake my head.

"Nope, it's true. Lisa and some of her inner circle will be joining our team."

"Why…? And more importantly, how?" Maja asks after a short moment of stunned silence.

Oh boy, I'm enjoying this way too much. I shrug and grin. "It's a long story that started with me becoming one of Lisa's retainers and ended with Duchess Song basically forcing her daughter onto our team. So here we are."

"You've met a Duchess?" Ellie sputters.

"Yep, actually, it was only a few days ago, so the development is brand new as well."

Ellie's mouth is working but no words come out. Did I break her?

Another message appears on my interface. "You've got some explaining to do! And don't even think about revealing your identity to Ellie anytime soon. I think that'll thoroughly break her."

I almost laugh out loud when I read the last part. Maja is thinking the same! I give her a quick thumbs-up, indicating that I'll definitely explain as soon as I can.

Things slowly wind down after that, and I find myself in Maja's office some 45 minutes later. Our group is much smaller now and only consists of Thomas, Shay, Simon, Maja, and the four of us from the Stargazer. Ellie has already left, telling us that she has to take care of the crew. We all know that she read the situation correctly and wanted to leave us alone to talk about some private stuff. No one called her out on that of course, and I made a mental note to do something for her in the future. She seems to be a good friend to Maja.

Anyway, our group of friends exchanges a few more stories, and I fill in the others on everything that happened between myself and Lisa Song. We continue to talk for the whole evening.

Before long, it's way past midnight which means we have to leave if we want to arrive on time for the next week of lessons. And we can't miss the Exploration course! After tearful goodbyes and promises to do weekly calls now that the blackout is lifted, the four of us find ourselves back on the Stargazer.

Clara is already disengaging the docking tube and the two starships slowly start to drift apart. Then the drives engage, and both ships move away even further. Lydia does a quick confirmation call with someone from Commander Lackney's staff, then she nods at me. Seconds later, purple light swallows our ship and we move to another place, hundreds of light years away.

Location: Magicon Empire; Magicon System; Terra; Imperia; FBC

It takes about a day until we're back in the Magicon System. From there, it'll take probably another six to eight hours until the Stargazer arrives at her docking station. Luckily, we don't have to wait that long, and I teleport the four of us back to our dorm on campus while Clara pilots the ship back to the station.

She left something like a mini AI behind whose sole task is to reconnect with her main chip near my ear as soon as I arrive. The issue with cutting the connection with a teleport still stands after all. Clara's stopgap solution is only possible as the Magicon System is developed so heavily. There are a lot of signal boosters spread across the whole star system. Their sole purpose is to enable what Clara and I just did. Because no one wants to wait in traffic for hours if they can just teleport.

We arrive in our rooms on Sunday evening, just as we planned. Lucy called ahead and asked both Tim and Nick to make a reservation in one of the countless restaurants in Imperia for the six of us.

Clara informs us that they found something special and will meet us in about an hour in our dorm. That causes quite a rush among us as we all still want to take a shower before. Luckily everyone has their own little bathroom attached to their room so we manage.

An hour later, the boys knock on our door and Alina lets them inside. Lucy and I take another five minutes to finalize things, then we're ready to leave. Tim teleports us to one of the jump rooms below the main city. From there, we take the subway train and travel for another two stations. If my sense of orientation is correct, we now should be somewhere at the edge of the central district of Imperia. Right where the giant towers end, and the normal-sized towers start. They are still tall as hell, but not touch-the-clouds-and-pierce-them tall.

When we step out of the elevator on ground level, I see that I was right. To our left starts the city center and to our right, the smaller towers start. Nick and Tim lead us to one of them where we take another elevator. I expect it to move upward, but instead, it moves down again.

"Huh, what's happening?" I ask.

Tim smiles back at me. "You'll see."

The elevator arrives with a ding, and we enter a sparsely lighted hallway. At the end of it, there's a sliding door with a sign above it. It reads Ben's. Just Ben's in a cursive font, nothing else.

Tim leads the way and the door opens before him. A waiter greets us upon entering and asks for our reservations. Tim takes care of it as well, and the waiter leads us down another hallway. It's weird, there's no big open space or anything, just doors left and right of the hallway. Finally, the waiter stops at one of them and it opens. He beckons us inside and I'm surprised again.

It's an antechamber with another door leading out of it on the opposite side. It immediately reminds me of an airlock. The door in the back opens once the waiter closes the other one behind us. Then I can finally see a table and chairs and the waiter asks us to sit down.

"Have you been here before?" He asks and we all shake our heads.

"Alright, then guessing from the confused looks most of you are giving me, you don't even know what our restaurant is about… So let me explain. Ben's is a restaurant specializing in dinners in the dark. This means once I leave this room, the lights will go out and you will be in complete darkness. Next, someone will bring you your drinks and food which will be a surprise for you to discover. Therefore, you have now the chance to send me any allergies or things you don't like on your interfaces. Afterward, we recommend turning off your holographic overlay for the full-on experience. With that, I wish you a pleasant stay at Ben's. If you need anything, just call out my name, Jonathan, and I will be right with you."

I stare at Nick and Tim who both grin like madmen. When did I agree to do something crazy like this?

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