The area outside the garage turned into a violent battle. Bolts of energy shot out from blasters affixed to the Imperium soldier’s arms. They splashed against the ground and exploded as Franz’s crew dodged and tried to counter with their own attacks. The Imperium soldiers were quickly forced into a melee and drew energy blades to fight back.

  In the middle of the battle were Franz and Hayate. The pair danced around each other while their blades clashed. Neither was giving ground to the other; each swing of a sword was met with a near-perfect parry and counterattack. Their battle could easily be choreographed with how perfect their movements were.

  “Looks like you’ve improved a lot,” Franz observed as he stepped out of the way of a downward slash.

  “And looks like you’ve grown rusty!” Hayate smiled as he blocked Franz’s counterattack.

  “We can’t all spend our time honing our craft for hours a day,” Franz shot back. “Some of us have actual things to do.”

  “Your excuses won’t mean much when I beat you,” Hayate smirked.

  Hayate’s sword came in a horizontal arc. Franz jumped away from the attack and countered by lunging forward with his sword. Hayate anticipated the attack and dodged to the side. Before Franz’s attack could finish, he pulled his sword back. Then he quickly kicked downward at Hayate’s knee. The kick came suddenly and with intense force. Hayate’s leg crumbled underneath him as Franz’s foot slammed into his knee.

  Before Hayate could move to stand, Franz pointed his pistol at Hayate’s forehead. “Here is the thing, I may not be as good a swordsman as I used to be, but I’ve picked up some other tricks.”

  “Typical lowlife,” Hayate sneered. “I should have expected you would act this way now.”

  “The real world isn’t duels. I thought you would understand that with your transfer,” Franz said. “Now call off your men.”

  “Or what? You aren’t going to kill me. You’ve always been too soft,” Hayate said with a cocky grin.

  “You’re right,” Franz shrugged. “That’s not the type of guy I am.”

  Franz moved his pistol from Hayate’s forehead and pointed it towards his shoulder. Then he pulled the trigger, and a blast of energy slammed into Hayate’s shoulder. Smoke rose from the burning flesh on Hayate’s shoulder, and he let out an otherworldly scream.

  “But I will do that,” Franz said before he turned away from Hayate. “Oh, boys, looks like your captain is injured. You should check on him.”

  Franz drew the soldiers’ attention from their respective fights. With that brief lapse in attention, the crew turned the battle to their advantage. A vial slammed into one of the soldiers and exploded into a powerful air current. The air current was so intense that it ripped apart the soldier’s armor as it threw him to the ground. Blaster fire ripped into another one of the soldiers, turning his armor into a smouldering mess. Elio’s halberd dug deep into the final soldier’s chest. Then, with a colossal swing, he threw the soldier across the battlefield. The soldier bounced multiple times until he landed by Franz and Hayate.

  “Good enough,” Franz shrugged. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  Franz quickly turned and ran towards the ship. The rest of the crew quickly followed behind Franz. Once they entered the ship, it was already running, and they each took their seats. They barely had enough time to initiate their straps before Kelsa slammed a lever down. The ship shot off with incredible speed. The force of the sudden acceleration created intense pressure on everyone in the ship. Franz gripped the arms of his chair tightly as the ship accelerated faster and faster.

  The take off of the ship sent a strong gale against Hayate and his men. As the gale calmed, Hayate forced himself back to his feet. He could barely stand, and his shoulder was in intense pain. He ignored all of the pain and glared as the ship flew away.

  “What now?” The soldier beside Hayate asked as he stood up. The armor around his chest broke away and fell to the ground as he stood.

  “We report back to headquarters. There is no longer a chance for negotiation. We will annihilate anyone allied with that dragon,” Hayate said venomously as he spat on the ground. He then turned to limp away from the sight of the battle. “Get up! We have a lot of work to do.”

  Groans echoed as the soldiers forced themselves to stand up. They wordlessly followed Hayate. Neither dared to speak as they could feel his intense anger at the situation. He had stuck his neck out for his old rival. While he did not agree with Franz’s choice, he still held some respect for him. With the failed negotiation, Hayate now had no choice but to kill him, and he would do it personally.

  ***

  Kelsa did not want to risk capture, so she went full speed all the way back to The Great Trial. The constant acceleration made everyone more focused on holding on than on any discussion. Luckily, the speed made it so they arrived back quickly. Once they arrived and parked, Franz let out a massive sigh of relief.

  “I don’t ever want to have to accelerate like that again,” Franz said in between deep breaths.

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  “Don’t complain,” Kelsa said aggressively. “It was the only way to make certain that the Imperium wouldn’t catch us.”

  “I’m pretty sure we got away a long time ago,” Tal moaned. “I think you just wanted an excuse to go fast.”

  “I wanted to go fast. The Imperium was after us. It’s really a win-win,” Kelsa shrugged.

  “No use in arguing about it now,” Elio said. “We are back, and we have work to do.”

  “He’s right, for once,” Felice nodded. “After that attack, we can’t be sure how much longer we have until the Imperium attacks.”

  Franz groaned while he stood up. His legs wobbled as he tried to take steps forward. The force of the flight must have caused his body to face considerable fatigue. He was forced to hold on to his chair as he tried to keep standing. He looked towards the rest of the crew and saw they were all in a similar condition. Tal and Felice were in a similar condition as they stood up. Elio, on the other hand, walked just fine. Franz shot a glare as Elio walked through the hall.

  “What? Nubleans are used to extreme pressure,” Elio said as he noticed glares from the rest of the crew.

  Kelsa then stood up and briskly walked down the hallway without struggle. “Sucks to be them, right?”

  “That just means you have to start working while we recover,” Franz shot back in irritation.

  “Fine, it is better than barely being able to stand,” Kelsa shrugged before she tapped Elio on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go get everything out of the ship. Maybe we will be finished before these crybabies are done recovering.”

  Elio let out a hearty chuckle as he exited the ship with Kelsa following closely behind him. Franz grew more irritated by their attitude and tried to force himself to stand. His body may have been fatigued from the trip, but he was not going to let them show him up. He forced himself to continue down the hallway, using the wall to help keep himself standing.

  “I’ll show those two,” Franz growled.

  “You do that,” Tal sighed as he sat back down and closed his eyes. “This is the perfect excuse to take a nap.”

  Franz ignored Tal as he slowly continued down the hallway. By the time he reached the exit, he could feel the strength start to return to his legs. He straightened his posture as he walked out of the ship and saw Kelsa, Elio, and Apell working.

  “I thought you were going to be finished before I recovered?” Franz said with a grin.

  “Congrats, you recovered faster than I thought. Now you get to help us work,” Kelsa rolled her eyes.

  Franz shrugged and joined Elio and Kelsa. Apell directed the group to a section of the garage to drop off the supplies. They worked in silence as they transferred the supplies. Eventually, Felice joined them, and they finished quickly. The use of storage devices made moving supplies a relatively quick task. The only reason it took even a little bit of time was because of the sheer volume of supplies.

  As they finished their work, Lutz entered the garage. His eyes lit up as he saw Franz and the dragon dash through the garage. His heavy footsteps echoed throughout the building before he crashed into Franz. Lutz’s paws held Franz’s shoulders to the ground as he stood atop Franz.

  “You’re back!” Lutz yelled enthusiastically.

  “Yes, I am,” Franz groaned as he struggled on the ground. “Could you let me up, though?”

  “Oh, right, sorry about that. I was just really excited,” Lutz said as he carefully stepped off of Franz.

  Franz groaned as he pushed himself off the ground. Then he ran his hand down Lutz’s head. The smoothness of Lutz’s scales felt calming. Lutz hummed softly as Franz’s hand brushed his head.

  “You just have to remember how big you are,” Franz said gently. “You are going to get even bigger. So, you can’t just throw me down like that.”

  “Oh, I’ll try to remember,” Lutz said as he bowed his head.

  “I’m not mad. It’s just a reminder,” Franz smiled.

  Lutz smiled in response and moved closer to Franz. The dragon circled Franz and wrapped his body around Franz before he lay down. Even while lying, Lutz’s body came up to Franz’s hip. He continued to let out a gentle hum as he cuddled around Franz.

  “So, you had an encounter with the Imperium?” Apell asked as Lutz settled.

  “Yes, it seems like there was some sort of leak about our location,” Franz nodded.

  Apell rubbed his head in stress. “Great, that means the situation is a lot worse than we could have imagined. They probably know about all the supplies.”

  “I imagine they will gear up in anticipation of that now,” Franz said. “The battle will be even harder fought than we thought.”

  “I agree. I was really banking on having an element of surprise. Now we can’t even be sure who to trust back on Nubleas,” Apell nodded.

  “It probably would be best not to provide any more information to Nubleas,” Franz suggested. “At this point, we can’t be sure who is listening in. Also, I would get started on preparing for battle. If they were willing to intercept us, they would probably push to fight us soon. I am not even sure if they will allow negotiations with the Nublean government to continue.”

  “I’ve seen this before,” Elio spoke up. “The Imperium will not stop until they accomplish their goals. In situations they consider extreme, they will ignore the home planet’s government.”

  “I was worried about that,” Apell sighed as he walked to the boxes of supplies. “We will definitely need to work fast. I have something to show you.”

  Lutz stood up as Franz walked towards Apell. Everyone followed as Apell looked for a specific crate amongst the supplies. He finally settled on an especially large metal crate. The crate had a verification device sealing it shut. Apell placed his hand on the verification device, and a light blue light flashed. As the light settled, the crate popped open. Everyone leaned over to look at the crate while Apell opened it. Inside the crate was a large head-shaped object. The object looked like a smooth, reflective helmet and was at least half of Franz’s height.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Franz asked with wide eyes.

  “Yep, I was able to get a few frames in the shipment. They are nothing too sophisticated, just some Gladius models, but I doubt the Imperium will be expecting these. We kept them especially secret,” Apell said with a broad smile. “So, could you wake that engineer of yours up? We need to get these built.”