The Martial Unity

While war broke out between the homoarachnoids and the aquadites, EsoQuest Solutions had commenced its first mission through the stars.

”Engine active.”

”Heat sink systems activated.”

”Commencing start-up protocols.”

”Initiating stealth systems.”

The Stellarch’s crew rapidly began activating the Stellarch from its slumber, causing the spaceship to come online from its private space dock, armed with the state-of-the-art insulation technology to hide the presence of the Stellarch within it.

One of the many measures that EsoQuest Solutions had taken to hide its secrets was to prevent any associations between the Stellarch and the company. The space dock was not owned by EsoQuest Solutions, it was actually owned directly by Ria, who was not publicly known to be the owner of EsoQuest Solutions. To further obscure any connection to EsoQuest Solution, none of the five members of the party had any connections to anything owned by the company directly, not even having gone so far as to set foot in the company headquarters.

Neera handled everything that faced the front and only communicated with Ria indirectly after the creation of the company. By avoiding any association with the five of them, what the five of them did couldn’t be traced back to the company, and the people searching for the magical secrets of EsoQuest Solutions wouldn’t be able to find the five of them.

It allowed the five of them to do their thing with minimal impedance and stress.

”And we are ready to go.” Captain Sohhn turned towards the five owners of the company with an expectant expression, standing at the helm in the command room overseeing the dozens of crew members, operators, analysts, and technicians who manned the spaceship.

Ria nodded with a serious expression.

”Commence travel to System 52-22-67.”

VMMM

The spaceship grew more active as the thruster systems propelled it out of a closed box, among many other in the general vicinity of each other, all revolving around Gaia Prime at a mandated distance.

Those outside the spaceship merely saw a space harbor opening, nothing happening, and then the doors to the space harbor closing once more.

Not even the planetary surveillance systems of Gaia Prime, which were among the best that humanity could produce at scale, could catch a glimpse of the highly stealthy spaceship departing from its space harbor.

The proprietary stealth esoteric technology of the Esocline Federation, combined with the craftsmanship of the dwarves and the splurging of extremely valuable esoteric materials, had allowed for the creation of a highly capable craft unlike any other that existed in the world.

VMMM

The craft zoomed through the solar system at medium speeds, unnoticed by any of the countless observatories that were spread across the solar system. It did, of course, have to minimize energy consumption as much as was humanly possible. The greater the energy signature that needed to be concealed, the more difficult it was for the stealth system to hide it.

It wasn’t too long before they crossed the threshold beyond which spaceships were allowed to enter FTL travel. The moment the Stellarch reached the closest lagrange point, it swiftly entered superluminal.

”Monitoring metric tensor development.”

”Activating negatron matter pumps.”

”Activating warp drive engine.”

”Activating inertia stabilizers.”

WHOOSH!

In the blink of an eye, the world around them changed from a world of points to a world of flashing streaks as the vessel entered superluminal travel, warping the very fabric of space to extraordinary times to propel the vessel across the cosmos at extremely high speeds.

”Estimated time of arrival, five days,” Captain Sohhn spoke with a calm and composed tone.

It sucked that interstellar travel, even with superluminal technology, was this time-consuming. The anticipation and excitement that they felt was dampened by the time it took to get to their destination.

”I’m going to go calibrate my blood,” Misha remarked with an unperturbed tone of voice. Out of the five of them, she had been the most composed in her energy and enthusiasm, serving as a stabilizing agent.

Runark turned towards Ria with a grin, nudging her. ”Come on, let’s go to the sparring chamber.”

Ordinarily, frigates didn’t have sparring chambers for pathwalkers, certainly not pathwalkers of the fourth rank. But the Stellarch was not an ordinary frigate. It was made by dwarves, who could impart tremendous structural integrity to their spaceship.

”Now?” Ria raised an eyebrow.

”Do you have anything better to do?” Runark asked back. ”Come on, it’ll be fun. We haven’t done this in a while.”

Ria’s expression softened at those words. They used to spar together quite often when it was just the two of them, but since they got a party and formed a company, and since Runark had spent his time in the manifold training hard to grow stronger before their first operation, they hadn’t had the opportunity to.

She shrugged.

”Fine.”

She was also curious about how strong he had gotten with a few years of training in the manifold. Given that he did have a very high rate of growth, even if much slower than her own, she had no doubt that he would have some very solid progress.

”I want to watch,” Sternon raised a hand.

”Hehe, come one, come all, prepare to be blown away,” Runark grinned with confidence.

When the three of them entered the sparring chamber of the ship, an electromagnetic field was deployed to exponentially improve the structural integrity of the sparring chamber, its white, tiled walls glowing a little as a result.

Runark took his classical stance, his legs mostly centered while his hands were kept close together, he remained light on his feet, refusing to anchor them so as to allow him to move at any opportunity.

Ria didn’t need a stance. Her Martial Path was such that it was compatible with virtually any starting position as long as her posture and position were stable, but she nonetheless took a generic one anyway. Her amber eyes remained fixed on him.

”Ready when you are.”

Runark grinned.

”Here I come.”

WHOOSH