Chapter 1: The Theft

As Zel's ship cruises through the vast emptiness of intergalactic space, he stared out of the ship's window just like many times before. There is nothing in human history quite like the present. The dormant human genes coursing through his veins had no answer for the current scenario he is in. Ever since the dawn of technology, humans have been walking in the vast wastelands of life beyond the grasp of natural selection all by themselves, until the discovery of two other species that have ascended beyond too.

The Rockies and the Aquarian.

Zel never ever thought about what lies beyond the confines of the very ship he grew up in. Anyone can fantasize about the great wonders of seemingly endless space, and yet most ceases the pointless act of imagination when their next meal is threatened, and they could be booted out into the harsh vacuum beyond the metal sheets and the shields. He has gotten out of the wild regions for years by now, and still some of his past memories still managed to slip through his icy defense and ambush him when he was at his weakest in the darkest nights.

The dreams of his past, when he was with her. She was the only shining light in his darkened past, but now, he has more. He has someone who he can trust, and perhaps even call friends.

Well if anything Rydel is already treating Zel as a friend, and Valerie seems quite nice too.

They have departed from Athena 3 a few days ago, and are making steady progress towards the capital, and now that things have finally settled down for a little while, Zel couldn't help but allow his mind to wonder back many many months, when he was on a similar journey away from Athena 3, but with a totally different purpose, a totally different ship and a totally different mindset.

'Have you heard about it? Every one is talking about it...'

'The biggest score ever in the wild regions, and it was right under neath the Grey Wolf's nose...'

'The Grey Wolf had almost declared war on the Black Pegasus, though it all went quiet all of a sudden...'

The chatters amongst those crawling in the black markets of Black Pegasus eventually came within Zel's radar through one of his former contacts. Zel had heard rumors about the new developments, though the details have past him.

'Have you heard about it? The fattest fish caught ever?' Through the scruffy and muddled hologram call done by Zel's contact, his suppressed voice faded in and out of the background noises.

'Tell me more about it.' Zel responded, and then with the flick of a notificaiton, a file package was sent to him.

'The biggest bounty for the biggest score, fitting.' The contact replied and narrated as Zel looked over the details on the package, 'some next generation energy core that was supposed to be used for a new sets of acceleration gates was stole two months ago, and lead to major delays between the connection between the Grey Wolf and his allies. The loss was not only monetary, but also political.

'There is reasons to believe that the Thieves Guild is behind this.'

'So?' Zel tried hard to hide his surprise, and he was fairly certain that none slipped through his brief reply.

'Look, I don't know if you were ever entangled with those low lives in the past, but despite the facts that they have come out and denied responsibiltiy, nobody trusts a thief, and none should.' The contact continued on, 'The Grey Wolf almost marched into the Black Pegasus, but he stopped last minute.'

'Why?' Zel asked, 'I am not interested in your camp side stories. you say you had a tip of something big, don't waste my time.'

'Ah, Zel, you are as cold as always.' The Contact said, clearly amused, 'have you made any friends in the settled regions yet?'

'....'

'Not to digress. I didn't forget about your request, and that's why I keyed you in.'

There are few things Zel knew about her, apart from her angelic smiles, he knew that she had a past in the thieves guild, or formally known as the Guild of Thieves. So when he first started doing 'business' in the boundaries of the settled regions and the wild regions, he has made it clear to his contact to let him know whenever something big is happening with the thieve's guild. She is not coming back, but perhaps he would be able to learn more about her past and know her a little better, for what it's worth.

'Like I said, the highest bounty we have seen.' The contact continued on, 'that's not for no reason. I have good sources to tell me that a big sum was payed to the Guild of Thieves in order to figure out exactly how they managed to go past some of the Grey Wolf's best security personnel and stole the thing from right underneath their noses. And the thing is even the best thieves in the guild couldn't figure it out. Hence, the quote came about.'

'Is that the work of a magician?'

'No, that's the work of a thief. One hell of a thief.'

The quote sounded familiar, and struck something within Zel.

'Now, the Grey Wolf finally knew how to stop wasting his time and simply dropped a big bounty. Now, I know you ain't exactly the bounty hunting type, but you sure has the impressive resume of one, excluding your recent...adventures.'

Zel has no interest in arguing, let alone question how his contact knew of this information.

'So just in case you decided to pursue this further, I have exclusively prepared the data package you have just received. When it's done, don't forget who tipped you off in the first place.'

Exclusive my ass. The contact has at least lined up another thirty people just like Zel and sent out the exact same package to each and one of them, but it doesn't matter. Zel shut off the transmission and dived in deeper in the details. Magician? Nothing like that exists in this reality. There is only those individuals who are impossibly good.

Let's see how impossibly good this thief is, perhaps he would be able to monitor the activities in the Grey Wolf's region and help Rydel with his mission while earning a handsome sum in the process. Then, he saw the actual amount awarded for the bounty.

Five billion credits in currency of choice or worth of items.

Damn. That's something else.

Zel continued on, and the description of the case was presented.

The acceleration gates to be built between the Grey Wolf and some of his closest allies are both a show of might and friendship, as it's powered by the condensed core which can power lasers that have the power of a star, accelerating ships to supremely high speeds. There are plenty of stars in the sky, but the technology to condense so much energy at such high density is something even Zel has never heard of. It shouldn't be possible, which is why none of the acceleration gates he has seen used in the settled regions use the technology that's been briefly described here.

With all the energy, it must have been condensed and stored somewhere, and it's not just the core itself, there must be some sort of super advanced containment unit, and it must be something that's ultra portable too.

'Artifact, you up?' If anyone around him knows up impossible technology, it might be the impossible technology living parasitically in his body all the time.

Yes, locking down extremely high pockets of energy is at the same level of power as the artifacts, and none of your current toys are remotely close to being able to handle this. Something is probably going on, but I cannot remember any details beyond this.

'OK, but do you think any artifact user would settled for a permanent shift by a traffic stop?'

From all the ones before you, no.

'Then it's the 'pseudo-artifacts' Rydel and others have talked about... Regardless, it's worth investigating.'

And the money.

'Ah, of course. Five billion will be more than enough to set both of us free.' Zel nodded with a smile, and seeing as there is no further reply coming from the artifact, he assumed that it has returned to its slumber once again.

It has been a while since any bounty hunter came after him. A few years in wild regions timeline is almost like an eternity, and he is no longer anywhere near the highest bounty in this day and age, and certainly nowhere near the billion credit magnitude. Though Zel could never fully rest when he knew there might always be someone lurking at the corner and pointing a gun at his head.

The first place he would need to go to at least get an idea of what has transpired would be to the scene of the crime. Knowing that, he took his usual route and dived into the wild regions.

He has dipped in and out of the edge of the settled regions so many times that the journey has become a second nature, and before long he has found himself in the wild regions once more and only a handful of days from his intended destination.

So what are you going to do when you get there?

Strangely so, it appeared that his artifact has taken an interest in this particular case, as it rarely speaks if not spoken to. Currently, Zel is simply lying in the pocket domain which is locked on to the most convenient ship that's going towards his destination.

'I am not a tracker, but if I can figure out the thief's psychology and strategy to pull off this thing, we might learn a few things.' He murmured, arms crossed behind his neck as his head rests on a soft pad on his red prosthetic arm.

Like what?

'Like what the thief is going to do with such a technology.'

And that will lead us to the thief's next step.

'The most likely next step.' Zel corrected, 'the universe is far too big for coincidences.'

The planned place of construction for the brand new acceleration gates are located one stop away from Wolfana, the capital world of the Grey Wolf. The size of the ring shaped acceleration gates nears the size of a small moon, having the diameter of kilometers and thickness of a few hundred meters. Swarms of drones orbit about the outer layers in order to make sure everything is running smoothly, and the the fleets of magnetically parked ships consisting of those from various mercenary groups meant the big bounty has really attracted lots of attention.

Knowing the operation of bounty hunters, Zel knew that he had better not show his face or else any automatic facial recognition masks would single him out as a simple paycheck. However, he needed to move around quickly enough to surgery enough area to grasp the bigger picture. Though thanks to his now more refined ability of closely tracing his pocket domain and stick with a moving object in real space, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Hitchhiking on a orbiting drone ended up being more troublesome that he would have realized, though from the look of it no signs of external damage were visible as stated in the report given by his contact. Whatever happened, it wasn't brute force at any point in time, so how the hell could it have been done?

Everything was left as it was when the day of the theft was committed, and assuming no one else possessed something akin to an space bending artifact like his or Rydel's, their only entrance into the gate is through the main building area. Seeing the shear number of ships parked outside, Zel was expecting at least a whole armada worth of mercenaries, investors and thieves within the compound. And he was right.

From the moment he slipped through the door, he is already walking through many people in the pocket domain. The cue to look at the security ward was never ending, and the organizational droids appeared overwhelmed by the shear number of questions asked and people banging it's hard shells. Riot droids were shut down manually before the bounty were put out, so the poor administrative droids are left with its own devices.

The security ward at the acceleration gate main section is as expected, with automated X ray identification array for any potential dangerous objects, anthropometrical recognition cameras, gait analysis devices and what Rydel assumes to be the rest of the standard security protocols, it would be an effort for anyone to take their way through. However, it's difficult, but not impossible.

The time when the system first realized that the energy core is gone was exactly thirty days ago, though an immediate lock down in the near regions until the announcement of the bounty meant movement in and out of the area is extremely strictly monitored and restricted. Again, unless someone possessed a space altering artifact, it would be reasonably assumed that the thief is simply hiding in the area and waiting for the best chance to make his/her exit. The perfect cover would be the big influx and efflux of all kinds of mercenary ships.

If anything, Zel isn't really that behind, but he is nowhere near being ahead too.

Past the security ward, the next major site of tourism is the data centre, where people can access the past monitoring data all around the gate. Here, all the computing nerds of the mercenary groups have already set up camps as they dived through layers of data in order to spot any anomalies. However, from the look of things nothing really productive has been done so far, and the empty pill bottles on the floor yet to be collected by the cleaning droids meant this arduous process is about as useful as sieving through shit.

If the thieves are good, they will leave minimal disruption on the data, and whatever that disruption is the magnitude will be no more than the size of a cosmic radiation noise. Props to being thorough though.

Zel kept on waking around the entire station looking for any hint of action and break in, and even until he was standing in the core regions by where the energy core is supposed to sit on peacefully, there is no sign of abnormality. Everything appeared as they should be, and by looking at the overlap of the hologram projector with reality, the only thing missing is the core. Nothing was disturbed, and yet the entire security mechanism was taken with the core itself.

Zel had many questions, and he could not access the site wide AI without exiting the pocket domain.

'Do you have a replay of what happened on the day of the theft?' Zel asked.

'Acknowledged. Begin replay.' The AI answered and projected what has transpired on the day of the theft. The device and its secure connection is exactly as they should and nothing fishy seems to be going on.

Then suddenly the device vanished.

'Pause! Play back.' Gaining full control of the video footage, Zel played the recording backwards with his hand gestures until the very first frame the device disappeared. It really just disappeared all of a sudden. Zel slowed down the play through and there is no distortion or even discontinuation of footage. Everything was running as they should, and the core just disappeared... like magic.

If the data was tempered with common monitoring muffling devices worn by Rydel when they sneaked onto the base on B1, there will be a clear evidence of tempering such that despite the fact that the original data cannot be retrieved, the methods of muffling can certainly be traced back. However, Zel knew this one is different. Instead of inserting looped or noisy data, it's almost like all of the data captured by the camera are truthful, as ironic as it sounds.

Perhaps it's something else that's making it seem legit, but it's certainly not a technique Zel is familiar with.

The echo of heavy footsteps came out of no where from the aisle behind him, and Zel immediately warped himself back into the pocket domain. Ensuring all of him is secure, he turned and stood to the side, awaiting whoever's coming next to show himself.

The long shadow of a giant man first creeped around the hall way, and then a familiar face appeared.

It's Sir Deva. But what the hell is he doing here?

He has the usual cold hard look on his face, the heavy military armor tightly wound around his muscular body. From the moment he entered the room he simply reset the current status of the AI and projections and started his very own investigation without wasting an inkling of time. Zel can't quite tell what he is saying from lip reading, but he is probably asking the same things.

However, the fact that he has showed up here meant what was lost must at least be somewhat related to the so-called pseudo-artifact, and perhaps following him from here on out will be the best course of action. While the very capable Sir Deva is doing his magic, all Zel have to do is to stay one step ahead of him and everything should be okay.

Compared to the random groups of mercenaries, Zel would count on Sir Deva to be the first person to solve this mystery.

And here they say that the universe is too big for coincidences, but apparently fate decided otherwise.