FLUX

Colonel Grills wasn't the type of guy who could be swayed easily. Threatening him would more often than not cause him to react in the opposite way and would make a mess out of the situation.

People with strong convictions such as Colonel Grills needed to be handled with care.

To get him to do something, you needed to present a more meaningful argument. Something that would be for the greater good. Only then would he agree to bend the rules.

But, every once in a while an order came from such high above that one simply couldn't refuse.

"Colonel grills received orders from high above the command chain. Specifically from high command. Someone who holds enough authority of the good colonel that one simple instruction from him is enough to make him break his convictions."

"Any Idea on who exactly that's targeting us? I don't remember making any enemies in the border patrol."

Kita wasn't a saint. He had made many enemies over the course of his career, But he had managed to ascend to such heights that his enemies didn't dare to try and do something. But as far as he knew he had few enemies in the military, And none who should have such authority.

"Sadly, No. The message was sent using highly encrypted nodes and tracing it back to it's sender is frankly impossible even for me."

"Then was there any names included in the message itself?"

"Nope. The sender used a pseudonym called FLUX. This is supposedly enough for the colonel to drop everything that he was doing and send out special instructions to not let use pass through the border."

'FLUX? Who could that be?' Kita began to think. But suddenly another question arose.

"If you can't track the message, then how do you figure that it came from the high command? It could also have come from somewhere else right?"

"Yes it could have. But it's not exactly like that. I managed to trace it back part way. It definitely came from the high command. But once I got any closer everything was lost in the vast arrays of the galactic net."

"I see."

So whoever this flux was, was the reason that the Jeager hadn't managed to get permission to leave the empire.

But what could be their motives? They can't possibly be hoping to keep them here while they try to arrest them for something or the other?

Right?

This was quite hard to do. As Kita was quite a decorated officer, and all of his crew members were also respectable professionals in their own filed. Elena's background check didn't reveal that they were on the run or something.

So arresting them for some random crime was gonna be really hard for them. So much so, that Kita ruled it out entirely. In this day and age, it was really easy and really hard to arrest someone with false charges. For those in the know, They knew how to clear their names.

So Kita ruled out this possibility.

'What else could it be?'

Seeing Kita contemplating, Elena said.

"Kita, I hope you understand that whoever ordered us to be held here, didn't do so that we could spend our days here. There are bigger motives behind this."

"I am aware of that fact. But what exactly? That's the question I'm thinking about." Kita said. A bit frustrated.

"Kita...."

"Huh?" Kita looked at Elena as she wanted to say something.

From her expressions, She was clearly hesitating to voice her words.

"What did you wanna say?" Kita asked. There was no need to hesitate.

"Well, I didn't want to bring this up, But do you think that this might be related to your last mission?"

"Huh..." Kita was at a loss for his words.

His last mission. His mission to B1.

The super structure that they never got to see. The incidents that happened. And the events that had followed.

How did Kita miss this? Why didn't he think about it before?

That made sense. Everything made sense if Kita thought about the implications.

But if that was truly the case, Then things were more complicated than it seemed.

Kita's eyes began to frantically move around. His brain began to rack up all the possible scenarios.

The more he thought the more dangerous everything seemed. It seemes that he hadn't thought about the implications of his actions correctly before deciding to jump on this voyage.

He should've paid more attention. He should've tied up all the loose ends before setting off for this voyage.

Why hadn't he done that? Why had he just let his emotions control his action? What had happened to him?

It was a really straightforward question Kita asked himself.

The answer however, wasn't so simple.

'No. I don't have time for this. I need to get out of here. We need to get out of here.' he said to himself before forcibly looking up.

"Can you find out what the plan is? I doubt that it's only to hold us here. I think there may be a hijacking party or something that's out to get us. If I'm right then they aren't too far away and could enter the system at anytime."

"You think that there's someone who's coming for us?"

"It's possible. I wouldn't rule it out."

"I'll get on it." Elena said before she took her seat and began to do her thing.

Kita didn't wait there any longer.

He quickly left her office and headed towards the pod station. As soon as he entered a pod, he gave Nova a call.

Nova picked up promptly.

"Nova, I think something bad is going to happen. We need to get out of this system as soon as possible. Prepare a meeting quickly. Just the chiefs. I don't want anyone else."

Nova was visibly shook by his tone of voice. The frantic fear that hid behind his high tone didn't go unnoticed.

But it only took him a second before he regained his composure.

"What do you mean by that? Do you know something that I don't?" Nova asked.

"If I'm right, then there's a hunting party coming for us. I don't have the time to explain everything right now. Just prepare the meeting."

"Understood sir!" Nova replied before hanging up the call.

Kita was still in the pod heading towards his destination.

His heart sank as his body released a splash of sweat.

'Do they know about it?' Kita asked himself.

The answer, he didn't want to know.