Her office was surprisingly not as lavish or extravagant as I thought it would be for someone in her position. It was more spartan, with a simple elegant desk in the middle of the room and two chairs. There were a few potted plants around the room that seemed to be circling some Qi. The walls on the other hand were breathtakingly beautiful, displaying a scene that left me feeling like I had just stepped off a ship and onto the beach of a tiny island. It was no bigger than a few feet past the room itself. It even came complete with crashing wave sounds.

"Wow, this is beautiful." I commented as I looked around the room.

"oh? It's nothing special, just one of the basic room skins, you could change your room's walls to this if you wanted. But my office is not what I have brought you here for today." She said as she indicated for a chair to sit in as she walked around the desk to sit in the other chair.

I walked a few feet over and sat down into the indicated chair as I examined her desk, finding nothing on it, before shifting my attention to look around the room in hopes of spotting a hint. When I found nothing, I turned my attention back to the woman in front of me, who was smiling softly.

"Your confinement ends this morning, and I have brought you here as quickly as I could for a few reasons. First, did you know your design won the race? It even thrashed every other design on the course so thoroughly that a fair few engineers have filed claims against you for cheating. Care to explain?"

I was about to panic, thinking this was another witch hunt like the galactic federation had performed against me, but something in her eye caught my attention. I slowly relaxed and considered what I knew about this woman and what she had done for me so far, I took a chance and decided to be a smart ass and flippant about the issue.

"Their designs obviously suck, and they can't handle someone that actually knows how to design a plane wading into their tiny pond. Honestly, it's not my fault that they can't design for shit."

She started giggling before it slowly turned into a loud laugh as she leant back in her chair. I sat in my seat, suddenly feeling a little confused by her reaction, waiting for her to stop laughing and enlighten me to what was so funny. Luckily, it didn't take too long for her to sit back up and grin at me.

"interestingly said. Yes, they are terrible, my own engineering days were spent in a larger pond than this. If I am being completely honest, then I would say sixty to seventy percent of these designs wouldn't have even made it into the race. Disqualified by far superior designs like your own. But it is considered uncouth to speak of my own ship's engineering department in such a manner." She said before rolling her shoulders.

"uh, okay… I'm sorry, why am I here?" I asked slowly, trying to feel out how much trouble I'm currently in, if I even am in any trouble.

"You are here, because of the second or actual reason that I need to speak with you today." She said, as she gave me a knowing look, that just made me feel more confused. When I didn't respond and continued to stare at her, she rolled her eyes and continued.

"I have made sure your design remains classified… Alright, I might need to explain something to you to help you better understand what I am about to tell you. On this ship, you hear people say I am the patriarch, and they are inner, outer or core disciples, elders or whatever. However, what no one says is this ship isn't a true sect ship. It is in fact an outer sect ship. Those on an inner sect ship, also have outer, inner, core disciples, elders and so on, but they are all considered only inner sect disciples to the void walking sect. This means, no one on this ship is considered anything more than an outer sect disciple, and I'm just a void walking sect deacon. With me so far?"

I nodded my head slowly as I frowned, I kinda got it, this ship was an outer sect ship that had only outer disciples on board, and they all claimed positions of grandeur within the ship.

"Alright, and what does that have to do with me exactly?" I asked slowly yet curiously.

"Well, I have a friend that is an inner deacon and captain of an inner sect ship. He has agreed to allow me to keep you here on my ship. But his nephew, who is the core elder or head of the engineering department on their ship, has agreed to make you a core disciple of his department, based on your design that I have forwarded to him. He immediately classified it on an inner sect level, making sure no one on his ship could get a look at it, and submitted it on your behalf to the inner sect race. Second place and third place of our ship's race have also been sent to be considered for a position in that race. They get no guarantees, of course, they might get knocked out by a superior design submitted by another outer sect ship." She smiled softly as she finished speaking and just stared at me for a few moments before I replied.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Okay, so I will enter the race of an inner sect ship as an inner sect disciple engineer, and I am guaranteed a spot, unlike the others in yesterday's race. Also, I am now a core disciple in an inner sect ship's engineering department. But I am still not really understanding what that means for me?"

"Basically it means you are now an Inner Sect Disciple of the void walking sect and outrank almost everyone on this ship, making it a safe place for you to cultivate to an appropriate inner sect disciples cultivation stage in peace. It means you will be reassigned to an officer's quarters on this ship, where a certain pain in your ass from the engineering department won't be able to bother you. It also means that the design you have submitted is now out of anyone on this ship's reach… oh, I might have made a mistake…"

"what! What do you mean you made a mistake? What mistake?" I almost shouted as I shot to my feet.

She looked sheepish for a moment before straightening her back and looking directly at me with a calm expression and before answering my outburst of panic.

"Well, there was about an hour this morning where your design was declassified automatically because it no longer needed to be kept secret from other designers for the race. It's possible someone may have accessed it during that hour."

I slowly relaxed as I listened to her talk, and when she was done I just smiled at her, trying not to let the giggle I was feeling out. I knew if I did, it would come out sounding a bit evil.

"Well, let's just hope they don't go poking into the Navigation and insurance code." I replied, still trying to hold back my giggle.

I watched her eyes narrow for a moment before she glanced at the table between us, her fingers twitching slightly, indicating to me that she wanted to find out why.

"I am guessing you didn't place a mental lock on the code, but instead left something a little more nefarious, perhaps punishing?" She asked slowly.

"I was offered a mental lock by elder Wang Jun. However, I tossed it in the trash, when I found a back door in it. Which I assumed at the time he left so he could look at my code at his leisure. Feeling slighted and offended, I decided to leave a gift for him." I replied with a mocking grin.

"uh, huh… just so I am aware, how bad is this gift of yours? Should I warn my friend and his nephew not to poke the code?"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that, the code will give a warning to stop. It will only activate the gift if you are insistent and try to brute force your way in." I replied as I waved my hand dismissively.

"Okay, good, as long as it isn't too vicious in its warning or execution. Now let us move on to unpacking the little white lie I told you, this office. It is on the hallway that the bridge is on, but it's not actually mine. It's yours. On that right wall is a hidden door into your ensuite complete with a kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom. My rooms are on the bridge." She said, trying to disarm any anger or annoyance I might be feeling by smiling at me and trying to look innocent and adorable for a few moments before standing up.

"This is an officer's quarters, then?" I asked as I looked around the little island again.

"uh, well, technically it's one of the twenty quarters kept empty for any visiting inner sect members. However, since you are an inner sect disciple and on my ship, I have taken the liberty to assign you to one of the better rooms." She smiled at me and then walked past the desk and me heading for the door out before stopping half way and turning back to look at me.

"oh, before I forget, Kenna. In case you were thinking that an inner sect disciple has some control over this ship, I should warn you now that a sect Deacon does outrank an inner sect disciple. Okay?" She asked as she smiled happily at me before turning and leaving without waiting for me to actually answer the question.

"Okay, I am important but insignificant on the grand scale. Got it." I said, waving my hand as I got to my feet. My head suddenly snapped back around to the door and I called out "hey, wait, what about breakfast?" a few minutes later, having given up on getting any breakfast, I had moved over to the right wall, scrutinising it, it took me a while to find the door but once I had, I happily opened and went through it, to explore my new rooms.

*******

Wang Jun was staring at his dead blueprint table in confusion as he continued trying to get it to turn back on, he even tried kicking and punching it. After he managed to calm down a little, he tried replacing the battery under the table. And threw the old one across the room when the table still didn't turn on.

"What the hell did that bitch do to my blueprint table!" He screamed as he got up and stormed out of his office, deciding to log into a common room table.

He quickly crossed and entered one of his department's disciple's designing room or common room as they called it and turned the table on. He smiled softly as the table logged in, and then frowned in confusion as it instantly turned off.

"What the hell is going on?" He asked as he tried to turn it on again.

*******

Zeo was on a diplomatic ship headed towards MWOA254 to officially request an alliance between the two clans. She was currently sitting in a seat with a table between herself and her mother as they both frowned while reading reports they had just received about the Mackenzie clan.

"Inheritance settlements?" Her mother asked.

"It would seem so, but this cause of death is utter rubbish, there is no way Kenna Mackenzie would ever die by crashing her ship into the ground. Not after the shit I have seen her pull off." Zeo replied with an annoyed tone.

"Indeed, she certainly seems to be gifted in that area. Yes, I have seen some videos of her flying. But more importantly, if she didn't die by crashing her ship, what caused the inheritance settlement to activate?"

"I am not sure… but I do have a couple of ideas. Each is more ridiculous than the last." Zeo replied.

"The report I just read said her frigate is hanging around the edge of known space. Perhaps she found something out there, something dangerous that the Emperor, or someone powerful enough to keep the secret hidden, and wants it kept secret."

"What are you thinking, someone bumped her off or made her disappear?"

"I'm not sure, I do think she is very difficult to kill, but if she is still alive out there… we should start preparing for the condition of her returning, the only question is are we going to stand with her or turn this fleet back and stand against her?" Zeo's mother asked.

"Star hawks always fly together," Travis suddenly said from a nearby table.

"Always" Brendan added without looking up.

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