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As the sun's rays spread over the mountain industrial city known as Steamporia, an alarm clock goes off, with a loud combination of ringing and steam whistling as if tea pot were going off. While it was not loud enough to wake the dead or the entire city for that matter, it was loud enough to awaken certain fox professor from his slumber. Upon hearing the alarm clock go off, the young professor quickly covered his ears, yowling at first, then growling as he hit top of the clock, turning it off.

"I hate that blasted contraption!!" he yelled, not caring if anyone heard him.

Still growling, he slowly got out of bed, took a short shower, got dressed, made breakfast and then finished getting ready for work. The fox professor sighed; tired of doing the same routine every day no matter what the day had planned for him. He picked up his wallet, opening it and checking its contents. He had at least ten dollars in gear bills and seventy five in cog coins, which consisted of gold, nickel and copper cogs. Then he looked at this credentials card. "Professor Vulpis A. Senris, Engineering Professor of Machina University" it read, the corners surround by small gears. Senris reached for this coat, throwing it on quickly and then attached his leather arm guard on to his right arm, fumbling with the leather clasp. The full arm was decorated with gears in the middle, two copper wires above it that ran through the arm itself to a small nautical compass and a light torch on the wrist and glove part of the arm. Senris then checked himself in the mirror, putting on his monocle goggle, and then grabbed his dark brown top hat.

"Time for another day of lecturing the minds of the young" muttered the professor.

With that he grabbed his alchemists cane and bag and was in seconds out the door, the sun's rays beaming on him.

Thankfully the Professor Senris did not have to travel far. His home was only a few block away from the university, if one could call it that. Machina University was not your average university; it was more of specialized college specifically for budding engineers, sky sailors and alchemists. Most of the students who came here were from average families, some from poor families wanting their offspring to learn a trade, few from noble families who wanted their children to start from the bottom and work their way to the top. While the University was coed, many of the professions were mainly target to boys in their late teens, there only a few professions that the University taught that were mainly for young girls in their late teens. For the boys there were classes in different levels and types of steam engineering depending the trade they were learning and it focused on alchemists who were taught how make certain fuels and other chemicals for the industry, sky sailing for those who would be working to maintain the sky ships engines and those wanting to become captains or just be a simple ship crew member, then there were the ship builders and steam engine makers who were responsible in assembling the different sky ships and transports to travel through skies and also assembling the heart of every flying machine, the steam generators. For the girls it was mainly cooking, sewing, literature, teacher education and governess training. The only classes that consisted of both boys and girls were math and history but even then those were small classes. Professor Senris was both an alchemy professor and engineer professor who had started out as an alchemist but later learned the trade of engineering. He had hoped to teach both trades in one class but the social ladder would not allow it.

While walking on his way to the campus, he stopped by a local newspaper stand, paid the newspaper man with two nickel cog coins. Before opening paper, Senris read the front; "Pirates raid Cog City ships, Geartopian Officials Baffled" and upon looking at the picture Senris' eyes widen. Somehow a nearby passenger ship had seen all the action and someone photographed it, getting a visual on the pirate's captain whom Senris immediately recognized. It was his long time child hood friend Nixtra, who had indeed blossomed from young raccoon girl to a now stunning yet fierce pirate. Senris always knew she had an adventurous spirit but he thought it would lead her to committing crimes of piracy. He folded up the paper and shook his head in sadness and continued on to the campus. Once he arrived, he immediately began his 10:30am class on alchemy, spending most of the time lecturing on fuel compounds and spent little time in demonstrating how the compounds work and how volatile they can be if not mixed correctly. Then the lunch whistle blew right at 12:00pm and Senris dismissed the class, reminding all the students of their reading assignment. Before heading to lunch himself, he reached into his pocket, pulling out his watch, opening it to reveal a small picture inside the cover of the watch. The pictures was of himself when he was a young boy, dressed in pirate attire and next to him was Nixtra who also was wearing pirate attire. That was Nixtra's favorite game to play when they were kids and yet Senris could not contemplate Nixtra actually being a true pirate.

"Why Nixtra?" he asked himself. "What could have possibly have made you to stoop so low in becoming a pirate?"

While looking at the picture, he noticed the time said 12:15 and he closed the watch, stuffing it back into his pocket and headed for the cafeteria to have lunch before his 1:00pm class in engineering.

Lunch was somewhat good, shepherd's pie was on the menu yet it was warm, not hot as if it had just came out but Senris could not complain, after all no one expected a university to have an excellent cafeteria (unless you to high class university). Senris quickly finished his lunch and went to a different classroom to prepare for the Engineering class. This class was by far his least favorite mainly because most of students in the class barely paid attention when he gave instruction on how to build different small machines. Well today Senris was going to make sure that the students paid attention, otherwise he may to stop having the class. Today the student would have a real treat because they were going to have the chance to build something they have never built in class before. The professor sat at his desk grinning as he watched his students file into the class room, taking seats at the different work tables in the classroom.

"Good afternoon class, as you today will be a building exercise that will last pretty much the entire class period" said Professor Senris.

One by one all the students began to groan, not wanting to have to build the entire time.

"Now, now, hush. I know you all are tired of building the small machines that you have built this semester. Well today you are in for a real treat, for today you all have the chance to work on a medium sized crystal power generator" explained the professor to which all the students suddenly sat upright as the professor squatted down and lifted a brand new crystal generator.

After the students were done ooh and ahhing, the professor taped the black board with his pointing stick.

"Now then I have some broken version of these generators with all the parts needed to make them working again, including its power source" said the professor pulling out an egg sized energy crystal.

"This energy crystal and the ones I am providing will have little power so that we will not be any danger of explosions but there is the possibility of small flare ups if the generator is not fixed correctly. But not to worry, I have the schematics to the generators on loan from the Engineering Corps so your will a better idea on how to make these function again. Now all the parts are located at the left side of the class room and they are in crates, numbered one through ten, each number corresponding the table that you are all at. There will be no switching group partners and I expect you all to work together on making the generators functional and no one is to be nothing while their partner's works understand?" said the professor, the last part in a stern voice.

"Yes Professor Senris" said the students in unison.

"Good, now come get your generators and crystals at the front while the rest of you get the parts" said Senris, resulting in two people from each of the ten tables coming to the front while the other two grabbed the medium sized trunks from the left side of the class.

Once the all the students returned to their tables, they began to work on the generators, their voices rising in the class room while the professor took out a small novel about pirates. The students seemed more excited to actually work on a project than ever before. Most of time the projects consisted of steam powered clocks, pocket watches, reassembling small engine parts, but nothing like this. Seeing the excitement on the student's faces gave Senris more ideas for projects that could possibly cause the students to pay attention more in class. Normally when doing projects, a student would come up to him every five minutes to ask for help on a project that they were having trouble or did not want to do the work but not this time. Senris was pretty much halfway through his novel when a few students asked questions about the r certain parts they were using. Time to have flown by as the students suddenly heard the class whistle blow, indicating that it was time for classes to end and one by one the students shuffled out of the room, grumbling that they were not able to have more time to work on the project and would have to wait till next Monday for today was the Friday, the beginning of the weekend. Professor Senris packed up his book and teaching utensils and headed out the door, only being able to take five steps to the left before being stopped by Professor Bella Silva, a silver fox anthro and the University's Geology and Geography professor.

"Hey Vulpy" said the Silva, snickering at the nickname she gave Senris when they first met here.

"Will you stop calling me that?! I hate that nickname, it's embarrassing" Senris replied.

"Oh but I like calling that, it's cute" giggled Silva, cuddling her silver fox tail like a child's doll.

Rolling his eyes, Senris asked "What do you want Silva? I would like to return home to rest."

She sighed and let go of her tail, and looked at me with seriousness. "The headmaster wishes to see both of us at once" she said.

Senris groaned, his tail flicking annoyingly. "Ugh what does that over stuffed owl want this time?" asked Senris, making his annoyance known to her.

She shrugged her shoulders and replied "I don't know, his assistant didn't tell me why, so maybe it's something serious or the headmaster didn't tell his assistant why he wanted to see us."

Senris huffed and looked towards the direction of the headmaster's chambers. "Well lets this over with shall we" said Senris, allowing Silva to proceed before him.

She walked past him, smiling to which he rolled his eyes and followed her to headmaster's chambers. While the chamber was not far from the classrooms, it seemed to take forever to Senris, due to the numerous questions running around in mind, making time seem to slow down. Why did the headmaster summon them both? They had both passed this year's performance exams which basically allowed them to keep their jobs so it couldn't be that the headmaster summoned them both just to be sacked. The professor shook himself and found himself at the chamber's door. He looked at Silva, gaining a little reassurance, then opened the door and entered. Upon entering, Senris saw two anthros in aviation navy uniforms. One, an anthro black panther in a dark green aviation uniform and the other an anthro jackal uniform in a deep black aviation uniform. The jackal smiled in a way that made both Senris and Silva think that they were staring at the devil himself. Both professors saw the headmaster, an owl anthro by the name of Cedric Avius, rise from his chair.

"Ah there you are, Professor Senris and Professor Silva, I'd like you to meet Colonel John Miller" gesturing to the black panther anthro, "and Sergeant James Stanley" said the headmaster to which both the military anthros extended their paw hands. Senris and Silva shook paws with both military men and their attention fell back to the headmaster.

"Now then, I have summoned the both of you because these two officers have requested for your services" explained the headmaster.

"Wait our services?" asked Senris.

"Yes" replied the panther anthro, "The Miners Corps have discovered new energy crystals, ones that could power generators for much longer periods of time and possibly power more than one generator at a time. Also these new crystals may eliminate the need for steam powered ship engines" explained Colonel John.

"There is also the possibility of a new society, one no longer in need using coal to power their homes and keep them warm. A period of peace if you could call it" said Sergeant James to which Colonel John turned looked at him disapprovingly as if he had spoken out of line.

"Anyways the Miners Corps have requested both of you to assist them in studying these crystals" explained Colonel John.

"But why us? We're just professors not top grade scientists" said Silva.

That is true however our government has noted your skills to be quite impressive. Professor Silva, you considered the best in Geographical Crystallography, and this can aid us in finding more of these crystals. As for you Professor Senris, I am told by many engineers that you are the best finding ways to utilize crystal energy and keeping them stable. You are to be our guide in how we can best use these crystals" said Sergeant James.

"Well now, you have certainly done your homework on us no doubt" Senris said coyly.

The panther smiled. "Yes we have and our government has offered to pay you each 500,000 in gear bills for your services and your travel expenses will be covered by the navy and your headmaster has given you the alright to go, that if you accept of course" explained the Colonel.

Both Senris' and Silva's jaws dropped, they both looked ateach other for a brief moment and turned towards the colonel and said the same time "We accept!"

Upon hearing this, the Colonel and Sergeant smiled. "Excellent; now then return to your homes and pack, we are leaving tomorrow around 12:00 pm. Sergeant James will see to it that your picked up from your homes. Pack enough clothes for this journey, if you need to bring anything tool related, make sure its small enough, the Miners Corps will be providing all the tools and equipment needed for this project" explained the Colonel once more.

"Understood Colonel, well then we will head home, if you don't mind headmaster" said Senris.

"Not at all. Dismissed!" said the headmaster to which both Senris and Silva left. The Sergeant watched them leave and quietly muttered under his breath "Now the fun begins."

Neither professor spoke a word to each other upon leaving the chambers. They were too excited and they only exchanged a quick goodbye upon leaving the campus. Before entering his home, Senris stopped by his land lord's home to inform him that he would be gone for some time and asked his landlord if someone could take of his home while he was gone. The landlord gave permission and Senris then visited one of his neighbors, asking her if one her eldest daughters could house sit for the time he would be gone and that he would pay her well. His neighbor complied greatly and arranged for one her daughters to care and maintain Senris' home. Senris estimated he would at least be gone for two to three months, maybe four depending on the project. The professor packed the clothes he would need for this trip and laid out what he would wear for tomorrow's journey. Instead of his usual professors attire, he laid out of pair of engineer pants, ones that he had used in his early days as an engineer, they were black with little gears on the sides, something that he had added after leaving the Engineers Corps. Then he laid out his leather belt, fitted with different pouches each containing small tools and also a holster for the professor's crystal powered pistol. Ever since the since worldwide disaster of 1830, many people and newly evolved anthropomorphic animals had to rely on energy crystals that somehow sprang up after disaster had caused many governments to crumble and take refuge in mountains, creating new cities out of the ruins yet somehow managed to create one worldwide government. Fortunately the professors pistol was set on stun mode, for he was not found of the idea of taking someone's life to just to protect his. He slid the pistol in to the holster and continue to lay out the rest of his outfit: a heavy duty leather vest with cogs on the front left and right abs of the vest and two more on the pectoral area of the vest, his new coat decorated with different gears on it, his top hat which he had fitted with different functioning tools and a pair goggles around it, a white work shirt, and finally a much more equipped leather arm guard, complete with a feature that allows the user to stun people with two electric prods on the wrist area of the arm. Senris finished packing and fell back onto his bed, slowly drifting asleep.

The next morning, the alarm clock went off and Senris again yowled and covered his ears, trying to go back to sleep but alas no avail. He hit the top of clock hard, growling in annoyance.

"I swear, one of these days I am going to turn you into spare parts!" he said and with that he got dressed, finishing his packing of other items for the trip, including a sword that had passed down to him by his grandfather. Upon finishing packing, he heard a knock on the door. He opened it and was greeted by a young aviation navy soldier, who came to pick the professor up. Senris pointed to where his luggage was and the soldier grabbed them and loaded the professor's luggage on top of a steam powered carriage. The driver opened the door to carriage and inside was Professor Silva, dressed as if she was ready to go on a trip than a long journey but Senris did not care. He was only focused on the journey at hand. He entered the carriage as followed by the young soldier who sat across from them.

"So, where are we heading to?" asked Silva, directing her question to the soldier.

"To the Steamporia docks, the navy area to exact" answered the soldier.

"Ah well it looks like we will be the first and most privileged to actually get a first glimpse of the navy docks" said Senris with a sense of haughtiness in his voice.

"Wait you mean no one that is a civilian has seen the navy docks?" asked Silva, who seemed surprised by this"

"That is correct. The navy does not like a crowd so they built a wall separating the navy docks and the regular docks in order to prevent spies and thieves from getting to the ship, the only way in is a small gate, only big enough for humans and anthros, well human sized anthros that is. Apparently I hear that some of the navy consists a few bull anthros and I have also heard stories of how some bull anthros get stuck in the door and its quite funny" chuckled Senris who noticed the soldier chuckling as well.

The carriage ride did not last long, they reached the wall blocking off the navy area of the docks and the soldier got out first to hold the carriage door open for Silva to exit first and then Senris. They were greeted by a group three of navy grunts, to which Senris noted that two them were gorilla anthros and the other a bear anthro. Both gorilla anthros carried Senris' luggage while the bear and human soldier carried Silva's luggage. Senris and Silva followed the group through the small gate and upon passing the through, Silva's and Senris' eyes widen and their jaws dropped. Before them was the largest navy aerial ship they had ever seen. It was fitted with a steel and copper armor, to make the ship heavily defensive yet light enough to fly through the skies. Their awe was interrupted by one of the soldiers calling out to them to hurry up. The professors rushed towards the landing dock where they led up into the ship. Upon entering the ship they were shown to their quarters and were informed that the Colonel John Williams wished to see them at the captain's quarters in ten minutes. Silva then disappeared into her quarters quickly and Senris stepped into his. He took a moment to look around and place his luggage under the small cot that was attached to the wall. Senris then looked at the pocket watch attached to his leather arm guard, he had five minutes to get to the captain's cabin. After shutting the door to his cabin, he saw Silva leaving hers and heading in the direction of the captain's cabin. Senris caught up to her and opened the door for her.

"After you" said Senris.

"My what a gentleman you are" said Silva, smiling as she passed him and exited to deck of the ship.

They walked briefly before climbing a small flight of stairs. Two guards stood by the doors leading to the captain's cabin. When the guards saw Senris and Silva approaching, they opened the doors. As both professors walked in, they saw both the colonel and sergeant studying a large map along with a male lion anthro in a captain's uniform. The colonel looked up from the map and greeted the fox anthros.

"Ah right on time. Professor Senris, Professor Silva, meet captain Richard Pierton, the best of navy's aerial captains. The captain offered his paw hand to which Senris gladly shook. Silva then extended her paw hand and the captain light shook her paw hand.

"I was told that female professor would be accompanying us but I never expected to see such beauty from you" said the captain and he leaned down and kissed her paw hand. She slowly withdrew her paw and held her tail front of her face, hiding her blush.

"Oh great" thought Senris, "instead of captain, it seems we have prince charming governing this ship" rolling his eyes noticing the colonel rolling his eyes and shaking his head. The sergeant on the other hand seemed to be amused by all this.

"Captain, shall we get back to the task at hand? We do have an assignment to complete and it's not going to be completed until we see to that these two are safely transported to mines" said Sergeant James to which the captain's expression turned from happy to annoyed.

"Very well, then. As I was explaining to the colonel, that the only route possible is the delta route which will get us there in at least five days but no colonel wants to take atlantic route which will take at least a full week if not nine days to arrive" growled the captain.

"Buy why?" asked Silva.

"Because, the colonel suspects that there will be a pirate attack if fly through the delta route" replied Sergeant James.

"I don't just suspect, I know! For the past month all the pirate attacks on the Cog City ships have happening on that route, and I don't want to take the chance that will be attacked" explained Colonel John.

"Well what you don't know is that there is a huge thunderstorm brewing in atlantic route. The navy has sent out a warning to navy ships to stay clear of that route, and that is what I am going to do, that is of course you would rather endanger the lives of my crew and the lives of these professors" said Captain Richard, putting the colonel in very tight position.

"Very well then" growled the colonel. "We will fly the delta route, but don't come crying to me when the pirates attack us."

"Oh please, they wouldn't dare try attacking a large navy vessel such as this. Besides even if they did, they'd be nothing but target practice for the men here.

Senris gulped at that. He could not bear the idea of Nixtra's pirate ship being blown away by one blast of the vessel's power canons but he also did not want to confront Nixtra if she saw him on the vessel.

"However if they do attack, I ask that both professors hide themselves in the cargo hold. If you have any weapons, use them only as a last resort. I don't want you two getting yourselves into a gun fight with pirates. But if it should come to that, there are a couple of weapon crates stashed in the cargo area along ammunition crates. Only open them if it is an extreme last resort. I pray that it does not come to that" said the captain.

"For now return to your quarters and rest. We have a long journey ahead of us" said the captain.

Both Silva and Senris nodded and they left the captain's cabin, not saying anything to each other except when reaching their own cabins and saying a brief goodnight to each other. The next morning, Senris and Silva dined together along with the captain, the colonel and sergeant. Captain Richard could not stop chatting with Silva, asking her questions, whether job related or personal matters. Senris was a bit annoyed by this but he thought nothing of it. He was paid to study new energy crystals, not to keep Silva away from the captain. After breakfast, Silva and Senris got together to discuss what they were going do when they arrive at the mines. Silva seemed interesting in studying the layout of the mine, trying to figure out what caused these crystals to appear and how they differ from normal energy crystals. Senris on the other hand was more interested in figuring out to properly use the crystals as power source, that is if they could be used at all. However Senris was distracted. He could not get his mind of Nixtra, who could possibly launch an attack on the ship with her band of pirates. What would happen if she saw him here? Would she greeting him with a hug or draw her sword and kill him? How would he react, would he be happy or angry? These thoughts dwelled in the mind of Professor Senris but he pushed them away and got back at the task at hand. Since there was not much to discuss, Silva and Senris ended their meeting with Silva returning to her cabin and Senris staying out on the deck, gazing out to vast sky before him. When it became dark Senris returned to the cabin, not in any mood to have dinner. He laid back onto the cot and closed his eyes, the thoughts still swimming around.

For the next three days, all was peaceful aboard the navy vessel. The sky was clear and Senris and Silva continued to make preparations for their end destination. However when the fourth day came, the peace ended. Professor Senris woke up with a start as he heard the sound of the ships alarm going off. The door flung open and stood in the door the young human soldier he had met before the trip.

"What's going?!" asked Senris.

"Pirates off the starboard, the captain wants you and Professor Silva to make your way to the cargo hold and I am to escort you there. We'll have to go onto the main deck though to get to the hold, luckily they haven't begun firing yet" explained the human.

Senris wasted no and threw on his work shirt and pants, put his belt on and grabbed his weapons as he was exiting the door. As he exited the cabin he saw Silva waiting for them and joined her. She looked as if she had slept in her day clothes but now was not the time to worry about her appearance. They pushed through the different soldiers running about, making their way to the outside deck. Once outside, Senris and Silva could not believe their eyes. To their right, they say one of the biggest pirate ships they had ever seen, while not as big as the navy vessel, it was still a sight to see. The pirate ship was not far off, both professors could see pirates, both humans and anthros, yelling and waving their swords. Suddenly they quieted down and Senris pulled out a small telescope to see what was going on. Through lens, he saw a figure, dressed in captain's attire, but could not tell if the figure was male or female. Once the figure made its way to the helm, Senris lowered his telescope. His worst fear had been confirmed; it was Nixtra Bardonna, once his childhood friend, now a captain of a band of ruthless pirates. Senris' heart sank. Everything around him slowed down, the yelling of Captain's Richards demands to the pirates to leave distorted, the voices of Silva and the human soldier in slow motion, and Senris found himself frozen unable to move. Suddenly he was brought back to reality when he heard the sound of canon fire from the pirate ship, hitting the hull of navy vessel causing it to rock a bit. Senris fell back onto his butt and the human soldier helped him up, leading Senris and Silva to the cargo hold, in a spot where the weapons were stashed.

"Here is the key to the weapon crates, the ammunition boxes are not locked but do you your best not mix the ammunition with the wrong gun, it won't end well for you but hopefully it won't come to that" said the human and before Senris could ask the human a question, the soldier darted out to join the battle.

Both Silva and Senris listened to the sounds of gun fire, swords clashing and canons exploding, well the pirate's canons at least. The navy had not even fired one of its powerful canons. Senris was confused. Why had the navy not fired one canon at the pirates? Were they planning to capture the pirates alive or were the canons damaged or were there no canons at all? A loud creak snapped the professor out of thought. Someone was entering the cargo hold. Senris grabbed one of the crystal powered rifles and signaled Silva to hide and remain quiet. Senris then climbed up onto one of the large crates, using the shadows for cover. He watched as two pirates, an orange tabby cat anthro and a red panda anthro, run down the steps and then run to different crates and barrels containing supplies.

"Oi! Captain Bardonna! Looks like we got good supply a here, what are your orders?" asked the red panda. Suddenly Senris saw Nixtra enter the cargo hold, wearing a pirate captains outfit, complete with a pirate hat, her ears tucked away yet her tail visible, flicking about.

"Leave it. This was only test run of our new canons. Besides the rest have begun retreating and we shall follow" said Nixtra turning her back to the two subordinates.

Senris could feel his heart pumping faster. He had two choices to make: take out Nixtra and her two flunkies or take her out only and take chance in dealing with the other pirates. The rifle could only be fired once before taking a second to recharge. Taking a deep breath he set the rifle to stun at full power and took aim at the tabby. He pulled the trigger and a short blue laser bullet shot out, nailing the tabby in the back. The tabby briefly cried out and fell to ground, paralyzed by the stun round. Upon hearing his companion fall the red panda spun around and drew out his piston but Senris was quicker. He fired another shot at the red panda, directly in the stomach and he went done in the same fashion as the tabby. Nixtra quickly spun around, her pistol already drawn out, and began to fire her pistol at Senris. Senris, using his reflexes, ducked and rolled of the crate, landing on floor with a thud, he quickly crawled into small space between a pile of crates and drew his sword. He waited, seeking the sounds of Nixtra's footsteps, sensing they were growing louder. Then he saw Nixtra right in front of him, looking at ground for signs of where he had gone. She then walked forward and Senris slowly crept out of the space, watching her. She walked forwards more, heading in the direction of where Silva was hiding. Senris then leapt out of the space, his sword above his head, attempting to strike down Nixtra. He cried out as if he were charging into an army and Nixtra jumped in surprise. When she saw her attacker in the shadows with a sword drawn, she then drew out her cutlass and brought it up just as Senris brought down his sword, the clanging of the blades echoing through the entire hold. The sword battle had begun, Senris taking multiple swings at Nixtra with his sword, pushing her away from Silva's hiding place. Nixtra was having a hard time blocking Senris' sword in keeping up with the speed and swings. However she was no pushover and began to fight back resulting in neither being pushed back. Senris had the advantage for he had been trained in the ways of the sword but Nixtra was quick and cunning, she waited for just the right moment to strike. Finally she manage to push Senris back enough for her to throw her cutlass in air, distract him long enough to drop kick him in the stomach. Despite having a firm stomach, Senris was knocked back a couple of feet and fell onto his back, dropping his sword in the process. She walked towards him and as she got closer, she noticed a ray of light shining through the hatch and ray fell upon Senris' face and immediately she stopped cold in her tracks. Nixtra immediately recognized her childhood friend and stood there shocked and at a loss for words. Senris looked at her and he became flushed with anger.

"Well what are you waiting for Captain Bardonna or should I say Nixtra? Finish it, after all it's the life of a pirate you're living while I do my job as a professor. Just end it Nixtra, I can't stand to continue to watch you fall lower than you already have. I guess the promise we made when were younger couldn't compare with the lifelong adventure of being pirate now could it?" asked Senris in an angry voice but Nixtra did not answer; rather she reached into her coat and began to pull something that resembled a letter and she set on the ground.

However Senris had other ideas, he whipped out his pistol and fired a stun blast, hitting her straight in the chest, causing her to fall backwards. While the power was enough to immobilize her it did slow her movement and numbed her body a bit. The two pirates that Senris knocked out before slowly got up and saw their captain down, struggling to get back up. They ran to her aid and helped her to her feet, having one of her arms over their shoulders, almost carrying her up the stairs.

Before they ascended, Nixtra looked over her shoulder, and Senris could tears flowing from her eyes. She looked at him and said "I am sorry Vulpis" and with that her two crewmembers carried her out of the ship and Senris could hear the sound of a steam powered jet back rocketing off.

Senris then got up, grabbed his sword and sheathed it and holstered his pistol. He bent over to pick up the enveloped sealed letter, tucking it away in his right pocket. Then he made his way to Silva's hiding place and when she saw him, she practically leapt out and embraced him in a hug. Both of them climbed out of the cargo hold, and saw numerous soldiers carrying their wounded friends to the infirmary. Senris held Silva close, shielding her from the sight of those who had deep cuts and bad stun burns. Apparently the pirates only used stun ammunition rather than live rounds. As the pair passed the soldiers, they found Captain Richard along with Colonel Miller and Sergeant James talking amongst themselves. When navy captain saw the two fox anthros, he beckoned them over.

"Are you alright? I saw the pirate captain along with two other pirates enter the cargo hold" said the captain.

"Silva is alright, I on other hand had the displeasure of stunning those two pirates with one of the rifles from weapons stash. Unfortunately I had to engage the captain in sword combat" said Senris which caused all three navy men's eyes to widen.

"You fought the pirate captain and survived?!" asked the colonel.

"Yea though she managed to knock me back enough for me to drop my sword but I managed to draw my pistol quick enough to put a stun round dead center in her chest" said Senris.

"Well now you certainly have impressive skills to have fought that pirate captain off and survive" said the sergeant.

"Indeed, if I were a king right now I would have wasted no time in knighting you my young friend" said the captain, smiling in way that lifted Senris' spirits.

The captain then slowly drew his cutlass out. "Come let us join our swords together" said the captain and the colonel and sergeant drew theirs out and stood back a bit, letting the tips of their swords touch each others and the captain's. Senris drew his sword and joined them.

"Let this be moment where we came together, soldiers and civilian, going beyond the call of duty to protect the ones they cared about from this pirate attack. I ask of you three to keep this day in your hearts and that we will aid each other in any way possible" exclaimed the captain who looked more like brave knight than navy captain with his sword.

Colonel John Miller, Sergeant James Stanley, and Professor Vulpis Senris nodded in agreement and Silva watched with happiness of the newfound friendship forming before her. Yet in the midst of this, Senris mind was clouded with questions. Why did Nixtra spare him and what was in the letter that she carried with her? These questions would only be answered in due time for in the distance lay the Crystal Mines of the Miner's Corps filled with a new adventure waiting for the Senris and Silva, along with their new friends.