"I guessed this was your aim when I saw your behaviour, but unfortunately I couldn't give my people a signal before you escalated it," Corgan said as he shook his head.

  "It was the only way to get a reaction," Marcus nodded while his hand was still on his AKM, ready to be pointed at a moment's notice. George, Leonard and the other guards too were next to the door, their guns at the ready.

  Dan took all this in while trying to keep the confusion from his face. His mind went back to when Old Raily told him that there was something wrong with the islanders, and how he told him to keep an eye on them. Who would have thought that that would have ended in this?

  "So?" Corgan said, his eyes focused on Marcus, "What do you have in mind right now? I doubt you're just going to let us go?"

  "We will see about that," Old Raily said, "We first need to get some information about what you wanted to do and what your aim was from all of this. Please follow us peacefully, we don't want to turn to force."

  Dan could feel the air in the room turn thick as the two parties looked at each other in silence. And that wasn't just an expression, he could literally feel the dark aura that only appeared once before, when the Behemoth showed up in the beginning, start to fill the place. He didn't know what the Voyager could do to people inside it, but he didn't want to find out at that moment.

  "What a strange place..." Dan was close enough to Corgan to hear him murmur this to himself as he looked around. Finally, the old islander sighed and said, "I guess we owe you that much. I will come with you peacefully."

  "But sir-" The gentle-faced woman started, but couldn't finish before Corgan cut her off,

  "I told you to stand down, didn't I, Simlith?" There was an edge to his voice that Dan had never heard before.

  The woman, Simlith it seems, didn't say anything more, she just lowered her head for a moment, when she lifted it again, she was back to the unassuming woman who always stood next to the old man.

  "We just want to have a conversation with you, not trouble," Marcus said as if to calm them down. "We will just use a cabin here, no need to go somewhere else. Is that alright with you?"

  "It's okay," Corgan nodded.

  As the hostility between the two fell again, Dan could feel the aura that was emanating from all over the Voyager start to disappear. He didn't forget to pat a nearby wall as he whispered a quiet Thank you.

  They then walked to one of the many empty rooms in that corridor cluster of deck 4, still under the eye of the other islanders. Old Raily then signalled for George to come as he made him guard outside the door of the cabin. At the same time, he went and talked to the other guards who stood at the door leading outside.

  With the protective measures dealt with, they could finally start this interrogation.

  "So, can you tell us who you really are?" Marcus asked Corgan who was sitting on the other side of the table.

  "Who I really am isn't that different from what I told you," Corgan shrugged, "I'm just someone from the Dynasty who got caught by those slavers, and ended up here by chance."

  "I can see that being the truth, not the whole truth though." Marcus tapped his finger on the table. He then sighed and said as he looked deeply at Corgan, "Listen here old man, I think the time for half-truths and all that has already passed. We know that who you are is way more than just some citizen who found himself caught by pirates. So why can't we leave that aside and start being honest, that would help both of us."

  "Hey, you can't blame an old man for trying," Corgan said with a light chuckle. His face then turned serious as he said, "To get what we are doing here, starting from the beginning is the best I guess?

  "As you might know, ever since the Empire outlawed slavery, aiming to start building a better relationship with the Dynasty, the number of attacks on our islands fell drastically, there were still some attacks from time to time, but those were rare and we managed to catch them most of the time. We were happy at first, as you might expect, but things didn't remain like that for long. A couple of years ago, the number of attacks on our islands rose again, even higher than it was in the middle of the slavery boom.

  "Our suspicions of course went to the usual criminals, the Alliance and the Empire. Unfortunately, none of our informants in those nations could give us definite proof that it was them. Some clues pointed us towards the Alliance but nothing concrete."

  Corgan stopped here, looking at the people in front of him. Dan just nodded, showing that he was following, while Marcus and Old Raily just gazed at him in silence.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "The more time passed the worse things got," Corgan shook his head as he continued, "Eventually, even the islands closest to the mainland started getting hit. We managed to catch some of those pirates, but none of them could tell us anything about the truth of the matter, they seemed to be under some kind of contract, dying before they could say anything about who they were working for.

  "Our Navy has never been as strong as the Alliance's or the Empire's. We mostly relied on Ocean Dwellers to protect our shores from the occasional monster we couldn't deal with on our own. But the problem with that is that Deepdarks slip through them, seeing how they use ocean creatures for their surveillance.

  "That brings us to the current situation, and why we are here. Seeing how things are, the Dynasty sent a few of us to each of the islands most suspected of being the slavers' next target. We should have remained low and tried to get as much info as we could about who was behind all of this and where they are taking our people, before sending that back. But as you know, we got saved by you and ended up here. I think that's it, the short version of it at least."

  "So what?" Old Raily said with a deep frown, "You're some kind of special forces?"

  "Not really," Corgan shook his head, "We were chosen for having skills that would make it easier for us to infiltrate without being found. So no, we were not some special killing machines-"

  "You are spies though," Marcus cut him off.

  "If you want to put it like that."

  "So what was your goal with us?" Dan finally had the chance to ask a question himself. He was okay with taking the back seat and letting Marcus and Old Raily lead the conversation, but he couldn't stop himself from asking this one question. To say that he hadn't felt a bit betrayed would be a lie.

  "Honestly, I was unsure," Corgan met his eyes, "I might not know all that is going on in the world, but I knew that a ship like yours isn't supposed to exist. We still had our mission, but that one was already a bust with the pirates leaving without us."

  "You changed your target to us?" Old Raily said with a matter-of-fact tone, "That's why you mentioned the bit about not wanting to go ashore with the Empire's citizens. You were trying to get more information about us. Honestly, that was when my suspicions about you reached the peak."

  "You can't blame me," Corgan raised his hands, "I had to get as much information as I could, who knew if you would turn out to be a threat to us?"

  "Finish with him," Dan said as he turned and left the room. He couldn't bring himself to stay there as he could feel himself losing his rationality and calm thinking.

  He would be lying to say that he saw this coming, he honestly quite liked the old man. They had fun talking and he seemed like a good person. Partly because of that, finding out that they were just being used hurt quite a bit.

  Another thing that was contributing to the anger he was feeling was how he couldn't really rely on them to deal with the tracking marks left by the noble, another person he had saved. Letting literal spies know that they had no way to detect or deal with tracking marks was not a good idea no matter how he looked at it.

  Dan stood in place in the corridor and closed his eyes, he took deep breaths as he tried to think some more about what they could do about said mark. The first thing that came to mind was, of course, narrowing the places where it could be. Fortunately, they never let the passengers be on their own other than when they were in this corridor, and even here the guards were always watching, leaving only their rooms.

  Once he thought of that, he opened his eyes, locking his gaze with the woman who was always behind Corgan, Simlith. He frowned as he turned around and walked to the door of the corridor cluster. He could have just asked George, but with the islanders nearby, he didn't want to take any chances.

  "Leonard," He could recognise the man even though he was in full gear because of his size, the man was the tallest person among the guards, "Do you know where that noble was staying? Which cabin?"

  "I can't quite remember..." Leonard answered after staying silent for a while. "There were a lot of them and I didn't really pay much attention to him."

  "I remember," Hank, Fleta's brother said, "Jackie and Marcus had me keep an eye on him, so I still remember where he was staying."

  "Great, come show me where it was," Dan said.

  To Dan's surprise, the cabin the man had stayed in was quite close to where the guards were. He could see that being arranged by Jackie, he was the one responsible for giving the people their rooms. Having the troublemaker be close to the guards was a good idea after all.

  "Thank you," Dan said to Hank, "You can leave for now."

  Hank seemed to give him a deep look, he was wearing the full face helmet, Dan couldn't really read him, he just stood there frozen for a second before nodding and turning to leave. Dan released a deep breath, turned to the cabin, entered then closed the door behind him.

  "Okay big girl," He said as he moved to the centre of the cabin, "I really hope this works because I have no other idea right now."

  "Voyager!" He called in a serious voice, calling her directly, "Can you please see if there's anything wrong in this room? See if anything was left here, something that wasn't here before. It might not even be physical.."

  Saying that out loud, he stood alone in that cabin, in silence as he looked around.

  "Nothing happened..." Dan sighed in defeat as his shoulders slumped. He then fell into a nearby chair clutching his hair. It was then that he felt something stir up.

  All around him, a mix between the auras he felt before rose from the cabin and outside it. The warm gentle one he felt the first time he chose his class, and the dark one he felt when the Behemoth appeared, and just a few minutes ago when the situation seemed to be turning sour.

  He could feel most of those auras focusing on him, as if cloaking him in a cocoon. A small part of the auras diffused and filled the cabin, while still being connected to the cocooned Dan. Inside that cocoon of auras, he felt the connection he had with the Voyager strengthen to a point he had never felt before.

  He could feel another consciousness connect to him, thoughts and feelings being exchanged between them. The thoughts being sent his way were simple and rudimentary. He could feel a mix of confusion, care, worry and love. Most of those were aimed towards him.

  "Voyager..." He murmured.