"Well, I'm sure the proper authorities could always be contacted to deal with a few bad apples," Solomon said dismissively, giving no indication that he recognized those traits within himself.

"Ah...I-I'm sorry..." Israfil said in a fluster, "it's just...the four of you are considered heroes, at least, that's what I heard over the Cepheus PDF comm lines."

"Yes, only the problem is, that's not happening. Those bad apples, as you call them, tend to get away with it more often than not, and if the Ascendency keeps allowing things like that to happen, it might become a major problem." Blythe answered.

Claire looked at him. "People of both sides were murdered today and we assisted in that. Doing so doesn't make us heroes." She said, finding it unbelievable that people actually thought that way.

Solomon glared at Blythe in annoyance and was about to retort, but Israfil spoke, perhaps a little too loudly, "But I was just shooting buildings!", interrupting whatever Solomon was about to say. Israfil paused for a moment as he considered how stupid that was, of course there were people in those buildings. "I-I didn't kill..." he suddenly imagined people crushed by rubble as the buildings collapsed, imagined someone standing on a floor that he hit directly, getting seared by his blasts. He stood up suddenly with a frantic look in his eyes, "I-I'm sorry, I-I n-need to leave now." Israfil left, visibly shaken.

"Israfil, wait!" Claire said, getting up to go after Israfil. She didn't mean to upset him, not at all. She had simply tried to explain why she saw nothing good about what happened today, or more specifically, at the front, but didn't realise that the boy possibly hadn't taken a moment to actually realise what he had done, and what the consequences were of that. Now he felt awful, and she hated herself because of it.

Blythe looked at what happened, not saying a word. Now there werd two of them feeling bad. This day was nothing short of horrible.

Solomon saw Claire and Israfil leave, "Tch, how'd they get to become soldiers if they can't even handle a little blood on their hands?" He took a long look at Blythe, reconsidering his assessment of her. She was brave, heck, she was willing to stand up to him even after he had used mind control on her and she seemed unfazed by combat. "I'll have to admit, you're stronger than they are."

Israfil stopped when he realized Claire was following him. He turned to look at her, bleary-eyed. He tried to blink back the tears. "W-we're soldiers...I mean...I should have been prepared for it. I guess simulations are different, aren't they? B-but we're defending our country, defending our families...I'm sorry!" Israfil suddenly bowed. "I didn't know what you were feeling, and made light of your situation!"

Blythe shrugged upon hearing Solomon say that she was stronger than Claire and Israfil. "Only when it comes to dealing with combat. I'm messed up in different ways." She answered. She wasn't going to explain that further, although it was the truth.

"You didn't know what happened at the front, I shouldn't have expected you to understand what it was like and how it made me feel." Claire said, looking at him. "But you're right, we're doing this to protect others. It's a good thing, even when it's difficult."

"Eh," Solomon shrugged, dismissing her struggles, "As long as it doesn't get in the way of missions, it should be a non-issue."

"Th-thank you for your forgiveness," Israfil said, "I need to get stronger." He slapped his cheeks to pep himself up. "I think I'll go do some more training."

"It shouldn't cause any trouble." Blythe said to Solomon. It aodt seemed like he was being nice, which really surprised her.

"Do you want me to join you?" Claire asked Israfil, looking at him.

"Alright, well that's enough celebration for one day," Solomon said, getting up, "I'm gonna go hit the sack, I'm tired."

"Sure," Israfil replied, leading the way to the hangar.

Blythe nodded, but didn't leave to go to the bedroom herself just yet.

Claire followed after Israfil, being quiet for the moment.

As Solomon left, a bunch of the people gathered around also left, some giving Blythe strange looks, judging her for her 'unpatriotic' statements; while others muttered under their breath things along the lines, "Man that guy's an asshole."

Israfil and Claire arrived in the hangar. Israfil looked up at Orpheus, reminding himself that it was a machine of death. He looked around, seeing the engineering crew hard at work repairing what minor damage was sustained by the cogs that hadn't been healed by Asteria. "Well, I'll get into Orpheus and start doing some training sims. I'll keep the comm open if you want to chat," he said to Claire.

Blythe could hear the people talking as they left, but gave them no attention. She didn't care what they thought of her anyway, she wasn't here to make friends, after all.

Claire nodded and got to Asteria, climbing into the cog. Maybe practicing wasn't such a good idea right now, but she could always stop if she didn't like it.

As soon as Asteria booted up, Claire started getting a call from an unknown number on her drive. There were also minor details of the Cog OS boot-up that were slightly different.

Claire frowned, looking at the call but not noticing the other small changes. Not sure what else to do, she chose to answer the call.

Some strange noise came on the drive but quickly cut out. It was soon followed by a second message notifying Claire that her drive was being accessed by an unknown source, that steps are being taken to locate the source, and that as an added security measure, Claire should probably doublecheck her drive authentication.

Claire, who was quite freaked out by the werd call, wasn't sure what she should do. Maybe she should inform Maya or Sion about it, but what could they do? For now, though, Claire decided to not train anyway, after the strange call.

A few hours later, the pilots were called to the hangar again.

Sion gave the briefing while Maya stood beside him, "As we left Cepheus IV, a signal was intercepted intended for the Homeworld base we just neutralized. Our task force has traced the signal to what appears to be an armed freighter fleet. We believe they were supplying the Homeworld insurgents with weapons and supplies. When we are in range, we will try to negotiate with them, but if negotiations break down..."

Red lights began to flash while a siren blared.

Sion sighed, "Suit up."

Following the same launch procedures as before, Sion went out first followed by Maya. Sion's Fury immediately split into its three parts that zoomed off in different directions to scout and exploit weaknesses in the enemy ship formations. Maya surveyed the situation and waited for the rest to join her out in space.

Blythe and Claire got into their cogs without hesitation. Blythe noticed that her sister seemed a little nervous to go out on the battlefield again and Blythe showed her a reassuring smile.

Once all cogs had arrived, Maya ordered Tera to perform a scan and update everyone's tactical computers. The enemy flotilla was divided into six groups of freighters, each group protected by their own band of warships.

"Commander," Tera added, "Tachyon readings are spiking for the enemy fleet, I think they're preparing to jump."

"It would be difficult to prevent all of them from jumping, should we focus down one group?" Maya asked, directing her question to the bridge of the Incubator.

The bridge communications officer replied, "Captain says to split your squad into two teams, and send each team at two groups each. The concert ships will take the remaining two group. We've a good chance ofat least stopping three of the groups fro mjumping, and if we're lucky, we'll get all six."

"U-understood," Maya replied. It was understandable given their exemplary performance that the captain would have such confidence in them, but Maya was unsure how to divide the group, and was also unsure of how some of them would act under pressure. She had seen Claire Blythe and Solomon's ability first-hand, so she decided to put them in one team. "Asteria, Nyx, Legion, you're Team Blue, Asteria has command; Mayura, Orpheus, you're with me, Team Red. Team Blue's targets are Enemy Groups 5 and 6, Team Red's targets are Enemy Groups 3 and 4. Fury will be acting autonomously, providing support wherever his judgment takes him, alright? begin operation!"

Obsidian thrust away from the group with Mayura following close behind, and Orpheus, a bit slow on the uptake, straggling a bit, but catching up. As Team Red left, Solomon turned his attention on Claire, skeptical and mildly infuriated, though he kept it to himself.

Blythe listened quietly, nor did she say anything after team red left. To her, there really was nothing to be said, and she saw no need to break the silence with useless small talk that had no use or whatsoever. So instead she started to walk, not saying anything to either of them.

Claire also remained quiet, but because of a different reason. She was still nervous and even afraid to face the horrors of war again, though she did her best to control herself, keeping in mind that they had a good cause.