Infiltrating into the headquarters would be a sensitive measure. Since the old days, The Blue Dolphins had relied upon invisibility as their primary means of hiding, blending in with the boundaries of the mystical cloud of Orion.

Darkness is what we enrobe ourselves in, to hide, but here, the whole place was shrouded in brilliance, the place of least suspicion.

The station had no fancy shield of invisibility or anything like that. There were numerous holographic projections placed to perfection on each and every part of the station that were opaque and hid the place perfectly, as they showed the same features of the background. Like pixels on an enormous screen.

Modifications were eminent. But what kind? More invisible guns? A ship or two in guard? As Juvo neared the location, the questions started revolving round his head, attacking his thoughts and permeating their way inside, separating his primary objective in a wall of reasoning. Without answering these, or finding reassurance in other ways, he was afraid the mission wouldn't go smoothly.

He pressed himself back on his throne and closed his eyes. "How longer?"

The driving bot, with its skeletal mechanisms and protruding circuitry- an intimidating appearance for those who first lay eyes on him- rotated his head in a buzz, replying, "An hour at most. Awaiting commands for after completion of the task at hand."

"Stand by."

Juvo pondered a while.

"Okay, run a scan once we stop. Full three sixty," he moved his hands in a circle around his head in a swift motion.

"Understood, my lord," the Sinturvs and the driver, chimed in unison.

He needed to know exactly what he was getting himself into. The scanning would give him some preconception of what to do next.

"Hmph," Juvo sighed and laid back.

Around the ship there were numerous black stains. Moreover, rust could be seen outlining the edges of many panels.

He needed to do a maintenance soon. But his ship was too well known. Stopping by any place would give his identity away, leading to all sorts of trouble. He needed to do a complete makeover by maintenance bots, instead of labour. That way, once the job was done, he could discreetly pay the head for the work of the bots, and he wouldn't even know who his client was.

But it was difficult to find any such operators, as most used slaves to work on the ships instead of robots, and he couldn't afford to keep witnesses- the reason for the present condition of the ship, which was once a shining gem... now dulled in appearance to be equivalent to a sedimentary rock. At times he felt bad. Being a lord, he didn't deserve to travel with his ship in the present manner.

The groups in the cleaning department were hostile, mostly belonging to jails of the old. Instead of indulging in crimes, they took hold of the cleaning business to earn money wisely.

But slaves were a commodity they had refused to give up, and the situation being in control till date, the Galactic Patrol couldn't do much to aid the slaves as, if they did take away them, there'd be barbarous attacks on numerous systems by the slave-owning races, making it out of control for even all of the personnel in the department.

The slaves were of varied races, bought from places like the Galactic Black Market. They toiled throughout their operating times to get sufficient food but should they rebel, they'd be denied food for two galactic days straight, and tortured in order to strike fear in the others, so that they do not repeat the actions.

But many being born into the system as slaves, were happy with their lives as it was, because it was how their life had been from when they could remember. They were ignorant of leading life like other intelligent inhabitants of the galaxies, and lived to death knowing nothing about the greater system.

Juvo admired these slaves. It was their kind that hailed him lord, the kind he could effortlessly rule upon.

"Lord Juvo, we are here," the driver spoke out, and Juvo felt the ship slow down to a halt. He saw space-time normalise outside the windows.

"Now, commencing the scan," the Sinturvs said in unison as they activated the infra-red scanner.

__________

"My lord, we have got the model ready," One of his followers handed him a hologram projector.

Juvo came down from his throne and placed it on the centre table. Then he selected the size of the projection. "Show," he said, simply. In a glimpse, an infra-red model about the size of the table itself, hovered over it just by a few centimetres.

"I see, it has been modified," he pointed out numerous projections from the main body of the station as powerful railguns. The station was constructed over a massive asteroid, which if had been near a planet, could be called a moon with acute justification. There, near at the bottom of it, were numerous shapes- all similar to each other. "That's the 'garage'," Juvo said. It meant, that presumably, all of The Blue Dolphins' ships were situated in that area. "I feared there would be ships guarding the station. But there isn't any. Nice, then. Okay, let's go, the sooner, the better. And the ship can't stay here. If they notice it staying still for too long, they'd suspect and might start shooting."

"But how will we manage to get past the railguns? They'd surely see us coming even if we can't see them," a woman said, belonging to the same race as Juvo.

"Well, we won't need to get past them in the usual way," he smiled. "We are teleporting. That guy I killed last galactic month was a rich fellow. And he had access to a teleportation machine. Now it's mine and has enough energy to transport us into the headquarters and back to our ship. It's already monitoring the coordinates of the ship and will be notified of ours once we get in the building. Based on the model, as we can't look directly into it, I have asked the worker bots to put in coordinates that send us on the other side of the main gate. From there we carry on with our mission and find this General Darp."

With the plan crystal clear in their heads, they picked up their weapons, which were mostly snipers and deadly laser guns, including exceptions of short range pistols with silencers. They packed their bags and wore the teleportation suit of the rich man one by one as they teleported into the building.

The Sinturvs were the first to get there. The guard robots were alarmed and before they could shoot, the Sinturvs duo aimed at their heads and shot them dysfunctional with precision. The intruders alarm never rang.

Once everybody was inside, Juvo notifed them, "I know the General's room. I've been there before. You all follow me closely."

They all complied. Quietly, they sneaked their way into a lift.

"We will get off on the seventh floor, and make our way to the eighth floor, where the general's office should be. The seventh floor is usually quiet and unoccupied except maintenance staff. It's where they station their VIPs. I doubt we'd find any."

Slowly, the large elevator carried the whole crew up. Pale yellow lights lit the enormous space within it and it lacked any feature except the railings at waist level and a control unit with buttons by the door. Cool air seeped from the cooling unit above.

Just before reaching the seventh floor, they pressed their backs on the side walls. As the walls opened and retracted into the sides, they peeped to spot any movement. None.

They carefully made their way around the floor and up the stairs. The floor had aristocracy embedded into it all the way to the nook and corners. Luxury, only Juvo had savoured once upon a time. Every part of the floor screamed, "I'm expensive!" Juvo knew who came here. Dealers. People who hired The Blue Dolphins to carry out attacks. And once, he had been one of them too.

He shook his head out of his thoughts and continued on his way up the stairs.

All at once, breaking the silence, they heard chatter from above. Some people were coming down. The steps sounded nearer by the second. They backed out quickly and went behind the stairs, sitting under it to let the people pass. There were five women. Maintenance staff, from the looks of their uniforms.

Once they left and were out of hearing range, they resumed their climb upstairs.

Up until this point they had successfully managed to evade cameras.

But all the visible ones were dummies.

Fakes.

All the cameras were hidden, and they had no idea, that they were being spotted.

__________

In the surveillance room, the feed showed the group ascending up the stairs of the seventh floor to the eight floor.

But on the chair before the monitors, the man in charge of surveillance- was snoring. Deep in sleep...

Credit to the lack of any activity and no crime record so far from the day he started his job, it had become his daily off time to get some good sleep.

Having doing it for two years now, he didn't expect anything to happen any time soon.

__________

Now, the group was successfully on the eighth floor, right before the door of the general. They had managed to avoid all eyes and made their way towards the door, only after making sure that nobody was around.

Juvo could have easily terminated all personnel in the building and could worry less about himself as he had the Crystal of Immortality. But doing that would have endangered his fellows, the only committee he could command and be ruler of. This was the ruins and leftover of Vengeance he had managed to create after the failure on NCC8.

But more importantly, if he gave his identity away, and successfully gained the information he sought- much more easily than how he was going after it now, it would have alerted the Government of Urmea, and would have put the whole mission in danger. They would have done everything they were capable of doing to stop him. And he couldn't afford to let them do that.

The weapons on his ship were enough to kill everybody inside; but in not enough time. Had he started firing at them, they would have fired back, and in the time in between, the Government of Urmea would have been informed of his involvement, owing to his infamous ship.

The way he approached his target now, was the safest. There would be no witnesses to prove that whatever he did here, was his doings.

Now infront of the door, Juvo attempted to open it.

The door didn't budge. There was a biometric lock on the side. Oh dammit! Totally forgot about this. What do I do now? Juvo tensed.

Unable to figure anything out in the short window of time he had managed, he knocked.

"If you are not authorised, you can't come in," said a voice from within.

Juvo calmed himself, and called the lady who had asked earlier, how they would get in the building, to which he had showed his means of teleportation.

He whispered into her ear.

Calming herself, she replied in a moment, "We are here for cleaning."

Their heartbeats were on a steady increase.

"Strange, it's not your timing." There was a short pause. "Okay, whatever. I could only be happy that you are taking your job seriously. After all it's a secret organisation you are serving, so a few more cleans than usual is only for the better, isn't it?" They could sense a smile somewhere there in his words. They were all relieved.

From what it seemed, the women they had encountered not too long ago, were new arrivals, and were still learning their way around at work on the campus.

The door clicked open from the inside and opened traditionally on hinges on one side, swaying inwards. General Darp was seated on his chair and was attending to numerous things placed on his desk- mostly models of machinery, of what could be in future, parts of ships.

They all slipped in, without him noticing. As they shut the door, he said, "At the corner by the door, the bin is full, I would like it-" he stopped mid-sentence when he noticed the oddity in his arrivals.

"Y-you aren't-" he couldn't speak as he laid his eyes upon Juvo. "Oh my God." Before he could say or do anything, the Sinturvs deployed an EMP, after shielding themselves and Juvo, and the room's power shut down. It showed how, each room had a seperate power supply, or maybe the general's room was special- allowing him to operate even when the other parts had no electricity.

With lights on on their chests, one of them shot a projectile that hit General Darp on his lips. It evolved into a sheet and taped his mouth close, his gelled whiskers withering to his sides.

Juvo's followers tied him up, and Juvo brought out his Shokurat. "Now, I am going to get what I need, whether you like it or not," said he with an evil smirk, his body curving to extreme proportions, as he transitioned more, into a monster.

He rested the device on the table, and turned it on. Being an ex-lieutenant of The Galactic Patrol, he knew how to use a Shokurat.

The device allowed one's brain to answer to questions without the intervention of one's self, acting as a search to extract information without someone's will, or from great depths of the mind- for cases where the subject may not be able to recall everything properly.

General Darp's tears fell with silent sobs as the device got activated. The lid of the cylindrical device came off and from within, a headset was brought out. Juvo took great care and fit it on top of General Darp's head comfortably.

Seconds later, Darp felt tingling feelings from several points of his head, as pointy threads pierced his skull in microscopic filaments.

They connected with the inner circuitry of his mind.

Now each and every neuron in his head was in the device's control.

The light in the front of the device gleamed green. Juvo backed a few steps, pleased.

"So, now you tell me. Where is the map? Where is the map that leads to The Council, the organisation that has links with the Gods of the Multiverse?"

Darp, with eyes faded of their colours, said bleakly, "There isn't one."

"WHAT!" Juvo shrieked in utter disbelief. How could what he was saying be possibly true? But the Shokurat was in use, and nobody could lie through that. "Tell me all you know about The Council." He needed to know. He had to achieve what he deemed right.

"We all operate remotely. There isn't any headquarters. We are chosen as members by the Supreme Leader on his planet, and from thereon we operate remotely. No one except the Supreme Leader knows the identity of all the members. We only know how many there are."

"Who is the Supreme Leader? Where is his planet? How can I find him?" If this was the leader of The Council, he must know enough to help Juvo.

"He is one of the secondary Gods. He and a few other beings of his planet gave knowledge to the Simvaritan Solar System. His name is Faramon. His planet is 971JE, known among them locally as Gadiem Von. There is no way to find him directly. You must look for him on his planet. We were given clues, to test our merit. But you won't get them, as you are not selected."

"Show me the clues." Juvo was desperate.

"Not found. Information hadn't been transferred to permanent memory." The Shokurat said in a robotic voice.

Juvo gritted his teeth and emitted gutturals."What does the place look like?" He knew from experience that the images from memories were vague and hazy. But he had to have anything that could give him a lead.

The Shokurat projected an indiscernible image of a dull green cave with patches of red and ochre splashed in some places.

How the hell am I supposed to find a cave, now!

Apparently, Juvo's journey was not going to have an easy start.

He sighed and shut off the Shokurat, took off the headset from Darp's head, allowing his consciousness to return. He then injected a clear liquid on his neck. Slowly his head fell on one side and his eyes closed. His body rose and fell in a steady motion at equal intervals.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Juvo said to his followers, "It's all the information we have now. Staying any longer is unnecessary, and we can't get caught."

They all obeyed and quietly slipped through the door, closing it on the unconscious figure of the General.