"I suppose… Thanks for everything, Instructor," I chuckled as I shook the Instructor's hand.

He shook my hand back, "Likewise, Miss Tera. I suppose I might see you during the exhibition itself."

Oh yeah, I completely forgot he was going as well.

I nodded, "See you then. And good luck with your business rivals."

Yeah, I couldn't help but throw the last one in as well.

After we had returned his Exo-Knights back to the station, I basically told the Instructor that we would be flying towards the station where we would collect the android before we head towards the sector where the Exo-Knight exhibition was held.

Thus, we would be leaving before his lessons were over, which wasn't really a problem for us since all of us technically already graduated from his Academy with our licenses.

We could, of course, choose to stay and only pick it up after the exhibition but I would like to deal with Renata's clone issue as soon as possible so we decided to pick up the android first. Especially since we now need her to pilot the extra ship we had just obtained as well.

We left the station and had the other ship dock with the Iridescence before we engaged the Travel Drives, our ship shooting off into the distance in the direction of the Warp Gate.

"We should give the other ship a name," Ries pointed out.

"Does it already have a name?"

She nodded, "I checked the database and it is registered as 'Drow Of Dawn'."

I paused for a moment, "Now that I think about it… Is it a problem that we basically took this ship for ourselves? Like… Is there a law against this? We're basically stealing it, aren't we?"

Amber chuckled, "If it was just as simple as stealing it, then yes, it would definitely be a problem. But what we did was claim it as a spoil of war. We won't have a problem with just taking it for ourselves~"

I raised an eyebrow, "How would anyone even know whether we stole this ship or claimed it as a spoil of war?"

"Ships have ship logs of their own, Boss~ They will record that the ship has been used for piracy and those types of ships would be open to being claimed by anyone."

"Eh? How would they even know if a ship have been used for piracy?"

"I checked the logs earlier, Daddy~" Renata chirped from my chest. "They have attacked other ships and that would be logged as a piracy event. So as long as we show that when we register the ship under our group, they will treat it as us claiming it under spoils of war!"

I blinked, "Wait… So this crew was an actual pirate crew?"

"More like the crew that does that illegal stuff for that particular organisation, Daddy~ So we don't need to worry about being flagged as pirates ourselves since they would clearly recognise that the former owners were up to no good~"

"Then… Couldn't people just mess with the logs or something? Like what's stopping me from raiding an innocent ship and then deleting the logs from the ship to remain clean?"

"Any attempts to temper with the ship logs may render the ship completely shutting down, Tera," Amber told me from the side. "It's a galactic standard that all ship manufacturers have to abide so it's not worth the risk to try as you might lose your entire ship in the process."

"This is a pretty weird rule… If the could already tell that the ships are engaging in piracy, can't those ships be remotely shut down anyway?"

"Oh, it doesn't work like that, Boss. What I meant is that when a ship destroys or attacks another ship, the logs will reflect that such an event happened. Then people who check the logs will be able to reference the ships involved in these events and check if those ships that were registered in the logs were known to be pirates or innocent travellers. So if they find that the logs are full of incidents with attacking innocent ships, then it will be marked as a pirate ship. This is also how the Guild is able to pay us for the pirate ships we eliminate as well."

Oh right, I remember there was that thing where they mentioned about the ship automatically tracking my kills. I guess this was what they were referring to.

A thought came to my mind, "So… If I'm not wrong… Your ship can also be reported as a pirate ship by others, right? Which would then result in your ship being shown as a pirate ship on everyone's scanners?"

Ries nodded, "That's right, Boss~"

"So what's stopping a pirate captain from… Let's just say… Claiming that they got their ship as a spoil of war and then reset its status as an innocent ship instead of a pirate ship?"

"The ships themselves will have to be registered with a captain so they might be able to do it once, assuming the captain themselves isn't already a known criminal, but subsequently they won't be able to claim they got the ship from themselves."

"Sounds like it's a loophole that can be easily exploited though…" I pointed out.

Amber chuckled, "Ehehe~ Not really, Tera. Because one of the things that pirates hate the most is getting themselves registered in some kind of system as that makes them easier to track. So unless it's some really stupid pirate, they wouldn't do something like that."

Yumiko then turned to me from where she was seated at the communications console, "I have to add though… This system allows pirate crews who mutinied against their captain to turn legitimate after they overthrow their captain. As long as the new captain is registered to the ship and pays the fee to do so."

I raised an eyebrow, "You need to pay a fee?"

Ries waved her hand enthusiastically, "Yes, Boss! To register a ship under you, you need to pay a registration fee. When we got the Iridescence, the price of the registration fee was already included in the price of the ship!"

"How much was it?"

"It's one percent of the ship's value, Boss~"

"Hmm… I see… I guess there's also not much point for a pirate crew to keep trying to clear the ship's pirate status if they were just going to keep resorting to piracy and get the pirate tag on them again. They might even be losing money if they have to keep paying the registration fee cost… Wait, so we would need to pay the registration fee for the ship we just got as well?"

"Yes, Boss~"

"So what if someone claims a ship but can't afford the registration fee?"

"Then they can't claim it, Captain," Mara answered from where she stood beside me. "If you are unable to pay the registration fee, even if the ship is a spoil of war, it would be considered a theft if you continue to fly the ship."

"Ah… So we should get it registered as soon as possible then. Where can we register it?"

"You could head to any station with a station to register it with the dock master."

That's convenient. Guess we could just go to the station where we're picking up the android to register our new ship under our Mercenary group.

"Wait… Do you need to register the ship before you sell them? Because I don't remember doing that for the last few ships we sold off?" I asked, recalling the last time we managed to commandeer and take over some pirate ships which we sold off.

"If you're just selling them, there's no need to register them under you, Tera," Amber answered with a grin. "After all, you won't be the one that is flying them."

Yeah, that would make sense… Though I wonder if anything is stopping someone from taking over a ship and just using said ship until they get tired of it and sell it off without claiming it throughout the usage?"

"Oh, and if you were found to be piloting a ship that you are not registered to, that would mark you as a thief~" Amber continued, as though reading my mind. "And since docking your ship would show your ship's registered owner to the port authority as well as revealing who the current pilot is, if you intend to just use a ship without paying the registration fee, you will be unable to stop at any station aside from the ones that are run by outlaws."

So basically by doing so, you would become an outlaw yourself anyway.

Seems like whoever created this system thought this through. Either that, or this was a system that was refined after various trials and errors.

I'm inclined to believe that it's the latter…

Welp, not like I plan to take advantage of the system anyway so this doesn't really concern me~

I guess we'll think about the name for our new ship when we're registering it.

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