Their stay on Skyfire had been too short from them to use any of the resources Star Division had taken from the pirates. But they did have energy in spades. The worth of all the energy crystals they brought back with them was hard to quantify. They’d gone after the strongest and riches pirates of the Shattered Starfields, culminating in the Moonfiend Pirate clan. Their last campaign had been the most profitable of them all, including resources directly from the Pontiff’s Citadel.
The poor souls that the Pontiff had experimented on had been settled on Skyfire, and the Keeper set about eliminating the poisons in their bodies. Obviously, none of these people were eager to run back to the Pontiff and report on what they saw. They didn’t even want to return to the West. For the time being a place was arranged for them, but when the question of their future came up Lan Jue and the Wine Master agreed to let them find their own way.
1.Named after two legendary Chinese emperors, Yan Di and Huang Di (note the naming convention, the same as Jue Di).
2.Note the odd choice of using ‘we’ here even though it’s the narrator expositing. Very deliberate.