While Lavie recovers from her injuries on the crashed Silvana, she dreams of her childhood with Claus, whose family moved to Norkia and became neighbors with Lavie's. Their fathers, Hamilcar Valca and Georges Head, immediately became best friends and teamed up as a vanship pilot and navigator. Claus's mother, Justina, took care of Lavie as if she was her own daughter. Valca and Head taught their children to fly a vanship and assigned them mock courier missions. Lavie recalls her father's two friends, a male vanship pilot and a female navigator, but cannot remember their names. One day, Valca and Head received an assignment to cross the Grand Stream to deliver a peace proposal to Disith and left with their two friends. However, Valca and Head lost their lives in the attempt, and Justina died not long after. In a separate dream, Alex Row sees the two vanships in the Grand Stream. After they were orphaned, Claus and Lavie began training to fly a vanship. They were eventually forced to sell their house to save the vanship and began training for courier missions. When Lavie finally awakens, she finds herself crying from the memories. Dio and Alister finally locate Claus and Tatiana near the field of Disith migration capsules. Claus is reunited with Lavie and informs her that their hometown of Norkia has fallen to Disith.

As the Silvana and the Urbanus continue their search for Exile, Sophia briefs the vanship pilots on their strategy to capture it. Sophia asks Dio to fly as Claus's navigator, but he refuses from fear of being found again by Delphine. At Horizon Cave, Nestor proposes that the Claudia unit capture plan be accelerated after the Guild recalls several units, but Duke Mad-thane appeases him to wait for the scheduled operation on Covenant Day. On the final day of the Guild's Birth Week, Alvis surprises Dio with a birthday party, much to his delight. After days of searching, the Silvana and the Urbanus locate Exile, and Dio agrees to fly as Claus's navigator to assist in its capture. The Guild locates Dio on board the Silvana, and Delphine orders Lucciola's brother Cicada to retrieve him at all costs. As the vanship squadron attempts to anchor cables onto Exile, the ship's defense system activates, but it is able to complete their objective after identifying an unprotected section of the hull, with Dio's help. Alex hands Marius's Mysterion to Sophia and tells her to return to the Urbanus. Just before Claus and Dio return to the Silvana, Guild fighters land on the flight deck.

In the hope of capturing their next battleship, Fam and company visit Eldorado, an amusement center where underground Vanship races are held.