chapter 43
On the screens in the cockpit was displayed a large trade hub. The runways were quite busy when we dropped out of FTL, but they were nothing in comparison to the Haver Prime Trade Centre.
The station itself was built into a large asteroid that was nearly 10 kilometres in length and about four in width, looking like an oversized rock with cities built into it in various locations.
In actuality, those were access points and ship docks. All the living space was inside the asteroid. It seemed to be quite self-sufficient and had what seemed like fortress-like defences. The place seemed to be covered in bunker-like structures dotted all over the asteroid.
I suspect that it would not be an easy place to assault, even if you got past their solar system defence fleet. They were not shy about announcing that they had over a thousand-ship fleet.
I didn’t know if that number was correct, but Lola had been able to identify almost 120 different ships belonging to the system’s defence fleet, so perhaps the number wasn’t that off.
This time, I didn’t buy a berth for the ship. Instead, we will pay for docking and use an airlock to enter.
Having been under 10G acceleration for nearly three days was as exhausting as it had been the last time, but slowly I was feeling that I was getting more used to it.
Once again, I checked over my equipment, wearing all my best gear and hiding an atomic bullet in my left hand just in case. From what Lola could find, this place was a lot less lawful than the Haver station, even if there was still a ban on certain types of weapons.
The communication computer worked perfectly, as always, as it allowed me to see all the necessary steps I needed to follow so we could dock without any issues.
We weren’t planning on staying here for long, but I needed to stretch my legs. Everything on the ship was so cramped, and the zero gravity didn’t help much.
Sometimes I lowered the gravity generator’s power, so while the gravity would be in the wrong direction, it still felt like I was back on Earth. It actually made sleeping quite nice, but I couldn’t do it too often—otherwise, the workshop would idle too much.
“I’m still worried that you’re going out alone. What if you made me a body so I could accompany you?”
“We have been over this. You would need to be in constant signal range with a droid to control it properly, and your AI core is way too big and power-hungry to fit you in a normal-sized droid. There is some better technology out there that could perhaps help with that, but your energy requirements would still be through the roof.”
What I heard back was quite unpleasant, even if she didn’t say anything directly—just sent feelings through our connection.
“The only way it would make sense would be if we built you a battle droid. The one they used on battlefields.”
“Yes, let’s make that.”
“And where would we put it? There wouldn’t really even be space for a normal-sized droid.”
“You’re no fun.”
“Sometimes I am.”
“Well, I haven’t seen it, so I think using sometimes is a bit too generous.”
“Perhaps I will take Bob with me?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
In response, I simply smiled.
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“No, wait—actually, don’t do that, please!”
But I was no longer listening to Lola. She started to get more and more desperate, but soon we reached our assigned dock, and I felt the airlock click into place.
“I’m not actually going to take Bob. How am I going to get him past the workshop? You do realize that we are connected at the front and not the back?”
She started complaining again, which just made me smile. Sometimes it was really easy to rile her up. But overall, that idea wasn’t a bad one. In combat situations, it was always better to have someone extra. And while I did have my small drones fitted into my trench coat’s inner pockets, there was a limit to their offensive capabilities.
Well, I would have plenty of time to think about that when we’re back in FTL. Before I started to climb past my workshop, into my pockets I put a few gold and platinum bars so I would have currency to pay for our fuel and stay. Perhaps even buy things in the city if I saw something interesting.
The airlock opened with the sound of air rushing in.
Seems like the inside of the asteroid was at a higher pressure than I expected. Fortunately, it wasn’t a problem, and I walked the short distance of the extending airlock onto the asteroid station.
I found myself in a decently sized room, obviously meant to be temporary cargo storage for loading or unloading a ship. There was one guy here waiting for me with a tablet, and behind him a security guard. Otherwise, the place was empty. They were both around my size, with more animalistic features, but otherwise quite humanoid.
“Greetings, am I to understand that you wish to refuel and visit the station with a stay of one day?”
“That’s exactly it.”
What followed was a short confirmation of what was already listed and transferred to the station’s computers, so all I had to do was confirm everything.
They would fuel the ship back up, and I now had a license to stay in the station for one day. Which to be exact was actually 24 hours and 41 minutes. All of this cost me 4,900 credits. I paid with gold, which they seemed to quite like.
Most of my drones were waking up before I left, so they could act as security if needed. The station itself felt heavy, like there was a lot of moisture in the air, making the air thicker.
The elevator ride was quite long, and getting on it was weird, as you needed to sideways step as the corridor changed directions.
“Lola, do you have any history on this station? Is it on this station’s web?” I asked as the elevator continued to go downward.
“It seems like it used to be a mining colony, but the rock was found to be uncommonly stable. So when most of the metal had been mined out, it was then made into an outpost and slowly into a proper trade station, and over time expanded its influence to become a trade hub for the sector.”
That was actually kinda interesting. Lola continued to talk about some of the history of this place, but eventually the elevator reached its destination. Stepping out of it, I once again had to step sideways because of the different direction of gravity.
When I got out of the elevator room, what greeted me was a pretty normal-looking city that was built into a cavern. There was no fake sky here, but there were quite a lot of lights that looked to produce light as close to this system’s sun as possible.
Once again, the air here felt dense. It didn’t take me long to find a map of the place, and then I understood why everything felt the way it felt. On the map, there were huge swaths of land dedicated to farming, and there seemed to be plenty of big lakes and rivers. That would explain the way the air felt.
The city was quite busy and filled with a huge mix of different kinds of people. Everyone also looked a lot rougher, and there weren't the dedicated sections like there were in the Haver Station. Everything was jumbled up.
The main plan was to just walk around here and have something hot to eat, but I was distracted by a shop I went by. It seemed to be only selling one product. The shop name was Myrtohktian Radiation Shielding. That shops name started with the station name. This was the first shop I’d seen with the name of the station.
Walking inside, I was greeted with something that looked like a fabric shop, but wasn’t. The shop clerk approached me almost immediately.
“How can I help you?”
“Can you please explain to me what this fabric—if that is a correct description of it—does?”
As soon as I asked it, the clerk’s eyes lit up.
“This is our station’s specialty. It was made by our biologists, scientists, and engineers. It was developed for the station itself, as we needed a way to protect the entirety of the station from radiation, be it natural or not. 'Fabric' is not quite the correct word for it, but it's not incorrect either. Its base is from a plant, but a lot of engineering has gone into making it function the way it currently does.”
He pulled out a small piece of the fabric and then pulled it apart, showing an almost honeycomb structure. Otherwise, it looked black and rubbery, with white streaks going through it that disappeared when you looked at it from far away.
“It is designed to go over a ship’s outer layer. It will absorb all the radiation, which would make scrubbing services for armour radiation cleaning unnecessary. It is also self-healing, using the radiation as a source of energy. We highly recommend it to any ship, as in the long term, it would be quite cost-effective.”
He continued with the sales pitch, but I didn’t have the time or the space to install or store it. What I did do was buy a pretty large piece of it. The current armour I had was pretty good against radiation, and I wasn’t planning on staying long outside of solar systems.
The rest of the shopping trip went by quite fast, as I didn’t really find anything that interesting. I did pick up a small portable computer that we can easily fully isolate to view the data we got from the Barron. I also didn’t like the atmosphere of this place, so I cut the trip a bit short.
Stepping inside my ship immediately relaxed me, as I simply didn’t enjoy being inside that station. I couldn’t really explain why, but that place was just eerie.
“I have good and bad news for you,” Lola spoke up as I started to head toward the cockpit.
“Give me the good news first.”
“I was able to confirm that we did indeed get paid for the Haver military killing those pirates and the Black Fleet.”
“Well, don’t keep me waiting,” I said when she didn’t continue.
“Our payout was 1.35 billion mana credits.”
“Damn, that’s a lot of credits. Now what’s the bad news? Do we need to go back to the station to claim it?”
“No, but we can’t take it out here. But that wasn’t the bad news. The bad news is... a war has started, and the areas affected fall into our current route.”
“Well shit. Is it really bad?”
“I honestly don’t know, but it is recommended not to use that stretch of the FTL current.”
“Do we have a way around it?”
“Not a good one. If we avoid it, it would add two months to our journey.”
“Added time would be better than hoping we won’t get caught in some sort of scuffle.”
So good news came with bad news, hopefully this war won’t get bigger so we wouldn’t be cut off from our destination.
“Let’s figure out our new route and then leave this weird place.”
“Acknowledged.”