chapter 89
POV: Princess Verrona, Captain of the Crimson Falcon
“We have shown our might once again. Foolishly, we were declared war upon. Our combined strength crushed that upstart, and now our position is even more secure than it was before.”
My father continued like that, praising all involved. He will switch up his narrative tomorrow and start punishing anyone who made even the smallest of mistakes during that battle. That other pirate lord wasn’t that stupid, making the fleet battle more even than my father expected.
Just looking at my father made my teeth itch. It was now going to be even harder to get the chance to do to him what he did to me. It has been too long since I’ve seen him bleed. This ship combat isn't to my liking, combat and killing should be done face to face.
I sensed eyes on me, so I looked in that direction. The way that filth diverted its eyes was satisfying. They were trying to hide their feelings. It might have worked in this meeting hall, as there were so many elevated feelings flooding the entire place, but I was too good.
It didn't take me long to realise what type of filth that was. He could not just watch and appreciate my beauty, no, he wanted to ruin it with his actions. Those were the types I hated the most. Seeing something and immediately thinking that now that’s his.
The way he held himself spoke of charisma. He was also handsome enough, and probably rich enough if he was here, to have gotten his way all his life. Then I saw some female walking up to him. Oh, and he was married as well, of course.
“Mistress, please don't,” my right-hand man whispered into my ear.
“Oh, I’m not going to be doing anything, just seeing if he wants to offer me a drink. Everything else is up to him, as always.”
“There will be consequences if he did. His family funded quite a lot of this war.”
“Once again, everything is up to him, but I believe you already know what filth that is. Not to say that I’m that much better.”
He took a step back as he heard those words. We both know that I was broken in more than one way. I refuse to look towards my father, otherwise he might sense my feelings. Better to distract myself.
“We need to get out of here as fast as possible. I do not wish to deal with whatever comes next. We still have some skill stones to hunt down. That’s a good excuse to get out of here. Since my ship is a bit too damaged, we will take the smaller one. It will also be lower profile, better for the work ahead, as we need to do a lot of investigating.”
“As you wish, mistress.” After that he immediately rushed away to start preparing. As for now, it was time to have a bit of fun and see if I could see a bit of red today.
POV: Remi Graves
We were currently in orbit above the city called Paradise. The entrance fee wasn’t too much, but we were here for the first time, so things were taking a bit longer, especially because we didn't want to pay the extra fee for polluting the air of Paradise City.
Many ships needed to use their main engines to be able to land inside the city, which would pollute the air that then needed to be cleaned. We, however, could use our side engines, eliminating that problem, but we were having a bit of difficulty as they didn't really believe that our ship was capable of this.
The traffic controller said to wait as they consulted their superiors. They said it will take a bit of time to evaluate if our ship could actually land like that. I wondered how they were going to actually make sure. Then the line clicked open.
“This is the Paradise Traffic Control calling Forward Horizon.”
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“This is the Forward Horizon,” I answered back.
“I have spoken to my superiors. You have permission to enter, but they said if you need to use your main engines or we detect any pollutants coming off your ship, you will be fined. Not just for polluting, but for trying to circumvent fees. This is the last chance to just pay, as those fines are quite hefty.”
This was getting a bit annoying, but I guess they haven’t really seen a ship like this.
“Understood. Forward Horizon is ready to land.”
“As you wish. I’m sending you the landing coordinates now. A safe landing to you all.”
And with that, the line went dead as we were handed back to the automated system. It seems that they rarely had to do things like actually talk to ships that land and take off, as they had their own systems to handle all of this.
The ones ruling this place certainly were rich. They were the smart ones, after all. When the first colonisers arrived, many established colonies on the planet, but one group chose to do so on the moon instead. They didn't want to get rich quickly, they wanted to establish something that would endure.
Now every bit of wealth extracted with blood and sweat from that tomb world flows through here, and every bit of it is taxed. Of course, you could bypass this place, but in the end, even if you lose some profit, it's just more convenient and a lot safer to just sell what you get in this city and then just continue to harvest the wealth that's on that tomb world.
Landing on a surface like the moon or a planet wasn’t as simple as just landing straight down. Physics and orbital mechanics just didn't allow for that. If you had enough power, perhaps you could make it work, but then you would need a lot of power to also stop before you crash-landed. There was no need to gamble with our lives like that.
The side engine twin AI’s were excited as now it was their time to shine. It would be the first time that they would be in charge of landing. Of course, they would also need the help of the other adjustment thrusters. They all had great synergy, as they had all run so many simulations together.
“Everyone, strap in.” I gave the order. The entire ship exploded with movement as everyone strapped in and secured anything that was loose.
The next moment I turned off the gravity generators. Well, technically we could keep them on and not feel a thing, but I wanted to experience what was about to happen.
The gravity of the moon was 0.63 of Earth’s gravity. So if we wanted to, we could not feel a thing, even stay in zero gravity if we wished to. As we reached our correct location, the side engines energised their propellers. The ship immediately lurched forward. It kind of felt like being in a fast car, getting pushed back into the seat.
The command bridge was filled with noise as the different computers and sensors made sure that everything was as it should be.
The city, under us now, moved ahead. But we weren’t only decelerating ourselves compared to the city, we were also adjusting our vertical position so that the gravity of the moon would start to pull us down.
Once we reached the correct speed, the side engines de-energised their propellers, and now we just needed to wait for gravity to do its job as we fell down towards the surface. Normally we would already be entering the atmosphere, but the moon didn't have one, so there wasn’t any turbulence.
The side engines were constantly adjusting their angle, getting ready to start slowing our descent. We needed to slow to a crawl before we entered the bubble that kept in the atmosphere for the city.
The engines started to properly work now as we were bleeding off a lot of speed. We were only moving 120 kilometres an hour when the ship made the transition inside the bubble of where there was atmosphere.
The ship rocked quite heavily as we hit it. There wasn’t anything solid that kept the air in; as far as we understood, it was some sort of mana tech, but we weren't completely sure.
While air didn’t have much density, it was still quite a lot when compared to nothing at all. If we had entered it faster, things could have ended up badly.
Now we could once again fall faster. The side engines had a little bit of trouble adjusting, because now the propellers were also getting thrust from simply being inside the atmosphere, so they needed to adjust to that.
The flight was no longer smooth as air made things more complicated, but never once did we get close to going out of control.
Landing a spaceship was never easy; that's why most cargo vessels had smaller ships ferry cargo to them in orbit. There were others who were landing as well, some even needed runways as they used more conventional ways of landing.
In that we were lucky, as theoretically we should be able to hover, but I guess we will see. Our destination was in the trade district where there were large hangars for ships to land in. With the cameras mounted on the bottom of the ship, we could easily see how the roof doors were opened, ready for our landing.
There were no hiccups, no struggles; all the AI’s who controlled the ship’s movement were experts at what they did. No one person could ever land this big of a ship, it would take at least four of us, and there was no way we could have performed so well.
The landing gear extended as the bottom of the ship was now inside the hangar. For some reason, I expected a landing that I could barely feel, but there was still quite a decent impact as the side engines de-energised their propellers fully.
We dropped the last metre to the ground. The landing gear held up as it should, a moment later stabilising and fixing themselves in place.
We had successfully landed for the first time. We all celebrated in our own ways, and some of us were just glad we survived the landing.
We could hear muffled commands coming from down below. I really needed to talk to Bob about his volume control. It seemed that he was already organising his workforce to get ready to offload some of our cargo.
From what I understood, he already managed to sell off quite a lot for quite a good profit. As some of the things we brought were on the list for the city itself to purchase, and for a premium.
“Sam, Dean, get your squads out there and secure our surroundings. Afterwards I’m going to need an escort. We’re going to go and see if there’s any property that would fit our needs that we could rent.”
“Yes, Captain,” they both said, heading towards the 4th floor where their squads were currently holed up.
As I got off the chair, for the first time I could experience this place’s gravity for myself. I tested my strength by jumping a bit to check everything out. It took only a moment to adjust my strength so that I could move around in this gravity normally.
It was now time to suit up and get out there. While there were some laws about heavy weapons, most everything I had on board was allowed. This was definitely a more dangerous place than any I have been to before.