《Rocksea, a Two Clusters story》


 A Two Clusters story?

    ¡°Two Clusters¡± is a universe I¡¯ve created decades ago. There are many short stories based on this universe with most of them not being long enough to be created into a novel. It was meant to be that way because each short story would eventually become intertwined with each other. Alas, such a format is not suitable for the general audience. It is a fantasy sci-fi world. It is ¡°fantasy¡± because the starting year of this universe is A.D. 9599, which is about 7,500 years into the future. The laws of this universe are based on realism, but things had to be created. The primary examples are subspace portal, spaceship shielding, advanced ion engine that could speed up to ? of light speed and so forth. How those work cannot scientifically be explained, thus I¡¯ve added ¡°fantasy¡± to its genre. ¡°A Two Clusters story¡± means that this story is bound to the lore of the universe I¡¯ve created. It won¡¯t mean anything to you most likely but, for me, it means I am able to use assets I¡¯ve created under Two Clusters universe, such as spaceships you are going to see. Any spaceships you are going to see are my own creations via Blender 3D application. They are NOT AI generated. This is also true for space stations as well. Company names, spaceships / stations, political situations and whatnot remain the same for all Two Clusters stories.


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    Now, as for why it is called Two Clusters is that the stories are happening predominantly in two places. One is our own Solar system. The other is the Podlezl system. Two Systems didn¡¯t sound right to me, so I replaced it with clusters. This story ¡°Rocksea¡± occurs in the outskirts of this Podlezl system, thus you won¡¯t hear much about events of the Solar system other than distant gossip about politics and major events. I honestly do not know how long this story will be. What I do know is that it won¡¯t be long, two volumes maximum most likely.

 Character sheet (Updated 2024 Oct 30)

    More character renders will be added later. At the moment, there are only two: Vazken and Juno. As a disclaimer, the characters are not AI-generated. However, they are not my creations. These are aftermarket 3D assets that were either free or paid. I''ve chosen them because creating realistic humans in 3D takes a really long time and I don''t think I am capable of doing it. In my defense, I''ve chosen models that, I feel, are quite close to the character being represented in the story.


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 C1. The Old Lady

    Rocksea was the name of the region. It was on the outskirts of the Podlezl system and it was basically a gigantic asteroid belt, very much similar to the Kuiper belt in Sol. It was originally simply called "asteroid sea" and, at one point, the name "Rocksea" was given. I reckon Rocksea may not be its legit name but who cares. Everyone in the region called this belt Rocksea. It was sparsely populated. The region was home to mostly small-time miners. During the colonization phase about two thousand years ago, tens of outposts were constructed to satisfy the need for an immense amount of ferocious metals. Once such rapid developments were done, the outposts were eventually abandoned and random people moved in, making their little home here and there in Rocksea. Now, what is the Podlezl system you ask? It is a solar system-like cluster that is exactly 1,001 light years away from legendary Earth. It was named after the guy who found it. It was very similar to the solar system, thus it was chosen to be colonized by mankind thousands years ago. Exactly when, I have no clue. What I do know is that it took thousands of years for colonization due to the distance. The first wave of settlers were placed in cryogenic chambers, and their ships were set on autopilot, hoping that the automated system wouldn¡¯t crash. If the records are to be believed, the first wave of settlers never made it to the Podlezl system. They were simply lost. It was the second wave of settlers who made it there after sleeping through for 1,300 years. Ironically, by the time they arrived, subspace travel was invented, making the trip an hour at the most. However, a subspace beacon was required to maintain a portal. Otherwise, they would need to make a blind subspace travel which wasn¡¯t too accurate and could exit to dangerous parts of the universe which kept on shrinking as well as expanding in some parts, meaning a subspace coordinate was always changing. A subspace beacon would update this information on fly, thus the initial settlers didn¡¯t entirely waste their thousand-year old slumber for nothing because they were able to construct a beacon to establish a permanent portal without having to experiment with coordinates and potentially lose people to accidents. Granted, it took them an additional 1,300 years for them to receive the message as well as a blueprint for the beacon, but that''s besides the point. At the same time, by the time they received the message, they had the capacity to build the beacon.


    "ETA two hours to Oreo," A high-pitched voice cracked up through a speaker. It was my own room on a spaceship, which was nothing more than a glorified aluminum box with a simple strap on a wall to secure myself during sleep, a console, and a simple projector for a holographic screen. There was no reason for a proper bed in zero gravity, but one had to make sure that he was secured, hence the strap. Bouncing around in a metal box was lethal. Bruise was the least of your problems since you could easily crack your skull often.


    "About fucking time," I muttered, "I so need a shower."


    Traditional shower with flowing water was not possible in zero gravity. Therefore, an alternative form of shower was utilized which was steam shower. It got the job done but it didn¡¯t have the feeling of being thoroughly cleansed. Over a long voyage, steam showers proved to be lacking but it was better than nothing.


    "Oh, God. Don''t remind me."


    In my whole life, Rocksea has been my backyard. I was born and raised here and, even before I hit puberty, I was sailing a ship and mining random stuff off some rocks. When I hit 12, I began to work for real credit on a loaned Lightwave worker class 1 and eventually managed to purchase it when I hit 20. That was when I found like-minded fellows and formed a small mining gang. We, four, eventually pooled our credit and loaned a badly tattered Lightwave worker class 2 which was a frigate.


    That was about a decade ago.


    "This girl is falling apart, literally. Did I tell you that my console came off the floor, literally last night? I could have cracked my skull open if it hit me straight on my head," I spoke through a speaker on my console in front of me. It was essentially a physical keyboard with its monitor being a hologram.


    The feminine voice shouted through the speaker. "Must I fucking remind you that my shower system dumped poo all over me last night?!"


    Yep, indeed, ouchie, indeed. Then it hit me.


    "Juno, we haven''t had running water since that incident. How did you clean yourself up?"


    After a moment of silence, she bellowed at me, "I HAVEN''T, YOU DORK!"


    I facepalmed myself and said to myself, "Ouchie."


    Our business part was doing alright. We were making decent profits and jobs were coming in at a steady rate that we were busy enough.


    However, our Lightwave worker class 2, which we aptly named "The Old Lady", was showing its age. This was a frigate class spaceship that was specifically designed for deep space mining. It had no mining capacity of its own. Instead, it relied on Lightwave worker class 1s to mine. Its docking bay could house up to four worker class 1s. It did have an ore processing unit to grind up rocks into finer fragments. Its crew capacity was something like 20 but, in our case, only four rooms were occupied.


    According to the ship''s mainframe log, the first time she booted up was in the year 9230, which would make her about 400 years old.


    Now in this era, that was not too bad. I mean the navy used ships that were over a thousand years old. However, in order to prolong a machine''s lifespan, regular maintenance had to be done. Our Old lady didn''t look like it had been taken care of when we loaned it 10 years ago and everything was falling apart. We had been jerryrigging it but that wasn''t enough. It needed proper repairs in a shipyard or at least in a proper docking bay with proper tools & parts. The issue was money and time; we lacked both, especially the latter. We had to take on jobs non-stop. If the Old Lady was to go under maintenance, it was going to take tens of days if not upwards to a three-digit number. We could not afford such a forced vacation. We had to work to make our ends meet and pay off our loan. More importantly, here was the kicker. The ship¡¯s crucial parts were all functioning fine. It was just parts related to quality of life that were breaking down, further hindering us from making the big decision to ground the Old Lady and repair her.


    Two hours later, we arrived at Oreo which was a tiny outpost in the middle of Rocksea. The Oreo station had been our base of operations for some years now. Its location was prime for mining and their rates on ore were very good. The outpost was built on an asteroid like all other outposts in Rocksea. The reason for this was simple: Building on an asteroid would grant some form of gravity as well as a protection from radiation. It was normally 0.1 or 0.2 at the best but any form of gravity was a huge benefit in the long term. As for radiation, the radiation level within Rocksea was reasonable, and humans had become hardened against it over thousands of years. Having natural protection against it meant less materials needed to insulate a base, thus cheaper. The station had a single circular structure in the middle of the asteroid with a ducking door located on its bottom. It was guarded by just a pair of laser turrets, which was probably enough to deter small-time pirates. Any station in Rocksea would have their own defense fleet of some sort meanwhile. Turrets were just there to do something while a fleet could undock. Either way, communicating with the station wasn¡¯t my job at the moment, so I sat in my quarters and waited for it to duck, which was as easy as pressing a pre-programmed button. Every station offered an auto-pilot program to use. Oreo was no exception.


    When we docked at the station, I finally got to see Juno covered in dried feces. She somehow managed to clean her face but everywhere else was covered in now-dried feces. I had to resist really hard not to laugh at her. My mates were in the same situation as well. Walking past us, she glanced fiercely at us. She didn''t say a word, but we knew that she was pissed as hell. I mean who wouldn¡¯t be? As she slowly paced off, bits of dried poo were falling away from her, floating away slowly due to the microgravity of the station.


    As we watched her disappear, one of my mates, Rabinovich remarked.


    "On a serious note, The Old lady is really falling apart."


    He was a Slavic man with an unkept face and hair which was crudely shaved. Shaving in zero gravity was a luxury, so not many men would do it. Men¡¯s hair was usually cut with a simple clipper. Anything else required extensive work and it was just not worth the time and effort. The thing was that longer hair was better to float around and get caught in air filters than tiny bits of hair somehow bypassing filters or worse, like getting stuck in our lungs. This applied even to females but they preferred to have short hair instead of cleanly shaven. Essentially, the dude looked like a caveman at this point. I wasn¡¯t faring much better in that department, but I kept my hair longer and I didn¡¯t have much facial hair, so I was looking infinitely better.


    Shrugging, I replied to him, "Yeah, but amazingly its essential parts are working no problem."


    Rabinovich put his hands on his waist and looked back at the Old lady. "She''s the only gal in our team. We might really want to fix the plumbing on priority. I don''t want all dudes-team."


    That much I agreed. It''s just better to have a female in a team instead of just dudes. If she was a flirtatious type, we would have kicked her out already, but she was cool as a cucumber. He spoke truly that none of the dudes wanted her to leave.


    "I''ve looked at the plumbing before," Santino, another member of the team, told us. "I had no idea what was wrong." He was also a Slavic man although he was a lot broader. He, too, looked like a caveman at this point. Actually, he looked more like a dwarf whereas Rabinovich was a caveman.


    "When was that?" I asked.


    He replied, "About 15 days ago. Juno was complaining about water flow not being steady, so I cleaned out some goo from pipes. Saw nothing too unusual."


    I crossed my arms and delivered my verdict. "Meaning we need a real pro to have a look at it."


    We glanced at each other because we all knew what that meant.


    "Can we even afford a pro?" Rabinovich wondered aloud.


    I replied, "We probably can. Might have to skip on the payment though for this period though."


    Rocksea was a more or less lawless zone. Even so, a loan was a loan. In fact, the punishment and penalties for not keeping up with a loan was far hashier here because your life wouldn¡¯t be at risk even if you defaulted on your loan on a civilized planet. In Rocksea? You¡¯d better not undock at all if your loan was in collections. We were on a rent-to-own program with our frigate. After a decade, we were 11 payments short of completing it. Missing out on a payment wasn''t a huge deal. They would understand if we informed them beforehand but we simply didn''t want to miss a payment because we were quite proud of ourselves that we never missed a payment.


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    "Well, let''s get the crates out and cash them." Pointing backwards with his thumb, Santino changed the subject. Nodding, we got to it, silently agreeing that not missing out on the payment was on a higher priority. She¡¯d understand, probably.


    "Mr Vazken, here is your payment. I am sending you the receipt to your memory implant right now."


    I was in a dockyard office. After handing over ore crates we mined, a girl named Yating was progressing and calculating on how much we''d be paid.


    As she sent data to my memory implant, I injected the data into my optic nerve. I was basically reading it from the inside of my eyeball. Usually, a memory implant was installed within one of your ears. The location was chosen because it was an easier way to access one¡¯s brain without a more complicated surgery. The memory implant, which was basically a self-contained and insulated chip, was powered by blood sugar and its role was to translate ones and zeros into a language our brains could understand. It consumed about 100 calories daily and had a nice side benefit of being able to store other information you didn¡¯t want to forget. Of course, with any computing chip, hacking was an issue. Thankfully, it can go into a read-only mode where only its host can access.


    "Sounds good. I accept."


    "Alright, the payment is being sent right now."


    "Got it."


    "Good, we thank you for your business."


    Not that I had been to many dockyard offices to begin with but she was one of the most polite dockyard officers I had met. She wasn''t bad looking, either. Most importantly, she looked like a proper woman. Juno was ... badly muscular. If there was a female version of the hulk, she was one. If it wasn''t for her oversized boobs, I would see her as a guy totally. She was much taller than me as well, and I wasn¡¯t a short guy. I was slightly above average in height. Anyway, I split the payment in four and sent the three to the mates. Then I was off for several days. We took at least ten days off between jobs during which we took care of personal needs and businesses.


    Either way, I made my way to the cafeteria casually. I knew the basic layout of this station well since I had been to this place for years. I was pretty much a permanent resident at this point although I didn¡¯t have the clearance to enter more secured zones. Oreo was a small station. Its permanent residents were just 40-something. However, it had a fair amount of frequent visitors, like us. I think the overall number of residents was somewhere around 100 to 150 at any given time. A charming point for this station was the unusually higher level of gravity which was 0.1. All other stations I had been to had microgravity, which was something like 0.01g. Apparently, the rock the station was sitting on was composed of really dense stuff. For those who had never been to a planet, such as myself, they really dug the sensation of being pulled down, however weak it was. For me especially, I could really feel 0.1 gravity although, even at that gravity, sleeping on a bed wasn¡¯t an option. I always wondered what it¡¯d feel like sleeping on a bed. The mere act of being able to lay down was just an unrealistic dream.


    "Yo, dude." It was Rabinovich who approached me in the cafeteria. It took me a moment to recognize him because he was cleanly shaven bar his mustache. Yes, I had seen his clean face before¡­, not very often, though. It was hard to see with caveman-like facial hairs before, but his bare face revealed a tired and emaciated man. I could question his eating habits, but it wasn¡¯t really my business. We were adults after all. Food in space was often bland unless it was station food. What we consumed when out working was just powdered meals which you mixed with water when eating. ¡°Bland¡± was probably sugarcoating it because it had no taste at all literally. Eating it for a prolonged period would cause appetite to simply drop off. Oreo station cafeteria menu wasn¡¯t that much better, but they had a taste at least.


    "Yo, sup," I replied casually with my eyes fixed outside through a wall window. The cafeteria was almost empty. It was just us, two, and another small group further away. A rectangular window dominated its outer wall where a full view of Rocksea was displayed. This was a real window, meaning radiation was coming in. It didn¡¯t matter, though. The inhabitants in Rocksea were hardened against radiation, and any illness from it could easily be treated with ease. A cold was more serious than any radiation sickness at this point. Cancer? It wasn¡¯t even considered an illness in this era.


    "Mind if I sit?"


    I showed him a stool in the opposite direction of me. "Feel free."


    Having sat down, he ordered a cup of coffee. I was having a cup of coffee as well. Oh, how I missed the taste and the aroma. Then we were silent for a moment. He was sipping his coffee, and I was simply looking at the space. At one point, he told me.


    "I talked to Juno. She is not leaving."


    "Good news. Hard to find girl miners."


    "There are far easier jobs for''em."


    "Indeed."


    We became silent once again but he broke the silence once more after a few minutes. I was just staring out into space, enjoying the view. That was why I was in the cafeteria in the first place.


    "My last team sucked major balls."


    Yeah, he told me that before. He didn''t give me any details though.


    "It was the same frigate, the class 2. I mean what else is there on the cheap?"


    I snickered in response. Yeah, Lightwave shipyard class 2 was the most widely used mining frigate because it had been around for hundreds of years. Red Plate shipyard had a few mining ships but they hadn''t been around long enough for cheap, second hand, loanable ships to be found in Rocksea.


    He continued, "There were five, four guys and one girl. Just like this team but one more dude."


    According to him, the girl turned out to be a whore and a party breaker. Apparently, she had been doing it for fun. What she basically did was sexually entice the guys and made them pay for sexual favors. Whoever bid the highest would have her for a night or something like that. That eventually created too much friction between the guys and one dude eventually snapped, ending up murdering another. Having realized that things got out of hand, the girl fled and the murderer ran away as well after having drained the team bank account.


    "Shit story, man. Shit story," I told him while shaking my head slowly.


    I wasn¡¯t there and I hadn¡¯t experienced such. I mean, I was too young to have experienced it. This was my first big gig as a miner. Therefore, my words were hollow. I didn¡¯t really understand it, and my response was merely systematic.


    "But this is a good team and a good team is hard to find," He said assuringly. "I want to keep the original crew as long as possible."


    The Old lady was my first multi crew ship, so I didn''t have any past experience to draw upon. But my dad used to tell me that it was always important to keep a certain rhythm or harmony in a team. My parents were both space miners like myself. If their words were true, they met on the job. My mum told me that she stayed on New Earth while she had me in her womb so that I could grow without an issue, but who knows whether that¡¯s true. The distance between Rocksea and New Earth was at least 30 days at maximum speed. She would have to have left very quickly as soon as she found out she was pregnant. It was understood that a fetus needed to be under reasonable gravity before bone formation. Any babies born under 1.0G tended to have weak bones. Likewise any babies born above 1.0G tended to have stronger bones. But there was a trade-off. Anyone born on planets above 1.0G was shorter and more broad. Santino may be such a case. It was understood that 0.8 to 1.2G was the recommended gravity range for any fetus. New Earth, the only naturally terrestrial planet within the Podlezl system, had 1.1G, almost identical to legendary Earth. Anyway -


    "Agreed. And that brings up the plumbing," I told him. "We all know Juno wants to get it fixed. We can ignore it and she may snap one day and just leave."


    Rabinovich sighed deeply and sagged his shoulders. He gestured his fingers in front of his lips as if he was smoking something. It was clearly a habit. Smoking was strictly prohibited in space since air quality was far more important than anything. If anyone was caught smoking, they were outright expelled in almost any space station.


    "I will get a quote. That''s the first step,¡± he replied with a sigh.


    "Yeah, can I leave that to you?"


    "Sure thing." Having agreed, he stood up and tapped my shoulder before leaving.


    Then I got back to enjoying the gravity and space scenery. Rabinovich was a 106 year-old guy. Yes, one hundred six years old. People in this era lived up to four hundred easily. He had far more experience, thus I let him be the leader. Santino was also much older than me but younger than Rabinovich. I didn¡¯t know how old Juno was, however. Women tended to hide their ages, so we really didn¡¯t bother asking.


    After nine days of rest, we were back at a docking bay where our Old lady was. It was there that Rabinovich made a small announcement. He stood in front of us and said, "Guys, I had the station dockyard have a look at Old lady''s plumbing. They basically said the entire plumbing pipes around the ship were crapping out."


    To sum it up, the pipes were never looked at for 400 years and they had corroded to a point that the pipe was basically paper thin and was full of corroded junk inside. Interestingly, the corroded junk was what was keeping the pipes together. In other words, if the pipes were cleaned out, they¡¯d break. Talk about irony. Anyway, he got to the most important part, the cost.


    "The Oreo dockyard has quoted us 170,000c for full repair," He said with his eyes moving away from us. ¡°And it would take 50 days minimum.¡±


    It was high but wasn''t as high as I feared it''d be. But that was an amount that''d force us to skip a payment or two on the Old lady. Of course, there was an option of using personal wealth as a sort of a bridge loan to make this happen but this was frowned upon by all miners. I was taught to keep my personal credit apart from business and I am sure that they were taught the same. For us, miners, it was crucial to keep a clear line between personal and business. Mixing both, especially credit, was seen as a sure step to bankruptcy. The reason was well¡­ Listen, our life span is 400 years, give or take 10%. We have to save up. We simply must. While we do not age much physically, we must earn while we are still enthusiastic about it. The golden rule is that you save up to a point that you can live without working for at least 50 years. Then you retire at an age of 350 or so and live your goddamn life at your leisure. We, miners, are taught this at a very early age. I suppose not all miners get to learn this but I certainly was. I was positive that the four of us knew this golden rule and that was exactly why this group was working so well.


    Juno carefully raised her hand as she spoke, "Guys, it doesn''t need to be repaired right away."


    At this point, Rabinovich glanced at me as if asking me to speak up. I wasn''t sure what to say though. Was he asking me whether it was okay to skip the payment? Was he asking me to go along with Juno? What exactly did he want? I gave it a quick series of options and something hit me.


    "The duke?" Santino and Juno responded in unison as I explained a plan that might just work. Meanwhile, Rabinovich looked away subtly.


    "He runs the Duchess'' boobs. I am sure you''ve all heard about the place at least once."


    "Yeah, that''s the largest bar slash brothel in Rocksea," Santino replied. "What about him?"


    I explained, "My dad told me once that, whenever he needed some extra dough, the Duke usually had some unusual jobs for extra credit. We could visit the Duchess'' boobs and inquire about a job."


    Looking clearly skeptical, Rabinovich asked, "What kind of a job would that be?"


    "It can''t be legit work," Juno added, siding with him.


    That wasn''t something I was going to deny, either. Shrugging, I told them, "Could well be. But we don''t know at this point. It''s only some days away from here. Might be worth checking out. It''s certainly an option we shouldn''t overlook."


    Santino was with me on this one. It was 2 and 2 but Juno clearly wanted a new shower system, so she eventually folded. However, she added a condition.


    She barked at me while pointing her index finger at my face, "I am not going to smuggle anything, you hear? I am not turning into a criminal, you hear?"


    She towered over me. At my eye level, all I could see was her gigantic boobs. With her muscles, I was fairly certain that she could floor me with one powerful punch. Anyway, I had no intention to become a criminal, either. Thus, I agreed along with everyone else. I was sure that Rabinovich was aware of the place due to his reaction. Santino was also aware but hadn¡¯t visited the place. As a woman, Juno obviously had no reason to go. I understood the Duchess¡¯ boobs as a place only adults or troublemakers go to. At least, that was how my parents brainwashed me. I¡¯ve generally avoided going to the place as a result. My father¡¯s advice to me was a bit of a weird one, though. Either way, I was an adult and had no reason to avoid the place.


    ¡°We going then?¡± I asked casually, looking at Rabinovich and looking clearly not intimidated by her. He was the unofficial leader of the team.


    Taking a deep breath, he replied reluctantly, ¡°Yeah, why not.¡± He looked a bit dejected, however. The dude didn¡¯t want to go clearly. In hindsight, I should have called it off at that point. If I had done that¡­, I wouldn¡¯t have gone through the troubles later. Do I regret the decision, though? It¡¯s hard to tell. In some ways, I ended up better than being a space miner. In some ways, I do miss the old, peaceful, and quiet days.

 C2. Fishy business

    "The Duchess'' boobs in visual range," Santino announced through speakers to let us know. I was napping when his voice woke me up. I approached a console in my quarter and popped up a screen to look at the station. I saw a lot of traffic around the station.


    "The place sure has changed," I said to myself. While I never visited the station, I passed by it numerous times. The reason why the station was called such was due to its shape. It had two doms next to each other with smaller structure on top of each dome, making it resemble nipples vaguely. It was probably, entirely, intentional. As far as I was aware, the Duchess¡¯ boobs was the largest station in Rocksea with a capacity of a thousand. In spite of that, because it wasn¡¯t built on an asteroid, it had absolutely no gravity. The Oreo station, which was far smaller than it, had 0.1 gravity still. The station appeared to have a decent amount of traffic, which was understandable given the nature of the place. Even so, I swear that it had more traffic than I remembered.


    ¡°Must be doing well,¡± I said to myself and then asked the mates over comm. "Have any of you visited here before?"


    Rabinovich apparently had. Juno and Santino hadn''t, which was expected. The station was very male-oriented from what I heard. Females would have no reason to visit Duchess'' boobs in the first place unless, of course, they worked there as hookers. Initially, I thought all of us were going to enter but it turned out that none of them really wanted to enter.


    "Hard to resist fucking beautiful bitches in here," Rabinovich explained. "I''d rather not go in. I will waste money."


    Santino''s reason was more or less the same as Rabinovich, and I didn''t even bother asking Juno. Thus, I went in alone once we docked. The docking bay I was in was directly connected to its bar and the first impression of the bar was loud and blissfully colorful. The place, more like a hall, was packed to brim with people dancing their minds away. Something to note was that everyone was attached to the floor, meaning they had magnet boots because there was no gravity. Case in point, I was floating. I could see why. I mean, it wasn¡¯t really possible to dance floating in mid air. Meanwhile, waitresses were skillfully flying around to serve drinks. Speaking of which, the waitresses were fully naked and fully shaved down there. Being fully shaved didn''t surprise me since shaving is a recommended practice when living in space. Having to deal with hair from our heads was hard enough for air filters. Even on our Old Lady which had just four occupants, daily air filter change was recommended although we did it weekly. I couldn¡¯t imagine how frequently they needed to change out the air filter on a station like this where hundreds were present.


    Anyway¡­, seeing girls fully naked made my heart race and my dick erect. I started to see the point Rabinovich and Santino were making. If I would drink, I was pretty sure I''d end up waking up on a bed with some random girl next to me. A funny thing was that Juno was also a girl, and I had never had any kind of romantic feelings about her. She just didn¡¯t give out any sensation that she was a female in spite of her huge boobs. I did like Yating, the dockyard officer, back on the Oreo station. She was a proper female. She was no match against Juno in the chest department, though.


    Clearing my throat, I snapped myself out and swiftly moved onwards. Initially, I was going to float my way in but there was no floating sign all over the place except for staff, so I ditched that idea. Looking around, I found a small designated area where they had spare magnet boots. Grabbing and putting them on, I proceeded forward into the dancing crowd.


    "Excuse me. Sorry, excuse me. Passing through. I am sorry. Sorry, Sorry!" Not gonna lie, while shoving my way in, I ended up touching a lot of inappropriate places. Shoving my way in wasn''t that hard. The real ordeal was the girls, the half-naked ones, because some of them asked me to join gleefully.


    "Sorry, girls, no, I am not here for...."


    That was when one of the girls attempted to grab my thing. Out of reflex, I jumped and jumped too high. Before I knew it, I hit my head hard on a wall or ceiling and passed out.


    I wasn''t sure how much time passed but, when I woke up, I realized I was in a sickbay. There was no one in the sickbay though. But a voice sounded as soon as I raised my upper body.


    "Vazken, yeah?" It was a female''s voice.


    "Yes, I am Vazken. Did I fly into a wall?"


    "Sure did. It was lucky that you didn''t crack your skull."


    Whoever it was, she was monitoring me and was speaking through a speaker. I also found my lower body strapped to the bed, which was a reasonable choice since my body would have floated around without it.


    "Sorry about that."


    "Now, the blood test didn¡¯t reveal any alcohol, meaning you had business at the station. What is it?"


    They drew my blood while I passed out? Creepy to be honest.


    "I''ve come to talk to the duke for a job. May I speak to him?"


    "He is busy but you may talk to me instead."


    "May I ask who you are? You know my name. It''s only right that I should know yours." It was very easy to get one¡¯s ID since all one had to do was bring a scanner toward the memory chip I had. Everyone had one.


    There was a faint snicker from the speaker. "You''ve got manners for someone of your age. Very well, I will see you in person."


    In probably less than 60 seconds, a woman appeared in the sickbay. She certainly wasn''t pretty and, therefore, she couldn''t have been one of the waitresses. She did have an okay body, though. She was a brunette with pony hair and was wearing a dark red cowl shirt and blue jeans. Approaching me at once, she folded her arms. "My name is Ehka. I am the Duke''s wife, so you can talk to me."


    I didn''t know the Duke was married. But then I didn''t know anything about him. I also did not have a reason not to trust the woman, either, so why not. It wasn''t like my purpose was a top secret or anything. Therefore, I told her my reason for coming onto the station earnestly without a fuss. Once she heard my story, she blossomed a short laughter.


    "I''ve seen many reasons for guys to come onto this station. I will say you are the first one with a noble cause," She said, holding her laugh.


    "What''s ''noble'' about that?" I wasn''t attacking her or anything. It was a genuine question.


    "I meant no offense, really. Your cause is just the most normal I''ve heard in a very long time. Those who want jobs from me, they are always desperate and will do anything to get some credit on their hands so that they can satisfy their loan sharks and live another day to drink."


    She, then, pulled a chair to her and sat down, crossing her legs. Seeing her do that, I realized that she spent most of her life under gravity. People who had been living under micro or zero gravity wouldn¡¯t bother to sit down even. The mere act of trying to sit down was a habit under solid gravity.


    "Alright, Mr Vazken, I am interested. What ship ya got?"


    "LW class 2."


    "I see. Default setup?"


    "Yes, it''s currently on a rent-to-own program."


    "How many payments left?"


    "11 out of 120."


    Ehka whistled and told me, "I am impressed. Less than a year left on a 10-year program. Never missed a payment?"


    "No, and we don''t want to miss a payment. That''s why we are here."


    "How many are there in your group?"


    "Four, including me."


    "Gender ratio?"


    "Three guys and one girl."


    "Had sex with the girl?"


    I shook my head at once. "None of us has." At least, I thought so.


    She whistled again. "Jesus, you do know what you are doing. I am more than impressed. Normally, I just don''t have any incentives to help people out but your case is different. Hard to turn down decent folks trying to make a step forward."


    I wasn''t entirely sure what she was going on about but I wasn''t going to ruin her mood by speaking up further.


    "Alright, mister, I do have a job for you. I am already assuming that smuggling and anything illegal is out of the pool."


    I nodded at her.


    Dangling her index finger slowly toward me, she grinned, "I think I have a perfect job for you."


    The job was a hauling job. The cargo was nothing illegal or so I was told. The Old lady would be in a convoy escorted by four Badgers. The convoy would depart in four days, meaning we had four days of nothing-to-do. So, we decided to work on our ship. We had been kind of slacking on that part for a while. By the way, the Badger was a very old fighter design.


    It was one of the most basic fighter designs available to the general public. It was also thousands of years old and was horribly outdated. However, because the design and construction was so simple, it was still widely used. It was easy and inexpensive to manufacture and hardly ever needed complicated maintenance. I mean, its hull was essentially an airtight hollow steel rectangle box. Hell, even I, who was an amateur mechanic with no formal training, could maintain it with ease. Even its circulatory system was so rudimentary that, as long as you knew the polarity of electronics, you could handle it.


    Meanwhile, Rabinovich came up with a list of things to do on his tablet. He read out the list on the bridge where we were gathered, ¡°We¡¯ve got several deep scratches on the hull. Plating doesn¡¯t need to be replaced but needs to be filled with the goo. And we might as well check thrusters as well. The console in Vazken¡¯s room needs to be looked at. Anything new to add to the list?¡±


    Santino raised his hand and spoke, ¡°Well my shower has been acting as well but I guess that doesn¡¯t need to be spoken about?¡±


    ¡°We will replace the whole pipes, so yeah, yours will be covered,¡± Rabinovich replied with a nod.


    Juno added with glee, ¡°Finally, I can take a shower and not worry about something going wrong.¡±


    I replied to her, ¡°A part of the problem is that you take a shower for too long. You take what, 45 minutes for a shower? What do you do there?¡±


    She replied back fiercely, ¡°It¡¯s none of your bizwax, shut it, Vazken.¡±


    Shrugging, I complied, ¡°Fine, fine. Just pointing out the-¡±


    ¡°Shut it.¡±


    So, I shut up. she wasn¡¯t exactly a likable girl or even socially active but she was good to work with overall. Other than her shower, she never complained about anything else and would do any mining regardless how risky it was. She had shoulder length hair that was tied into a ponytail and was quite muscular, okay, very muscular. She was more muscular than pretty much any guy. If it wasn¡¯t for her rather large boobs, she could easily be mistaken for a guy because she was a huge woman. I wasn¡¯t sure her exact height but my loose guess was that her height was 200cm and my height was just 181cm. I was fairly certain that she could floor me with one hard punch in my face. It was something I¡¯d never dare to try. To be quite frankly clear, I never lusted for her. She wasn¡¯t my type to begin with and I wasn¡¯t very sexually active, either, despite my young tender age of 20. You can¡¯t be sexually active and work in space. Those two just don¡¯t work out in the long term. Therefore, I understood exactly why Rabinovich refused to enter the Duchess'' boobs. No need to re-awaken your sexual mojo. Am I asexual? I don¡¯t think so. I mean, my dick responded to the girls at the bar and I do plan to settle down at one point with a nice girl. It was just that now was not the time to throw my sperm around.


    Anyway, for the next three days, we casually worked on our ship repairs and we finally received the cargo crates by dockyard workers at 0500 on the fourth day. There were two 10-ton cubic meter crates which would barely fit into our ore cargo. We asked whether it was okay for us to check the content of the cargo crates, and they said they had no problem with that as long as we didn¡¯t temper, so we checked out what was in there.


    The four of us were gathered around a crate. The other was already in.


    ¡°What the hell are these?¡± Juno said. She was completely clueless.


    What we were seeing was some sort of frozen organic creature. I had never seen anything like these, either. They were about the size of a forearm, and they looked like thousands of them frozen all together in a block.


    ¡°These look like some sort of frozen creatures,¡± Rabinovich remarked.


    ¡°I have no idea what these are,¡± Santino added.


    We had to bring in a scanner to figure out what they were.


    ¡°Fishes, frozen fishes,¡± Juno said after scanning the frozen things. ¡°Salmons? No fucking clue what they are.¡±


    None of us had seen fishes before obviously. I mean, after all, we were space dwellers. Fish was a very expensive delicacy for planet dwellers. We would have nothing to do with them under normal circumstances.


    ¡°So, how much is this one crate?¡± I wondered out loud.


    And it turned out that each crate was worth around 20 million credit. And I recalled that we¡¯d be in a convoy. I told my concern to the mates.


    ¡°Guys, we will be in a convoy. Our ship alone carries a value of 40m credit. I am guessing the whole convoy will be worth around 100m,¡± I told them with a worried face.


    ¡°Probably, ¡± Rabinovich added with a slow nod.


    I continued, ¡°I think there is a real chance of us being hit by pirates.¡±


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    We became quiet for a moment. My point was perfectly valid. The value of our cargo was too huge to simply ignore.


    ¡°Do we want to back out of this?¡± Juno inquired while closing the crate. The crate cover was huge but we were under zero gravity. As long as one was careful, he could lift almost anything unless it was way too big. I looked at the others; they didn¡¯t seem to be too bothered. I wasn¡¯t too bothered, either. I simply pointed out the possibility.


    ¡°No, we are going,¡± I replied to Juno to which she gave me a thumbs up and locked the crate. Ehka or whatever her name was didn¡¯t lie to us at least. That was all that mattered. It wasn¡¯t as if she was sending us alone, either. We were going to be a part of a convoy with escorts.


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s gather at the bridge,¡± Rabinovich told us. The bridge wasn¡¯t actually located on the structure sticking out of the ship on top. That was actually an observation deck to check asteroids with bare eyes. The bridge was located in the heart of the ship, away from everything. This ensured that the bridge would be still intact even in the worst case scenario. I did know that ancient spaceship designs had exposed bridges with glass windows. That was long before holographic monitor technology was properly developed. A simple spaceship design like the Badger had an exposed glass cockpit as well simply because there was no other choice. I would feel extremely unsafe sitting behind a reinforced glass bridge that was exposed. That was asking to be killed in space.


    Anyway, once we undocked, Ehka guided us to join up with a convoy. There were two Akabasa 1s and four Badgers. Akabasa 1 was a rudimentary freighter from the Red Plate shipyard. The Lightwave shipyard was from the Solar system, specifically Mars and then later Saturn due to Mars declaring unilateral independence back in 9599. The Red Plate shipyard was from the Podlezl system. Spaceships from the RPS were mostly low-tech and inexpensive whereas ships from the LWS were more advanced and expensive. Now Akabasa 1 was as basic as it could get. Essentially, it had a basic framework around a standard cargo crate. They attached an engine and thrusters onto the framework and called it a day after slapping a rudimentary bridge onto it.


    It was so rudimentary that the bridge console had mechanical buttons for control. Of course, being so basic meant that it was cheap, and the ship became popular among civilians with many opting to modify it extensively to make a home out of it, space RVing so to speak. Since the ship was built around a 10-ton cubic meter crate, it made a nice home for many indeed. In comparison, the Lightwave worker class 2, our Old Lady, was light years ahead in terms of technology. Yeah, it¡¯s an old, aging, ship, but it had an impressive array of features which Akabasa could ever dream of. Well, it was a frigate after all. As a civilian vessel, it had no weapons of course.


    ¡°Forming a formation,¡± Rabinovich announced. Our ship sat in the middle. Ours was the largest ship, thus it was only logical to form a formation around the Old Lady. Once a formation was formed, Ehka spoke to us.


    ¡°The job¡¯s simple in concept. You haul the cargo to New Earth. But I won¡¯t lie to you. Your cargo has a lot of value and a chance to encounter pirates is rather high. Now, those four Badgers, they are all crewed by veterans. They know what they are doing. So, follow their instructions and you should be fine. Ehka out.¡±


    The four of us were on the bridge of the Old lady. Juno, Santino, and I took stations and Rabinovich acted as a captain of the ship since he had the most experience. However, as much as we acted the part, our Old lady had no weapons whatsoever. Therefore, us sitting pretty on the bridge had no real meaning behind it other than being in the safest place. We sat pretty for maybe an hour or so. Eventually though, we all got back to our quarters to kill time because almost everything was automated. A single person was all the bridge needed. Hell, we didn¡¯t need a person on the bridge unless needed.


    From the heart of Rocksea to New Earth was about a 31 days long journey. The actual distance was a lot shorter but ships could not speed in Rocksea due to abundance of debris or loose rocks. Well, perhaps cruisers could speed since it¡¯d have the armor as well as shields. However, for any ships with exposed bridges or cockpits with no shields, Rocksea was a rather dangerous place to speed in. A loose rock hitting a reinforced glass window of a bridge at a speed of 200,000km/s would mean instant death, to put it lightly. It¡¯d take about 19 days to get out of Rocksea at much reasonable speed and then we could speed to New Earth. Now, our Old lady had shield arrays but the Akabasas and Badgers didn¡¯t. A convoy was as fast as the slowest one.


    ¡°Those 19 days are the hard ones,¡± Rabinovich told us when we were on the bridge. ¡°Rocksea is a lawless zone, so pirates could be anywhere. Once we are out of Rocksea, the rest of the route should be secure.¡±


    It was true that Rocksea was a lawless zone. However, our Old lady had never been pirated. That was mostly because pirates didn¡¯t tend to hit on miners. I heard that pirates factions agreed not to hit on miners because they were the ones at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Pirating miners would bring everything to go up in price or even make lives in Rocksea miserable due to lack of required materials. Life wasn¡¯t all that easy in Rocksea to begin with. There was no need to make it harder. Even pirates knew this.


    The journey was peaceful for about 10 days. We were, then, in the outskirts of Rocksea which was quite a dangerous zone. The heart of Rocksea where the Duchess'' boobs and Station Oreo were patrolled by such stations and security was kept to a certain degree but there was none of that in the outskirts. And it was also my first time to venture this far. We were slacking on the bridge when Santino exclaimed.


    "12 ships, Badgers, on a direct course to us, most likely hostiles," He urgently said out loudly.


    "Oh, shit," I blurted, "What do we do?!" I was actually really scared at this point. This would be the first time for me to have been pirated upon. I knew what to do on paper, but remaining calm wasn¡¯t hard. I even felt cold sweats on my back.


    "We do nothing, for now at least," Rabinovich instructed us to calm down.


    A male voice sounded through speakers. His voice was calm and deep.


    "This is Badger Alpha. We are detecting hostiles. The Old lady, you have shields, so you just keep going. Few shots won''t harm you. The Akabasas, you two move into a shadow of a nearby rock. You haven''t got shields and a lucky shot will take you down."


    "How strong are our shields anyway?" I wondered.


    "Well, I guess we will find out. The Old lady has never been hit on, yet," Santino replied.


    Meanwhile, Juno was tightening herself onto a chair which we soon followed as well. You wouldn''t want to bounce around in space. That could easily kill you.


    "We have four. They have twelve. It doesn''t look too good," Juno hastily said while controlling her breath.


    Rabinovich told us, "We were told they were veterans. Let''s see how good they are. If they are taken down, we are surrendering. We agree on that?"


    "Yep," We all said in unison. Pirates had some sort of code generally. If surrendered early, they wouldn¡¯t harm the occupants was what was known. Anyway, the escort Badgers fired first by using torpedoes which surprised me because I never saw such a thing.


    "What the hell is that?" I asked with a surprised voice. Something small was actively flying toward the pirates. All I could see was its glimmering engine lights.


    Rabinovich answered me, "A torpedo, basically a heavy payload missile."


    "What is a missile?"


    He glanced at me and answered me, "Well, not surprised that you don''t know. 99% of people use lasers. It''s physically delivering a shitload of explosives at a target. Won''t do much to a cruiser but deadly to small ships like Badgers."


    Just like he said, each torpedo took out a Badger with a large explosion and shockwaves.


    "Holy shit, that looks awesome!" I shouted with excitement. The explosion looked spectacular on a holographic screen on the bridge. It looked better than what I saw in films. With those four pirate Badgers down, it became four versus eight. And, as soon as dog fights began, it became quite clear that the escort Badgers were simply far superior in skills. Within 60 seconds, two more pirates went down. And 5 minutes later, a single pirate Badger was fleeing the scene. The escorts suffered no loss. It was an overwhelming victory.


    "Those do know what they are doing," Rabinovich remarked.


    I was in awe. I didn''t give much of a chance to the escorts. After all, it was four versus twelve. But they won, easily. Granted, they sort of cheated with those missiles, but the pirates had the option as well. I guess it was a matter of who was more prepared.


    The male voice sounded on our bridge once again.


    "This is Badger Alpha here. Hostiles taken care of, you can come out and join us Akabasas." His voice was cool as a cucumber.


    "Man, that dude is a badass," I remarked in awe. The Badger alpha dude left a deep impression on me without me realizing. I wasn¡¯t joking when I called him a badass. In a corner of my mind, I wanted to become someone like him rather than a no-name space miner. Anyway, from that point to the moment we left Rocksea, it was quiet. Once we were out of Rocksea, we could speed all we wanted. At our maximum speed, it was about 10-ish days to New Earth.


    =


    New Earth was the only terrestrial planet within the Podlezl system. The system was very interesting in the fact that the sun was a white dwarf, meaning no planet should have existed within its habitable zone. The reason being is that ¡­ Well, let¡¯s give an example. The sun of the Solar system is a yellow dwarf, basically a young star with fuel, namely hydrogen, to burn in its core. Once it exhausts all fuel in its core, it would enlarge itself to become a red giant by a hundred to a thousand times in diameter. If any planets existed in its original habitable zone, it would have vaporized literally. Therefore, scholars theorized that a rogue planet was probably caught by the gravity of the white dwarf. And, by sheer luck, it was caught within the habitable zone of the second Sun as we called it. As if supporting the theory, there was a considerable distance between New Earth and its next planet which we named Creg, named after a guy who perished defending the planet from the Podlezl rebellion against United Sol about a thousand years ago. Creg wasn¡¯t habitable on its own but it was terraformed and domes were constructed to house life. The gravity of Creg was 0.6, and anyone born on the planet would grow tall and become slender, making them look kind of elves. Their bones were so weak that a punch from someone like me who was born under 1.1G could break easily. Therefore, most, if not all, pregnant women traveled to New Earth during their pregnancy. In fact, the government had a program which allowed free fare for all pregnant women to be able to travel to New Earth during their pregnancy. The third planet of the system was a gas giant, named Keeb-G. This gas giant was the primary source of hydrogen and helium for the system. Its two small moons had mining outposts installed therefore. The final planet was a small rocky one that was almost identical to the size of Pluto but it was slightly larger to be classified as a proper planet. Its name was Ayse. With 0.2G, the distance from the sun, and the planet being a frozen gas planet, terraforming it was useless. All I knew about the planet was that a low orbit trading station was constructed due to its close distance with the subspace portal to the Solar system. I didn¡¯t know anything more than that.


    "Who''s going to be seeing New Earth for the first time?" Rabinovich asked us.


    I replied, "Me since this is the first time leaving Rocksea."


    Juno replied as well, "Same here."


    "So, for you two, the planet will be the first colorful one you are going to see, eh."


    "Like Earth, right?"


    "Yeah, I guess. Never been to Earth but they say they look similar."


    Ever since the Podlezl rebellion and they became independent, no one from the Podlezl republic was able to enter the Solar system. From what I knew, the government was going to destroy the subspace portal in retaliation for not being recognized as an independent state even after emerging victorious in the rebellion. If they did destroy it, it¡¯d take 1,300 years to travel one way, and communication between the two clusters would have been equally unfeasible as well. This was when the legendary ESP, the Asperger, entered the negotiation table for both nations. As the most powerful ESP known to men, he was able to teleport between the two clusters in a blink of an eye and brought the two nations onto the negotiation table once more. Now, there weren''t many official records about the negotiation itself. Both nations wanted to conceal the details weirdly. The bottom line was that the subspace portal was spared, and United Sol recognized the Podlezl republic officially.


    ¡°Hey, guys, know anything about the Asperger?¡± I grew an urge to ask.


    ¡°The esper from Venus?¡± Rabinovich was the first one to answer.


    ¡°The most powerful esper known to men, is all I know,¡± Juno said with a shrug. ¡°Who cares.¡±


    ¡°I heard that he¡¯s a gay,¡± Santino said with a snort. ¡°Have you looked at him? He looks like a girl.¡±


    I actually hadn¡¯t looked at how he looked. ¡°What¡¯s your opinion about him?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t mess with someone like that,¡± Rabinovich was the first to answer. He sounded very rational as if he experienced something I did not.


    ¡°Mind telling me?¡± I urged because I was very curious.


    ¡°Look dude,¡± he replied with a sigh. ¡°Regardless of his appearance, if you meet him in real life, you¡¯d bow. That guy ¡­, he is something else.¡± He had a distant look in his eyes. Something told me that he did meet the Asperger in person.


    The short journey between the end of Rocksea and New Earth was, well, short. We began to see navy ships patrolling soon after we left Rocksea behind and the whole route was very secure. A navy patrol fleet did check up on us but our papers were properly in order. They did even scan our cargo as well, but it looked like there was no issue at all. I mean, they were frozen fishes, food basically.


    When we arrived at New Earth at last, a scenery that I had never seen before in my life unfolded before my eyes. I saw a planet for the first time and it was a white planet. Additionally, the vicinity of the planet was full of traffic. It looked as if tiny bugs were crawling around the planet. The planet, New Earth, was an ice planet. The second sun was a white dwarf and it simply did not have enough radiation to keep the planet warm enough.


    However, the average temperature was still minus 15 Celsius which was certainly bearable. It had a greenish atmosphere in spite of the second sun being slightly blue.


    "There it is, New Earth," Rabinovich announced to us, pointing at a holographic screen displaying the planet. ¡°A hundred million lives on that icy rock. Most of them are immigrants from the Solar system.¡±


    Neither Juno nor I displayed much joy after seeing the planet for the first time. Quite frankly, I couldn''t care less how a planet looked. Yes, it was beautiful and unique, but that was as far as my feelings went.


    "Do you think I could survive on that planet? It¡¯s 1.1G, no?" I asked the others. For my whole life, the highest G I experienced was 0.1. Well, I suppose I did experience 1.1G in my mom¡¯s womb.


    ¡°You¡¯d need to go G-training,¡± Santino replied. ¡°Spend 30 days on 0.2 and then 0.5 and so forth.¡±


    Juno added, ¡°As long as you were born under 1.0G-ish, you can train it. What G were you born in?¡±


    ¡°1.1G, New Earth,¡± I replied.


    ¡°The same for me,¡± Juno replied.


    Really? Given her size, I thought it would have been different, but what the hell do I know?


    ¡°I am not from around here,¡± Rabinovich said weakly. ¡°Let¡¯s just keep it that way.¡±


    ¡°I am from Creg,¡± said Santino which made all of us look at him rather fiercely. The dude was stocky and broad. He couldn¡¯t have been born on that planet which had 0.6G. But then no known habitable planet had more than 1.1G. No one dared ask the golden question of, ¡°why are you so short then?¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s get on with the job, shall we?¡± Rabinovich said, clearly not wanting to talk further on his birth planet.


    The planet had two orbital exchange stations where we docked at and unloaded our cargo crates. We thought our job was done then and expected to be paid. However -


    Badger Alpha told us through comm, "Ehka will pay you, meaning you need to go back to the Duchess'' boobs. Now, since you will be going back, she has an optional job for everyone else."


    Apparently, she wanted us to haul some water.


    "I can see the point," Rabinovich explained. "Water is dirt cheap here from what I can see."


    Of course, that was because New Earth was an ice planet. From what I understood, more than 80% of its surface was sea. The sea on New Earth wasn¡¯t salty. Therefore, -15 Celsius was cold enough to keep it perpetually frozen. Meanwhile, water wasn''t exactly hard to come by in Rocksea but it wasn''t that common, either. Water was very easy to recycle, but it wasn''t 100%. I could also see the point of hauling back some water if I was making the trip back anyway.


    We asked Badger Alpha whether he was willing to escort us. He replied that he was going back and we were welcome to tag along. However, he made a point that he wouldn''t be escorting us exactly.


    He explained to us, "My duty ended when we reached New Earth. You can tag along and our presence will likely deter pirates but, if they do attack, we are not going to defend you."


    I did feel that he was being a dick a little but the ball was in his court. We agreed that it was better than nothing and used our own credit to purchase the goods and headed our way. The reason we weren''t too concerned about security was that water wasn''t something that was pirated upon. It was a low value commodity and there was a general rule of not pirating essential commodities among pirates at least in Rocksea. Of course, there were always some who refused to follow such a rule but such were rare.


    Fast forward 32 days, we made it back to Duchess'' boobs safely. The Badgers, our Old lady, and the two Akabasas all made it back in one piece. Although I failed to grasp it at that moment, it was the perfect result for a back-to-back hauling job. Ehka was on comm to greet us soon enough.


    "Well, done, flawless I would say. No casualties, goods delivered both ways," She said gleefully. I could imagine her rubbing or clapping her hands. None of us had anything to say to her though, so we remained quiet.


    "Moving on," She said, "Since you''ve done the optional job, the overall payment amounts to 500,000c. Transferring right now."


    We looked at each other with our eyes wide open. It was way, way, more than we expected. Additionally, it was an amount we''d never see via mining at once.


    "Fucking half a mil!" Juno exclaimed joyfully with her fists up in the air. Santino robbed his face and slapped himself once as if he was making sure he wasn''t dreaming. Rabinovich was more rational and asked if she was giving us extra for being first timers and such.


    "Nope, I am in the business of making a profit, so I don''t give out payments that weren''t warranted. I can break down the payment. The original trading run was 300k alone. The optional run was 100k. The extra 100k is a bonus for not having encountered or caused any troubles."


    He was still skeptical, so Ehka told us the total value of the cargo the convoy carried. It was apparently 80 million which confirmed our assumption before we started this job. On such a scale, our payment of half a mil was really a pocket change. We weren¡¯t getting even 1% of the total value of our cargo.


    With smiles on my faces, we traveled back to the Oreo station. We were satisfied and happy. The Old lady would have her plumbing replaced and Juno would be able to have her showers. Even after deducting the repair cost, we still had 325k to spare. Once divided, we got approximately 80k per person. In order for me to earn 80k, it''d take ... about ten mining trips or about a whole year.


    Little did I know that this credit would eventually break this group apart.

 C3. Cracks

    ¡°I am heading out,¡± I said over a speaker.


    ¡°Roger,¡± a male voice responded. I recognized it as Santino''s. I was in a Lightwave worker class 1 which was a one-manned mining barge.


    Our Old lady had four of these docked. I owned this one fully. In fact, each of us owned theirs. It was possible to mine alone with LW class 1, but the roundtrip would be ridiculously too time-consuming unless one decided to mine nearby rocks around a station. However, that option wasn¡¯t really feasible since stations had its immediate vicinity already cleared or minded out. Still, this was something I had to do when I was just starting out. Personally, I would never go back to being a solo miner. The boredom and loneliness was a real threat lurking in the shadows. It really messes up in your head.


    ¡°Okay, what do I have today¡­,¡± I said to myself as I pinged the area. We were looking for mainly three types of ores: Aluminum, iron, and titanium. Those were paid the most well. Other ores that were in less demand were copper, tin, and zinc. Sometimes, stations would put up an order for a specific ore which paid more than usual. There was no such order when we left the Oreo station, thus we were mining the usual stuff.


    ¡°Okay, lots of iron ore in this zone. Time to get to wor -¡±


    ¡°Heads up! Pirates!¡± Juno¡¯s voice rang through the cockpit. I fanatically looked around and saw a group of what appeared to be badgers flying around the Old Lady. I wasn¡¯t too worried to be honest although it did concern me that they might have made a note about our Old Lady when they attacked us during the fish convoy. Thankfully, the group of Badgers left us after a minute or so. They must have scanned our cargo and found nothing of value. Besides, we were miners anyway. Pirates didn¡¯t harass miners in Rocksea.


    ¡°Clear, all clear.¡± Santino¡¯s voice sounded in my cockpit. I could imagine him releasing a sigh of relief.


    ¡°Why was I even nervous?¡± Juno said over the comm.


    She had a point. This wasn¡¯t the first time we ran into pirates, and we hadn¡¯t really reacted the way we just did. We failed to realize this at that time but we were feeling guilty for having earned half a million so easily. It really did feel like we had done nothing to deserve the money. All we did was sit pretty and slacking off during the whole journey. Either way, we got back to our work of ¡­ watching a floating rock in zero gravity break apart by a mining laser. A mining laser was a very rapidly modulating beam of light.


    What it did to a rock was that it¡¯d heat and cool rapidly hundreds of times a minute. With its temperature running from -400C to 1,000C so many times in such a short time span meant that it would eventually break apart. The Lightwave worker class 1 had a pair of drones that would pick up the fragments and bring them to a small ore crusher. My job was as simple as parking the ship in front of an asteroid and then just waiting until I got a notification stating that my cargo was full. In other words, it was boring. In my defense, I had never felt that it was boring. However, after we got back from the hauling job, I did feel that it was boring. I was yawning non-stop. Something had apparently changed inside of me. I always thought that the more risky a job was the more reward you can reap. However, the 80k we earned each was way too easy. It basically made us think that we could do better than just watching rocks fall apart, collect them by drones, and sell them. However, at this point, none of us was entirely sure of what we were feeling and we were keeping our thoughts to ourselves. In fact, we rarely spoke to each other until we got back to the Oreo station and sold our crushed ore. The dockyard officer, Yating, paid us 70k in total. Our monthly payment was 50k for our Old lady. In the end, a miserable amount of 5k would fall onto each of us. A mining trip would take about 25 days and we''d take about 10 days of rest after a trip. Even those who were bad at math would quickly realize one thing: mining sucked objectively. Even without the payment for the Old lady, it''d still be 18k for each of us. That number looked far better but we weren''t going to get that for a year. Even then, the Old lady would need more maintenance along the way. For the next 10 days of break, I thought hard about what to do next. Keeping on mining was certainly an option but I didn''t really feel like it. Eventually, I decided to visit Rabinovich before our resting period was over. He was the most senior person of the group and also had the most experience. His opinion would matter, well, if I liked his reply.


    "Well, I''ve been thinking about it as well," was his initial reply after I told him what was going on in my mind.


    His room was quite similar to mine; virtually void of anything. His tablet that was floating in midair was playing porn which he swiftly turned off as soon as I noticed it. It was clear to me that he was still sexually active. I was not. I hadn¡¯t watched porn for years. Well, it wasn¡¯t that I was particularly proud of but it was a necessity in an environment where human contact came at an extreme premium. Meeting people wasn¡¯t an option for space miners, which made perfect sense that any extroverts were barred from any space jobs.


    Clearing his throat, he told me, "I will say that we got really lucky in the hauling job. Now, I haven''t been a hauler but I''ve heard horror stories."


    I replied, "Risk versus reward."


    "Yeah, pretty much. That''s why I am saying we got lucky in that run."


    "If we pick the right jobs though..."


    "Far easier said than done. I mean, that''d be every hauler''s dream, no?"


    "Are you saying we should stick to mining?"


    At this point, he took a deep breath and folded his arms. He was clearly considering his options like I was.


    "You know, we all have an equal share to the Old lady," He said, changing the subject. "If we want to do the hauling job, everyone has to agree."


    That was true. The four of us had 25% shares with the Old lady. When we wanted to do something that required a decision to be made, all of us had to agree. And, normally, all of us agreed without much fuss. I wasn''t sure about this one, though.


    "This is something we should talk about together," He told me. "So, let''s gather up everyone and have a chat."


    I agreed since just two of us making a decision wasn''t going to get us anywhere.


    We gathered at the station cafeteria and sat down around a table. Rabinovich ordered a cup of coffee. Santino ordered a shot of white whisky, and Juno ordered a cup of green tea. I ordered nothing. Each order came in a plastic bag with a straw on it. The gravity was 0.1 after all. Once we were ready, Rabinovich told us about the issue at hand. As soon as he was done and asked for opinions, Juno immediately disagreed, saying that she just wanted a quiet life. At the same time, Santino was up for it. It was worthwhile to note that Juno did not veto it. She simply disagreed. Rabinovich and I were up for it. Therefore, the result was 3 to 1. At this point, we had two options. We either buy out Juno''s share and expel her from our group or convince her to go along. The latter was the better choice obviously. We needed at least four people for the mining operation.


    As if she knew what we were thinking, she told us, "You boys want to do the hauling job, I get it. The money was good, I get that, too. But, consider this, there is no way we were going to lose our lives during mining. This hauling job might get us killed at one point. What''s the point of money if you end up dying?"


    We weren''t quite convinced, probably because we hadn¡¯t experienced a near-death scenario, and this was when she came up with another option.


    "I don''t want to leave this group because you boys are good. It''s hard to find a decent group around here, so I want to stick around if possible. I don''t dislike the idea of the hauling job but I don''t want to do risky ones like the one we did a while ago."


    Rabinovich demanded, "Juno, what''s your point?"


    She looked at me and said to me, "Vazken, it looks like you got on the good side of the woman, Ehka. You ask her to pull only safe jobs and let''s see how much it pays. If it''s definitely better, why not?"


    That wasn''t a bad idea actually to be honest. Worth a shot, I felt.


    When we sailed over to the Duchess'' boobs and I went down to the station to meet Ehka and told her our little meeting, she scoffed at me, literally.


    "Safe, easy, and high pay. Such a combination does not exist," She told me sternly, "Be logical. Would anyone take any other jobs if it¡¯s that easy?"


    I told her about the last job in my defense.


    She explained, "That job seemed easy because those escorts cost me 10 million credit."


    "Holy shit," I uttered.


    "It''s never easy to take on twelve vessels when you have only four. Those bastards knew what they were doing. Besides, the torps they used, those aren''t cheap, either. I believe they were a million a pop, and they used four of them."


    After taking in her statements, I gave myself a short moment to think stuff over and eventually asked her, "Is hauling a better job than mining?"


    "That depends. Mining in stable zones pays a lot less than mining in unstable zones. It''s the simple concept of supply & demand. We have plenty of miners already in Rocksea, so there is plenty of supply. In addition to that, pirates don¡¯t harass miners."


    "So, in essence, it comes down to risk versus reward."


    She gave me a firm nod and told me, "If you want to move up the ladder, I can give you some advice."


    My ears twitched at her words. "Like what?"


    "Your vessel is LW class 2, yeah?"


    I nodded at her and she continued.


    "That frigate is quite large and customizable if you remove ore processing bits. Customize it to be a battle frigate and haul stuff alone. That will yield far more credit."


    Before I could respond to her, she added, "Of course, it will require upfront investment to make the frigate battle worthy, not to mention the risks of combat."


    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    I had a strong feeling that Juno would dislike the idea very much. She could even veto it straight away, I felt. Regardless, I brought the news to the guys.


    "Veto," said Juno, which was expected by me and probably by others as well.


    She added quickly, "I am not getting into combat. No, I won''t have that. Once was enough."


    Rabinovich quickly glanced at me and Santino. I gave him a faint nod and I felt Santino did as well. The decision was made without speaking a word because we, ¡°the boys¡±, were on the same wavelength.


    "Juno, will you let us buy your share?" Rabinovich dropped the bomb.


    It effectively meant we were kicking Juno out and that we wanted to buy her share in the Old lady. She looked at me and the other two and was silent for a short moment before leaving the cafeteria we were currently in. I could see a progressive resignation setting on her face before she turned around. This was a battle she could not win. Her only choice was leaving.


    "I will think about it" She told us as she rushed to leave.


    Once she was out of the picture, I asked Rabinovich who was rubbing the bridge of his nose while letting out a long sigh. I didn¡¯t like the way it happened, and they didn¡¯t like it, either. But there wasn¡¯t much of a choice.


    "Are we serious about booting her?" I asked although I knew the answer already at this point.


    "Kinda have to, don''t we?" Santino replied, "Can''t have disagreements."


    "Um, I am not sure whether I even have money to buy her share."


    Rabinovich said, "I reckon it''s about 2.3 mil or so. Divided by us, three of us, it''s about 770k."


    I did have that much in the bank. However¡­


    I replied, "That''s about my entire savings. We won''t be able to afford the ship modification. Or at least, I won''t be able to contribute." Besides, my personal rule was that I would not mix with my business and personal funds.


    Rabinovich groaned and clicked his tongue as he looked away from us and at the window in the cafeteria. Looking at the view of the space, he remained silent. Santino and I, too, did our things meanwhile. Santino ordered another pack of whisky and I was looking at my inner eyeball to check on the latest news in Rocksea. My memory chip was capable of doing a bit of computing itself. As expected, nothing of note was happening in Rocksea. Our meeting eventually ended without further ado afterwards. The bottom line was that we could buy out Juno''s shares. At the same time, if we did, we''d run out of funds to perform required modifications to turn the Old Lady into a battle capable ship. With much going in my head, I eventually fell asleep and the next day arrived which was the end of our resting period. I did feel like things were moving forward a bit too fast, and everything was falling apart.


    I acted normal and so did the others when we gathered back for another round of mining the next day. The four of us gathered at a docking bay where the Old Lady was currently docked. That much was normal, but there was an invisible tension between us at this point. Juno said not a word while Rabinovich gave us his usual speech of safety first and so on. I assumed that we were going to have at least one more mission session, given the lack of funding. Cutting Juno off was certainly possible but it would have been moot without an ability to go further. Our mining session was quiet. Well, we normally did not talk to each other much on the job to begin with, so the quietness was nothing new. However, the quietness we had on this job felt more like peace before a storm. Regardless though, we got on with the job.


    After we returned to the Oreo station and our earnings were divided once we sold the ore, Rabinovich broke news that he wanted to buy out Juno''s share. This was during our meeting right before we''d leave for a break of 10 days. We were effectively pushing her out of the team. Since her share was being paid, she couldn''t really get angry. She did have an option to contest the decision and stand firm. But what would be the point? It wouldn¡¯t change the fact that she was being pushed out. Being petty wouldn¡¯t have solved anything. Besides, she wouldn¡¯t be able to go out mining and earn money while contesting.


    "Is this decision of yours firm?" She asked, probably for the last time, while looking around at each of us.


    "It''s been decided. 2.3 mil will be transferred to your account in an hour," Rabinovich told her indifferently.


    She sighed deeply and sagged her shoulders in disappointment. "Well, it''s been fun, guys." She shook our hands and left the docking bay. There were really no hard feelings between us. It was a strictly business decision. Without saying no word initially, I quickly pulled out my computer to transfer my fund to Rabinovich and Santino did the same. I couldn¡¯t help but feel that it was wrong.


    "We do need one more person," Santino added after having done the same as me, "Three can barely operate, the Old Lady."


    That was true. Old lady was a large frigate. Operating her with just three would be a tall task. It was doable though. Meanwhile, Rabinovich was fiddling with his computer as he heard us, presumably transferring the fund to Juno. He responded a moment later.


    "True, we''ve got 10 days to sort this out. We could try to find another member from Oreo. But let''s not make the new member a founder."


    Meaning the new member would not have his or her share on the Old lady which ultimately would mean the new member would have far less importance in his or her opinions at decisions. It would also make it far easier to find someone since the new member wouldn¡¯t need to commit an investment. The downside of this move was that we¡¯d lack the funds. Regardless, Santino and I both agreed on that idea. Juno left easily but she could have contested and it could have gotten far uglier than it should have. In other words, we chose control.


    Rabinovich informed us, "I''ve just posted a thread looking for a new member with details on the message board of the station. I will take care of this. You guys take your time off."


    Nodding, Santino and I both took off. I did like that Rabinovich was taking firm control over the situation. Juno¡¯s situation didn¡¯t go anywhere too far because he was being very firm, I thought. Once I was in my room, I did check the bulletin board of the station to check on the post. The post was there with basic info about us and what we do. To my mild surprise, there was already a reply to the post and I recognized the user. It was Yating, the dockyard office worker I frequently met whenever we sold the ore. Personally, I didn''t think such a woman like her would be interested. She was, by her appearance at least, a polar opposite of Juno. She was rather short, slim, and was pretty feminine. I ended up becoming quite excited about the prospect of a new member, another female one at that. I fully expected a male member.


    When the break period was over and I headed for the docking bay, as expected, Yating was with Rabinovich. Her appearance was that of an office worker. Her long black hair was tied into a ponytail, which was the only accepted way to have long hair in zero gravity. I expected her to be there, so there was no reaction from me. For Santino though, he almost dropped his jaw.


    "She''s cute!" He whispered to me with glee, "Maybe, it was a good idea to have ditched Juno."


    Rabinovich cleared his throat to signal us to shut up and declared, "This is Yating. You may have seen her. She works, well worked, at the Oreo docking office."


    She carefully bowed at us and introduced herself.


    "My name is Yating. Nice to meet you all."


    She was a slender woman and was rather short. She, really, was the polar opposite of Juno who was very tall and very muscular.


    "Why did you quit your job for this?" was what I blurted out. Really, why? Being a dockyard officer of the station meant that she was a prominent member of the station. Why throw that away to become a miner of all professions. It was the lowest end job in the chain. She looked surprised for a short moment then beamed a grin at me.


    She replied, "Do you know how boring the job was? I was losing my mind."


    Rabinovich cleared his throat once more and told us, "She will be exclusively working on the bridge of the Old lady. Do any of you have an issue with that?"


    Neither Santino nor me had any objections. She probably didn¡¯t even have a mining barge, thus it was probably for the better. Once that was settled, off we went to mine. While we did not discuss this, we understood that we had to continue mining because we didn''t have the funds for extensive modifications to install turrets on the Old lady. In that sense, we didn''t have to cut Juno loose this early but her presence was building up tension, so it was a better idea to lose her sooner rather than later.


    Yating proved her ability quickly enough as a coordinator and communicator from the bridge of the Old lady. When Juno was with us, we just sort of did our jobs as miners. As a direct result, we barely spoke to each other and did our own things. With Yating however, she coordinated which rock to mine and told us for how long to mine and even scheduled daily routines. We became far more organized and efficient. What normally took us 20-something days to fill up Old lady''s was reduced to 15 days. Additionally, our payout was better due to having mined better quality ore. In just one mining trip, she had won us over. We had some regrets over letting Juno go, but that feeling had completely vanished after the first mining trip with her. It turned out that she was a class D ESP. An ESP or an esper was those with supernatural mental abilities. Being able to use magic was a quick way to explain what they were. In reality, an esper wasn¡¯t capable of magic, however. What they were capable of was being able to use mental powers as means to do things beyond normal capabilities as a human. For example, what Yating did was scan the rocks with her ESP powers. Nobody really understood why espers started to be born. The general understanding was that the exposure to radiation for thousands of years was a direct cause of them being born. Nevertheless, class D was very much on the lowest end of the rank. Class Bs would be hired by governments and private firms. Class As would be what I¡¯d call ¡°elites¡±. And then there was the class S, a rank that belonged to someone like the Asperger. He wasn¡¯t the only class S esper. There were a few monsters like him. None of them was present in the Podlezl system except for ¡­


    ¡°Sae the witch,¡± I whispered. Never met or seen her. I¡¯ve heard of her only from lots of gossip and what the media told me. A crazed midget girl who frequently went on rampage to murder people on whims - That¡¯s what I¡¯ve heard. She couldn¡¯t be caught just like how the Asperger was never arrested for ill deeds he had done. They were simply too powerful. That¡¯s what happens when an individual can outpower a whole federation.


    Anyway, during the break period of two weeks, I invited her over to the cafeteria. I also invited Rabinovich and Santino but the former didn''t reply.


    Around a table, Yating, Santino, and I sat around. After making quick orders, we formally introduced ourselves to each other.


    "I guess you know only my name," Yating said, "My name is Yating as you know and a natural female which I need to make clear since transgenders nowadays do a very good job being females."


    Santino and I chuckled. She wasn¡¯t wrong. With the current level of technology, a full gender transformation was entirely possible as long as one had the money. They could even reproduce.


    She added, "42 years old and never married although I am not a virgin."


    "Santino here, 37 years old, male of course. A real one." He placed an emphasis on ¡°real¡± for some odd reason.


    "I guess I am the youngest one. Vazken here, 20 and of course a male."


    We spent about an hour talking to each other and talked about numerous topics. Yating turned out to be an Oreo native. She was born on New Earth but was raised on the station. She was apparently looking for some adventure when Rabinovich posted the job offer.


    "The station will always welcome me back," She said, "And I do intend to settle down on Oreo one day but, for the time being, I am in a mood for something different."


    Santino mentioned to her that we were planning to do something different.


    "Freight business, something of that sort," He explained loosely.


    At this point, she mentioned Juno. Because she had seen us for years, she was able to figure out that we kicked her out and asked why.


    I told her, "She wasn''t willing to do freight. She said it''d be too dangerous."


    I explained further that us three and Juno were the founders and we had to pay her share.


    "Which is why we are mining for the time being. We don''t have the money for ship modifications right now," I added.


    "You know," Santino said, "Juno is a big muscular woman. I think she is the female version of Hulk. Yet, she proves to be quite timid."


    I made no extra comment on that. It was her decision and her way of life. I had no right to comment on that. Regardless, Santino went on for a few minutes about how Juno blew her chance for "big money". I wasn''t sure about the "big money" but I was certain that I wasn''t going to do mining for my entire life at this point. If I wasn¡¯t exposed to the half a million, I may have stuck with mining, however¡­ How life works is mysterious sometimes.


    Once the meeting was eventually over, I got back to my room and found an email from Juno, telling me that she saw a new woman among us and asked who she was. I wasn''t quite sure how to respond. I mean she was no longer a part of the team. Quite frankly, it was none of her business at this point. After debating with myself whether to send a response, I ended up opting not to respond at all. Then hours later, I got an email from Santino that he received an email from Juno asking the same question and he, too, was conflicted to reply. I told him not to bother and it was the end of the awkward event. Once the break period was over, we gathered at the docking bay as usual.


    When asked why Rabinovich didn''t make to the meeting, his reply was -


    "Um, I''ve got a girlfriend now. I was spending time with her," was his answer.


    Fair enough. He had no obligation to attend because it was during the break period.


    "Alright, guys, let''s get to work!" Clapping hands, Santino pushed us forward. He sounded excited. I assumed it was because of Yating. The guy clearly had the hots for her. Perhaps, I did as well, but my feelings weren¡¯t as strong. If he wanted her, so be it. Half of the population is women anyway, although ¡­ Rocksea was a rather small community, but whatever.

 C4. Breakup

    It had been two years since Yating became a part of the team. Things had gone as smoothly as possible. I would even claim that the team harmony became more fluid. With Juno, none of us conversed a lot. We simply went on about our business. With Yating, we became like a group of good friends. We chatted a lot during mining and, even during off duty periods, we gathered together often to hang out. With her being the only female member, she basically became glue that held us together. Yes, Juno was also a female but she never really acted the part with her really beefy appearance. Yating was a real female so to speak. She acted like one and looked like one.


    And, after our latest mining run, we finally had enough funds to go ahead with installing two turrets on the Old lady. Our mod plan was simple. The Old Lady had two large protective plates on each side. Those were useful in a scenario where the ship would have to venture through a densely packed asteroid belt. However, in combat situations, they were redundant. Therefore, they''d be taken off and be replaced with a pair of frigate class turrets.


    "This kind of mod wouldn''t be allowed in the legal territory," A dockyard worker told us. "Only in Rocksea. It¡¯s not legal to turn a civilian vessel into a combat one." This also meant we would be caught if the navy caught us and inspected the ship, but the chance was relatively low. In fact, Rabinovich pretty much gave his word that no one would bother to inspect the ship as long as we didn¡¯t stand out. We also worked alongside the docking bay workers at Oreo to keep labor cost down.


    And, 44 days later, the Old Lady was ready.


    "Lo and behold," Santino said in excitement in front of the now-finished Old Lady with his arms spread out widely.


    The Old Lady was no longer a mining frigate. With two large turrets, it was capable of shooting down Badger class frigates with just a few well-aimed shots. We had two choices in its turret. It was either a weak but fast-tracking turret or a big gun with slow-tracking. Since it was obvious that we would be fighting against small-time pirates, we chose the former, a fast-tracking but low-powered laser turret.


    Then it was time to visit Ehka at Duchess'' boobs.


    Once arrived, I informed her of the ship modifications and our desire of turning full time cargo runners. She took a good look at our mods, and the first thing she asked was -


    "Two turrets, automated?"


    "Yes," I replied.


    "I strongly suggest adding at least one more turret that is manned or have one of your turrets unautomated. If you use only automated turrets, they can figure that out and use tricks to avoid being shot. If you add a human element though, things get a lot more complicated."


    According to her, while a manned turret may lack accuracy, the human element added unknowns. For example, an automated turret will attempt to track its target. But a human controlled turret may predict a target¡¯s path and just shoot at a certain spot instead. He may be wrong in his prediction, but that gave the opponent less room to avoid automated turrets.


    "We don''t have any money on us right now. We need to do a job, fast," I told her. ¡°We are on the verge of bankruptcy right now.¡±


    The rest of us, standing behind me, nodded weakly. We had basically given up on mining and had to do a job fast to get us going. And our entire hope was resting on Ehka quite frankly. Perhaps realizing this, she quietly nodded along and took a deep breath.


    "I get the picture," She told us eventually after a short moment. "There are plenty of jobs actually. It''s just that I want to make sure that they get done, for my reputation. A good reputation means more jobs. I think we can all agree on that, yeah?"


    We nodded along and she continued.


    "I will give you a job but your ship is not ready for the fat ones. You have neither combat experience nor a ship capable of doing decent combat."


    ¡°But the Old Lady is a frigate,¡± I retorted. I felt that she could take a dozen badgers since it had shields.


    ¡°A frigate may be, but it is just a single ship. I strongly recommend you to have at least two badgers in its docking bay when the money allows. A group of ten badgers will be enough to take her down. You will want your own escorts to divert fire.¡±


    It meant that we¡¯d need fighter pilots as well, which meant that wages might need to be paid for them. I glanced back at Rabinovich who was already rubbing the bridge of his nose. None of us had any experience in piloting fighters. We¡¯d need to hire more people, meaning more expanses. It was at this point that I felt that perhaps Juno had a point. Life was certainly easy with the original four of us.


    ¡°I will take your words. Just give us a job to start please,¡± I pleaded.


    ¡°Sending it now. Read over the details.¡±


    Our first job was really quite simple: We would be given four 10-ton cargo crates and haul them over to the Station Beta which was located in the outskirts of Rocksea. Like before, the content of the cargo was unknown. He had never been to the Station Beta before, but doing a quick calculation with the navigation revealed that it¡¯d take 12 days. For a round trip and whatnot, it¡¯d take roughly a month. It felt like a mining job except now we wouldn¡¯t be watching a rock breaking apart. Scrolling down, I saw the pay.


    ¡°... 12,000c?¡± I blurted, feeling dumbfounded.


    ¡°12k? Are you joking with me here?!¡± Santino raised his voice. At 12k and the time it took, we could just mine and receive a similar result. At least, the math was far easier. We¡¯d get 3k each which was far less than what we¡¯d get from mining.


    ¡°This is a very low end job,¡± Ehka explained. ¡°I cannot give you something better. The higher the cargo value, the more likely that you will encounter pirates and the bigger group you will encounter. A lone frigate is asking to be destroyed.¡±


    Rabinovich clicked his tongue upon hearing her explanation while Santino was fuming visibly. Yating seemed content, either way. After all, she wasn¡¯t here for money. She couldn¡¯t care less probably. As for me, I felt dull, like after having a massive headache. The grass isn''t greener on the other side.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s not like we have an option,¡± Rabinovich said. ¡°It''s not much but it¡¯s money. We¡¯ve got bills to pay.¡±


    That much was true. I was very glad that the Old Lady was fully paid off at this point. Otherwise, we would have had trouble making the loan payment. Either way, the bottom line was that money was money, and we had to accept it. Three thousand credits wasn¡¯t enough for any of us, but it was better than nothing at the moment.


    ¡°That woman conned us!¡± Santino barked after we accepted the job and the communication was terminated. ¡°We are her slaves now. She sweetened us by giving us a sweet job first and now we can¡¯t really back out!¡±


    I felt that he was going overboard but did feel that he had a point. We could not back out even if we wanted to because of the investment. It wasn¡¯t as if we could get a refund and go back to mining. The modification was highly illegal, and it was a special order. We were explicitly told that it was non-refundable, which was perfectly justified.


    ¡°Let¡¯s just get this one done,¡± Rabinovich told us. ¡°We need money in any shape and form.¡±


    I had nothing in my savings account. Well, nothing wasn¡¯t true, but my savings were down to just three digits. We, three, poured all of our personal funds into the modification. The money was pitiful, but it would get us going for the time being. Truthfully, anything was better at the very moment. Everytime we docked anywhere, there was a small charge. During mining at the station Oreo, this fee was waived since we were pretty much working for them. This was not the case at the Duchess¡¯ boobs. We had the money to pay for one docking and that was spent. We were literally penniless at the moment. This fee wasn¡¯t a meaningless one because every time a ship docked, the dockyard office would make sure that chemicals used to create oxygen would be replenished. The same for water also.


    Sighing my lungs out, I told my mates, ¡°Let¡¯s just do this.¡± I felt defeated. Either way, we departed soon after receiving the crates. We scanned the cargo crates out of curiosity, and they were found to be engineered wood which was mostly used for luxurious interior designs. They weren¡¯t worth much, and the four crates had a total value of 120,000c, which meant that our pay was exactly 1% of the total value.


    ¡°So, it looks like 1% is the normal commission for hauling. Am I right?¡± I said to myself in my room. Santino and Juno were on the bridge. Rabinovich and I were off duty. It was very likely that the two were going to fool around a bit on the bridge. Someone had to be present on the bridge due to the risk of being hit by pirates. Folding my arms, I floated around in my room idly.


    ¡°Mining is better at this point, objectively speaking,¡± I mumbled with furrowed eyebrows. ¡°But it is a dead end job. Yes, it is better at the moment, but mining income is always the same. It neither increases nor decreases significantly.¡±


    After a moment of silence, I continued, ¡°Hauling will be better if I stick to this. Hire some pilots, loan some badgers¡­¡±


    However, he realized that, in order to make it happen, it would need some capital in the bank. Once we arrived at our destination without an incident, we made a call to Ehka to inform that the job was done. The payment was deposited into our account shortly after. 12k was nowhere enough to satisfy our needs, but it¡¯d get us going for the time being. And, like that, our lives as haulers began. For better or worse, our lives didn¡¯t change much. Instead of watching rocks fall apart and scoop them up, we set up a preliminary alarm system for any approaching objects. Interestingly, it would be almost 300 days before we''d run into the first battle. The job was nothing out of the ordinary. The Old lady was a part of a convoy and was acting as a rear guard as well as hauling some stuff in addition. There were three Akabasa I and four badger escorts. Cargo was just miscellaneous stuff and was really low value. We didn''t expect any troubles. Then -


    "10 signatures detected, 10 Badgers!" Yating alerted all of us. We were really slacking, so it took us a few minutes to gather at the bridge.


    "Pirates? Why? We haven''t got anything of value?!" I heard Santio utter just as I rushed into the bridge.


    "I don''t know. But they are here, approaching fast. ETA is less than 60 seconds!"


    Rabinovich entered. He wasn''t wearing his top and was half-naked. "Pirates? For real?" He inquired.


    The convoy didn''t really have a leader, but the Old Lady was the most powerful ship, not to mention a fact that it was a rear guard. Therefore, naturally, we took charge of the situation.


    Rabinovich activated a private channel to the convoy and told them, "Akabasas, stay behind nearby rocks. You guys don''t have shields. Badgers form a formation around the Old lady."


    It was a reasonable request for survival. While the Akabasas obeyed, the badgers did not.


    "Who made you the leader?" One of the Badgers talked back.


    "This is not the time for this!" He barked but had no effect. The four Badgers just charged in against the pirates, and two of them were pretty much instantly trashed as soon as dog fights began. The other two started to flee.


    "God damn it!" I blurted out of frustration. If the four Badgers used the Old lady as a point of defense, it would have worked out so much better. Now it was just the Old lady against ten Badgers.


    "What do we do?" Yating asked us. We could still flee at this point after dropping the cargo.


    "We ain''t running," I told her. "If we run, we will be done for. Activate the turrets and  hug a rock."


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Hugging an asteroid would provide us some protection, I felt. Neither Rabinovich nor Santio opposed my idea because quite frankly it was the only solution unless we were fleeing. The automated turret proved to be effective for a short moment before the badgers were dodging it completely. It was when I recalled Ehka''s remarks on pilots being able to outsmart automated turrets. As soon as I realized that, I dashed to a nearby console and worked on taking control of one of the turrets. I didn''t know how to control a turret but I felt it was better than missing every shot. Because it was the very first time I was taking control of a turret meant I was essentially clueless what to do. I simply controlled it like I would in games. The problem was controls or the lack thereof. Since it was never used in manual control, I simply had no idea how to effectively control it. All I could really do was awkwardly veer the turrets in random directions while letting it fire shots. The mates stared at me, swiping across a touch sensitive console awkwardly. None of them stopped me though. The automated turrets were missing all shots by the way. They probably couldn''t blame me, given the fact that I was controlling the turret through a camera that wasn¡¯t even providing proper line of sight. However, to my, or our, surprise, because I was controlling the turret so awkwardly, the attacking badgers lost some of their rhythm, and the turret landed a lucky shot on one of them. It was a critical hit, and the badger exploded pretty much instantly on the spot. Rabinovich and Santio cheered on while Yating let out a long relieved sigh. The lucky shot disturbed them and soon enough another badger was shot down by the automated turret.


    "God, I suck," I uttered while fanatically sweeping across my control in an effort to control a turret.


    "You suck in a good way!" Santio snickered in response. Well, he wasn¡¯t entirely wrong. I did suck, and the lack of skill was helping somehow. The pirates didn¡¯t expect me to be so bad that they had no clue how to respond to my fanatic aiming. With two of them suddenly gone, the pirates had to make a quick decision to press on or just bail out, and it didn''t surprise us when we saw them bail out because our cargo was literal garbage. While garbage itself had zero value on its own, it was useful still in generating power via burning. Some stations had such a low population that they didn¡¯t generate enough garbage on their own. In such cases, they had to import garbage.


    "Why the fuck did they attack us to begin with?" Santino loudly complained. He had a point, given our cargo.


    "Maybe, they were desperate," Yating replied.


    "For what?!" he barked back but quickly apologized to her for raising his voice.


    Rabinovich clapped his hands to gather attention. "Alright, guys, let''s get this job done. Vazken, can I ask you to keep watch with the turret control."


    I nodded at him. "Sure thing." It wasn''t like I had anything better to do either way. The mates left the bridge and I was left alone. The rest of the journey was quiet and the job was successful. We were paid more since the badgers bailed out. Basically, we received their shares. Ehka congratulated us for surviving the first attack, telling us that not all of them would make it out alive.


    Then we had a few days of rest and were given another hauling job. And this was where things started to veer off.


    You see, we used to stay at Oreo when we were mining. The station Oero had virtually nothing. It was a tiny station that was pretty much dedicated to processing ore. It had a docking bay, an office to process invoices, and that was it. There was nothing to do at the station, and that was hiding faults in our members. Ever since we began to stay at the Duchess'' boobs, initially Rabinovich stayed well away from the station itself. He stayed mostly on the ship during breaks. Eventually though, he started to visit the brothel as well as the bar. In fact, he began to turn up drunk or even really late. The first time, we let it go. After all, it was the first time. The second time he turned up drunk, we also let it go. The third time though, Santino had enough. As soon as he saw Rabinovich lazily flew into the bridge looking clearly drunk, he barked at him.


    "Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?"


    To which Rabinovich replied indifferently, "What?"


    "You are drunk, and it''s not the first time."


    I glanced at Yating. When our eyes met, I shrugged and so did she.


    Rabinovich was rather calm in his voice. "Leave me the fuck alone, dude. It''s not like we have to work right away. I will get some sleep and get sober."


    To be utterly honest, he had a point. We had done nearly ten hauling jobs so far and we usually had nothing at all to do for the first several days. Still, that didn''t excuse his recent behavior.


    During the first few minutes, Rabinovich was relaxed and deflected a lot of barking from Santino. However, at one point, he began to get agitated from his continuous verbal attacks.


    "Bugger off, dude!" He raised his voice, and the tension on the bridge shot up suddenly. Santino, realizing that he pushed him far enough, thankfully backed off. Both guys were fuming and growling but it didn''t escalate further¡­, yet.


    However, it didn''t end there, which I kind of saw coming. Rabinovich''s behavior continued to get progressively worse, even skipping out an entire job because he was too drunk to work. Yating seemed to have restrained Santino from going after him, but it was Rabinovich who dropped the bomb first after a while.


    "I want out," He declared when we just got back from a hauling job. It was his second time skipping out the job. I did find it weird that he was sober this time. I guess he at least had the decency to do this while sober. Santio took a deep breath as he placed his hand on his waist. Yating was right next to him, silently observing so that he would not go too far. As for me, I stood idly. I mean, what was I supposed to do or say? In a corner of my mind, I realized that the group was done for.


    "You know," Santino eventually replied. "Normally, I would ask why and would try to stop you, but I think we all foresaw this coming sooner or later." Then he looked at me and said, "Vazken, you agree, right?"


    I nodded and told him, "Yeah."


    We had a problem with settling the money. Basically, I did not have the money to pay Rabinovich''s share. I used my savings to pay Juno''s share a while back. Even Santino didn''t have enough credit to pay him, either.


    So, we had two options. One was to get a loan using the Old Lady as collateral. The other was selling the Old Lady all together. Either way would mean the end of the group although, with Juno and Rabinovich gone, I''d say the group was over. We weren¡¯t that close to begin with, thus I wasn¡¯t feeling particularly sad or anything. Besides, the group lasted 15 years-ish. It did good. Even a marriage doesn¡¯t last that long nowadays. Rabinovich was fully aware he wasn¡¯t going to be paid right away and left us alone.


    "Two options," Santio told me as he gazed on a monitor to watch the docking bay. "One, we get a loan. Two, we sell the Old Lady. What''s your take?"


    I folded my arms and followed his gaze to the monitor. The docking bay at the Duchess'' boobs was far larger and far busier. There were ships coming in and out as we discussed. I told him my earnest opinion which had been in my mind for a while.


    "I think this team is done for," I said to him. "With Rabinovich gone, that''s half of the original crew. Let us go our own ways."


    His reaction was positive as if he also wanted to go on his own way. He nodded along as he patted my shoulder.


    "I will be honest," He said to me. "I''ve also wanted to go my own way. Well, with Yating."


    I sort of figured as much. He clearly wanted more private time with her, and our presence prevented that.


    "So, selling the Old Lady then?" I said to him. The ship was already fully ours at this point. Sagging shoulders but looking clearly happy, he replied, "Yeah, I guess. It sucks that we are selling her as soon as she has become fully ours, but then, hey, it could have been worse."


    I wasn''t sure about that. To be honest, I didn''t want to sell the Old Lady. I did feel that the team was done for though, so I didn¡¯t disagree.


    Once the decision was made, things progressed swiftly. The Old Lady was sold within days after it was put on the market. Santino was in charge and he told me something interesting.


    "A tracker?" I raised my voice a bit when he told me that.


    "Yeah, a tracker. Nothing bad. I understand that the Old Lady was your first proper vessel. So, I put a tracker on it. Here is the key."


    He handed over a small data chip to me and continued, "This chip contains a tracking number for the Old Lady. If she is sold again, as long as the transaction is done legally on the market, you will be able to track who she was sold to and where, making it easy to track her down and buy her back if you want and can."


    "Oh, wow, I didn''t know such a thing existed."


    "You need a broker license which I do."


    I chuckled weakly. "Dude, you were a ship seller before?"


    He waved me off. "Yeah, yeah."


    A ship broker was a common job. In fact, its entry barrier was so low that it was a job for those who couldn''t get a proper job. Even being a miner was perceived better than being a ship broker. Now, I didn¡¯t panic or anything as the group broke apart because I realized that, the moment we let Juno go, this was going to happen sooner or later. In a way, I was probably prepared for the worst to come, and it did. Human intuition is a very interesting thing. I had no reasonable evidence that the group was going to break apart. It was just a gut feeling so to speak.


    ¡°Time to get my things off the ship, I suppose,¡± I said to myself as I lazily flew toward my room on the Old Lady.


    After a few days, my share was transferred which stood at nearly 5 million credits. That was a lot of money but I wasn''t going to get carried away. I was jobless after all. Shortly after, I paid a visit to Ehka and explained my situation to her, asking her for a job in the end.


    I was in her office. There was a rather noticeable muffled loudness despite the room being sound proof. After all, it was located inside of the bar.


    The room was rather lifeless with a simple aluminum desk. She was browsing the net while she listened to my woes.


    "I see," She stoically replied once I was done explaining. "You lasted long enough, I suppose. Such groups never last long." She tapped on the desk which shot down a holographic screen floating about 30cm above. Crossing her legs, she rolled her chair to face me who was standing a short distance away from the desk. I had magnet boots on.


    "So, you need a job. I have something in my mind," She said to me. "You are going to need some commitment though."


    "Meaning?"


    "This station always needs security enforcers. In fact, we are hiring, and you need a job. The issue is that you don''t have a ship."


    She recommended that I purchase a badger. She added, "You can certainly loan it but, in the long term, owning it saves money. And you can mod however you want if you own the ship."


    A badger was a fighter class vessel. Compared to a more expensive SSS Robin, it was considered a low end ship. Regardless, badgers were really common in Rocksea. Pretty much every pirate used one after all. As far as I was aware, the hull itself cost only 400k top, brand new. But, once you add a better engine, better thrusters, guns, and whatnot, the overall cost shoots up. I wasn''t sure how much it would exactly cost me in the end.


    As if she read my mind, she told me, "Two and half mil."


    "Pardon?"


    "Two and half mil is what a fully geared badger costs. I am pretty sure you can afford that, given you had a share in that Lightwave mining frigate."


    I could. That didn''t mean I would though. I was hesitant because the job would involve combat. Call me a coward if you want but I value my life.


    "Ehh, I am not so sure...."


    "What are you going to do then? Back to mining?"


    That certainly was an option. Would I go back, though? Unlikely. My group broke up precisely because they didn¡¯t want to mine. I didn¡¯t want to mine.


    "Look, mining isn''t bad. It''s a steady income source, but you''ve been outside. I don''t think you can do mining anymore. Mining is for those who don''t know anything better."


    I cast my eyes downwards and thought about what she said. She had a point. I didn''t really feel like going back to mining.


    "Time to get used to the tougher side of life, Vazken. It''s the only way to climb the social ladder. While there is nothing wrong with trying to be safe, we live in Rocksea. Safety is a luxury."


    Her statement made me realize again where I was living. I lived in Rocksea where pirates were rampant and there were no police at all. Yet, I¡¯ve never felt that my life was under threat. Believe or not, amid the chaos that was Rocksea, there was order. I was the proof.


    I nodded at her and told her, "I understand." But I sighed still. "I will do as you say. I reckon that you will hire me?"


    "That''s right. I like you. You are cool headed. Too many guys think being hot headed is the way to go, but nope. Being hot headed shortens one''s life. Perhaps more importantly, you''d make a good security guard."


    I was glad that she pointed out my positives. Regardless, I had to ask what I had to ask.


    "Is it a full time job?"


    She gave me a nod.


    "May I see the contract details?"


    There was a faint grin on her face. She activated her computer and a holographic popped up above her desk which, after a short moment, levitated its way to my eye level, displaying my contract details.


    The contact looked weak initially.


    "It says 3,000c for 90 days. Can''t be true, can it?"


    She replied, "It is correct. That is the basic salary. Look at bonuses and add-ons."


    Each case I solve would grant me 500c per. If it was a bigger case, like a fight, the bonus was 1,000c for stopping it before it would get out of control.


    A good behavior bonus was also present where I''d receive an additional payment of 1,000c if I wasn''t caught in any troubles for 90 days.


    She added as I read the contract, "If you do your job, it''s easy to earn well over 10,000c per 90 days. If you slack though, it''s 3,000c plus maybe 1,000c good behavior bonus for you."


    It seemed clear that she had thought things through and came up with rather controversial contract terms. It was essentially an incentive contract that was designed to make people work. I wasn''t planning to slack anyway, so I decided to see how it''d go.


    "Any minimum contract term?"


    "No, but you must complete the first 90 days at least. The loss is on you anyway since you''d be investing in a badger."


    Fair enough.


    "Fine, I accept." Having said so, using my index finger, I drew my signature at the bottom of the contract on the holographic screen which registered my signature.


    "Welcome to the fold, Vazken."


    A new chapter in my life, I suppose. As Santino said before, it could have been worse. I didn''t expect the group to last forever but it collapsed in a way I didn¡¯t expect. It was clear to me that Rabinovich had a lot of addiction issues. I¡¯ve heard that some people simply cannot resist being addicted. He was apparently one of them. As someone who wasn¡¯t addicted to substances, I failed to understand why it was hard to stay away from things that would make you act like a failure. Yes, alcohol makes you feel good, but was it something to sacrifice everything over? Pleasure, whether it was mental or physical, is entirely optional. It is optional because it is not required to live. In other words, luxury. When you take luxuries for granted, that¡¯s when things start to turn for the worse. Well, whatever, I move on.


    ¡°Time to shop for a badger¡­ Fuck me. I thought I¡¯d never say that.¡±


    Me being a badger pilot? Yeah, life is weird.

 C5. Moving on

    Two years had gone by. And, for the past two years, I had been working pretty much non-stop at the Duchess'' boobs. I actually didn''t mean to work this hard but I sort of got into a rhythm that kept me going at a good pace. Needlessly to say, I quickly became Ehka''s favorite employee or at least that¡¯s what I heard. I enjoyed my badger very much meanwhile. It was my home as well as my workplace. I modded the hell out of the ship to be a nimble fighter. Ever since the battle with the Old Lady, I hadn''t had any actual combat experience but I felt pretty confident in dog flights because I played with fellow bouncers occasionally. Speaking of the Old Lady, I had been keeping my eyes on her. She was still in Rocksea. That was perhaps obvious due to the turret modification. Santino later sent an email telling me that she was sold quickly precisely due to the mod. Apparently, there was a demand for cheap combat capable frigates. It also meant that the chances of her being blown up to smithereens was higher. Now, did I want to buy her back? Probably. Did I expect to be able to buy her back? Probably not. Realistically speaking, I¡¯d need 30 millions to be able to buy her back. Twenty four million was what she cost, but I¡¯d need to pay over the odds to be able to convince the current owner to hand her back, thus 30 million was the ballpark figure I needed to aim at. Honestly, I wasn¡¯t going to be able to make that much money in any realistic time frame. I¡¯d rather have that kind of money in a retirement savings account rather than spend it to be honest. Besides, it was better for me to invest on a better ship instead of aiming for a frigate. A logical upgrade to my current top-of-spec badger was SSS Robin.


    The Robin was what I¡¯d call a modern ship. The Badger was from the 7000s. The Robin was from the 9000s. SSS, Super Star Shipyard, was another spaceship manufacturer based in the Solar system. They were the largest spaceship manufacturer as well. The Lightwave shipyard focused on mining ships while SSS focused on everything, including civilian-grade fighter class ships. When compared to the Badger, the Robin doesn¡¯t look like an upgrade at the first glance because the former had two fixed gatling guns and two on the back. But those gatling guns were old-fashioned ammunition based weapons, which had a travel time to its target. Additionally, I had to stock ammo beforehand. The Robin, in contrast, had a laser turret. Yes, a turret, and it was much more powerful as well. While I had to manually aim the guns on the Badger, for the Robin, that didn¡¯t matter. All I had to do was loosely chase my target, and the turret would track it with ease. Of course, another significant upgrade was that it had armor plates. With the Badger, a single shot was enough for it to go down if the hole was made near where its pilot was. He¡¯d run out of air before he could patch it up especially if he was under duress already. The Robin was able to withstand some punishments before actually breaking down. There were further improvements in the interior as well. Long story short, the Robin was a clear upgrade to the Badger. And that was reflected in the price. The base hull was 800k. With all options maxed out, I was looking at 5 millions. This was something I could afford. However, I¡¯ve placed a million into my emergency / retirement savings account. I wasn¡¯t going to touch it no matter what this time.


    ¡°Hmm?¡±


    Snapping out of my long train of thoughts, I surveyed what was in front of me. I was inside my badger which was positioned a bit away from one of the docking bays of the Duchess¡¯ boobs. I spotted a shuttle that was bumping into a wall right next to a docking bay door frame repeatedly. I immediately knew it was being piloted by a drunkard. It was a common occurrence in my short experience of being a bouncer. The job of being a bouncer wasn¡¯t actually how it sounded like. My primary job was keeping order and preventing others from fighting - in space -. That was why Ehka asked me to purchase a badger in order to intimidate others. I had yet to run into people physically while being ¡°a bouncer¡±. Anyway, I approached the shuttle at once and opened a public channel.


    "Sir, please stop your engine," I warned him over a public channel, meaning everyone was able to hear our conversation if they wanted and were close enough. Unlike establishing communications which required acceptance from both sides, anything on a public channel would automatically sound on speakers. This was by design on civilian vessels. Well, I didn''t expect him to stop, and he didn''t. The shuttle simply kept on bumping an innocent wall, causing dents and scratches.


    "Sir, I repeat, please stop your engine. I will tug your shuttle into a docking bay."


    Again, no response. It was entirely possible that he was already dozing off.


    There wasn''t exactly a standard protocol in these situations. I mean the station wasn''t exactly a high standard workplace. But a common practice in these situations where a drunkard was bumping into an innocent wall was just tug the shuttle anyway and force it into a docking bay. Since my badger would have more thruster powers, it was possible. Just to be sure though, I contacted him one more time through a public channel.


    "Sir, I am tugging your shuttle. Say something if you wish to refuse."


    Again, no response, and I waited a few good minutes.


    "Alright, let''s do this," I said to myself as I touched a series of holographic buttons floating on a console. I was turning off assisted piloting so that my badger could approach the shuttle without it having a mind of its own and move away. It was a safety feature. Once that was done, I carefully approached the shuttle and attempted to push it sideways so that it would eventually go into a docking bay. It wasn''t even that far off, a few meters at the most. However, at one point, the pilot from the shuttle shouted through a public channel.


    "The fuck you are doing?!"


    I responded promptly. "Woke up at last, eh? I am trying to get you into the docking bay."


    "Mind your fucking biz. I know what I am doing!"


    Having said so, he powered up his engine. Mind you that the shuttle was bumping into a wall. By suddenly powering up its main engine, it crashed into a wall, shattering its cockpit window. A pop of air bursted out along with the pilot. His body accelerated into a wall head first, and his skull shattered instantly, leaving a floating corpse. The dude wasn''t even wearing a seat belt of any kind.


    "Oh My God," I uttered. It was my first time seeing a living person turning into a dead one in seconds. Therefore, I froze for a minute. Eventually, I took a deep breath and docked to see Ehka. It wasn¡¯t my job to clean up the mess.


    "Not your fault," was her conclusion as soon as I reported in. "I saw the incident video. You followed the protocols. The pilot was stupid. Natural selection," She concluded.


    I knew that. I knew I didn''t do anything wrong but I felt really down. As if she read my mind, she suggested an idea.


    "Why don''t you take a break? You''ve been working here for some years non-stop. You do deserve a holiday of some sort."


    I hesitated because I still needed to earn money.


    "It will be a paid vacation. Just take some days off, like a few tens of days. I will give you 30 days off."


    Sighing deeply, I figured why not, thus I agreed a time off. The first place I wanted to visit was the Oreo station. It had been years since I visited the station. I missed its 0.1 gravity. I figured I''d spend some time there. It was only a few days of travel in addition. I proceeded to leave right away.


    "Hasn''t changed a bit," I said to myself as I looked at the station. It had been only two years. Of course, nothing changed. I bet a small station like Oero wouldn''t change even after a hundred years. I was visiting for no reason. Therefore, my initial request for a docking request was denied. Naturally, I contested the decision over a comm.


    "Sorry, sir. Unless someone inside can vouch for you, we cannot let you dock. I am sorry. It is our policy."


    I wasn''t sure Yating was on the station, but she was the only one I could think of.


    "Is there Yating on the station? I know her personally."


    The guy over the comm sounded surprised. "Yating? Hold on."


    After some minutes, the dude replied, "Your docking request has been granted."


    So, she was indeed on the station, possibly with Santino as well. Could Juno still be on the station also? This could get a bit awkward. As soon as I landed my badger and exited the ship, I spoke out loudly.


    "Computer, locate Yating."


    A moment later, a small light ball that was the size of fist appeared in front of me and it began to move at a walking pace. I simply followed it. Where it ended up was the docking office, and the ball of light vanished upon reaching its destination. It was where I used to meet her when receiving payment for ore. She was in front of a desk, looking down on a holographic data sheet. As soon as she noticed my presence, she stood up and approached me with a beaming smile.


    "Hello, Vazken."


    There was another person, a guy, in the office. He glanced at me once and returned to whatever he was doing. It could be the guy from the comm earlier.


    "Yating, I didn''t expect you to be here." I meant that.


    "Yet you still named me as your guarantor," She replied with a grin.


    I scratched my head. "Well, it was a bit of a gamble. I didn''t know anyone else. I assume Santino is here as well?"


    Her face darkened a bit. "We broke up," She said with a bitter grin.


    "Oh, I am sorry. I see. That''s why you are back." I did want to ask why, but it was none of my business.


    "Pretty much." She changed the subject afterwards. "I was told that you are visiting here for no reason. Is that true?"


    I explained my situation earnestly to her. I was never going to lie to her. She was my crewmate once.


    "Oh, I see. I am sorry about that." She sounded genuinely worried about me. "I see. Well, in that case, stay on the station as long as you''d like."


    Then she turned her attention to the guy in the office. "Marcello, add his name to the approved visitor list."


    "You got it," He replied at once.


    "I will also have a guest room assigned to you."


    "No, no, you don''t need to do that. I will stay on my ship."


    "You sure?"


    "Yeah. I will stay here for ten days at the most. I just wanted the sweet 0.1 gravity."


    The guy, Marcello, chuckled in response.


    She beamed a bright smile at me. "Enjoy your stay then. Since you are on an approved visitor list, you should have more access than regular visitors."


    "Thanks."


    I really wondered whether Juno was still on station but honestly did not want to run into her. I asked the station computer whether a person named Juno was present on the station.


    "Positive," It replied.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "Bugger," I said to myself. I really did not want to bump into her. The chance of actually dumping her was really low though. The cafeteria would be the most dangerous place. For no apparent reason, just for kicks I suppose, I asked the computer another question.


    "Santino and Rabinovich."


    "Negative on Santino. Positive on Rabinovich."


    I froze up as soon as I heard that. Rabinovich is here? And Juno? With Yating, pretty much the whole group was present on the station. This was gettin'' weird. Initially, I thought about just leaving the station right away. But then I realized I didn''t do anything bad to warrant avoiding them. The group being disbanded wasn''t my fault, at least not entirely. If anything, it was Rabinovich who hammered the final nail on the coffin. With that line of thought, I decided to stay around for a bit longer. I came here to take a break, but it turned out that I wasn¡¯t exactly going to get that. Regardless, again, I wasn¡¯t at the fault of the group having disbanded, thus I stayed. For the next few days, all I did was play games in my badger and work out a bit to maintain my muscles. Eventually, I was unable to resist my urge to visit the cafeteria. The food over there was just so much better just to ignore. Besides, my chances of running into either Rabinovich or Juno was low. It was like 1%. It was quite crowded when I arrived. I had never seen the cafeteria this crowded before. A mining frigate must have docked recently or something. I saw over ten people present, and there was a small line up for food. When I saw the guy in front me getting his tray of food, he turned around and -


    "Vazken?" He said to me, sounding surprised.


    I wasn''t exactly paying attention and when I did -


    "Rabinovich?"


    "Hey, dude! It''s been a while!" He raised his voice with excitement. "Come, get your tray and sit at my table."


    I wasn''t exactly keen but did just that.


    My tray of food was boiled rice with lightly roasted pieces of spam and two sunny side up eggs. It was nothing fancy but trust me. This combination was fucking good. The tray had a transparent plastic cover so that it wouldn¡¯t fly all over. It had been years since I had a meal like this. Back on the Duchess¡¯ boobs, my meals were mostly powdered food and occasional canned meat. When I sat down at his table with it, he greeted me again with glee.


    "So, dude, what have you been up to? Good to see you really." He asked me as he took his first bite at his food which was several loaves of bread along with a gravy. He had to immediately close his tray with the cover just in case his gravy might go haywire under 0.1G. Anyway, I told him earnestly what I had been up to. I had nothing to hide really.


    "Kinda saw that coming. That woman, Ehka, valued you high."


    "Really? Didn''t notice." I was being honest.


    "You are a good worker. I am sorry that I broke up the party." He sounded genuinely apologetic. "I have a problem with alcohol and women."


    Well, that much was clear. He explained that, after the group was disbanded, he ended up spending most of his money on booze and hookers. Thankfully, he was able to get a hold of himself and moved to the station before it was too late.


    "I am a solo miner now," He added," Boring as fuck, but it gets me fed."


    I carefully said to him, "I believe Juno is here as well. Have you run into her?"


    He chuckled. "I have, dude. It was awkward since I was the one who made the ultimate decision of letting her go."


    I hope that she didn¡¯t throw a fist at him.


    "How is she?"


    "She is a solo miner like myself. We didn''t talk much. The air was just too awkward. She may open up to you though."


    I didn''t want to talk to her though.


    "I think she may have hots for ya."


    I almost choked on food. Coughing hard, I blurted at him. "What the fuck was that for?"


    He snickered. "Not kidding. It''s just a vibe I got from her. She did ask me about you and only you. Asked about no one else."


    I never saw her that way though. I mean, she''s a huge woman, much bigger than myself. To be honest, Yating was more of my type than Juno. If it wasn¡¯t for Santino, I would have gone after her.


    "Anyway, really good to see you," He said with a playful grin on his face. He was playing around, ¡­ probably.


    Either way, I couldn''t deny that it was good to talk to an old friend. ".... Yeah."


    It certainly lifted some weights in my mind that the group members were doing alright. I didn''t know where and what Santino was doing but I was sure he was doing alright on his own. It was the ninth day when I left the Oreo station. It was time to get back working. The station was starting to feel like a real home to me. My friends were there as well as memories, good and bad.


    Perhaps more importantly, I was able to leave the incident at the Duchess'' boobs behind me. I was over it. When I got back, I asked Ehka for a face-to-face meeting. I¡¯ve made a decision to take a step forward in my life.


    ¡°You want to join a convoy?¡± She repeated after me.


    ¡°Yes, I don¡¯t want to be a bouncer for the rest of my life. I want to climb up.¡±


    Being a bouncer was similar to being a miner. Both were dead-end careers. So far, I¡¯ve been wandering around the bottom of a barrel that was called a career. I really did feel like I should step up a bit. I wanted to partake in convoy jobs and eventually lead a small team. I was twenty five years old at this point.


    ¡°I am not going to stop you if you really want to step up,¡± she said. ¡°Your badger is fully upgraded also, so there isn¡¯t a reason for me to stop you.¡±


    I was fully aware that I was lacking in real world experience. At the same time, there was no way for me to learn real world experience without actually doing the deeds. I had to face danger. That was no roundabout way. In my defense, I did play some simulations as well as working with fellow bouncers for friendly dog fights. She brought up her holographic keyboard and started to type things, probably searching for an available spot in a convoy.


    ¡°I have a convoy that can use an additional badger. They are going to depart in two days. Sounds good?¡±


    At the moment, pay didn¡¯t matter to me. I had to survive this one. That was my only goal.


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s good enough.¡±


    ¡°I will send you info. Read up when you have time.¡±


    ¡°Sounds good.¡±


    ¡°So.., how many years have you been here?¡± Her question was out of the blue.


    ¡°I beg your pardon?¡±


    ¡°Is it two or three?¡±


    ¡°A bit over two years, I believe.¡±


    ¡°And you¡¯ve never met Duke, right?¡±


    ¡°Your husband, right?¡±


    She nodded.


    ¡°No, I haven¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps, it¡¯s time to meet him in person then.¡±


    Now that she mentioned him, it was weird that I never met him during my stay at the station. As far as I knew, the real name of Duke was unknown, and Ehka was essentially the Duchess since she was supposed to be the wife. Whether they were actually married, I wasn¡¯t sure. A marriage was a rare thing in the era. People rarely bothered to do the paperworks and get legally married because it simply did not matter.


    ¡°I don¡¯t see why not. I¡¯ve never met him.¡±


    ¡°Follow me.¡±


    During my stay at the station, my most frequented area was one of its two docking bays and its associated office space. As a bouncer, I didn¡¯t need to go elsewhere. This part of the station was relatively peaceful. The other boob where the bar and brothel were rather chaotic. From what I could gather, Ehka was in charge of the industrial business part. Duke was probably in charge of the residential business. Well, I will find out soon enough. The whole station had absolutely no gravity, and magnetic boots were required in some parts of the station, which were the bar and brothel. Where she led me was the bar, which was where I almost cracked my skull when I visited the station the first time. The place was eerily empty this time.


    ¡°It¡¯s under maintenance today,¡± she told me as if she read my mind.


    ¡°Hubby, hi,¡± Ehka greeted Duke who was behind the bar counter and was slowly cleaning glass cups. The place was dimly lit. That was how bars were in general. I could barely make out his facial features.


    ¡°Ehka, hey,¡± he replied stoically. He was a big bald guy. He didn¡¯t look to be as tall as Juno but seemed equally muscular. ¡°Who¡¯s the guy?¡±


    ¡°Vazken, the one I¡¯ve talked about before.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I see. So, I finally get to meet the guy. The name¡¯s Duke.¡±


    I was pretty sure that it wasn¡¯t his real name but I wasn¡¯t going to press. The guy was wearing a dark red turtleneck shirt. I couldn¡¯t see what he was wearing down there, most likely pants.


    ¡°The name¡¯s Vazken.¡±


    ¡°Have a seat, and what¡¯s your favorite drink?¡±


    Ehka grabbed a stool and sat down, and I did the same.


    ¡°I, uh, don¡¯t usually drink.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t give him something that¡¯s too strong,¡± she said with a chuckle.


    ¡°Screwdriver is probably the best then,¡± the Duke said. ¡°It¡¯s easy to make and goes down well.¡± It was a mixture of vodka and orange juice. Anyway, I wondered why she chose to introduce me to her husband now. The timing didn¡¯t make a lot of sense to me. I mean, I didn¡¯t need to know the guy.


    ¡°May I ask the purpose of this meeting?¡± I dared asking because personally I saw no point in this.


    ¡°Not many actually know that he is the owner of this place,¡± she said while taking a cup of cocktail from him. ¡°And you are now one step above the bottom. It¡¯s time to know the face of your employee, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    ¡°I thought you were my employee.¡±


    ¡°Nope, I am his wife, and his name is in the deed, not me.¡±


    ¡°Of course, should I die, she will get her name in the deed legally,¡± said the Duke, grinning, and sliding my drink toward me. The cup had a slightly magnetic bottom and it slid really well. Of course, there was a cap and a straw. This was zero gravity after all.


    ¡°Any children between you two?¡± I expected none.


    ¡°We do, a son,¡± said the Duke. ¡°DNA check done. He is mine.¡±


    ¡°I had to spend ten months on New Earth,¡± she added, pouting.


    ¡°I am grateful, either way,¡± he said. ¡°Never thought I¡¯d have my own kid.¡±


    I could agree with him because it wasn¡¯t exactly easy to have relationships in space. Having children was even harder since pregnant women were strongly encouraged to stay under 1.0G. Not many women were willing to spend or waste ten months doing nothing on a planet. They¡¯d rather get an abortion than going through a full pregnancy.


    ¡°I¡¯ve repaid my debt to you in doing so,¡± she said with a chuckle.


    ¡°Indeed, we are even.¡±


    So, they had a history. It was certainly a bold way to repay ¡°debt¡± by having a child. But both of them seemed satisfied, so it wasn¡¯t my place to meddle in.


    ¡°Hmm, this is not bad,¡± I said after taking a small sip. It tasted mostly like orange juice.


    ¡°I diluted a lot. It¡¯s probably on beer level,¡± the Duke said.


    ¡°Beer? That¡¯s a kid¡¯s drink,¡± She said. ¡°That¡¯s a bit offensive, don¡¯t you think?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not my first time drinking. I think I can handle something tougher,¡± I replied, taking some offense in her words. She wasn¡¯t wrong, though. Beer wasn¡¯t even considered an alcoholic beverage. I even heard a story of a guy who replaced his liver after getting wasted by drinking beer. Replacing internal organs cost like 10k and it was a half-a-day medical procedure.


    ¡°Try this one. It¡¯s on wine level now,¡± he said after mixing several liquors together. Beer was 4 ~ 6% alcohol. Wine was 9 ~ 15%. As soon as I sipped the new drink, I could tell it was much stronger, and the ethanol fume hit the back of my nose hard. I coughed inadvertently, which made Ehka laugh while the Duke smiled simply.


    ¡°I, I will stick to the first one,¡± I said, admitting defeat.


    ¡°I see. You are fit for the job then,¡± he said.


    ¡°Pardon?¡±


    He glanced at Ehka who nodded back subtly.


    ¡°Her assessment of you is that you are rational and cool-headed. Those are good traits for a space dweller. But she wanted to make sure you had something else as well. Well, let me rephrase. She wanted to make sure that you have less of it.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s ego,¡± she said. ¡°The less of it, the better. You haven¡¯t read the job details, have you?¡±


    ¡°No, I haven¡¯t.¡± That was because she didn¡¯t give me a chance to read it. I was brought here almost immediately after being given the job.


    ¡°It¡¯s hauling fish,¡± he said, and I froze up for a brief moment.


    ¡°It¡¯s the same job you had done before, except you will be going as one of escorts this time,¡± she added.


    ¡°Those with high self-esteem are going to get themselves killed. That itself is fine, but one less escort is going to be an issue. She wanted to test you, and congrats, you passed.¡±


    Scratching the back of my head, I replied with a bitter smile, ¡°Ehm, not sure whether to feel good about that¡­¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s good money,¡± he said.


    ¡°I am happy that I have low self-esteem!¡± I exclaimed with a salute. In my life, only two things mattered to me: Money and survival. Any illness can be cured with money. Cancer of any stage or any kind can be cured in an hour. You can get blood vein modification to control your blood pressure. You got a heart disease? Just replace the heart for 10k. You broke your spine? That¡¯s even cheaper. There was very little the current level of medical technology could not cure except for ¡­ maybe Morosis which was a new variant of brain shutdown disease. It was a relatively new disease discovered only a few hundred years ago. I was positive that they would find a cure for it soon. Brain ¡°shutdown¡± disease was something that couldn¡¯t be prevented as the average lifespan of mankind exceeded a few hundred years old. Scientists hated to admit this, but something called ¡°spiritual integrity¡± played a part. Essentially, our mind wasn¡¯t built to last hundreds of years. ¡°Mind break¡± was another well-known term for this. The early symptom of brain shutdown was occasionally blacking out. It¡¯d get more frequent, and eventually one¡¯s brain or mind would shut down completely, resulting in brain death. There was no coming back from that. Interestingly, alcohol has been proven effective against this. And, with the danger of ruining one¡¯s liver from excessive alcohol consumption gone, getting high with ethanol had become really common. Only extreme drug junkies touched drugs. It also meant that I should be drinking more and get more tolerant of higher doses. As for Morosis, it made one to sleep more and more, eventually making them sleep 24 hours a day, essentially making them brain dead. There hasn¡¯t been a cure as far as I know. Anyway, it looked like my new chapter of life was about to begin and it did.

 S1. Ehka

    Ehka was a member of the Knights of the Podlezl republic. The Knights were essentially an elite police force. Having hailed from an impoverished household, she worked very hard to be able to enter the Knights. She was very proud of her achievement and rightfully so.


    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for that fucking witch¡­,¡± she grumbled in a shuttle. This was after she had been let go, or fired in other words. It could have been much worse for her because the original punishment was court martial. The leader of the Knights, Wemer, went easy on her since she had served the knights to the best of her abilities for over ten years. He was fully aware of what exactly happened, but a scapegoat was needed for the incident. What incident? It occurred on the trading outpost of Ayse¡¯s low orbit.


    There was a report that Sae the Witch was present on the station. She was sent to investigate and, if true, call for reinforcement. She was not expected to survive a fight against her. No, no, she wouldn¡¯t survive, not a chance. As soon as she arrived at the station, it was clear as day that Sae was there because the whole station was trashed by the time she arrived. She could even hear the distant hysterical laughter that was echoing through. There were several guards in her vicinity who looked hopeless. She showed her badge and declared.


    ¡°I am Ehka, a member of the Knights. I am here for the witch.¡±


    The guards gave her a lukewarm welcome.


    ¡°You are not capable of arresting her, are you?¡± One of them asked.


    ¡°I am here to assess the situation.¡±


    ¡°What a waste of time¡­,¡± he said, shaking his head. ¡°Well, here you go. Call for someone capable unless you want to get ripped off and die.¡±


    Sae the Witch was a class S ESP. She was unstoppable and wouldn¡¯t die in a vacuum, either. The only way to stop a class S ESP was another class S esper or a group of highly skilled class A espers. Ehka was a class B esper specialized in physical enhancements. In other words, she was unable to use magic-like abilities. Instead, her physical abilities were boosted. Regardless, the bottom line was that she¡¯d get killed in a matter of seconds if she fought the witch. Therefore, she could not refute that her visit was indeed ¡°a waste of time¡±. At the same time, she was simply following the protocol. If a highly wanted criminal was found, it had to be verified first by a member of the Knight before someone more capable would be sent.


    ¡°I will need to ensure that she is indeed here. Excuse me,¡± she said, indirectly asking the guards to make a path for her since they were blocking the only exit that led to the station lobby.


    ¡°Be our guest,¡± said the guard who was clearly blocking the way. ¡°Just come back alive. We don¡¯t want to wait for another one of you to arrive.¡±


    She had no intention to die anyway. After giving him a firm nod, the guy moved aside for her to pass through.


    ¡°What a fucking mess¡­,¡± she remarked as she flew into the lobby. The aluminum walls had nail scratches everywhere as if some wild animals had gone nuts clawing the walls. ¡°That¡¯s her alright, Sae the Witch.¡± This wasn¡¯t her first time running into her. The Witch was notorious for causing havoc mostly in the Podlezl system. It was understood that her base of operation was the Freedom colony, AKA Noman¡¯s station. She knew something else as well. Wherever she appeared, there was deep corruption somewhere in the chain of the command. This uncanny trend was something she did report to her boss, which was blatantly ignored. The authorities wanted the public to perceive the Witch as a chaotic serial murderer, and the media gleefully accepted such a request after being bribed handsomely. This was insider information only some were aware of. In fact, Ehka wasn¡¯t supposed to know this much but she was able to make the connection after investigating her personally throughout the years. She flew deeper, navigating through passageways until she entered a commercial deck where it was an open space with building-like structures present, representing independent shops. From there, she could finally spot Sae who was running around with what appeared to be a head in one of her hands. Blood was still splattering out of its severed neck as well as its spine sticking out of its neck. The way the head¡¯s eyes were wide open, he probably never saw coming and died instantly. The key point here was that she was ¡°running¡± around where there was no gravity. She was creating her own sphere of gravity to be able to run around. This was something only class S espers were capable of, defying the laws of physics. She was a midget girl, looking more like a pre-teen 10 year-old girl. She did look quite pretty, however. If it wasn¡¯t for her short stature, she would have been considered very beautiful. Her hair was brown and was long enough to reach her shoulders. Wearing a pale-yellow hooded sweater, checkered mini skirt of red and black colors, and light brown thigh socks, her dressing code was quite provocative for her perceived age of a pre-teen. She even had light makeup on which was red eyeshadow. Ehka had no idea why she would put on makeup to begin with¡­


    ¡°Except for the fact that she is over 800 years old¡­,¡± She mumbled. Yes, Sae the Witch was that old. Nobody really understood how she was able to live that long. But then, the Asperger, another class S esper, was over 1,000 years old at this point. Those class S espers defied laws of everything.


    ¡°Oh, hey!¡± Sae¡¯s high-pitched voice startled her. She was right in front of her, and Ehka didn¡¯t even see her coming. The gap in strength was too wide.


    ¡°You¡­!¡±


    ¡°Oh, I recognize you. Ehka, right?¡± Sae said with a smile. She did really look like a child from the way she smiled. It was hard to believe that the child standing in front of her was a cold-blooded serial murderer.


    Gritting her teeth, Ehka asked her, ¡°Just how many have you murdered this time?¡±


    With her index finger on her lips, she looked up as if trying to count. ¡°Oh, I don¡¯t know ~, maybe a few hundred?¡± Her tone was completely unconcerned as if it was not a big deal to her.


    Gritting teeth, Ehka growled, ¡°I wish I could arrest you and make you face justice.¡±


    ¡°Justice, ha! Too young, you are. The whole system is crooked.¡±


    ¡°The system is not crooked. I wish I could show you that.¡±


    A corner of Sae¡¯s lips lifted up. ¡°Well, you will see what I mean soon enough. I¡¯ve seen you a few times now. There is a reason that they sent you specifically more than once.¡±


    ¡°Why have you not killed me then?¡±


    ¡°Because you don¡¯t yet deserve to die. You are too naive.¡± Then she shooed Ehka away. ¡°Go, girl now. Leave. Inform your boss. This will probably be the last time we will meet.¡±


    Ehka had no idea what she was saying at this time.


    ¡°I will give you some advice as a parting gift. Never trust anyone until you have gathered enough evidence to be able to trust them. And never ever trust journalists, the media, and politicians. I mean, why would you trust professional liars?¡± Sae shrugged. ¡°Fools never learn.¡±


    Gritting teeth and clenching her first, she was forced to withdraw. After making her report that Sae the Witch was indeed spotted at the station, she was ordered to return to New Earth. She would find out what Sae meant soon after. Somehow, the blame of the incident was placed on her. The media reported that she was partially at fault for not being able to prevent the incident at the station. She was to be court-martialed. The whole event occurred within a span of just two days, not giving her any meaningful time to make any defense for herself.


    ¡°A scapegoat¡­!¡± Ehka grumbled in jail. It all made sense now. Since they kept losing the Witch, they had to find a scapegoat and lessen the public anger. An election circle was coming close by as well. They needed to do something to quell public resentment.


    ¡°There is a reason that they sent you specifically more than once.¡±


    It turned out that they were going to sacrifice her sooner or later. They were simply waiting for the right moment.


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­..


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.


    ¡­¡­¡­..


    She cried her eyes out for a moment in the shuttle. How her career went downhill to this point was just unbelievable for her. The amount of effort she had to put in to become a knight of the Podlezl republic... and then all crashing down because of the witch¡­ She had to cry; she had been holding back her tears for almost a year, which was how long she had been prosecuted. She hoped for a breakthrough that never came. It was about time to cry indeed. Once she regained her composure, she had to accept the reality.


    ¡°Could have been worse, a lot worse," She said to herself as she washed her face and sat down at the cockpit of the shuttle. It was indeed true that it could have been worse.


    ¡°I don''t even want to think about it," She said to herself again. She was given a shuttle and was told to leave the Podlezl system ASAP. Logically, she had two designations. One was the Solar system. The other was the Freedom colony. Since she was a citizen of the Podlezl republic, she could not enter the Solar system legally, leaving the Freedom colony as a safe choice. However, she wanted to go to neither of those places because she wanted to stay close to the Podlezl system to plot for revenge if possible. If the system was indeed crooked, then it deserved to go down in flames.


    ¡°Wait¡­, there is another choice¡­¡±


    There was the Cassandra belt, also known as Rocksea locally. It was a lawless zone, meaning the authority of the public did not reach there. Additionally, she had good knowledge of the asteroid region. As a knight, she had infiltrated several known outposts and knew a place to go for drinks.


    ¡°Drinks, I could really use some," She muttered.


    There was a small outpost in the region. Its name was the Duchess'' boobs. The whole outpost was a bar, plus a brothel. She knew the owner as well whose alias went by "Duke". As a knight, she knew his profile. He was an ex-murderer who accepted a plea deal and moved to Rocksea. His job was simple in concept. Become a resident in the area and be an eye for the republic. Being forced to reside in Rocksea was as good as house arrest, but it was better than a prison, thus he accepted, reluctantly. He wasn¡¯t chosen randomly. He was chosen because he was a resourceful man, and his crime was somewhat justified because he murdered a man who killed his wife, Duke¡¯s sister, after a fight.


    ¡°Is that you, Ehka? Long time no see!"


    A bald and big-boned man dressed in a dark red turtleneck shirt and dark gray pants casually greeted her entering the bar. His facial features were refined and she could call him decently good-looking. His clothes were also very tight fit on his big body, exposing his masculine shape.


    ¡°Hey, Duke, how has it been going for you?"


    He shrugged. "Could be better, but then could be worse."


    The Duchess'' boobs was a rather desolate place to be, mainly due to the fact that it was in the middle of nowhere. She looked around and saw a single guy sitting in a corner, drinking, and the place could hold hundreds. Regardless, the status of his business wasn''t her concern. She needed a place to stay for the time being.


    ¡°I''d like to rent a room, Duke."


    ¡°An agent business?"


    Obviously he didn''t know that she was no longer a knight.


    ¡°Something like that."


    ¡°Sure thing, lass. I''ve got a luxury room for 17,000c for 90 days."


    If she was a knight, the money would be paid by the budget. Obviously, that wasn''t the case anymore.


    ¡°I''d like the cheapest room please."


    He raised his eyebrows for a moment and gave her a stare. He didn''t say anything though and offered her the most inexpensive room which ran at 5,000c. After making the payment, she immediately went to her room.


    ¡°My word..."


    The room was a mess. Walls had scratches all over and the bed was in a questionable state. Yes, there was a bed which was meaningless in zero gravity. However, it had a pair of straps to tie oneself down.


    ¡°Does it have a shower? Please tell me it has a shower."


    Thankfully, the room did have a basic shower system. After taking a shower, she had some time to sulk over her life once again. Her reality was that she needed to make a living somehow. She had some savings but that wasn''t going to last more than a year. She even thought about selling her body at the Duke''s place but that seemed just wrong, so she ditched that option. She didn¡¯t work hard to become a knight just to end up becoming a whore. The only other options she could think of was becoming a debt collector or a bounty hunter, both of which would require combat skills which she in fact had.


    After a few days of sulking and calming down, she confronted Duke and confessed her situation. Needless to say, he wasn''t too surprised.


    ¡°I sort of guessed that you got fired. I mean you always picked luxury rooms," He explained with a tint of grin. He wasn''t mocking her or anything. He was indirectly pointing out that she loved luxuries.


    Sagging her shoulders, she sighed. "So, I am looking for a job now. I was thinking of either a debt collector or a bounty hunter. You got any leads, Duke?"The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°Those are physical jobs. You have any experience? And what are you? An esper?"


    ¡°Class B. I do have some experience in enforcing writs. I was a knight after all."


    ¡°I see." Then he fell silent for a moment, looking around his nearly empty, but large, bar. There were three people at the moment. His brothel wasn''t working too well, either. He said with a sigh, ¡°Listen, I can''t really help you here. I am barely hanging on here myself. But, if you want to move on, I can certainly refund you the money for the room."


    ¡°No, no, that''s fine. I do plan to use the room. Here will be the base of my operations for the time being. I was just wondering if you had any jobs."


    ¡°Well, I could certainly use a stripper." He beamed a crooked grin. "But you ain''t fit. No offense intended."


    ¡°No offense taken."


    Ehka wasn''t a pretty woman. She neither had the body nor the face. She was slightly average looking in her best days and she was somewhat chubby. Besides, earning money that way had never been her intention. She was fully aware of how unattractive she appeared to many men. Therefore, she really took no offense to Duke''s comment. She remained jobless for weeks and eventually took up a position as a waitress for Duke. It was this moment that she realized the reality of his business. The bar really had too few customers to stay afloat. The brothel had some regulars but those customers didn''t translate into the bar.  The brothel was what kept his business afloat, barely. And her first real job finally came from one of the customers from the brothel. Apparently, Duke recommended her for the job upon hearing the customer''s complaints.


    ¡°I have this guy who I loaned a fair bit of money to. The sum is like 10 million credit," He casually spoke while caressing a naked woman''s hip on a bed. He was naked as well. The woman was drugged and was drooling. She was basically unconscious. "Now, I''ve been pursuing this guy for long enough to believe that getting the money back is no longer an option. If you beat the crap out of him, I''d be happy."


    Ehka listened to him professionally, standing firmly with both of her hands held on back. It was how she used to receive orders as a knight.


    ¡°Am I allowed to kill him?"


    The man laughed out loudly. "I don''t mind him dead. If you don''t mind a murder charge on you, why not. Kill him. I will need proof though, so some photo and his severed head will be required. I will give you a bonus for killing him."


    ¡°And if I can get any money out of him?"


    The man appeared quite surprised to hear her. He raised his eyebrows for a moment before smirking at her.


    ¡°You know what? I''ve sent numerous men after him. Couldn''t get out a dime. If you get any amount of money from him, I will give you 50%. Deal?"


    Smiling brightly, she gave him a firm nod. "Deal."


    She was quite experienced in chasing down criminals and, as she stated before, she was very experienced in enforcing writs. This job was pretty much her backyard play. Once it was verbally agreed upon, she was quick to begin her work. Locating the guy wasn''t as hard as she thought it''d be. She was without the knight''s network, but it was still relatively easy to locate the guy. It turned out that the guy had a history of not paying loans and his traces were everywhere. In fact, it was so easy to locate him that she felt like it was a trap. It wasn''t even that far from the Duke''s outpost. However, she knew it wouldn''t be easy. If it were easy, it wouldn''t have fallen to her hands to finish it after all.


    Armed with two laser pistols, she paid a visit to the outpost he was staying at and covertly made her way to his quarter. Gaining an entry to the outpost was a breeze due to it being a free-for-all entity for temporary stays. Such a place was common in the area. Many mining outposts were constructed in the early phase of colonization. After generations, many were abandoned or were sold cheaply. Some renovated such abandoned outposts and transformed them into a form of motels where one could stay as long as they liked once a payment was made, which was a nice passive income for some. The Duchess'' boobs was similar to such motels except there was a lot more effort being put into running and maintaining the place. Once she made it onto a floor that the guy was supposed to be on, she understood why nobody had yet to get the guy. He had apparently rented the whole floor and armed it with security drones. The safety circle was just two steps away from the elevator she had just taken off. The drones had already detected her and they were on alert, tracking her movements. Their servo motors made distinct whirring noises as they tracked her movements. She was seeing two kinds of drones. The first kind was a levitating one which looked like an armored box with a lens on front and a gun attached on its bottom. The second kind was a more dangerous one, which was a ground unit that had a red ball with a lens and four legs. It had a concealed needle gun which shot neurotoxic poison. It was nicknamed ¡°the assassin drone¡± for that reason.


    "The whole floor is full of drones," She remarked while inspecting the scenery. If she were an esper, which she in fact was, she could have attempted a brute force entry. Alas, her class was only B and she was well aware of her limitations. She knew she wouldn''t be able to break through. But she had another trick up in her sleeve. When she docked at the outpost, she immediately recognized the model of the structure. The thing about these old structures was that people wouldn''t update its mainframe since it cost credit and due to a possibility of breaking stuff. What was more important was that its engineering password would remain the same. An engineering password was to be used by companies to override a master password. It had some restrictions compared to a master password but did have access to what she would need in this situation. Being a former knight, she knew such passwords. Accessing a console right next to the elevator, she entered the password and hoped that it would be accepted. In her experience, 99% of times such passwords worked. A positive beep sounded and a grin surfaced on her face.


    "Bingo," She said gleefully. Raising her voice this time, she spoke to vacant air in front of her. "Computer, cut the power to this deck."


    "Access denied," A computerized voice replied right back.


    "Crap," She blurted. After a short moment, she spoke again, "Computer, restrict power to this area based on my position."


    Lights in the area dimmed and the drones began to act weird. That was because they were being wirelessly powered. Their power wasn''t completely cut off but there wasn''t enough juice for full functionality, either. Grabbing some random junk out of her pocket, she threw it forward where drones were jittering. It bounced off a drone and floated in mid air. There was no violent reaction from jittering drones. Having determined that it was safe enough to traverse, she carefully made her way through the area. Where she eventually ended up was a short corridor with two doors on each side. The light wasn''t restricted in the area, indicating that she was on a different grid zone. Pulling out a small device from her belt, she turned it on; it was a bio-scanner.


    "Two people," She whispered to herself. "One in each room."


    She pulled out her pistol and made sure that it was in a working order as well as making sure that it was set in stun. She pulled a backup pistol and checked it as well. She was nervous and for a good reason. If she was a knight and this was a normal mission, she would have backups standing by who''d rush in to assist her, should things go sour. This time though, there was no such a thing. If something did go wrong, it could end badly for her. She could be tortured or even raped. Alas, she had to do it.


    Inhaling deeply to prepare herself mentally, she dashed to a console next to the first door and entered the engineer password which worked and the door slid open at once. Without hesitation, she flew in and pointed her pistol at the only creature in the room, which was a completely naked guy on a bed who was jerking off with a porn being displayed on the ceiling. Startling from the sudden intrusion, the guy glared at Ehka and barked, "What the fu-" Before he could finish though, she shot him, knocking him out. Taking a good look at his face, she confirmed that it was indeed the guy she was after.


    "It''s him. Good."


    After handcuffing him, she was casually dragging him out of his room. It wasn''t a hard task, given the gravity of the station was less than 0.01. However, just as she was coming out of the room, the other biosignature in the other room apparently peeked its head out to see what was going on and saw Ehka. It was a young woman.


    "The hell?!" She uttered and dashed toward Ehka at once with a dagger.


    Ehka uttered as well in frustration, "Ugh, give me a fucking break!" Letting the man go, she aimed her pistol at her and fired at once. One of the shots hit her shoulder. However, she was wearing shoulder armor. Thus, the shot, set in stun, had no effect.


    "Crap," Muttering, she quickly set her gun to lethal and blocked the incoming slash with her gun. Not wanting to drag on her visit for too long, she attempted to negotiate.


    "Can we talk?"


    She shouted back as she continued her offense. "We have nothing to talk about!"


    "This dude has a large bounty on it. How about we share that?"


    "I am his sister!"


    However, Ehka seemed unfazed. "So? He won''t die, and I will get the bounty. I will give you 20%."


    The sister halted her attack and asked, "How much is his bounty?"


    Since the bounty part was a lie, she had to come up with a figure quickly. She was going to torture him to extort money out of him and she had to guess how much she could possibly get out of him.


    "His bounty is 2m, so you will get 400k."


    The sister whistled. "What has he done?"


    "You don''t know? He borrowed a large sum of money and hasn''t paid back along with interest."


    The sister folded her arms, sighing. "I guess that''s where his seemingly endless credit has been coming from."


    Seeing the sister seemed to be a rather reasonable person, Ehka slowly lowered her pistol.


    However, the sister kept her blade aimed at her and demanded, "How do I know you aren''t scamming me though?" It was a genuine question.


    "I will give you 100k right here right now and you can follow me to my hideout. If I do that though, I want you to sign a contract with me as a bodyguard."


    A legally binding contract was something criminals avoided at all cost because they would need to reveal their names to receive money. Forging identities was certainly possible. However, that wasn¡¯t the case when a payment was involved. Ehka knew this and hoped that she would just take the money. She had full intention to pay back the rest however.


    While looking skeptical, the sister told Ehka, "Give me 100k now and just tell me where your hideout is."


    Taking out a small device that was the size of her thumb nail, she asked, ¡°Let me scan your memory chip.¡± Memory chips were usually located right below the left ear, thus scanning it without permission was extremely hard. This also required lowering the guard. Thankfully, the woman complied, and she was able to scan her memory chip, obtaining her one-time security token to deposit any money to her banking account.


    "I am staying at the Duchess'' boobs,¡± Ehka said while transferring the funds. And the sister chuckled.


    "The duke''s place? I know where that is. Can I call him to confirm that you do stay there?"


    "Not a problem. Go right ahead."


    But the sister didn''t call. Ehka''s reaction seemed to be good enough to satisfy her. Once the credit transfer was done and confirmed, the sister told her, "I will visit you in 30 days to get the rest of the payment. Does that sound fine with you?"


    Ehka nodded at her.


    "And how long do you think he will serve?"


    "He could be out in as short as 10 days if he somehow settles the debt quickly or comes up with a payment plan or something. He won''t die. That is for sure."


    "Will he be tortured, though?"


    Shrugging, Ehka beamed a crooked grin at her. "Obviously, do you even have to ask?"


    The sister chuckled. "Just making sure. The kid got away with a lot of stuff. I just wanted someone to knock some sense into him. I guess he will learn a lesson this time." She, then, turned around, casually waving, and went back to her quarter. Ehka rolled her eyes and exhaled deeply in exhaustion. She made it, somehow.


    ¡°Never again,¡± she whispered. It was a very dangerous moment for her. It worked out somehow, yes, but she had no backup, let alone anyone assisting her. If the sister had anyone else backing her up, she would have been in real trouble.


    ¡°Never again,¡± she repeated as she entered her shuttle.


    Duke clapped slowly three times when he saw Ehka return with a handcuffed naked man. The guy was sedated.


    "Grats, you did it," He told her as she approached the counter.


    "It''s been a long day. Give me a drink please, something strong.¡±


    "Sure thing. It¡¯s on me. What about the guy though?"


    "Do you have a room where I can tie him up and torture him?"


    He beamed a crooked grin and handed Ehka a key card labeled 666. She grinned back, catching the joke.


    The interior of room 666 was pitch black with a water pipe sticking out of a wall with a valve on it. She assumed it was for water torture. The only light source was on the ceiling where a single, dim, light was present. There was also a pole in the middle of the room where she chained the guy onto it and slapped him hard to wake him up. As soon as he regained consciousness, he immediately demanded her to release him.


    "I will if you hand over 10m you owe," She told him.


    He laughed at her sarcastically. "You think I have the money on me? I am fucking naked, ugly bitch! At least give me a blow job or something!"


    Seeing that he wasn''t taking the situation seriously, she went on to torture him. Taking a meter-length lead metal stick, she got behind him and opened his buttchicks and shoved it right into his anus. The guy tried to jump up and down and panicked. He was prepared for a torture, but this was certainly a different kind of a torture. Alas, this was standard torture for Ehka. What was worse for him was that she did not speak at all while she was literally abusing him sexually. After the butt stick, she went onto insert a pair of wires into his penis, and the wires were connected to a power source.


    "Fuck! FUCK! FUCCCCK!" He shouted while struggling. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?! SAY SOMETHING GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!"


    To which she finally said something in response, "Just let me know when you wish to make a payment. I am not expecting a full payment, but I expect at least half."


    For the next few hours, the guy experienced literal hell, followed by lead poisoning. He was almost electrocuted via a wire that was shoved into his penis and he began to feel unwell due to the lead pipe in his rectum. Additionally, she pumped salt water into his mouth, resulting in him vomiting more than 50 times. It wasn''t just a physical torture. It was also a mental torture. Genuinely fearing the worst, he began to beg for mercy to which she did not respond. She wasn''t going to respond until he was willing to make a payment or come up with a payment plan. At the fifth hour, the guy''s body and spirit were in tatters. His anus was bleeding and the blood was black. His penis had burnt to crisp. He had vomited so many times that his mouth was swollen. Regardless, she went on to keep torturing him at which point he cried out.


    "No more... F, fine... f-...fine..."


    She paused and softly asked, "How much?"


    "Three mil...."


    "Not enough" And she proceeded for a new torture, grabbing a strange looking object. He saw it and had no idea what it was. It looked vaguely similar to a wine opener.


    "It''s an eye extracting kit. Don¡¯t worry. I won¡¯t kill you. Feel safe," She told him indifferently. And that was the final straw. In the end, he made a payment of 6 million credit and was set free once the payment was verified. The client was pleasantly surprised when he was informed that Ehka was able to extract 6m and kept his word on giving her half. And, while she did not inform him of the torture, Duke did and the client was very pleased, giving her an extra million.


    Duke congratulated her. "Hah, nicely done. 4 mil earned easily." He slid a drink to her which Ehka took and sipped it once.


    "This kind of job is dangerous though. You know the saying that karma is a bitch. You do this sort of stuff long enough, it will bite you in the back."


    He laughed pleasantly. "Good to know that you are grounded enough. Trust me, some will keep doing that shit for money until it''s too late."


    "Oh, I know. Just so you know, I am not doing this again. I can''t afford to keep making enemies."


    "So, if you aren''t going down this route, what do you plan to do? You know you can''t live on forever with 4m."


    Indeed, she had been thinking about her future while she was on the job.


    "Duke, are you interested in a business partner?"


    It was a not-so-subtle statement, and he wasn''t sure how to respond to the sudden question, but she continued on anyway.


    "I will invest 3m into this shithole and you make me a shareholder or a co-owner or whatever. I will work my due and you share some of your profit, just so that I won''t die starving."


    She thought about going on a bounty hunter but taking such a dangerous profession alone was going to get her killed sooner or later. Actually, death was one of the better outcomes. She could be captured at one point, drugged out, and be sold as a sex slave to some random outpost in the middle of nowhere. Even if she found a partner, finding someone she could trust her life with was certainly easier said than done.


    "Hah." Duke chuckled briefly. "Sounds like a hostile takeover to me."


    She sagged her shoulders while faintly "Well, if you want to see it that way, that''s fine as well. I ain''t got anywhere to go. Will you take me in, please?"


    He was silent for a short moment. Soon enough though, he beamed a smile at her. "You know what, I haven''t been doing too well with this biz. Perhaps, I need a second opinion as well. Welcome aboard."


    With that done, she finished her drink.


    ¡°I owe you one,¡± she told him.


    ¡°Oh, I do know.¡±


    This was how this man and woman got together, and a new beginning would unfold for the Duchess¡¯ boobs.

 C6. New comrades

    I was called to a VIP room of the Duchess¡¯ boobs a day prior the convoy take-off. When I arrived in the room, which was decorated luxury with velvet floor and wooden walls, there were four other people around a round wooden table. Since it was zero gravity, there was no chair. Standing still was easier with magnet boots.


    ¡°You must be Vazken, yes?¡± A man who seemed to be in charge asked me, to which I replied positively.


    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s me.¡±


    The man had brown skin and had a crop haircut with somewhat long stubble. His hair color was equally brown albeit darker. His eye color was brown as well. His height was about the same as mine.


    ¡°My name is Aktug, and I am the leader of this squad. Welcome to the fold.¡± He extended his hand for a handshake, which I accepted gladly. The man was as professional as one could get in the situation. The three others were one man and two women, making the group overall three men, including me, and two women.


    ¡°We wouldn¡¯t have taken in a new member, but Ehka has been quite reliable and her recommendation means a lot,¡± he said with a grin.


    ¡°I hope I can meet your expectations.¡±


    ¡°My expectations of you are simple. One, obey my orders. Two, do not flee.¡±


    ¡°Easier said than done,¡± The other guy added, who was a black man with cleanly shaved head and face. He was pretty tall but slender. ¡°The name¡¯s Tylarr by the way with an additional r.¡±


    ¡°So¡­, Tylarr? ¡­ Why?¡±


    He shrugged with a crooked grin. ¡°My parents¡¯ big idea of making my name unique.¡±


    People generally did not have a last name. The reason for that was the True Equality Act of 3022. As the name suggests, this was a law passed in the year of 3022, basically a looooong time ago. It basically removed last names from everyone. There were some rare cases of having a last name in the form of a nickname, however. Because the vast majority didn¡¯t have a last name, there were bound to be a lot of duplicate names. Therefore, a unique identifier was added to our names. For example, while my name is Vazken, my full legal name was Vazken-9611112. Now, the number, 9611112, has a meaning. The first four digits are my birth year, 9611. 112 means I was born on the 112th day of the year. So, Vazken-9611112 would be what I¡¯d fill out on legal forms and contracts. People generally did not reveal their unique identifiers because no one would remember it.


    ¡°Well, I do think they¡¯ve made your name unique,¡± I replied with a grin.


    ¡°You ain¡¯t wrong,¡± he replied, looking slightly pissed.


    ¡°Anyway, join us. Order a drink,¡± Aktug said.


    ¡°I will have what you guys are having,¡± I said in spite of having no idea what they were drinking, and that turned out to be a damned mistake because I ended up having to drink a cocktail that was far stronger than what I had back with Duke and Ehka. This time, though, I held my cough and took it even though my throat and stomach felt like they were on fire. Aktug and Tylarr didn¡¯t seem to pay any attention to me, so they probably didn''t notice.


    ¡°Alright, let¡¯s begin the talk, shall we?¡± Aktug declared. ¡°We are gathered here today before the convoy departs in order to discuss our formation and general strategy.¡±


    I expected them to be highly experienced, and they were. The four of them all had purchased a torpedo, which cost a million credits each. Because I was a new addition to the team as well as a newbie, they weren¡¯t going to purchase a torp for me.


    ¡°Your job is to observe and survive. If you can assist us, that¡¯s fine. We will take that, but do not be a hero,¡± he explained to me.


    ¡°Do not get in our way. That¡¯s especially important,¡± Tylarr added.


    ¡°And don¡¯t die,¡± one of the female members added as well. She was also a black woman with an afro. ¡°The name is Vavaina by the by.¡±


    I nodded along.


    ¡°Right,¡± Aktung agreed. ¡°Don¡¯t die. Of course, that¡¯s not really up to us to decide sadly. Are you an esper by any chance?¡±


    ¡°Afraid not.¡±


    ¡°We do have an esper, class C.¡± He pointed at the final member of the squad, a blonde woman with blue eyes. She looked quite beautiful to my eyes. Our eyes met, and we both exchanged a subtle nod.


    ¡°She¡¯s mute,¡± Tylarr said. ¡°But, being an esper, we can talk via telepathy if needed.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t that be cured easily?¡±


    ¡°It can be, but she was told that her esper abilities would be lost most likely. Thus, she chose to keep being a mute,¡± Aktug explained.


    I nodded along. That made sense actually. If you are an esper, you do not want to lose that ability. The most tangible benefit of being an esper was being able to survive in space without a spacesuit. They suffered virtually nothing from radiation as well. Overall, if I was in her shoes, I would have chosen to remain as a mute also especially when there were other communication methods available.


    ¡°What¡¯s her name by the way?¡±


    ¡®Kalomoira¡¯


    I was startled as I heard a voice in my head. I looked at the blonde woman and she nodded back. So, that was telepathy, huh. It was unsettling.


    ¡°You will get used to it,¡± Tylarr said, chuckling.


    ¡°Kalomoira is a bit mouthful, though. May I call you Kalo?¡±


    ¡°That sounds like a dude¡¯s name, doesn¡¯t it?¡± Vavaina said, and Kalomoira nodded strongly in protest. Bewildered a bit, I looked at Aktug and Tylarr, who shrugged back at me.


    ¡°Um¡­¡± Scratching the back of my head, I tried to come up with a better nickname. Kalomoira was indeed mouthful for me, and there was a good chance that I wouldn¡¯t be able to remember the next time we met up.


    ¡°Then¡­ Moira?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s just the latter half of her name, ain¡¯t it?¡± Vavaina argued.


    Woman, what do you really expect from me? Shrugging, I talked back rather fiercely, ¡°Ma¡¯am, we¡¯ve just met.¡±


    Aktug caught on to the clue quickly. ¡°Well, whatever you call Kalomoira, that¡¯s between him and her. Let them solve it,¡± he meddled in and deescalated the situation.


    ¡°Fine, fine,¡± Vavarina said with a sigh.


    I couldn¡¯t care less about names. I was trying to be nice, but the woman was pushing it. I decided to change the subject right away.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got a question.¡±


    ¡°Shoot,¡± Aktug replied promptly.


    ¡°Do you guys work for or with Ehka?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a bit of a tricky question. Vazken, how old are you?¡±


    ¡°About 25.¡±


    ¡°I see. Then you wouldn¡¯t know, but the Duchess¡¯ boobs was a crappy bar slash brothel until about 15 years ago.¡±


    ¡°It being crappy was an understatement,¡± Tylarr added with a snicker.


    According to Aktug, until Ehka came along, the station was hanging on by a thread. It was supposed to be the bar within Rocksea, but it had barely any traffic. Things started to take a turn for the better when Duke¡¯s new business partner Ehka showed up suddenly one day. She established new business opportunities and began renovating the hardly used part of the station. What Rocksea had been lacking was a warehouse to amass and distribute commodities. Anything a station wanted to purchase, they had to be brought in from outside, namely the Podlezl system. That took more time, more money, and more risk. What Ehka accomplished was essentially opening a space supermarket for Rocksea where stations could purchase commodities faster, cheaper, and more securely. She also opened a space fishery to satisfy increasing demands for delicacy. Space fish farming required a ridiculously expensive license that required an annual payment to maintain. However, Rocksea was outside of the Podlezl government influence, meaning she was able to run her fishery without paying any license. Now, operating an illegal fishery wasn¡¯t a new thing. Opportunistic people had done it numerous times. Due to its high value, however, battling against pirates was a massive headache on its own. Thus, companies and corporations chose to run them within secured space. She was able to continue running her fishy due to the unique nature of Rocksea where large ships such as cruisers were unable to sail adequately due to the abundance of asteroids. This ultimately meant that she was able to maintain security with just fighters and occasionally frigates. In other words, it cost far less. As her business grew larger, her influence increased accordingly, dissuading pirates to tackle her conveys less frequently.


    Damn, I knew she had something going on, but it looks like she is far more powerful than I thought¡­


    ¡°Now, our squadron, which we call the Copper wing, was initially founded by me,¡± Aktug said. ¡°But it was Ehka who made it where we are now via making investments and giving us tactical plans. She has merely given us her suggestions. It was down to us to accept them.¡±


    ¡°So¡­, it¡¯s like you aren¡¯t exactly working for her and it¡¯s not exactly you are working with her, either.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s very gray, true,¡± Tylarr said with a nod.


    ¡°The torp was her idea,¡± Vavaina added. ¡°We were really skeptical at first, but it has worked out extremely well so far.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Tylarr smiled with a shrug. ¡°I mean, it¡¯s a million a pop. It wasn¡¯t an easy decision to make.¡±


    ¡°The payout makes it profitable obviously, yeah?¡± I asked to which they nodded in unison. We had further chit-chat afterwards and ¡­ I didn¡¯t have any memories afterwards. A loud beeping was what had me awaken from my drunken slumber.


    ¡°Where am I?¡± Then I grabbed my head. ¡°Oh, fuck. I have a headache¡­¡± I realized that I was floating around in my badger. I suppose I made it to my own ship somehow. Flying toward the console of the ship, I answered the call in spite of the desire to pee ASAP.


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°Vazken! Get up! We have a job to do!¡±


    Shit, what time is it ¡­ Oh, fuck. I¡¯ve got like 10 minutes left.


    ¡°Right!¡±


    Setting up a quick autopilot for my ship to meet up, I took care of hygiene meanwhile. I was really glad that I set up a small bathroom on the ship. Everyship had a rudimentary hygiene system, but I got a better one although it was still a sucking funnel to draw urine into a tank.


    ¡°Man, my face is all oily and shit. Well, I will have time to clean myself soon enough,¡± I said to myself while doing a quick system diagnosis.


    ¡°Vazken, you barely made it on time.¡± Aktug¡¯s voice sounded. It was an audio-only communication. The badger didn¡¯t have the CPU capacity for holographic communications.


    ¡°Sorry, won¡¯t happen again.¡± I would have been late if they didn¡¯t wake up for sure.


    ¡°Get in the formation. Sending data.¡±


    ¡°Roger.¡±


    A formation was automatic as long as those in the group shared the same data. Only its leader had to pay some attention to where they were going. In other words, it was Aktug¡¯s job to pilot the ships for us. Of course, this was only for peaceful moments. As long as the group synchronization was active, there was nothing for me to do but just sit pretty. He led us to the coordinates to meet up with the convoy.


    ¡°One Akabasa 2 and four Akabasa 1s¡­¡± I mumbled. I didn¡¯t like the convoy composition. Akabasa 2 was a basic upgrade from Akabasa 1, doubting its cargo capacity. Two of those equaled the cargo capacity of the Old Lady. They were nicknamed ¡°the pooper¡± because of how the ship stored human waste. You see, feces and urine had to be stored somewhere. Due to the nature of Akabasa vessels, long space voyages were inevitable, thus they had far bigger waste tanks. In the case of Akabasa 2, the waste tank was the big thingy in the middle of the top, which was often shot during combat, releasing waste into the space. Consequently, the ship had a very high tendency of having its waste tank shot, therefore earning the nickname ¡°the pooper¡±. Now, the reason I disliked the convoy composition was the lack of a flag ship. When we were doing freight jobs with the Old Lady, there was a central figure to group and coordinate. The current convoy had none. One could say Akabasa 2 was one, but it was still an extremely weak ship with no shields.


    ¡°This is Badger Alpha.¡± It was Aktug¡¯s voice and was also a d¨¦j¨¤ vu moment for me. ¡°If we encounter any pirates, I want you to seek shelter ASAP. None of you has shields, so keep your own safety as top priority.¡±


    Then Tylarr spoke through a private communication meant for the Copper wing only. ¡°This is Tylarr, maintain the formation. I will be in control for the time being. Stay alert but you can relax and do your things.¡±


    ¡°Oh, shoot,¡± I blurted. ¡°I haven¡¯t even read the mission details!¡±


    I had no idea what we were doing in other words. I didn''t even know what our destination was. Given the fact that we were carrying fishes, the likely place was New Earth. I quickly accessed the database to find more about the mission.


    ¡°Yep, New Earth as expected¡­,¡± I mumbled while quickly skimming through the data. ¡°I assume we are going to run into pirates at one point, given the value of the cargo¡­¡±Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    I assumed that the pirates would hit us while we were passing through the outskirts, and there was no way to avoid the encounter since the distance was days at acceptable speed. This was an almost identical mission to the one I did with the Old Lady previously.


    ¡°Either way, there is nothing for me to do right now,¡± I said to myself. To be honest, I was hoping that pirates would show up because I needed real world experience. There was only so much I could do with simulations and casual dog fights with fellow bouncers back at the Duchess¡¯ boobs. And seventeen days passed without any trouble, which was, again, within my expectations. Just as the convoy left the denser part of Rocksea, I became fully alert.


    ¡°Aktug, may I get your permission to break off from the formation?¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°I want to stay alert. Being in a formation is boring as fuck, you know.¡±


    There was a short moment of silence before his reply.


    ¡°Fine, but do keep in mind what I told you.¡±


    ¡°Perfectly understood.¡±


    Yeah, yeah, I know. I am not to get in their ways. My primary goal from this journey is to survive and earn experience. That¡¯s it. Money is just a minor bonus. I wasn¡¯t given a torpedo anyway, so I wouldn¡¯t even need to follow them to attack because I wasn¡¯t considered a part of the team. I was essentially given a license to act freely.


    ¡°Heh, besides, it doesn¡¯t look like he has any expectations of me anyway¡­¡±


    That was fine by me. I didn¡¯t want any mental burdens on my shoulders anyway. Then I had to chuckle.


    ¡°I was just a miner some years ago. I am really not sure whether this is an improvement.¡±


    I had been making about the same wage as I did as a miner. Financially, I wasn¡¯t making any steps forward. But I will admit that this career path has been far less boring. Well, either way, it didn¡¯t take long for pirates to show up, which made me believe that they had been tracking us from a distance for a while. It was possible to shadow an object from a long distance as long as they knew beforehand what they were after, meaning there was a spy within the Duchess¡¯ boobs.


    ¡°Incoming hostiles!¡± Aktug exclaimed on a group channel meant for us only. ¡°The formation is off!¡±


    ¡°Fourteen badgers incoming, ETA to visual confirmation in 60 seconds!¡± Tylarr added.


    ¡°Check your torps. Make sure that the system is all green!¡± Aktug said. ¡°Kalomoira!¡±


    I had no idea what her role was. I wasn¡¯t even sure what a class C esper could possibly do in this situation. Regardless, the four badgers led by Aktug accelerated in the direction of pirates. I followed as well albeit slower. The fourteen pirate badgers were soon visually confirmed. Dog fights between fighters weren''t about chasing each other¡¯s butt. That was due to the fact that the badger was capable of sailing faster than its own bullets. Firing its front guns while going faster than its own bullets equaled death. Therefore, fighters would attempt to orbit its opponents instead, which would essentially become a tug of war. Even if its weapon was a laser, the same principle applied. Therefore, ¡°a dog fight¡± was perhaps misleading.


    ¡°Pilot assistance off¡­,¡± I mumbled as the tip of my finger touched a holographic button and tied myself up with a pair of seat belts. ¡°Okay, let¡¯s do this.¡±


    The start of the fight started off as expected. Aktug¡¯s squad fired their torps and blasted four pirates out of its existence. The explosions were very colorful and were awesome to watch. The four pirate pilots died in an instant probably. Now it was five versus ten. I did wonder why the pirates weren¡¯t utilizing countermeasures. Nevertheless, it was time for a real fight.


    ¡°Let¡¯s pick a target and form an orbit.¡±


    The thing with a dog fight was that, while you could let the computer handle everything automatically, it was advised not to. The guns on the badger were on gimbal, which was clearly not as good as an articulating turret, which meant that I had to drift to make the angle good enough for my guns to actually target my opponent. Therefore, I left the gun controls on auto and focused on manual thruster controls to make it swivel in an orbit. Drifting was certainly possible with computers, but purposely drifting in these kinds of scenarios was hit or miss.


    ¡°Okay¡­, so far so good.¡±


    There were numerous small holographic windows floating around my head, which were keeping track of other ships in my immediate vicinity. My eyes were moving left and right constantly to check for anything abnormal. I was engaged with two pirate badgers, and they were orbiting me closely while shooting occasionally whenever they felt they had the opportunity. I was doing the same while making weird movements here and there to throw them off. If my orbit was clean, I would have been shot down already because they could just continue shooting in the path of my orbit. After all, an orbit was a very predictable path.


    ¡°32,000 ammo left¡­,¡± I mumbled. ¡°Ok, let¡¯s set targeting semi-auto. And let¡¯s veer a bit ¡­ swirl here¡­¡±


    This was a game of endurance. Whoever made a mistake would give a window for others to take advantage of. The badger hull might be able to resist a few shots, but a concentrated barrage of just a few seconds was enough to punch holes on its hull. By the time I hear being shot, it¡¯d be game over. To make it worse, the complete silence of space gave a false sense of security.


    ¡°Although ¡­ I did prepare just in case.¡±


    There were some bags of chemicals around my pilot seat. I would throw them onto a punctured part of the hull, and the chemicals would harden within seconds upon exposure, sealing any air leak temporarily.


    ¡°One down!¡± Vavaina exclaimed joyfully.


    ¡°Okay!¡± I replied gleefully although she wouldn¡¯t be able to hear me. ¡°That¡¯s goo-¡± Then I heard something hitting my ship. Gulping, I looked around. It sounded like a single bullet. ¡°A stray bullet, I guess.¡± I felt cold sweat in my back.


    ¡°Should I go full manual¡­? My guns aren¡¯t hitting shit,¡± I grumbled then I looked at my ammo count. ¡°31,222¡­¡± I observed my opponent who was also attempting to orbit around my ship. There was another opponent in this as well, so two enemy ships were orbiting around me. My best course of action at the moment was defensive.


    ¡°Man, how did they get them so fast?¡±


    I was talking about my time in the Old Lady where the four veteran badgers defeated over ten pirates easily. Looking at how the Copper wing was doing, those I met some years ago were far superior. Granted, Aktug and his guys were better than average.


    ¡°One down, keep up the pace!¡± Aktug declared.


    Okay, make it five versus eight.


    ¡®A pirate badger has decided to act independently and is heading toward the Akabasa 2!¡¯


    It was Kalomoira¡¯s voice in my head. If my intuition was correct, the guy realized that their side was going to lose, so he was going after a cargo ship to ruin our bonus. I quickly opened a new window to keep my eyes on the Akabasa 2 which was hiding behind an asteroid. It was reasonably concealed. If the ship hugged the rock skillfully, it should be able to hold on. However¡­


    ¡°That fucker is sending SOS!¡± Tylarr exclaimed. ¡°He¡¯s exposing our location to everyone in the area!¡±


    The fear of death must have made him do it. But it was a wrong decision. No one should have sent SOS in this specific situation because the cargo we were carrying was illegal. Besides, we were on the outskirts. If any patrol fleet would come to our location, it would spell troubles.


    ¡°Get rid of him,¡± said a voice which I realized was Aktug¡¯s.


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we just let him tag along? That¡¯s a lot of money to be lost,¡± I argued.


    ¡°No, the whole operation can be at risk. By destroying that Akabasa, we will leave the bits along with its transponder. If a patrol fleet does come, the debris will satisfy them.¡±


    There were holes in his logic, but destroying the Akabasa 2 did seem the right choice in this matter because of the transponder. If a patrol fleet did respond and found the transponder which was the source of the SOS, they would have no reason to investigate further. Yes, they would find out what the commotion was about after scanning the debris and probably find the frozen fish, but they wouldn¡¯t investigate further at least.


    ¡°Fine, I will do it,¡± I declared. I didn¡¯t mind getting my hands dirty. For one thing, even if it was indeed murder, I wouldn¡¯t see the guy getting killed and I didn¡¯t know the pilot at all.


    ¡°I will grab the guy who¡¯s in orbit with you,¡± Tylarr replied. ¡°Boss, you take his other one.¡±


    ¡°Got it,¡± he replied calmly. It didn¡¯t look like they were concerned at all about killing a guy. And quite frankly I didn¡¯t care much, either. Once the two pirates that were in orbit with me were distracted by Aktug and Tylarr, I quickly steered my ship toward the Akasaba gamma.


    ¡°Don¡¯t come closer!¡± I heard a voice over a public channel. It was most likely the pilot of the freighter. I didn¡¯t make any reply since there was no point in having my voice on the record. ¡°I know I made a mistake!¡± He continued to shout with a panicked voice. ¡°I, I just couldn¡¯t help it!¡±


    ¡°Weird, I don¡¯t feel any hesitation at all,¡± I said to myself. Perhaps, I was prepared for this ever since I gave up on mining. My home was Rocksea after all. ¡°Sorry, pal. It¡¯s nothing personal.¡± It was indeed not personal. He was the one who dug his own grave.


    ¡°AAAAAAHHHH!¡± The public channel was filled with his scream and soon distant gasps for air as bullets from my badger shattered its bridge window. I really did feel nothing about ending him.


    ¡°Another down, we are in control,¡± Vavaina stated. ¡°They are starting to doubt their chances.¡±


    I was looking at a window where it was displaying the broken bridge of the Akabasa 2. Actually, I was staring at a frozen corpse floating not far from it. It was actually possible to train a bit to stay alive longer in the vacuum of space. This was all thanks to the evolution of our genetics after having spent over six thousand years in space. For example, I was able to hold my breath in space for a good minute at least without my lungs exploding and my blood boiling. Anyway, the guy could have attempted to leave the bridge to save himself although the end result would have been the same since I was willing to destroy the ship itself if required.


    ¡°Aktug,¡± I said. ¡°The Akabasa 2 seems intact. We might be able to bring her back to life.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯d pilot it, though?¡±


    ¡°I could. I don¡¯t know whether you read my profile but I was a miner not long ago. I know how to handle freighters.¡±


    ¡°The bridge is shot, though? How will you control it?¡±


    ¡°I am going to attach my badger somewhere on the ship and hack the controls.¡±


    ¡°What about the SOS? We cannot turn off its transponder,¡± Tylarr pointed out. A transponder had its own power and was encased in heavy armor. It wasn¡¯t easy to destroy it. Its tiny size made it even harder.


    ¡°As far as I know, the transponder is located underneath the bridge. I could shoot it and shatter it. We won¡¯t be needing the bridge.¡± What we needed was the cargo only. This kind of jerryrigging wouldn¡¯t work on any other ships, but the Akabasa series from the Red Plate Shipyard were really so simple that I would just need to connect certain wires. This simplicity did bring up the topic of security because remote hacking and taking control over a spaceship was a thing. But that wasn¡¯t possible on the Akabasa series because it was too basic to even accept a remote control signal to begin with. Yes, an unhackable spaceship was a thing. After sending several thousands of bullets onto whatever was left of the bridge part of the Akabasa 2, I checked the transponder. It was indeed drifting away. The job was successful, thus I waited for others to finish off the pirates. The tide of the fight was already on our side.


    ¡°In the end, I didn¡¯t get to kill any pirates.¡±


    But I did survive. I knew that I was lacking some necessary skills to fight them properly. Once Aktug accepts me fully into his group, they might be able to teach me.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ve got a job to do.¡±


    I already attached my badger on top of the Akabasa. Putting on just a helmet, because I didn¡¯t need a spacesuit for a short space walk, I drained air and equalized the pressure outside. The helmet was able to provide up to 10 minutes of air, and my body was able to withstand the vacuum of space for about the same time. Evolution and some minor DNA modification made this possible as well as some training. Of course, if I was an esper, I wouldn¡¯t even need this helmet. They don¡¯t exactly need oxygen to breathe although my class would need to be at least C for that to be possible.


    ¡°Ohhh, this weird sensation. Can¡¯t get used to it.¡±


    When bare skin was exposed to the vacuum of space, it felt like my skin was being pulled outward rather hard. Now, as soon as my skin detected the vacuum and zero pressure of space, it instantly hardened up and protected my internal flesh and veins. That was as far as evolution and minor DNA modification brought us. It required esper¡¯s powers to harden the respiratory system,substitute oxygen with dark matter, and protect other holes of the body, such as ears and eyes.


    ¡°What a mess¡­¡±


    Anyway, the front part of the ship was completely gone. The positive side of this was that I used bullets, so I was able to track down necessary wires. If I used lasers, everything would have been charred and molten, making it hard to identify anything. Hell, it would have probably been impossible to find the wires I needed.


    ¡°Well, that was easy. Found¡¯em.¡±


    There were only nine wires and they were all properly colored. I just needed three of them in order to take control of the ship¡¯s thrusters. The rest of the job was easy. I went back to my ship to grab extension cables and connected the trio of wires onto an external panel of my ship. All of this took about eight minutes.


    ¡°I am done. I have control.¡±


    ¡°Damn, good job. You saved us a lot of money over there,¡± Aktug replied, sounding clearly impressed.


    ¡°I was a miner. This sort of jerry ringing was common.¡±


    A decade of working with a frigate that was falling apart here and there had certainly given me expertise as an engineer. I probably knew more than those who graduated from a diploma mill.


    ¡°Let¡¯s get going. We are almost there,¡± he said. ¡°Vazken, fire up the Akabasa 2. We will form a formation around that ship.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡±


    Because my badger now had more thrusters than it should have, auto-pilot was no longer possible.


    ¡°I have to do everything manually now,¡± I declared. ¡°If one of you could sail a short distance in front of me, it would make my job easier.¡±


    ¡°I will do that,¡± Tylarr replied.


    Going straight was never easy without a clear object to follow. This was especially true when piloting manually. It was going to be tiresome, but I felt that the job was as good as done. Of course, I didn¡¯t foresee what was going to happen when we reported back to Ehka.


    ¡°The Akabasa 2 is yours now,¡± she told me after we returned from New Earth. We were in her office.


    ¡°... Really?¡± I was somewhat dumbfounded.


    ¡°Well? The pilot is a goner. He has no relatives whatsoever, so it¡¯s yours. You do need to spend some dough to repair it, but that shouldn¡¯t be hard, given how basic the ship is.¡±


    Owning an Akabasa 2 opened some interesting choices. I now had a badger and a freighter. It would become possible to do small runs on my own although that sounded awfully risky.


    ¡°Got any idea on the repair cost?¡±


    ¡°My rough estimate is about 100k.¡±


    ¡°How much would I get if I just sold the ship as is?¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s just scrap metal if you did that. You should repair it even if you want to sell it. If you do repair it and sell it, you should get at least 300k.¡±


    Damn, that was a sudden influx of income.


    ¡°Well, I will repair it. Send me a detailed bill.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I will let the dockyard workers know. Anyway, good job, Vazken. You made it through your first run as an escort.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t get to shoot down any pirates, though.¡±


    She chucked. ¡°It¡¯s never easy to outwit the pirates in dog fights. You need lots of experience or a better ship will make it easier.¡±


    ¡°Like the SSS Robin?¡±


    That reminded me ¡­


    ¡°Why does everyone use badgers in Rocksea? I¡¯ve never seen anything better.¡±


    ¡°Well, if you pilot a better ship, you get picked on in fights immediately. For example, if you do pilot a SSS Robin, you will be locked on immediately in fights. No matter how good you are, that¡¯s a death sentence.¡±


    Hmm, that made sense. She was essentially telling me not to stand out.


    ¡°I do admit that the badger¡¯s old-age gatling gun is hindering its potential, however,¡± she said. ¡°But the ship cannot provide enough juice for laser weapons.¡±


    ¡°How good is the SSS Robin compared to the badger?¡±


    ¡°A badger will go down in ten seconds against a SSS Robin. A veteran badger pilot might survive longer, but you cannot beat the instant hit of a laser.¡±


    She explained further that it all came down to turret tracking speed, target speed, and my own speed. Due to the nature of a laser, being hit didn¡¯t mean death. A laser was basically a thermal weapon. It¡¯d heat and melt armor plates before puncturing a hole. As long as I got away from a laser beam in a second or two, the Robin¡¯s armor plates would hang on.


    ¡°Long story short, piloting the Robin requires a different skill set than the badger.¡±


    ¡°God, it¡¯s never easy,¡± I complained while folding my arms.


    ¡°It¡¯s easy if you intend to live within Rocksea. If you want to leave here¡­, then yes, sticking with the badger might become problematic.¡±


    It never occurred to me that I wanted to leave Rocksea behind. I was raised here, and this was my whole world.


    ¡°Do you want to leave here?¡± She pressed slightly.


    ¡°I don¡¯t plan to, but you never know.¡±


    She grinned with a distant look in her eyes. ¡°Indeed, I never planned to end up living here, either.¡±


    She indirectly admitted that she wasn¡¯t from around here. Not that it mattered of course. At this moment, my ear implant notified me that I had a message from Aktug. He wanted to hang out for a drink.


    ¡°Excuse me now. Something came up.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, go ahead. Enjoy your break. By the way, are you going back to being a bouncer or are you sticking with the Copper wing?¡±


    I wasn¡¯t going back to being a bouncer because that was a dead career. I wanted to climb up.


    ¡°I am sticking with the Copper wing for now.¡±


    ¡°I see. I am going to send you mutual termination for the contract. Sign it whenever you feel like.¡±


    Floating backwards and turning around, I said to her,  ¡°I will see you later, Duchess.¡±


    She smirked in response.

 C7. A new venture

    ¡°Ever thought about leaving Rocksea behind?¡± It was me who asked the members of the Copper wing. It wasn¡¯t that I had any desire to leave this place. I was simply curious.


    ¡°I am from outside,¡± said Aktug.


    ¡°So am I,¡± added Tylarr.


    ¡°Yeah, I am, too,¡± answered Vavaina, and Kalomoira nodded along.


    Fuck. Everyone is from elsewhere??? Well, we were in another VIP room. Apparently, such rooms were free of charge for escorts working directly under the Duchess¡¯ boobs, so it did make sense to make good use of this. Besides, these VIP rooms were nice. I wouldn¡¯t pass up a chance to use rooms like this if they were free especially.


    ¡°So, you are a local then?¡± Tylarr asked while taking a sip of his drink. Whatever it was, the transparent straw was fluorescent orange. It was probably a cocktail of some sort. I learned from my mistake from the last occasion and wasn¡¯t going to order whatever the hell they were drinking.


    ¡°I am.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s pretty rare as far as I know,¡± Aktug said. ¡°In fact, you are the first local I¡¯ve ever met.¡±


    It has ¡­ never occurred to me that the majority of residents here were outsiders. Come to think of it, it actually made sense. Why would anyone raise their children in Rocksea? Other than not paying taxes¡­, I didn¡¯t really see any other benefits although I did believe some residents from the Oreo station were locals. Yating was probably a local like me. At the same time, it did make me wonder why my folks chose to raise me here.


    ¡°Then how did you guys end up here?¡±


    The four members of the Copper wing glanced at each other with Aktug speaking up first after clearing his throat rather uncomfortably.


    ¡°Most of us have some criminal records and came here to escape the time.¡±


    ¡°For second chances,¡± Tylarr added.


    Even Kalomoira? I wondered. She looked more like a fashion model although being unable to speak may have prevented her from pursuing such a career.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have much to hide actually,¡± Atkug said with a shrug and a crooked grin. ¡°I pulled several frauds and was being chased. My initial sentencing was 90 years in prison. I figured starting my life anew in Rocksea was a better choice than rotting for 90 years.¡±


    ¡°A murder gets less than that,¡± Tylarr said with a whistle. I guess he never told his mates about his past.


    ¡°The dude was a rich ¡®entrepreneur¡¯,¡± Aktug replied while making a quotation gesture on the word, entrepreneur. ¡°But the reality was that his parents were rich. The guy was stupid as fuck. It was so easy to scam him.¡±


    Tylarr, Vavaina, and Kalomoira all snickered in unison, showing no displeasure in his deed. I wasn¡¯t sure whether I should laugh at the matter but grinned along.


    ¡°The judge was a pal of his parents. You know how it is. The justice system has never been fair anyway.¡±


    ¡°Yep, sure do,¡± replied Tylarr. ¡°I told my deeds to the others, so they know.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s your story?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Slept with the wrong woman. I met a woman in a nightclub. We got along really fast and ended up sleeping with her on the same night.¡± Then he shrugged with a crooked grin. ¡°It turned out that the woman was married and planned to have an affair to spite her cheating husband. When he found out and was reacting far hasher than she thought, she placed all fucking blames on me and even claimed that I raped her.¡± Then his smile vanished from his face at once. ¡°It was consensual, I swear.¡±


    ¡°I am inclined to believe his words,¡± said Vavaina. ¡°Because he has never lusted over me or Kalomoira.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t touch women unless they let me,¡± Tylarr said firmly. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to serve any time for something I didn¡¯t know, so I fled.¡±


    I nodded along and moved my attention to Vavaina.


    ¡°And your story?¡±


    She took a deep breath. ¡°I also told the others, so they know the story. I ¡­ murdered my stepson. And, unlike those two who are questionably guilty, I am fully guilty.¡± Kalomoira comforted her by tapping her shoulder. With her eyes downcast, she explained.


    ¡°I married a guy with a young son. I was fine with that and knew what I was getting into.¡± She snickered. ¡°Or at least I thought I did. I found out some years later that it was not his son but a fucking clone of his own.¡±


    ¡°... What?¡± I blurted, not understanding what the situation was.


    ¡°You may not know, but cloning oneself is a highly illegal matter,¡± Tylarr added.


    ¡°I had my suspicions because the kid was growing up looking exactly like his father, so I conducted a DNA test. It was a 100% match.¡±


    ¡°So¡­, you killed his clone?¡±


    Her shoulders started to shake slightly. ¡°I, I didn¡¯t mean to. When I regained myself, I had a knife in my hand and the boy was lying down on the floor, bleeding massively from his neck!!!¡±


    ¡­.So, you are a nutcase, huh.


    Stuttering badly, she continued, ¡°I, I, j, just ran a, away afterwards.¡±


    I figured that her husband couldn¡¯t ask the police to pursue her, given the fact that he had issues of his own. If he reported his son¡¯s death, the authorities would find out that his ¡°son¡± was a clone. I didn¡¯t know what punishment he would get for that, however.


    ¡°Damn you all. All of you are messed up,¡± I remarked rather gleefully, and they all smiled back, even Vavaina who seemed pretty shaken up. ¡°Kalomoira, what¡¯s your story?¡±


    Tylarr responded in her stead, ¡°She came from a very abusive family. She made her abusive father braindead and fled here.¡± And she nodded repeatedly in agreement clearly. Espers were really good at making people braindead or so I heard, so I wasn¡¯t too surprised. We continued our drinking and chit-chat for a while before the eventual question popped up.


    ¡°Anyway, when is our next job?¡± It was me who asked. I earned a lot from the last convoy. Along with the increased payment due to the fact that there was one less person, I earned an Akabasa 2 freighter as well. Yeah, I had to spend 110k to restore it, but I could sell it for 300k, a bit more if I haggled. I didn¡¯t sell the ship yet since it could prove to be useful.


    ¡°A big job like our last one doesn¡¯t come often,¡± Aktug said. ¡°It comes like once every two or three years.¡±


    ¡°Damn,¡± I replied. Come to think of it, it was about five years ago when I did the first fish convoy with the mining gang.


    ¡°Have you sold the Akabasa yet?¡± Tylarr asked.


    ¡°No. It¡¯s being repaired.¡±


    ¡°How much did it cost you?¡±


    ¡°About 100k.¡±


    He whistled. ¡°And you can sell it for much more, right.¡±


    I nodded.


    ¡°You having a cargo ship does raise some opportunities, though¡­¡± Vavaina wondered aloud.


    ¡°True, we could go on our own convoy run.¡± Aktug nodded in agreement.


    ¡°Would that be worth the trouble?¡± I, too, wondered aloud. I didn¡¯t feel like the money was going to be worth the trouble. Whatever payment we¡¯d get, it would need to be divided into five. It would certainly be better than nothing, however. Wait a second ¡­


    ¡°If I were to keep the ship and use it, wouldn¡¯t we need to hire another person?¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯s just for convoying, you could keep it computer-controlled,¡± Aktug replied.


    ¡°The Akabasa doesn¡¯t accept remote signals, though,¡± Tylarr pointed out. ¡°And hacking that ability in is a bit too dangerous.¡±


    The room fell into momentary silence. He was right. We¡¯d need to hire someone new. The only people that came to my mind were Rabinovich, Santino, and Yating. Juno said repeatedly that she did not want to experience battles, so she was out. Well, the real reason was that I didn¡¯t want to see her at all. I wanted nothing to do with that woman, especially if Rabinovich was telling truthfully about her having a crush on me. Oh, no, no. As for Santino, I had no idea where he might be. Now, Rabinovich ¡­, I wasn¡¯t sure about him. He had addiction issues. Bringing him back to the Duchess¡¯ boobs where his problems originated ¡­, it really didn¡¯t feel like the right call to make. Finally, Yating would fit okay, but was it really alright to bring her back out here for a mundane job like this? Besides, the Akabasa 2 was a fragile ship with barely any ability to evade shots. At this point, I was leaning toward selling the ship.


    ¡°I feel like I should just sell the ship unless you guys know someone who can be hired for cheap?¡±


    ¡°Well, cheap or not, that someone would still be entitled to his or her share anyway,¡± Vavaina pointed out.


    ¡°Bugger, it really doesn¡¯t make sense then.¡±


    ¡°If we want to become more independent, we need a frigate. The best ideal one for the purpose is the Lightwave class 2 frigate,¡± Tylarr said.


    Ah, yes, like the Old Lady¡­


    ¡°The Lightwave class 2 is ¡­ what, 100 million brand new?¡± Aktug wondered aloud while taking a long sip.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s 80 million brand new. If it¡¯s second hand, the price will greatly vary, but I¡¯ve never seen it going down below 25 millions,¡± Tylarr replied.


    ¡°We could easily afford a second hand one if we really want to go down that path,¡± Vavaina said.


    The Old Lady cost us around 30 millions. It was ¡°a deal of the century¡± as Santino used to brag about. While they were conversing about a possibility of a new venture, I was searching for the Old Lady by using the tracking key Santino gave me. It wasn¡¯t on the market and it didn¡¯t look like it was destroyed, either. I searched the used ship market briefly by using my memory implant and found that the average price for a used Lightwave class 2 was 45 millions.


    ¡°There is another ship we could use,¡± Aktug pointed out. ¡°The elephant freighter.¡±


    The elephant freighter was a small frigate-sized ship that was over-engineered in its time which was around the year 7000s. Yeah, it was the similar era where the badger was born. It was developed by the United Solar System Federation to showcase their ability to design a new ship from the ground up. Now, the freighter was a much smaller sister of the Mammoth freighter which ended up becoming a huge failure that it was removed from the universe after just several years of its debut. It was supposed to be the largest freight vessel ever constructed until structural issues showed up after just a few years of real world usage. In the end, the overall size was cut down significantly to resolve its structural issue, coming down to a frigate size. And the odd child was the Elephant freighter. While it was no longer as glorious as it was, it had an advanced system such as shields which was the feature we were looking for. Without shields, small ships went down too easily. In order to protect investments, it was a required feature.


    ¡°Man, that is a really old model. If possible, I¡¯d go for a second hand Lightwave class 2,¡± Tylarr said.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s just a thought,¡± Aktug replied. ¡°We are just exploring our options. We aren¡¯t committing anything yet.¡±If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°Anything on our next job?¡± Vavaina asked.


    ¡°Ehka said nothing for a while. We aren¡¯t the only squadron after all.¡±


    Crossing arms, she sighed. ¡°We need money,¡± she complained. Well, everyone needed money. We had to save up while we could and climb up whatever ladder they had to.


    ¡°Is being convoy escorts the only option?¡± I wondered aloud. ¡°Do we have to work with Ehka exclusively?¡±


    They looked at each other, looking a bit surprised. ¡°No, I don¡¯t think there was any exclusivity in our contract,¡± Aktug replied with his fingers on his chin. ¡°But the jobs she has given us have been all excellent. The bar has been pretty high that I am unsure we are willing to take jobs from an unproven source.¡±


    That made sense since our lives were on the line. They wanted a trustworthy source¡­ Hmmm, perhaps¡­


    ¡°I do know a trustworthy person, She is a local like me.¡±


    I told them about Yating and how she was associated with the station Oreo. How I worked with her for years and how easy it was and so on.


    ¡°I think she holds a high enough position within the station. I honestly don¡¯t know whether she could give us jobs, but it won¡¯t hurt to ask.¡±


    The others looked skeptical. I mean, I wouldn¡¯t blame them. I was a new member to boot. I bet they didn¡¯t trust me fully yet either. Glancing at Aktug, Tylarr told me.


    ¡°You could ask the woman and see what comes up with. No harm in acting.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what I think.¡±


    Since this was a rather trivial matter to discuss, I figured that I could contact the station from where I was. There would be some lag, but it shouldn¡¯t make the conversation unfeasible. There was a small problem. I wanted a video communication, thus calling the station Oreo from my badger wasn¡¯t possible. Therefore, I had to rent a room for a day and call her from there. It cost a few hundred credits.


    ¡°This is Station Oreo. Who is this?¡± A man answered my video call. I recognized the man on a holographic screen in front of me. It was the guy I met back in the dockyard office. His name was Mercello or something.


    ¡°Is that you, Mercello?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s Marcello,¡± he replied with a firm voice.


    Right, whatever.


    ¡°Hey, could I talk to Yating?¡±


    ¡°Again?¡±


    What do you mean again? I haven¡¯t talked to her in years. But, for some permanent space dwellers, time flew slower. Or it could be that he was messing with me.


    ¡°Could I talk to her?¡± Not wanting to get involved with him any further, I pressed. With a clear throat clicking as if he was displeased, he redirected the call,and I got her on the screen soon enough. What¡¯s his problem?


    ¡°Hello, Vazken,¡± she said softly with a grin. The woman was an angel. ¡°What can I do for you?¡±


    I explained to her earnestly what I¡¯ve been up to and what I was expecting from her.


    ¡°So, if you¡¯ve got any jobs for us, please share,¡± I concluded.


    ¡°Do you know what our station does?¡± She asked me a question instead.


    ¡°I do not.¡±


    Come to think of it, despite having worked for them for over a decade, I never actually tried to find more about them. What did they do for a living? What was the purpose of the station? I had absolutely no idea.


    She replied, ¡°We do two things. I can tell you one but cannot tell you what the other is.¡±


    I nodded along.


    ¡°Our primary job is that we do metal works. We manufacture custom-ordered frames and whatnot. This is something that doesn¡¯t need escorts because they are scrap metals to those who don¡¯t want them.¡±


    True, pirates want goods that have some value to others. Custom frameworks wouldn¡¯t have any value in an open market. This made the perfect sense why they were always seeking miners to get them resources they needed. This got me interested in what their other job is. Given the fact that she was unwilling to disclose, I assumed that it must have been something sketchy.


    ¡°So, you don¡¯t have any jobs for me.¡±


    ¡°I am afraid not. It¡¯s good to talk to you, though. You must be doing well.¡±


    ¡°Well, I am not dead. That¡¯s good enough, I guess.¡±


    She chuckled weakly. ¡°Obviously,¡± she replied.


    ¡°Do you have anyone or any place that could give us some jobs, though?¡±


    I didn¡¯t expect anything really. I was grasping at straws to be honest.


    ¡°Hmm¡­¡± She fell into thoughts, downcasting her eyes. It took her perhaps ten seconds before she replied. ¡°I don¡¯t know for sure, but I can refer you to someone else.¡±


    My eyes lit up at once. ¡°You do?!¡± I inadvertently raised my voice in excitement.


    ¡°There is a station called ¡®The Hole¡¯. It¡¯s another station very similar to ours. Find a man named Kamen. Give him my name, and he should trust you a bit more than he would normally trust strangers.¡±


    The Hole¡­ I wasn¡¯t aware of such a station in Rocksea. But then, there were hundreds as far as I knew. There was another small issue. I would need to meet him in person. Contacting him from a distance wouldn¡¯t leave a good first impression.


    ¡°Sending the coordinates,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s about five days away from where you are.¡±


    ¡°Thanks. I mean it.¡±


    She beamed a smile. ¡°No problem. Visit the station sometimes.¡±


    Before ending the call, I grew an urge to ask a question. ¡°Are they still there?¡± I was referring to Rabinovich and Juno because they were still present on the station when I visited there the last time.


    ¡°Yes, both of them are here. Juno has gotten into a new mining group. Rabinovich is still a solo miner.¡±


    Well, it¡¯s good that one of them moved on at least. Should I invite Rabinovich to pilot the Akabasa 2 in spite of the issues? I knew how boring solo mining was. I was surprised that he hadn¡¯t gone insane yet from boredom.


    ¡°And you?¡±


    She joined the group to get a refresher. That didn¡¯t last long. While it was not my fault, I did feel sorry about what happened.


    ¡°I am staying put. I joined your group because I¡¯ve seen all of you for a long time that I could trust you guys. It¡¯s hard to put my life in the hands of strangers and questionable characters.¡±


    I understood that perfectly.


    ¡°Again, thanks. I will visit the station soon-ish.¡±


    Then the communication ended.


    ¡°Okay¡­, the Hole, huh, and Kamen¡­¡± I looked the station up on the market. It was indeed about five-day away. It was on the other end of the zone. The Duchess¡¯ boobs was on a closer side to New Earth. The Hole was much further away from it. Security would be worse there.


    ¡°Is it even safe to go there alone?¡± I wondered aloud. I contacted Aktug right away and informed him about the new development.


    ¡°The Hole?¡± He raised his voice a bit. ¡°I know the place. The area is pretty sketchy.¡±


    ¡°So, I shouldn¡¯t go alone?¡±


    ¡°Well, you¡¯d be in a badger. I don¡¯t think anyone¡¯s going to bother you. I can see why they might need people like us.¡±


    ¡°So, I am assuming that we will see combat more frequently if we do take jobs from there.¡±


    ¡°No doubt about that. This area is really tame compared to there.¡±


    ¡°Can I ask someone to tag along with me?¡±


    He took a moment to answer me. ¡°Tylarr is probably the one you should take. He¡¯s a tough guy. I will ask him.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    A minute later the call ended, I received a call from Tylarr. A screen popped up in front of me, displaying his face.


    ¡°Hey, got the call from the leader. You heading to the Hole, I was told?¡±


    ¡°Yes, are you willing to go there with me?¡±


    ¡°Why not. Just let you know that it''s a pretty harsh place. We should be fine, though.¡±


    ¡°So, you have been there?¡±


    ¡°All of us have because we were working for the Hole before coming here.¡±


    ¡°I was told to meet up with a man named Kamen. Ring any bell?¡±


    ¡°Kamen? Nope. We were given jobs from their office or whatever. Never really talked to a specific person in the first place.¡±


    My mining group was the same. We were given jobs from the station to carry out. Until I met Yating, we never really talked to specific people.


    ¡°Anyway, when are you planning to depart?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Let¡¯s depart in twelve hours unless you have objections?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good enough for me. Let¡¯s meet up at the docking bay at 11:00.¡±


    After ending the call, I pondered whether to inform Ehka. Technically, I was no longer working for her because I was now a part of the Copper wing. She was no longer my direct superior in other words.


    ¡°Nah, this has nothing to do with her,¡± I concluded and went ahead to check out the room I rented for a day. It was time to take a shower and get myself ready for a semi-long voyage in space.


    ¡°I¡¯ve set the course. You follow me, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Sure thing. I am just going to play games during the journey.¡±


    Tylarr was in a formation with me as I set an automatic course toward the Hole. There would be nothing for me to do during the five days. I set a proximity alarm in case anything hostile might show up. Since it was just the two of us, we¡¯d likely try to flee.


    ¡°Oh, yeah, Tylarr, by the way, can you help me a bit?¡±


    ¡°Shoot.¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t able to shoot down any pirates last time. Got any tips for me?¡±


    It did bother me although I comforted myself that it was my first time.


    ¡°I thought you did well. I mean, you survived. But I get what you mean. You feel useless, yeah?¡±


    I nodded although he wouldn¡¯t have been able to see me. It was voice communication after all.


    ¡°Well, the thing with the badgers is that you need to do almost everything manually. And here is a kicker. None of the skills you learn with the badger is going to be helpful once you move up a bit.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°SSS Robin will kick any badgers in numbers. Any combat frigate will defeat Robins with relative ease even in numbers.¡±


    ¡°I wonder why they are sticking with the badgers only.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s probably an unspoken rule of this place. The bottom line is that you will need experience.¡±


    Folding arms, I groaned weakly in my pilot chair.


    ¡°Nothing is ever straightforward,¡± I grumbled. I¡¯d be very, very, happy if anyone could give me a straight answer to my internal problems. Alas, it wasn¡¯t so. Well, I would have been more than happy to have stuck with my original mining group. I really didn¡¯t want them to be disabled. Will this group end up with the same fate? Anyway, for the five-ish days, I slacked, playing games predominantly. The journey, as expected, was a quiet one. Nobody would bother a pair of badgers.


    ¡°Well, I can see why the station is called ¡®the Hole¡¯,¡± I remarked when I saw the station. The station was constructed within a hole of an asteroid. They named their station literally. And here I thought that they were being mischievous.


    ¡°Yep, that¡¯s the Hole,¡± Tylarr replied with a chuckle. ¡°By the way, we are being hailed.¡±


    ¡°Badgers, your ship signatures are not on our friendly list. Identity yourself within 30 seconds or we will fire,¡± said a male voice through a public channel.


    ¡°My name is Vazken. I am looking for Kamen. We are not hostiles.¡±


    About ten seconds later, the voice responded, ¡°He does not know you.¡±


    ¡°We haven¡¯t met. Yating referred me to him.¡±


    Another ten seconds later, he responded, ¡°You may dock but you won¡¯t be able to enter the station unless you are approved for further access.¡±


    ¡°Understood. Thanks.¡±


    Because they did not provide us with automatic docking data, we were forced to dock manually, which wasn¡¯t an issue with badgers. They were small and nimble crafts after all. The docking bay was just a very vast empty hall where ships could land down at their leisure. When I was docking, I encountered a very familiar frigate.


    ¡°That¡¯s ¡­ the Old Lady!¡± I inadvertently blurted and smiled. ¡°Long time no see!¡±


    I knew that the frigate was sold to someone in Rocksea. I just didn¡¯t know where she ended up exactly. I was so glad to see her that I even had a tiny bit of tears in my eyes. I so wanted to get a closer look, but we had something more urgent.


    ¡°Sup,¡± said Tylarr as he saw me exiting my badger.


    ¡°Sup,¡± I replied casually. He gestured his head toward a direction where I saw a man walking slowly toward us. There was only micro gravity here, so we were using magnet boots. His face was really rugged as if he had been through a lot. He had dark hair gelled up and had a stubble with fairly dark skin.


    ¡°The name¡¯s Kamen,¡± he declared. ¡°Which one of you knows Yating?¡±


    I pointed at myself. ¡°It¡¯s me. I am Vazken.¡±


    ¡°Tell me how you met her.¡±


    I explained to him earnestly. How I was originally a free miner for the Oreo station. How she ended up joining my mining group, which eventually ended up being disabled. I didn¡¯t tell him everything, though, and skipped some details such as why it was disbanded.


    ¡°Okay, that sounds like her enough.¡±


    ¡°What is she to you?¡±


    ¡°A very distant relative of sorts,¡± he replied curtly. ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter. Anyway, fine, so what do you want?¡±


    ¡°We are looking for a job.¡±


    ¡°It sounds like you already work for Duke?¡±


    ¡°The jobs are scarce. We are looking for some additional credits,¡± Tylarr added.


    ¡°How many of you are there? And are you willing to relocate here?¡±


    ¡°There are five of us in total,¡± I replied and glanced at Tylarr who shook his head very subtly. ¡°And, no, we are not willing to move here.¡±


    ¡°Then your job opportunities will be greatly diminished. We tend to trust and prioritize those who are with us.¡±


    I understood his reason. He didn¡¯t totally turn us down either.


    ¡°Keep us in your mind. If something comes up, you can contact me.¡±


    Clicking his tongue, he looked displeased. ¡°Personally, I¡¯d just let you go. But, because of Yating, I will give you a job some time soon. We will see how it goes after that.¡±


    ¡°Thanks. Give us a chance. That¡¯s all I am asking.¡± I handed a tiny chip over to him. It contained the necessary information on how to contact me. Taking the chip, he glanced at the both of us and turned around quickly, leaving the docking bay.


    ¡°Well, I don¡¯t think it got off well,¡± Tylarr remarked.


    ¡°He wants us close by if we are going to work for him. I do understand where he is coming from.¡±


    ¡°The same. Looks like he will give us a job at least.¡±


    My eyes inadvertently moved to where the Old Lady was. I walked toward her slowly.


    ¡°Do you know that frigate?¡± Tylarr asked, following me.


    ¡°Yeah, she is the ship we had to sell after my mining team disbanded.¡±


    He whistled. ¡°Was the turret mod you guys¡¯ idea?¡±


    ¡°Yeppers. We had no badgers and wanted a way to fight back pirates.¡±


    ¡°Not a bad idea. Would have cost quite a bit, though.¡±


    I chuckled as my response. It took us two years or something to save up. I kind of miss that time. We had a common goal and worked hard for it. Not that my current situation was worse¡­ I couldn¡¯t understand why I missed that time.


    ¡°Good to see you, Old Lady,¡± I said to the ship, an inanimate object that had no consciousness. I hoped to buy her back one day.

 C8. In a pinch

    I was hugging a small floating rock in the middle of nowhere tightly. I had to do this because we ran into serious trouble. You see, Kamen did give us a job. He did warn us that it was going to be a rough mission. He did tell us to expect waves of pirates. Given how hard it seemingly was, he was using the Old Lady, the old modified frigate with a turret on each side, as a central vassal to spearhead the convoy. Whatever she was carrying, it attracted a great deal of attention from pirates. Long story short, the five of us weren¡¯t quite enough to fend off waves of pirates, and we were forced to scatter for our lives. Just to be clear, we didn¡¯t abandon the mission. We just had to get away to avoid being wiped out.


    ¡°Fuck, fuck, fuck!¡± I uttered frustratingly. I was hugging a rock to avoid being detected by the radar as well as a simple scan because the ship was a mix of aluminum and steel, and asteroids in Rocksea were prominently metal. My badger would be indistinguishable as long as I was hugging the rock tightly. Of course, if pirates did a visual sweep, I might get caught, but a visual sweep would take hours, given how many rocks were present in the vicinity, and they would rarely do such. Besides, the Old Lady was still standing firm. With her shields, it wasn¡¯t going down easily. However, it was alone. It would go down at the current rate. Either way, the best thing to do was stay still and do nothing at the moment. Contacting mates wasn¡¯t even an option. Any radio signal would be caught red-handed and then get tracked down.


    ¡°What do I do?!¡±


    It was a question I really wanted an answer to.


    ¡®You okay?¡¯


    It was Kalomoira¡¯s voice which startled me and made me jump in my pilot¡¯s chair. Boy, was I glad to hear a familiar voice.


    ¡°I am alive, for now! How is everyone?¡± I exclaimed although I didn¡¯t have to. I could have just said in my head and she would have heard.


    ¡®Everyone¡¯s fine although Vavaina¡¯s badger earned several bullet holes¡­¡¯


    ¡°Where are you all? What should we do?¡±


    ¡®Hugging rocks like you are.¡¯


    I groaned. We were ambushed by waves of pirate badgers. I counted at least thirty of them before we were being overrun. And there was something else. Amid the chaos, I wasn''t 100% sure but I did feel I saw a few robins among the pirate badgers. I wasn¡¯t sure whether to inform her of this at this point because I saw only momentary glimpses of what looked like robins.


    ¡°Alright, I will be hugging the rock for the time being. I will try flying toward the Old Lady when an opportunity rises,¡± I said.


    ¡®Aktug wants survival as the top priority. We still have Ehka as our primary contact. We are not dying for Kamen.¡¯ Her voice rang in my head.


    So, he is willing to die for her? I wondered. Of course, I wasn¡¯t going to ask that question. Whatever the case, it was indeed true that we shouldn¡¯t die for Kamen for sure. Meanwhile, it was vividly clear how important her role was in a situation like this. Her telepathy, which was undetectable by any sensors, was a God-send.


    ¡°Got it,¡± I replied, looking nervously out to the cockpit screen. It was a fake window. No glass was ever used for any space vessels. It didn¡¯t matter how reinforced a glass panel was because glass was glass and glass broke. Anyway, my next move would be trying to find a way to get out of this situation. My original plan was to reach the Old Lady and dock with her. However, since it was clear that Aktug was willing to forgo the mission, my updated course of action was just get out of here, further away from the frigate.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want the Old Lady to be destroyed. I hope not. But survival comes first,¡± I said to myself.


    The swarming-like-bee pirate badgers eventually slowed down and started to gather around the frigate, which was a sign for me to get the hell out. They were probably going to demand unconditional surrender and abandon whatever it was carrying. A non-combat frigate had no chance against 30+ fighters alone. Even if she was a combat frigate, it was probably not possible to win, either. If she was a cruiser, however, no amount of fighters would have a chance simply because they wouldn¡¯t be able to get through the strong shields they had.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never seen a cruiser up close, though.¡±


    It was true. I¡¯ve seen some during the fish deliveries, but I¡¯ve never seen them up close. They were the real workhorse of any meaningful space fleet. Using thrusters ever so slightly, I was able to position my ship in a direction where I could watch the Old Lady being swarmed by pirates. When I was certain that no pirate was around me, I quickly made my way to another rock and hid it in its shadow. It was important not to use my main engine because it was an ion engine, and an ion engine left ion residues which were easily tracked by sensors. It meant that I had to use thrusters only. Thrusters on a small space vessel like the badger used electromagnetic waves. It was similar to how an ion engine worked but left no trace. The downside was that its thrusting force was very weak. Up to frigates used EW thrusters. Bigger ships used small ion engines as thrusters. Unless they were looking right at me, my movements would register as one of many background noises on their sensors. Rocksea may not seem to be active on the surface, but the rocks always moved about, not to mention comets coming in and out. The white dwarf sun of the Podlezl didn¡¯t have strong enough gravity to bind everything around here. Any objects of somewhat substantial gravity passing by caused almost everything within Rocksea to shuffle around. Imagine a calm surface of water with lots of small particles floating on it. Blow ever so gently over the surface to see everything moving about. That was how Rocksea behaved in general. The only things that were relatively stationary were the stations which had thrusters to keep the same coordinates.


    ¡°Alright, so far so good,¡± I said to myself while jumping onto another rock to hide. I was progressively making a distance away from the commotion.


    ¡®Wow, never seen anyone doing that before. Does that work?¡¯


    Kalomoira¡¯s voice sounded in my head. She must have been watching me with her ESP or whatever.


    ¡°Use only thrusters.¡±


    ¡®I will try and let others know if it¡¯s successful.¡¯


    Did she doubt me? Hmph, fine, I guess she couldn¡¯t trust me right away. Why would I lie? I am a local to Rocksea. This is how we¡¯ve survived, using every tick available under our belts to survive. Well, my dad taught me this.


    ¡°I really should pay them a visit soon.¡±


    When they let me go, they did tell me not to visit them ever because they were going to have another kid and forget about me. Given our hundreds of years of lifespan, I was sure that they weren¡¯t kidding. Parents were no longer attached to their children anymore apparently. Of course, that didn¡¯t mean I completely discarded my parents out of my mind. They were good folks.


    ¡°Wait¡­, is that a station?¡±


    I was seeing what looked like a station that was in a horrible condition. It was built on a small asteroid just like almost every station in Rocksea.


    ¡°A derelict station?¡±


    There were a good number of them in Rocksea. Not every station found a new owner after the government abandoned them. No light was on, not even emergency red light, so it was very likely abandoned. It was also a very small station, like one fourth the size of the Oreo station. The most telling evidence of it being abandoned was the wide open docking bay door, which was a sign that somebody looted the place. I controlled my ship into the already-open docking bay cautiously. It wasn¡¯t a great feeling to voluntarily venture into a pitch black place. I couldn¡¯t accurately tell the size but it wasn¡¯t big. I initiated a short range scan to see whether anyone was inside, and there wasn¡¯t. I wasn¡¯t going to go inside at the moment because being inside of this derelict station was good enough for me. There was no need for me to risk any further. Besides, there was a good chance that the station didn¡¯t have any breathable air inside anyway. Getting lost in there would be a death sentence with just ten minutes of air that my helmet provided. Turning around my ship to face the exit, I waited patiently. At one point, I saw or felt something was closing it. Inadvertently I fired the gatling gun, lighting up the dark docking bay momentarily.


    ¡®DON¡¯T FIRE! DON¡¯T FIRE!¡¯


    Blinking and realizing that it was Kalomoira, I stopped.


    ¡°Hey, you found me.¡±


    ¡®I was following you.¡¯


    Her badger made its way in carefully. The docking bay wasn¡¯t large. It was just big enough for perhaps four badgers to land, meaning a frigate couldn¡¯t even fit in here. Given its small size, the station was probably for lodging for miners.


    ¡°Where are the others?¡±


    ¡®I told them where you are. They might try getting here but I don¡¯t know.¡¯


    Her badger parked itself right next to mine, both facing the exit with our guns pointed at it. It did feel definitely better not to be alone in this situation.


    ¡°Do you think Kamen set us up?¡±


    It had been lingering in my mind ever since we were forced to scatter and flee. He must have expected the pirate raid, yet he sent only five as escorts? Something didn¡¯t add up.


    ¡®Maybe. Not enough evidence although my gut feeling says he has.¡¯


    Then the next question was -


    ¡°Why?¡±


    What reason did he have? None of us knew him. None of us wronged him¡­, right? I didn¡¯t wrong him for sure. Hell, I didn¡¯t even know the guy until Yating referred him to me.


    ¡®I don¡¯t know. He must have a reason. I assume he has no grudge against you. I don¡¯t know him, so that¡¯s me out also. That leaves Aktug, Tylarr, and Vavaina.¡¯


    ¡°Can you ask them?¡±


    ¡®Maybe when we are all safe, but would they be willing to take a mission from him if they knew they wronged him? I doubt that.¡¯


    She did have a point. However, I did feel that there was a chance where they may have not been aware of what Kamen knew. All three of them had questionable past histories after all. Even Kalomoria¡¯s past was similar, but I did feel that she was probably the cleanest of them all since her crime involved only one victim in her father. She had nothing to do with this most likely.


    ¡®Tylarr is here. Don¡¯t shoot.¡¯


    Narrowing my eyes, I still had my thumb on the fire button just in case. Another badger made its way into the dark docking bay slowly.


    ¡®He is going to initiate close range communication.¡¯


    It was similar to using a public channel but using an extremely low powered signal. Only those close by would be able to pick it up.


    ¡°Fuck! That was fucking so close!¡± he muttered loudly. ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for Kalomoira, I might have bitten the dust!¡±


    ¡°I am glad that you made it back in one piece, dude,¡± I replied.


    ¡°Thanks for the tip by the way,¡± he replied at once. ¡°That saved my hide.¡±


    ¡°Are Aktug and Vavaina safe?¡±The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°Honestly? I don¡¯t know. None of us, except Kalomoira, was able to communicate with them directly.¡±


    ¡®They are alive and are saying that they are trying to meet up with us.¡¯


    Well, that was that.


    ¡°Well, Tylarr, we were discussing a possibility that Kamen knew one of us and mayhaps had a grudge.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know the guy. That¡¯s for sure. I am sure Aktug and Vavaina will say the same.¡±


    Folding my arms, I fell into thoughts. What if he didn¡¯t set us up? What if he simply had bigger expectations from us? Unfolding my arms, I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I wasn¡¯t sure what to make of this at the moment.


    ¡°Let¡¯s wait for the two to make it here, then we can go back to the Duchess¡¯ boobs,¡± I said.


    ¡°Yeah, I don¡¯t disagree with that idea.¡±


    Aktug was the next one to make it safely. He, too, was quite pissed like Tylarr.


    ¡°That was totally fucked up,¡± he complained loudly. At this point, we were right outside of the docking bay of the derelict station because the bay could no longer accumulate us.


    ¡°Vavaina is the only one left out there,¡± I said.


    ¡°I am sure she will be fine,¡± Aktug said. ¡°Let¡¯s head back.¡±


    ¡°What? Are you sure? We should wait for her.¡±


    ¡°Nah, she will be fine,¡± Tylarr sided with him. ¡°Besides, we shouldn¡¯t be sticking around here for too long.¡±


    Even Kalomoira was fine with leaving her be, thus it wasn¡¯t really my choice to object further.


    ¡°To the Duchess¡¯ boobs?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Yep, straight to there,¡± Tylarr said.


    Thankfully, Vavaina sent a message midway, informing us that she was going to be late due to emergency repairs she had to make. She was leaking air and had to dock at another station. A badger had 40 days of air but, once it started to leak, the air tended to be gone in a surprisingly short amount of time. She probably made the right call to stop and make the repairs.


    When the four of us finally managed to return to the Duchess¡¯ boobs, I received a call from Ehka, summoning me to her office. I could assume that the call was due to the recent event although I was mildly surprised that she already got the news. For the time being, I decided to play a fool, which didn¡¯t last long because¡­


    ¡°I heard that you did a stint for Kamen?¡± was the first thing she asked as soon as I entered her office.


    ¡°Was I not allowed to?¡± As far as I recalled, my contract mentioned nothing about exclusivity.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s just that it has caused some ripples,¡± she replied with a smirk. ¡°Care to tell me what happened exactly?¡±


    I had no reason to hide anything. Therefore, I told her earnestly what went down step by step.


    ¡°Honestly, I believe it was a setup,¡± I told her as I concluded my story.


    ¡°Does look like so, but what would be his motive behind such an action?¡±


    I had reached the same conclusion; there was no motive behind his actions.


    ¡°If it was indeed a trap as you say, then he would have lost nothing,¡± she said as she folded her arms and pursed her lips.


    ¡°Do you know Kamen?¡±


    ¡°Of course, I do. He has been a competitor for a while.¡±


    ¡°I think he has a grudge for one of the members of the Copper wing.¡±


    Her hand reached her chin slowly with her index finger tapping slowly on the side of her chin. ¡°Or maybe he has a problem with me.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± I replied incredulously. Then I froze for a moment. Yeah¡­, why didn¡¯t I think of that possibility? I did recall him not being pleased about us not moving to the Hole. I recalled him clicking his tongue even.


    ¡°Before I came along, the Hole used to be what the Duchess¡¯ boobs is now,¡± she explained. ¡°Apparently, I was better at running a business, and here we are.¡± Then she scoffed and asked, ¡°What are you going to do now?¡±


    ¡°Not going any more runs for Kamen. That¡¯s for sure,¡± I said without thinking too much.


    ¡°Do you want to get back at him?¡±


    I narrowed my eyes. It would be an utter lie if I hadn¡¯t thought about revenge. Was it worth it, though? My life could well be at a risk.


    ¡°I am not sure if it¡¯s worth it.¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯s me he has problems with, you will be at a risk as long as you work for me. The guy was bold enough to make a move on you just because you work for me.¡±


    She had a point, and I wasn¡¯t going to quit working for her. My entire career depended on her and her well-being.


    ¡°What could I possibly do, though?¡± I wondered aloud, not actually expecting an answer. I mean, I was just a guy who had no powers whatsoever. All I had was a fully geared badger which was the most basic fighter craft. Even if I had the Old Lady¡­, my chance of scoring one back looked very much doubtful. First of all, I just didn¡¯t know what kind of connections he had and what kind of fire power he could summon.


    ¡°Well, I can and will help you. I just want your commitment.¡±


    Taking a deep breath, I remained silent, considering my options. If I were to leave her, I¡¯d probably need to go back to the Oreo station and go back to mining. Did I want that? If I absolutely had to, I would.


    ¡°Have you ever thought about leaving Rocksea?¡± she asked me all of a sudden, disturbing my thoughts. Blinking, I blurted.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I get that this place has been your whole world, but the universe is large, you know. Unless there is something I don¡¯t know about you, there is nothing that binds you to Rocksea.¡±


    That was ¡­ true. Rocksea has been my whole world. I¡¯ve never thought about leaving this place behind. At the same time, she was also correct that nothing binds me to this place. If I decided to leave, there was nothing that would stop me from doing so.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know whether you are aware, but your parents registered your birth.¡±


    ¡°Huh?¡±


    ¡°You do have a government ID is what I am saying. You are a legal citizen of the Podlezl republic.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± I demanded. Did she look into my profile? That was fine because I had nothing to hide. However, saying that my birth was registered with the government, which I wasn¡¯t even aware of, triggered my curiosity as well as concern.


    ¡°I used to be a policewoman,¡± she said with a shrug. ¡°I am somewhat familiar with the laws.¡±


    ¡°Then you must have connections?¡±


    ¡°Somewhat, yes. I am equipped to fight Kamen if he wants.¡±


    A power struggle with Rocksea? Well, fuck, I never saw that coming.


    ¡°Just so you know, Rocksea is an unofficial name. This place is called the Cassandra belt.¡±


    ¡°Huh? The what?¡±


    She threw me off with the sudden change of the topic.


    ¡°It¡¯s the Cassandra belt. A woman named Cassandra found it and named it after herself.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not important, is it?¡±


    ¡°It kind of is. If you refer to this place as Rocksea to outsiders, they won¡¯t have any idea what you are talking about. Don¡¯t ever mention Rocksea unless you want to give them a clue about your origin.¡±


    ¡°What does it matter? You sound as if you want me to go outside?¡±


    ¡°I am because I need you to contact someone. In order to fight Kamen, I am going to need some outside help. You can¡¯t go to a war with just badgers.¡±


    ¡°And you are sending me?¡± I asked while pointing at myself.


    ¡°If you want. You are the most trustworthy person I¡¯ve met besides Duke ever since coming here. I am not going to send him away, so it comes down to you. Think about it, but I want your answer within twenty four hours.¡±


    ¡°Right¡­,¡± I answered nonchalantly. I was somewhat distracted because I received a call from Aktug, calling for an emergency meeting. Things were moving rather fast. ¡°I will see you later.¡±


    ¡°Do give me an answer within a day,¡± she told me as I turned around to leave. Then I rushed over to a VIP room where everyone, bar Vavaina, was gathered.


    ¡°Sup,¡± Tylarr greeted casually as usual.


    ¡°Have a stand,¡± Aktug said, beckoning me over to a spot by the table.


    ¡°Were you talking to Ehka?¡± Tylarr asked with a grin. Lying wouldn¡¯t work here probably.


    ¡°Yes, I was.¡±


    ¡°And what did she talk about?¡± It was Aktug who asked with a great dose of curiosity in his eyes. They must be mulling over their next move as well.


    ¡°She wants to fight Kamen,¡± I said while walking toward my spot.


    ¡°Does she have means?¡± Tylarr asked.


    ¡°She says she has connections. In fact, she claims to be an ex-policewoman.¡±


    Aktug and Tylarr glanced at each other with Kalomoira looking uninterested overall. She was merely sipping her drink.


    ¡°Ex-policewoman, eh¡­,¡± Aktug beamed a smirk. ¡°Well, that isn¡¯t exactly a lie, I suppose.¡±


    ¡°You know something?¡±


    ¡°We did a bit of digging on her,¡± Then he glanced at Kalomoira.


    ¡®She was an ex-knight.¡¯ she said to my head while still sipping her drink.


    ¡°An ex-knight? What is a knight?¡±


    ¡°An elite police force of some sort,¡± Tylarr replied, also taking a sip at his drink. ¡°The important thing is that the force is not under the department of justice. It operates under the lower council.¡±


    Aktug added, ¡°Meaning they are more of a privately operated police force.¡±


    Tylarr added as well, ¡°In other words, they don¡¯t deal with normal crimes. They deal with politically motivated crimes.¡±


    ¡®That woman, Ehka, must have some decent connections.¡¯


    ¡°Did she ask you to fight for her?¡± Tylarr asked.


    I nodded carefully, to which Aktug and Tylarr looked convinced.


    ¡°If we stick by her and she wins, we will also win big. We will get positions,¡± Aktug said, rubbing his hands in excitement.


    ¡°Better than this for sure,¡± Tylarr added with glee. ¡°I ain¡¯t gonna end up escorting forever. This life is a bit too dangerous.¡±


    ¡®If she can get the navy involved, Kamen won¡¯t stand a chance.¡¯


    The navy, huh¡­ Something told me that it wasn¡¯t going to be that easy. I mean, life was never straightforward after all. But they were not getting excited without a valid reason, either. If Ehka was indeed an ex-knight or whatever¡­, she would have connections which I can only dream of probably. Perhaps, it was time to release a piece of info I was reluctant to reveal.


    ¡°Guys, I am unsure what I saw was indeed true, but I saw some robins during the job,¡± I declared. The silhouettes of a badger and a robin were very different. Having my interests in purchasing a SSS Robin, I was clearly conscious of the silhouette of a robin.


    ¡°You sure?¡± Tylarr asked with a grim look.


    I nodded and said, ¡°Yes, I am pretty sure.¡±


    Aktug said while caressing his chin, ¡°SSS Robin, huh¡­ They are definitely an upgrade from a badger for sure. If Kamen wants a war, he would need them for an upper hand.¡±


    ¡®He may be thinking that robins will be enough to suppress badgers. He is not wrong but Ehka has a connection to the navy. If she can bring some navy frigates¡­, robins won¡¯t stand a chance at all.¡¯


    They were clearly thinking that Ehka had the upper hand, and it was hard to deny their sentiments.


    ¡°I am assuming here that you guys want me to work with Ehka?¡±


    ¡°Yes, obviously,¡± Aktug said while looking at Tylarr and Kalomoira. ¡°You guys agree, yeah?¡±


    They both nodded affirmatively.


    ¡®The choice is obvious. We have worked with her for over a decade. We can trust her. I can¡¯t say the same for Kamen who attempted to get rid of us.¡¯


    I was inclined to agree. I would also choose Ehka to stick with. My only concern was we knew too little about our opponent. And there was something else. It was about Yating. Was she my enemy? It was probably better to stay away from the Oreo station and her for the time being. I was afraid of trusting her. I never had a hard time trusting anyone in my whole life, but it has come to this¡­ Those mining days were simple back then.


    ¡°Alright, I guess there is no other choice. She did ask me to give her an answer ASAP, so I am contacting her now.¡±


    They nodded. After I excused myself from the VIP room, I went straight back to her office although I wasn¡¯t sure she¡¯d still be there. It turned out that she was still there as if waiting for me.


    ¡°I will do it,¡± I declared.


    ¡°Attaboy,¡± she said, smiling and patting the head of a boy. Wait, a boy? When did he get here?


    ¡°Who¡¯s he?¡±


    Perhaps I shouldn¡¯t have asked because the boy resembled her very much. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, and a round face. His height was about two thirds of mine. He had a bowl haircut which made him younger than he should have. Fuccccck, that bowl haircut reminded me of my own mom doing exactly the same thing for me. Mothers did that haircut because it was the easiest haircut they could do. She¡¯d gel my hair to keep the shape as well.


    ¡°He¡¯s my boy,¡± she said proudly, still patting his head.


    ¡°My name is Chatur,¡± he said, looking up at me. He looked curious and ready to go.


    ¡°He is ten years old now. It¡¯s time for him to get used to the business.¡±


    The boy¡¯s presence meant that I wasn¡¯t able to talk freely about the very business she was involving me into, but whatever. Perhaps, this was her intention.


    ¡°What do I do next?¡±


    ¡°Wait for my email. I will send it to you within an hour. You may go now.¡±


    What was the point of having her son here? I wondered. Regardless, I went back and let the guys know that I did confirm our allegiance to her. It was at that point that I got a notification for an email. Well, that was fast.


    ¡°You got something?¡± Tylarr asked after noticing that I was spacing out because I was trying to read the email through my eyeball.


    ¡°Yeah, an email. It¡¯s from her. Hang on. Let me read.¡±


    She wanted me to contact someone on New Earth and asked me to go alone or, if I must, bring only Kalomoira with me. The reason was that she was the only one without a criminal conviction apparently. All others could be arrested if stopped for an inspection. There was a low chance of me being inspected, but she was trying to be safe, which I could well understand. You wouldn¡¯t want the plan to go haywire even before it could begin. Complication was the last thing all of us wanted at the moment. To be honest, I would have gone alone if it wasn¡¯t for this event. But she proved to be so useful with her esper powers that it made sense for me to bring her along. Telepathy was especially useful.


    ¡°She wants me to meet up with someone from New Earth. Wants me to tag Kalomoira along,¡± I said with a lie. Eyes wide, she pointed at herself. I was pretty sure that she would have said, ¡°Me?¡±, if she could speak.


    Nodding at her, I told her, ¡°Get ready. She wants me to depart ASAP.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, Kamen is probably already on the move,¡± Tylarr added.


    ¡°Good luck, dude,¡± Aktug told me. ¡°We are going to do some preparations on our own.¡±


    Well, things were about to become spicy.

 S2. Ehka part 2

    ¡°You know, I¡¯ve never expected to see you like this ever again,¡± said Wemer with a smile. ¡°I feel like this is the definition of ¡®down but not out¡¯.¡± He let out a subtle chuckle. He was a man with hazel eyes and short light brown hair swept sideways. His chin had a dimple and was square. Overall, to Ehka¡¯s eyes, he was a handsome man. Furthermore, he had always acted with dignity and class. If there was a classical gentleman, that was him. He was a class A esper as well and was capable.


    ¡°I will be honest here. I never expected it to turn out like this, either. In fact, I never expected to settle down here,¡± she said, taking a deep breath of semi-regret. Her stay at the Duchess¡¯ boobs was supposed to be temporary. As soon as she found a new way of living, she was going to move on. Her life would have been significantly different if she fled to the Freedom colony. Would that choice have turned out to be better? Given the higher living standards of the colony, it could well have. She had to work hard to raise the living standards of the Duchess¡¯ boobs. She felt that it was really pitiful to live here initially. Space was inherently a boring place to be because everything took days if not longer. When she ordered something she needed, it¡¯d take over 100 days for it to arrive at a cost of premium. She vowed to change the sad reality and she did.


    She continued, ¡°Anyway, so you are telling me that¡­¡±


    The Podlezl council, which was divided into lower and upper council chambers, did not want their sovereignty exercised in the Cassandra belt. Instead, they left the place as a lawless zone so that criminals would flee there. It was a way to save money by not chasing them down and putting them in jails. They expected the Cassandra belt to police itself, and it did. Some select people like Duke were chosen as a secret contract within the Cassandra belt. Their job was simple in concept. Just live in the Cassandra belt and observe. Duke did just that. Years after Ehka came along to his place and started to live with him, the policy was turned upside down. A new political party took majority in the lower council chamber, and their policy regarding the Cassandra belt differed from the previous party. They wanted the belt to be integrated into the republic. This new direction of the policy inadvertently made Duke a far more important figure and, as a direct consequence, the presence of his female partner, Ehka, came to their attention. It didn¡¯t take long for them to find out that she was an ex-knight. This fact made Duke and her the perfect couple to carry out their new agenda. Wemer, her former boss, was asked to contact her on their behalf to restore a connection with her. She was, after all, fired from her job for something that wasn¡¯t her fault. Wemer shrugged with a crooked grin on a holographic screen.


    ¡°Whatever the case, they¡¯ve made me contact you for obvious reasons. Now that you hold some importance to them, they are trying to bring you back to the fold.¡±


    ¡°I am not going back, if that is what you are asking.¡±


    She had a family back here. She had a son and a fine guy in Duke. Although they were not legally married, he remained faithful to her. Besides, she had completely gotten used to the place. Leaving would only destroy a new lifestyle she had worked hard to establish. She worked hard on herself as well, losing weight in order to become more sexually attractive to Duke. She lost about 15kg and maintained the weight loss.


    ¡°No, no, they wouldn¡¯t want that. They want you to stay over there.¡±


    She scoffed. ¡°Fucking politicians. They are always fucking the same,¡± she muttered. He chuckled in return but said no word in response. ¡°By the way, have you guys ever arrested the Witch?¡±


    ¡°Nope,¡± he replied promptly. ¡°Do you really think we can catch a class S esper? Not in a million years.¡±


    A class S esper was known to be capable of destroying a plant even. They were just too powerful to be caught.


    ¡°As far as I am aware, and I am speaking as a class A esper, the only person who can stop the Witch is the Asperger,¡± he said firmly.


    She rubbed the bridge of her nose. ¡°And that ain¡¯t going to happen.¡±


    ¡°Of course, not,¡± he gleefully agreed. ¡°If rumors are to be believed, the Asperger was the Witch¡¯s mentor.¡±


    The Witch and the Asperger¡­, they were the two most powerful espers in the universe. Nobody could stop them, not by force or by laws. They literally stood above the laws. She recalled what the Witch told her not long before she¡¯d be fired.


    ¡°Wemer¡­, I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve told you this, but the Witch predicted my downfall.¡±


    ¡°Oh? What did she say?¡±


    ¡°She basically said it wasn¡¯t a coincidence that I was sent after her repeatedly. She said it¡¯d be my last time seeing her. And then ¡­ I was let go soon after.¡±


    He laughed pleasantly. ¡°She saw through it, huh. Not unexpected. Those class S espers are geniuses.¡±


    This was a common trait among class S espers. It was that they were beyond being geniuses. It was said that they could perhaps see into the future. It felt as if a lot of unreasonable rumors were being made for them, but it was hard to dismiss them outright after seeing what they were capable of.


    ¡°Anyway, do I have your cooperation?¡±


    ¡°Do I even have a choice?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t believe you have. They are ¡­ trying to be nice. It¡¯s always better to work with them while they are being nice.¡±


    It wouldn¡¯t be hard for them to forcefully drive out Duke and her out of the Cassandra belt. Ehka knew, from her first hand experience, that it was easy for them to get rid of civilians without much feedback. The media and journalists were always easily bought with some credits. Honest ones wouldn¡¯t have survived.


    ¡°I still have to ask this, though,¡± she said. ¡°What do we get from this?¡±


    If the Cassandra belt was to be integrated into the republic, their roles would end. And, given their backgrounds, it wasn¡¯t unfeasible to think that they might be gotten rid of once their usefulness expired. Again, she had already experienced this first hand.


    ¡°I do understand where you are coming from and honestly I don¡¯t have an answer for it. I can guess, with reasonable accuracy, that they will probably want you to be gone once they have what they want.¡±


    ¡°I appreciate your honesty, Wemer.¡±


    ¡°I cannot lie to you, given what you¡¯ve gone through. You know the answer even without asking anyway,¡± he said while beaming a sad grin.


    Duke and her time was limited was what he was essentially saying. For the time being, however, they had to comply, and she would need to find a way to escape their grasp eventually. She would need to scheme.


    ¡°Very well, we will comply with the request. That would mean I have their backing, yes?¡±


    ¡°You do, yes. They are waiting for some sort of chance to come by and meddle in naturally. I am sure that you know what I am trying to say.¡±


    She beamed a crooked grin. ¡°I can easily create such an opportunity. It will take some time, though.¡±


    ¡°We will wait for that. Be mindful of the election circle, though. They want something to occur within three years.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s more than enough.¡±


    Due to the longevity of human lifespans, elections were no longer held frequently. Additionally, the Podlezel government was no longer fully democratic. It was the same for their arch nemesis, the United Solar System Federation, as well. The election circle for lower council members was 12 years. Additionally, there was a merit system where a counselor could be sworn in without being elected.


    ¡°Then I shall wait for good news.¡± Then the communication was over. Taking a deep breath, she rubbed the bridge of her nose with her eyes shut.


    ¡°Just when I found a home¡­, this happens¡­ Fucking hell. Give me a break, will you.¡±


    She had no choice but to comply. And, in doing so, she doomed her future in the Cassandra belt. Once they got what they wanted, there was no doubt in her mind that they¡¯d be asked to be relocated elsewhere, possibly with a sizable payment as a reward.


    ¡°Would Duke even agree to this?¡± She wondered aloud. As far as she was aware, he was fully satisfied with his life here. He had told her repeatedly that he was fully committed to settling down right here at the Duchess¡¯ boobs. She didn¡¯t pay too much mind to his words back then because she believed that it was his way of keeping her here. With the situation changed, however¡­ If he did mean what he said¡­, it was going to pose some issues.


    ¡°Mom.¡± A boy flew into her office with the door sliding open.


    ¡°Chatur, my boy.¡± Turning around in her chair, she welcomed her son with open arms. She was never a fan of children but she absolutely adored her own child. The boy ran into her arms, and she embraced him warmly. Caressing his head, she asked.


    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±


    ¡°Are we going to leave?¡±


    She paused momentarily. ¡°Did you eavesdrop?¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to.¡±


    Her son was ten years old. He was just old enough to be able to understand politics.


    ¡°We may have to,¡± she answered earnestly. ¡°Do you like Rocksea?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ve never been out there.¡±Stolen novel; please report.


    That was true. The boy had never left the station. Well, that wasn¡¯t technically true, for he was born on New Earth. Obviously, he would have no recollection of that. He wasn¡¯t told, either.


    ¡°Are you bored?¡±


    ¡°I sort of am. There isn¡¯t much to do around here.¡±


    There was no one around his age. In fact, the next youngest person was Vazken who was around twenty years older. He never really complained about that, however. He was a good boy or perhaps he didn¡¯t know any better. The station didn¡¯t get any media channels from outside. There was, however, an official news channel operated by the Duchess¡¯ boobs station, which was ¡­ nothing more than just some text highlighting any upcoming events if any and incidents.


    ¡°Do you want a job then?¡±


    He raised his face from her chest. ¡°Really?¡± He sounded excited.


    The reality was that there wasn''t much a boy of his age could do around the station. The half of the station was dedicated to the brothel and its disco bar. The other half was a glorified warehouse. She had to find him a job that was both exciting and not too inappropriate. It was certainly easier said than done.


    ¡°I will give you a badger to play around.¡±


    The boy¡¯s eyes lit up with excitement. ¡°Really?!¡± He left her embrace and started to bounce around the room, literally.


    ¡°Only within the docking bay. Get used to it first, alright?¡±


    ¡°Of course! Anything you say, mom!¡±


    In a corner of her mind, she felt that it was probably for the better. It was probably better to leave Rocksea behind and settle down in a more civilized area for her son¡¯s growth and future. And then she thought of Vazken, a rare local to the area. He was cool-headed, rational, and earnest. She had worked with him for a considerable amount of time at the moment and had never seen him go awry. She could hardly imagine a kid growing in such an environment like Rocksea and growing up as decently as he did.


    ¡°Is it down to parents?¡± she wondered. Her son had already left the room, overjoyed. He was ten, so it was about the right time for him to get used to a spacecraft.


    ¡°... Time to meet Duke then.¡±


    In space, time was a weird concept. Because there was no distinction between day and night, everyone worked at different hours. Businesses closing at certain hours were quite rare, and everything was supposed to run 24/7. Between Duke and Ehka, they worked at different hours. The former, being the owner and the head bartender of the brothel and the bar, he worked usually in the busiest hours. Ehka, being essentially a warehouse manager, worked whenever she was needed. This resulted in them not really meeting each other awake. She had to stay up and wait quite a bit before Duke entered their room to take a break.


    ¡°Oh? You are up?¡± he said upon seeing her in her pajamas. They shared the same room but was divided by a thin wall and a door. Each had their own bed and bathroom. Their beds weren¡¯t for sleeping. They were for sexual intercourses. Sleeping in zero gravity meant they¡¯d strap themselves to a wall and sleep as is. In fact, trying to lay down was a bit of an ordeal in zero gravity.


    ¡°Hey, honey,¡± she said while beaming a charming smile. Flying forward, they shared a hug.


    ¡°There has to be a reason why you are still up, right?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, sadly. Take a shower. It¡¯s not really about us, though, if you are worried about that.¡±


    ¡°Thank Goddess.¡±


    It was about them actually. But she was not talking about their relationship. They were ¡°even¡±, meaning he couldn¡¯t stop her if she wanted to leave. After about ten minutes, he left his shower unit and did not bother to put anything on him except his magnet shoes, blatantly showing off his muscular figure. She didn¡¯t mind. It wasn¡¯t as if they hadn¡¯t seen each other naked anyway.


    ¡°God, that was a long day,¡± he muttered weakly with a loose towel around his shoulders. ¡°So, what is it? It has to be serious, though, doesn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Yes, it is.¡± And she told him what went down, explaining her conversation with Wemer and the political situation of the republic. He didn¡¯t look too surprised.


    ¡°You know, when I was sent here, it was due to a plea deal.¡±


    His charge was a first degree murder. He broke the neck of his brother-in-law with his bare hands after finding out that he had been abusing his sister and ended up killing her. ¡°I took it because I felt it was better to be out here than sticking around.¡± He, then, chuckled. ¡°How life works is mysterious sometimes.¡±


    They were sitting next to each other on his bed with him being completely naked.


    ¡°They will relocate us once this is over.¡±


    ¡°They are not gonna let us live on New Earth, are they?¡±


    She shook her head gently. ¡°Creg is going to be where we will be allowed to settle on, probably.¡±


    It was a planet with 0.6 gravity and had no breathable atmosphere. Pressurized domes were required for humans to live. It wasn¡¯t objectively a bad place to live but it was objectively an inferior place compared to New Earth.


    ¡°Would that planet be better for our son?¡± he wondered aloud, placing his hand on her thigh.


    ¡°He could enter an academic institution and make friends of his age,¡± she replied, placing her hand on top of his. ¡°But I don¡¯t feel formal education gets anywhere to be honest and friends are virtually meaningless until you come to adulthood.¡±


    ¡°True that. You need connections more than degrees.¡±


    ¡°Which I do have. In order to maintain the connections, we need to follow their demands.¡±


    She had connections indeed with the knights and, subtly, to a political party. If they disobeyed, those connections would vanish.


    She added quickly, ¡°But we do have a choice in this matter. We could escape to the Freedom colony.¡±


    He narrowed his eyes. ¡°Before or after?¡±


    ¡°After. We don¡¯t want to be wanted. They won¡¯t mind us disappearing too much after the job is done.¡±


    He slowly scratched his chin and remained silent.


    She said, ¡°We will lose connections but we will be completely free.¡±


    ¡°Reaching that place would be a problem on its own, though, unless we make our move before they get the news. Even then¡­,¡± he trailed off with his face darkening. Apparently, he thought that the chance was slim, which she agreed.


    ¡°It is up to you. I will accept your decision. But I am thinking of contacting Sae the Witch, should you choose to flee to the Freedom colony.¡±


    ¡°The Witch?¡± he raised his voice, looking sideways in her direction. ¡°Do you know her?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± she replied flatly. ¡°But then I do kind of know her. It¡¯s kind of complicated.¡±


    ¡°Nothing is simple when a class S esper is involved. Do you know her or not?¡±


    ¡°Objectively speaking, I don''t know.¡± She then proceeded to explain what went down before she was fired from the Knights. He nodded along, understanding the reason for her vague answer.


    ¡°I see. Yeah, I get a feeling that the Witch saw this coming a decade ago. How, I don¡¯t have a fucking clue.¡±


    ¡°I have a feeling that she will answer my call, should I really need it.¡±


    ¡°God, this ain¡¯t easy,¡± he said with a frustrated voice. ¡°She might just kill us for fun.¡±


    ¡°Although the media loves to make a villain out of her, I know the truth. She generally does not kill people. When she does kill, they are connected to some sort of crime.¡±


    Anyone who investigated the Witch knew this but was told to keep their mouths shut, and let the media do the badmouthing. The Knights had to respond whenever she was reported to be seen but had no meaningful way as well as will to make a serious attempt on arresting her therefore.


    ¡°Ehka, we aren¡¯t exactly clean people, either,¡± he reminded her. ¡°I¡¯ve murdered a man.¡±


    ¡°But you did have a reason. Even the court saw your action justified.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps. I have a feeling that they were just looking for a pawn to use. Regardless, the opinion of the court wouldn¡¯t matter to the Witch, would it?¡±


    ¡°That is ¡­ true.¡± Her voice weakened.


    ¡°This is gambling with lives. She could just kill me on the spot and there will be nothing anyone could do about it.¡±


    ¡°Trust me on this. She won¡¯t do anything to us.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s making you so confident that she will help us to begin with?¡±


    With her eyes downcast, she took a moment before answering.


    ¡°I feel like ¡­, it¡¯s just my gut feeling by the way, I feel like she was telling me to contact her later.¡±


    ¡°Ehka, that was over a decade ago.¡±


    ¡°I know. I know! There is another reason I am pushing for this.¡±


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°Well, two reasons actually. One, I don¡¯t want them to have their ways with us. I am being defiant. Two, we cannot have more children on Creg.¡±


    It was scientifically and medically proven that having a fetus grow in 1.0 gravity was most ideal. The 0.6 gravity of Creg was not enough to prevent issues. She felt that they wouldn¡¯t allow her to stay on New Earth for any reason. Upon hearing this, his eyes went wide.


    ¡°You mean that?¡± he asked, raising his voice slightly in excitement.


    ¡°Yes, well, I dislike children in general. Not mine, though, apparently.¡±


    He was well aware that she didn¡¯t like children, thus he never asked for more. If she was willing, however, that changed everything for him. Settling down on Creg was no longer an option. The Freedom colony had 1.0 gravity. The colony was a light year away from the Solar system, meaning it was around 1,000 light years away from where they were. Conveniently, there was a subspace portal that¡¯d take them over there directly in the outskirts of the Podlezel system. The United Solar System Federation refused to acknowledge their existence. Therefore, there was no subspace portal between the Solar system and the Freedom colony. However, due to its relatively short distance, it was still possible to reach there from the Solar system in two to four years.


    ¡°That changes everything then,¡± he admitted, nodding slowly.


    ¡°It does.¡±


    ¡°How will you contact the Witch?¡±


    ¡°Her base of operation is the Freedom colony. To be honest, I am going to ask Wemer for a favor. He is a nice and rational guy. I feel like he is going to help me.¡±


    He chuckled. ¡°Isn¡¯t the Witch the arch nemesis of the Knights?¡±


    ¡°They can never catch her. He admitted that himself. The only ones who don¡¯t get that are the councilors.¡±


    ¡°They may get it but may not be able to admit it to the public.¡±


    Taking a deep breath, she let out a long sigh. ¡°Perhaps.¡±


    ¡°Anyway, it¡¯s good to know where you stand on our relationship, and thank you.¡±


    ¡°What is your decision?¡±


    ¡°Seems obvious to me. We are going to the Freedom colony.¡±


    ¡°I see.¡± She beamed a smile. She was leaning heavily to that idea as well. Once was enough in her mind. She was discarded like a cheap toy before, and they were going to do the same again. ¡°Time to get working then.¡±


    She had been rather gentle in the business expansions and getting deals. That was because she did not wish to disturb the balance of powers within Rocksea. Now that she needed a reason to go haywire, she was going to do exactly that. She had conducted a population census, and her rough number was that about 30,000 people were residing in Rocksea, which was actually way more than she ever expected. She assumed that less than 5,000 inhabited the asteroid belt. But that wasn¡¯t an issue itself.


    ¡°See you later, Duke,¡± she said while standing up and glancing her eyes at his shrunken penis between his thighs. She was quite surprised how large it could get once erected. She was a virgin back then.


    Anyway, needless to say, it was quite easy to set up the stage. At one point, she felt like she was walking into a trap because it felt a bit too easy. She thought it would take a few years. Well, it didn¡¯t even take a full year.


    ¡°Yay,¡± she said gleefully, smiling. ¡°Kamen took the bait.¡±


    She was looking at a holographic monitor where her scouts throughout Rocksea were making reports in her office. She preferred text reports when it came to this because it¡¯d give her time to disgust what she was seeing.


    ¡°Thanks, Vazken. You somehow helped me greatly.¡±


    Because the guy reached out to Kamen organically, she didn¡¯t need to pull any strings which could have backfired or have implications. There was very little chance of anyone suspecting anything. A broad smile surfaced on her face because everything was going perfectly so far. On the surface, she didn¡¯t start the conflict. Kamen did.


    ¡°The stage is set. Time for actors to start dancing.¡±


    Volume 1 / end

 C9. Cadet

    ¡°Your job is simple in concept. Head over to New Earth. Reach out to one of its orbital stations. Request a call from a man named Wemer. Tell him that I sent you, and he should know what is going to be needed. He may ask questions. Answer earnestly.¡±


    Kalomoira and I, both in our respective badgers, were going at full speed. This wasn¡¯t something I did in general due to a risk of colliding with random rocks. We were evading here and there to get out of Rocksea as fast as possible.


    ¡°This is something I¡¯d only do in games!¡± I exclaimed as I evaded an asteroid after another. It wasn¡¯t completely manual. I set passive sensors to full power and was automating some of the moves. I would have been already dead otherwise.


    ¡®You said you wanted to get there ASAP. This is the only way,¡¯ said Kalomoira¡¯s voice in my head.


    ¡°Not at the expense of my own goddamn life!¡±


    ¡®You wanna slow down?¡¯


    ¡°Yeah, I mean, yes, please!¡±


    As we both slowed down, I finally let out a relieved breath. There were several beads of sweat floating in front of my forehead.


    ¡°Fuck, that was unnerving¡­¡±


    ¡®It¡¯s easy for me, though¡­¡¯


    I retorted strongly, ¡°That¡¯s because you are an esper!¡±


    Espers could actually understand the machine language without any assistance, which made them great hackers. Naturally, it made them link really well with any computing software.


    ¡®My class is just C. I so wish I were at least class B¡­¡¯ She sounded really disappointed.


    ¡°Is there a big difference?¡±


    ¡®There is! Teleportation for example. I can still do it but only a very short distance. I am barely an esper to be honest.¡¯


    I never saw an esper doing their real magic, so I didn¡¯t have any clue. But it was no wonder that she opted being an esper over curing her muteness. If I had such supernatural powers, I¡¯d hold onto it also.


    ¡°What do espers do in reality? Like when they fight. Do they, like, summon lightning and fire like in games?¡±


    ¡®What higher class espers do is essentially defy the laws of physics.¡¯


    ¡°... Like?¡±


    ¡®Like clicking one¡¯s index and thumb to destroy a planet. In order to destroy a planet, even if it¡¯s a small one, it would require an equal, if not, greater amount of force, meaning you need planetary bombs to nuke a planet. That would be a good example of defying the laws of physics because clicking fingers should not be equal to hundreds of bombs.¡¯


    I laughed and said, ¡°Come on. That¡¯s a sick joke.¡± Then I did recall about somebody doing exactly that vaguely from the back of my mind. ¡°Right¡­, the Asperger¡­¡±


    ¡®Yep! All espers look up to him! Besides, he is so handsome!¡¯


    I frowned. ¡°Isn¡¯t he like¡­ nearly a thousand years old?¡± The age difference would be ¡­, I don¡¯t even want to count. Not that it really bothered me, though. It did make me wonder how old she was. She couldn¡¯t have been older than fifty, though.


    ¡®So what?! He looks young enough to me!¡¯


    The girl was totally a fangirl. Case in point, this was the first time I heard her voice excited. Understandable, perhaps. Never been a fan of anything or anyone, though, in my whole life. Speaking of which¡­, what am I aiming for in my life?


    ¡°............¡±


    That was a sudden question to myself, which I had no answer for. Well, I was still young and had plenty of years to think about that. For the time being, my short-term goal was to get back at Kamen and maybe get the Old Lady back? That¡¯d be sweet. Getting her back wasn¡¯t an impossible goal to have. If the conflict between Ehka and Kamen evolved into war of some sort, there was a possibility that we might raid the Hole. There was a decent change that the Old Lady might be in combat and even get destroyed before, but there was a chance regardless.


    ¡°Well, you do you,¡± I told her. I had nothing more to say really. She was an adult and had every right to like whatever and whoever she liked. It was time to relax for me anyway. That was probably the longest four hours of my life, and it was just insane. After setting up a proximity alert, I closed my eyes for a bit of shuteye. The rest of the journey was eventually, which was expected. Nobody was going to come after a pair of badgers. We wouldn¡¯t be worthy of pirates.


    ¡°Here we are,¡± I said. We were at New Earth. Once out of Rocksea, it was just a matter of selecting a direction and just sailing. With high security and the lack of any obstacles, I could even sleep all the way and not encounter any troubles.


    ¡®I don¡¯t miss the planet,¡¯ she replied.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it your home planet?¡±


    ¡®Yes.¡¯


    I shrugged. Each to their own, I figured. I knew her backstory. I wasn¡¯t going to dig further and dig my own grave. There was no need for that.


    ¡°Let¡¯s see¡­ An orbital station¡­ I can initiate an active scan here, can¡¯t I?¡±


    Scanning was somewhat a dangerous action, especially in Rocksea. It was akin to announcing my own presence to everyone in the close vicinity.


    ¡®Don¡¯t. It will be seen as an act of aggression.¡¯


    It was always amusing to see why a simple active scan caused so much fuss, but it did in congested zones. New Earth was a busy place. I could see shuttles coming in and out of its atmosphere nonstop. They were making trips to its orbital stations where they would travel further via more space worthy ships, probably. I could also see small groups of patrol fleets hanging about. An active scan here would grab their attention for sure, so I wasn¡¯t going to do that. The reason I wanted an active scan was it would reveal a lot of details about objects. It was simple curiosity which wasn¡¯t worth dying for.


    ¡°I am going to make contact.¡±


    ¡®Good luck.¡¯


    Opening a channel to one of the two orbital stations, I asked nicely.


    ¡°Hello, I would like to -¡±


    Someone interjected me sharply. ¡°Who are you?¡±


    ¡°My name is Vazken, and I -¡±


    I was interjected once again.


    ¡°Hang on.¡± Then whoever it was put me on hold. He put me on hold for more than ten minutes, at which point I was getting a little pissed. When he finally put me back on the line, I lashed back.


    ¡°Hey! Treat me like a human being!¡±


    Ignoring my complaint, he spoke as if he didn¡¯t hear me, ¡°It took a while, but I found your name in the database. Dude, where have you been? You have only a birth certificate to your name and absolutely nothing else.¡±


    That threw me off guard. I did recall Ehka telling me that I was indeed a citizen of the republic.


    ¡°You never paid any tax, you never attended any educational institute. You don¡¯t have any records of travels except for the one time you left New Earth after being born. Absolutely nothing on you. Who are you?¡±


    ¡°I told you. My name is Vazken!¡±


    Fucker! And I could hear him clicking his tongue.


    ¡°Fine, I wish I could arrest you, but there is no warrant on you whatsoever. What do you want? If you are asking to dock, denied. I cannot let someone as shady as you dock. You could be a brainwashed terrorist for all I know.¡±


    I could actually understand his point of view. To him, I was someone who came out of absolutely nowhere all of a sudden. He had every right to be suspicious of me. At this point, I had to grin because I was going to ask him something that might blow his mind out of orbit.


    ¡°I¡¯d like to speak to a man named Wemer.¡±


    As expected, there was a long silence.


    ¡°There are more than one person who goes by that name. Give me the full name.¡±


    ¡°Wemer-9401331.¡±


    Again, there was a long silence.


    ¡°Do you know who you are trying to contact?¡±


    Gleefully, I replied, ¡°I surely do. The leader of the Knights.¡±


    Unexpectedly, there was no sign of him. Instead, I was given a text message with an attachment.


    ¡°Go to this coordinates, it says¡­ Kinda suspicious.¡±


    But it wasn¡¯t far. It was just a little away from the planet.


    ¡°Kalomoira, we are heading to some coordinates.¡±


    ¡®Suspicious.¡¯


    ¡°I know, but we don¡¯t have many choices here, do we?¡±


    ¡®Well, true. Let¡¯s be on guard.¡¯


    Where we were going wasn¡¯t really far. I was asked to go around the planet into the shadowy side where there would be no light. This wasn¡¯t a dangerous situation because one never relied on visual information in space. Sensor readings were all I needed to navigate around.


    ¡°It¡¯s dark.¡±


    We sailed a bit further away and went around New Earth to be in its dark side. I was very much used to this. Anyone worth their weight in space would have used this as well. I turned my attention toward New Earth where I could see the occasional light of cities. The planet had a population of a hundred million. This was the most populated planet after the original Earth. Creg, the second most populated planet, had only a population of just five hundred thousand, half a million. After waiting aimlessly for a good hour, it was Kalomoira who snapped me out.


    ¡®Something is approaching. A cruiser.¡¯


    ¡°A fucking cruiser¡­ It¡¯s not coming to kill us, is it?¡±


    Cruisers were the workhorse of any fleet. They were the largest warships. There was only one kind in existence. It was USN Courage used by the United Solar System Federation. This cruiser had been in service for over a thousand years, and even the republic used them. Or at least that was what I thought.


    ¡°Ehm, that is not an USN Courage, is it?¡±


    ¡®No, the signature is completely different. We are looking at a new kind of cruiser.¡¯


    ¡°Is this why they are asking us to meet in the shadows? To hide its appearance?¡± I wondered aloud. It wouldn¡¯t have done much to hide anything in my mind.


    ¡°Follow us,¡± said a voice through a public channel. We didn¡¯t have a choice and followed the cruiser¡¯s main iron engine which was the only thing we could see in the darkness.


    ¡°Man, I feel so small right now¡­¡±


    We were tiny compared to the cruiser in front of us.


    ¡°Nice to meet you, Vazken. My name is Wemer. I would like you to dock so that we can initiate a video communication. Only you will dock. Your companion will stay put.¡±


    We were right in front of a brand new cruiser. They must have developed a new cruiser to replace USN Courage, which was understandable. Using the enemy''s ship design after declaring independence from them must have irked. Anyway, this was my first time seeing a cruiser this close. The sheer size difference¡­


    Letting out a hopeless laugh, I mumbled, ¡°A single cruiser might even be able to defeat everyone in Rocksea¡­¡±


    ¡®Well, not one. A few might do it.¡¯


    Badgers would be absolutely useless against it. Robin may have a chance to inflict some damage, but a fighter craft was nevertheless the weakest space vessel. Maybe a group of frigates might, just might, be able to put up some fight¡­


    ¡°Roger that,¡± I complied without a fuss. There was no point in trying to act tough. The ship had a docking bay on its side, and we were given a docking bay code for automatic landing. Interestingly, the docking bay doors did not shut down. They deliberately left it open for some reason, meaning the docking bay was vacuum. As soon as my badger made a landing, a holographic window appeared half a meter in front of me. There was a man on the screen. He had hazel eyes and short light brown hair swept sideways. He had a rather characteristic dimple on his chin.


    ¡°A badger cannot use video communication. Instead, we will project a hologram right in front of you. For that, we needed you to be inside of the ship.¡±


    I nodded and replied, ¡°I see. Ehka sent me.¡±


    ¡°I figured as much. Now, is it time?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°She sent you, meaning you are someone who she trusts completely. Pray tell, what is going on in the Cassandra belt right now?¡±


    The Cassandra belt belt¡­, the real name of Rocksea¡­


    ¡°A man named Kamen from the Hole has pretty much declared a war on Ehka. It¡¯s not completely clear to me why, but I am pretty sure that I was the trigger.¡±


    She instructed me to answer him truthfully.


    ¡°You are? What did you do then?¡±The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    I shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t know?¡±


    ¡°I beg your pardon?¡±


    ¡°I simply wanted a second job¡­¡± And then I went on to explain what exactly went down and why I sought out Kamen in the first place. The man had a good laugh.


    ¡°How organic! What an interesting opportunity.¡±


    What? I had no clue what he was babbling about.


    ¡°Very good indeed¡­ Very good. This is a rare opportunity indeed. On behalf of the Podlezl council, I thank you, Mr Vazken.¡±


    ¡°Um¡­, sure.¡±


    ¡°She is going to need reinforcements, it would appear.¡±


    Well, that was obvious. We had only badgers, and they had a lot more badgers and possibly Robins. We could hold on if we defended only, but the nature of her business didn¡¯t allow that.


    ¡°We have only badgers and don¡¯t have that many, either. I believe that they are collaborating with pirates and I saw Robins.¡±


    ¡°Robins, huh. Badgers could well be useless if there are enough of them.¡±


    I nodded.


    ¡°What is the strength of Ehka¡¯s force?¡±


    ¡°If I am correct in my assessment, about fifteen badgers.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°That is it.¡±


    I worked under her for many years now and had a decent grasp of how many ships she had under her control. She could hire some mercenaries, but I was fairly certain that she had fifteen badgers directly under her control at the most. This figure included me and the Copper wing, which also meant that not every badger was present around the Duchess¡¯ boobs at any given time. She did keep around five badgers around the station all the time, however. With the station turrets, they were enough to be able to repel most pirate attacks.


    ¡°Then do you have any idea on the enemy¡¯s force?¡±


    I didn¡¯t have much idea on that front. I never really worked around the Hole and didn¡¯t know my ways around the part of Rocksea.


    ¡°Since they are working with pirates, they should outnumber us greatly. I am thinking five to one?¡±


    Wemer had a deep look on his face, and I added, ¡°Not to mention the Robins.¡± It took him a good moment to reply.


    ¡°There are only the two of you right here, yes?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°With just the two of you, there is a limit on how much I can help you. For this trip, I will give you a frigate.¡±


    A frigate¡­! That would help immensely. Even a lone combat frigate was powerful enough to tip the scale probably.


    ¡°The frigate will be loaded with four Robins. In my opinion, this should be enough to tip the scale. You may not be able to emerge victorious but you shouldn¡¯t lose, either.¡±


    ¡°Nice!¡±


    ¡°Leave your ship, and wait for the frigate to arrive. We will close the docking door to let air in.¡±


    What?


    ¡°Can¡¯t I just wait outside? It¡¯s a combat frigate, no? I could enter it via its docking bay.¡±


    ¡°Well, that would work if it had any spare space in its docking bay. It will be filled with the four Robins. I am asking you to abandon your badger.¡±


    I felt numb momentarily. This was my baby.


    ¡°This is my ship.¡±


    ¡°Your ship? As in you paid for it?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°I thought it was provided by Ehka?¡±


    ¡°Well, no, all of us who are working under her own their ships.¡±


    ¡°Interesting¡­, a badger costs how much?¡±


    ¡°Mine is fully kitted. It costs about 3 mil total.¡±


    ¡°I see¡­ That¡¯s some predicament then.¡± Folding his arms, he fell into thoughts for a moment. ¡°Well, no matter. I guess it will be you then.¡±


    What is he talking about?


    ¡°Allow me to explain. The frigate I am about to give you, its model is USN Stiletto, which is the latest design. It¡¯s a brand new ship even. Civilians cannot own it legally, which also means you cannot be caught in inspection sailing it. I was originally going to do this to Ehka, but it seems you are invested much in this ordeal and she trusts you, so I guess you will work just as well.¡±


    Again, what is he talking about?


    He looked right into my eyes with a firm expression. ¡°By powers vested in me, I invoke the emergency protocol article 4. I recruit Vazken into the navy at this moment. Welcome to the navy, Cadet.¡±


    WHAT?!


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±


    ¡°Cadet, under emergency, I have powers to conscript civilians into the navy. I am doing exactly that. One of our republic¡¯s assets is under threat of pirate resurgence. I grant you a warship. Go in my stead and deal with it.¡±


    I had my jaw dropped with my eyes wide open. I couldn¡¯t fathom whatever the fuck was going for a good minute. But I did piece together what was going on soon enough. He asked me to give up on my ship, thus he gave me the frigate. This was a very unfair deal, well for him. A navy combat frigate would cost how much? Easily over a hundred million probably.


    ¡°The frigate is a virgin, so you will name her as well.¡±


    I smiled. ¡°Very nice.¡±


    ¡°You may allow your companion to enter the dock so that we can close the docking bay.¡±


    Once Kalomoira landed and the docking bay was filled with breathable air, we were asked to exit our badgers. A pair of navy personnel came to us to guide us inside.


    ¡°Wait a moment, please,¡± I told them and flew toward my badger. Placing my hand on its plating, I told her, ¡°Thanks for everything so far. Farewell.¡±


    ¡®You are sad.¡¯


    ¡°Of course, I am sad. I¡¯ve been with her for like a decade. She has kept me alive. I don¡¯t want to leave her if possible.¡±


    Unfortunately, she didn¡¯t seem to share the same sentiment. The navy personnel guided us inside to a private guest room. I sort of expected Wemer to show up and he did. The guy was slightly taller than me. He, along with the pair of navy personnel, was wearing the navy uniform which was just a plain top and pants. The pants were dark red in color while the shirt was lighter red. The shoulder part of the shirt had some weird line patterns to make it a bit more stylish.


    ¡°Again, I welcome you to the navy, Cadet.¡±


    ¡°Am I a cadet temporarily or¡­?¡±


    ¡°If you want the rank to be permanent, I can certainly make that happen. I looked into your profile. Absolutely nothing on it. Am I right to assume that you are a local to the Cassandra belt?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I grew up there. I hadn¡¯t ventured out of the belt until recently.¡±


    ¡°I see. I will be honest with you. To rule the belt, we are going to need someone local who knows how things work. You fit the bill. Therefore, if you are willing, your rank of cadet can be permanent.¡±


    I pointed at myself, looking somewhat shocked. ¡°Me? In the navy?¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    On second thought, why not indeed.


    ¡°What about Ehka?¡±


    He glanced at Kalomoira.


    ¡°She can be trusted,¡± I said, knowing what his glance meant. ¡°She¡¯s a mute by the way but a class C esper.¡±


    ¡°Is she your woman?¡±


    She and I looked at each other, flabbergasted.


    ¡°Um, no.¡±


    ¡°Then I ask her to leave this room for a moment.¡±


    She complied without a fuss. ¡®See you soon, Vazken.¡¯ Then she flew out of the room. I could see a pair of navy personnel right outside who escorted her away.


    ¡°Her role ends when the republic conquerors the belt,¡± he declared, to which I answered by tilting my head in confusion.


    ¡°Huh? What does that mean?¡±


    ¡°Do you know her past?¡±


    ¡°I sort of do. I think I do at least. She is an ex-agent of the Knights, right?¡±


    He nodded. ¡°Correct. Her partner is an ex-murderer. With pasts like that, we cannot place them in any official capacity. She knows this already. Once their roles are over, they will be relocated.¡±


    I frowned. She knew this?


    ¡°She worked hard to improve the living standard of the Cassandra ¡­, fuck it, Rocksea.¡±


    ¡°Rocksea?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s what the locals call the belt. She has settled down in Rocksea. To see her removed¡­, I don¡¯t feel that¡¯s fair.¡±


    ¡°Nothing is fair in life, Cadet. The strong rule the weak. I am pretty certain that she is glad that their lives aren¡¯t taken away. They will be able to resume their new lives under new identities.¡±


    I didn¡¯t say anything anymore. I didn¡¯t feel like I could win an argument against this man anyway. Besides, I didn¡¯t know Ehka''s thoughts about this anyway. Without knowing that, I was just butting into a business that wasn¡¯t really mine.


    ¡°I understand,¡± I lied and changed the subject. ¡°What will happen to the badgers?¡±


    ¡°Once you leave with the frigate, we will throw them into space and destroy it.¡±


    Bummer, she will be gone for sure then.


    ¡°The frigate will have the navy handbook in its database. I suggest you read up on it as soon as possible. You won¡¯t be intercepted on your way back this time but you will probably be next time. I want you to act like a proper cadet and comply with inspections.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡±


    Me in the navy¡­ What a shocking turn of events even if it was temporary. I needed some time to think about my future. I knew something for certain, though. It would be better than being a miner or an escort. I¡¯d receive a wage, probably?


    ¡°You seem quick enough to assess your situation. That¡¯s good. I see that she didn¡¯t choose you randomly.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t so sure about that. I was just a bit too shocked at the turn of events. One thing was certain, I could say. It was that I was indeed intrigued by the prospect of becoming a cadet permanently. Wemer soon left, and Kalomoira entered back in.


    ¡®Hello, Cadet,¡¯ she said in my head gleefully.


    ¡°Making fun of me, are you?¡± I replied with a grin. ¡°Wait, did you eavesdrop?¡±


    ¡®No, that guy is an esper, much more powerful than me. He blocked me from doing that. He told me briefly what went down.¡¯


    He was an esper, huh¡­


    ¡®If it¡¯s not clear, I am sucking up to you now since it looks like you will govern Rocksea?¡¯


    Speaking of which, I would probably need several people I could trust. Having some espers around me felt like a requirement.


    ¡°I accept your sucking.¡±


    Well, that didn¡¯t come out right¡­ As if agreeing with me, she laughed.


    ¡®Not gonna give you a blowjob if that¡¯s what you are asking!¡¯


    ¡°Ehm, well, I didn¡¯t mean it like that¡­¡± I scratched the back of my head. ¡°Let¡¯s just wait until the frigate arrives.¡±


    ¡®Okie, dokie.¡¯


    ¡°Fuuuck!¡± I uttered in excitement. I was looking at the USN Stiletto, a navy combat class frigate. This thing was sheer beauty. I could tell right away that this was a highly sophisticated ship that was unlike a badger that was basically a chunk of steel.


    ¡®I concur, fuuuuck!¡¯


    ¡°She is all yours,¡± said Wemer over a screen near me. We were in the docking bay which was already vacuum with its doors already open. I had a helmet on to provide 10 minutes of air, and Kalomoira didn¡¯t need any since she was an esper. ¡°The ship needs at least four people to operate properly, but two will be enough for a short voyage. The docking bay is unlocked, and its main frame has been reset. You just need to initialize and assign yourself as its master.¡±


    ¡°Got it, thank you.¡±


    ¡°One last thing. You are now a cadet. You are no longer working for Ehka. You are now working with her. Additionally, I want a regular report.¡±


    ¡°Can I let her know that?¡±


    ¡°Yes, she won¡¯t mind. She is already aware of her fate after this. A ship will be wandering around not far from the Cassandra belt. It will approach you once it detects the frigate. Use line comm only.¡±


    ¡°Understood.¡±


    Line comm was a method of extremely secure communication where it was done via a cable between two ships. No way to eavesdrop on that from a distance.


    ¡°We will meet each other again, Cadet.¡±


    The screen faded out, and we were done.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go, Kalomoira.¡±


    I jumped toward the frigate by using the momentum from a jump. My magnetic boots wouldn¡¯t work on the ship¡¯s surface which wasn¡¯t made of ferromagnetic metals. Instead, I had sticky gloves on me. Meanwhile, she was casually following me around, using her ESP. Damn, I was jealous. I moved toward its docking bay door which was unlocked by default, allowing us to easily enter the ship. This was a masterless ship. Anyone could control it, for now. Thus, reaching its bridge was easy as a pie.


    ¡°Man.., the interior looks so clean and ¡­ advanced. The Old Lady was nothing compared to this.¡±


    ¡®Register yourself.¡¯


    Nodding, I approached one of the two consoles on the bridge.


    The bridge of the frigate was small, far smaller than I expected. The bridge of the Old Lady was at least two times larger in comparison. However, I could tell that the bridge was heavily reinforced. There were two consoles on the front and then there was a podium further back. The podium looked to be where the registration would be made. I could tell because it looked like it was a temporary element on the bridge. Standing in front of it, I placed my hand onto it. As soon as my palm touched its cold glass-like surface, it powered up with a faint whirring. And scanning light was on me from the top and bottom. Rectangular green light was moving up and down, scanning my body. Soon, an A.I. voice activated.


    ¡°Profile match. Cadet Vazken-9611112 detected. Welcome, Captain. Would you like to initialize the mainframe?¡±


    ¡°Yes, I do.¡±


    ¡°A scan detects only two people aboard. This is insufficient to operate this vessel. At least one engineer is required in the radiation engine.¡±


    The radiation engine generated electricity from radiation waves. Since space was full of radiation waves, the invention of this engine enabled long space voyages since fuel for propulsion was no longer required. It being an ¡°engine¡± might be a bit misleading but that was its name regardless. Every spaceship used this. Small versions didn¡¯t require supervision, like the one I used in my badger. But larger ones needed eyes on it frequently due to a flaw in its design: It¡¯d leak radiation into spaceships occasionally. The bigger the engine was, the higher its leak was. Thus, small engines were pretty much harmless.


    ¡°Override,¡± I commanded.


    ¡°Command accepted. You are now fully registered. Name the ship please.¡±


    Name her, huh¡­ I¡¯ve never named a ship. What kind of name would I use? I couldn¡¯t think of any right away.


    ¡°Cleo.¡±


    That was my mum¡¯s name.


    ¡°Please type the name to avoid any spelling mistakes.¡±


    I did just that.


    ¡°Registered.¡±


    Then the podium lowered itself into the floor, and a console rose from where it sank. Swiping the glass-like surface, it was giving me a simplified version of the ship controls.


    ¡°Kalomoira, care to man one of the consoles on the front?¡±


    ¡®Okay.¡¯


    She flew toward one of the consoles.


    ¡°By the way, I am sorry about your badger.¡±


    She, too, lost her ship like I did.


    ¡®That¡¯s fine. You are giving me one of the Robins, right?¡¯


    I felt it was only right.


    ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s yours.¡±


    That left three Robins. It was probably better for the rest of the Copper wing to receive them, which would leave me with no ship. But that didn¡¯t matter because I decided to just stick with the frigate. I was never a good shot anyway.


    ¡®Oh, wow, this thing is sophisticated. You might actually need a trained crew for this.¡¯


    ¡°Hang in there for now.¡±


    After inputting coordinates for the Duchess¡¯ boobs, the ship turned around and moved away from the cruiser. After making a safe distance, it started to accelerate. I could hear faint humming from the rear.


    ¡®This thing is fast. Its maximum speed is two thirds of light speed.¡¯


    Having dealt with outdated and rudimentary systems most of time, it took me a while to get used to the latest technologies Cleo had to offer. She was really state of the art, relatively speaking. The initial ship blueprint was released only two hundred years ago with production starting about 70 years ago. The ship itself was only 60 days old. Like Wemer said, this was a brand new ship. And there was something more.


    ¡°Oh, wow, this looks like a luxury suite to me!¡±


    Kalomoira and I were looking at the captain¡¯s lounge which was located right next to the bridge conventionally. It was a fairly spacious room with a steam shower attached. I repeat, a steam shower was integrated into the room.


    ¡®I assume this is the best room on the ship.¡¯


    This was the captain¡¯s lounge, so I assumed so.


    ¡®I am jealous.¡¯


    ¡°Let¡¯s check out other rooms.¡±


    There were about ten rooms which were clearly smaller than the captain¡¯s lounge but -


    ¡®Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Oh, mi Godddd!¡¯


    Grabbing my collar, she was shaking me up and down. Thanks to zero gravity, she was literally manhandling me.


    ¡®THEY¡¯VE ALL GOT SHOWERS!¡¯


    When there was no job, I stayed in my badger in the docking bay. It had a place to pee but, for showers, I would need to rent a motel room from Duke. Although it wasn¡¯t much, it did cost money. As far as I knew, she always rented rooms and refused to live out of her ship. Cleo having rooms with showers probably meant that she could finally save money and just stay on the ship, permanently. And there was one more thing to be surprised about.


    ¡®CAFETERIAAAAAAAA!!!¡¯


    Her voice was ringing really, really, loudly in my head. It was small but had a functioning cafeteria with a kitchen.


    ¡®NO MORE INSTANT COFFEE!!!!¡¯


    I really wanted her to quiet down. It was amusing and weird to hear in my head so loudly.


    ¡®I am gonna live on this ship, and you can¡¯t stop me,¡¯ she declared.


    Well, I was going to need a crew and I wanted an esper around me, so she was going to stay. That was for sure. Wemer said I would need at least four people; this ship was too large for that. I was going to need about ten people with four of them being Robin pilots. The obvious choice was the Copper wing members. That would make a total of five members, including me. None of them was an engineer however. Additionally, they¡¯d be pilots instead of actual crew members.


    ¡°Hey, Kalomoira, I am going to be in the captain¡¯s lounge. Make yourself home, yeah?¡±


    ¡®Of course! See you later!¡¯


    I wanted to be near the bridge just in case and I wanted to have some quiet moments for some thoughts. Her high-pitched voice constantly ringing in my head didn¡¯t help at all.


    ¡°Those I can trust¡­,¡± I said to myself after making myself comfortable in the captain¡¯s lounge. Only four names came to my mind: Rabinovich, Santino, Juno, and Yating. It looked like Santino had left Rocksea, so he was out. And I wasn¡¯t sure about Rabinovich due to his addiction issues. Juno never wanted to partake in violence. As for Yating¡­, she was related to Kamen.


    ¡°No one,¡± I said to myself. ¡°There is no one.¡±


    Perhaps Rabinovich could be recruited. He was the one with the least baggage in my mind. All miners had some expertise with engineering, and I needed an engineer to look after the Rad engine.


    ¡°Who else is there?¡±


    I sighed deeply. If I lowered the bar, perhaps Yating could be recruited as well. I could ask Ehka to provide me with some people but I really wanted those who I knew. Folding my arms and taking a deep breath, I fell into thoughts.