“Did they really have to hold us for the max time?” I sighed as Martin and I took a seat by an observation window.
“Talk for yourself, I was out in a day.”
“So only me, that’s great. Where is everyone else?”
“Making arrangements, have you found a buyer?”
“Have I fuck, they released me an hour ago. Until the last second they were trying to grill me on where that station is, they should have checked the NavLog on the ship when they could.”
“How was it?” He sipped from a bottle of water.
“Oh detain you for this, finish investigation for that, I just kept saying things like ‘Put me on the phone to the insurance company then.’”
“Doesn’t help that Solstice went bust when the station disappeared.”
“Yeah... Have you seen Alen? He wanted to talk to me a few days ago.”
“Dunno.” Martin breathed out the sigh through his lips and shrugged. “We’ll check the ship in a bit.”
“Sounds good…” The conversation died out as we stared out the window out into space.
“Well, we survived.” Martin’s eyes shone with a sense of relief.
“Yeah but what now?”
“I made some calls, I’ve got some family on Tressia, I don’t know about you but I’m going to find some work near them. You’re welcome to come with me, bro.” He clenched his hand into a fist and raised it. We bumped fists.
“Bro…” I say before breaking down into laughter and Martin joins me.
“Hueegh!” A voice faking the sound of vomiting could be heard behind us, we turned around to see Alen.
“Yo Alen, we were just talking about you.” Martin grins proudly.
“Yeah. Eric, care to talk about that thing I mentioned before now?”
“Sure.” I shrugged, we all sat down around a table that was near a food place, Alen brought out what looked like a tablet and turned it on.
“This offer is for you to Martin. I’ve got a friend that works in a Private Security Org based on Tressia. I’ve told him what’s happened and he’s offered me work, we can probably squeeze two or three guys in with me.” Alen explained while bringing into view a company logo ‘Bulkhead Security’ the logo had a white circle background with a black picture dictating a spaceship’s bulkhead, which is used to protect other compartments of the ship against a breach in the hull.
“Thanks, Alen but I’d rather avoid working with them.”
“Cool, what about you Captain?” Alen and Martin eyed me curiously wondering what my choice would be.
“What type of work do they do?”
“Guarding freights, removing pirates, security, and PMC stuff. It can be a bit dangerous and nothing is guaranteed, the pay could always be better. But accommodation, food, training, and gear is on house.” Alen explained.
I thought about it for a while, I didn’t have anything to my name in this game and it certainly did sound more exciting than what Martin had planned by staying close to his family.
“Sure, seems interesting.”
⚶
The station we had been on had taken over for providing care for the other workers in the cryo pods as well as giving them explanations on what happened, we guessed it was so that they could try and glean any information they could from them by keeping us and them separate. We sold the ship, the cargo, and the information on where the station was. The way we split the money was everyone got a share of the cargo, we split the ship money between the guys that were awake when we left and all the profit of the location and salvage rights went to me. The kid from before was peeved at why only I got that cut but that goes into something called scavengers law.
The majority of the station crew that survived was asleep and frozen, they got around 800 credits each, selling the ship netted each person individually 2750 who was awake, we would have earned more if not for the damage to the shields and the cockpit.
For the Navigation information and the salvage rights, I sold? I got around 15,000. We could have got a lot more with the equipment we had, however, we were all looking for a quick buck. We wanted to be as far away from this system as possible. I was looking at a tidy profit of 18,550. Not bad for around 2-3 days' work.
Martin, Alen, and I bought the next tickets out straight to Tressia. There was still a bit of time to kill until our ride came, they usually arrived around on a bi-monthly basis ferrying supplies and people to and fro so we lucked out on it arriving in a short time, around six hours.
“Gonna go to the Casino?” Alen asked but Martin and I shook our heads.
“It would be easier if I just handed them my money,” Martin explained and we chuckled.
“See you guys at dock two then, I won’t wait for you!” He yelled as we walked away from each other.
“So what are you thinking?” Martin asked.
“Clothes, I’m going to hold off on new equipment for now and toiletries.” Martin nodded in agreement, we all literally had the clothes on our back and a very limited amount of cash.
“You know, I thought you would have gotten your fill of excitement on that station,” Martin speaks after a while while we shop.
“Huh?” I ask and he just points to my arm still in the sling. “Oh.” I laughed.
“Terrifying space monsters are not enough, don’t want to find your family?”
“I had a look.” I lied. “All dead, I was on ice most of the time, all the possessions got claimed by the local governance”
“Shit man.” He stopped examining a set of jackets.
“Ah, it’s okay, with this amnesia… It’s like I never knew them.” I swallowed my saliva, this one cut a little close to home.
“You’ll always be welcome in my house man.”
“Thanks.” I nodded and picked out a jacket then tried it on for size.
Things were silent for a while, we had run out of topics to talk about and we weren’t keen on wasting our money like Alen was on alcohol and roulette.
“How long is the travel time from here to Tressia?” I asked.
“I’d say about a day?”
“That quick?!” I was shocked, it didn’t make sense to me.
“Jump gates, there’s these super hyper ancient extinct tech-savvy that built them to connect the galaxy better, speeds shit up a lot for goods and transportation. Impossible to destroy, they’ve got automated turrets plus made of an unknown material. We only broadcast a signal out to it that has instructions saying this much power, this direction, etc and it’ll blast them off. Usually, gates are in the range of another gate but some people purposely jump into nowhere to explore and shit.”
“And these aliens just mysteriously disappeared?”
“Got it in one.”
“That’s so going to be giant evil robots, flesh-eating monsters, mass genocide, and planet-destroying weapons.”
“Relax it won’t happen in our lifetime.” Martin smiled, I pressed my lips together and said nothing.
“So d’you reckon Alen lost all his money?” I changed the subject.
“Oh yeah.”
“Want to go laugh at him at the gate?”
“Oh yeah.”
⚶
We got to the gate only to be utterly disappointed, there sat Alen in all his majestic glory. Somehow, somewhere he had managed to find a zebra-themed suit with lots of black hair around the collar and cuffs, along with a bright pink fedora with googly eyes and a cane that was dunked in bright pink glitter, around him was several crates of alcohol.
“What the flying fuck.” I muttered.
“I won!” He burped after and took another swig from a can of beer. “Sit down, take a drink! Tonight! We Toast!”
Martin and I looked at each other and I grabbed for a beer, Martin soon after. We still had a good 3 hours to kill before the ship arrived and we had to get this mess through the actual gate.
“How much did you win?” I asked.
“Seventy-two thousand.” He slurred and I drank, fuck this guy. Alen took a fresh beer can, shook it and made a hole through the side of it, and began chugging it down. “You know Captain, you’re on ‘ard SOB.”
“Jee thanks.”
“You too Marty, when that guy whatever that fuck face was started yelling to leave you behind on the station. Mart-dog was not havin’ it. He shut that boy down, you can be tough as nails but that doesn’t mean shit if they leave you to die.”
Martin and I do whatever you do when a drunk starts praising you and lecturing people, nod, and agree with them. Things go faster and easier, I was trying to join Alen in the state he was but I had the constant nagging feeling in the back of my head telling me to hold off.
“Seeing that shit!” He slurred, “made me think that I need guys like you to have my back.” He clambered up and reached out with a fist that swayed from side to side. “Bros!” Martin and I do whatever you do to ensure he doesn’t turn into a whiney drunk, we fist-bumped with him and called him ‘bro’
It didn’t take long after that for the freight to arrive and we did have to leave the alcohol behind the security, funnily enough, they still won’t let liquids above 100ml on the ship. We didn’t book any rooms on the ship, we agreed we would just lounge about in a common room or an observation deck until we arrived, it seemed the smartest way to save some money.
Alen went straight to sleep on a seat taking up an entire row to himself, Martin and I looked at each other and laughed at him for being in such a state. I enjoyed my time in the observation deck, looking at all the stars and galaxies a billion kajillion miles away, you would never get this view from Earth, not with all the light pollution. Bright blues and deep reds, large and small suns and stars at all distances and sizes. I’m surprised no one else was on the deck, it's sobering to see the vastness of the universe and claim that we are alone without sentient life, you know, out of the game.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep because before I knew it, I was shaken awake by Martin and told to ‘look’. I stare out the observation deck once more and see us approaching a planet. I could see hundreds of similar ships making their way into the atmosphere of the planet. The planet itself is a grey and silver mess with lights everywhere. Tiny splotches of green and blue with most of the planet covered in metal.
“It’s Tressia, the city-planet. Don’t let the looks fool you, it’s not as shiny and chrome as you believe. Underneath all of that is the Undercity, no natural light and all the gangs run rampant. It’s an unspoken agreement as long as the gangs don’t do shit on the surface they can usually get away with it.”
“Wow, that’s pretty shit.”
“Yeah, you’d have to avoid some places there, but that’s where the majority of people live.”
“You cool with having me stay over for a few days to see if Alen pulls through on the job?” I asked Martin.
“Of course man, but I’m going to say now. Hit on my sister and I’ll kill you.”
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