Starborn: Origin of the Stars

“Hey Rob, how are you doing?” Patience’s voice came through the comms.

“Patience! I’m back on my feet. How are you? Any progress with the new studios?” Robin asked, glad to hear from her.

“Yeah, we have finished negotiating all the terms and conditions. I’ll get my contract next week!”

“That’s awesome, congratulations!” He was really happy for her, this was her chance to make it big and now she took the first steps.

“I’ll make another trip out of Seka, flying over to Beakrath. Jim told me you’re looking for a job to earn some quick credits?” Robin asked, coming directly to the point.

“The last tour wasn’t enough excitement for ya’?” she chuckled a bit before she became serious. “What’s in for me and what's the job?”

“We’ll just bring a package along on our trip, simply drop it off at another workshop and whoosh! - we’ll be on our way again! I also would like to check out two new interesting locations I found, on our way back. The job’s payment is set at 12k, we make it a fair split - 4k for each of us, you, me and Melody.” Robin roughly explained what he learned from Jim about the job and added the detour to the two unknown markers from his map.

“Whoosh? Really? You believe that someone is paying 12k for a transport job and you just go whoosh?” he heard Patience laugh over the call.

“Come on, don’t make this harder than it is.”, Robin winced, “You aren’t stupid and know what this is about. I met the stitch who we would work for and while he’s a shady little bastard, I don’t think he would set me up. He comes from one of Jim’s contacts. Still, I would like to bring a… bodyguard? Better safe than sorry, you know?”

Patience was silent for some time, before he heard her taking a deep breath.

“Your sales pitch sucks, you know that?”

“Yeah… probably.”

“You have thought this through and are still going for it. That's enough insurance for me, so at least tell me that we would be better prepared than… last time.” Patience stocked at the end for a moment and Robin’s mind also sent him some flashbacks. Blood. Fire. Screams.

He clenched his fists, ‘No turning back!’

“The Melody gets some upgrades right now and I also have… some other means of protection.” he avoided mentioning a gun over the comms. Who knew?

“Okay, that is more than what I had expected. Great! When do we depart and how long are you planning for us to be away?”

“Awesome, thanks! Happy to have you on board again. I’ll give Slice a call. We should leave here on the weekend, the 6th day, and stay in Beakrath for one night.”

“A stitch named Slice? That sounds promising!”

“...”

“All right, I’ll be at Jim's workshop at 10:00. See ya’ later!” Patience ended the call.

***

Two days later, Jim informed Robin that the deal with Slice was fixed and that his field dampener rig had arrived.

After he finished all the repairs from his list, Robin hurried to the back where the Melody II was waiting and eyed the big device at her side with excitement. The generator was a sleek, black box, nearly a meter long and wide. Its casing had many lamellae attached, which would begin to resonate with the surrounding air when activated.

Robin didn’t completely understand how it worked, but it was something about adding vibrations to the air to compress it in a localized area, where you would therefore get a higher density. This dense air in turn provides a high resistance to any object and eats away kinetic energy quite efficiently.

Reading over the attached instructions, Robin immediately began to make a plan on how he would integrate it to the ship's systems, without destabilizing the existing power network.

When night fell over Seka, Robin finally finished the installation and took a step back to observe Melody’s chassis. He mounted the generator at the back of the ship, directly between the thrusters and the little cargo hatch. The dampening field could be activated by either the pilot or the copilot, and the Melody should be able to sustain it for roughly 30 seconds before she would need the same time as a break to stabilize the power grid again afterwards.

“The field will be projected as a round, arched wall with a diameter of 4 meters. That’s enough to shield me from any attack from behind or aimed at the rear of the ship.”

Checking every cable again, Robin jumped into the pilot seat and powered up the ship.

He let Melody hover a few meters above the workshop's floor and made sure that no one was close by. The vibrating air in the dampening field was not only good for slowing bullets, it also had excellent qualifications to possibly cause a person's head explode.

After activating the field, he heard a low hum and only after concentrating a bit on it, he could see a little flicker in the air behind the ship, like a mirage. Nothing one would notice, if not specifically looking for it. Not losing any more time, Robin tapped into his mutation and observed the new module with his senses.

“That’s a shitload of energy flowing in there!” he exclaimed, after the image in his head began to resemble a little blue sun.

“Yeah, that will not be able to run for a long duration!”

He turned the field off and on a few times to be really thorough with his analysis before shutting everything down, being pleased with the results.

“I’ll have to remove it before taking part in the race, but for now it’s perfect! Though…I still hope I’m overcautious and will not need the generator at all.”

Taking a look at his bank account, he winced.

“3.100 credits for something I hopefully will never use!”

This job better go well, as his funds were dwindling steadily and he still had to buy new vents and a better control unit.

***

Robin was already running the final checks for take off, when Patience came into the workshop. He got out of the cockpit and walked over.

“Hey pal, good to see you!” he welcomed her.

“Rob! You look better than last time I saw you!” she gave him a friendly punch to his shoulder.

“I think that should be my line. I remember you looked quite beaten… well you always do, so it doesn’t really count.” He joked a bit and then motioned to the Melody II.

“Can you store your backpack in the cockpit? I would like to keep the cargo area only for Slice’s package.”

“That’s really considerate of you, not what I expected after our last meeting.” A happy voice came from the front of the workshop.

Patience and Robin looked over and saw the small Mohait together with his huge bodyguard coming over.

“Slice! Huge guy who's name I don't know! Didn’t think we would see each other again so soon.” Robin waved them over.

The big guy just grunted. In his hands he held a metallic box that probably was the package.

Slice observed the two for a moment. He saw how tense Patience was and could tell that Robin's lax attitude was just a ruse to cover up his nervousness.

“Relax,” He said and walked over to the ship, “you don’t have to be on the edge so much. I’m happy that it's Jim’s kids that took the job and I definitely don’t wanna make it hard for you.”

The two just watched him as he inspected the Melody II and continued.

“Good ship! A Bunga chassis as foundation, right? Jim said you’ve built it on your own? Great craftsmanship. You really expect some trouble, don’t ya?” the stitch chuckled when he saw the field dampener rig.

“You won’t need it, no worries. The package isn’t anything dangerous or under UAS-ban. I just don’t want to let it go through the official channels and books.”

“Ah right, so you have put the location tracker in there, to make sure we don’t lose it, I suppose?” Robin asked. He had just scanned the box with his energy senses and vaguely felt the little device in it - the only object inside that was powered, so he couldn’t sense or identify anything else.

The colossus suddenly tensed and Slice raised an eyebrow.

“Is… there a problem?” Robin asked, not sure why they had such reactions. They knew of his mutation, so that shouldn’t really surprise them.

“Of course we’ll not open your package, no worries, but you didn’t really believe I wouldn’t throw a glance with my mutation, did you?”

“No, I definitely expected you to check it out.” The Mohait crooked his head, inspecting him once more. “That’s why I selected this special box that can block any type of scans - from machines and mutations alike.”

That surprised Robin a bit, the feedback from his senses was somewhat faint and blurry, but still enough to identify the tracker. He didn’t feel anything resisting his ability at all.

“Well look at that, it seems like someone scammed you and sold broken goods! Now let’s get this over with, ok? I wanna get to Beakrath before it’s dark.” He tried to play it down. Slice looked at him a while longer and then nodded to his bodyguard.

“Put the package in the cargo area and secure it.” He instructed him.

Robin and Patience also moved and made their last preparations. After everything was ready, Slice stepped back to let them take off.

“I’ve sent you the address of the workshop where you must drop off the package. If anything delays your flight, give me a call. Remember, full payment only by delivery on time.”

With that he turned and left for the door, while the Melody closed her canopy and hovered over to the exit at the back.