NOVEL NEXT A Short Chat With Station Master Marten
Well… It's not space slop but it's something akin to gruel I guess…
When I told Marten that I was feeling a little peckish, he brought me to what I assume was the station's mess for me to eat.
It honestly looked like some kind of unprocessed meat paste dumped on a tray but surprisingly, it did not taste as bad as it looks.
Still, I don't think I want to know how they made this.
Marten was kind enough to sit with me and let me ask questions about the station, so I found out that the people working on this station was actually really small.
"There's only thirty people here?" I asked.
He nodded, "We've only been in operation for a short while and most of the things here are automated anyway. All the miners need to do is fly out of the station with their mining ships, hover above the planet and drop a gas mining cord down to start gathering the helium gas."
"Sounds simple enough," I noted.
"Looks that way, but get too close to the planet or be unlucky enough to be caught in a storm? Your entire ship is getting sucked down into the planet and you're not coming back up."
Ah. Well that certainly sucks.
He continued, "Anyway, they will return with the gas mined to the station where we will store it and wait for a transporter to come and transport it away to a processing station. They would also be the one to deliver our supplies which I'm hoping the pirates won't touch."
"Right, and when is this transporter coming again?"
"If things are still on schedule, probably anytime tomorrow or the day after in Standard Hours."
"Standard Hours?"
"Ah, that's the time that everyone follows when we're out in space. It's just Earth's time or how they count the time on Earth. Something about human beings being sentimental or whatever. There was quite a debate back then about what we should use as the standard time and we ended up just going with this one. Some of the other races weren't too happy but well, we all got used to it."
"Wait, wait… There's other races?" I gasped.
"Oh man… You really got your head messed up pretty bad I see… I assume you don't even remember the Great Divide? No? Yeah… I'm no historian and I frankly don't give two shits about it so if you want to know, I'd recommend visiting an archive to learn about all that if you're interested in learning about it."
"And… Err… Where can I find an archive?"
"Most Orbital Habitats should have one. Or any of the established planetary cities at least. Have you checked the map you've downloaded yet?"
I shook my head.
I already downloaded their map data into my Codex just now but I've yet to actually take a look at it yet.
He hummed, "Well I think the closest major habitat would be the Theeve Orbital Habitat so if you want to, that could be your first stop if you're leaving after this."
"Right, I'll keep that in mind. So what other races are there?"
"Well… The first one I would tell you about are the Inucanis since even I know that they were the first race that we humans encountered and are, arguably, the ones who get along best with us. Although I suppose the Maochattes would disagree with that statement."
"What do they look like?"
"Well heck, Inucanis basically just look like us except they have lupine shaped ears and tails. It's the same for Maochattes except theirs are feline shaped."
…
Waaaaaait…
Doesn't this meant they are just cat and dog eared people?!!
I have to make sure of something first…
"Their faces… Err… Are they also human shaped? And do they have human hands?"
"Ah, there's some kind of subspecies thing or something where a few of them might have paws or a snout, but majority of them have the same type of face and limbs as us humans."
Oh wow… Do you know what this means? Cat girls/boys and dog girls/boys exist!!
This is the best universe ever!!
Come on, don't tell me you wouldn't come here just for that!! The chance of you meeting a cat girl back in the old World is basically zero percent! Over here it's actually more than zero!
"Are there any of them here right now?" I asked, barely hiding my excitement.
"Ah, unfortunately not. This place is UTG territory after all, so it's normal for there to only be humans around here."
Another term came up that I don't know I see…
He raised an eyebrow at me, "Are you going to ask me what the UTG is?"
I nodded slowly and he sighed.
"United Terran Government, which is just a fancy way of calling Humans if you ask me but hey, I'm just a small station master on a Mining Station so what do I know?"
Ok, cool.
"I guess I shouldn't ask you about the whole history of how the United Terran Government came to be?" I joked.
He scoffed, "Like I said, just go to an archive if you're interested. The only thing I can tell you about the UTG is that they are a bunch of assholes."
"Let me guess… Taxes?"
"That's just one of them. If you go and read them up in the archive, you might find out what else they have done to make common folk like us hate them."
Now I'm really interested in knowing more but I guess that will have to wait.
There was still one more thing I needed to know.
"So… How does one get a Mercenary licence?"
"Oh right, you don't have one. Actually, are you really sure you don't have one? Maybe if you go and check the Mercenary Guild, you might find something about your past if you were already registered as a Mercenary back then. Maybe you might even have some kind of history recorded about you."
I highly doubt that is the case but I guess it was worth a shot?
In the game, there was no such thing as a Mercenary Guild but who knows, maybe my records were brought over from the game and into this universe?
He continued, "Anyway, for your question about the licence, I can't really say for sure because I never tried to sign up as one. But I doubt it could be that hard considering the fact that there's so many Mercenaries around and the ones I've met before aren't really that… Shall we say, quick thinking? Yeah. So I don't think it's that hard to be one."
Well, alright then. Maybe I just need to go to the guild and tell them I want to be one and then I'll become one.
Just as I was about to ask him where the closest Mercenary Guild was, someone came running into the room in a panic.
"Boss! Boss! We've got a problem!!"
Marten scowled, "What? Did Jerry break the pipe again?!"
"N… No… Err… Actually I think he may have but that's not the problem! Pirates!"
Marten turned to look at me and I just stared back at him, doing my best not to say anything about him wishing the pirates wouldn't do anything before the patrol arrived.
He quickly got up from his seat and rushed out of the mess hall, following the first guy out.
Of course, I followed them as well, wondering if the pirates were here because of what I did. Was it because I subdued one of their ships and they're here to take revenge?
We went into what I assume was some kind of communications room and the single wall sized screen was showing a ship that was floating in space. The distinct shape of a skull and crossbones could be seen painted on the side of the ship, leaving no questions as to their affiliation.
"What do they want?" Marten asked the guy who came to warn us.
He shrugged, "I… I don't know. They did not send a message or anything. They're just staying within our sensor range so they should know that we know that they're there."
Marten narrowed his eyes at the screen, "So they're just floating there… Menacingly…"
"Boss?"
"It's probably a threat, they're announcing their presence to us and making us fear them."
"But… Why would they do that, boss?"
"I'm going to bet that they're going to return tomorrow or the day after with a larger force and demand our submission or something. They most likely want our station intact, maybe to serve as their forward base or something…"
"Then… What do we do?"
Marten turned to me, "Tera, how confident are you in a dogfight?"
I thought for a moment, "If the pirates' ships are similar to the one that I have captured, then I would say that I can safely engage five of them at the same time."
He raised an eyebrow, "That good?"
"I have a good ship."
"Alright, in that case, could I trouble you to wait outside with your ship in case they attack us? I doubt they will attack us outright but just in case they do, we need all the help we can get. I'lleven make this a formal request as a station master and pay you for it.."
"A Guild Request?"
"A formal Mercenary Request, basically. Yo."
Sounds good to me, when do I start?