NOVEL NEXT Cietai Trading Hub
I was wondering if we would get ambushed again but no other pirates showed up and the station was in sight.
That station was huge, almost twice the size of Theeve Orbital Habitat station by the looks of it.
The first thing I noticed was the large battleship that was floating just a small distance away from the station, hovering there like some kind of silent guardian watching over every ship coming in.
“What’s that ship?” I asked over the comms.
“First time in Cietai eh?” Reese laughed. “The military keeps a battleship here to protect the station, otherwise it would be swarmed with pirates.”
“Why can’t they just fly out and wipe out the pirates then?”
“Oh, believe me, they tried. But the pirates saw them coming and scattered before they could even do any damage. They aren’t stupid enough to fight military ships after all.”
Ah… I’m also guessing that it was determined to be uneconomical for them to send in a fleet here to clear out the pirates. Then again, nothing’s stopping more pirates from showing up after they do a sweep of the place so they must have decided to just leave a ship here to protect the station instead.
Basically it’s a ‘we can’t guarantee your safety inside the nebula so good luck getting here’ kind of situation.
Geez… Why can’t they just build automated defences along the route then?
Then again, what do I know? Maybe the nebulae also screws up targeting systems too.
Oh well, I’m not in charge of this place so whatever.
We angled our approach towards one of the hangars when all of a sudden, one of the engines on Reese’s ships blew out.
All of us quickly scattered as her ship spun out of control, and would have crashed into us had we not moved out of the way before it happened.
I thought it was an enemy attack and was looking around frantically at where they were attacking from and who was brazen enough to set an ambush here, only to realise there weren’t any enemies when Reese started cursing through the comms.
“Godamnit! Wait, wait, I can deal with this! Ah fuck! There we go!”
Her engines shut off and her thrusters managed to stabilise her ship back under control, leaving her ship drifting only slightly off course.
“God, fucking damn it… Seems like that Interdiction blast fried something in my engines guys… One of them got blown out…”
Samson grimaced, “Do we need to get a tug from the station to tow you in?”
“No need, I can get there with the remaining engine… Although I’m afraid I’ll need to spend some time on repairing it at the station… Sorry guys.”
“I’m ok with it. I might just go and hunt some pirates while I’m here, this place is teeming with them after all.”
I gave him a look, “You sure about that? That sounds rather suicidal.”
“Ahahaha! Don’t worry about it, I haven’t lived this long to not realise when I’m biting off more than I can chew! I’ll be careful about it. Actually, you’re all welcome to join me if you want, I wouldn't mind having some people watching my back too.”
I raised an eyebrow at Amber and she shrugged, showing that she would just go with whatever I chose.
“I suppose I wouldn’t be against making some extra money as well so why not? But I’d like to at least take a day to rest.”
“Of course, of course. I also need to take a break myself too, sleeping on this little ship doesn’t help my back.”
The others grumbled the same thing as well and I tactfully kept my mouth shut.
In the end, we managed to escort Reese’s ship to the station where she docked in one of the berths while we headed to the hangar bays.
We were granted docking permissions quickly and I finished the landing sequence before exiting my ship. By coincidence or design, all of us were docked in the same area and thus ran into each other as we got off our ships.
Samson waved, “That was a nice start I would say. I was a little worried at the end there but we made a pretty good team, huh?”
Maurice and Clandice nodded while Amber was puffing up her chest with pride.
“See? I told you she was good!”
“Yes, yes, and I apologise for doubting her.”
I scratched the back of my head, “It’s ok… I know that you were just looking out for us. Anyway… Would Reese be alright?”
“She should be contacting us after she gets a confirmation on what’s wrong with her engines and how long we would need to wait for her before we can head to the next part of the stop.”
“Ah, could I also ask something? Since this is my first time taking these kinds of contracts as a Mercenary so I would sound a little ignorant…”
“After showing us flying skills like that, if anyone thinks you’re ignorant they would be stupid,” Samson assured me.
I pursed my lips, “Umm… What would happen if I found some other job in the meantime and decide that I would not be able to wait for her to finish and fly off instead?”
“Oh that’s easy, there’s nothing stopping you aside from your own moral obligations I would say. You get paid part of the agreed sum and the bounty for the pirates you killed before you can go your way. The only bad thing that might happen to you is that you might get noted for being someone who abandons escort jobs part way if you do it multiple times. And if you don’t have a good reason to abandon the escort job, you’ll get penalised by the guild.”
I see… So at least there’s the option I guess… That would also kind of explain why Reese seemed to be quite receptive to the comments that we might have. It would be completely terrible for her if the Mercs she hired ended up abandoning her somewhere because they got pissed off or something.
Amber then clapped her hands, “Speaking of which, we can cash in on the pirate bounties we got from those engagements!”
Oh yeah, even if those pirates didn’t have any actual bounties, we get paid for destroying pirate ships too so we can still earn from that.
And for this escort job, we get to keep a hundred percent of the bounty we earn from our kills.
We headed past the customs which basically just involved us walking through some kind of scanner while some stern faced guards watched without us ever speaking to anyone.
Seeing that several hundreds of people were walking through the scanners all at once, I wondered if it really works or was it just there for show to deter criminals?
As though hearing my thoughts, an alarm suddenly sounded and lights were shone on a single man who was wearing a cloak trying to enter the station.
“Illegal substances detected. Illegal substances detected.”
Almost immediately, several guards rushed towards him and the guy tried to run while cursing.
“Fuck! He said this was supposed to scramble their scanners!! Fucking lying piece of shit!!”
One of the guards pulled out a gun and I thought he was going to shoot him dead but a net shot out of its muzzle and entangled the guy’s legs, causing him to stumble and fall face first on the floor.
Three guards jumped on his back the moment he went down, one of them holding down his legs while the other two held down his arms.
A fourth one was standing near his head and pointed a gun at him while shouting, “Stop resisting! Stop resisting!”
“Fuck!! Fucking hell! That hurts!!” The cloaked guy screamed, trying to thrash his way out from under the three guards.
“I said stop resisting you fucking jackass! Don’t make me shoot you!”
“Ahhhh!”
The ones holding his arms pulled his arms back and slapped some kind of cuff on him that snapped into place very quickly, almost like they were magnetised to him.
One of them then took out a collar and strapped it to his neck as well, causing the guy to suddenly go limp.
“Subject has been apprehended. Moving him to the holding cells.”
They got off him and one of the larger sized guards hauled him up by the scruff of the neck before manhandling him away from the area.
“That was err… Pretty brutal?” I muttered.
“Was it?” Samson asked with a raised eyebrow. “Not sure where you’re from then because if I were to get a hustle that involved me capturing someone like that, I would have put two bullets in his legs and the two more in his shoulders if he was resisting.”
Oh damn… Err… If this was considered normal, I wonder what the Denibi system would be like… It’s supposed to be even worse there, isn’t it?
Do I really want to go there now?