Duke spent the next several days in a similar fashion, weathering the attacks of various hunters and groups of hunters while watching his experience and Abilities steadily tick up. He quickly found himself at level 123 and sitting on another 126 Characteristic Points which he quickly poured into Psyche.
During this time, he checked in with Aurelia frequently to see how things were on the Pahst border. It turned out that Pahst was bluffing but had accidentally crossed over and even started a skirmish with an errant arrow. The Legion had responded with an overwhelming response of Mages firing off attack spells. When the smoke finally cleared, the area where the Pahst forces had stood was nothing but a smoking ruin. There was no other sign of the men who had stood there.
Two hours after that exchange, the Pahst forces began to withdraw only leaving behind a fearful token force. The next day, the Legion began drawing back down, most returning to the LFD to continue training but a contingent of nearly a thousand Legionnaires started a patrol around the perimeter of the kingdom.
Duke had quickly run out of room in his INVENTORY for all the loot, ships, and transports he had been storing in there. He could fit nearly a million cubic meters, but some of these ships were even bigger than that. Sam had created a hangar level in the LFD for Duke to store his ship-loot in. It was a massive cavern hundreds of kilometers wide and dozens tall. When Duke first entered it, it was akin to an entire kingdom in size. But it did allow him plenty of space to TELEPORT the now dozens of ships that stood crewless around the Inn right into place. He did leave a few outside placed to give just the hint of an arena around the front of the Inn.
“Can’t one of you send out a message out on whatever communications tool the hunters use to warn them off from me?” Duke asked sitting at the table with his three newest companions. Baslin and Aurelia were also with him. Baslin had insisted on coming over to the LFD to “check on a few things” he had left running all this time. That phrasing had concerned Duke at first, but he was completely sidetracked when Baslin met the dragonians. The next hour was entirely consumed with Baslin asking them questions about their race and civilization. And since the pair were so happy to talk about their racial superiority, they just didn’t stop.
Eventually, Duke, Aurelia, and Lya took up at another table to talk. Duke was afraid that their conversation was going to go sideways quickly when Lya told Aurelia that Drakmalorie was right about her. She then had to immediately explain that she had come into the Inn to try and seduce Duke but was quickly disabused of the notion by the dragonian.
The fire in Aurelia’s eyes was brief but died down the more Lya talked about the events of that evening. She even squeezed Duke’s hand back as a final indicator that he was in the clear. Two hours later the girls were talking up a storm and Duke quietly excused himself from the table. He had other things to do.
All this time, being attacked nearly every time he set foot outside the Inn, was starting to get on his nerves. He needed some time to himself to decide on a few things. He had a great many items he knew he needed to attend to and sitting around or fighting pointless fights were not going to get any of them done. He gathered his thoughts and went to his hangar level in the LFD.
He casually walked between the ships lining the sides of the level taking a good look at each of them. Some were likely little more than scrap from battle damage, but most were completely intact. There was one that he gravitated to above all the others. He wasn’t sure why, but it struck him as different. It had belonged to the teddy bear and his living mech-golem. The ship appeared to be an enormous egg-shaped thing standing on a half-dozen substantial legs.
Duke walked around it twice while taking in all its features. There were numerous turrets and missile launchers inset around the hull and he could see where they could be retracted into the hull and covered with armored plates that would slide into place. The entrance ramp was up and closed, but there was an access panel next to where the ramp would lower. Duke approached the panel and felt his XENOGLOSSIA trigger.
“Interrogative access code request. Remote or manual contact acceptable.”
Duke stared at the ship in wonder. I knew XENOGLOSSIA was powerful, but to translate the ship’s communications language sent by radio or something akin to it. Now this is cool. Maybe I can convince the ship to let me in.
Duke responded, “Ship ownership has been transferred to me. Update all records and access permissions to reflect this change.”
“Incorrect access code. Access denied.”
“Well, shit.”
“Access code accepted.”
“What the fuck?”
“New access code established. Welcome home, Captain.”
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Duke shook his head at it all. I don’t know if it’s my XENOGLOSSIA translating everything into language that the ship’s systems understand or if it’s fucking with me, or I’m stupidly lucky. Just insane no matter what it is but time to go investigate my ship. I have such plans for this thing.
“Open the entrance ramp please.” Duke smiled as the armor plating covering the access ramp withdrew and the ramp descended, allowing him to enter the ship. He casually strolled up the ramp and into what he saw to be the main hold of the ship. There were enormous bays set into the walls around the outside wall of the hold. Each bay was at least ten meters across, and some were as tall as thirty meters. Within each bay was a series of clamps designed to hold something in place. Duke’s mind raced as the possibilities expanded.
“What are these bays around the hold for?” Duke asked, hoping the ship’s systems would respond. His grin expanded as he got his response.
“The perimeter bays of the Class XII Assault Dropship are designed to hold a full platoon of mechs. Currently all mechs assigned to the Iron Reaver are deployed and either fatally incapacitated or outside of communication range.”
Duke could feel the strain on his lips as his smile spread to a maniacal width. “Where can I get replacement mechs and what is the typical currency used to purchase them?”
“Mechs can be either hired on as mercenaries individually, or in as much as company-strength from the Iron Collective. They can also be purchased on any of the magitech worlds of the cosmos. If you report to the bridge, I can show you on the navigational maps and we can discuss things like currency.”
Duke quickly found his way to the bridge via a series of internal passages. Setting foot on the bridge showed him the true grandeur of the ship. Whereas the hold showed the scarring of decades of use and battle, the bridge appeared to be absolutely pristine as if maintained by someone obsessed with order and cleanliness. There were several seats and workstations spaced around but the massive viewscreens that dominated the far wall caught Duke’s immediate attention. That is until he noticed the orange glow coming from one of the centrally-located seats.
As he watched, the glowing seat turned around to reveal a figure seated staring back at him with vibrant orange-red eyes that struck Duke as a pair of burning coals. The rest of the figure was equally inhuman but distinctly female. Her skin had a deep, metallic bronze coloration that seemed as much metal as skin. She had hair that at times appeared translucent but appeared to flicker with burning flames as it danced to a breeze he did not feel. The arms and legs were just long enough to be disturbing to Duke’s initial sight despite the overall humanoid appearance.
She stood from the chair and walked up to Duke with an athletic grace that impressed Duke. “Well, hello there. I am Mira, your pilot.” The voice was distinctive, and Duke recognized it as what he had thought was the voice of the ship. It took an enormous amount of self-control to keep the flush of embarrassment from completely covering his face.
“The name’s Duke.”
“Oh, I know. When Gregorius and Brutarcus had me bring them out here, I did all the research I could on you. Especially after you window-washed them like that.”
“Window-washed?”
“Yeah. Window-washed. You know, tossed them out the open window of an arcology. Window-washed.”
Duke nodded, getting the context, if not the meaning of the idiom. “Well, they did try to kill me first.”
“That they did. And you killed them in honorable combat, transferring ownership of the Iron Reaver to you with all the rights and responsibilities that come with it.”
“And what might those rights and responsibilities be?”
“There’s a long list including my service but you also now have the debt that comes with the ship.”
“Just how much debt, who is it owed to, and what is the accepted currency?” Duke groaned.
Mira was more than happy to bring up the ship’s account on the big viewscreen. It very clearly showed that the ship was in the red by nearly a hundred million galactic credits. Duke groaned, but soldiered on.
“And how do we obtain these galactic credits? Are they digital or physical?”
Mira smiled. “There are countless ways to obtain galactic credits. Bounty hunting is a good one for someone with your skills. But transporting and selling goods also works. Here, take a look at this and see if you have anything that would sell for a decent price.” She handed him a lightweight tablet that had price listings of various goods.
Duke went down the list and realized that he had no idea what most of the items on the list were. “Can you explain what these things are? I might know them by another name.”
“I can try.” She proceeded to explain the items on the list. Most seemed to be materials used to construct starships that he had no idea where he could obtain, but Duke did find one thing that was interesting that he thought he could get a significant amount of relatively quickly.
“So, this dragonbone listing is really just dragon bones?”
“Yeah. They’re really hard to find so they are worth a around hundred thousand credits a pound.”
Duke began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Come on down to the hold with me and I’ll show you.” He led her down to the hold and to an empty space. There he removed the corpse of one of the dragons he was holding. Sam had dozens more in the storage area for him. He had filled his INVENTORY full of them after the last bit of the siege dungeon.
She stared at him. “That’s a whole dragon corpse. A whole corpse!”
“Yeah. I have a few in storage.”
“More? With two of those we could get completely out of debt and upgrade everything! You have three? With three, we could get top-of-the-line mechs too. If you were Ignarri, I’d kiss you!”
Duke chuckled. “So how long will it take to get from Teldin to where we could do all that?”
“It’s like 60,000 light years to get to anywhere that could handle this level of transaction. It would take us about six weeks to get there. Not too long.”
“How good are your starmaps?”
“My starmaps are exceptional. Since I rely on them to get us to where we need to go, I buy them myself. I don’t trust the ones that come with the navigational systems.”
“How about we get to this location after lunch?”
She stared at him incredulously as he pulled the dragon back into his INVENTORY and headed down the ramp.
She hesitated but started to follow him down the ramp. “Aren’t you going to seal her up?”
“No need. No one can get to her in this hangar."