The Grimalkin was a dark shadow gliding through space, now just under ten light minutes away from the wormhole. Nothing was visible in 3D space, but the gravity sensors had picked it up long ago. Without a nearby sun, the space ship was completely black on the outside, with no position or other lights on it. With the distances and speeds involved in even sub-light space travel, visual navigation was anyway impossible.
The giant space station ahead, halfway between them and the wormhole, was likewise just a patch of darkness over the stars, but the holographic display in the cockpit was showing it clear as day, projected above the instruments and computer screens.
They had received a first message a few seconds ago and the computer was busy translating it. Red, Twitch and Grubs were impatiently waiting for the output in the cockpit of the small ship, the silence filled with the humming of the ship and the faint processing sounds of the computers. The design was much newer and less patchwork than the Rusty Bolt, but Grubs was unhappy about not being able to fiddle around in the engines and other machinery. At least he had a proper seat at the console, unlike the Rusty Bolt that had only two seats at the cockpit.
A screen flickered to life with the translated message.
„There we are. Terms and conditions of worm gate transit, a price formula and accepted trade goods and currencies. Ah, and also a warning that hostile actions in the vicinity will result in blacklisting.“, Twitch summed up what had appeared before them. He tasked the ship AI with the price calculation, given the Grimalkin’s known dimensions.
„Five tons of Ice VII. We have sixteen tons in the hold. Excellent, we’re good.“, Red exclaimed, a determined glimmer in both her natural and her bionic eye. She entered an answer to the Aerax, offering the Ice VII which Yezz had told them was always something the Aerax were happy to accept.“
„Imagine we get that payout in intergalactic credits.“, Grubs remarked. „We could pay for worm hole transit with cash instead of lugging around stuff.“
A glance at Red shut him up. Her expression made it clear that she was a fan of credits, but definitely not of wormholes. Even if it would greatly increase the range of their activities.
The alien had answered in the affirmative within the minute, sending over coordinates for the inspection station.
„Inspection?“, Red wondered, gripping the metal armrests of her seat.
„Mostly size measurements.“, Twitch explained factually. „What?“, he exclaimed as the other two gave him questioning looks. „I read up on wormholes before going into one. You didn’t?“ An awkward pause ensued, then Twitch continued: „So, this inspection is a safety precaution in case someone understates their dimensions or makes a unit conversion error. From what I understand, there’s an ugly outcome if the gate opens up too small, and a huge waste of energy if too large.“
It took them two more hours of flight, deceleration and maneuvering to arrive at the coordinates they had been given. The Aerax space station was easily twice the size as Binary Bloom, and unlike the pirate outpost almost spherical. A hint that it could travel through the worm gate itself if necessary. The coordinates were a spot in space about a light second away from the station, and the holo-display indicated that a much smaller satellite was located there, with what were obviously various scanners and sensors on its outside.
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With a shudder, the Grimalkin came to a relative stop, hanging in front of the inspection station. Most of the control lights dimmed out and the hum of the engine came to a stop. The air suddenly smelled stale.
The inspection itself took less than a minute, and only a small part of it was using visible light to measure the hull of their ship. A dozen drones had disconnected from the inspection satellite and circled around them, probing the Grimalkin from all sides. All of which happened in the total silence of space that they were so familiar with.
Then, the receiver came alive again with a few beeps and flickering lights as it translated the inspection result: „Uh“, Twitch read, „It claims that we have misstated the dimensional extent of our ship.“
„What?“, Grubs leaned forward in his chair, his cybernetic arm protesting the sudden movement with a faint screech.
„They say that our 3D dimensions were correctly given, but we omitted our size in the 7th dimension.“
„We did what?“, Red wondered, her expression of surprise quickly changing into one of understanding. „The hyper core is not active, is it?“
„Definitely not, made sure of that.“, Grubs answered her. „And besides, it would reach into the 4th to 6th dimension if it were.“
„Normally.“, Red replied, with a firm voice.
Twitch had continued reading: „By the measurements given here, the 7th dimensional component isn’t that big, adding about 10% to our calculated size. But it does add another dimensional multiplier, so the revised price is 7.6 tons of Ice VII.“
„Uncomfortably close to half of our total, but still within budget.“, Red gave the news some thought. „Well, as long as we have enough for the return trip, it’s not like we have much choice. Let them know we agree and prepare the cargo transfer.“
Grubs looked at the other two with raised eyebrows and a frown. „We’re just ignoring that?“
Red met his gaze, a wry smile playing on her lips. „Is there anything else we could do, Grubs? We are making this trip so that someone tells us what the heck we are dealing with. Besides“, her voice dropped to a low murmur, „what other options except carrying on do we have?“
„We could tell Yezz to make the trip herself.“, Grubs trailed off. „I mean. Shouldn’t this bother us?“
Red let out something that sounded like a squeak and laughed. „More than going through a hole in space that we don’t even begin to understand?“
„Fair point.“, Grubs conceded, his frown slowly dissolving.
Twitch turned to them, injecting: „It also doesn’t seem to worry the Aerax, except for the additional volume.“ His fingers were dancing over the console without him looking at it, instructing loading robots down in the cargo bay to prepare the required amount of Ice.
Red and Grubs slowly let go of each other’s gaze. Red admitted: „I don’t feel good about this whole thing, to be honest. Maybe my worry about wormholes has made me ignore other things that should indeed bother us.“
Grubs moved to meet her argument half-way: „It hasn’t blown up on us yet, and the aliens that understand about higher dimensions aren’t telling us to get the damn thing out of here. It’s probably not immediately dangerous.“
„Trust me, Grubs.“, Red put a hand on the mechanic’s shoulder: „If we could’ve figured this out on Bloom, we would’ve done that. But our home is a pirate outpost. It has neither the equipment nor the specialists for anything like that.“
Grubs grunted an affirmative, then looked down to his boots. „It still bothers me. But that all makes sense. And no, I don’t have a better idea than seeing this through.“
„Neither do I.“, Captain Red agreed. „And I hope this is all worth it in the end.“