(Cadra Primaris, Capitol Planet of Grathdan Sector, Gauz Consortium)
The Gateway closest to the Grathdan Sector was Shadowgate. Since that wasn’t an option, we’d gone through the Dagon Gate. Since we were traveling between arms of the galaxy, that cut the travel time down quite substantially. It only took a couple weeks for us to reach the edges of the sector, and the different patrol groups started splitting up and going their way.
The negotiations had been short and sweet, mostly because the Administrator didn’t have time to fool around. So, while some of the escort ships began moving around the sector making sure people knew that the spacelanes weren’t undefended, I had a core group of ship ready to drop the hammer on raiders if they gave me a target. A Battleship, a Fleet Carrier, and some destroyers, with the Marine group backing them up. That was a solid response force, should we need it.
For obvious reasons, this core part of the fleet was set up in the Cadra System, near the Sector capitol of Cadra Primaris. The Consortium was taking every ship they possibly could to deal with whatever the hell was going down over in Coldana. That included the system defenses that were usually in place to defend Cadra Primaris. Every inter-system craft with weapons was going that way. Hopefully it would be enough.
That left most of the systems in the sector covered by just a space station or two, with whatever fighters or in-system patrol boats the systems had (which were primarily used as Search and Rescue craft). I suspected that there were probably more than a couple groups inside the Consortium questioning their ‘efficiency first’ strategy to home defense.
Naturally, none of that mattered to me, for the moment. I’d already put in my two centicredits, and set things in motion. Now I just needed to stand back and let my people do what they did best. So, I was of to explore the main space station, and maybe make a few personal deals.
The first problem I had was finding a way to be inconspicuous while still being protected. See, ‘inconspicuous’ here meant that I had to look like a Gauz. Sure, there were plenty of non-Gauz, but most of them were either slaves, or traveling merchants. All of them stood out. I wasn’t sure on the exact nature of it, but it seemed that the Confederacy and the Alliance were the only groups in established space that weren’t hopped up on the whole one race ruling their piece of the universe thing, and embraced having multicultural empires. Part of that was the Alliance being a fractured mess, but while the Knelfi were the major players in the Confederacy, they did have plenty of other species living in the Confederacy, and they actually were treated the same as the Knelfi were. There were just a lot more Knelfi than, say, Felisans.
At any rate, I could change my shape to look Gauz, but my high-end gear was all sized to fit a human, or human-ish, form. The battle armor was tailored to fit my ‘normal’ look, but the rest of my outfits could fit me easily so long as I was a human, knelfi, or even a Felisan. Well, mostly. The tail sometimes got in the way. But a Gauz was about 1.25 meters tall, on average, and built like a truck. That meant there was no way my gear was going to fit, save for a couple items that, thankfully, resized.
Up until now, it hadn’t been an issue, since I always took human and knelfi forms if I had a choice. They were closer to my height, and I didn’t need to mess with the density as much to get the effect right. My skinsuit and bracers sized with me, and most of my weapons were, thankfully, designed to be used with a wide range of species, so I could still use them in a Gauz form. But going out and about in just a skinsuit was considered rude, especially in Gauz society.
Fortunately, the ship’s fabricators were able to whip something up so that I was at least able to be presentable. First stop once I got to the station would be to visit a couple stores and get clothes for this fake identity. I’d change into new clothes, and then be able to slip out and enjoy myself.
The only question was who to take with me. Bringing my whole entourage would defeat the point of sneaking out. But if I didn’t bring any guards, especially when I was off, without my usual weapons and armor, then there would be hell to pay when I got back to the ship, even if nothing happened. And if something did happen? Well, then, I would be all kinds of screwed, and not in the fun way.
I looked up as Raven stepped into my quarters just after I had finished getting dressed. Her mouth actually dropped a bit, which made me smile. She was the best choice for this, actually. “Raven, care to play hooky with me for a little while?”
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Raven sighed, rubbing her forehead like I was giving her a headache. It was a nice human affectation for the former human AI to use. Idly, I wondered if she knew she was doing it, or if that was some leftover from when she’d been alive.
“All right, I get that you’re sneaking off to have fun. And I get that you wanted to blend in with the locals, so you used your powers to take a new form. What I don’t get, however, is why you’re now a Gauz female?”
I laughed, and said, “Because when people start looking for me, this will be the last form they expect me to take. Anyways, we need to go shopping and deal with getting some Gauz-sized armor and clothes. Never know when I’ll need to play a role like when we infiltrated Bagthera or Madrigal.”
“Fine, fine. I don’t want to argue.”
“Excellent! Then let’s get moving!”
(Thadmere Station, Cadra Primaris Orbit)
Clothes shopping was easy enough. I went to the first place I found and bought some clothes that were better than the printed stuff I’d gotten from the fabricators, and wore them to the next store, where I started looking for high end threads. I actually managed to find some nicely made Gauz-sized copies of the clothes I normally wore, which was nice. Of course, I found some other things that I hadn’t seen in the Empire or Confederacy.
Force Psychannel Ring
Type
Ring
Rank
Uncommon
This ring, made of a type of metal that is particularly conductive to Psy energies, and set with a crystal that resonates with Force Psy in particular, allows the wearer to increase their effective affinity with Force Psy, allowing them to better use such abilities.
+15% Force Psy Affinity
Force Psy powers cost 25% less PP to use.
This thing was pretty interesting, though there was a warning that one shouldn’t wear too many of these rings, as the conductive nature would, if present in too large a quantity, actually serve to reduce the wearer’s resistance to Psy Powers in general. Which, notably, was why rings were the only wearable items ever made of this metal. Too dangerous, as a rule, to have, say, a gauntlet out of the stuff with crystals to resonate with each kind of Psy, even if you try to build in resistances to it. That had been tried, once, and it had ended badly when someone overloaded the wearer’s resistance. The resulting feedback of energies caused a small, but very energetic, explosion that made certain no one tried such things in the future.
Psyker Rod
Type
Tool
Rank
Very Rare
This item would be considered Lost Tech if the facilities to produce it didn’t remain. Unfortunately, the exact workings of the rod remain unknown. The rod is made of a special metal that is known to conduct Psy energy, but the mechanics inside are beyond the abilities of any current craftsmen. The rod amplifies the Psy powers of the person who is attuned to it.
All Psy Mastery skills increased by +10 while holding the rod.
All Psy Affinities and Resistances +10% while holding the rod.
Now, THIS baby was special. Oh, sure, it cost almost as much as the Shadowdancer did when I first bought her, but that was a bargain for something as useful as this. It would give me some definite bonuses when I needed to deal with things without shooting them. Sure, my people didn’t let me go out and play like I used to, but there was no harm in keeping prepared, just in case. Right?
OK, I wasn’t even fooling myself. It was a shiny new toy, just like all high-end gear in games, and I wanted it for myself. Fortunately, I had plenty of money, so that wasn’t an issue. What was more of an issue was the attunement process, which required several minutes, and me bleeding on it. Not something I could do in public, so into the bracer it went, so I could try it out sometime later.
Raven sighed as she walked alongside me. “Really, Boss. You’re acting like a kid in the candy store. Why don’t you just be honest, instead of trying to ‘play hooky’ to get what you want? If you hadn’t brought me along with you, do you know how crazy people would be getting on the ship thinking you’d disappeared? At least with me here, they know where you are.”
I sighed. The sound was a little strange, coming in the gravely sound of my Gauz form. “Of course, I know how much they worry, Raven. But it wasn’t so long ago that I was just another guy, who happened to swindle a drunken idiot for a spaceship, only to find that the ship’s AI was more than I could have possibly imagined, and, oh look, now a Princess is falling into my lap, almost literally.”
Shaking my head, I looked up at Raven’s face. The height difference was a little disconcerting, but I was getting used to it. “And now, look at me. I’m the owner of a massive company with employees based in four separate star systems and doing business across Known Space. I’m the Admiral of the most advanced fleet of warships that doesn’t belong to the navy of a star nation. Is it so wrong to try and be a normal guy now and then?”
Raven shook her head. “I believe, as you would say, that ship sailed a long time ago, Boss. If you had wanted to just remain a freighter captain, instead of becoming what you are, then you should never have bought the Shadowdancer before we left Jagloth. That was what started us on that path, you remember.”
I nodded my head, but Raven continued without letting me finish. “And if you had wanted more time as ‘just a captain’, then you probably should have done something other than do your best to bankrupt the Grand Arena by fixing a fight. The money from that was so much that you had to do something with it, or people were going to get ideas about taking it from you and you wouldn’t have the protections in place to stop them. You might complain about things happening so fast, but it was your own fault, Sir.”
“Fine, fine. I shouldn’t mope about things I did to myself. But if that’s the case, then I’m still going to enjoy this shopping trip. Now, let’s hurry up, and see what kind of trouble we can get into.”
Raven simply smirked as she kept pace with me. “Sure thing, Boss.”