Raptor One – Chapter 96
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Waking up from a long time of sleep made me feel stiff as I get out of my bunker bed, the others also leaving their own beds after a entire day of coordinating workers into building the weapons of war of our ship, the ICW – Tenacity.
Sitting down with a groan I drink some water as I wait the girls finish waking up, after being changed by the archonexus my implant was reinforced again, that means I can eat anything that a normal human can with no issues, same for the girls that passed by the racial adapter, the implants are obligatory as it makes things much better despite sowing some confusion on us.
Five minutes later I'm eating with the girls as we talk with each other about our next action.
“Da, being direct, I have no idea what we should do next, but I have at least two pointers to chase.” I say with a sigh.
“Hmm... And what are they?” Zu ask me with a pensive mood, the other girls looking my way with interest.
“The first one is a sudden neural call with coordinates, what I got from Mercy yesterday was that I was contacted by a ‘Apocriton’, a mechanoid commander-” As I was talking Shy cut me off as she talks.
“Wait, what? You mean the wild mechanoid hive mech commander? I heard from the station logs and conversations that they are very dangerous, what was it’s objective?” Shy ask me with some worry.
“It wanted to convert me in god know what way, it said that if I want to relinguish my humanity I can go to it’s coordinates.” I say shaking my head.
“Mechanoid hives have a very bad reputation, I heard they like to use neural ripscanners to make new mechanoids killing the user in the process...” Peppy say with a serious face.
“Don’t worry, I don’t intend to waste my humanity to a machine that have the sole purpose of killing, I already know the start, middle and end of this history and it’s not for me tovarishch.” I say with a grave tone and serious face before getting up, my meal finished.
“The last point is that we go and kill some pirates, that means going bounty hunting, we have the ship and the means for that while the pirates does not as their ships will be mostly repurposed civilian ships which means it have less integrity and protection.” I say with a serious face and wait their input.
“That sounds good.”
Zu nods her head while saying with a smile, Nail and Cold also give a ‘Uhah!’ while Shy and Peppy look at each other before smiling back with raised hands, ready to fight.
“So it’s done, we will depart for bounty hunting after I get us a commission from the station.” I say with a visible smile before walking out of the ship, the girls doing their own things inside the ship as I depart to the military sector to talk with Zeta, she must have some connection with the station military or someone that controls the planet, or can send me to someone that have the contact with the multitude of organizations inside the planet that can get me higher cash when bounty hunting.
The walk to the military sector of the station was calming, the people going and coming from their respective places to their work and job where plenty, the station is secure despite the low quantity of security troops due to the size of the station, but there are chokepoints and strategic points where guards and soldiers like to stay, so the station security is not that bad, and to make things better the occurrence of with Toru earlier are rare, even more inside the military.
People with bad character exist everywhere.
I sigh as this thought pass my head, I'm in front of the military sector, so contacting Zeta is easy, less than a minute later I'm receiving a message from Zeta saying where I should go to find her.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Walking into the military sector I see the place is very spartan, the area is organized and minimalist, you see only the bare minimum there but what it lack in comfort you see aplenty with resources, box and more box with ammo, medical kits and much more placed in strategic positions where the defense is high.
As I pass by some of those defenses I stop in front of something I would call a library, the archives something I'm not that knowledgeable with.
I shake my head and head inside after being scanned by a presence scanner and getting the green light I see the location, it looks like a library, but with hard disks, pen drives, and much more, a look of high tech mixed with the spartan look of military standard show that this archive was made to stay despite the problems that can arise.
Walking inside I find two persons inside, a very high tech looking girl with skinsuit and plenty of pockets and holomachines on her, the other is Zeta, the commander of the military sector responsible with security.
Despite coming normally with the sounds my body make they don’t notice me, they should be in a very serious conversation to not hear the torsion hatchets on my legs as I move forward to their close proximity.
As I close in on the two in their visible eye range they still don’t notice me so I do what someone that wants to be noticed will do, I release the air pressure on my mask, the four high sounded hiss that they release make the two girls jump in surprise.
“O- Oh! Captain Silver, sorry for not noticing you earlier, we where talking about some... Happenings...” Zeta say with a sheepish smile.
“You mean the assault on our production colonies by mechanoids?” The girl say to Zeta.
“Lorekeeper Lorena! That’s sensitive knowledge!” Zeta say with a huff at the big mouthed lorekeeper.
“Don’t worry, I’m not talking about any of this anywhere, I just want to ask for some bounty targets where I can get the new guns heated for money.” I say with a shake of my head making Zeta sigh in relief while glaring at Lorena the Lorekeeper.
“Aww, you don’t need information? I have lots which I can share!” Lorena say with a smile.
“Da, I do have some thoughts about Erchius, if you can share with me the information I'll be grateful.” I say with a tilt of my head.
“Ohh! I have lots on that! Which one? The Erchous war? Erchius biology? Erchius Ranching? How to build Liquid Erchius Deposits with 100% efficiency?” Lorena give me a spitfire of names making me look dumbly at her.
“Uh...” *HISS!*
The loud Hiss of pressurized air makes Lorena yelp out of her naming gunfire and finally letting me talk.
“Give me all the information about Erchius use and the Erchius scientific characteristics, I got from the Archonexus that Erchius can be used as gravity drives.” I say with a sigh.
“Okay! And you got contact with the Archonexus! The ultimate library of the combined races! I’m so jealous of you... As for the meaning of your words I do have the same thought as Erchius biology tell that Living Erchius is capable of levitation by means which aren’t biological, that means they levitate using their blood, that is, Erchius itself as they lack the psionic capacity for that despite being very sensitive to even the most insensitive of psionics, the ‘Spookit’ being a true example...”
I just watch as Lorena talks off into the distance as she goes to grab the desired knowledge... well, she did say some interesting things as she talked my ears off...
“Sorry for that, Lorekeeper Lorena is a chatterbox, you can’t give her enough time or she’ll talk your ears off for a entire year non stop.” Zeta say with a sigh making me shake my head and smirk, trying to hold my laugh.
“Heh, izvinyayus, but you seem to be correct, she’s more talkative than Avali hellbent on sweet coffee.” I say trying to keep my laugh at bay with a serious face... I’m barely managing to hold.
“That’s a good example, one which I did not get the opportunity to watch.” She shakes her head. “You wish to get some bounty hunting targets right? I got some, they are all pirates or murderers of innocents, here’s the list and where you can start searching.” Zeta say with a sweep of her hand on her Personal tricorder, my own vibrating, meaning I got her message.
Taking it out to verify I see a list of wanted personnel and their last known location so I choose the closest one, they all have something in common, they stole a civilian ship and got into piracy thus earning their place in the wanted list for premium cash.
With what I want done I give Zeta a nod of thanks before looking to where the Lorekeeper disappeared, I find no sound cues of her so I gave some clicking sounds to detect her location, at first I did not get her position but the extra sensitive ears let me detect her, she was reading some archive, lost in thought.
I give a sigh and head her way as Zeta look my way with curiosity.
After twisting areas and turns I find her totally lost in the current archive she’s reading, so I call her name.
“Lorena...” I call her name in a small and gentle tone making her yelp in surprise after shivering, the archive, a pen drive was yeeted up which I managed to grab before it hit the ground.
“Wh- What? Oh, right, there you go.” Lorekeeper Lorena gives me three pen drives before hurriedly yanking the one I grabbed from me with a shy face...
Seriously?
“Spacibo for the help, I'll give it back in a minute.” I say while keeping my shock to myself as I scan the data inside the pen drives, finding many useful uses to Erchius, even living samples which can be made into excellent sight modules.
After finishing my scans I return the pen drives and head out after giving a nod of thanks.
Walking back to ICW – Tenacity was very simple and peaceful, so 30 minutes later I returned to my ship, the guns on the upper deck of the ship looks intimidating despite not having ammo in it, at some point I'll have enough money to install the lower deck turrets too to finish the ship.
With that thought in mind I head inside the ship, we have some pirates to kill...