I was called to a VIP room of the Duchess’ boobs a day prior the convoy take-off. When I arrived in the room, which was decorated luxury with velvet floor and wooden walls, there were four other people around a round wooden table. Since it was zero gravity, there was no chair. Standing still was easier with magnet boots.
“You must be Vazken, yes?” A man who seemed to be in charge asked me, to which I replied positively.
“Yes, that’s me.”
The man had brown skin and had a crop haircut with somewhat long stubble. His hair color was equally brown albeit darker. His eye color was brown as well. His height was about the same as mine.
“My name is Aktug, and I am the leader of this squad. Welcome to the fold.” He extended his hand for a handshake, which I accepted gladly. The man was as professional as one could get in the situation. The three others were one man and two women, making the group overall three men, including me, and two women.
“We wouldn’t have taken in a new member, but Ehka has been quite reliable and her recommendation means a lot,” he said with a grin.
“I hope I can meet your expectations.”
“My expectations of you are simple. One, obey my orders. Two, do not flee.”
“Easier said than done,” The other guy added, who was a black man with cleanly shaved head and face. He was pretty tall but slender. “The name’s Tylarr by the way with an additional r.”
“So…, Tylarr? … Why?”
He shrugged with a crooked grin. “My parents’ big idea of making my name unique.”
People generally did not have a last name. The reason for that was the True Equality Act of 3022. As the name suggests, this was a law passed in the year of 3022, basically a looooong time ago. It basically removed last names from everyone. There were some rare cases of having a last name in the form of a nickname, however. Because the vast majority didn’t have a last name, there were bound to be a lot of duplicate names. Therefore, a unique identifier was added to our names. For example, while my name is Vazken, my full legal name was Vazken-9611112. Now, the number, 9611112, has a meaning. The first four digits are my birth year, 9611. 112 means I was born on the 112th day of the year. So, Vazken-9611112 would be what I’d fill out on legal forms and contracts. People generally did not reveal their unique identifiers because no one would remember it.
“Well, I do think they’ve made your name unique,” I replied with a grin.
“You ain’t wrong,” he replied, looking slightly pissed.
“Anyway, join us. Order a drink,” Aktug said.
“I will have what you guys are having,” I said in spite of having no idea what they were drinking, and that turned out to be a damned mistake because I ended up having to drink a cocktail that was far stronger than what I had back with Duke and Ehka. This time, though, I held my cough and took it even though my throat and stomach felt like they were on fire. Aktug and Tylarr didn’t seem to pay any attention to me, so they probably didn't notice.
“Alright, let’s begin the talk, shall we?” Aktug declared. “We are gathered here today before the convoy departs in order to discuss our formation and general strategy.”
I expected them to be highly experienced, and they were. The four of them all had purchased a torpedo, which cost a million credits each. Because I was a new addition to the team as well as a newbie, they weren’t going to purchase a torp for me.
“Your job is to observe and survive. If you can assist us, that’s fine. We will take that, but do not be a hero,” he explained to me.
“Do not get in our way. That’s especially important,” Tylarr added.
“And don’t die,” one of the female members added as well. She was also a black woman with an afro. “The name is Vavaina by the by.”
I nodded along.
“Right,” Aktung agreed. “Don’t die. Of course, that’s not really up to us to decide sadly. Are you an esper by any chance?”
“Afraid not.”
“We do have an esper, class C.” He pointed at the final member of the squad, a blonde woman with blue eyes. She looked quite beautiful to my eyes. Our eyes met, and we both exchanged a subtle nod.
“She’s mute,” Tylarr said. “But, being an esper, we can talk via telepathy if needed.”
“Can’t that be cured easily?”
“It can be, but she was told that her esper abilities would be lost most likely. Thus, she chose to keep being a mute,” Aktug explained.
I nodded along. That made sense actually. If you are an esper, you do not want to lose that ability. The most tangible benefit of being an esper was being able to survive in space without a spacesuit. They suffered virtually nothing from radiation as well. Overall, if I was in her shoes, I would have chosen to remain as a mute also especially when there were other communication methods available.
“What’s her name by the way?”
‘Kalomoira’
I was startled as I heard a voice in my head. I looked at the blonde woman and she nodded back. So, that was telepathy, huh. It was unsettling.
“You will get used to it,” Tylarr said, chuckling.
“Kalomoira is a bit mouthful, though. May I call you Kalo?”
“That sounds like a dude’s name, doesn’t it?” Vavaina said, and Kalomoira nodded strongly in protest. Bewildered a bit, I looked at Aktug and Tylarr, who shrugged back at me.
“Um…” Scratching the back of my head, I tried to come up with a better nickname. Kalomoira was indeed mouthful for me, and there was a good chance that I wouldn’t be able to remember the next time we met up.
“Then… Moira?”
“That’s just the latter half of her name, ain’t it?” Vavaina argued.
Woman, what do you really expect from me? Shrugging, I talked back rather fiercely, “Ma’am, we’ve just met.”
Aktug caught on to the clue quickly. “Well, whatever you call Kalomoira, that’s between him and her. Let them solve it,” he meddled in and deescalated the situation.
“Fine, fine,” Vavarina said with a sigh.
I couldn’t care less about names. I was trying to be nice, but the woman was pushing it. I decided to change the subject right away.
“I’ve got a question.”
“Shoot,” Aktug replied promptly.
“Do you guys work for or with Ehka?”
“That’s a bit of a tricky question. Vazken, how old are you?”
“About 25.”
“I see. Then you wouldn’t know, but the Duchess’ boobs was a crappy bar slash brothel until about 15 years ago.”
“It being crappy was an understatement,” Tylarr added with a snicker.
According to Aktug, until Ehka came along, the station was hanging on by a thread. It was supposed to be the bar within Rocksea, but it had barely any traffic. Things started to take a turn for the better when Duke’s new business partner Ehka showed up suddenly one day. She established new business opportunities and began renovating the hardly used part of the station. What Rocksea had been lacking was a warehouse to amass and distribute commodities. Anything a station wanted to purchase, they had to be brought in from outside, namely the Podlezl system. That took more time, more money, and more risk. What Ehka accomplished was essentially opening a space supermarket for Rocksea where stations could purchase commodities faster, cheaper, and more securely. She also opened a space fishery to satisfy increasing demands for delicacy. Space fish farming required a ridiculously expensive license that required an annual payment to maintain. However, Rocksea was outside of the Podlezl government influence, meaning she was able to run her fishery without paying any license. Now, operating an illegal fishery wasn’t a new thing. Opportunistic people had done it numerous times. Due to its high value, however, battling against pirates was a massive headache on its own. Thus, companies and corporations chose to run them within secured space. She was able to continue running her fishy due to the unique nature of Rocksea where large ships such as cruisers were unable to sail adequately due to the abundance of asteroids. This ultimately meant that she was able to maintain security with just fighters and occasionally frigates. In other words, it cost far less. As her business grew larger, her influence increased accordingly, dissuading pirates to tackle her conveys less frequently.
Damn, I knew she had something going on, but it looks like she is far more powerful than I thought…
“Now, our squadron, which we call the Copper wing, was initially founded by me,” Aktug said. “But it was Ehka who made it where we are now via making investments and giving us tactical plans. She has merely given us her suggestions. It was down to us to accept them.”
“So…, it’s like you aren’t exactly working for her and it’s not exactly you are working with her, either.”
“It’s very gray, true,” Tylarr said with a nod.
“The torp was her idea,” Vavaina added. “We were really skeptical at first, but it has worked out extremely well so far.”
“Yeah.” Tylarr smiled with a shrug. “I mean, it’s a million a pop. It wasn’t an easy decision to make.”
“The payout makes it profitable obviously, yeah?” I asked to which they nodded in unison. We had further chit-chat afterwards and … I didn’t have any memories afterwards. A loud beeping was what had me awaken from my drunken slumber.
“Where am I?” Then I grabbed my head. “Oh, fuck. I have a headache…” I realized that I was floating around in my badger. I suppose I made it to my own ship somehow. Flying toward the console of the ship, I answered the call in spite of the desire to pee ASAP.
“Yes?”
“Vazken! Get up! We have a job to do!”
Shit, what time is it … Oh, fuck. I’ve got like 10 minutes left.
“Right!”
Setting up a quick autopilot for my ship to meet up, I took care of hygiene meanwhile. I was really glad that I set up a small bathroom on the ship. Everyship had a rudimentary hygiene system, but I got a better one although it was still a sucking funnel to draw urine into a tank.
“Man, my face is all oily and shit. Well, I will have time to clean myself soon enough,” I said to myself while doing a quick system diagnosis.
“Vazken, you barely made it on time.” Aktug’s voice sounded. It was an audio-only communication. The badger didn’t have the CPU capacity for holographic communications.
“Sorry, won’t happen again.” I would have been late if they didn’t wake up for sure.
“Get in the formation. Sending data.”
“Roger.”
A formation was automatic as long as those in the group shared the same data. Only its leader had to pay some attention to where they were going. In other words, it was Aktug’s job to pilot the ships for us. Of course, this was only for peaceful moments. As long as the group synchronization was active, there was nothing for me to do but just sit pretty. He led us to the coordinates to meet up with the convoy.
image [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/9485/MxCoSn.png]
“One Akabasa 2 and four Akabasa 1s…” I mumbled. I didn’t like the convoy composition. Akabasa 2 was a basic upgrade from Akabasa 1, doubting its cargo capacity. Two of those equaled the cargo capacity of the Old Lady. They were nicknamed “the pooper” because of how the ship stored human waste. You see, feces and urine had to be stored somewhere. Due to the nature of Akabasa vessels, long space voyages were inevitable, thus they had far bigger waste tanks. In the case of Akabasa 2, the waste tank was the big thingy in the middle of the top, which was often shot during combat, releasing waste into the space. Consequently, the ship had a very high tendency of having its waste tank shot, therefore earning the nickname “the pooper”. Now, the reason I disliked the convoy composition was the lack of a flag ship. When we were doing freight jobs with the Old Lady, there was a central figure to group and coordinate. The current convoy had none. One could say Akabasa 2 was one, but it was still an extremely weak ship with no shields.
“This is Badger Alpha.” It was Aktug’s voice and was also a déjà vu moment for me. “If we encounter any pirates, I want you to seek shelter ASAP. None of you has shields, so keep your own safety as top priority.”
Then Tylarr spoke through a private communication meant for the Copper wing only. “This is Tylarr, maintain the formation. I will be in control for the time being. Stay alert but you can relax and do your things.”
“Oh, shoot,” I blurted. “I haven’t even read the mission details!”
I had no idea what we were doing in other words. I didn't even know what our destination was. Given the fact that we were carrying fishes, the likely place was New Earth. I quickly accessed the database to find more about the mission.
“Yep, New Earth as expected…,” I mumbled while quickly skimming through the data. “I assume we are going to run into pirates at one point, given the value of the cargo…”
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I assumed that the pirates would hit us while we were passing through the outskirts, and there was no way to avoid the encounter since the distance was days at acceptable speed. This was an almost identical mission to the one I did with the Old Lady previously.
“Either way, there is nothing for me to do right now,” I said to myself. To be honest, I was hoping that pirates would show up because I needed real world experience. There was only so much I could do with simulations and casual dog fights with fellow bouncers back at the Duchess’ boobs. And seventeen days passed without any trouble, which was, again, within my expectations. Just as the convoy left the denser part of Rocksea, I became fully alert.
“Aktug, may I get your permission to break off from the formation?”
“Why?”
“I want to stay alert. Being in a formation is boring as fuck, you know.”
There was a short moment of silence before his reply.
“Fine, but do keep in mind what I told you.”
“Perfectly understood.”
Yeah, yeah, I know. I am not to get in their ways. My primary goal from this journey is to survive and earn experience. That’s it. Money is just a minor bonus. I wasn’t given a torpedo anyway, so I wouldn’t even need to follow them to attack because I wasn’t considered a part of the team. I was essentially given a license to act freely.
“Heh, besides, it doesn’t look like he has any expectations of me anyway…”
That was fine by me. I didn’t want any mental burdens on my shoulders anyway. Then I had to chuckle.
“I was just a miner some years ago. I am really not sure whether this is an improvement.”
I had been making about the same wage as I did as a miner. Financially, I wasn’t making any steps forward. But I will admit that this career path has been far less boring. Well, either way, it didn’t take long for pirates to show up, which made me believe that they had been tracking us from a distance for a while. It was possible to shadow an object from a long distance as long as they knew beforehand what they were after, meaning there was a spy within the Duchess’ boobs.
“Incoming hostiles!” Aktug exclaimed on a group channel meant for us only. “The formation is off!”
“Fourteen badgers incoming, ETA to visual confirmation in 60 seconds!” Tylarr added.
“Check your torps. Make sure that the system is all green!” Aktug said. “Kalomoira!”
I had no idea what her role was. I wasn’t even sure what a class C esper could possibly do in this situation. Regardless, the four badgers led by Aktug accelerated in the direction of pirates. I followed as well albeit slower. The fourteen pirate badgers were soon visually confirmed. Dog fights between fighters weren't about chasing each other’s butt. That was due to the fact that the badger was capable of sailing faster than its own bullets. Firing its front guns while going faster than its own bullets equaled death. Therefore, fighters would attempt to orbit its opponents instead, which would essentially become a tug of war. Even if its weapon was a laser, the same principle applied. Therefore, “a dog fight” was perhaps misleading.
“Pilot assistance off…,” I mumbled as the tip of my finger touched a holographic button and tied myself up with a pair of seat belts. “Okay, let’s do this.”
The start of the fight started off as expected. Aktug’s squad fired their torps and blasted four pirates out of its existence. The explosions were very colorful and were awesome to watch. The four pirate pilots died in an instant probably. Now it was five versus ten. I did wonder why the pirates weren’t utilizing countermeasures. Nevertheless, it was time for a real fight.
“Let’s pick a target and form an orbit.”
The thing with a dog fight was that, while you could let the computer handle everything automatically, it was advised not to. The guns on the badger were on gimbal, which was clearly not as good as an articulating turret, which meant that I had to drift to make the angle good enough for my guns to actually target my opponent. Therefore, I left the gun controls on auto and focused on manual thruster controls to make it swivel in an orbit. Drifting was certainly possible with computers, but purposely drifting in these kinds of scenarios was hit or miss.
“Okay…, so far so good.”
There were numerous small holographic windows floating around my head, which were keeping track of other ships in my immediate vicinity. My eyes were moving left and right constantly to check for anything abnormal. I was engaged with two pirate badgers, and they were orbiting me closely while shooting occasionally whenever they felt they had the opportunity. I was doing the same while making weird movements here and there to throw them off. If my orbit was clean, I would have been shot down already because they could just continue shooting in the path of my orbit. After all, an orbit was a very predictable path.
“32,000 ammo left…,” I mumbled. “Ok, let’s set targeting semi-auto. And let’s veer a bit … swirl here…”
This was a game of endurance. Whoever made a mistake would give a window for others to take advantage of. The badger hull might be able to resist a few shots, but a concentrated barrage of just a few seconds was enough to punch holes on its hull. By the time I hear being shot, it’d be game over. To make it worse, the complete silence of space gave a false sense of security.
“Although … I did prepare just in case.”
There were some bags of chemicals around my pilot seat. I would throw them onto a punctured part of the hull, and the chemicals would harden within seconds upon exposure, sealing any air leak temporarily.
“One down!” Vavaina exclaimed joyfully.
“Okay!” I replied gleefully although she wouldn’t be able to hear me. “That’s goo-” Then I heard something hitting my ship. Gulping, I looked around. It sounded like a single bullet. “A stray bullet, I guess.” I felt cold sweat in my back.
“Should I go full manual…? My guns aren’t hitting shit,” I grumbled then I looked at my ammo count. “31,222…” I observed my opponent who was also attempting to orbit around my ship. There was another opponent in this as well, so two enemy ships were orbiting around me. My best course of action at the moment was defensive.
“Man, how did they get them so fast?”
I was talking about my time in the Old Lady where the four veteran badgers defeated over ten pirates easily. Looking at how the Copper wing was doing, those I met some years ago were far superior. Granted, Aktug and his guys were better than average.
“One down, keep up the pace!” Aktug declared.
Okay, make it five versus eight.
‘A pirate badger has decided to act independently and is heading toward the Akabasa 2!’
It was Kalomoira’s voice in my head. If my intuition was correct, the guy realized that their side was going to lose, so he was going after a cargo ship to ruin our bonus. I quickly opened a new window to keep my eyes on the Akabasa 2 which was hiding behind an asteroid. It was reasonably concealed. If the ship hugged the rock skillfully, it should be able to hold on. However…
“That fucker is sending SOS!” Tylarr exclaimed. “He’s exposing our location to everyone in the area!”
The fear of death must have made him do it. But it was a wrong decision. No one should have sent SOS in this specific situation because the cargo we were carrying was illegal. Besides, we were on the outskirts. If any patrol fleet would come to our location, it would spell troubles.
“Get rid of him,” said a voice which I realized was Aktug’s.
“Shouldn’t we just let him tag along? That’s a lot of money to be lost,” I argued.
“No, the whole operation can be at risk. By destroying that Akabasa, we will leave the bits along with its transponder. If a patrol fleet does come, the debris will satisfy them.”
There were holes in his logic, but destroying the Akabasa 2 did seem the right choice in this matter because of the transponder. If a patrol fleet did respond and found the transponder which was the source of the SOS, they would have no reason to investigate further. Yes, they would find out what the commotion was about after scanning the debris and probably find the frozen fish, but they wouldn’t investigate further at least.
“Fine, I will do it,” I declared. I didn’t mind getting my hands dirty. For one thing, even if it was indeed murder, I wouldn’t see the guy getting killed and I didn’t know the pilot at all.
“I will grab the guy who’s in orbit with you,” Tylarr replied. “Boss, you take his other one.”
“Got it,” he replied calmly. It didn’t look like they were concerned at all about killing a guy. And quite frankly I didn’t care much, either. Once the two pirates that were in orbit with me were distracted by Aktug and Tylarr, I quickly steered my ship toward the Akasaba gamma.
“Don’t come closer!” I heard a voice over a public channel. It was most likely the pilot of the freighter. I didn’t make any reply since there was no point in having my voice on the record. “I know I made a mistake!” He continued to shout with a panicked voice. “I, I just couldn’t help it!”
“Weird, I don’t feel any hesitation at all,” I said to myself. Perhaps, I was prepared for this ever since I gave up on mining. My home was Rocksea after all. “Sorry, pal. It’s nothing personal.” It was indeed not personal. He was the one who dug his own grave.
“AAAAAAHHHH!” The public channel was filled with his scream and soon distant gasps for air as bullets from my badger shattered its bridge window. I really did feel nothing about ending him.
“Another down, we are in control,” Vavaina stated. “They are starting to doubt their chances.”
I was looking at a window where it was displaying the broken bridge of the Akabasa 2. Actually, I was staring at a frozen corpse floating not far from it. It was actually possible to train a bit to stay alive longer in the vacuum of space. This was all thanks to the evolution of our genetics after having spent over six thousand years in space. For example, I was able to hold my breath in space for a good minute at least without my lungs exploding and my blood boiling. Anyway, the guy could have attempted to leave the bridge to save himself although the end result would have been the same since I was willing to destroy the ship itself if required.
“Aktug,” I said. “The Akabasa 2 seems intact. We might be able to bring her back to life.”
“Who’d pilot it, though?”
“I could. I don’t know whether you read my profile but I was a miner not long ago. I know how to handle freighters.”
“The bridge is shot, though? How will you control it?”
“I am going to attach my badger somewhere on the ship and hack the controls.”
“What about the SOS? We cannot turn off its transponder,” Tylarr pointed out. A transponder had its own power and was encased in heavy armor. It wasn’t easy to destroy it. Its tiny size made it even harder.
“As far as I know, the transponder is located underneath the bridge. I could shoot it and shatter it. We won’t be needing the bridge.” What we needed was the cargo only. This kind of jerryrigging wouldn’t work on any other ships, but the Akabasa series from the Red Plate Shipyard were really so simple that I would just need to connect certain wires. This simplicity did bring up the topic of security because remote hacking and taking control over a spaceship was a thing. But that wasn’t possible on the Akabasa series because it was too basic to even accept a remote control signal to begin with. Yes, an unhackable spaceship was a thing. After sending several thousands of bullets onto whatever was left of the bridge part of the Akabasa 2, I checked the transponder. It was indeed drifting away. The job was successful, thus I waited for others to finish off the pirates. The tide of the fight was already on our side.
“In the end, I didn’t get to kill any pirates.”
But I did survive. I knew that I was lacking some necessary skills to fight them properly. Once Aktug accepts me fully into his group, they might be able to teach me.
“Well, I’ve got a job to do.”
I already attached my badger on top of the Akabasa. Putting on just a helmet, because I didn’t need a spacesuit for a short space walk, I drained air and equalized the pressure outside. The helmet was able to provide up to 10 minutes of air, and my body was able to withstand the vacuum of space for about the same time. Evolution and some minor DNA modification made this possible as well as some training. Of course, if I was an esper, I wouldn’t even need this helmet. They don’t exactly need oxygen to breathe although my class would need to be at least C for that to be possible.
“Ohhh, this weird sensation. Can’t get used to it.”
When bare skin was exposed to the vacuum of space, it felt like my skin was being pulled outward rather hard. Now, as soon as my skin detected the vacuum and zero pressure of space, it instantly hardened up and protected my internal flesh and veins. That was as far as evolution and minor DNA modification brought us. It required esper’s powers to harden the respiratory system,substitute oxygen with dark matter, and protect other holes of the body, such as ears and eyes.
“What a mess…”
Anyway, the front part of the ship was completely gone. The positive side of this was that I used bullets, so I was able to track down necessary wires. If I used lasers, everything would have been charred and molten, making it hard to identify anything. Hell, it would have probably been impossible to find the wires I needed.
“Well, that was easy. Found’em.”
There were only nine wires and they were all properly colored. I just needed three of them in order to take control of the ship’s thrusters. The rest of the job was easy. I went back to my ship to grab extension cables and connected the trio of wires onto an external panel of my ship. All of this took about eight minutes.
“I am done. I have control.”
“Damn, good job. You saved us a lot of money over there,” Aktug replied, sounding clearly impressed.
“I was a miner. This sort of jerry ringing was common.”
A decade of working with a frigate that was falling apart here and there had certainly given me expertise as an engineer. I probably knew more than those who graduated from a diploma mill.
“Let’s get going. We are almost there,” he said. “Vazken, fire up the Akabasa 2. We will form a formation around that ship.”
“Understood.”
Because my badger now had more thrusters than it should have, auto-pilot was no longer possible.
“I have to do everything manually now,” I declared. “If one of you could sail a short distance in front of me, it would make my job easier.”
“I will do that,” Tylarr replied.
Going straight was never easy without a clear object to follow. This was especially true when piloting manually. It was going to be tiresome, but I felt that the job was as good as done. Of course, I didn’t foresee what was going to happen when we reported back to Ehka.
“The Akabasa 2 is yours now,” she told me after we returned from New Earth. We were in her office.
“... Really?” I was somewhat dumbfounded.
“Well? The pilot is a goner. He has no relatives whatsoever, so it’s yours. You do need to spend some dough to repair it, but that shouldn’t be hard, given how basic the ship is.”
Owning an Akabasa 2 opened some interesting choices. I now had a badger and a freighter. It would become possible to do small runs on my own although that sounded awfully risky.
“Got any idea on the repair cost?”
“My rough estimate is about 100k.”
“How much would I get if I just sold the ship as is?”
“Well, it’s just scrap metal if you did that. You should repair it even if you want to sell it. If you do repair it and sell it, you should get at least 300k.”
Damn, that was a sudden influx of income.
“Well, I will repair it. Send me a detailed bill.”
“Alright, I will let the dockyard workers know. Anyway, good job, Vazken. You made it through your first run as an escort.”
“I didn’t get to shoot down any pirates, though.”
She chucked. “It’s never easy to outwit the pirates in dog fights. You need lots of experience or a better ship will make it easier.”
“Like the SSS Robin?”
That reminded me …
“Why does everyone use badgers in Rocksea? I’ve never seen anything better.”
“Well, if you pilot a better ship, you get picked on in fights immediately. For example, if you do pilot a SSS Robin, you will be locked on immediately in fights. No matter how good you are, that’s a death sentence.”
Hmm, that made sense. She was essentially telling me not to stand out.
“I do admit that the badger’s old-age gatling gun is hindering its potential, however,” she said. “But the ship cannot provide enough juice for laser weapons.”
“How good is the SSS Robin compared to the badger?”
“A badger will go down in ten seconds against a SSS Robin. A veteran badger pilot might survive longer, but you cannot beat the instant hit of a laser.”
She explained further that it all came down to turret tracking speed, target speed, and my own speed. Due to the nature of a laser, being hit didn’t mean death. A laser was basically a thermal weapon. It’d heat and melt armor plates before puncturing a hole. As long as I got away from a laser beam in a second or two, the Robin’s armor plates would hang on.
“Long story short, piloting the Robin requires a different skill set than the badger.”
“God, it’s never easy,” I complained while folding my arms.
“It’s easy if you intend to live within Rocksea. If you want to leave here…, then yes, sticking with the badger might become problematic.”
It never occurred to me that I wanted to leave Rocksea behind. I was raised here, and this was my whole world.
“Do you want to leave here?” She pressed slightly.
“I don’t plan to, but you never know.”
She grinned with a distant look in her eyes. “Indeed, I never planned to end up living here, either.”
She indirectly admitted that she wasn’t from around here. Not that it mattered of course. At this moment, my ear implant notified me that I had a message from Aktug. He wanted to hang out for a drink.
“Excuse me now. Something came up.”
“Yeah, go ahead. Enjoy your break. By the way, are you going back to being a bouncer or are you sticking with the Copper wing?”
I wasn’t going back to being a bouncer because that was a dead career. I wanted to climb up.
“I am sticking with the Copper wing for now.”
“I see. I am going to send you mutual termination for the contract. Sign it whenever you feel like.”
Floating backwards and turning around, I said to her, “I will see you later, Duchess.”
She smirked in response.