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I was hugging a small floating rock in the middle of nowhere tightly. I had to do this because we ran into serious trouble. You see, Kamen did give us a job. He did warn us that it was going to be a rough mission. He did tell us to expect waves of pirates. Given how hard it seemingly was, he was using the Old Lady, the old modified frigate with a turret on each side, as a central vassal to spearhead the convoy. Whatever she was carrying, it attracted a great deal of attention from pirates. Long story short, the five of us weren’t quite enough to fend off waves of pirates, and we were forced to scatter for our lives. Just to be clear, we didn’t abandon the mission. We just had to get away to avoid being wiped out.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I uttered frustratingly. I was hugging a rock to avoid being detected by the radar as well as a simple scan because the ship was a mix of aluminum and steel, and asteroids in Rocksea were prominently metal. My badger would be indistinguishable as long as I was hugging the rock tightly. Of course, if pirates did a visual sweep, I might get caught, but a visual sweep would take hours, given how many rocks were present in the vicinity, and they would rarely do such. Besides, the Old Lady was still standing firm. With her shields, it wasn’t going down easily. However, it was alone. It would go down at the current rate. Either way, the best thing to do was stay still and do nothing at the moment. Contacting mates wasn’t even an option. Any radio signal would be caught red-handed and then get tracked down.

“What do I do?!”

It was a question I really wanted an answer to.

‘You okay?’

It was Kalomoira’s voice which startled me and made me jump in my pilot’s chair. Boy, was I glad to hear a familiar voice.

“I am alive, for now! How is everyone?” I exclaimed although I didn’t have to. I could have just said in my head and she would have heard.

‘Everyone’s fine although Vavaina’s badger earned several bullet holes…’

“Where are you all? What should we do?”

‘Hugging rocks like you are.’

I groaned. We were ambushed by waves of pirate badgers. I counted at least thirty of them before we were being overrun. And there was something else. Amid the chaos, I wasn't 100% sure but I did feel I saw a few robins among the pirate badgers. I wasn’t sure whether to inform her of this at this point because I saw only momentary glimpses of what looked like robins.

“Alright, I will be hugging the rock for the time being. I will try flying toward the Old Lady when an opportunity rises,” I said.

‘Aktug wants survival as the top priority. We still have Ehka as our primary contact. We are not dying for Kamen.’ Her voice rang in my head.

So, he is willing to die for her? I wondered. Of course, I wasn’t going to ask that question. Whatever the case, it was indeed true that we shouldn’t die for Kamen for sure. Meanwhile, it was vividly clear how important her role was in a situation like this. Her telepathy, which was undetectable by any sensors, was a God-send.

“Got it,” I replied, looking nervously out to the cockpit screen. It was a fake window. No glass was ever used for any space vessels. It didn’t matter how reinforced a glass panel was because glass was glass and glass broke. Anyway, my next move would be trying to find a way to get out of this situation. My original plan was to reach the Old Lady and dock with her. However, since it was clear that Aktug was willing to forgo the mission, my updated course of action was just get out of here, further away from the frigate.

“I don’t want the Old Lady to be destroyed. I hope not. But survival comes first,” I said to myself.

The swarming-like-bee pirate badgers eventually slowed down and started to gather around the frigate, which was a sign for me to get the hell out. They were probably going to demand unconditional surrender and abandon whatever it was carrying. A non-combat frigate had no chance against 30+ fighters alone. Even if she was a combat frigate, it was probably not possible to win, either. If she was a cruiser, however, no amount of fighters would have a chance simply because they wouldn’t be able to get through the strong shields they had.

“I’ve never seen a cruiser up close, though.”

It was true. I’ve seen some during the fish deliveries, but I’ve never seen them up close. They were the real workhorse of any meaningful space fleet. Using thrusters ever so slightly, I was able to position my ship in a direction where I could watch the Old Lady being swarmed by pirates. When I was certain that no pirate was around me, I quickly made my way to another rock and hid it in its shadow. It was important not to use my main engine because it was an ion engine, and an ion engine left ion residues which were easily tracked by sensors. It meant that I had to use thrusters only. Thrusters on a small space vessel like the badger used electromagnetic waves. It was similar to how an ion engine worked but left no trace. The downside was that its thrusting force was very weak. Up to frigates used EW thrusters. Bigger ships used small ion engines as thrusters. Unless they were looking right at me, my movements would register as one of many background noises on their sensors. Rocksea may not seem to be active on the surface, but the rocks always moved about, not to mention comets coming in and out. The white dwarf sun of the Podlezl didn’t have strong enough gravity to bind everything around here. Any objects of somewhat substantial gravity passing by caused almost everything within Rocksea to shuffle around. Imagine a calm surface of water with lots of small particles floating on it. Blow ever so gently over the surface to see everything moving about. That was how Rocksea behaved in general. The only things that were relatively stationary were the stations which had thrusters to keep the same coordinates.

“Alright, so far so good,” I said to myself while jumping onto another rock to hide. I was progressively making a distance away from the commotion.

‘Wow, never seen anyone doing that before. Does that work?’

Kalomoira’s voice sounded in my head. She must have been watching me with her ESP or whatever.

“Use only thrusters.”

‘I will try and let others know if it’s successful.’

Did she doubt me? Hmph, fine, I guess she couldn’t trust me right away. Why would I lie? I am a local to Rocksea. This is how we’ve survived, using every tick available under our belts to survive. Well, my dad taught me this.

“I really should pay them a visit soon.”

When they let me go, they did tell me not to visit them ever because they were going to have another kid and forget about me. Given our hundreds of years of lifespan, I was sure that they weren’t kidding. Parents were no longer attached to their children anymore apparently. Of course, that didn’t mean I completely discarded my parents out of my mind. They were good folks.

“Wait…, is that a station?”

I was seeing what looked like a station that was in a horrible condition. It was built on a small asteroid just like almost every station in Rocksea.

“A derelict station?”

There were a good number of them in Rocksea. Not every station found a new owner after the government abandoned them. No light was on, not even emergency red light, so it was very likely abandoned. It was also a very small station, like one fourth the size of the Oreo station. The most telling evidence of it being abandoned was the wide open docking bay door, which was a sign that somebody looted the place. I controlled my ship into the already-open docking bay cautiously. It wasn’t a great feeling to voluntarily venture into a pitch black place. I couldn’t accurately tell the size but it wasn’t big. I initiated a short range scan to see whether anyone was inside, and there wasn’t. I wasn’t going to go inside at the moment because being inside of this derelict station was good enough for me. There was no need for me to risk any further. Besides, there was a good chance that the station didn’t have any breathable air inside anyway. Getting lost in there would be a death sentence with just ten minutes of air that my helmet provided. Turning around my ship to face the exit, I waited patiently. At one point, I saw or felt something was closing it. Inadvertently I fired the gatling gun, lighting up the dark docking bay momentarily.

‘DON’T FIRE! DON’T FIRE!’

Blinking and realizing that it was Kalomoira, I stopped.

“Hey, you found me.”

‘I was following you.’

Her badger made its way in carefully. The docking bay wasn’t large. It was just big enough for perhaps four badgers to land, meaning a frigate couldn’t even fit in here. Given its small size, the station was probably for lodging for miners.

“Where are the others?”

‘I told them where you are. They might try getting here but I don’t know.’

Her badger parked itself right next to mine, both facing the exit with our guns pointed at it. It did feel definitely better not to be alone in this situation.

“Do you think Kamen set us up?”

It had been lingering in my mind ever since we were forced to scatter and flee. He must have expected the pirate raid, yet he sent only five as escorts? Something didn’t add up.

‘Maybe. Not enough evidence although my gut feeling says he has.’

Then the next question was -

“Why?”

What reason did he have? None of us knew him. None of us wronged him…, right? I didn’t wrong him for sure. Hell, I didn’t even know the guy until Yating referred him to me.

‘I don’t know. He must have a reason. I assume he has no grudge against you. I don’t know him, so that’s me out also. That leaves Aktug, Tylarr, and Vavaina.’

“Can you ask them?”

‘Maybe when we are all safe, but would they be willing to take a mission from him if they knew they wronged him? I doubt that.’

She did have a point. However, I did feel that there was a chance where they may have not been aware of what Kamen knew. All three of them had questionable past histories after all. Even Kalomoria’s past was similar, but I did feel that she was probably the cleanest of them all since her crime involved only one victim in her father. She had nothing to do with this most likely.

‘Tylarr is here. Don’t shoot.’

Narrowing my eyes, I still had my thumb on the fire button just in case. Another badger made its way into the dark docking bay slowly.

‘He is going to initiate close range communication.’

It was similar to using a public channel but using an extremely low powered signal. Only those close by would be able to pick it up.

“Fuck! That was fucking so close!” he muttered loudly. “If it wasn’t for Kalomoira, I might have bitten the dust!”

“I am glad that you made it back in one piece, dude,” I replied.

“Thanks for the tip by the way,” he replied at once. “That saved my hide.”

“Are Aktug and Vavaina safe?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Honestly? I don’t know. None of us, except Kalomoira, was able to communicate with them directly.”

‘They are alive and are saying that they are trying to meet up with us.’

Well, that was that.

“Well, Tylarr, we were discussing a possibility that Kamen knew one of us and mayhaps had a grudge.”

“I don’t know the guy. That’s for sure. I am sure Aktug and Vavaina will say the same.”

Folding my arms, I fell into thoughts. What if he didn’t set us up? What if he simply had bigger expectations from us? Unfolding my arms, I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I wasn’t sure what to make of this at the moment.

“Let’s wait for the two to make it here, then we can go back to the Duchess’ boobs,” I said.

“Yeah, I don’t disagree with that idea.”

Aktug was the next one to make it safely. He, too, was quite pissed like Tylarr.

“That was totally fucked up,” he complained loudly. At this point, we were right outside of the docking bay of the derelict station because the bay could no longer accumulate us.

“Vavaina is the only one left out there,” I said.

“I am sure she will be fine,” Aktug said. “Let’s head back.”

“What? Are you sure? We should wait for her.”

“Nah, she will be fine,” Tylarr sided with him. “Besides, we shouldn’t be sticking around here for too long.”

Even Kalomoira was fine with leaving her be, thus it wasn’t really my choice to object further.

“To the Duchess’ boobs?” I asked.

“Yep, straight to there,” Tylarr said.

Thankfully, Vavaina sent a message midway, informing us that she was going to be late due to emergency repairs she had to make. She was leaking air and had to dock at another station. A badger had 40 days of air but, once it started to leak, the air tended to be gone in a surprisingly short amount of time. She probably made the right call to stop and make the repairs.

When the four of us finally managed to return to the Duchess’ boobs, I received a call from Ehka, summoning me to her office. I could assume that the call was due to the recent event although I was mildly surprised that she already got the news. For the time being, I decided to play a fool, which didn’t last long because…

“I heard that you did a stint for Kamen?” was the first thing she asked as soon as I entered her office.

“Was I not allowed to?” As far as I recalled, my contract mentioned nothing about exclusivity.

“No, it’s just that it has caused some ripples,” she replied with a smirk. “Care to tell me what happened exactly?”

I had no reason to hide anything. Therefore, I told her earnestly what went down step by step.

“Honestly, I believe it was a setup,” I told her as I concluded my story.

“Does look like so, but what would be his motive behind such an action?”

I had reached the same conclusion; there was no motive behind his actions.

“If it was indeed a trap as you say, then he would have lost nothing,” she said as she folded her arms and pursed her lips.

“Do you know Kamen?”

“Of course, I do. He has been a competitor for a while.”

“I think he has a grudge for one of the members of the Copper wing.”

Her hand reached her chin slowly with her index finger tapping slowly on the side of her chin. “Or maybe he has a problem with me.”

“What?” I replied incredulously. Then I froze for a moment. Yeah…, why didn’t I think of that possibility? I did recall him not being pleased about us not moving to the Hole. I recalled him clicking his tongue even.

“Before I came along, the Hole used to be what the Duchess’ boobs is now,” she explained. “Apparently, I was better at running a business, and here we are.” Then she scoffed and asked, “What are you going to do now?”

“Not going any more runs for Kamen. That’s for sure,” I said without thinking too much.

“Do you want to get back at him?”

I narrowed my eyes. It would be an utter lie if I hadn’t thought about revenge. Was it worth it, though? My life could well be at a risk.

“I am not sure if it’s worth it.”

“If it’s me he has problems with, you will be at a risk as long as you work for me. The guy was bold enough to make a move on you just because you work for me.”

She had a point, and I wasn’t going to quit working for her. My entire career depended on her and her well-being.

“What could I possibly do, though?” I wondered aloud, not actually expecting an answer. I mean, I was just a guy who had no powers whatsoever. All I had was a fully geared badger which was the most basic fighter craft. Even if I had the Old Lady…, my chance of scoring one back looked very much doubtful. First of all, I just didn’t know what kind of connections he had and what kind of fire power he could summon.

“Well, I can and will help you. I just want your commitment.”

Taking a deep breath, I remained silent, considering my options. If I were to leave her, I’d probably need to go back to the Oreo station and go back to mining. Did I want that? If I absolutely had to, I would.

“Have you ever thought about leaving Rocksea?” she asked me all of a sudden, disturbing my thoughts. Blinking, I blurted.

“What?”

“I get that this place has been your whole world, but the universe is large, you know. Unless there is something I don’t know about you, there is nothing that binds you to Rocksea.”

That was … true. Rocksea has been my whole world. I’ve never thought about leaving this place behind. At the same time, she was also correct that nothing binds me to this place. If I decided to leave, there was nothing that would stop me from doing so.

“I don’t know whether you are aware, but your parents registered your birth.”

“Huh?”

“You do have a government ID is what I am saying. You are a legal citizen of the Podlezl republic.”

“Who are you?” I demanded. Did she look into my profile? That was fine because I had nothing to hide. However, saying that my birth was registered with the government, which I wasn’t even aware of, triggered my curiosity as well as concern.

“I used to be a policewoman,” she said with a shrug. “I am somewhat familiar with the laws.”

“Then you must have connections?”

“Somewhat, yes. I am equipped to fight Kamen if he wants.”

A power struggle with Rocksea? Well, fuck, I never saw that coming.

“Just so you know, Rocksea is an unofficial name. This place is called the Cassandra belt.”

“Huh? The what?”

She threw me off with the sudden change of the topic.

“It’s the Cassandra belt. A woman named Cassandra found it and named it after herself.”

“That’s not important, is it?”

“It kind of is. If you refer to this place as Rocksea to outsiders, they won’t have any idea what you are talking about. Don’t ever mention Rocksea unless you want to give them a clue about your origin.”

“What does it matter? You sound as if you want me to go outside?”

“I am because I need you to contact someone. In order to fight Kamen, I am going to need some outside help. You can’t go to a war with just badgers.”

“And you are sending me?” I asked while pointing at myself.

“If you want. You are the most trustworthy person I’ve met besides Duke ever since coming here. I am not going to send him away, so it comes down to you. Think about it, but I want your answer within twenty four hours.”

“Right…,” I answered nonchalantly. I was somewhat distracted because I received a call from Aktug, calling for an emergency meeting. Things were moving rather fast. “I will see you later.”

“Do give me an answer within a day,” she told me as I turned around to leave. Then I rushed over to a VIP room where everyone, bar Vavaina, was gathered.

“Sup,” Tylarr greeted casually as usual.

“Have a stand,” Aktug said, beckoning me over to a spot by the table.

“Were you talking to Ehka?” Tylarr asked with a grin. Lying wouldn’t work here probably.

“Yes, I was.”

“And what did she talk about?” It was Aktug who asked with a great dose of curiosity in his eyes. They must be mulling over their next move as well.

“She wants to fight Kamen,” I said while walking toward my spot.

“Does she have means?” Tylarr asked.

“She says she has connections. In fact, she claims to be an ex-policewoman.”

Aktug and Tylarr glanced at each other with Kalomoira looking uninterested overall. She was merely sipping her drink.

“Ex-policewoman, eh…,” Aktug beamed a smirk. “Well, that isn’t exactly a lie, I suppose.”

“You know something?”

“We did a bit of digging on her,” Then he glanced at Kalomoira.

‘She was an ex-knight.’ she said to my head while still sipping her drink.

“An ex-knight? What is a knight?”

“An elite police force of some sort,” Tylarr replied, also taking a sip at his drink. “The important thing is that the force is not under the department of justice. It operates under the lower council.”

Aktug added, “Meaning they are more of a privately operated police force.”

Tylarr added as well, “In other words, they don’t deal with normal crimes. They deal with politically motivated crimes.”

‘That woman, Ehka, must have some decent connections.’

“Did she ask you to fight for her?” Tylarr asked.

I nodded carefully, to which Aktug and Tylarr looked convinced.

“If we stick by her and she wins, we will also win big. We will get positions,” Aktug said, rubbing his hands in excitement.

“Better than this for sure,” Tylarr added with glee. “I ain’t gonna end up escorting forever. This life is a bit too dangerous.”

‘If she can get the navy involved, Kamen won’t stand a chance.’

The navy, huh… Something told me that it wasn’t going to be that easy. I mean, life was never straightforward after all. But they were not getting excited without a valid reason, either. If Ehka was indeed an ex-knight or whatever…, she would have connections which I can only dream of probably. Perhaps, it was time to release a piece of info I was reluctant to reveal.

“Guys, I am unsure what I saw was indeed true, but I saw some robins during the job,” I declared. The silhouettes of a badger and a robin were very different. Having my interests in purchasing a SSS Robin, I was clearly conscious of the silhouette of a robin.

“You sure?” Tylarr asked with a grim look.

I nodded and said, “Yes, I am pretty sure.”

Aktug said while caressing his chin, “SSS Robin, huh… They are definitely an upgrade from a badger for sure. If Kamen wants a war, he would need them for an upper hand.”

‘He may be thinking that robins will be enough to suppress badgers. He is not wrong but Ehka has a connection to the navy. If she can bring some navy frigates…, robins won’t stand a chance at all.’

They were clearly thinking that Ehka had the upper hand, and it was hard to deny their sentiments.

“I am assuming here that you guys want me to work with Ehka?”

“Yes, obviously,” Aktug said while looking at Tylarr and Kalomoira. “You guys agree, yeah?”

They both nodded affirmatively.

‘The choice is obvious. We have worked with her for over a decade. We can trust her. I can’t say the same for Kamen who attempted to get rid of us.’

I was inclined to agree. I would also choose Ehka to stick with. My only concern was we knew too little about our opponent. And there was something else. It was about Yating. Was she my enemy? It was probably better to stay away from the Oreo station and her for the time being. I was afraid of trusting her. I never had a hard time trusting anyone in my whole life, but it has come to this… Those mining days were simple back then.

“Alright, I guess there is no other choice. She did ask me to give her an answer ASAP, so I am contacting her now.”

They nodded. After I excused myself from the VIP room, I went straight back to her office although I wasn’t sure she’d still be there. It turned out that she was still there as if waiting for me.

“I will do it,” I declared.

“Attaboy,” she said, smiling and patting the head of a boy. Wait, a boy? When did he get here?

“Who’s he?”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked because the boy resembled her very much. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, and a round face. His height was about two thirds of mine. He had a bowl haircut which made him younger than he should have. Fuccccck, that bowl haircut reminded me of my own mom doing exactly the same thing for me. Mothers did that haircut because it was the easiest haircut they could do. She’d gel my hair to keep the shape as well.

“He’s my boy,” she said proudly, still patting his head.

“My name is Chatur,” he said, looking up at me. He looked curious and ready to go.

“He is ten years old now. It’s time for him to get used to the business.”

The boy’s presence meant that I wasn’t able to talk freely about the very business she was involving me into, but whatever. Perhaps, this was her intention.

“What do I do next?”

“Wait for my email. I will send it to you within an hour. You may go now.”

What was the point of having her son here? I wondered. Regardless, I went back and let the guys know that I did confirm our allegiance to her. It was at that point that I got a notification for an email. Well, that was fast.

“You got something?” Tylarr asked after noticing that I was spacing out because I was trying to read the email through my eyeball.

“Yeah, an email. It’s from her. Hang on. Let me read.”

She wanted me to contact someone on New Earth and asked me to go alone or, if I must, bring only Kalomoira with me. The reason was that she was the only one without a criminal conviction apparently. All others could be arrested if stopped for an inspection. There was a low chance of me being inspected, but she was trying to be safe, which I could well understand. You wouldn’t want the plan to go haywire even before it could begin. Complication was the last thing all of us wanted at the moment. To be honest, I would have gone alone if it wasn’t for this event. But she proved to be so useful with her esper powers that it made sense for me to bring her along. Telepathy was especially useful.

“She wants me to meet up with someone from New Earth. Wants me to tag Kalomoira along,” I said with a lie. Eyes wide, she pointed at herself. I was pretty sure that she would have said, “Me?”, if she could speak.

Nodding at her, I told her, “Get ready. She wants me to depart ASAP.”

“Yeah, Kamen is probably already on the move,” Tylarr added.

“Good luck, dude,” Aktug told me. “We are going to do some preparations on our own.”

Well, things were about to become spicy.