Unsatisfied, Robin prepared to go to bed. It was time to get some sleep and rest. Lying down he opened his Interface one last time today, checked his messages and wired Patience her share.
The first that popped up was a memo from Jim, notifying him that the new vents and the control unit will be delivered in two days. He also had some pending windows about financial transactions. After paying for the Interface, ammunition and G-Anomaly scan as well as ordering the dampening field generator, his savings fell to 7.691 cr, there wasn’t much left. But at least the latest job did help a bit.
[*** INFO ***] Reference: Thanks mate! Greetings, Slice Value: +12.000 cr New Balance: 19.691 cr [*** INFO ***]
“Thanks mate!? Huh, well at least I didn’t have to pay tax this way.” he shook his head as he saw the casual reference from the Mohait.
[*** INFO ***] Reference: Thank you for your support Value: +6.000 cr New Balance: 25.691 cr [*** INFO ***]
[*** INFO ***] Reference: Beakrath Flight Inn: 1 Room, 1 Ship, Refueling, Food Value: -275 cr New Balance: 25.416 cr [*** INFO ***]
The money from Gumvar was labeled in a similar fashion and the inn also got its money. He finally sent 6.000 cr to Patience and also paid Jim 4.115 cr for Melody’s new parts.
“A bit over 11k left.” He whined and closed the Interface, “Though, I have everything I need for the race now. Just installing the new parts and lots of training remains before the preliminaries…”
Robin let his thoughts wander around and slowly fell asleep.
***
Two days later, just as promised, a big package arrived at Jim’s workshop while Robin was working on a broken PTV. He hurried to repair the petulant ship and went to the office to check-out for the day.
“Hey Jim, my new parts just arrived. Thanks again for your effort! I’ll call it a day and get the new stuff mounted, okay?” He shouted as he came into the small room.
Jim was reading some reports on his workstation and just gave him a wave over his shoulders.
“Sure, have fun! I’ll leave in half an hour. Please close the workshop when leaving.”
“Patience isn’t coming today?” Robin asked as he hadn’t seen her till now.
“No, she is out, signing her contract. Will be back tomorrow.” Jim still didn’t look up, so Robin left him on his own and dashed back to the Melody II.
Giving her winglets a pat, he mumbled “See? I told you; I’ll get you awesome upgrades! Let me install them just now and we will begin with the training sessions during the weekends, ok?”
Time ticked by as Robin was immersed in his work. At some point the hall grew darker when Jim left and turned off most of the lights.
A few hours later midnight neared. Robin crawled out from under the ship, having finished changing all the vents. He took a step back and observed his masterpiece. The Melody II stood in the corner of the dimly lit workshop, she looked awesome. Her sleek black chassis radiated a feeling of speed and mobility, the two thrusters were a statement of power.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
This ship will take him into the finals of the Apex Cup… it had to!
Breaking out of his thoughts, Robin powered up the ship and started the calibration mode for the new vents. He closed his eyes to tap into his mutation - while that wasn’t necessary anymore, it was more comfortable that way.
The image of his ship’s power grid formed in his mind as he concentrated on the four vents in the rear at first. They were running stable without any hiccups. If they provide the boost in reaction speed, as he was hoping, could only be tested when the new control unit was also installed.
Robin stepped to the side of the ship and once again activated his energy senses, this time to watch the four outlets in the front of the ship that pointed directly in the corner of the building.
As more and more power lines formed in his mind, he began to look out for any anomalies in the plasma flow. Before long, he could see the whole network of ship’s front. For a few moments the image didn’t change, only the plasma running through the pipes slowly pulsed.
However suddenly more lines began to form. They were very faint and Robin almost didn’t notice them. They were near the edge of his detection range, blurring each time they swayed a bit.
Thin lines created a very very small image of some kind of object he couldn't identify. The object was roughly 7 meters away and seemingly hovered in the air at the height of his head.
“What the hell is that?” Robin was confused. The image was so faint, he had no idea what that should be.
He stopped and reactivated his ability to put his focus on the new spot.
The same image formed again, but the object slowly moved along the outer wall of the workshop. As Robin did now concentrate directly at that spot, some more unknown objects began to form, just as faint and blurry.
When the group of objects came to a halt near the door besides the big shutter in the back of the building, he suddenly understood what he was dealing with.
“Impossible!” he gasped, “That’s a person out there… what I’m sensing should be small devices like a communicator and maybe even a body-heat generator for Interfaces. Those are using so little energy, how can I sense them?”
His mind raced as he realized what this discovery meant for his G-Anomaly. This should be impossible. A body-heat generator is so small, you implant it literally under your skin at the side of your head.
“This is nuts… what?” He stopped as he noticed that the person had turned on another device and pointed it at the door.
‘Burn in plasma! Someone tries to break in, damn’ He looked around to think about his best course of action and quickly jumped in the cockpit to get the gun.
While he was still struggling to decide whether it would be better to hide inside the ship or outside, time ran out as the intruder picked the lock.
*beep* … *click*
‘Shit!’ Robin had to abandon all plans and ducked down in the open cockpit. No one would see him here, as long as they did not climb on the ship.
He heard the door being carefully closed and steps coming close. Tapping into his mutation again, he tried to get an idea of what that person was doing. He was too nervous to keep his concentration with eyes open, so he closed them and moments later saw the objects that represented the person standing still at the end of the brightly glowing network of the ship.
“You can come out!” A female voice suddenly said.
Robin didn’t move and stopped breathing. The woman shouldn’t know that someone is..
“You know, the ship is still running…”
‘Damn, right’
“Slowly raise your hands first and stand up afterwards” She commanded, her voice playful but stern.
Contemplating for a moment, Robin put the gun on the seat, tapped a button on one of the ship's screens and raised both hands while his Interface got connected to the ship.
“Don’t shoot, I’m unarmed and just some technocrafter working here!” He yelled, his voice a pitch higher than he would have preferred, but hey - there was a woman pointing a gun straight at his face. When he stood up, he spotted her at the exact location his senses had told him.
‘That’s some useful new feature I’ve discovered there.’ Robin thought, clearly a bit muddle headed with all the rapid changes happening.
The woman he saw had a shaved head with many metal pieces attached and wore a black jumpsuit. She held an energy weapon aimed at him, but Robin could see with his mutation that it wasn’t powered yet.
‘At least she doesn't want to shoot me without talking first…’ He thought but his attention suddenly shifted to the cables that came out of the back of her hand and vanished in her sleeve.
‘Damn, is she a Cetro?’ He wondered.
The Cetro were something like a race-cult-mix. Once they were a tribe of humanoids that just had a thing for technology. They grew more and more obsessed with it and even began to worship some made up techno-god. To get closer to that god, they modified their own bodies, installing devices and upgrades directly to their skin and bones.
They became zealots, haunting the outer rims of populated galaxies. Always looking for new technologies and trying to convert the settlers they found. They didn’t discriminate between races and anyone that joined them - or was forced to join - became a full member of their tribe. Today one mostly finds these crazy maniacs in isolated areas or in the slums of bigger cities, where they work in criminal organizations.
Some shit was going on and he was caught up in it - again.