A few hours after Robin left the Drel outpost, he finally returned to the general area of the Apex racing track. Not daring to enter just now, he stopped his ship and powered down the generator.
“Ahhh…” Robin gave a satisfied sigh, “Finally some relief from this damn itching.”
He sunk back in his seat and relaxed for a moment. After turning on the generator, he felt like dying through overstimulation, as if thousands of insects were crawling all over his body and under his skin, making scratching impossible. This forceful kind of confrontation with his new senses sucked, but ultimately led to faster adaptation. Slowly the itching receded over time and after nearly four hours of flight in a fully powered ship, Robin had managed to reduce the uncomfortable feeling to an annoying background noise. Even so, some moment of relief was more than welcome.
After a few minutes Robin went back to working on his to-do list.
“ROMAS, please open a comm channel with Timothy.” He requested from his new AI and shortly afterwards he could hear the sleepy voice of his friend.
“Robin? Is that really you?”
“Hey mate, of course it is, who else did you expect? Did I wake you up?” Robin laughed.
“You should be dead… everyone thinks you’re drifting through space somewhere. I already drank to you!” Timothy complained and Robin realized he had not given his friend a warning beforehand to not worry about him. That was a dick move and he felt a bit sorry, but his buddy didn’t seem like he wanted to make a fuss about it.
“Yeah, long story... I should have given you a heads-up, sorry. You have a moment? I wanna share some news with you and hope for advice.”
“Now? It’s in the middle of the night. You better work on the formalities for your revival first. Where are you even?”
“I’m sitting in the Melody, some few kilometers away from the Apex track on Ruca II. It concerns an undiscovered alien relic site I stumbled about, are you sure you wanna hear about that later?” Robin chuckled as he heard all sleepiness vanish from Timothy's voice.
“What? I’m all there, keep talking!”
‘Getting a call from me, presumed dead, didn’t even shake him, but this? Little shit!’ Robin cursed in his mind and began to explain what he learned about the Drel outpost. He left out the part about his new upgrades, that he took the AI and how he found the outpost in the first place, but Timothy still was absolutely on fire.
“Are you really sure it is from the Drel? That would be HUGE!” His friend nearly yelled.
“It is, I talked to the facility's AI and I brought a datapad as proof.”
“That there is an AI is not surprising as the Drel excel in this field, same with the weapons. This is great!”
“They nearly killed me, I barely survived. Shouldn’t you at least show some concern about my situation?” Robin grumbled.
“Well, I thought you died anyways and now we are talking. Seems to be all good! Back to the topic: What are you going to do now?” Timothy was fully in the zone and couldn’t distract himself with Robin’s mundane problem of nearly dying.
“My idea is to use this information to negotiate with the UAS. I wanna suggest a trade, everything I know in exchange for an interplanetary ship, maybe even an intergalactic one. That's why I’m calling you - you know better how I should approach them and what I can ask in return.”
Following that, the researcher explained what he knew and gave some advice about how to proceed. Robin nearly couldn’t stop him from asking more and more details about the outpost. Only when ROMAS informed him that his battery was running low and he only had 30 minutes left, did Robin cut him short.
“Thanks again for the advice, I’ll do it that way. Anyways, shall I make your participation in the looting… uhm, research project a requirement?” He asked, seeing it as a way to thank his friend.
“You would do that? Great! Yes, please!” Timothy’s voice cracked with excitement.
“Sure, but no promises, getting a ship has priority!”
Closing the comm channel, Robin gritted his teeth and powered up the Melody again. The prickling hit him with full force once more and he needed a moment to acclimate and reduce it to a background noise. Not dallying around, he made his way to the Apex camp.
“I really forgot to give him a warning about my plans for the race. I was too distracted, I really suck as a friend.” Robin chuckled as he thought back to Timothy’s reaction while closing in on the hangars. However, suddenly he remembered someone else he forgot to inform. His innards clenched and he visibly paled.
“Oh shit, Patience! I’m so dead…”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
***
Things became a bit messy for some time, since he found the facility closed and abandoned. Only after an awkward call with Bart Nelson, the Apex official in charge of the AHC, did they remotely open a hangar for him. He was told to wait two days until they could send a transport to pick him and the Melody up. Nelson also wanted a full report of what had happened, but Robin interrupted him and spewed some bullshit about him having some technical problems and quickly needing a workbench.
That’s how it came that Robin was standing in a small workshop half an hour later. His Neuro-Chip, ROMAS and the Interface all were offline and inaccessible. But he had managed to get the specifications for the connector from the AI before it shut down and was now crafting a cable that he could use to…. plug himself in - like a damn datapad! It was quite the challenge with all the different colored cables, as Robin still wasn't used to seeing only different shades of gray and really missed his color vision. Sure it wasn't the worst handicap he could think of, but somehow, everything felt a bit dull and boring. He hoped to be able to regain his lost sense or at least find a technological substitute one day.
After he was done and fully charged, Robin used the rest of his time to train with his upgraded mutation to get more used to it. After some experiments he got at least a grasp on his new capabilities.
If he boiled everything down to the basics, his skill now had a bigger range of roughly 10 meters, the quality, or resolution, was increased and it was more natural to use, making it easier to activate his enhanced vision.
He got a second skill, the Echo Pulse. This ability sent out a pulse that was highlighting everything that contained energy within 15 meters around him. The image only remained for 2 seconds and the resolution was merely as good as his original version of Minor Energy Senses: no body-heat generators or other small devices were detected.
Lastly he had obtained the passive ability to sense energies around him. The more power something contained, the more his body reacted. The range also depended on the amount of energy, but Robin estimated the normal distance to be around 5m. A powered ship, a generator or the power supply of the facility made his sensed tingle even from over 20 m away and for small things, like a flashlight, he had to be as close as half a meter.
For now Robin could only tell that there was energy and he got a general idea of how strong it was. He made only very little progress in identifying the exact direction and no progress at all in being able to differentiate multiple sources.
Anyways, he was quite satisfied with his gains from the two days of training and was really excited to visit Slice again, the stitch in RustHollow Quarters, and get his mutation analyzed.
The only other thing he did over this period of waiting was informing different people that he wasn’t dead. He had called Patience but she didn’t pick up. Robin assumed she was either pissed off or busy with the training camp that was still running - probably both. He left a message and promised to visit her as soon as possible.
He also called Jim and made an appointment together with him and Slice. He didn’t fully trust the stitch and Jim would be a good backup to ensure the Mohait didn’t try something funny.
Lastly he had a lengthy chat with Niu. She apparently already had left for Gaunus, to take her exam for the piloting license. She was really happy to hear from him and Robin realized how worried she must have been, despite being in the know. He was gone for too long and she must have feared the worst.
However after she regained her happy self, she told him what he had missed. Obviously, with Hopewing being detained and waiting for a date with the judge, she claimed the first position, winning the race. Robin was declared missing in action, presumed dead, and got disqualified.
Also, this AHC got even more attention than before which allowed Happy to reduce the pressure from the Alaris family some more - adding in the fact that the news made Niu the ultimate hero who took down Hopewing, she was sure that she would be able to gain complete independence as soon as she got her license and was stationed on one of the intergalactic cruisers from the UAS.
They promised to meet after Robin got his ship and began to explore the system. This had become a friendship they both didn’t want to give up on.
***
After two days Robin’s relaxing time came to an end when he received a message that his transport was about to land.
He felt as prepared as possible: he was well rested, caught up with all of his friends - or left them a message - his Neuro-Chip was charged and he had a plan on how to approach the UAS after returning to Rucasur. Collecting all his stuff and shutting down as much of Apex’s facility as possible, he jumped into his ship and called Mr. Nelson again.
“Hey, I’m about to leave. Your transport is arriving just now. Thanks again for letting me stay here for some time and even sending me a lift.” Robin greeted the man.
“Mr. Tulward, we are just happy to know that we didn’t lose a second pilot. This year's race had more than enough twists and turns.” Nelson honestly replied and Robin could hear his voice sounded even more weary than two days ago.
“You must have it hard right now, being the manager of the AHC and all…while I’m not regretting we blew up the Hopewing-thing, I’m really sorry that you were standing directly in the way, when shit hit the fan. You did an awesome job, thanks again!” Robin said and heard only a deep sigh.
“It’s not really your fault, is it? The whole thing escalated more and more and no one managed to pull the plug in time. It’s better we cleaned this shit up now, than after Hopewing entered the big leagues. The damage would have been much worse.” Nelson shared his thoughts and said his goodbyes.
“Have a good trip home, if that is where you are about to actually go. The transport to pick you up is not sent by Apex. Good luck, Mr. Tulward.”
Not sent by Apex? Who else would come to pick him up? Unfortunately the man closed the channel before he could ask and the hangar door began to open.
It was time to leave.
Robin was sitting in the Melody and waited for the big ship to land. It was not the one that took him here, but the same model, a Humbler Cradle. After the carrier came to a stop, he got instructions to move in hangar 01. Not having any other choice if he wanted to leave this moon, Robin carefully landed inside the big ship and powered off the Melody. Just when he climbed out of his seat, a stern looking man, dressed in blue and white hurried in.
“Mr. Tulward, long time no see! I’m glad you didn’t die out there - we still have so many questions that are demanding an answer…”