CHAPTER 18 - THE CORPORATION
"We probably should just move on," Rachel said, "the next places can't be much worse than this. And we won't be supporting Yectkogg that way."
"No we can't!" Artur shouted, and slammed his fist on the desk, "I hate the cappies but first of all we'll be slow, second of all there might be more damage. We have to deal with them."
"But who knows how many more fees they'll stack on if we let them? It's not like we are critically damaged."
"Listen, I'm not the fucker to talk about this usually, but we cannot take risks here. We are very far from a truly allied state. We can't fucking waste our FTL drive's lifetime– which is one of the reasons we've been able to zip through space like this, I struggle to imagine how slow we would have gone a normal drive– on what are likely pointless detours," Artur said.
Kuw wasn't sure who to side with, but she knew that the argument would have gone on for a very long time if she didn't.
"I… Artur is right. Rachel, please deeeear, just… listen to him!" she intervened.
Rachel raised her hands up. "Fine! Sell out to the corpo. Let them walk all over you."
"Sorry," Artur said, "I just want us to succeed. I'm sorry if I hurt you. I don't want to hurt you again…"
Rachel, who was about to cry, smiled, exposing her feline fangs. "You're not a bad person, Artur. We disagree. It's fine. At the station, if we do visit it and find some alone time, I want to talk to you about this a bit more."
With a certain unwillingness in her heart, Kuw made the payments as soon as the docking ports clamped together. Laborers in six-limbed spacesuits immediately started their work. There was very little automation. A small robo-arm-equipped magnetic-grip crawler was about the only noticeable form of such.
"You know, as much as that place seems to suck, I haven't seen a non-crew face in so long. I know it hasn't been that much time but I'm stressing out. Can we go there?" Rachel said, "Who knows, maybe the food is decent."
A moment of silence. Kuw and Artur looked at each other and tacitly agreed.
The three floated towards the port's entrance. The rest of the crew was ordered to stay in the ship until further notice, since Rachel was not sure if the station was as safe as Xokk implied.
Rachel squinted at the docking port's viewscreen, which showed the team heading to the damaged areas of the Pheidippides' hull. "Why are they not using more robots? Wouldn't that save more money?"
"They are 'creating jobs'," the wolf-man made air quotes, "and besides, it's not like it'll save much money if you pay your workers fuck all. And do shit like sticking remote-activated zappers into their heads."
"Wow. I don't think on Earth–"
"Nah, this shithole is what Earth would have turned to if not for the Age of Protests."
"Customers, please clear the docking port within thirty seconds," a heavily-accented voice blared over a tiny intercom somewhere.
"Yeeeeea, how about we don't say things like that here," Kuw said as she pulled Rachel behind her.
The catgirl put her hand over her mouth. "What if there was a camera?" she said as the two exited the docking corridor, spinning together.
Artur blinked and looked at the corners, squinting while trailing behind. "Nope, no cameras."
"How do ya know?" Kuw asked as the doors of the airlock clasped shut.
"A while ago I downloaded a camera-finder BCI app off… a certain place on the web. Out of curiosity. I never used it for any nefarious purposes."
The station did not look extremely different from FE-01. A bare metal corridor, well-lit with white lights. However, instead of flags there were many viewscreens blaring what seemed to be advertisements interspersed with propaganda, all rendered with sleek pastel designs and soundtracked with an alien, barking language. More ads, static ones, were stenciled, plastered, and painted on the walls between the screens. These messages, both visual and audio, were supplemented with additional text and tinny, sped-up voices in multiple other languages, among them English. After all, those of other species had to be exposed to the wisdom of the marketing department, too. The inhabitants of this station hurriedly carried crates and bags through the corridor, not paying much attention to the three officers in their rush.
"Well, let's check out the stuff they have in the hab. Could be interesting anyhow. Kuw, aren't you supposed to stay back and negotiate with them like last time we docked?" Artur said as they floated towards the elevators.
"Whaaat is there to negotiate about? We talked about what we could talk about. If I'm needed, they'll call me," the relmai pointed to the datapad in her pocket.
"How long will we stay in this hellhole?" Rachel sighed.
"At least three days while the repairs get done," Artur said.
"Pain. Just pain. At least we won't have to rent a room, we can just sleep on the ship like last time… but I'm sorry for these people who have to be gouged."
The elevator creaked and groaned as the three went down to the habitat ring, accompanied by a discotheque's worth of flickering lights.
"And if someone's photosensitive?" Rachel said, rubbing her eyes as they walked out of the elevator, the gravity being present in the ring it led to.
"Then Yectkogg either gets more money, or they lose a drain on resources," Artur said.
There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that everyone got the point right then and there.
The inside of the habitat ring seemed to be almost a mockery of FE-01. In the place of colorful signs indicating the locations of small businesses were larger, but uniformly-designed and colored advertisements resembling those in the corridor. And the amount of them was far larger, crowding the already-claustrophobic hall with a cavalcade of soulless light and sound, merging into an unrecognizable cacophony. Despite the many languages the signs were in, this was only an empty facsimile of cosmopolitanism…
The people there were mostly yects, all of them clearly of the lower class: wearing plain gray vests and shorts, with no decorations. Most were barefoot. Though the station did not have any benches to discourage loitering, they still rested on the cold metal floor. Perhaps surprisingly, individuals of other species could be seen too, mainly those of neighboring neutral civilizations that the crew had little familiarity or ability to effectively communicate with.
The group's collective mood had soured by then. "Should we just… return to the ship?" Rachel said.
Kuw suddenly sniffed the air, then ran forward, slipping out of Rachel's grasp.
"Let's wait for her to come back," Rachel leaned against the frigid wall.
Five minutes passed. Kuw returned, pulling behind her another relmai, a female with very light pink fur. Judging by the large amounts of scintillating jewelry on her body, she was a civilian visitor to the station. Her robe, though as garish as Kuw's uniform, would also not have passed muster on any commercial or military vessel's dress code. She was an island of color and whimsy in this sea of dreariness. Nevertheless, on her face was an expression of fear and uncertainty.
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"This is Mwiukwou Kaibuo-ju! She's my new friend. Mwiu, this is Rachel, this is Kuw, this is Artur. All my coworkers. Veeeery nice people. Hope you like them."
Mwiu shook the hands of those introduced. She was seemingly very hurried by something.
"But you just met…" Rachel said, then realized how quickly the relmai make new acquaintances, "...nevermind."
"Aaaand she is in quiiite some trouble. Ya see," Kuw looked around, making sure that no enforcers of Yectkogg law were nearby, "she is a tourist. Specifically, a hitchhiker. Kind of a commoooon way to travel the Oval on a budget, ya see?"
"Yes, but what about the danger?" Rachel seemed to guess where this was going…
"Yes, about the danger!" Mwiukwou gestured wildly, "I can tell Kuw likes to prattle oooon and on and on!" she said in a very high-pitched voice, "Let's cut to the chase as you humies saaay."
She stepped forward and leaned in. All three officers tilted their heads to listen to her half-whispering voice. "This was three days ago. The yects fined the captain I was traveling with– he is such a niiiice aadalu– saying he had no license to 'transport sophonts' within Yectkogg space. When he pointed out that there was no such thing in their registry of laws, they doubled the fine. They then kicked me and four other hitchhikers out onto this station, confiscated his cargo, and told him to leave as soon as possible. Aaand aren't letting us board any other ship. They say we have to sign up for wooork and earn them at least ten thousand umecs of value within eight station-days, or…" Mwiukwou gulped.
"Or?" Artur said.
"Or theeey'll fucking sell us to the Abyssals! As…" She raised her voice, then gasped and lowered into a whisper again, "The captain said he never heard of anything like this happening… anyways please pleeease pleeeease save us. We can't find any real jobs here, because everything is already taken by yects. I know ya are a ship crew from a distant land, please just bring us to somewhere that isn't a death trap. They only just relaxed their watch over us so this is our first chance to leave, to find a departing ship crew. Pleeeeease just drop us off at the first Bulwark colony ya see if you're going that way. Please just anywhere not in the Abyssal Sphere."
Rachel was utterly taken aback, and looked at the other two. "We have to help these people. I don't care how. Save them from this hell."
Artur… smiled sadly at Mwiukwou. "Okay cutie. We're a military ship. But we already took a slimeball onboard once. Hm…"
Kuw raised herself on the tips of her toes in a futile attempt to make it look like Artur didn't tower over her. "I'm the acting captain right noow! Anyways Mwiu, you're gonna get ferried to the first safe place we visit."
"Thank ya so much!" She hugged Kuw.
"Right," the wolf-man rubbed his chin, which had started growing a beard-like tuft of fur, "Where are the other three?"
"Drowning their sorroooows," Mwiu said, "we have five days left… if you have any business here, please take your time."
"I bet they're as cute as you," Artur smirked and bumped her with his elbow. She grinned, her fears clearly fading away.
"Alright, we can depart in three days because our own ship got, uh, beat up," Rachel said, "We're very fast and aren't going to spend any more time in Abyssal-aligned space. Give me your number, or your Spark username, please, so we keep in touch if needed."
They exchanged contact information.
"Again, thank ya! I'll tell the rest," Mwiu waved goodbye and sprinted down the hall.
"You know what, nevermind going back." Rachel said as they walked through the almost sterile yet oddly decrepit-feeling corridor, going in the same direction Mwiu went "Anyways, I didn't expect to have to help people so much on this mission, honestly, but it does feel nice."
"Just that we tend to end up in the right place at the right tiiiime." Kuw said.
"I guess all the times we ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time was the universe compensating, then?" Rachel chuckled.
Kuw suddenly pointed to one of the only signs that had non-yect-language text as a central design element. In fact, it was the deceptively smooth-scripted alien language that was sidelined here in favor of English and Liamuju, with over a dozen other languages below. The former lettering was, however, the largest and most ornate, in the form of a calligraphic neon sign that occasionally sputtered against a black background:
> Ancilla Bar
The doors, unlike the bare metal, glass, or white plastic doors of the other businesses, were of solid darkwood. They were of a very old-school style, as one may have seen in a period piece about the 19th or early 20th century. The door handle and the door's grooves were both seemingly gilded, but considering the environment it was more likely gold paint, especially given that it started chipping in places.
"I wonder if Mwiu and friends are here," Rachel said as she opened the door.
Immediately, a potent feeling of coziness washed over her. Perhaps the warmest light she had ever seen since leaving New Arizona's surface poured from several spherical, wavy lamps hanging from the relatively high ceiling, each shining like the red giant at the center of the star system, their opulence unfortunately sullied by their intermittent flickering. The rounded square tables had just one thick leg each and were all placed close together. The beige-and-red zigzag wallpaper had begun peeling in large chunks. Next to the counter in the corner, made of the same wood and with the same detailing as the door, was a large jukebox. None of the crewmembers had ever seen this kind of jukebox before. Overall, the whole place had an opulent quality to it, despite its partial dilapidation.
The many patrons had an even wider variety to them than the cafe at FE-01 did. A tired-looking, bearded bartender was one of the only baseline humans around. He seemed to constantly be reaching into the rack of drinks behind him to serve glasses to the multitudes of similarly weary patrons crowding around the counter. Yects were the minority, but still present. Mwiu was nowhere to be seen.
"Are we in some kind of movie?" Artur looked around.
"Or at least back at NA…" Rachel said wistfully, "Though no places there were this run-down. What's the deal here?" she wondered aloud.
One of the patrons, a highly-cyborgized light gray Canid, stood up from his seat. He was much lankier and more ragged than Artur. "This is a travelers' bar! You know, for freelance traders and so on. Alas, the yects don't care for this place's wellbeing. We're struggling with cash these days, though..." he said in a gruff and thickly-accented voice as he pulled down the hood of his spiky black jacket.
In addition to the jacket, he was wearing similarly adorned and colored pants, as well as a crunched and worn civilian captain's cap. If not for the cap, he would have looked like some kind of lowly scoundrel.
"I thought there was an Alliance embargo on Yectkogg?"
"Yeah there is, for state-owned companies. Us free traders can go anywhere that's not outright Hegemony. You're not in the know, are you?"
Artur strid closer to the other Canid in order to shake his hand. "Hey brother, didn't expect to see a fellow star-hound around these parts! Anyways, no we're not. We're on an important mission."
"I– I'm supposed to be the one saying that!" Kuw laughed.
The two Canids exchanged a few phrases in what appeared to be Interslavic, before Artur split off to buy a drink.
"What's your name, sir?" Rachel said to the trader, "I'm Rachel Beka, officer of the Terran StarNavy. I'm from New Arizona."
"Yeremey… I don't tell my surname to strangers. Captain of the Radiant Drifter. I haven't seen my homeworld in years so I don't really care for it. My ship is my home. My crew are my compatriots."
"How do you live then?"
The ragged Canid chuckled, putting his fully-mechanical right arm over his mouth. "I buy low and sell high. Fuel's cheap these days. It's not a comfortable or even safe life," he turned his head to reveal that the back of his service cap had a bullet hole in it that barely missed his head, "but they don't call us free traders for no reason."
"What exactly do you trade for? I'm not too well-versed with regards to economics," Rachel sat down on an empty seat beside him.
"Everything… everything worth selling. Magnetic monopoles. Unsynthesizable organics, like rrytazz spices. Xenofauna and flora, when I can get a permit. Complex machinery like room-temp quantum computers. Sometimes a huge-ass load of iridium if I can find it for cheap. Can't be picky," Yeremey said.
"But what about, uh… food? Steel? Um… clothes and stuff?"
The Canid trader laughed loudly, prompting strange looks from the other patrons. "I ain't gonna clog up my cargo bay with shit that will sell for a pittance. I said fuel is cheap, but I'd spend more umecs shipping that stuff around than actually making deals with it!"
"Ah. Sorry for asking a dumb question. Any reason you docked here, if you don't mind sharing?" She leaned a bit onto the table.
"No, I'm empty but this system has a station really close to the warp boundary. Kinda rare in this region."
Rachel was somewhat intrigued, but felt the man was a little shady. She thought about how he was trading with and thus supporting the Yectkogg Corporation, but of course these concerns remained unvoiced.
"Alright, talk to you later," she said as she took Kuw by the hand and pulled her towards the counter.
The relmai was a little overwhelmed by all the activity and chatter going on in the room, and was just about to begin talking to Yeremey when she was whisked away. But she didn't mind it, as she was looking forward to drinking with her partner.