CHAPTER 6 - NEGOTIATIONS

The ship's quartermaster, a slightly chubby, brown-haired man named Rogier Stolte, was sitting, or rather floating, beside Kuw in what was nominally Rachel's seat. His uniform was gray with yellow accents. He had been called here by the acting captain to assist in various transactions, as he knew the ship's needs even more than Patch did.

On the other end of the comms screen was FE-01's own quartermaster, talking alone from some dark room lined with computers. She was elderly, her face wrinkled and her gray hair tied in a bun. The two parties were in the middle of a conversation.

"With all due respect, if you did not have StarNavy credentials and verified logs, you would have been… arrested now. Our security had a… lively discussion when we saw your ship's… cargo," the decrepit old lady spoke slowly.

"Well, as Captain Jamaad saaaaid on our previous mission, don't let an opportunity go to waste. Graaaanted, that was in a different situation…"

"Miss," Rogier said, "May I suggest that we focus on the task at hand?"

"Riiight," Kuw said. "Do we get any sort of bounty for retrieving the cargo container?"

The station's quartermaster shook her head. "That is up to the shipping company, or, if it was a tramp freighter, the ship's captain. I will put up a notice that a container has been recovered."

"Thank ya! The ETA for installing the third PB, the missile launcher, and enlarging the radiators is still two days, right?"

"Yes, assuming your vessel is compliant with the Alliance Modular Component System."

"Well of course it iiiis! We're in the modern age. What about the… ammo for the launcher?"

The quartermaster shook her head. "While we have the license to service military vessels below size class 3, we lack the necessary authorization to stock ordnance. I am sorry."

The Modular Component System was quite an ingenious thing. It allowed ships to be quickly upgraded and maintained, with entire subsystems being swappable like blocks in a construction toy.

"That's fiiiine. I will let Rogier decide everything else."

A long and dreary conversation followed, including a lot of digital paperwork being passed around… and most of the money procured from the pirates' wallets being used to pay for the upgrades. Patch did nothing but sit at the engineering console, completely motionless. Eventually, it was over, and the station's engineers began preparing to work on the ship's upgrades, assisted by the vessel's own team.

Not a minute after the two quartermasters finished their dialogue, the door opened, and Elektra floated in beside Jamaad. Rogier turned around, saluted, and left.

"Hello sir," Kuw said. "Slept well?"

"More or less," Jamaad said. "Coffee helped. Where are Rachel and Artur?"

"I let theeeem go. They're just wandering the station last I checked. What are they needed for when the ship is docked and surrounded by like a million friendlies, respectively?"

"Do not get defensive, Kuw. I was planning on doing that myself, anyways."

Elektra sat down at the medical monitor, clicked through a few tabs, and sighed. "Signs of inebriation apparent in Weapons Officer Artur Greenpaw."

***

Down the hall from the Frontier's Eatery was a place simply called the Claw. In contrast to the Eatery's handwriting-like lettering, its sign was bold, flashed red, and was a military-esque stencil with a ragged white swipe cutting through it.

Artur sat on a stool that was more like a solid block of metal, leaning onto a table that resembled the same. The lighting was very dim, its red-tinted glow turning the black walls maroon, each unevenness of the faux-brickwork becoming a shadow. Noise filled the air. Glasses and tankards clanked. Canids shouted at each other in vitrolic arguments, at the black-furred bartender to request more drinks, at the viewscreen in the corner to offer 'insightful commentary' on the latest news report. Some were playing card games with a lot of money at stake, or darts with photos of the Black Fang Republic's enemies pinned to the board, while one was singing some crude song while playing an instrument that looked and sounded like a mix between an accordion and an electric guitar. Everyone had cybernetics in varying amounts: some, like Artur himself, had mostly internal bionics, while others were outright full-body cyborgs, and everything in-between.

The officer was alone at a table, having just got himself a glass of vodka after having hit the bullseye (a photo of the dal-ghar emperor Gaa-Mul-Hel) right between the four beady eyes.

"I didn't expect to see you here, Ika," Artur looked up as a Canid woman sat down on the opposite stool.

She had white fur stretched over an extremely muscular body, even more solidly-built than Artur had, painted with red swirls, and her mane was tied into a knot of dreadlocks behind her head. Ika's snout was only slightly more rounded than Artur's, and her coat was much fluffier. Her clothing was a lot less formal than the weapons officer's: a sleeveless crop top apparently made of metal, gauntlets of red leather with bone spikes, and a black-and-red skirt-drape, as well as a lot of bone piercings. Her arms were made of some silvery superalloy, while her face, in addition to a headgear-like BCI, was disfigured with many scars, some covered by clearly new implants. On her back was a scabbard with a sword.

"Hey Artur!" she said. "Remember when I gave you shit for not volunteering for Gewroohiri?"

"Yeah, well I was always more of a Navy guy. What about that? Isn't the war still ongoing?"

"It fuckin is. But I'm glad you didn't go now," she turned around. Her back was covered in many ragged, recently-healed wounds: bullet holes and shrapnel gashes. "See?" She then raised her right leg. The kneecap and half of the thigh were replaced with visible external plates. "This too."

Artur squinted. "Didn't you brag that your spirits or whatever protect you? That you're not scared of wounds?"

Ika very loudly slammed her fist onto the table, three times. Any table in a regular Terran bar would have immediately ceased being one under such an assault, but the metallic cuboid wasn't even dented. The pair earned a few glances.

"Dumbass! Do you think I up and left? Well first off, he 'promoted' me and second off, he discharged me as soon as I healed. The fucker. 'Internal damage'. 'Likely psychological trauma'," with every sarcastic phrase she made air quotes with titanium-clawed fingers, "I think he wasn't a Canid but was a humie in a suit. That's what he was. If they let me, thousands more Abyssals on Gew would have faced my rifle. And my grenades. And my axe."

Artur spat on the floor, a common gesture for him. "Chill out, I get it now… Well about the axe, where's it? You walked around everywhere with that huge thing."

"Some fucker snatched it when it was lights out for me. Maybe an Abyssal. Maybe that rat Jake. Who knows? It's gone now. Kaput." The female Canid then sighed, paused, and jogged over to the counter. "Bartender! A Quintuple Sagittarius for me!"

***

"Let him be," Jamaad said. "As long as he doesn't leak classified information or the like, it is fine as he is off-duty."

"How do you know he won't?" Elektra said.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Chief Medical Officer Jacinth," the captain responded, "Do you consider Greenpaw a criminal? Do you think, for all the time he spent first in the Canid astromiliary, then here, he would turn around and sell us all out?"

The CMO fell silent. "I'm sorry, sir."

A very awkward silence enveloped the command room. Elektra was the first to break it, or rather, her datapad did as it beeped in her pocket. "Rachel sent me a message. She wants me to go meet her on the station. Can I go?"

Jamaad thought for a moment. "You can, but someone needs to be appointed acting CMO in case there is an emergency while the ship is docked."

"Are there any objections to it being Doctor Sara Leitão? She is the most senior, older than me in fact, and has a lot of experience."

"No."

Elektra smiled and left, her ear-fins twitching.

"Are negotiations done yet?" Jamaad asked. The soft buzzing of welding tools almost imperceptibly, but noticeably, echoing through the superstructure had clued him in, but he decided to ask out of formality.

Kuw nodded. "Yes, they're already working on the radiators."

"Then," the captain raised an eyebrow, "Why is Patch still here?"

The robot was motionless and silent. Jamaad floated over and poked its hull. No response. He poked a bit harder. Silence.

"Is… is Patch broken?"

Kuw stood up from her seat, scratched the tip of her muzzle, and gave the robot a hefty slap right on the middle. This seemed to have initiated some kind of emergency reactivation subroutine. After a ping, the robot returned to life.

"I apologize," Patch intoned, "I had discovered that EF-01's databanks contained new firmware updates that could fix critical bugs in my software systems. For example, there existed a vulnerability where sending a certain sequence of chohjozra alphabet characters in the embedded radio-text app at frequency 110.7 would allow an attacker to trigger my integrated sonic fire extinguisher. I spent time downloading and installing the update packages."

"That is… nevermind," Jamaad said, and ordered the robot to help the engineering teams.

***

Rachel was still sitting in the cafe and talking to Joaquin about rather mundane things. Families, jobs, various anecdotes.

A very anxious-looking man wearing gray, baggy clothes and a cloak hastily paced into the room and looked around, breathing deeply. Though he was decidedly baseline, right then he resembled a rodent or a small bird in his mannerisms. The man made his way to Rachel's chair.

"Ma'am," he said nervously, "You're a ship crewmember right– right? I have to get this– this delivered to the Nrukhrizchaa. Not just– I mean specifically Kyrrhtazh Station 01. Everyone else I asked is going the wrong– wrong way or is skipping that one."

Rachel turned to him and raised an eyebrow as a flat black case was presented to her. It was perhaps the size and shape of a large book, of the kind that was now only seen in museums and antique enthusiasts' collections.

"I believe we're passing through that system, yes. I don't know if we'll stop there though. But sure, let me check…" she looked something up on her datapad, "Yeah, we're gonna dock there! We'll do it. What's in the box though?"

The catgirl had a creeping suspicion that inside were illegal drugs or worse, but this was dispelled by the man prying open the lid. Inside was something unexpected.

It wasn't exactly something. It was a living being, specifically a weird alien creature resembling a cone snail where the cone split into five points, but with four translucent limbs poking out from its upright, rainbow-colored shell, each with three eyestalks, two mandibles, and one proboscis at the end. Some kind of inclusions in its flesh made it scintillate like a clear opal. The alien snail was perhaps fifteen centimeters from limb tip to limb tip. Inside the box was an air tank and a food tube.

The man closed the box. "Just don't open it for too long. It doesn't like the air composition here– here very much. And– and in this life stage it– it doesn't like direct white light and dry ship air."

"Huh. What's this… critter called? And where's it from? Is it like one of those tropical Earth things?" Rachel said.

"No– no. Not Earth. I take it you're not from there? Its name is Specks, and– and the species name the Chimeras use for– for these is unpronounceable. The– the translation is something like Beautifully Symmetric Descending-Quintuple-Series Eater of Leaves and Berries. It's from their homeworld, which is called Eternally-Flowering Immaculately Splendorous Planet-Garden of Waterfalls."

"I'm from NA, never have been to Earth." Rachel then tilted her head and thought for a moment. "Can I just call Specks a snail?"

"Yes, I suppose– yes. A friend I have, Sofia, a human– lives on Irrhhya, a chohjozra colony, and collects alien animals. She will meet you at the station and pay you a thousand umecs."

"Why don't you use a cargo service?"

"I live here, never– never left this station in my life, and almost no ships go from– from here to there. But I must go now! Thank you very much!" The man said and ran off, closing the door behind him, leaving Rachel with the box… and a weighty packet of concentrated nutrient paste, presumably for refilling the food tube.

"Do you know that guy?" Rachel said to Joaquin.

"I believe I saw him a few times, but my memory isn't too good."

Before the cafe door could properly close, Kuw and Elektra barged in. Rachel showed them the box and explained what happened.

Kuw simply nodded and looked into the box for a few seconds, while Elektra sat down on a free chair. "Are you sure the captain will be OK with this?" The empath-genemod said.

Rachel leaned back and looked up at the chandelier. "Well, I don't see why he wouldn't be. I mean, the plan says we're passing through anyway, so why not earn a bit of cash while we're at it? According to the ship funds app, we spent all we got from the pir–"

Elektra leaned in over the table, and her amphibian-like nostrils flared. If looks could kill, Rachel would have been a stain on the far wall right then. She quickly nodded and looked to her side.

Luckily, the only civilian likely to have overheard the slip, Joaquin, was too busy talking to Kuw. She seemed to be frequently correcting his clearly subpar Liamuju pronunciation, to no avail. Some phonemes were simply impossible for a human vocal system to produce beyond the approximation afforded by the standard transliteration. But vice versa, relmai struggled with English. Kuw had a special implant in her mouth that allowed her to pronounce, for example, the 'f' sound properly, but most people were out of luck.

The catgirl coughed. "Sorry."

She slid the box onto the table, and watched as Elektra walked up to the counter to order a bowl of synth-chicken soup. Meanwhile, Kuw stopped her conversation with Joaquin and reached into her pocket to retrieve something. That something was a small, tight bouquet of shiny white, translucent purple, and glittering red flowers of varying shapes and sizes. The relmai stood up from her seat and smiled as she offered the flowers to Rachel.

"Rachel, I wanna say something. I haaaad some feelings for ya since we first met three mooonths ago, but wasn't reaaaally sure how to quite approach a Terran like ya, so I stayed quiet because I didn't want to accidentally hurt ya. I… I love ya, Rachel Beka."

The sensors officer's eyes widened, and she blushed a bit as she accepted the flowers. "R-really? I didn't know, I didn't pick up on– I…"

Kuw giggled. "I didn't expect ya to! But now ya know."

Rachel blushed harder. "I admit, so did I, but I thought you weren't into non-relmai…"

The giggles turned to laughter. "Then… ya don't know how we are then? Yes we prefer our kind unlike a lot of humies do, buuuut most of us wouldn't pass on someone cute, no matter! And you aaaare cute!"

Rachel stood up and let Kuw pull her into a tight, fluffy hug. She could feel the relmai kissing her on the cheek, and simply stood there, taking in a whole series of kisses. Her legs shook as they embraced. Rachel felt a bit embarrassed that Kuw had decided to do this in public. The embarrassment increased when she realized both Elektra and Joaquin were watching… and so was half of the cafe.

"Can we… save all the kisses for somewhere more private?" She whispered, wriggling out of the hug.

"Sorry!" Kuw responded.

They sat back down. Joaquin looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't.

Elektra, meanwhile, looked up from her soup, which had started growing a bit cold. "Aren't there StarNavy rules against this level of fraternization?"

Rachel frowned a bit, but then brightened up soon after. "On warships deployed to patrol or fight in likely warzones! Long-range peaceful missions have fewer such regulations."

Elektra leaned in to whisper. "Ostensibly peaceful…"

"Hmm, what was the saying…" Joaquin said, "Send fifty folks out, twenty-five couples return."

"We have just twenty," Elektra said, "But that has a grain of truth to it."