Chapter 2 - The Station
So… I guess you're wondering a few things like how am I going to solve this and clear my name, what's my phone number (Ladies *wink* *wink*), oh and maybe how Beth looks like.
All in due time my audience, all in due time.
First of I’ll start with the boring stuff, Beth. She has brown eyes and seems to be about a meter seventy or so with toffee skin and turquoise colored hair of medium length in a bun style, she wore a black leather jacket over a white shirt with her badge on a long necklace and dark blue jeans. I want to say she's petite but a more fitting description would be muscular petite.
Now enough about her and back to me, my phone number is 1-800-don't-call-me and for the rest you'll just have to wait and see.
Now back to the story.
“So” Beth started saying “Where’s your ship?”
“Over there” I pointed and we started to walk towards her
“Right...” she answered confused
I decided to use this opportunity to lay some ground rules
“Listen, Beth, before we start working together we need to agree on a few rules”
“Understandable” she agreed
“First, upon my ship the captain’s word is law. Second, we may commit mostly legal, semi legal, not so legal, grey area and flat out illegal thing, comes with the gig.
Last but not least, whatever gear, guns and gadgets you used till now will need to be replaced, got it?” I told her decisively.
“Hahaha, ahh, wait you're serious? do you not understand your situation?”
“I do. We’re going to go find out who set me up and then I shoot his, her or its (not discriminating) lying little face”
“Listen kid, I read your file and you're good, but we’re not about to run around the galaxy shooting people in their face ok? I’m assigned to investigate why someone would want to kill Mr. Bower. Your job, as his killer, will be to assist me with whatever knowledge and connections you have in order to redeem yourself. Remember who has the authority here”
How dare she act as if I’m just some brat. I'm a respected professional in my field.
Ok stop, relax yourself Jayzarr, remember your position, breathe in *hu*, Inner peace, breathe out *hoo*
“Fine we’ll do it your way. I'll tell Her Highness that you're the captain”
“Thank you. Wait, who’s Her Highness?” she asked surprised
“Oh right, I forgot to tell you about my ship, Queen. She is equipped with a fully operational AI type STAR (Situation and Tactical Advanced Robot), installed and in full control of my ship”
“Those are banned in both the Gapaiem and United space, how would a kid like you get one?” she said not believing a word I said
For those of you who don’t follow, let me tell you a brief history lesson:
A couple of year ago the combined effort of two technology companies created the new STAR AI, but both the Gapaiem and United governments deemed it to dangerous, and the project got scrapped with only 6 working prototypes.
Reason being it was too smart. It’s basically a super intelligent self-aware AI, and that scared them (whole AI rebellion thing).
Now out of the prototypes four were destroyed, one was lost and another I found, which we all know and love as Her Highness.
“Well long story short I found her in an old lab which was decimated by the Roden. I decided ‘what the heck’ and installed her into my ship. We’ve been partners ever since”
“All Right I’ll ignore it for now, but I still don’t get why you call her Queen?”
“When I first installed her I asked her what her name was and that’s what she chose”
As I finished saying that we reached the ship.
“There's nothing here” gesturing with her hand at empty air
“That's called cloaking” most ships AI are not advanced enough to for it “Queen if you may?”
With the cloak dropped she now stood there with her full glory in plain sight
"That’s your ship, it’s a piece of garbage “Beth said in disgust.
“Now I know she ain’t pretty on the outside, but when you go to the places you need to go in my line of work she blends in perfectly”
“Hello Miss Bethany Nax, officer of the 5th degree” said all of a sudden a robotic female voice.
Funnily enough, it actually caused Beth to jump back in surprise.
“Who said that?” She asked startled “And how do you know that?”
“That was Her Highness, she performs background check on all her passengers, oh right your highness beth’s the captain. Now if you may open the door”
“I need the captain's approval for that”
“Ha ha, very funny”
“Let me have a bit of fun” she pouted
With the door opened we got inside and sat down.
“Take us out to the atmosphere, please” I asked Queen as I fiddled with a few buttons and knobs
“Initiating atmospheric departure sequence” after a slight pause she asked “How was the bounty?”
“Seems I was set up, nearly went to prison”
“How dreadful. Was it at least better the ayrua incident?”
“Don't remind me of that”
“What's this ayrua incident?” interject Beth
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“I'd rather not talk about it. Could you instead use your investigative skills to figure out why I was framed”
“You weren't framed”
“Then what do you call this then?”
“You were used” she smirked
“Great, but why me?”
“Hmm if i had to guess of the top of my head, I would have to say because you're young, skilled and not very bright...”
“Hey!”
“Let me finish” she stopped me “They used you because they didn't expect you to bring it back for scanning. They relied on your cockiness, knowing you wouldn't get it scanned, and with you thrown to the dogs it would take time to have your trial, time that they will use. That's my theory anyway. Now what they wanted is harder to guess, for that I’d need more information” she explained rubbing her chin thoughtfully
I have to say that at that point I was in awe of her
“More information coming right up. Queen please set course for Tav’s place”
“Wait I thought her name was Her Highness”
“She'll accept Highness, Queen or STAR as her name” I explained
“So where is this friend of yours?” Beth asked as we both got strapped into our seats
“In the Avak zone of course” I said as I pushed the button
“Are you crazy, DO YOU WANT TO KILL US!!!” she yelled to me in fear.
To which I started to laugh a little too crazy like, as the generated portal opened and we flew into it.
You might be wondering why Beth was so afraid and I started to laugh. For me it was just funny to see her crap her pants like that (metaphorically of course). She had genuine reasons to be afraid of the Avak zone, as it’s impossible to navigate successfully there without any waypoints with the few that do exist belonging to pirates (and various hostile factions). Waypoints work like a network, they act as a beacon for ships to generate a portal to. Most waypoints in the Avak zone are passcode locked, causing a generated portal to the Avak zone to put you at a pretty random location.
Once we got out onto the other side we saw a very large space station with a big neon sign saying ‘BAR’
”Don’t you EVER do that again“ Beth started to say while letting her heart rate return to normal “besides where are we?”
“We have arrived at the ‘BAR’ miss Nax” Queen answered
“Wait you don’t mean the ‘BAR’, do you?” she asked me, unsure
“Yes that one, the one and only neutral ‘BAR’ of Tavaster, but his friends call him Tav”
“Docking complete”
“Ok good, now to get us some new gear and information” with that said Beth and I got out of my ship and started to walk towards the hub of the station.
The BAR is a large space station owned by Tavaster, one of the richest and most influential people in the galaxy.
He looks like a human, tall, handsome, bit of stubble on his face, but everybody know he’s something else. Rumor tells that he’s been alive for over a millennium, and that he single handedly destroyed an entire untied armada.
On the station there are only a few rules: Tav’s word is law, no killing without his permission and every individual on the station is free.
The BAR has many attractions: one of the best clubs, an actual bar, a great hotel and the rest of the station has various shops, all owned by people that are lucky enough to be in Tav’s good grace, one of which is the weapon smith.
I took Beth to his shop, a lovely place that’s looks like a junkyard stuffed into a closet.
“Jasper, is that you?” he asked once I stepped into the shop “Ah and you brought costomer with you” he said with his broken speech
He’s a blaxian, around one thirty meters, always walking crouched, with brown skin and six beady eyes and four arms.
“As always Keldan, your nose cannot be tricked”
“Yes, yes. What you need me to build now, new gun mod perhaps?”
“Not this time old friend, I actually need new gear for my friend over here. She is in dire need for an upgrade. Oh, and put it on me” to which I saw his eyes starting to glow
“Hey, that’s not…” she started but he already started to pull her into the abyss that was his shop in order to make her a new gun. You must understand that Keldan is very precise in his work and demands the presence of the person who he’s making the gun for, so it will be optimal for them.
So while Beth was being harassed by his obsessiveness for perfection, I went to search for Tav.
The legend himself can mostly be found at the restaurant, a beautiful place sporting red velvet walls and mahogany furniture.
I started walking towards the entrance with a couple of people looking at me in surprise, I guess they never expected to see the great bounty hunter Jayzarr, the one and only (or wondering what someone like me is doing here).
When I got to the opening of the restaurant Tav saw me and gestured me to come towards him.
"Jay my friend, it has been some time” greeted Tav “Come, meet councilor Gavitares"
“Umm, hi” I answer awkwardly
“Greetings young man” he replied politely
Gavitares was a tall bald man, he was half human and half priloci (priloci are pink greenish humanoids, with four eyes and four fingers). You could see he was greenish and his four eyes stood out, but he had five finger proving he was a Halfling.
In front of me stood one of the most prominent people in the Gapaiem alliance, I cannot tell you how awkward it was, luckily for me Tav broke the silence
“Councilor I am so very sorry, but we will have to postpone our conversation for now to a later date. Best wishes”
And with that Tav put an arm on my shoulder and led me to an empty table.
“Would you like to eat?” he asked
“I’m fine thank you” I put on a serious face “What I need is information. Can you help me?”
“Well that all depends on what you can offer me in return” he said as his mouth turned to a sly smile “How about this, tell me something I don’t know and in return I’ll give you whatever information you need. deal?”
“Deal, I was double crossed by ExoCorp. They set me up and had me kill on an illegal contract. Now I have a week to clear my name”
“Hmm, interesting, but I already know this” he always does seem to know everything “Anything else?”
“I've never kissed a girl” I admitted embarrassed
“See that wasn't too hard. So, what do you need to know?”
“I need to know who and where”
“Unfortunately I don’t have any real names at this time, but I have been following on this organization’s activities. It would seem that they are a subgroup within the corporation, as for what I do have is the location of the research station where the man you killed worked”
“But I didn’t tell you his name yet” I questioned
“True, but I knew why you were here even before you even got here. I sent the waypoint passcode to your ship once you landed” he explained “Now, are you sure you don't want anything to eat?” he insisted
“On second thought I think I'll have a fran-bez”
“Excellent choice, waitress two fran-bez’s” he raised his hand, signaling her
Tav is just not the kind of person you say no to. He asked me twice to eat something, it would be rude to decline, plus he gave me a lead for free (more or less).
When I got back to Her Highness, I saw Beth waiting for me.
“What took you so long?”
“You don't say no to Tavaster. Anyway, don’t worry I got the info we need”
“Great, what did you get?”
“Our next destination” I told her as we entered Her Highness
“So where are we heading?”
“We are going to the research station were Richard Bower worked, it’s our best lead. By the way how’s your new weapon?”
“It is unbelievable, a mark V-34 handgun with doubled magazine and ionized shots, do you realize how illegal this is” She answered me with a glimmer in her eyes
“So are you going to throw it away?”
“NO!” she suddenly shouted “... I mean we’re not in Alliance jurisdiction anymore”
I spread my arms and said “Welcome to my world”