Sadly, Amber did not dock with my ship and we have to stay apart throughout the duration of this escort.
It makes sense now that I think about it. We’re here to escort our client and having her dock with my ship would mean that in the event of an attack, she would be late in joining the fight and put all of us at risk since she has to undock her ship first.
Ugh… That meant I was stuck on my ship by myself throughout the journey until we reached the Cietai system at the very least.
I didn’t really think how lonely it would feel after having Amber constantly at my side all this while and it has only been half a day since we set out.
The good thing was that we could still talk to each other through our private comms channel and I wasn’t even the one suffering the most from this separation.
“Teraaaaaaa!! Waaaaahhhh!! I forgot to ask you to cook me something before we leeeeeft!! I’m stuck with all this tasteless synthfoooooood!!”
Ah yeah… I think she’s suffering from withdrawal symptoms right now as she cried while stuffing her mouth with some sticks of synthfood.
I tried to comfort her, “It’s ok, I’ll cook you something when we reach the station, ok?”
“Sniff, sniff… You promise?”
I feel like she’s making this a bigger deal than it should be but then again, I’m also feeling lonely over here right now.
“I promise.”
“Waaaah!! I love you Tera! You’re the best girlfriend ever!! I’ll follow you for life!!”
Yeah, she’s definitely exaggerating it.
She’s cute though, so I can’t complain.
I decided that the best thing for us was a little bit of distraction by changing the topic.
“So… What else do you know about the Cietai system?” I asked as I checked that we were still on course to the Warp Gate.
She sniffed once before sobering up, “Ah. You already know about it being pirate hunting grounds because of the nebula right?”
I nodded, “Supposedly it scrambles our scanners right? So even if there are ships hiding in them, we wouldn’t be able to tell on the map. What would it look like on the map though?”
“Mmm… It will just be a blank spot on the map. So even if there was something there, your scanners would tell you there is nothing.”
“But I’ll be able to see them with my own eyes right?”
“Assuming the cloud is not that thick of course. But then again, if there was someone hiding inside those clouds, their scanners would be similarly affected and they’ll need to rely on their own sight to spot us as well.”
“That can’t be good for them, can it?”
She made a face at me, “It would have… Except that they use specialised sights that give them an edge in seeing through the nebulae.”
“Huh? Then why didn’t we get any for ourselves?”
She pointed towards her eyes, “Because those are implants. I don’t even know how it works since I’ve never tried one but it involves changing your sight to be unable to see the nebula clouds. It also kind of makes you almost blind to anything else so pirates would either force a crew member to have those implants or get a slave to do it instead.”
“There isn’t like… Some special goggles or something that would do the same thing?”
“Not that I know of at least, maybe because there’s not really much demand for one?”
I raised my eyebrows and gestured at the map screen, “No demand? What about hunting down these pirates for one?”
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“Well… Because you can just use a better scanner for that instead of using your sight.”
Oh yeah… Just get a better scanner…
“Do any of us have something like that?” I asked.
She shrugged, “Maybe we should ask?”
I tapped on my comms screen and directed a call towards Samson.
The call beeped thrice before being accepted, showing a projection of the man relaxed in his pilot seat. I noticed that the side table near him had a cup of what looked like coffee and a book laying there, probably set aside when I called him.
“Hey Tera, what can I do for you?” He greeted me.
“Hey Samson, I just wanted to ask if anyone in the escort has a scanner that would be able to pick up pirates within the nebulae when we get to the Cietai system?”
He grinned, “Noticed the issue rather early didn’t you?”
“I’d say it’s a little late considering the fact that we’re already on our way there.”
“Haha! That’s true too, but most won’t even think about it until we reach there. Considering that we’ll be passing through another system on our way to Cietai, there’s still an opportunity to fix it before we arrive so that’s already pretty early.”
“So do we have one?”
“Ah, right. No we don’t.”
I blinked at him.
He smirked, “Yeah, the escorts don’t, but Reese’s ship has one. I mean, of course she does, this isn’t the first time she’ll have to travel through systems with nebulae clouds like this, so she’ll give us a warning if her scanners pick up pirates around us.”
“Hmm… I see. Then is there really a need for us to take that route you suggested instead of heading straight there?”
“You mean aside from the fact that the number of pirates we might meet along this route would be lower?”
I shrugged, “If we could already scan them, we can just avoid them right?”
“Sure we can avoid them, but Reese’s ship isn’t that manoeuvrable, remember?”
Ah right, she’s piloting a freighter that’s much slower than our ships…
Even right now, we had to reduce the power of our travel drives to match her speed or we would have left her behind if we had used our engines’ full power.
So even if her scanners could pick up the location of those pirates, we might not be able to avoid them before they could see us, especially since her ship was so big as well. We’ll probably be spotted at the same time as her scanners pick them up.
Samson must have realised that I understood the problem and grinned, “And factor in the possibility that other pirates might join the fight when we get stuck fighting another group, we might be stuck fighting waves upon waves of pirates if we aren’t careful. I’d rather not take that risk if I can help it.”
I nodded, “I see. Thanks for telling me that.”
“Hey, we’re all working together here and I’m depending on you to watch my back too.”
He gave me a thumbs up before we ended the call.
Amber, who had been on the line the entire time, suddenly spoke up, “Woah, did you see that, Tera?!”
“Eh? Err… I guess? He seems like a chill guy?”
“No, no, no! Did you see what was on the table beside him?!”
“The table? Wasn’t it just a cup of coffee and a book? What’s so special about it? Do you want coffee or something?”
“What?! No!! The book!! It’s an actual physical printed book!!”
Ha? What’s so special about a printed book? Aren’t they like… Oh.
I suppose literature in this universe has all been converted to digital media so printed books are most likely some kind of relic now?
I scratched the side of my head, “Ok… What does that mean though?”
“I mean it’s an actual book you know?! I wonder what time period it belongs to and how has he been preserving it?! That thing must have cost a fortune!”
I raised an eyebrow, “Is it really that big of a deal?”
“Of course! I’ve never even seen a physical printed book in person before! This was my first time seeing one!”
“Umm… What if I were to get some paper and ink and start writing a story or something? Would that be a big deal too?”
“Ahahaha! That’s different Tera! That book’s made of actual paper you know?! Not synthetic paper that you can find nowadays. You’ll have to go to those planets where there’s plants that contain fibre in them. Otherwise, you’ll be paying an insane amount of credits just to get a single sheet. Oh, now that I think about it… Perhaps he came from one of those planets, books would still be printed over there but more as a novelty I suppose.”
I suppose that makes sense, why would people still want to print on paper when you can digitise everything now? It’s more convenient and you don’t need to worry about losing it.
I guess it’s just so that they can get the physical feel of actually holding a book, perhaps?
Still, that’s something new I learned and also another possible trade that I could do in the future. I just need to find myself a planet with those types of plants and maybe start trading in paper? Heh.
I think I’ll just stick to being a Mercenary for now…