The hotel they picked was certainly grand, I'll give them that.

The building itself towered over every other building in the area and the decorations were certainly more lavish than I thought it would be.

Heck, they even had a water fountain at its entrance.

Just so you know, that fountain by itself most likely cost more to maintain and build than the entire building.

Water ain't that cheap out here especially since there aren't any ice asteroids in this system so this station is literally depending on off station imports to get their water.

That's why the fountain itself was already an indication of how affluent the owners of this hotel were, which is pretty much bumping up my expectations for this place.

I mean… If they could spend that much just to decorate the front of their hotel, the inside should be pretty good right?

Lea was looking at the fountain with narrowed eyes, "How extravagant."

Amber grinned, "I know right? This place must be pretty great!"

"Why would there be such a hotel in a place like Theeve?" I asked.

"It's a front," Mara explained as a matter of factly. "The entire hotel itself is a front."

I turned to her with wide eyes, "Eh? Then doesn't this mean it isn't a good place for us to stay? What are they even a front for?"

"A drug and slavery cartel."

"And we're walking right in there? Won't we be one of their victims too?!"

"The hotel itself isn't where they get their victims, it's mainly used as a place for transactions."

I read between the lines and understood what she meant.

Basically the slaves and drugs would already be acquired elsewhere before they are smuggled here into the hotel.

Then the clients buying those goods would stay in this hotel in order to make those purchases so they intentionally made this hotel to be so high class because the clientele looking to purchase these goods most likely belonged to those standards.

In other words, we would be seen as potential clients, not victims.

Oh, that means I could be expecting even better treatment, can't I? I'm going to be making full use of that. In fact, this sounds like potential business opportunities to me!

Like I said, I'm not above making money through less than legal methods, which was why I was inspecting the black markets in the first place.

In fact, another reason why I agreed to come back to Theeve station was because I found a potential trading route between this station and the places we've visited.

Finding out that the demand for organic food has skyrocketed back at Denibi station has somewhat altered a bit of my plans though but it's not that big of a deal. I'm an adaptable person especially when it comes to changes in the market.

"Hmm… Would we be able to extend our stay later?" I wondered aloud.

Mara turned to me, "They have a market here and if you buy something, you can make that request from them and they might allow for an extra day or two at no charge."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Damn, now the price of the room seems relatively cheap to me. Funny how these places have better hospitality and actually treat you better than the legitimate places.

Putting all that aside for now, let's go check in.

We walked past the fountain and reached the main doors of the hotel, where not only were there valets present to open the door and greet us, there were also armed guards and two of them were even wearing power armour.

They're really trying to show off I see.

Mara was the one who made the reservations at the hotel and I was a little concerned since we didn't bring any extra clothes nor toiletries with us but she assured us it would not be an issue.

But before we could enter the place, however, there was a space right before the main lobby where several guards were present alongside automated turrets hanging above on the ceiling, all of them accompanied by only a single valet.

"Dear guests, please deposit any weapons at the counter and deactivate any combat implants before you enter the hotel."

Mara already told us about this ahead of time so it didn't come as a surprise for us. Thus we complied and I deposited my shotgun, my pistol and even my vibration knife at the counter.

I've been holding them for so long

We went right up to the counter where a rather attractive woman with fox ears greeted us with a bow.

"Welcome honoured guests, to Palladium Stars, where your dreams can be bought. How may I assist you today?"

Mara stepped up to the counter and pulled out her personal terminal, pulling out the wire to plug into a socket on the counter without even acknowledging the woman.

I leaned over to Amber, "Is the staff a human?"

She nodded, "She just modded herself to have Vixlopian ears. Kind of easy to tell because she doesn't have their tails."

"Vixlopian?"

"A race of aliens with fox ears and tails. Really fluffy tails too."

No way, there's actually an alien civilization of fox girls?! Where have they been all this while?! Why haven't I met one yet?!

There was a beep from the counter and I staved off my questions to see a screen pop up that showed what I guessed to be the booking details of our group.

The woman with the fox ears bowed again, "Your booking has been confirmed. An all-inclusive luxury suite room for four for a night's stay. We have added all of you to the hotel's systems so you are free to use our amenities as much as you like. If you require anything else, please do not hesitate to contact one of the staff. We hope you enjoy your stay with us."

She didn't even seem fazed that Mara completely ignored her and simply disconnected her personal terminal from the counter before turning away. Almost as if this was an interaction she was used to seeing.

We followed Mara towards the lift lobby and I caught up to her to whisper, "Any reason why you were so stand offish to the counter staff?"

I was expecting her to tell me something like it was some kind of hidden rule or maybe even a secret message for a guest to do this as the explanation.

Instead…

"I find talking to people I don't like tiresome," She explained easily.

…

"But you're a doctor?"

"A Gene Splicer, to be precise. But most of the talking is handled by my counter staff. I'm just making the splices to be taken by the patients."

"Does that mean…"

"That I like you, Tera? Of course. We had sex, didn't we?"

I wasn't really going for that but I guess good to know? And didn't you claim that the sex was just testing out that the gene mod you made was working fine?

I decided not to bring that up and simply nodded my head and kept my mouth shut.

We reached the lift where another valet and a guard was also present, the valet having called for the lift the moment he saw us walking towards his direction so we didn't need to wait for it.

Sofar, the service we're getting is pretty great, which I guess should be expected since we literally paid about thirty six thousand Credits for this, way above the initial estimation of 'just a few thousand Credits'.

To be fair though… There were options for a few thousand Credits, but we went for the best package they had since we decided to just treat ourselves for the night.

I had thought it was too extravagant but the package included a dinner and breakfast service made using organic food instead of synthfood which was what convinced me to take it.

And truth be told… With the amount split between the four of us, it wasn't really that expensive.

We entered the lift and the valet bowed to us, holding the pose until the door closed.

There weren't any buttons on the lift panel so I wondered how we were supposed to select our floor when the lift started moving on its own.

I'm guessing there's some sensor or someone else involved that knows where our room was supposed to be and it automatically sends us there.

As the lift ascended towards our floor, Amber suddenly let out a gasp of surprise, prompting me to turn towards her wondering what happened.

Amber turned to me in excitement, "Tera! Alcohol is free during dinner!! We're gonna get wasted tonight!!"

…

You know what? Yeah, let's just get wasted tonight. We paid for all this right? We might as well just make use of all the benefits that are given to us.

And since I haven't actually gotten myself black out drunk before, this sounds like the perfect opportunity for me to do so.

Alright, let's all get drunk tonight!