We were finally on our way to the Denibi system while escorting Reese's ship.
Since we had pretty much wiped most of the active pirates in the Cietai System, we did not meet any resistance while we were travelling.
It made the trip quite boring and I also realised that I forgot to get some kind of entertainment from the station before we left.
Which left me stuck with looking through the GalNet on my Codex while chatting with Amber during most of the journey, which I was actually still ok with.
At least Amber gave me the link to this universe's most popular video hosting site so I could at least entertain myself with that.
One good thing was that Amber seemed to have calmed down a little after that two hour long fuck session last night, so she's less moody about letting Reese deliver the box to Denibi Trade Station now.
I could tell because the person in question was sleeping soundly in her pilot seat right now after stuffing herself with the breakfast I made her.
She looked so cute so I didn't try to wake her and just left the screen that showed her sleeping in the corner while I surfed the net.
There was actually something specific I was looking for right now and that involves the small project I was doing in the extra room.
I had cleared out some space there and tried to make a rudimentary hydroponics garden using some pipes I found and putting the organic plants inside them.
I have no idea if what I was doing was right but fuck… I'm not a farmer, ok?
That's why I'm trying to search for anything related to that to see if I was doing it right.
But…
There was nothing.
Like, I'm not even saying that I don't know where to find it but more like there's really nothing about it.
I wasn't even searching for something specific like 'How to build your own hydroponics garden in your own ship'. But even searching the term 'hydroponics' by itself only returned the definition of the word and nothing else.
There weren't even anything like pictures showing what it looks like or how might a proper one even work. There was just pretty much nothing on the GalNet about it.
I even tried searching for videos but aside from some people talking about how the Alvs are the best at it, they gave no other information about it after that.
I guess this was what Amber meant by them monopolising the tech.
To think that we've reached the time where even information online is being regulated…
Well, this sucks… Because I was kind of hoping I could at least find something related to it so I know if I was doing it correctly or incorrectly… And it's not like I would even know if what I'm doing is right until a period of time has passed since the effects would not be immediate with plants…
Arghhh!! This is so frustrating!
Just in case, I also searched up normal farming methods and it seems like that information wasn't restricted and I found a whole ton of information about it.
Heck, there were even tutorials about how to do it on a ship as well and I've even learned enough that I think I could set one up myself.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
But then the main problem is that I don't have any goddamn soil to plant in…
The tutorials even went into full details on what soil is best for which plants and searching on it a little more revealed that buying soil is really, really expensive outside of the inner colonies.
Like… If you want just a small pot's worth of soil, you could be looking to spend up to ten million Credits just for that.
What the fuck man…
You just need to grab a shovel, dig a hole, put it on your ship and fly all the way out here to make a goddamn fortune. Why isn't anyone doing that?
Then I found out that the sale of soil was actually very heavily regulated and it is only sold to approved merchants that have some kind of special permit.
Seems like it's treated as some kind of precious commodity in this universe or something.
Well fuck…
I guess if I actually want to go the soil garden route, I would need to travel to the inner colonies and then obtain a permit there.
Otherwise… I would have to search the black markets for it and fork over a shit ton of Credits for them…
I groaned inwardly as I felt my resolve for farming crumble.
Why does this have to be so difficult?
Fuck it, let's just see how the current one goes… Who knows? Maybe I might get lucky and it works. I'm especially looking forward to the potatoes growing well. I could make so many things with just the potatoes alone.
A ping came from my console to tell us that we were nearing the Warp Gate, but since we were on autopilot anyway, I didn't actually need to do anything but watch as the Warp Gate sent us hurtling through space and out of the system that we were in.
In just an instant, we were now in the Denibi system.
Looking at the map, this place consisted of a single star and what appears to be a broken planet and an asteroid field around the star. A single station orbits around that cracked planet, looking like some kind of silent watcher.
"Nggghhhh!! That was a nice nap," Amber groaned, finally waking up.
She took a moment to look around before perking up, "Oh~ Looks like we're here~ That was faster than I thought. You should have woken me up, Tera."
"Anything you can tell me about this place aside from it being a Free Trade zone?"
She tapped her cheek with a finger, "Hmm… If I recall correctly, this place was one of the battlegrounds for some old war between the old USC and The Confederation. That planet was in the midst of being colonised by the UTG and then The Confederation used some kind of weapon to shatter the entire planet into half."
"Wait, what the hell is The Confederation?"
She groaned, "Ugh… I'm really not the best person to ask this… The USC is basically everyone who the UTG are friendly with. There's other civilisations out there that formed their own little groupies and the first one the USC made contact with was The Confederation. This is all past history and I really didn't pay much attention so I only know the basics…"
"And a war happened, I assume?"
"Yeah… Some kind of disagreement. Lots of fighting, death and what not. We're at a ceasefire now. Not really at peace but both the USC and The Confederation agree that mutual destruction isn't something desirable and there's at least trade between us. But then we still get some border skirmishes now and then from time to time though the military would try not to get involved."
Sounds like it's a shit load of politics involved so I think I'd rather not know…
"And ironically, this place now becomes some kind of outlaw haven huh…" I mused.
"Yep~ Just look at that~"
She was pointing out of her ship on her screen so I looked out of my own cockpit as well, realising that ships of every design and make were moving to and from the station.
There were even a few that bore pirate markings and no one was even paying attention to them.
"Isn't this… Unsafe? What if someone just decides to start shooting?" I asked.
"Well… If I'm not wrong there's multiple gangs and organisations who have set up shop in that station. And while they are constantly at each other's throats in the station, they have an agreement to work together to stop any trouble makers outside of it. It's bad for business if people stop showing up after all, so if someone were to try and do that, all of them would band together to attack the troublemaker."
"And they don't care what happens inside the station, huh?"
"Probably not. I guess they would if it involved their own groups or it affects them but if you start blasting at pirates in there, they would probably just watch from the side. But yeah, if it goes out of hand, they would still jump in and you're more likely to get swarmed."
So in other words… Don't cause trouble outside and don't cause too much trouble inside or else you'll get clapped.
And whether or not you are causing trouble is up to the powers in the shadows to decide huh?
This is basically saying that you're treading on thin ice while you're here without even knowing that there's ice underneath a layer of snow…
Then again… Considering what kind of place this was, I suppose that was to be expected.
Oh well, we're also planning to cause a little bit of trouble ourselves so I guess we shouldn't complain.
Let's just hope that the thing with the box goes smoothly.