While my ship made its way towards the awaiting docking bay I got to study visual scans of all the vessels that we passed by. All I could do was to marvel at how the physiology of a race determined its ship’s design. The ships that contained occupants without many physical requirements seemed to be built the sleekest and demonstrated the most artistic flair over the ones that required high maintenance. Some vessels were beautiful marvels of ingenuity and craftsmanship while others resembled what a 5-year-old back on Earth would create from sticks and mud.

Of the more beautiful ones that I observed was a spacecraft that appeared to be transparent spheres linked together by rods of glass that were filled with crackling bursts of light. The main body of the craft was a long mass covered with swirling colors like what you would see on the surface of a soap bubble. The craft seemed to move through space differently than a large portion of its neighbors. Instead of being propelled by energy, it corkscrewed through the vacuum as if it was moving against space itself.

I experienced a small shock of surprise when I happened to zoom in on the main section of the craft, seeing through the swirl of colors for just a moment and finding a few sets of black eyes peering back at me.

“Did you see that? I mean, I have it recorded if you didn’t. That pilot was staring right at our vessel.” I commented.

“They are called the LOW and they trade in information. Science Cores like this solar system draw their attention. They are considered to be one of the more enigmatic species that visit trade hubs regularly.” Nurse said as she read my interest. “And yes, I saw. I also wasn’t able to make out the pilot fully though. Either it was two pilots or it has a few extra eyes.” She continued, answering my question.

Why hadn’t I given her a name yet? Well, I had a couple of reasons. Naming things had developed a bit of a life of its own and had ended up returning to bite me in the butt. At least in the case of where AI was concerned. Because of that, I was a little bit slower at handing out names than I would normally have been.

My other reason was just how strange it was to not have any separation between my thoughts and hers. I was a little bit resistant to start naming someone that only existed inside my head and that only I could speak to. Nurse was ok for now. I was at least thankful that she didn’t sound annoying or intentionally try to confuse me or cause me harm. I was only just realizing how lucky I had been that she hadn’t spoken solely in static and migraines.

“The LOW? Like with all the letters being capitalized?” I asked as I glanced at the display she had brought up to read the information from. “Ah, yeah, the O has a circumflex over it.” I muttered as I looked into why the name was so strange. Seems that it didn’t translate into English so well and LÔW was the easiest way of writing the sound you would say to speak their name. What I am a little surprised of is that I haven’t run into this more, though I guess that the reason is because the System that the Tela made lets me bypass a lot of those issues.” I thought to myself as I mentally bookmarked the LOW to look up at a later date. I was a sucker for the strange and unique.

Docking wasn’t as complicated as I had expected. The floor of the hangar was designed in such a way as to clamp on to any form of landing gear that your craft possessed, or to form around whatever your craft did have and to use suction to hold it in place. I watched as little telescoping arms reached out and grabbed ahold of the struts that George had built into the base of our craft. They linked to other little arms and pulled us slowly towards the shiny silver metal hold.

I had made sure to shut off all but a hairs amount of our alien propulsion system when we entered the bay. I didn’t want to accidentally damage something that would cost me an arm and a leg later. Yes, they were interested in Leva nest material, but I had no idea just how honest or in good faith this establishment was.

“Here's hoping that they don’t try to rob you blind. We have no idea how much any of that stuff is worth.” Nurse said as I noticed that she was crossing the fingers of my left hand.

Man, that was strange. I could even feel my fingers crossing themselves, it just wasn’t me that did it.

“You are not going to try to flash my relatives when we get back home are you?” I asked as I remembered how my grandmother’s left arm decided to have a life of its own near the end of her life. Grandma quickly learned that it was a bad idea to wear dresses to church really fast.

I wasn’t old enough to blame Nurse's antics on old age-related issues and I for sure wasn’t going to tell anyone that I had a cute-sounding nurse inside my head. Or an alien ant that was bent on swarming the cosmos. Either or… take your pick.

Sigh.

“No, you keep thinking that I am Invicta or that I have traits like her. Don’t worry, I don’t and won’t.”

I paused for a second and waited for her to add something to the end of her statement. Yes, I was missing Invicta already. Tutor and George too.

After we set down on the platform inside the massive receiving dock I got to watch how the Yelvos secured their docking bays. I had expected a futuristic force field to spring into place or even massive doors to close, securing the bay. I watched as huge rollers raced across the opening to space and layered the opening with something that resembled Saran wrap.

“The two outer layers harden after being exposed to the middle layer and create a rigid seal,” I commented as I read the information that my helm offered up. During the time that we were flying past all of the exotic spacecraft I had gotten wise and decided to have my helm's hud offer any information that it had whenever I focused for too long on something. I was thankful that it didn’t have a personality because I knew that I was essentially a dummy with no previous experience at doing anything on a space station. I didn't want it to always be commenting on my lack of knowledge every time it was forced to bring up something that it considered mundane.

“I am so going to mess this up, aren’t I?” I muttered to myself as I looked around my ship's nearly empty cargo hold.

“Ha… yeah, I got nothing to offer that would help.” She answered a few seconds later as I decided to at least try to make my cargo hold look like it belonged to a real spaceship before we opened the loading door. I moved the shelves slightly and built up walls around the hold to create rooms while adding odds and ends everywhere. I didn’t know what a spaceship should look like on the inside so I just cluttered the place up with tanks, tubes, and random display panels that served no purpose. Oh, and stuff from my room back in my apartment just because I was out of ideas.

I knew that at some point someone might want to come inside and inspect my shelves that held the nest billets so I made them the most noticeable part of the hold. As for Sublimis I walled off her area and left her a door so that she could get out if she wanted to explore my fake mock-up of the ship’s bay. She was still out and I didn’t want to disturb her healing time.

For safety, I molded signs all across the outside wall to her den with warnings that she was inside. Tutor’s translation software was highly instrumental in letting me plaster every known language across every surface.

“That should do it until we get back,” I said as I looked around my fake ship’s interior with pride.

“I think it needs more cowbell.” Nurse said, dampening my mood.

“Too many hoses?” I asked.

“No, it is just that none of this crap makes any sense. Nothing connects to any other... anything.” She said, pointing out one of the flaws that I already noticed.

"True, but it is the best that I have for now,” I said as I picked up three of the billets and placed them inside a backpack that I materialized on my back. I didn’t want to go with a NASA balloon suit so I instead went with a form-fitting ocean wetsuit design. I added random ports and shapes to make it look like it might be a functioning space suit. The helm was just a dark science fiction helm with tinted glass that I made to look like there were little lights or a hud on display inside. I didn’t plan on letting them try to take a sample of me since I didn’t have any blood or tissues to give.

“Will you handle the skin and damage side of things?” I asked as I took one more last look around the interior of my ship. Didn’t Tutor say something about the nest material being a radiation and energy hazard? For some reason, the radiation levels weren’t all that high on my displays. Maybe it had to do with how perfectly sealed the gold cr was. Who knows.

When I felt the last clamp lock in place the communication’s channel in my helm pinged and it informed me that the station’s automatic decontamination procedure would commence with cleaning the skin of my vessel and I was free to disembark at my leisure.

I slid a smaller door open that was only wide enough for me and any human-statured creatures before stepping down a ramp to the floor of the space station's bay. A thrill of excitement washed through me with each step as my eyes tried to take in everything at once. It felt like this was my first trip abroad by myself and I couldn’t contain how epic it felt. I was on an alien space station that was built into an asteroid!

I looked down at my gloved hands and smiled internally. I could feel everything as though I was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Every swirl of gas or vibration from a massive generator in the corner of the bay was all here for me to experience. I reached out with my senses and felt even more of the environment around me, using my ship to feel the wonder of it all as well. The ship was part of my body or had become part of me somewhere along the way. It was best to start to think of it in that way from now on.

To that end… what was that annoying feeling? I wondered as I turned in place and watched as at least twenty huge octopus robotic arms were busy working over the outside of my ship. They weren’t touching anything, just bombarding the skin with all forms of heat and harsh lights, probably to kill anything that had found its way aboard while I was in space. Either that or taking an intensive scan of everything.

Well, every one of them was benign except the one that was located out of sight under the back of my ship. For some reason, one of the arms was using everything in its tool kit to try to damage the skin of my ship, unlike the rest of the arms. I could feel what this lone arm was doing, it had started with various grinders and laser drills and was now working on trying out acids against the impervious skin of cr.

Look, I knew that my ship couldn’t be damaged by this intrusive behavior but it was obvious that this wasn’t normal. This arm was outside of my line of sight and clearly working with the intent of either disabling my ship or gaining access through unseen means. This was not cool in my book. I made a quick decision and hurriedly jogged back up the ramp to grab the first thing that came close to my hand on one of the shelves.

Yes, this would suit its purpose for what I intended. I thought as I turned back around to exit my ship again.

With quick and even strides I made my way over to the robot tentacle that was near the underside of my ship, working in the shadow where the lights overhead didn’t reach. There was plenty of room for a human under here so I went to work swinging my baseball bat at the metal head of the robot tentacle, smashing its delicate circuitry and bashing its internals to pieces.

When I was done the lights of the bay went a little crazy and my hud started to go into overdrive to try to translate the communications request from whoever was monitoring the bay.

-Excuse me human. What do you think you are doing? Interrupting a vital decontamination procedure is punishable under code A Section Tilz 33.12-9 and punishable by imprisonment.- Was the first broadcast that made its way through to me.

“I am guarding what is mine,” I replied as I bent down to the floor while turning on a light I formed inside my helm so that the other six menacing robot tentacles could see what I saw. They had rushed over during the commotion of me destroying their coworker and seemed hostile.

“This arm was intent on damaging my ship. It had already used several abrasives and was in the middle of using this caustic substance to eat away at the skin of my vessel.” I said as I motioned with my hand at the spots that were bubbling away on the floor. Whatever the robot arm had used it was eating away at the floor at a rapid pace.

One of the more responsive robot arms to my left jerked forward and sprayed foam over the acid before turning on a harsh purple light that caused the foam to harden instantly.

I stood up and moved back towards the entrance of my ship to stow the bat with the other tentacles in tow. I didn’t want them to consider both the bat or the hull that had “almost” been damaged by the acid. They wouldn’t have found even a nick on either.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Don’t worry, I made everything look like it sustained damage. Even your bat has some small dents on it now.” Nurse assured me, letting me release a breath that I hadn't been aware that I was holding. I hadn’t thought that she would have taken care of the ship as well.

“That was quick thinking on your part,” I muttered as I focused on the signals around me.

I could tell that the dockmaster was in communications with someone else by the way the data around me was flowing. In fact… that offending robot had been receiving commands, not from this room, but an outside source altogether. I decided to not say anything upfront, lest they learn more about me and my capabilities than I wanted them to know. Best to see how thoroughly they would investigate and go about their jobs. They had warned me that coming here was at my own risk... I just hadn't thought that that warning would pan out so fast.

-Extreme and genuine apologies esteemed human trader. It appears as though that cleaning unit was malfunctioning. We apologize for any damage it may have caused and we offer to repair it free of charge at your leisure. Please be advised that this bay’s security is our highest priority and we won't let that happen again.-

I wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

Before I followed the painted and brightly lit exit path on the floor I turned and observed the remaining robot arms as they worked for a little while. I wanted to give the appearance that I was distressed and upset about recent events. It was all just an act so I eventually spun on my heel and followed the path towards the exit. I wasn’t about to let some punk head robot derail my first experience aboard an alien space station.

I mean, if anything, I could only feel sorry for whoever was on the driving end of that robot arm. It must have cost quite a bit to buy and own. Now it was being sucked up in another cleaning bot fresh arriving in the bay.

I wasn’t worried about leaving my ship. It was a part of me and there wasn’t anything that could be stolen. Well, the nest material could, I supposed. This thought caused me to smile at just how much force would be required to pry one of the secured billets from the grip my cr had on it. They were welcome to it if they could find something that strong. I mused as I walked through a long hallway after going by a thick slab of a door.

When I reached the middle of the hallway the lights changed and my communicator beeped, warning me to prepare for decontamination. I spread my arms and waited as the sealed hallway around me suddenly became lit up with harsh lights and intense sounds.

“Holy cow!” I gasped as I read my hud display. They were really serious about their decontamination procedures here.

---

Thick black delicious vapors curled around Gilvesh’s extended hand as she reclined in her massive guarded internal penthouse. She was in the middle of enjoying her third illegal pull from a highly sought-after narcotic known as “Void shard” when a call came in from her nephew who ran scams down at the receiving docks. The little chump had managed to work his way up the criminal ladder and was in charge of creating “repair” opportunities with easy marks.

“What do you want, nephew?” She asked, displeased that her next pull would be delayed.

“Elder. I am really sorry to call you like this. I just lost one of my investments to a spunky new arrival. I will be down this month until I can get it replaced or repaired.” He said, clearly trying to not draw his aunt’s ire.

“What dock?” Gilvesh asked, not really caring about her nephew’s equipment and the loss of his money, the slot that he had bribed the dock workers to be able to place his modified decontaminator had cost.

What concerned her was her bottom line.

Her nephew sent over the dock number and she checked out its occupant and the image of the vessel.

“Human? Never heard of it.” She muttered as something caught her eye, making her sit bolt upright. The Void shard stick was all but forgotten in her hand.

This human was bringing Leva nest material into the station for trade! This was a chance of a lifetime!

“Aunt?” Her nephew asked a few moments later when he began to wonder if she had gotten lost in another hit from her illegal mind-blowing drugs.

“Yes, nephew. Do you still have remote access to the decontamination tunnel linking to that bay?” She asked as the wheels inside her head spun rapidly.

“Yes, aunt. What would you have me do?” He asked, oblivious to the treasure that actually sat on that ship. Only two people had a direct line into the station's heart of communications and one of those people was Gilvesh. The other person with access was currently running a different station so Gilvesh wasn’t concerned with him finding out about the score she had stumbled on.

“Turn up the decontamination limits. I want this human to either get sick from the radiation or to die.” She said as she got busy moving other chess pieces into place.

“Yes, Elder.”

“Oh, and you had better get your quotas back online within a month or I will personally see you in the pit.” She said without any further thought.

The voice at the other end of the line gulped audibly before uttering “Yes, elder.” and disconnecting.

---