If you think I got sleep after that, think again. Too much going on, too much crazy to sort out. Even if I could have laid down at that point, I am sure my brain would have kept me going. And I am talking about plans. The feeling about executing the pilot would probably linger a lot longer and keep me up.

I am sure Ralgau noticed that my brain was on the edge of spiraling too. So instead of letting me do that, he took control and told me what needed to be done. It stung my pride a little and there were moments when I wanted to push back but based on what authority. That I had established the claim? Pfft, please. Nah, I needed to be honest with myself: I have no experience here that would mean more than his and I didn’t have the brain space to make far reaching decisions now.

So we stashed Yellen into my shelter, then broke down three of the laser turrets. Once that was done we loaded them up into the shuttle and ferried them over to the cave. When I asked him why, he told me that this was the only thing worth anything on this asteroid.

“Hanging our asses this far out of the airlock was all about the ship. We pissed the Red Moon off and I am sure they will come looking for us. You found the ship with the survey skill, there is no reason they can’t do the same. They will be looking for a reason that we pushed them so hard.”

“Ah shit.” I groaned dejectedly bringing the shit slowly into the cave.

“So what we are going to do now is put the turrets and one generator into the cave. That way they won’t be visible from the outside and the small ships that can get into the cave will have no way to defend themselves and can only run or go boom.”

“But won’t they figure out…” The question died on my lips. If they figured there was a cave and they went looking into it, then that meant they would know that there is a structure in there which would mean highly valuable. So yeah, the turrets would not confirm anything. If they needed to fire, it was because the jig was up.

Setting them up hidden behind the lip of the cave in a way that they had overlapping firing arcs again was not difficult, just annoying. Especially in my current, debuffed mental state. This was the first moment since starting the game where I actually wished I could log out and take a breather. But that wasn’t to be. It also made me realize that there was more to the psych eval than I had given it credit for. Shit was too real.

When we were back on the claim, we loaded up the things, put Yellen in one of the passenger cabins with Ralgau in the other one and me claiming the captain-slash-pilot cabin. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I checked the ship’s status after loading the turrets. Let’s say I snagged myself a fixer-upper.

Ship

Civilian Shuttle Type Interplanetary

Name

Runner’s Folly

Identification Tag

5GCPKSE77DG238827

Active Components

1 / 1

Gravity Tow

Static Components

1 / 1

Navigation Computer Upgrade

Internal Components

0 / 2

Shield

130 / 130

6.8 sec / HP recharge

Armor

38 / 50

Structure

100 / 100

Ship Status - 78%

Life Support

79%

Active Systems

72%

Static Components

84%

Internal Components

n/a

Communications

80%

Shield Generator

74%

Armor

76 %

Supplies - 42%

Water

38%

Food

46%

Cargo - 380/380

Passengers - 0/2

Let me describe the layout a little. It was a one deck setup. The front was occupied by the cockpit on one half and the captain's cabin on the other. Then there were two cabins behind that, separated by the corridor running the entire ship from the cargo hatch to the cockpit. After the cabins you had a mini galley on one side and the hatch I had climbed in in my boarding action on the other. The cargo hold wasn’t huge but a little more than the interior of the ship. We had stored the turrets and the generator in there with room to spare. As for the whole thing, it was about two meters high on the inside, so Ralgau had to duck a little but for me it seemed luxuriously high.

The downside was that the previous owners had not taken care of the thing. The status was low for my liking but Ralgau had just shrugged and told me it would be enough to get to the station. I guess he was used to pirate ships. Not sure if it was a thing or not but in all the trids I had seen about space pirates they never much cared about keeping the ship clean and in good condition. Functional, sure but never 100%.

I guessed it had something to do with the nature of pirates. I mean they were bucking authority on one hand but then they would cede authority to one captain. They were rougher and more in it for the money and the loot than for the clean work environment. I cringed when I imagined what it would be like to have a hardened pirate and explaining to them why they needed to scrub the deck or why their share of the profits needed to be spent on routine maintenance that wasn’t strictly necessary.

While my mind was halfway occupied by these ramblings I locked in the course to Belt station and wanted nothing more than to crash out. But with the amount of attention we had gotten from the Red Moon recently, neither Ralgau nor me thought it would be a good idea for both of us to go to sleep. So I took the first shift and he took the second , which gave me two and a half hours.

Despite my earlier belief, I crashed out as soon as my head hit the bunk. Two and a half hours of blissful nothingness… only interrupted by the view of a plasma blot boring into the previous pilot’s head in my dreams. Fun!

* * * * *

“Remind me, why are we meeting her?” I asked Ralgau as we were making our way to a business in Lower 27. Nirazera’s ‘official’ business address.

“Because we need her. This has grown beyond what you and I can handle right now. We need to see if she can come up with a creative solution.”

The corridor we were making our way along had seen better and cleaner days. Although that must have been years ago. By now it reminded me of the Megaplex subway stations in the more run down areas of town that I had to visit during my time as a cop - minus the graffiti. There was a buildup of grime and while everything seemed to be okay, you just noticed that the area didn’t receive the money and maintenance it could have used.

When we arrived at business 35 we were greeted by a steel door without any windows although I saw camera lenses in the door and the door frame. Considering the few I saw, I wondered how many I didn’t see. When I reached out to press the door buzzer, I was surprised by the door sliding open. I guess we were expected.

“Ah, come in, take a seat,” Nirazera positively beamed from behind the huge desk that was occupying most of the spacem, indicating at the seats opposite her. She wore dark red, leather looking vac suit but no helmet. Again, her makeup subtly matched her outfit.

“Thank you for seeing us.” I said as I took my seat.

“My pleasure.”

She leaned back in her chair, rested her hands on the desk and looked at us expectantly.

“You already know about the issues with the Red Moon,” I told her. “These issues might have escalated. And we need to find a solution.”

She chuckled. “Might have escalated?”

I started getting uncomfortable. She kept eyeing me like I was something delicious.

“Malcolm, in my job it is paramount to stay informed about what is going on in the sphere of my influence. That sphere extends from this station quite a ways in every direction. I could not do my job if I did not know what was going on.

“The thing is that while I know what happened over the last few days to you and the people on your claim, I don’t know why it is happening. And that makes me all kinds of interested in the person who seems to be in the middle of it all.”

“You know what happened?” I asked incredulously.

She laughed. Quite beautifully so. Not exactly the ‘tinkling of golden leaves in the wind’ kinda laugh or whatever. But it was a pretty laugh nonetheless. I wondered how high her charisma score was.

“Let’s see. You had some unexplained issues on the claim, most likely the loss of your ship. Red Moon showed up and ‘offered’ to help. You got into even more conflict, which ended in a fight. In said fight you took over one of the Red Moon’s ships and came to the station.”

I was flabbergasted. How? How did she know what was happening across the system? When I asked as much, she smiled.

“Mainly observation, cause and effect analysis and knowing the players.”

“That does not explain how you know what is going on for a small group of individuals on a random remote asteroid claim.”

“True. But… You were already in conflict with the Red Moon. Considering that they live off of racketeering and blackmail means you were unwilling to pay your way. What I have seen from you makes me believe that this hasn’t changed. Especially considering that you asked me to keep and eye on the Youngaaarrings. You already expected an escalation and took preventative measures.

“You show up in a ship that I have not seen registered to you before but that I know was owned by a corporation that did pay the Red Moon. Which leads me to the conclusion that you took over the ship. Additionally, ship loss records are public and since you hired me, I keep my eye on what is going on. That’s simply good for follow-up business.”

I rubbed my chin… or rather the vac suit helmet that still covered my chin.

“Hm… I didn’t know that ship loss records were public.”

“They are. Helps to know shipping routes that are unsafe even if there are no survivors. It also shows that you did not receive an insurance payout, which means you did not insure your ship. May I ask why?”

“Forgot... “ I mumbled.

“You what?” this time her laugh did not sound so nice. Might have been because she was laughing about my stupidity. Believe me, when Ralgau asked about the payout, I had already banged my head into the station wall.

“You are correct, Miss Nirazera.” Ralgau jumped in,:”However, the situation is more complicated than what you know.”

“Oh?” she raised one of her perfectly shaped bushy eyebrows at the Sorren.

“Yes. First, we have a member of the Red Moon detained on that ship. Secondly, we have information about the attack on the claim that we can use to prevent any further issues.”

“You need me to handle your prisoner? Yes, that would be valid. But there is more. This information you have…” she clicked her fingernails on the table: “You don’t know how to leverage it properly and hope that I can help.”

Again, I was astonished how quickly she put things together. Ralgau and I had discussed what we are going to do when we found the complete data of the KKV attack on our claim in the shuttle’s computers. But she just heard some bits of information and she already put the most pressing matters together.

“I can certainly handle the prisoner. However, leveraging that information depends on what the information is.”

“Are you 100% sure about this?” I asked Ralgau on a direct channel.

“Not really any other choice and I trust her to be professional if nothing else.”

I twisted my left forearm up. I brought up the data storage on my hud and then flicked the relevant data that we had bundled up in her direction without saying anything else. Nirazera caught the data packet and flicked it to the table. Should have known there would be a display build in. She tapped a few invisible buttons and the navigation packet was displayed in a hologram over the desk.

“What the… ohhh... “ her big eyes grew even bigger when she was digesting what she was seeing.