USD: 63 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: 63 Hydrae, Orbital Customs Battle Station Thea

Thea hummed to herself as she closed her eyes and watched a camera view of the customs ring inside her head. She’d ordered the incoming convoy to place the IND Iron Horse last, and the last civilian freighter was in the terminus.

The customs ring was quite large, facilitating up to a dozen full size freighters or even a few super freighters through the customs checkpoint. That tens of thousands of crew lived and worked in those rings was less important to Thea than the fact that it gave her something fun to do.

Actually, it was one of her favorite activities. The scout frigate that had scanned the convoy had a sophisticated sensor suite and was more than capable of measuring all ships and their cargos in detail.

The customs ring was the same system writ large. As the freighter passed through each ring, she let out a little happy noise and pressed a button, a wave of energy forming to ping against the ship’s D-field in a vibrant display of energy.

It was so pretty. Sometimes she played with the field to time the color changes to some of her preferred music.

In the process, her MainComputer recorded a highly accurate scan of the ship, its crew, and cargo.

Rather than linger, she shooed the freighter onward in anticipation of her next visitor.

She did not like visiting warships. They were dangerous even when not carrying potential illegal contraband smuggling compartments.

A compartment itself might not be odd to find, but she’d confirmed with 7H34 that this one was definitely in use. Scans could not penetrate it, and if there had not been a previous scan, she’d never have noticed the discrepancy.

Which brought her back to not liking warships. They had the potential to do serious damage to her. Expensive damage that’d set her back for years. She had not ruthlessly extorted all the system traffic for over a decade just to get gut punched at the eleventh hour.

Which was why she had directed her MainComputer to blast the poor warship with a thousand high energy positron particle beams with enough force to delete it from existence if it even looked like it was powering up its weapon systems. Deflector field or not.

Thea issued a gentle but firm reminder to the warship she would meet any potential trouble with lethal force. That was a standard reminder for every ship, but her issuing it over voice herself was not.

As the Iron Horse slowly crossed into the customs ring, she pulsed the sensors carefully, with none of her normal flamboyant tendencies on display. A clinical dissection of the ship revealed heavy battle damage, but she had already known that. What she wanted to see was the compartment.

It was a small rectangular cylinder near the back half of the ship.

“IND Iron Horse, cut relative velocity and maintain attitude and trajectory.” Thea transmitted quietly.

She tossed a piece of candy in her mouth. Payday spotted!

There was a sort of method for extracting money from law-breakers, so she put her console on pause and stood up and stretched. She’d let them stew for a few hours and come back after getting lunch and taking a nap.

They’d certainly know they were in the shit when the entire customs line was halted for a few hours while they sat in the middle of the ring, holding everything up.

Even better, if they didn’t have the money she wanted, she’d impound their ship, and even old broken FedTech ships would fetch a nice price on the open market.

That wasn’t her best-case scenario though, since her mother would take a huge chunk out of that.

Bribes were not taxed at the same rate as ship auction rates after all.

Thea smiled at the white bearded Captain Thraker.

“Unfortunately, due to the extended time required for your vessel in the customs ring, a surcharge of fifty million SE credits will be required.”

She pretended to be uninterested in the conversation, but she had 7H34 in overdrive, scanning the man’s facial expressions and body language, searching for meaning in every micro movement and twitch.

“I understand. After paying that fee, will you clear us to move on?” Thraker asked.

“Unfortunately, no. We have selected your ship for additional screening.” Thea smiled at him. “I am afraid due to some irregularities that we have determined that a visual and close inspection will likely be needed.”

Thraker frowned and furrowed his brow. “I am sure that would be a waste of time for all involved. Surely there is an expedited service that can be negotiated?”

“Why, Captain, I never thought you would ask. In addition to the fifty million credit surcharge, it might be possible to expedite your transit for a further one hundred million credits.”

“Very well.”

Thea frowned. She didn’t need her MainComputer to tell her he had accepted much to quickly and easily. Her eyes slid back to the screen, showing the interior layout of the Talon class destroyer, measuring the little black section that was pretending it didn’t exist.

And how much of a bribe she would accept for ignoring it.

A brief prick of her conscience bit at her. This was exactly the thing she was supposed to be in place to look for. Not the glorified toll collector that amounted to her actual job.

There had never been a time when her position was above board though, and she wasn’t the one who had determined to make income a higher priority than safety. That guilt could be shoved aside and placed in her mother’s lap.

The black compartment on the monitor bothered her, anyway. It was large enough for people to be stashed away in. Human trafficking was something that she had zero tolerance for.

Still, it was way more likely they had squirreled away something like proprietary technology, luxury exports or… Thea frowned. Was it though? The convoy had come from the frontier, not Piscium.

Thea sighed, wishing she could ignore it and just take the money. As she thought about it, maybe there was a way she could take the money and investigate without the captain realizing it.

“Captain, I believe we will require a physical inspection. We can conduct further negotiations in person.”

USD: 63 days after the battle of Dedia IV

Location: 63 Hydrae, Orbital Customs Battle Station Thea, IND Iron Horse

Alex had given up on entertaining herself because of how ill she felt. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been curled up in a ball around her core, but when she woke up, her mouth was parched. It was an effort to get up to get a bottle of water.

Thankfully, she seemed to be getting better, which was good because she had no idea what she’d have done if she’d become more sick.

Do not casually go into mind space with ShipCore, she repeated in her head as a mantra.

Thankfully, she found that wasn’t a problem and the glowing orb hadn’t attracted her attention or had any other reactions to her touch.

She thought it might have even been emitting an apologetic hum to replace the absolute silence. That or her hearing was out of whack and she’d developed minor tinnitus.

Feeling drained and tired, Alex settled in to go back to sleep when the first indication that something was wrong reached her.

|Transit Surcharge -10,563 SE|

She blinked at the indication of a monetary transaction on her HUD appearing. She hadn’t spent anything. That meant it had to be an old transaction catching up to her from 92 Pegasi on a packet ship somehow.

How had the signal got to her inside the smuggling compartment?

A sick stench slowly wafting through the chamber soon became the answer. She picked up a flashlight and shined it near her toilet area, her movement freezing completely as a small golden colored bipedal drone pulled itself up through a hole. It was covered in crap.

Half in a panic, she opened her water bottle and splashed the thing.

It had little effect, but the metal drone wiped itself off the foul mix of material and water going down the drain behind it.

“Uh…”

Alex swallowed her panic. “Hello?”

The humanoid drone opened its mouth, and a light came out of it, a holographic projection of a woman in a Corpo military uniform appearing. The room was lit up by the bright, washed-out hues of blue and white.

Sound came out of the drone.

“You look like shit.”

Alex looked at the woman, bewildered. “Thanks…?”

The woman appeared to look around the room and Alex had the weird thought of how she could be seeing through the eyes of a hologram, rather than who the heck she was.

“You’re an NAI,” the woman continued.

Alex didn’t know what to say, swallowing back her reflexive answer. Somehow, Thraker’s plan had gone seriously awry.

“Fine, let’s play a question-and-answer game. If you refuse to play, I will cut you out of there and we’ll all just deal with whatever consequences may be.”

Alex’s head felt like it was going to spin, but that was probably from the after-affects of dumping Nameless into her brain. “Okay?”

The woman held up her fist then raised a finger. “First, are you here of your own free will?”

That was not the question Alex had been expecting. “Yes.”

Another finger appeared. “Second, are you aware you are in 63 Hydrae?”

Alex swallowed and nodded. “Yes.”

The third finger came up. “Third, do you need help?”

Alex’s brow furrowed before nodding. She definitely needed help. “I need help. I don’t have a computronics module and don’t know how to make one.”

The woman looked at her like she was stupid for a moment. “Obviously. But I can’t help you with that unless you want to join the CS.”

A fourth finger. “Do you want to join the Corporate Systems and receive help from me?”

Alex didn’t answer at first as she thought it over, confused that the military officer was giving her a choice. Was it a choice? She had no way of knowing if she was being toyed with or not.

At least she knew Thraker and the IHMC crew… a little. Enough to trust them more than the Corpos at least.

Alex shook her head. “I don’t want to join the Corporate Systems.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t either.” The woman replied.

A fifth finger came up. “Final question, do you have 50 million credits?”

Thea stepped off the old FedTech ship and raised her hand to indicate the airlock was free. The tube hissed and sealed itself before retracting from the Iron Horse. Heading to her room, she counted her credits on the little ledger displayed on her HUD.

|Calculating Tax|

|Customs Tax: 70%|

|Non-standard Transaction Tax: 30%|

|+328,552,838 SE| -230,185,987 SE|

|+50,000,000 SE| -15,000,000 SE|

|+350,000,000 SE| -105,000,000 SE|

|Transactions Total: +728,552,838 SE| -350,185,987 SE|

|Sub Total: +378,366,851 SE|

|Income Tax: -113,510,055 SE|

|Subcore Tax: -56,755,027 SE|

|Total: 207,101,769 SE|

Thea had made over two hundred million credits. Custom fees over half a billion credits weren’t common, but what had really shot up her income was the massive bribe. The largest she’d ever received when she checked her historical records.

She did some more mental math and figured she owed Martin 8,250,000 credits out of the bribe income, but that would have put her profit under 200 million and she loved round numbers, so she silently adjusted the fees she’d charge him up a bit to make it come out to an even 7,101,769 SE.

She had not exactly expected to get so much, and she would only need a few more months to earn her freedom.

She moved to one of the trams that would zip her to the central section of the station and her personal quarters. Through the massive glass section along the tube, she watched the Iron Horse maneuver away from the ring and depart towards Meltisar.

The image of the poor young NAI in the smuggling compartment brought a frown to her face. Thea had not dared drop her firewall to examine the girl, but she was certain the poor thing had likely escaped a far worse position of sub-core than she herself did.

Thea had never encountered a smuggled NAI before. Escaping a superior core’s orders was nearly impossible. Attempting to do so and failing just meant losing your free will completely.

The girl hadn’t even had a computronics module from what Thea could tell. Whatever situation she had been in before must have been literal hell for her to toss everything to get away.

She put the girl out of mind. She had offered help and been politely declined. Thea wouldn’t let whatever future the girl picked bother her. Imperial, Ertan, Solarian, or Corpo, most people had a preferred flavor, and Meltisar was the crossroads to find your way to the one you wanted.