Chapter 32 In space with a junkyard ship

The elderly couple looked quite scared and pleading, most likely hoping that I would do as the pirates said. Well, I didn't actually know if they really were elderly or perhaps their species looks like that, but they do give me that vibe.

"Does this actually work? Do people really come with you with such threats, putting them in an awful position?"

The seeming amusement of the group disappeared, and the ones close to the couple brandished their weapons. None of them were using firearms—just cold steel. So what I did in response was pull out my revolver.

"I don’t think you’re in as good of a position as you think you are." I said while looking at the pirate who was speaking for them.

"Do you really think security guards will get here to save you? Or them?" He asked while his own hand was now on his weapon.

"Honestly, I have no idea. So if you want to ask me something, then do so. I will answer you gladly. But there is no point in keeping them hostage if they really are just bystanders."

"You really don't care about their lives? Perhaps I was wrong about you?"

Those words made the elderly couple hug each other, and I’m pretty sure one of them was crying.

"I’d rather them not come to harm, but I’m not going to sacrifice myself for them. Although—I can get revenge. At least that, I can promise." The last part I said while looking at the couple, talking directly to them.

"You are a funny little thing, but I don’t think the meeting with the station's security will go the way you expect it to go," said the same pirate who was at least two heads shorter than me. Why was he calling me a little thing?

"I’m pretty sure they will believe my words over yours, especially because you are wanted criminals. The famous Crivordid Pirates. Well, at least around these parts."

Now that shut them up, and oh boy, I felt a lot of nervous energy now.

"Who are you? How do you know this? Who hired you?"

Now those were some interesting questions. I also saw the elderly couple taken aback when I mentioned who they were. So this was just the trap—and not even the innocent were the innocent.

"I am just an adventurer. No one hired me. Were those all the questions? Because if so, I will be leaving now."

“You take one step and they die. There’s no way you could have recognised us. Tell us who hired you and how did you know that we had taken over that refuelling station?”

Oh. Now I understood. But best to check, just in case.

“So you’re not actually angry about me reporting you, you just want to know how it happened?”

“You stupid idiot, do you know how much you ruined?” He just continued like that, making it obvious that no—they were actually quite angry about me ruining their operation resulting in them needing to go into hiding.

That was so disappointing. I had really hoped that they weren’t the stupid kind of idiots that committed heinous crimes but then bitched and whined when the same thing they did to others happened to them. These were the kinds of criminals I hated the most.

“So just let me stop you there with your pointless bullshit. The reason we jumped so far away from the refuelling station was because of a navigation error. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“As for reporting you—why in the hell wouldn’t I do it? It got me quite a lot of mana credits. So it was nothing personal, just business. We can just leave it here and call it a day,” I finished saying and just walked off.

He didn’t yell at me as I was walking away, which was a bit surprising. Anyway, it seemed like coming to the city had become a bit more hazardous.

As I continued to walk towards my destination, I expected another ambush of some sort, but to my surprise, nothing else happened.

“Should I report them to the station?” Lola asked me.

“No, not just yet. There is a small chance of it, but perhaps they will leave me alone. But I think we will learn soon enough if they will or not. Prepare all the data we know of them so that the station security could find them quickly if needed.”

“Weren’t you a bit too hostile towards the old bastard? From what I understand, they can hold quite a grudge.”

“Oh yeah, they’re legendary for that. Quite a lot of people I have discussed them with believe that it’s their spitefulness that keeps them alive. I’m inclined to actually believe that. Yet, from what I understand, showing even an ounce of weakness to them is like cutting your wrist in front of a shark.”

"That does seem bad. So what I concluded is there’s no good way to deal with them?"

"Why do you think they're called old bastards?"

I believe for a moment there I sensed Lola’s amusement. Was that because my core was just a little bit stronger now since I’ve been able to solidify the gains from that kill, or am I just getting more in tune with my affinity?

It seems like two hours a day spent in meditation/mana training was a good idea.

As I stepped into the whisky establishment, I took a deep breath in, as the smell of this place was truly wonderful to me.

To my surprise, one of the security guards stepped closer and stopped me from coming in. This was concerning. He then waived a device over me, looked at the display and then nodded and let me in.

So they probably know what had happened. Yeah, they were a lot bigger than they were showing with this establishment.

Unfortunately, it was best to get this done fast, as I still had one more stop that some people—who I wouldn’t want knowing my next moves—knew about. Yet, when I took my first step towards the contact, I remembered that we still didn’t know each other that well.

Best to still do this properly.

So I went and ordered myself a whiskey and a regular cigarette, and only then walked toward my contact.

He had, of course, known that I was here probably before I entered the door, but he still acted surprised when I got close enough.

"It’s good to see you again. Hope there was no trouble getting here?"

"Nothing that should be a problem for now. You know, I watched the movie you talked about last time. You were so right—the advertisements really sucked."

"Yeah, you need to try to accept that reality and then learn to ignore them. It's the only way to do it," the last part was said in quite a sarcastic tone.

"Yeah, and even with the advertisements, it was quite pricey. On another topic, I finished editing a video of mine that you might like. Would you like to take a look at it?" I said while making a memory card appear in my hand using some sleight of hand.

He took it gingerly.

“Well, that sounds interesting. I would surely like to take a look at it, but I’m a bit busy right now.”

“Oh, I understand as I myself must go, busy times I am afraid.”

And with that, I finished the last of my whiskey, and just before I turned around, I spoke again.

“Oh, on that are some other stuff of mine as well, some previews I think you might like. Just so you know, there’s plenty more if you want the real stuff.”

He raised an eyebrow, or at least his species' equivalent to that, and with that, I left.

I took the last drag of the cigarette, and I stepped out, as it was actually illegal to smoke out in the open. In fact, smoking was quite an illegal thing, with only a few establishments in the city having the license for it.

My destination now brought me back towards the corporate section and more towards the edge of the station. It was about a 30-minute walk, which I did on the main street, as there was no way they were going to mess with me here, with so many people and security guards around.

The shop I was heading towards was big. It had a name that didn’t translate properly, and there was no way I could pronounce it, but what it did was sell repaired gravity generators.

This place was quite busy with a lot of people around, but when I walked through the doors, it was unmistakable that the owner of this establishment recognized me, although he tried to act like he didn’t.

Well, shit. This was something I was afraid of. What it meant was I don’t exactly know. Either the pirates or the corporations were planning something. Let’s see what they have in mind.

The edges of the shop were stacked high with what looked like broken-down gravity generators. There were so many of them. Most of the housings seemed undamaged, but some of them had melted parts. From what Lola had learned, these devices could be very fragile if you didn’t know what you were doing.

There were gravity generators properly displayed. These ones seemed fixed, and all of them had prices on them. They started from about a million and went all the way up to twenty. It seemed all of it depended on how large of a field you needed and how strong.

They were also quite big—approximately the size of a large washing machine, although about half the thickness. They also seemed to weigh quite a lot. Some of them were actually opened up to show the insides. All of them had at least one guard beside them.

As I looked inside, I saw a lot of coils that looked like an alloy of copper and silver and something else. Then there was the laser apparatus. It was at the center, and it seemed that this was used to power the crystal that was floating in the middle. It seemed to be held by some sort of magnetic field that actually wasn’t magnetic.

“Magnificent devices. The red fabric crystal is held in place by crystal glands that the space beasts naturally grow inside their body alongside the crystals. The harvesting process is quite time-consuming, but it is something that is necessary for many species to safely travel in FTL.”

As I looked to who spoke, I noticed that it was the owner of the shop. No one seemed weirded out that he was speaking to me, so I guess he actually did do some selling himself—and most likely a lot of repairing, if his outfit was anything to go by, as it had quite a lot of different types of tools seemingly in natural locations.

“Magnificent indeed.”

“What type are you looking for? As we do have some excellent sales going on right now.”

Looking around, I didn’t see anything on sale.

“I need one for standard FTL travel for a more circular hull—approximately 50 meters long.”

“That’s not a problem at all, even if it’s on the short side. All of our devices come with a way to manipulate the field, so you could change the shape, or we could change it for you so that it would fit your ship’s hull perfectly.”

“I think I would quite enjoy doing it myself.”

“Excellent, excellent. With every device we sell, there’s a complimentary manual for setup. Come, I’ll show you the ones currently on sale and that you might be interested in.”

As I followed him, he took me to a more expensive area, where the gravity generators were bigger than in the section I was in. The prices were also higher.

“See, this is an excellent model. It can neutralize up to 5G acceleration, so even getting to FTL speed will be without excess strain.”

The price of it was nearly six million.

“That’s a bit too expensive.”

The shop owner, for the first time, seemed a bit nervous.

“Oh, this—this is the wrong price. This one should be on sale. It’s actually only 3 million. One of the better deals we currently have.”

“That does seem like an excellent price. Eventually, I would like to have a two-way gravity generation, as my ship is designed in a less optimal way than I wanted it to be. From what I understand, you need two extremely similar devices to do this?”

Now he seemed truly nervous.

“Unfortunately, dual devices are a lot more expensive. You see, they need to synergize with each other to a certain degree. The crystal itself needs to be approximately the same size, but yes, the design of the rest of the device is more important. But those aren’t on sale right now.”

So he needed to sell me this one for some reason.

“I assume most of the price is the crystal itself?”

The shop owner nodded, which for his species actually meant the same as for humans. I guess he did kinda look like a differently colored human, with fur instead of hair in weird places.

“Do you perhaps have a device like this without a crystal, so in the future I could perhaps have a two-way setup?”

He seemed to be thinking and eventually spoke, even though it seemed to hurt him to say it. Which was kind of funny, because I was now quite certain he was somehow going to mess with this gravity generator.

“I believe there is one not completely finished but close enough. I could let it go for 500,000, so all together it will be 3.5 million. We will send it to your ship’s berth. It should arrive in a few days.”

“That sounds excellent,” I said while faking happiness.

Now the real question was. Was that gravity generator going to come with a tracking device or an explosive of some sort? If it still worked, then I would be getting a really good deal. They must be paying him a lot to do this.

I guess it’s time to head back to the ship. A lot is still left to do to actually make it flyable again before I could add more modifications.