Corebound Chapter 37 (Patreon)

Chalto thudded down the ramp into the unknown station. He wasn’t stupid; he knew the adjunct was using him for something. Likely something she wanted from this station, but he couldn’t figure out what.

He had studied eiraxin history after departing on this journey, but he was not an expert by any means. He also didn’t share most of the council’s thoughts on how to treat them.

Most people saw the borganians lack of open conflict as a sign of their passive nature and inability to understand tactical situations, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. They failed to account for the fact that open conflict did not mean peaceful. Borganians did not engage in open warfare, but they did have violent disagreements at times. It was usually just small-scale or one-on-one conflicts, however.

His eyes scanned the quiet, almost clinical nature of the hangar. It even smelled sterile, which meant nobody had been there in some time. Chalto had been aboard many stations before landing in his role as representative, and they all shared the same issue. Even the best atmospheric scrubbers couldn’t catch every particle.

Stations always had a distinct smell. Most of the time, it was the smell of sweat, unwashed bodies, or fur, depending on the majority species aboard that particular station. Most species couldn’t pick up those faint scents, or their noses had adjusted to them over time. That didn’t apply to borganians. His people had a very developed sense of smell, which helped them find the tubers that they ate as their main source of food. That ability also helped them tell when people were lying to them. He glanced at the adjunct as she walked into his field of view.

“Are you certain this is the correct station?” he asked. “It feels abandoned.”

***

Xing’che knew what to expect when she arrived, but seeing the damaged ship sitting in the docking cradle still threw off her expectations. So had the fact that nobody had come to greet them.

The individuals who had claimed the planetary conditioning vessel must have returned by now, and there was no way they could have missed the representative’s ship docking.

“Are you certain this is the correct station?” Chalto asked. “It feels abandoned.”

She was about to respond when she heard a noise. Her head turned as one of the doors to the hangar slid open, and ten maintenance bots entered the room.

Chalto and Xing’che’s people tensed up as they noticed the bots were equipped with large plates of metal, and some had poles attached to them.

Xing’che did her best to look surprised as well, but inwardly she sighed in relief. It was exactly as Commander Zyn’vak had said.

The bots stopped about ten meters shy of the group. There weren’t nearly enough to form a solid wall, but everyone had stopped. Nobody wanted to risk being stabbed or run over by accident.

A suited figure entered shortly after and crossed the space in an odd gait.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the suited figure said as it stopped behind the other drones.

Chalto moved a few steps closer and cleared his throat. “My name is Representative Chalto, and whom am I addressing?

“You can call me Captain Jacob.”

“Captain?” the man asked in surprise. “I apologize for intruding on your station, Captain Jacob, but I assumed it was open to outsiders. Your station AI seemed to think so as well, because it granted us landing privileges. I must confess that it may only be because of our diplomatic status, but it still stands. We only wish to rest for a few days, refuel, and then we will be on our way.”

The figure seemed to consider the answer for a moment before responding. “Fine,” it replied grudgingly. “Just be aware that your people are restricted to certain areas and the station has limited resources. I can provide refueling, but I will not be sharing the limited foodstuffs with you. If you can accept those conditions, you will be allowed to remain.”

“That is an acceptable offer, Captain Jacob,” Chalto replied with a nod.

***

Jacob had been in contact with the station AI the entire time he made his way to the hangar, trying to find a way to revoke their access, but without them actually breaking the restrictions he set upon them, he could not get the station to send them packing.

Being the station head really didn’t mean much if he kept coming across rules he couldn’t enforce. If he knew how to reprogram an AI, he would have done it by now. Maybe mix in some of the remnants left behind by Melody and hope the end result is something a bit smarter.

He had confiscated the device that the eiraxin soldiers had used to kill Melody, but it was useless without the code that he had snuffed out to save himself. Rebuilding that code was not something he was even remotely qualified to do. That meant he was stuck working within the restrictions of the current AI.

And he certainly hadn’t missed the stunning eiraxin woman standing next to the alien who had addressed him. Her body’s response to seeing him had been entirely too enthusiastic for his taste.

She could have passed for a human. Her skin may have been slightly more reddish in tinge, but not something that would have been out of place in certain regions on Earth. The soldiers held a similar complexion, but their skin had been a much more vibrant pink, which made them look almost sunburned. The similarities to humans made him wonder, but not enough to approach the woman and ask her about it.

Jacob shook those thoughts off and left the new arrivals. He pulled the drones back and positioned them at the entrances to areas he didn’t want them accessing. Then he sent in the unmodified drones to ‘refuel’ the ship.

Really, he was sending them in to get as detailed a scan on the vessel as possible. If he couldn’t get rid of them, he might as well get something useful out of the deal.

After doing as much as he could to keep them from causing trouble, his only concern became the eiraxin woman. She was here for something, and he suspected she wasn’t going to leave without getting it.

As the drone was heading back to its charging cradle, Jacob took a moment to pop back into the apartment to alert his fellow humans.

“I wanted to notify you all that we have some diplomatic guests on board. I would recommend avoiding them if possible, but if you can’t, please be civil. The last thing we need is a diplomatic incident.”

Jacob could have kept the information from them, but with them exploring the station in their new bodies, there was the possibility they would come across the aliens at some point, so he figured it was just best to notify them.

Katherine had been in the middle of eating, and her spoon had frozen halfway to her mouth when Jacob popped in and dumped this information on them. “Aliens?” she asked in concern.

“Yes,” he sighed. “But just think of them as weirdly shaped people.”

Barry looked intrigued by the news, but Franky looked uninterested.

Perhaps this was for the best, he told himself. The three needed to experience aliens eventually, since the station was going to be crawling with more soon, so best to get them acclimated now.

Once he was done, he nodded awkwardly. Then he disappeared from the apartment to continue working on the shield emitters.

With the dozen new bipedal drones, work was proceeding at twice the speed. His efforts were only hampered by the drone ships, or lack thereof. The station had been able to produce two of the bus-sized drones, and a third was on the way, but they took far more time and materials to produce than the normal maintenance drones, so he couldn’t just build an unlimited number of them.

Jacob had been preparing to take another trip to Vorlos station, but with the damage to the transport and his guests, he would have to postpone that for now.

He tried to push those thoughts out of his mind as he worked, but they kept floating back to the surface of his mind. The eiraxins wanted something from this station and Melody’s hull. Given what type of ship Melody was, he doubted they had anything noble planned. He believed what the commander had told him, but he didn’t believe it was the whole truth. The man was a tool to be used, but the eiraxin woman was different. You didn’t arrive with an Astryx diplomatic envoy unless you had actual clout to pull strings.

If he left things the way they were, she would have the advantage. He sighed and hopped to the drone he left in the control center.

Even though the others had agreed to his proposal to open up the station, Jacob hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. He had been procrastinating because he knew inviting outsiders would change things. Now that the eiraxins had returned, he needed something to throw off their plan.

“If you can’t beat your enemy fairly, change the rules,” he said quietly as he activated the comm system and contacted Hallik.

When the man’s face appeared on the massive viewer, he was covered in dirt and what looked like blood.

Hallik squinted at the picture. “Jacob, is that you? Why is your image so tiny?”

Jacob mentally slapped himself and adjusted the zoom so the control room’s camera was centered on him and not the entire floor. “Sorry about that. I haven’t had time to adjust the new comm array since installing it. Is this better?”

Hallik nodded as one of his hands wiped away the viscera from his face. “What’s up? I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

“I can call back if this is an inopportune time,” Jacob said.

“No, just hold on a moment.” The view shifted before Jacob could respond.

Jacob heard Hallik yelling to one of his people, then more shifting, before his face came back into view. “You’re calling about the offer I made, aren’t you?”

Once again, Hallik was perceptive. Keeping him on the line was something a used car salesman might do. Jacob sighed. “Yes. I’ve spoken with my fellow humans—”

“—You saved them?” Hallik asked in shock.

“I did.”

“That’s amazing news. I’ll make sure to celebrate your victory, but let’s get back on track. You want to accept my deal?”

“I want trade,” Jacob corrected.

Hallik didn’t seem offended by that; in fact, the man laughed. “Fair enough. As I said, I know a few merchants that might be interested, but Sha’la might be a better contact for that. What about my other request?”

“If the station is going to open publicly, I don’t see why we can’t host the entity that provides your contracts.”

“Smart,” Hallik said. “That way, bounty hunters don’t have free rein.”

“You don’t seem all that upset about it.”

Hallik shrugged, and something wet and fleshy fell from his shoulder to splat on the camera. The man flicked it away and wiped the screen clear. “Sorry about that. We were busting up an illegal animal fighting ring, and some of the owners turned the animals against us in an effort to escape. It didn’t work, but the bigger critters required explosive ordinance to deal with. As for having restrictions, why would I be? I may be a bounty hunter, but I work within the law.”

“There will be weapon restrictions as well,” Jacob added after hearing the man’s story.

Hallik chuckled. “I wouldn’t expect any less. Now I really do have to get back to work. I’ll reach out to my contacts and let them know you’re looking for trade, but you should speak with Sha’la yourself.”

Jacob thanked the bounty hunter and closed the call. He did take his suggestion and contacted Sha’la, but she wasn’t available, so he left a recorded message.

Once he was done, he returned the display to the security view and watched the new arrivals filter out of the ship to stretch and explore the hangar. None had left it so far, but that would only be a matter of time.

“AI.”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Monitor the individuals from that ship. If any of them go near the restricted areas, let me know right away.”

“Would you like me to document that as a preference for all ships going forward?”

Jacob thought about it for a moment. “Can I change that preference later?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Then do it.” It would become annoying as the station got busier, but it was better to be safe than sorry. With the AI watching them, Jacob would know if they were up to anything suspicious. He was mostly concerned about the eiraxins present in the group, but he didn’t know if the other aliens were allied with them or not, so better to keep track of all of them.