Jacob wasn’t worried about the armed group harming him. Well…that wasn’t entirely true. He was concerned about them getting to the core and damaging it. That would certainly hurt him, but they seemed fine with following him to where the life signs had originated.
It probably wouldn’t do a whole lot to stop them if they wanted to get past the debris, but he was hoping they would find it too tedious and give up.
“I gotta ask,” Jacob spoke through his drone, “how did you find this place?”
Hallik remained quiet.
“It was Sha’la, wasn’t it? I haven’t visited any other stations recently. I guess it could have been one of the loaders, but I watched them the entire time.”
Hallik glanced his way, but didn’t respond.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Jacob asked nobody in particular as he rambled. “But how? It’s not like I told her where I came from. A tracking device of some sort? I’m going to have some words for her the next time we meet; I can tell you that much.”
Hallik placed one of his muscled arms on Jacob’s shoulder, stopping him in place. “Sha’la was just doing her civic duty by reporting suspicious activity, and you have to admit you look suspicious as hell in that suit, so don’t drag her into this. If I hear you causing trouble for her, I’ll come pay you a personal visit.”
“I wasn’t planning on causing her trouble,” Jacob replied testily. “But you have to admit that she screwed up. I’m honestly a bit upset that she thought I was some criminal.”
Hallik grunted. “That remains to be seen. We still haven’t gotten to those life signs. For all I know, those could be slaves.”
Jacob really wished his body were capable of crossing its arms and glaring at the man. Instead, he was relegated to pulling his shoulder free from Hallik’s grip and continuing down the corridor of the station. “Less chatting, more walking then,” he replied in annoyance.
They were being quite civil about the whole affair, but there was still a chance that his visitors would turn on him. Jacob set the drone to autopilot, then popped into his virtual space. The little icon of the drone showed the area around it and helpfully transmitted any conversations back to him while he worked.
He didn’t have any sort of weapons to stop the bounty hunters, but what he did have was an AI and over a dozen maintenance drones. The machines were one of the few things that the station could produce with the remaining material aboard while he was gone. He had let the station AI manage that process and returned to eight new drones. He was going to need many more to help repair Melody, but it was a start.
Melody had already locked down any security hatches it could, but that still left a few routes to the core or other sensitive parts of the ship.
Jacob called up all but one of the drones and sent them to block off any corridor leading to the core, where he and Melody were stored. The last drone, which was conveniently in the landing hangar, was sent over to the transport to check it for foreign devices. The return inspection hadn’t found anything, but it was designed to locate damage, not tracking devices. He did take a moment to pop into that drone and gaze upon the ship belonging to his unwelcome visitors.
It made the transport, and even Melody, look like a Model-T next to a Ferrari. He would be embarrassed to call the transport a ship if he wasn’t already familiar with what Earth considered a spaceship.
He had seen a few ships when he visited the Vorlos mining station, which pointed to technology marching forward, but he hadn’t gotten a close look at them. The craft sitting next to his transport was a clear sign that the greater universe hadn’t sat idly by while Melody took a nap.
Eight hundred years was a long time to account for innovation. Look at what humanity has done in just a hundred.
Jacob pushed those thoughts to the side as the drone reached the transport. It didn’t take long to find the device that Sha’la had left behind. The little silver disk stuck out like a sore thumb against the burnt-bronze coloring of the hull.
Removing it was easy; he simply had the drone pull it free. After it popped off the hull, he realized that removing it would have been a terrible idea if the item had some sort of anti-tampering built in. Thankfully, it didn’t explode or anything. It was just stuck on with a strong magnet.
He trundled the drone back over to the other ship and set the device in front of the bounty hunter’s closed loading ramp before trundling out of the hangar with the drone.
The whole time, he had one part of his attention focused on Hallik. The man had started conversing with someone back on the ship as soon as he had started moving the drone about. He couldn’t hear the conversation, but he imagined someone was giving him a play-by-play of what the drone was up to.
“Thanks,” Hallik said to the person on the other end of his communication. Once the conversation ended, he turned to face Jacob once again. “You could have asked. I would have removed the tracker.”
Jacob snorted. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take the word of a group of armed individuals who boarded my station without permission.”
“Your traffic control computer gave us permission, so your argument is invalid.”
“Stupid computer,” Jacob grumbled inside his virtual space. “Melody, what are the chances the drones will stop these people if they push for the core?” The irony of asking another computer to answer a question after deriding the first one wasn’t lost on him, but he didn’t have much choice.
“In a combat scenario, Captain? Essentially zero. The maintenance drones may have been able to give a seventeen or eighteen percent chance of stopping the armed group if they were carrying standard weapons, but they are not. Now that you have passed over into the ship, I used the few working sensors I have to scan them. The results indicate they are all carrying some sort of energy weapon.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Jacob was afraid of that. Self-defense hadn’t exactly been on his agenda since getting abducted. “Any way to increase our odds?”
“Blocking the corridors is the only way, and you are already doing that, Captain.”
He didn’t want to have to clear a bunch of junk from the corridors again, but he would rather be safe than sorry. “I need to get back to my guests; it looks like we’ve arrived.” They didn’t need to travel very far inside Melody, which made Jacob even more annoyed that he hadn’t discovered the trapped humans earlier.
Jacob popped back into the bipedal drone as they stepped into the massive hangar. He recognized the hangar; it was the one that still held the ominous-looking drone ship in the center. A drone that he now knew was just a science drone, one exactly like the one that had abducted him.
Hallik stepped up with a handheld device and waved it toward the drone ship. “Signals are coming from inside,” he confirmed for the rest of his group over the radio. “My people are going to take a look, while you and I have a nice chat.”
Jacob didn’t know why the man had included him on the channel, but he appreciated being kept in the loop, even if they were at odds at the moment.
He knew the polite request to stay back was an order, but he complied anyway. To save them some time, Jacob commanded the drone to open its storage area. Based on the surprised reactions of the group and the glare Hallik gave him, he probably should have asked before doing that.
Oops.
Doing that had been a little petty, but he couldn’t help himself.
The inside of the science drone was only large enough to fit one of the bounty hunters. He came out a few moments later. “Three unknown bipedal individuals in stasis. Based on their clothes, I would say they are intelligent. None of their bio-signatures are on the wanted lists or the missing person lists.”
Hallik switched to another frequency and moved over to inspect the inside of the ship himself as he conversed with his people. Another member of his crew kept an eye on Jacob. The man nodded at his compatriot and headed back toward Jacob.
“Humans,” Jacob corrected when he heard the click of Hallik switching back to his frequency.
“Huh?” Hallik asked in confusion.
“My race, it’s called human.”
“Never heard of humans before.”
“We’re rather new to the cosmic scene…you wouldn’t happen to know how to get them out of stasis, would you?”
“Nothing here makes a whole lot of sense to me, but I don’t believe you’re some sort of criminal, Jacob. That said, I’m not exactly here to help you. My job was to determine if you were a wanted criminal or a threat, not fix whatever it is you have going on here.”
“I could pay you?”
Hallik shook his helmeted head, lowered his weapon, and sighed over the radio. “Jacob, you seem like a reasonable individual, so I’ll level with you. Even if I could help, I don’t think they would survive being awoken. According to my people, the stasis systems aboard that vessel are ancient and possibly damaged. They aren’t exactly experts when it comes to these systems, but there are a few indicators that they are correct. The life signs of your people are so weak that I’m surprised they aren’t dead already. Putting people in stasis is always a risky proposition, even when things are working correctly, and that isn’t the case here. I’m afraid the longer they are stuck in there, the worse their chances are of being revived. I’ve seen enough to know that they have a few months at most before they die, even in stasis. I’m sorry.”
There was no way Jacob was going to let his three fellow humans simply die after learning he wasn’t alone this entire time. He popped back into his virtual space for a moment to converse with Melody.
“I think your data storage needs are going to have to wait.”
“I agree, Captain,” the AI replied.
Jacob was surprised to hear that, but he was glad to know that Melody was finally on his side for once. Before he could rush off to speak with the station AI to fast-track data storage, Hallik cleared his throat to get his attention.
It was such a human expression that Jacob momentarily froze in surprise.
Hallik took that silence to speak. “I hate to ask something like this after our initial meeting and after giving you such devastating news, but I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t. I assume by your presence here that you are in command of this space station?”
“I am the Head of Station Services,” Jacob replied carefully.
Hallik smiled and nodded. “Excellent. Would it be possible to use your station on occasion?”
“Why?” Jacob asked in confusion. As far as he knew, the closest location of note was Vorlos, and that was over a week away by transport. The Station AI would have picked up communications if any other inhabited locations had popped up nearby. Then again, would it? What if those locations were using radio communication like Earth?
“Your station is deep in what we call the dead zone. It’s not technically dead. There are small outposts and civilizations littered throughout this area of space, but none are space-faring. I won’t get into the galactic history of why the area is called the dead zone, but I will tell you that it tends to be home to privateers and criminals trying to hide from the law. We know where most of those criminals are located, but the distances make going after them difficult.”
“Because you can’t refuel?” Jacob guessed.
“Among other things,” Hallik confirmed.
“So you want to use my station as a staging area?”
“Essentially.”
“And what do I get from this deal?” Jacob wasn’t opposed to such an arrangement, but he wasn’t about to do it for free.
“I can pay, but—,” Hallik paused to look around, “—I think what this place really needs is trade. You offer up the services of this station, and I’ll let people know it’s a good spot to do business. I’m hardly the only bounty hunter looking to claim bounties in the dead zone.”
“That still seems rather lopsided,” Jacob replied. “Sure, it might bring a few people like you out here, but I’m not exactly overflowing with supplies. Soon enough, those would run out, and I would be left to run back and forth to Vorlos myself to restock on fuel and other supplies. That’s going to cut into my other priorities.”
Hallik frowned as he rubbed his chin in thought. “You’re right—wait. You delivered a load of Xalos cores to Vorlos, didn’t you?”
“I have no idea what an Xalos core is, but I did trade a bunch of power cores to Sha’la. Why?”
“They aren’t Xalos cores? The man asked in surprise. “Can you make more?”
“Maybe,” Jacob replied noncommittally.
Hallik chuffed in amusement. “I’m not trying to steal your production method, Jacob. If you can make more, that will be enough to draw traders, even all the way out here. It might take a few months for word to get around, but once it does, I think you’ll find this station to be far from empty. Add that to the massive construction docks, and you might even be able to start producing ships. You’re going to need something a bit newer than that ancient transport sitting in the hangar next to my ship, or this wreck, whatever it’s supposed to be, to make that worthwhile, however. And maybe an upgrade to the station as a whole,” Hallik added under his breath.
While Jacob wasn’t concerned with the station becoming active again, having more people around would be nice, even if they were aliens. The main reason he was considering the offer was for the trade. If he didn’t have to make runs to Vorlos to grab supplies every month, Melody’s repairs would go much quicker.
“I need some time to think about it.” Mostly, he wanted time to save his fellow humans and hopefully have them weigh in as well. He didn’t plan on sticking around after Melody was repaired, but they might. And if that was the case, they might as well have a say in what happens.
“Take all the time you need. Your station computer has my contact link. Just reach out when you’ve decided. I’ll return to Vorlos and have a chat with Sha’la.”
With that, the bounty hunters left. It was one of the oddest encounters Jacob had ever had. If they had been humans, he doubted they would have been as accommodating.
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