Chapter 27: Chapter 27 Everything Has a Price
"Unknown ship, announce yourself, and the reason for your visit," said the voice through the speakers, after Dustin finally got the wires back together.
He had been floating here for half an hour, outside the space station, trying to get the communications to work after he had shredded the wires.
"Sorry, we have suffered damage, and I have just gotten our communications working well enough to respond," said Dustin into the tiny microphone he held in his hand.
"Please announce yourself, for our information, then you will be escorted to our repair docking bay, unless you need to be towed?"
"No, I believe I can steer it in without a tow. I am Dustin from the Uz'En Kingdom. I seek repairs to my ship, supplies for the survivors I picked up from a damaged ship, and access to the galactic network for news."
"I am not familiar with the Uz'En Kingdom? Is it known among the Galactic Empire?"
"No, we are a new kingdom. We have not yet been officially recognized."
"Alright. I will put your information down, for our records, but you will not be allowed any credit. All purchases and services must be paid with recognized currency. There will not be a charge to dock in our bay, but you will not be allowed access to any repairs until all issues with payment are dealt with."
"That is fine. Thank you."
Dustin disconnected the two wires he had been holding together. They wouldn't reach for him to quick fix. Sitting back into the seat, he watched as a small one-person vessel zoomed in front of his ship, before guiding him around to a service bay. As he settled the ship into the lock, he sighed in relief and stood to go meet the person they no doubt had waiting to speak with him about payment.
Pausing in the cafeteria, he saw that everyone was still alive, only resting and waiting for orders. He went over to the wall dispenser, that would spit out what food was requested, and thought carefully about what he wanted.
The last time he had been at a station, he had a small quantity of a material that the person he dealt with, had been ecstatic about. He wanted to recreate that material, and looked over the options the food dispenser had to offer. Punching in a few buttons, he waited patiently as it spit out a black chunk of something unrecognizable.
Holding it in his hands, he focused on what was necessary to change it into the material from before. Dustin didn't know how to do it, himself, but his body did. It was so used to doing exactly what he wanted, immediately, from the PED forcing it to do it, that it didn't question when he wanted it to change the entire makeup of the material in his hands.
When he opened his hands a few moments later, he looked over the crystal in his hands. It had a variety of colors running through it, rather then just one whole color. That would probably lower the value, but he hoped it would be enough to pay for the repairs.
Ignoring the curious looks of those around him, he took the crystal and left for the air lock. They had attached a locking mechanism to the outside of his ship, to allow him an atmosphere to open his air lock into.
Before opening the door, for them to see him, he changed his look back to that of a human-like look. Just under his skin, he had the crystal plates, to prevent any damage, if someone wanted to attack him. He wasn't sure who might have recognized the name of his people.
The two individuals waiting for him, just outside his air lock, were looking very interested to meet him, as he stepped out, and then closed the door back behind him. It auto-locked behind him, not allowing anyone else onto the ship, or off of it, without a special code he had programmed into the ship's main computer. What little computer, the ship had, was sufficient to manage that.
"Greetings, we are here to speak with Dustin, of the Uz'En Kingdom?" said the smaller of the two before him. Their skin was a dark orange, almost a red, and they smiled far too much, for his taste.
"I am Dustin. I was told you needed payment, before I could buy anything?" He held out the crystal for them to see it.
"Ah, please bring that back with us, to the scanner. It looks beautiful, but until we know its worth, we are unable to place a price to it."
"I understand," he said, lowering his hand and following them as they turned back towards the station proper.
The room that opened up on the other side of the tunnel wasn't very large, but it was very secure. The taller of the two pulled out a small device that was attached to the wall, and motioned for him to place the crystal in the small port that opened on its side.
It slid shut to scan the crystal after he inserted it, and they waited the few seconds while it scanned, in silence. With a beep, it announced when it was done placing a value to it.
Dustin waited, trying not to grin, as the two started whispering to each other frantically.
"Please excuse us, but I do not think we can accept this. Its value is such that we could never sell it."
Dustin frowned. He hadn't considered that. Taking the crystal back, he looked at it for a moment, then with a shrug, crushed it into smaller pieces. There was a small cry from both of them as they watched in horror.
"How about a piece this size?" he asked, holding up a fragment that was half the size of a pea.
It took the two several minutes to get over their horror in order to be able to answer him.
Finally, the younger one, managed to motion towards the port, for it to be rescanned. Dustin slid it in, and then pocketed the rest in his shirt pocket. He could feel the eyes of the two on his shirt pocket, as if they couldn't believe he would carry something so valuable, so carelessly.
When the machine beeped, they pried their eyes away from his shirt, and checked on the resulting worth together. They whispered to each other again, and finally, turned to him, and said, "This we could sell, but its worth is still incredible. We would never be able to give you any change, if you failed to spend this much during your visit."
"That's alright. I need my ship fixed, some supplies to restock with, and access to the network so I can see the news. I've been floating in space for what feels like weeks, trying to deal with things."
They nodded in agreement, unable to believe their luck, and the taller of the two carefully took out the crystal and left the room very quickly.
Dustin knew exactly what he needed on the ship, having taken stock of what foods the people ate, and what supplies he would need to make his repairs. It would take him a couple days, but the remaining guy assured him he could take his time, and that everything would be available within three hours. It was nice to have people waiting on him again. He hadn't realized how much he missed that, from when he had been king.
It wasn't enough to make him want to go back, but it was still nice.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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Sdrawkcab More on what's going on with Olivia in the next chapter.
Chapter 28: Chapter 28 Deep Underground
(WARNING, ATMOSPHERE IS UNFIT FOR CURRENT FORM.)
(INITIATING EVOLUTION TO PREVENT DEATH.)
Olivia gasped as she found herself suddenly able to breath again. It had only been a few minutes, but she could feel her lungs burning and her eyes watering. The stench of the air around her made her wonder what could live down here.
"We need to get out of here, now!" whispered Granny, grabbing her hand and yanking her to her feet.
"Why?" she asked, stumbling after her as they darted out of the dim light, and into the deep dark.
"See the graffiti on the walls?" asked Granny, pausing at the corner of what looked like the remains of a doorway, and glanced all around them.
As her eyes adjusted to the near complete dark, she was just able to make out the faded markings on the wall.
"That marks this area as a hunting ground for my mother's people."
"But I thought you wanted to find your mom?" asked Olivia confused, as she moved to follow Granny through the shadows. They were moving along the broken remains of a concrete pathway. Pipes and wires dangled from the ceiling, and ran along the ground, causing even more confusion to their footing.
"I do, but this is not the area we want to be found in. No one wants to get between a Gooblen and her food."
"What could possibly be down here, to eat?"
Granny turned to look at her, then shook her head. "You obviously don't remember. Gooblens can eat anything. The more deadly and dangerous, the more delicious they are."
"How is that even possible?" asked Olivia, frustrated. She knew it might be a challenge finding these people, but she never imagined it would be like this.
"I don't know, how do you change your genetic structure to look and do what you do?" asked Granny, sarcastically.
Olivia was quiet. She had started to notice odd things about their surroundings. It almost looked like there were bite marks everywhere. She had originally thought the cracks and missing chunks were from the age of the infrastructure, but as she looked at it again, she could suddenly see where there were millions of little bites taken out of everything. If there were ever an earthquake on this world, the entire underground would collapse.
Swallowing in sudden fear, she glanced up, imagining the weight of everything above her, crashing down. She wasn't sure she could survive that.
They passed through an area, where someone had used an old tin sign to prop up debris that was trying to fall down through the ceiling, where too many bites had been taken from a particular support pillar. It looked like someone had come back later, and shoved mud into the bite marks.
"What's that?" she asked, not really wanting to think about what she thought it was.
"Come on, we're almost out of this area, and then we can try and make contact. I just hope we haven't been spotted yet."
"Spotted?" came a high-pitched voice, as a small green Gooblen stepped out from behind a pile of rubble. Her eyes were shining in anticipation as she eyed the two of them, and Olivia had a feeling rocks and metal weren't the only things they ate down here.
The Gooblens nose quivered, as she sniffed at them, and she smiled, stepping closer. Her dark black hair had streaks of green running through it, as it flapped against her back. She had it in multiple braids, as if to keep it out of her face.
"You are too young to be out on your own! Did you sneak away from your watcher?" asked Granny, with an authority to her voice that Olivia remembered her taking with Kit.
The Gooblen girl stiffened, and frowned in annoyance.
"I'm telling on you!" she growled before slipping away.
Granny didn't hesitate to turn and run herself. Olivia was right behind her. She had known there was a chance the Gooblens might be a little wild, but she hadn't considered them being cannibals. She wasn't even sure that changing into crystal plates would save her from them.
They twisted and dodged through the underground maze at a breakneck pace. There were several times that Olivia thought she heard someone chasing them, but she didn't slow down to find out.
Granny didn't stop until they came to a large room that had pipes open all along the walls, with a ceiling reaching sixty feet or more into the air. Every pipe had some amount of water or sludge draining out of it, into a massive hole in the ground, twenty feet below them.
Olivia paused only long enough to watch Granny start climbing up the pipes with the least amount of flow, until she reached a second landing near the ceiling. When Olivia pulled herself to the landing, she turned to see dozens of Gooblen faces peering up at them from down below. A few had even ventured up the wall after them, but had stopped before they climbed higher than the opening to the lower landing.
"I seek Old Mother!" cried Granny down to them, as the nanobots flowed away from her face.
Chittering broke out among them, as they realized she was a Gooblen, too.
An older male Gooblen, covered in scars and raised tribal markings, stepped forward. "I take you to Old Motha, for a price," he said with an impish grin.
"Name your price, or I'll kill you!" she sneered at him.
His look changed to a thoughtful one, then nodded. "A chunk of meat, the size of her arm," he said, pointing to Olivia.
Knowing what was coming, Olivia snarled at him, but held her arm out. Granny didn't hesitate to chop it off at the shoulder, catching it before it could fall, then tossed it at him. Clutching at her stump, she bit her lips, as her healing kicked in, and it stopped spouting blood. Black dots swam in her eyes and she swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. The pain had been so quick she could almost ignore it, but the knowledge of what had just happened clawed at her.
"I hate you," she managed to growl, as Granny ignored her, watching the male grab the arm out of the air and take a bite out of it.
The chittering from the crowd grew louder, as he nodded, and waved at them to follow him. Like a swarm, the other Gooblens disappeared down the tunnel, the way they had come.
"It will regrow if you evolve," said Granny softly, reaching for the first pipe to climb down.
"Doesn't change the way I feel," said Olivia, as she evolved into the same form she was in, only with an arm. She knew that if Granny had refused, or hesitated, they would have swarmed up at them, and eaten them both. The killing intent was still thick in the room.
As she climbed down carefully, after Granny, she could see the faint glisten of sweat on Granny's head. Granny had actually been sweating in pure terror. It was a good thing she hadn't refused to give up her arm. She just hoped they didn't demand it again, when they saw it had regrown. She wasn't sure she had it in her to do that again.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
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Probably not a good idea to show the little cannibals, that like to eat, that you can regrow that fast...oh, well.
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