Chapter 23: Commission
"... You can't be serious. Not only is salvage work extremely dangerous, but with the amount of goods we can carry in the depressurised hull we're not likely to see any profits that'll be worth the time."
Seeing Mike was hellbent on salvaging the massive pirate ship they had just destroyed, River voiced her opposition to the idea of picking the corpse clean. There was no way of knowing if Mike had damaged the Orca's reactor or started some sort of fire in the electronics that could ignite the ammunition or fuel stores without any warning.
"I'm not after whatever is inside their hold, those goods are already marked. But with no way of knowing if the next station we visit carries railgun ammunition I suggest we help ourselves to theirs. Also, if we're lucky, those guys had a cache somewhere near here, information on that might be in the Orca's mainframe, even if we don't pay that cache a visit, the pilot's guild is willing to pay for that kind of info. But I'm not suggesting we go crawling around inside a wreck, this is exactly why I purchased so many drones and instaled this beefy of a drone controller."
Ship drones were normally only used to resupply other ships with fuel, collect mined ore or goods, stuff like helping with the targeting of hostiles, listing and scanning passing ships wasn't and Mike had paid out of pocket for those extra capabilities and functions in the drone controller, likewise, the drones themselves were equipped with extra sensors and functions that also made them a bit more expensive than the standard.
"Okay, then let's put the drones to work, although we need to collect those we deployed earlier."
Due to the sheer amount of accessories, Mike had added to what had originally been field repair drones, the only sort of propulsion they had was a measly stability assistance system powered by a few ion manoeuvre thrusters, therefore it was actually faster for Mike to ferry them about 2 kilometres than to wait for them to cover that amount of distance themselves. Collecting the drones, Mike quickly caught up to and matched speed with the Orca that was still in free drift after its occupants had been killed.
"So how do we even get inside that thing?"
"I can hack the doors from here, that'll get us into the CIC where we can harvest the recent logs. The mining equipment can easily cut into the Orca's outer armour given enough time, that'll get us access to the auxiliary railgun ammunition stores, though it'll take a while to break through…"
Going into a slow spin as he deployed the drones in front of the Orca, Mike turned the Wyrm around 180 degrees as the newly deployed drones swarmed the dead Orca, attaching themselves to hardpoints and the still deployed railgun turrets as they started slowly breaking through the outer shell.
"Well tell me when we're going to start moving again and I'll take us back to the station."
"Right-o, have a nice rest."
With no reason for the both of them to stay in the cockpit on high alert, River manipulated her console and had the entire ship start pressuring as she strapped herself out of the copilot seat and flung herself out of it. Leaving the cockpit via the airlock separating it from the main compartment, River graped a peach flavoured food pack from the storage and entered her own personal 3 metre long, 1 metre high sleeping pod situated just above Mike's. These pods (1 of four on the ship) were basically beds or capsule hotel rooms that could simulate gravity by spinning and were a massive luxury compared to the cramped cockpit on the Scorpion River have had to put up with before. Having a stretch as her pod slowly spun up to simulate 0.1 G, River poked a straw through the aluminium food pack as and sucked out its contents as she graped her tablet and started going through an archived catalogue on ship enhancements that the station they were returning to had in stock. Currently, two sleeping pods and a 10 square metre room on the Wyrm were unused, River was currently looking for useful things she could fill those unused rooms with to make the Wyrm better equipped for long term missions and make it feel more like a home. Mike and River had already talked about it earlier, but the plan was that the spare room would be made into a workout room, with one of the free sleep pods or free space inside the main compartments needed to somehow house a shower and a smaller hydroponics module.
(If there's some way of converting one of the sleep pods into a bath and the other into a freezer module we can use the main compartment for a large hydroponics module…)
Turning her search towards hydroponic modules, River quickly found one which somewhat fit the bill.
(On full output, this bad boy could extend our rasions by a year… The only problem is the price.)
Shopping around for an alternative, River couldn't quite find anything that fit the bill, so she just ended up sending the details to Mike, within a second he answered with a thumbs-up emoji.
"Right, we did just make 3.5 mill… Guess we've no reason to skimp out on equipment at this point."
While Mike picked clean the Orca's corpse, River finished her preliminary shopping and within a couple of hours it was time for River to take over and drive the Wyrm back to station.
Or at least that's what she tried to do.
"Remember that this isn't a barge or a sciff, she takes a bit to change velocity, not because of the drives but the sheer mass."
"Yeah, right."
"A-"
"You do know I'm also a pilot right Mike? I might not be insane like you but I'm still a pilot so stop that already."
Realising far too late that he was being patronising, Mike stopped himself from trying to apologise, then left River alone in the cockpit.
"Well, fuck."
-
"Tsiolkovsky station, this is GCV-44, requesting permission to dock for refuelling, resupply and a light refit."
[Tsiolkovsky station conn, good to have you back GCV-44, you have pad 21D approach form sector 3.]
While River had expected the station services to cut off there, they apparently still had something to say.
[Also, I have an urgent communication from the pilot's guild: It seems like they have a commission for you, don't think they're likely to take no for an answer so report to the guild office when able, conn out.]
"Well fuck."
Just the act of the guild reaching out to them using the station command made it extremely clear to River that there was trubble brewing, the problem was deciding if it was beneficial or the problematic kind of trouble.
"Wanna run?"
As Mike had never really tapped out of the com systems, he promptly returned to the cockpit and the first thing he did was ask River for her opinion while strapping into the cooperator seat as River had taken the pilot seat.
"... No, them calling us ahead of time all the way out here is probably an attempt at easing tension, plus running away now would just burn away all the good faith we've earned with the pilot's guild thus far. We need them to trust us when we're going to spread information on how to counter the extragalactics, right?"
"True, no need to burn an olive branch… Besides, the Solar Empire is pretty friendly with us too, but more importantly, they need us."
Ultimately deciding to go ahead and see what the pilot's guild wanted, River and Mike docked and went to visit the pilot's guild.
"We're from GCV-44, before we get to what the guild has summoned us I have something interesting."
Placing a datacube on the reception table, the information inside was instantly made available to the receptionist who realised Mike and River had killed a pirate lord and harvested data from the scrapped Orca after the fact.
"I-I see, this certainly is interesting… They're ready for you both on the 35th floor, meeting room 3509. I'll inform them of this too."
Heading to the elevator, Mike and River were soon in front of the meeting room on the 35th floor, sharing a brief look, Mike chambered a round in his pistol before the two of them entered the room.
"Mike, River, I am glad we finally met, my name is Beck, I am the leader of the pilot's guild here in the Solar Empire."
Coming face to face with a top dog inside the pilot's guild Mike signalled for River to be on alert, it was far from normal that a local leader of the guild would personally come into contact with a pair of pilots like this.
"First order of business is this, although I didn't believe it until I saw the footage, you two must be properly compensated for taking out that pirate Orca."
It seemed news had travelled fast throughout the guild, but then again it was big news that Mike and River had stumbled on a pirate lord, and taken them out to boot.
"Yeah well, we're purchasing some improvements for our ship so it was a nice bonus to stumble on. Can we be paid for that right away?"
"Sure, that's what I was planning to do. In addition to the fee for clearing out the pirate-infested mining area, the individual bounties plus the bounty for the Orca I've added a small bonus to round out the number."
Looking at their credit balance as it updated Mike couldn't help but crack a slight smile, even as he knew the guild leader had only done this to help pull the upcoming negotiations in his own favour.
"Pleasure doing business with you Beck."
"The pleasure is all mine Mike, but now on to the main business. I'm sorry to say I have a request that's not really a request."
"... Okay then, what's the job?"
Still needing the help of the pilot's guild Mike figured that there was no way of turning down a request coming directly from the guild leader of the Solar Empire.
"VIP transport and escort. Please enter."
Calling out behind him, Beck introduced Mike and River to a woman with a sleepy expression that wore a large white lab coat.
"This is Hanna, my niece. She's a xenobiologist working for the state and guild on a joint partnership that the both of you already know about."
(So she's researching those crystal entities? Then it makes sense to ask us to guard her, but why would she need protection?)
Getting the go ahead from River, Mike started questioning Beck about the finer details of the commission.
"Okay, so VIP escort and transport. What's the duration of the mission, what's the threat and what kind of cover should we expect? There's no way you'll just hand your niece over to two pilot's you know nothing about."
"I-"
"The trip will take about a week, I need to go collect some samples without anyone noticing. The Solar navy intelligence tells me I've been drawing some unwanted attention from state actors but we can't wait until the threat clears."
Interrupting her uncle, Hanna pushed up her glasses as she explained the circumstances and the threat on her life in a very nonchalant manner.
"Then what about the cover?"
"That unit you two should know will be shadowing us."
"Payment?"
"A mill up front, 500K a day and 2 mill after."
(So 7.5 million credits for the 7 days of work… That's all well and good, but.)
"This is all well and good but we can't currently get underway. Currently our ship is getting refitted, it won't be done until tomorrow."
Putting a damper on Hanna's and the guild leaders enthusiasm, River made it clear that they weren't in any position to take on any work as they were currently having modifications undertaken on the Wyrm installing the shower, gym module and hydroponics pod. If Hanna wanted to keep a low profile, making River and Mike cancel their modifications to hurriedly take off would draw a lot of attention.
"That works out perfectly as I don't have a vacuum suit yet, I'm still waiting for it to be delivered later today."
Feeling a headache mounting Mike couldn't stop himself from asking anyway.
"Wait, so you don't have a vac suit? Have you ever been off station?"
"Nope, I was born and grew up here. But everything should be fine, I took all the necessary qualifications last year."
As things turned out as he had feared Mike to a deep breath before laying out some ground rules.
"Okay, then this doesn't happen unless we agree on some ground rules, first of all: you're to follow our directives at all times and when doing any sort of EVA I'll be right by your side."
"Well I appreciate the support, but-"
"No, you don't understand, I'll be right next to you so I can drag you away from any sort of danger at the first sign of trouble. I'm guessing that's exactly what your uncle is paying such a premium for."
Getting a silent nod from the guild leader there was nothing more Hanna could say on the matter, as long as she didn't pay more than Beck she wasn't in a position to say anything.
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