Chapter 18: Warping To A New System

"Approaching the Warp Gate, all crew to Warp stations," Herman's voice came from over the intercom.

I looked out from my cockpit and a construct resembling a tuning fork could be seen floating out in the void of space.

This must undoubtedly be the Warp Gate that would send us to another system.

The entire thing was several times bigger than even the Freighter I had my ship attached to and I could not even see the other end as we neared it.

Its surface was a smooth silver sheen and it looked especially slick with no imperfections along its surface.

As we got close to it, my consoles started beeping and displaying a notification on its screen.

'Warp Jump Iminent'

I held on to the armrests as the exterior of my cockpit was engulfed in a flash of light and I felt a sense of weightlessness for a moment.

When the light dissipated, the scenery outside also changed to another planet with a distinctively large station orbiting around it.

That didn't even take more than a few seconds.

So that's how it feels like to use the warp gates… Cool.

From what I could get from Herman, he roughly explained that these Warp Gates functioned a little like slingshots that shoot ships through space to their destination. Except they don't actually physically fling them through space but something about travelling through a warp space or something.

Apparently this technology was gained after humanity was attacked by a Leviathan, which was a term given to giant space lifeforms according to him, and that particular Leviathan had this ability to fling itself through space.

Humanity managed to eventually kill that Leviathan and studied it to learn how to create Warp Gates from its corpse. The method of its construction is apparently a closely guarded secret in the UTG which I already knew was basically humanity's government.

He didn't really know much beyond the fact that "it just works", considering he's just a freighter captain and not some scholar.

I suppose for normal spacefarers who have already gotten used to the Warp Gates, they don't really care about the intricacies of how these machines work. Similar to how I don't even question how a VR Capsule works I guess.

I made a note to see how these Gates work on my own since I would most probably be using them in the future too.

'Warp Jump Complete' was displayed on my console and the Freighter slowly turned in the direction of the Habitat station, starting our journey towards it.

I'm quite looking forward to seeing how that station differs from the mining station, where the miners and Marten gave me a very enthusiastic sendoff when I left with Herman.

That reminds me…

I got up from the pilot seat and went out of the cockpit before moving to the room next to mine.

Tapping on the control panel on the door frame, the door slid open with a soft hiss, revealing the only other current occupant of the ship.

"Hello~ Did you sleep well?" I asked the pirate that was currently tied up and left on the bottom bunk bed.

Yirfa sneered at me, "What the fuck do you want now? Come to gloat or something?"

I shrugged, "I mean… Since you suggested it… I guess I can do that?"

She spat at my feet, "Don't think I will beg for--"

I smacked her across the face before she even finished her words.

"Don't spit on my ship, bitch. I'm the one that has to clean up your spit so unless you want me to use your face as a rag you keep your body fluids inside you."

She growled at me but said nothing.

I nodded at her, "So, before I turn you in at the station, I have some questions I would like to ask."

"And what makes you think I will answer them?"

"Hmm… The fact that I have no qualms about making your life a little harder before we get there?"

"Ha! What else do I have to lose then? I might as well have the satisfaction of denying what you want before I get sent to the slammer!"

"Hmm… Really? I just have some simple questions though."

She sneered, "Fuck you."

I shrugged and started tapping on my Codex, "Alright, let's see… Oh? I can control this room's atmosphere remotely and vent out breathable air? That sounds nice, maybe let's try doing that and leave you here to suffocate~"

Her eyes widened, "You… You wouldn't…"

"Why not? I don't need you alive to claim your bounty and since you're no use to me alive, I might as well test out my ship's functions on you right? Maybe I might even try testing if I could lower the temperature here all the way past freezing and back up to boiling to see how it works?"

My finger hovered over the Codex while I smiled at her, giving her the chance to change her mind.

She scowled, "Fuck… You fucking lunatic! What the fuck do you want then?!"

I turned off my Codex and smiled at her, "Well, let's just start from the top. How did you even get Jerry?"

"Tch… Just that? Found his ship, boarded it and took it obviously. Idiot was even dead drunk and didn't even know what was going on. Scanned his face and then vented him out of his ship down into the planet below and I took his place."

"Then why even bother doing that? I don't get it."

"Didn't you already figure it out? We had to run away from Theeve station because we got too much heat… We were fucking lucky enough to find that ship that we could use as a base to hide out and it even still had supplies left in it. But those fucking Corps never tried to stop searching for us and the supplies on that derelict was running out so we were looking for alternatives. We got even luckier when we found out they built a mining station in the system that we could exploit."

I scratched my chin, "And how does that holoprojector of yours work?"

She furrowed her brows, "Don't even fucking think about it. It's an implant in my eyes so the only way you're getting it is killing me you bitch."

Oh, her eyes were implants? I couldn't even tell. They look pretty organic to me from here.

"Where could I get one then?" I asked.

She let out a laugh, "Ahahaha! Too bad! These are fucking illegal dumbass! You can only get these babies off the black market and they're all pretty rare too! You want to get one? You better have a recommendation then, or else forget getting these, you might not even be welcomed in the market! Ahahaha!"

Ok… Thanks for the info that there's a black market out there for these.

I then started prodding her face with a finger, causing her to recoil back in surprise. Except that she couldn't get very far because her hands and legs were still tied and secured to the bed.

"What… What the fuck are you doing?!"

"Hmm… Your face seems organic to me… Are only your eyes implants?"

"Of course!! I didn't mod my whole head, you dumb bitch!"

"Interesting… Tell me more about these mods."

Upon hearing my question, she smiled with pride, probably because she quite liked her implants.

"Heh heh! Just so you know, these are keyed to me and they're only usable with my own bio signature! Spent a pretty good amount of Credits to tune this up! I could even stand in front of you and you wouldn't even know that my face was fake~ That's how I snuck in and stole all those secrets from those dumbass Corps!"

"Mmhmm… And then they put that hit on your crew so you had to run away because you can only hide yourself but not your crew huh? I'm more surprised that you didn't choose to just abandon them."

Her brows furrowed, "Even if I'm a pirate, I still have my morals, bitch. They followed me through my tough times, I ain't going to just give up on them!"

"A pirate with morals that vented some poor miner out the airlock. Colour me surprised."

"And you're a Merc who would do anything if the price is right. You're no better than me so don't act like you're a saint."

I shrugged, "I never said I was one, I just thought that was ironic. So I don't suppose you would point me in the direction of these black markets?"

What? I was also interested in what other things they would sell there. Black markets are the place where you can get anything you want you know? They're really valuable especially when you have things that you want to buy or sell that can't be done legally.

You want to get rich quick in the game? Black markets are the way you want to go.

She raised an eyebrow, "You're seriously asking me for a referral?"

"If you're willing to give one."

"Fuck off. And I'm not going to do that even if you kill me. Go find some other idiot to do that for you."

"You sure? I could try venting the air now…"

"Grrr… Fuck it, fine! Ugh… I hate my fucking life!"

Why thank you~

CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Draekai

Captain's Log:

According to the pirate I captured, there's quite an interesting market in Theeve Orbital Habitat and I think it's pretty worth it to check it out. I should get quite a lot of money from her bounty and selling off the ship after all.

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