Chương 23: Trader Union

"Ah… I have a ship I want to sell as well. Is there anywhere I can go to do that?" I asked.

Ges and Amber seemed to perk up at my words.

Amber raised a hand, "Wait, wait… Hold up… You're telling me you actually captured their ship intact?"

I tilted my head, "Didn't I say that they boarded my ship while I was out in space? I fought them off so I'm in possession of their ship now."

"Holy hell, Tera. Things just get better and better with you don't they? Hahahaha! You actually subdued the crew and stole their ship!" The blonde haired Mercenary laughed.

Ges sighed, "If you're looking to sell ships, you could head down to the hangar and look for the Trader Union. They deal with these kinds of things."

Amber finished laughing and grinned at me, "Let your senior here lead you there~ I'll even help you get a good deal out of it!"

Now I just want to say that I'm not an ungrateful person, but I can't help but feel a little suspicion crawl into my mind.

"May I ask why you're going out of your way to help me?"

She raised an eyebrow, "Feeling cautious now are we?"

"Well… Yeah. Especially after you told me about what happened to you."

"That's a smart girl. Well, if you must know, I do want something from you~"

I don't know why but my first instinct was to move my hands to cover my chest, which was odd considering I believe I still had a man's mentality. Perhaps after spending a few days in this body my own mentality was shifting as well?

Not a good sign.

Amber giggled, "Hehehe, not that kind of something. But hey, I would be lying if I said I didn't want to get in your pants too."

"... But we're both girls?"

She raised an eyebrow, "Really? I thought for sure you were a futa by how you act. I'm not picky though."

… Did I just hear what I thought she said?

There's actually futas here?

Ok, I'll search that up later but the more important thing now was that she admitted that she wanted something from me.

"What are you trying to get from me?"

She leaned on the counter, "Nothing much. Let's just say that a certain solo Merc is tired of being solo already~"

Ges cleared his throat, "If you want to flirt, please do so elsewhere. There's other Mercs waiting in line."

I looked behind me to see a rather empty hall.

Amber decided to humour him and tapped me on my shoulder, "Come on Tera~ Let's go and leave mister grumpy here. We can go see if we can't get that ship of yours sold~"

Well… I guess I should just go with it and see how this goes. I'm not averse to having a partner either and I'm honestly glad that I have someone to help me right now.

Without her, I'd think that I would be in a pretty bad spot on my own.

We left the guild building and went in the direction of the hangar.

At first, I thought we would need to go through the checkpoint again but she stopped at a building next to the checkpoint and went inside.

Compared to the Mercenary guild, this place was absolutely packed with people.

Some of them looked like the business types, others looked like normal people and then there were those who were clearly Mercenaries.

I was still looking around when Amber grabbed me by the arm, "Come on now, over here."

She pulled me along to the side and there was a young man with light blue hair and an eyepiece over his left eye standing at the side. I also noticed that both his arms were mechanical and he was currently typing away on a holographic keyboard that floated in front of him.

"Yo, Kale~" Amber greeted, smacking the man on the back and causing him to stumble a few steps to the side.

"What the… Oh. I should have known it was you. What do you want, Amber?" The man groaned before rubbing his arm.

She stepped to the side and gestured to me, "Met a friend today and she's badass as fuck. Not only did she nab Holoface Yirfa all on her own, she even captured her ship intact and brought it back here. So get to work."

He blinked at her for a moment before turning to me, "You have… Holoface Yirfa's ship?"

I nodded.

The fact that she pointed out it was that pirate's ship in particular was not lost on me. I'm guessing that it might sell more if people knew who the ship belonged to before it was sold.

Amber backed me up, "I was there, saw the person herself get taken into the Guild today. You can check the records too if you want."

The blue haired man tapped on the holographic keyboard and his eyepiece visibly changed colour for a moment.

He nodded, "Huh… Found it. So you really got her ship huh. This would sell quite a bit especially when the Corps she screwed over wants to screw her back. They'd be wanting to buy that ship for sure."

"Any reason why they would want that?" I asked.

He raised an eyebrow at me, "You're not from around here, are you?"

"No?"

"Hmm… Well she stole some things from those Corps and she hasn't exactly given it back. I'd bet they want to secure everything that she has to make sure that what she stole doesn't end up somewhere else."

"What exactly did she steal?"

He shrugged, but in a way that said he knew what it was but either didn't want or couldn't tell me.

I suppose if those Corps were willing to put such a high bounty on her, they'd be willing to do more extreme stuff to shut him up if they knew he knew too.

At least, that's just my guess anyway.

He then started typing on the keyboard again and this time a screen appeared which showed a list of ships.

I quickly realised that what he was displaying was the list of ships that were currently docked in the hangar bay.

"Hmm… Ah, there it is. Ship's ID checks out. That's definitely Holoface Yirfa's ship. So I take it you're looking to sell?"

"Err… Yes? I'll be honest, I don't really know how this works. I just became a Merc."

"Oh? Interesting… Alright, I can handle it. Do you have a minimum amount for the price?"

"What's the standard price for a ship like hers?"

"Hmm… Class B ships like hers usually cost around a million credits if it's brand new so if you were going to sell it as a used ship, you might need to drop that by around fifty percent or so, especially when it's a pirate ship. But since the Corps want it, you could have your starting price be at one point five million and they would still bid for it."

…

"Sorry, I think I heard wrong. Did you say an entire million Credits?"

"One point five million to be exact, but yes."

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

That's triple of what I have now!

I see why Mercs would even risk becoming a criminal just to board your ship and steal it from you. How long would you even need to work to even get enough money to buy your own ship?

Amber grinned, "Oh don't be so shocked yet, Tera. She stole from at least two different Corps, so it's going to be a bidding war between those two. If you're lucky, you might even see double that price."

"Three million?" I muttered, feeling a little lost.

The both of them nodded.

"Err… Yeah, ok… Sure… Cool, yeah… Let's go with that."

I know, I was trying to play it off cool but I failed miserably. Shut up.

Kale started typing away on his keyboard again, "Perfect. We'll list it with a Sale Period of three days and the Trader Union will get a one percent cut for the sale. Are you alright with the terms?"

"Ah, yeah… That's the normal cut right?"

"Yeah, still too much if you ask me," Amber grumbled. "But whatever, they have the monopoly on the literal galactic trade network so unless some other entity comes in and competes with them, they're all we got."

Kale simply shrugged at her accusation, "I'm just a lowly trade rep. Anyway, the procedure's all done. We'll contact you on your personal terminal on the outcome of the trade. Is there anything else?"

Amber turned to me and it took me a moment to realise she was silently asking me if there were other things I wanted to sell.

"No… That would be all, thanks."

Kale grinned before giving me a slight bow, "In that case, thank you for using our services, we hope to trade with you again."

I don't really remember how I got out of the building after that.