“Greetings,” Jacob greeted the Bounty Association representatives as they stepped off their vessel.
“Captain Jacob?” the amuni asked.
Unlike Hallik, who wore armor, this amuni individual wore a business suit of sorts. It was odd seeing something like that on the six-limbed individual, made even stranger by the lack of any footwear. Or hand coverings in the case of amuni.
“Sorry, I should have introduced myself. Yes, I am Captain Jacob. And you are?”
“Jarnall. My title is Senior Expansion Associate, but that will likely mean little to you. Suffice it to say, I am responsible for establishing new Bounty Association locations across all of Astryx space.”
“All by yourself?” Jacob asked in surprise.
“I do have a team,” the man chuckled, “but essentially, yes. Despite the scope of my work, the job is not that onerous. The Bounty Association only adds a few locations a year on average.”
“I’ll be honest,” Jacob replied. “I thought you’d be a lot more hostile toward me after spending two days with the judicator.”
Jarnall grimaced at that. “The judicial branch and the Bounty Association agree that criminals should be prosecuted, but not on what the greater threat to the Astryx might be. They focus their attention on issues that could harm the entire union of species, while the Bounty Association focuses on protecting individuals and even planets with smaller populations. That’s not to say that Judicator Ghrroaqq didn’t try to convince me of your danger. He spent a full two days attempting to change my mind before I got tired of his cyclical arguments and departed. I believe in weighing an individual on their actions, not on some outdated law that has never been invoked in the history of our great union. I also don’t agree that it applies in your case, something Judicator Ghrroaqq was supremely unhappy to hear.”
Jacob wasn’t surprised to hear that the judicator had told Jarnall everything. The man had been extremely unhappy after not finding a valid reason to pass judgment on him. That being said, Jarnall’s words brought up another concern. Jacob knew he should just let the issue go in the sake of harmony, but if he was about to walk into a field full of landmines, he wanted to know now, not when he was standing in the middle of it.
“Where does that leave the eiraxins?” Jacob asked.
Jarnall sighed. “That is a tough question,” the association representative replied. “You are familiar with the eiraxin history?”
“If you are referring to them being part of Concord Imperium, then yes, but not much more,” Jacob admitted. “I also know that is ancient history.”
Jarnall nodded. “For some, that history is all that matters. I don’t personally hold that opinion, but I’m not responsible for creating or maintaining Astryx law. The eiraxins don’t make their situation any better either. They have never given up trying to reclaim their power, or more recently, fighting against their oppressors. I’ve lost count of how many eiraxin terrorist cells, freedom fighters, rebels, or dissidents the Bounty Association has captured or killed since I joined, and I’ve only been with the association for thirty years. The names they use may change, their tactics and actions as well, but it all boils down to one thing. The eiraxins wish to free themselves from a prison they created due to their actions, and until they can earn the trust of the broader galactic community, that isn’t going to happen. Does that clarify things for you, Captain?”
Jacob knew Xing’che wasn’t telling him the whole truth, and now he had proof. “It does, thank you, Jarnall. You can also just call me Jacob. I’m not big on titles.”
Once their conversation was completed, Jacob led Jarnall and his team to one of the three commercial spaces aboard the station. The storefronts had been cleared out long ago, but some still sported faded signs that let Jacob know that the place had once been a bustling commercial district.
Despite how massive the three zones were, they were far smaller than the ones he saw briefly during his time on Vorlos Station. He chalked that up to the shipyard being a military station and not a public hub.
“Well,” Jacob said, gesturing toward all the empty spaces. “Pick whichever location you want. This zone is the closest to the public docks, so I figured you would want to choose one of these storefronts.”
Jarnall chuckled. “I must say, this is different than usual. Normally, when the Bounty Association appears, we arrive long after a station has been operating, and we are given whatever space is available. I’m not sure if our people will know how to handle such luxury.”
Jacob saw Jarnall’s people roll their eyes, but they didn’t look unhappy with the situation.
Jarnall asked a few questions, then took the first storefront that appeared after the corridor from the hangars. It was prime real estate that any company would have loved to have, and Jacob probably could have gotten a great deal of income from it, but he didn’t care.
Now that he survived the judicator, his goal was to make friends and establish allies who could go to bat for him and his associates. Katherine probably wouldn’t appreciate working with aliens, and Barry didn’t seem interested in anything outside of his current focus, so that left Jacob to establish relationships for them.
He still believed that Katherine would come around eventually, but that would take time, and she would have to interact with the aliens before that could happen.
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Jacob spent a bit longer showing Jarnall how to operate the clunky eiraxin terminal interface and how to purchase items to help fill out their new office. He set a reminder to update all the station interfaces to the more user-friendly version he was using.
The association people had brought some of their own items, but once they set them up in the new office, it looked ridiculously unfurnished. He didn’t give them the same pricing special as the military, so they were more than happy to purchase items cheaply since there was no real demand at the moment.
The items they could purchase were limited thanks to the materials available on the station, but most of the stuff they bought was for an office setting.
Jacob left them to it and popped back into the hangar where Chalto’s ship resided. The repairs were complete, and the ship was now settled back on the deck once more, which was good, because it was time to load the vessel’s small hold with something that would make Jacob’s journey to Earth a possibility.
Two drones entered the hangar, moving a large platform between them with two repeater satellites loaded aboard.
One might have been enough, but Earth was farther from the shipyard than Vorlos, and that station was close to the transmission limit of the single satellite, so Jacob didn’t want to risk it. Making the two satellites did use up some of his limited supplies, but there was no getting around that. He couldn’t transfer his mind into mobile storage as Franky did.
Not that there was any available storage aboard the ship to do such a thing. Jacob had the data storage that Katherine loaded aboard the ship removed. He did that because there was no need to have the storage aboard the vessel anymore. He also hesitated to trust her with access to the vessel now that he wasn’t in imminent danger of dying. If the ship weren’t armed, he wouldn’t have been so worried, but she had made her current opinions on aliens rather clear. She could also thank Franky for his current paranoia. The last thing he wanted to do was repeat that mistake and have to track her down as well.
Speaking of Katherine, she was standing inside the ship’s hold, and Jacob could practically feel her glaring at him through the drone’s sensor.
“Can I help you?” he asked over the comm.
“I’m going with you to Earth,” she declared.
“You do realize that I’m not actually leaving the station, and with your storage removed, neither are you?”
“I’m not stupid,” she shot back. “There are things I need to do.”
“This isn’t a vacation,” Jacob said. “The only reason I’m going to Earth is to retrieve that idiot Franky, so he can’t cause irreparable harm to humanity. I’m not going to go through all that work to allow you to do the same.”
“I get that, and I have no delusions of grandeur like that moron, but that doesn’t change the fact that I need to make things right with some people before saying goodbye to Earth. I also don’t want to be left alone in the figurative sense, with Barry and the aliens who are going to start flooding into the station.”
Jacob didn’t think that was likely to happen any time soon or ever, considering the station’s location, but before he could comment on that, she held up her hand.
“I know your feelings on the matter, and you know mine,” she said. “I’m not saying I will change my mind, but I will give these new visitors a chance to prove themselves before passing judgment. Is that sufficient?”
“Alright,” Jacob replied. “You can come along if you want.”
He didn’t really have any reason to deny her request, especially when he wanted to do something similar. While retrieving that moron Franky was the main priority, there were things he wanted to do back on Earth, like finding out where he had been abducted and learning his friend’s name once again.
Maybe he would even invite his friend for a visit.
***
The first of the merchants arrived a few days later, and Jacob greeted them with open arms. The ship they brought was twice the size of the transport that Franky stole, but it was not the largest transport vessel he had seen. There were ships nearly twice as large docked at Vorlos Station, and even those were not even a quarter the size of Melody’s hull. That alone spoke volumes for just how titanic a planetary conditioning vessel was.
He was certain there were larger ships, deeper inside Astryx space, but he had yet to see one.
Jacob tried to entice the merchant to establish a permanent presence aboard the station, but he did not have the same charisma as Hallik or Sha’la. It didn’t help that the commander of the Astryx flotilla, which comprised a single battleship and three escorts, had warned the captain that this station was unsafe.
Despite that, the merchant captain had docked anyway. The answer to that sat in the fifty crates being loaded aboard the bruth captain’s ship. Sixteen hundred power cores, and Jacob had another hundred crates already produced and ready for sale.
The merchant captain had his people verify every single device, which took hours, but Jacob saw no reason to rush them. The amount of money the man had paid on top of his delivery of goods would have taken Jacob ten visits to Vorlos to duplicate. A few hours of waiting was nothing in comparison.
“It may take me a while to return,” the diminutive merchant said, “but I will return, safe or not,” he said the last part under his breath.
It was odd to hear such a small and cute-looking creature utter such words of greed, but it was hardly the weirdest thing Jacob had experienced since venturing into space.
“Is there anything special I can procure for you before I return?” the man asked, turning his greed-filled eyes away from the last crate being loaded aboard his transport.
Jacob transferred a list of items he wanted for the station. The merchant captain perused it quickly, then nodded. “Doable. Pleasure doing business with you, Captain Jacob. Until next time.”
With those words, the man turned and hurried aboard his vessel.
Jacob watched the flamboyantly dressed bruth skip away in delight and shook his head. Then he turned to look at Katherine’s drone that had just entered the hangar.
“You didn’t tell me that aliens could be so cute!” she accused. “I wanted to see it in person, and pet it,” she added under her breath, forgetting that the drone’s sensors could pick up even soft sounds.
If he knew a cute alien was all it took to get her to change her opinion, he would have forced her to watch the bruth advertisements until her eyes bled joy.
“They aren’t pets,” he said in exasperation.
“I know that,” she huffed. “But maybe they like getting petted.”
Jacob decided not to comment on that. “Are you ready to go?”
“I thought you said we have to wait until you can pay off the fine for the ship?”
“That’s true, but our currently departing friend purchased more cores than I anticipated. I’ve already sent the payment to Representative Chalto. It should clear shortly, then we’ll be heading to Earth in style.”
They would also be test-driving Barry’s new drone model. The man had completed them a few hours ago, but they still used the old programming, so it would take quite a bit of tweaking on Barry’s end to optimize.
Jacob would have helped the man, but Barry refused when he offered, preferring to do things himself. One less thing to worry about suited Jacob just fine, so he didn’t push the matter. Even if Barry didn’t have a working model in the time it would take to reach Earth, the current system would be sufficient for assisted operation.
It was time to head out and retrieve their wayward digital associate.