/ Chapter 5 / The half dormant godling stirred. Perhaps she had caused her human host a bit of bad luck during the primitive spatial transfer procedure, but it was out of consideration – the godling would subtly return it as good luck at a critical point to hopefully save her host, and then she could explore more of this very interesting restricted Class H universe. Maybe she could write her thesis on it? Yea. The Realm Council had actually wanted her assigned to a boring cluster of Class B's managing a so called "system", with numbers and levels and stuff... how dreary! She hoped they wouldn't find her. Thankfully the Universe didn't seem to have noticed her yet at least, but she really couldn't be active for too long poking around, and if she messed around and disturbed things to much then wouldn't it hurt her thesis? It seemed a bit irresponsible. Thinking this, she resumed her half dormant watchdog mode. –o– Feeling a bit mucky after waking up, Teu put on a fresh pair of panties. They had like a hundred of them onboard after all. Normally 722 would sleep without clothes but somehow she had forgotten and just blacked out on a blanket on the floor, face down like before, not even remembering to tell someone to watch the sensors. Fortunately she had only slept for less than five hours, which was normal for the efficient worker constructs. The perhaps strangest thing about the hip huggers was that they didn't leave a lasting mark on her. Well, she supposed the strangeness rather had to do with her own skin – any marks pretty much disappeared within minutes. 722 had wore these things for decades – only going without during sleep hours – and Teu half expected the result of such prolonged use would make her hip look more like an old tree grown around barb wire, but no. Anyways, she wouldn't complain. In her last life she had reached the age where the mark from a fingernail pressed into the skin would linger for far too long. In addition, this body seemed a bit stronger than expected. The factory workers never exercised beyond doing a few warmup movements in the morning, but Teurana of course had a whole routine she was forced to stick to due to her line of work. Now she was on her 110th push up and just felt more hungry than tired. She would need someone to sit on her back, or she could perhaps switch to one armed push ups, or hand stands. The workout pass lasted a bit longer than planned. Since she had thoughtfully dumped her only top before working up a sweat she had to shoo out the girls that came to gawk at her apparently mystifying and pointless activities. She had actually needed to drink some water and eat two meal bars to keep going... and also change her panties again as they eventually got sweat soaked and turned into an even more embarrassing spectacle than they already were. The ship fortunately had a shower cylinder and water recycler on board. It suddenly occurred to her that working out might indeed be entirely pointless if worker constructs had some sort of natural fitness balancing ability. All the workers on the platforms had pretty much the same build, after all. During the day the others were getting fidgety with nothing to do, so they set up a pretend factory using the spare panties as props. Teu felt a bit sorry for them, seeing them fall back on trite comfort routines like that. Teu then remembered the suspicious panty she had hurriedly stuffed in the screw driver kit box. She joined the so called "QC department" at a table and spread the panty out. She soon found that she had been right – there was something hidden in the top seam at the back. –– "Whatcha doing?", Firefly interrupted, with Braids flanking on the other side. –– "Can someone fetch me a seam ri-", Teu started. 601 who had now also leaned in slapped a seam ripper on the table. 601 had been a seamstress just like 722, and must have brought a private kit. The instrument looked a bit like a tiny fork, but with one of the prongs being bulbous and the other one sharp like a blade. Teu carefully started undoing the seam but soon everyone was so far leaned in that they were almost obscuring the work light. –– "There's something in there!" –– "How did these pass QC?" –– "Did a broom bristle get trapped inside?" –– "Perhaps it's a secret note?" –– "No way, it would be way too small to write on!" Teu managed to fish out a flexible strip of film, two centimetres in length but only a millimetre wide. –– "It's indeed a secret message, but it's not hand written.", Teu clarified, shooing the others back while she carefully held the microfilm up to the light, squinting to no avail. –– "Hah!", she suddenly yelled, abandoning the dissected panty and running back to the cockpit area – the others following tightly behind. She flapped open the ship's manual with one hand, finding a dog eared page. "Microstrip Reader – Operation Instructions." After opening a dust latch on a console, she carefully inserted the strip, then flipped a bulb switch. A display came on with a buzz. It was probably just a magnification projector, but everyone ooh'd and aah'd seeing the contents of the film appear. A little wheel on the console could move the view along the length of the strip, a bit like viewing an ancient scroll. Only Teu's excitement truly lasted however – after 30 minutes the others had gradually returned to their activities, 601 leaving last. The film contained a dry report on some archeologic find related to "High Goblins". There were a few star charts and a colour picture of a damaged derelict ship looking like a red thorn with a ring going around its axis. Despite its 12000 years of age, the derelict somehow still had an active shield so no one had even been able to board it. The empire had instead set up a monitoring station and a defensive perimeter consisting of fake pirates who would serve to ward off looters. As a precursor race, High Goblins were wielding highly potent technology. If a counter-imperial movement got their hands on it, things could get very dangerous. She didn't really know what to do with this information at the moment, or why it had been planted on her. The ship-day passed into ship-night without incident. They ate the meal bars with gusto. This time Teu remembered to undress and get someone to watch the sensors before falling asleep. She was getting a replay of the dream with the bath again and got to the part with the rubber ducky. This time however it grew enormous and spoke in a grand voice, as if a herald of the universe itself. –– "Panty-vision! You have gained panty-vision! If you focus hard you can see peoples panties even if they are covered up! Con~gratulations!" What? Wait. Hadn't the chummy fat fellow in her dream mentioned something about getting a useless cheat? Transmigrators always got a cheat right? Hold on – this was it? Panty-vision? It was indeed a useless cheat... especially since she had started in a place where no one covered up to begin with! 601's loud yelp tore her from the dream replay and she immediately forgot it. Teu had taught 601 to watch the sensors as she seemed the most interested by tech. –– "There's a dot!", she pointed. Teu slid up into the pilot seat, remaining wrapped in the sleeping blanket, then blinked her eyes into focus. There was indeed a dot. With a little skull next to it. –– "What does the skull mean?", 601 asked nervously as she leaned in. Teu ran the cursor over the contact and selected it. "FE2-990-F8 : Warning: Known pirate vessel. Mark 2 Falcon Explorer. Likely specs: Crew: 1-7. Weapons: 45mm lancer cannon, torpedos, point defence flak. Main thrust: 0.2" –– "Well, this is... bad. We're outgunned." 601 looked worried despite probably not understanding the term, but Teu suddenly perked up a bit. –– "I think it's best to put the pedal to the metal... this is a courier ship after all – our engine is bigger!" The pirate ship must have come from a nearby stretch of the central asteroid belt, but fortunately it wasn't able to intercept and block from straight on. Ship sensor ranges were a bit limited, a fact which pirates exploited for their sneak attacks according to the ship's manual. By Teu's rough estimate their faster Wing Courier would just about be able to slip past the pirate ship and enter the inner parts of the system, but they would probably still pass within effective shooting range. She worked the controls and re-oriented the wing so the smaller side surface faced the assailant. Then she kept slightly nudging the vector controls to keep the ship on an unpredictable path. Occasionally she started firing pot shots at the pirate using an especially complicated analog sight with a vector compensator. There were a number of factors to consider, such as the Wing Courier's current speed, the speed of the ballistic projectiles, and the speed and acceleration of the target... the latter being unknown quantities, and over great distances the imprecision of a physical cannon had a huge effect of course. There were mainly two types of cannons used in space duels: penetrators and shotguns. The turret was fitted with a 30mm shotgun, which made hitting something easier, but the damage wasn't so good according to the ship's manual. It was more meant for discouragement. A lucky shot could perhaps disable the target. The good thing with a shotgun was that one had a lot of shots. Also, because it was turret mounted, it could fire continuously. The pirate ship probably had a sort of front mounted tank buster and needed to slightly reorient the entire ship briefly for each shot, losing a bit of speed. Technically, if the ship flew straight ahead and fired a projectile, then kept accelerating, it would eventually catch up with its own projectile. Teu kept firing. The turret mounted cannon was surprisingly not that loud, but it still lightly shook and twisted the ship with each shot. She didn't want to alarm the others too much, so she just told them, "Relax, I'm peppering.", and left it at that. Teu regretted having started firing way to early as now the ammunition was halfway spent and maybe she would be out once reaching the ideal alignment point. She regretted it even more once sensors picked up what it labeled a "guided torpedo launch". Shooting down one of those must be even harder. Then suddenly she didn't regret being such a spendthrift. One of her early wild shots arrived at its destination and apparently hit the torpedo directly after launch. Soon after the pirate ship stopped accelerating. She kept up the evasive manoeuvres for a while but the pirate ship really did appear to be dead in the water, drifting mostly system inward. After four hours of deceleration planet Nez'oh and its one land mass could be seen on the rearward visi-nav screen. Thankfully an autopilot could handle the finer points of matching orbital velocity with the planet's moon station. The moon reminded Teu of either Phobos or Deimos and was about as large – some 7 kilometres. It had an entry port surrounded by blinking lights. She followed the docking procedure in the ship's manual. Fortunately she didn't scratch up the inside of their docking bay. She even remembered to unfold the landing gears before gravity came on. When the docking clerk had almost reached the ship, she realised that she had forgotten something. She was not wearing any pants. Judging by Naxxel, Beutraze, and people in pictures, pants and skirts were definitely a thing in this universe. She wrangled on Beutraze's suit post-haste, wiggled on the low heels, breathed out and opened the ship's boarding door, wearing one of Teurane's business smiles. A young man in a vividly orange porter uniform stood outside consulting a clipboard. –– "Captain... Beutraze?", he inquired, shooting a disinterested glance. –– "Indeed!" –– "Crew?" –– "Four total,", she said, then hastily added, "the others won't be visiting the station. It's just me." –– "Alright." He immediately worked a large purse around his body, and zipped it open. –– "Docking fee is 780." She disappeared for a while then returned and dropped two of the "1000" bars into the purse. –– "Thank you.", he said matter-of-factly, and left. Then he suddenly halted with his back facing her, just twisting his head a bit. –– "Our long range sensors picked up some activity out there today. Know anything about it?" After considering the matter for a while, Teu came clean. –– "We ran into a pirate. A Falcon Explorer." –– "Falcon Explorer you say?" She could see him raising an interested eyebrow as he fully turned around. –– "...Did you catch the ID?", he asked. –– "990... something? I think we may have popped it." –– "Popped... it you say? Do you have a last known trajectory or log?" –– "I suppose so. Is it important?", Teu wondered, not wanting people coming on board snooping around. –– "I'll... have to buzz boss." The docking clerk rushed off with an uncanny walking pace. Not a minute later a very large man in an ill fitting sheriff type uniform came running up. –– "Oy, you got old Jojo-Jim! I can't believe it. That bugger's been troublin' us since years now. Just sits there out in the belt bein' all sneaky. Tell you what, if we find him where you left him driftin' you will get the reward that's been put up since Mary Zu fell off the bow of the Tintonic and fed the fishes!" –– "Huh? That's... Wait, How... How much is the reward again?", Teu asked, feeling something stir – she just missed out on that 90 million reward for the embassy job after all. –– "50000. Taxed. So maybe just shy of 40000 for you." –– "I'm gonna need to see the log tho. And a body.", he added. –– "One moment.", Teu sighed. She made sure the girls were shut into Beutraze's quarters, then cleaned up the path up to the cockpit. The large man who hadn't even introduced himself squeezed through the docking door, twisting sideways, then proceeded towards the cockpit in a hunched posture, eyeing the luxury cabins. –– "Carryin' some fine folk eh?" –– "Yeah, we're just making a short stop." –– "Won't pry, lady.", he parried, raising a pair of big hands. He bent in and waited as Teu worked to bring up the ship's log on one of the CRTs. –– "Fine ship.", he idled. –– "This is what you need?", Teu asked, indicating a plot showing the moment FE2-990-F8 was disabled. He squinted and then brought out a notebook, taking down a few vectors, then he squinted again. –– "And some fine shooting!", he finally guffawed rather than answering the question, also retracting a hand he was probably going to slam her back with. –– "Eherm, we'll send out some scouts to confirm." Then he stood up to leave and hit his head on the turret mount. DONG! –– "Oof. Anyways, have a good stay and don't get in trouble... generous lady.", he winked knowingly. Rubbing his scalp, he slunk out with the elegance of a boulder rolling down a mountain. She was glad she managed to pick a system with less rigid regulations as she hadn't found any sort of ID in Beutraze's belongings. And she was pretty sure worker constructs weren't supposed to run around on their own. Teu wasn't comfortable leaving the girls alone for too long without anything to do, so she'd have to pick up something quick to keep them settled. Snacks and magazines, probably. Maybe some actual clothes? She had felt a bit sorry for the worker constructs a while now and wanted to widen their horizons. On the next stop they would perhaps all be able to disembark. Right now she was probably the only one who could mimic normal human behaviour though. She said her goodbyes, exited the ship, and entered the station proper. –o– Presently, in the quite elsewhere... Grezuul'zwar dodged a half eaten and still wiggling slapfelthonk thrown by Beewul-xu'uhvu. – "Incompetence! You know who I just got a call from? The Realm Council High Seat! You know what it asked me? Whether I liked my membrane. Said it collects membranes, and got quite a few from my predecessors." Grezuul'zwar was so startled that its yathrak-juice leaked out of its undergills. – "The- the simpleform got incredibly, incredibly lucky sir. It was almost as if... there was another actor." Beewul-xu'uhvu narrowed its tertiary eyes into vertical slits. – "We don't need this." Grezuul'zwar coughed and brought up its tablet. – "...however, we have just about managed to set up a second situation and this time the threat level is significantly higher. The chaos team is quite proud of it – they used a speck of dust to-" – "If this doesn't work, I'll make sure your membrane goes into the High Seat's collection first." / Chapter 6 / The docks were connected to an arrival and departure lobby where one could rest, shop, and consult displays with sensor data and updates. The room also had a view from an optical telescope projecting onto a 4 by 3 meter screen. It currently just sat showing a static view of an antenna with a blinking light, and a bit of the small moon's surface. At the centre of the lobby there was a hoop of seats encircling an art deco statue in matted onyx. It appeared to represent a stout man holding up a pick axe, about to swing, or perhaps summon lightning. At the base of the statue there was a line written in gold: "Strike the earth! In memoriam – 8612 souls." There were only a dozen or so people idling in the area since it was reserved for dock customers. Everyone she saw was worryingly handsome. The men looked like the type of archetype hero one might see on the cover of an ancient 1950's magazine. The women were elegant and poised. Teu had of course seen people in the magazines found on board the wing ship, but had assumed those were just models. Well, Beutraze and Naxxel had been quite okay looking too she supposed. Seeing all this Teu felt that FW722's natural appearance was perhaps comparably... inelegant, or non-conformative? A bit loutish? However, Beutraze's smart outfit helped to disguise it a bit. Teu of course immediately also noticed that the people around her in fact all wore pants or skirts. The fashion on display appeared to Teu as being an amalgamation of styles – it was Edwardian fashion, but with more provocative 1960s cuts, and elements of 18th century military dress uniform with buttons and ribbons on the chest. One guy even wore a golden chest plate with a radiant sun in emboss. She wondered briefly how much one of the fancy dresses would set her back and was lost gawking until there was a disturbance. Something was happening up on the big screen. She saw a trio of wedge shaped ships with hazard stripes launching at high intercept speeds on a mission, and an announcement over the lobby speakers clarified about as much. Those were probably the scouts the big guy had mentioned. The pirate ship must have overshot by now since it wouldn't be breaking, though the scouts might catch it still. The muffled conversations in the lobby died out as quickly as the scouts moved out of view. Around the circumference of the lobby nestled a few service alcoves, namely "Information services", "Refuel services", "Repair services", "Rearmament services" and "Snacks". She headed directly for Snacks. It was a small kiosk selling mostly meal bars. –– "What can I do ya for?", a handsome young looking man asked, putting a pulp book to the side. The clerk was probably one of the youngest looking persons she had seen so far. Maybe this was his first job? He studied her curiously as she browsed the eclectic assortment of products on display. –– "Looking for something a little special huh? Got people askin' but we don't carry that here.", he said, paused, then leaned in and added in a whisper, " Gotta go to uncle SlimPim's if ya want that." –– "Actually, I'm looking for the... uh, tasteless stuff?" –– "Eew! What ya want that stuff for? It's for WeeCees. Got inhibitors and stuff." –– "Inhibitors?" –– "So they don't... you know!", he said shyly motioning by putting two fingers together, then he continued," And it keeps them happy working too I hear. Some poor peeps eat it when they want to focus, but we got much better stuff for that, if you got the coin." Oh. So that was it. She began to suspect that Worker Constructs were pretty close to other humans here, but were... kept in line. No wonder they had just worked all day at the factory without a thought of something else. Thinking about it, ever since they had started eating the meal bars on the ship... she had felt some... urges, and hadn't the other workers been acting a bit out of their ordinary too? She selected a few meal bars completely at random, more out of courtesy so it didn't seem like she was loitering. Plus, a kiosk probably wasn't a good place to resupply in bulk. –– "A Grundleberry person huh? Acquired taste I suppose. That be three-fiddy each for the regulars and a fiver for the premium." She paid with the gold and got an unfamiliar and very dinged up coin back in change. –– "Hah, new imperial mint! Nice! Halfie back.", he enthused and eyed the coins, carefully putting them in a special side purse. Next she slowly headed for the information desk. Beutraze's black skirt was a bit tight around her knees – something which bothered her immensely as an assassin prone to sudden bursts of motion. The female clerk was a pretty thing with a round friendly face. Teu declined picking up "The visitor's guide to Nez'ol" as she wouldn't be staying. She did find a more up to date travel guide for the sector though – this one only five years out of date. The perhaps more interesting find was the "Compact Imperial Encyclopaedia". The clerk then tried to push some novels on her. One was about a mining outpost which ended up stocked with libido raising meal bars due to an administrative error. It seemed like improbable smut for women and others so inclined. Teu instead got one about cute talking farm animals rebelling against their oppressors, and another about an imperial assassin. Maybe that one could shed some light on imperial politics and their organisation, plus, she'd want to read it anyways. Finally she picked up a stack of cheap pulp magazines with mixed content. She paid 555 total and even got a bag. When she spotted a fancy gift box with locally produced hard candy teasingly laid out in a spectral array she was set back another 60. Then she added on a little figurine of a strange local animal for a "fiver". Finished, she headed back to the ship right away. The girls were all quite excited by the goods and immediately tore into the bag, so the presents seemed appreciated. She hid the book about the assassin out of sight though. –o– Back out in the lobby, her funds had dwindled by the thousands after a visit to the refuelling and rearmament service kiosks. They refuelled the Wing Courier for her, but the ammunition crates she took care of herself, just dropping them off inside the ship. Now she was left with only some thousands of credits for shopping. Hopefully she'd get that reward... Beyond the lobby and into the station proper she found a small bustling society. There were streets and two-storey buildings. Parts of the high roof had been turned into a sort of artificial sky. In a sense it was a real sky – the sun was simply redirected onto a huge diffuse strip of blue-white film. She saw hundreds more of the handsome people, but no children, or old folk for that matter. Some of the people were a bit peculiar though. Three men were walking like a ladder, the bottom one on his hands while another similarly stood handstand on the feet. As if this wasn't already impressive, there was a third guy on top. What kind of strength and balance was needed to pull that off? Then there was a cat girl. A furry one that is. Probably not actually a mutated cat, but rather some similar looking alien. She had black fur, a snout, and big ears. She was very tall and elegant, wearing a dress in shimmering black velvet. A rifle was slung over her shoulder, somewhat disturbing the picture. No one seemed to care. Unlike the cat girl, most people wore hats. Top hats, plumed hats, robin hood hats, helmets... everything under the sun. Teu hadn't brought Beutraze's hat or glasses and probably would've stood out if in a less culturally eclectic setting than a space station. It also seemed like two thirds of the people around were women. She half expected to see a brothel or two, but saw nothing even remotely like it when scanning around. Instead she caught a glimpse of what might have been a tall and pale long eared elf, but the figure just disappeared around a corner. Then she finally saw a group of children. But why were they all so fat? They were the first fat humans she had seen in this universe. Do humans here perhaps start out fat and then- When the children turned around she got a shock. Wow, they all had big beards. Then she realized that they might be dwarves. If there were goblins and elves there might also be dwarves, right? They had to be dwarves. As for the various establishments and shops, something seemed to be missing. There were no food joints. She did see plenty of vending machines with meal bars, and a few stores where they were sold over the counter. So she stopped by one and bought some rations in bulk, picking what might be this universe's version of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. The store didn't carry "WeeCee bars" because "Who would want those?". She got a little curious and also got some of the speciality bars. Even got a libido bar as a test – what could go wrong? She was much more excited to find one with a female body builder on the wrapper though. She got a whole 12-pack of those and an odd look from the clerk. But she was curious at what her body could do if pushed. Hopefully she would be compatible and not a different species of sorts. She ended up carrying a rather full bag. Maybe she would need that strength. Thinking about it, she hadn't felt any muscle soreness from her workout yet. Next up she visited a shop brusquely called "Women's Stuff". The owner was actually a dwarf and Teu couldn't tell its gender. The strange shop didn't sell any clothes, but Teu managed to find some skin care and hair care products. She also got an advanced makeup kit and a wig she might be able to use for disguises. Oddly enough they carried no period products – they did sell "Fertility bars" though... and the reverse. If people here lived for a long time... maybe they needed a way to control the populations. Was this why she hadn't seen any kids? Or perhaps they just kept kids elsewhere? –– "I hear there are almost half a million planetside.", she said, attempting conversation with the dwarf and maybe steer it onto the topic of demographics. –– "Arr, that there is...that there is...", the Dwarf started, and then went on a 15 minute long harangue on undersea mining. Long story short, there had been 30000 dwarves on Nez'on and now there were only 20000 because of a mining accident. The dwarf regaled her with excessively immersive accounts of how the tunnels flooded, and where, and which dwarf was there, and who they were related to. Teu eventually escaped the conversation when another customer arrived. She left the store nearly a thousand poorer. The wig was the most expensive and supposedly made out of some exotic animal. It was purple – which would stand out and perhaps cause a useful misidentification. The makeup kit had some kind of gel for altering facial features. There wondered briefly if these things had been made somewhere out there in space... The Factory Platform FW722 had worked on was numbered 8790 after all. Another bag in hand, she left for a third store, this one just called "Woco" as if she was already supposed to recognize the nondescript name. It was one of those expansive stores with a checkout and cashier, and a few wandering personnel. They really did sell a bit of everything and she was bummed to find herself almost out of money when she got to the guns section. They just sat there in glass cabinets, not too far from boots, survival gear and underpants. She already had Beutraze's gun but stood drooling looking at a sort of tommygun for a good 20 minutes. It was 3250:- though. If she got it she wouldn't have anything left for clothes, so she bought a pair of knives for 155:- each instead. She was good with knives. While this wasn't a clothes store, the lady necessities aisle sold some simple pants, skirts, shirts, tops, and panties. She really needed a proper pair of panties, even if the 722 part of her was entirely unconcerned. There were only a few types of them available and they seemed quite expensive. The one on display looked entirely ordinary, like a midi or tanga with a 30-40 degree leg cut, a three fingers high side strap, and a nearly straight top cut. Just one pair would set her back 349:-. It seemed to be made from the same simple elastic white fabric they used in the factory, but the sign explicitly labelled them as "hand made" Type A premium panties. Quite possibly a product made by worker constructs such as herself didn't qualify as being hand made, nor premium. At any rate, she couldn't afford them for the whole group – and seriously doubted the others would even appreciate them – so she only picked up a boxed pair for herself in white. For 100:- extra one could get one in a pastel colour, but those shelves were empty. Next up in price was the "Maestro", with only a single pair kept in a locked glass cabinet. The hand painted illustration on the box depicted a pin up model in slightly puffy and frilly victorian bloomers with a bit of leg. Cute as they looked, they were a staggering 1760:-. What were they made of? Spider silk? The majority of the shelf space however was occupied by boxes with the Type U panties. FW722 was of course very familiar with these, except for the price – the Type U were only 15:- for one or 150:- for a box of twelve. It made her wonder what kind of profit margin the factory platform operated with, or if it perhaps was heavily subsidised. There were no sizes given for any of the models, but Teu supposed it made sense given the kind of samey-sized people she had seen so far, ignoring a few outliers. And the dwarves... what were those wearing? Or were there no female dwarves? At any rate, this was just some store chain, so there were likely speciality shops and tailors for those who needed it. The tops did come in a few different "cups" and she picked up four modest sport bras. She added on a 12-pack of triangular bikini tops that seemed to match the Type U panties in both design, material, packaging and price. There was probably a sister factory platform out there making those. The girls could pick whichever top they liked, if any that was. Luckily the store had some shoes, pants, plaid skirts and shirts on 60% sale, because after picking up four sets of those she was completely broke. Leaving checkout, she needed two big paper bags to carry it all. They of course had a print of the WoCo logo, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she looked a bit cheap carrying the bags. Upon leaving the store she immediately hid the knives on her person. While wandering around she saw a dedicated weapons store, but managed to resist going inside as she was already overloaded with bags, and also heartbreakingly broke. Instead she started back to the dock. Her assassin senses had been trying to alert her for a while now, making her aware of two followers in the crowd. She stopped in a less trafficked area and sighed. –– "What can I do for you?", she said out loud in an impatient tone. Two good looking women in modest white dresses walked up. They both had their hair tied back into buns and wore no hats, looking slick and professional. –– "Mam, we're with local sec." –– "Under the big guy?" –– "Huh? ...Oh! – No mam!", one of them smirked, " We're directly under the planetary governor. Hold on..." They looked around, then both raised their left foot and pulled what seemed like ID strips out of their heels. Teu dutifully eyed the two IDs. They were laminated 2 by 4 centimetre cards with a portrait, text and a hard-to-copy seal with a spectral glint. Hidden in the heels huh? Bit of a stupid place to keep them, Teu thought. But maybe that's where Beutraze also keeps hers. At any rate, she wasn't about to try for it now. What if it wasn't there? That would be awkward. Besides, it wouldn't have her face on it. Perhaps she could blur the face with some machine grease, do a quick flash? Or do a convincing makeup job? She just kept a blank face as the two returned their IDs to their original hiding places. –– "We keep an eye on ship arrivals and saw your entry.", one of them said, with the other adding, "Its in our private database listed as one of the Security Bjuro's special wingers." Teu kept her blank face while pondering the implications. Beutraze was perhaps a hotshot in this "Security Bjuro". And now Teu was stuck with a hot ship it seemed. Ship serial numbers probably couldn't be faked, otherwise the pirate ship would likely have done so with theirs. –– "We heard you took care of one of our local pests, and we have another one which needs rubbing out. We really could use a helping hand with getting the main Bjuro's cooperation in this matter." Teu narrowed her eyes dangerously. –– "I'm hunting a rogue agent and don't have time for other games." –– "...but, you've been shopping.", one of them interjected in confusion, looking at Teu who stood holding clusters of large and overloaded shopping bags in each hand. Uh-oh. Teu's mind whirled, then she thought of something. –– "That's because I'm tailing my target. Covertly. I don't need a tail of my own. I'm very good at what I do, and you, are not." –– "Oh. Sorry. Sorry.", they said sheepishly and made two little nod bows, then one of them added in a loud voice, "What a shame – we won't bother you with our book club subscription service then. Have a nice day!" Teu gave that considerate response a mental thumbs up. As an assassin she appreciated a little finesse. The two agents were very attractive and she inexplicably wondered what kind of panties they wore. Surely not the Type U? As her eyes flicked down she suddenly saw them both standing lightly bowed wearing only their panties, sort of, the upper body was blurred out. They wore the Type U. Firefly had been right about the landing strips, too. Whoa. She quickly spun around and left, massaging her temples, suddenly remembering the dream about her useless cheat. Well, at least she hadn't been miserably killed yet so there was always that. She was a bit exhausted, not physically, she just felt like she had been doing too much mental processing today. She must have spent a good 6 hours shopping, and it was really about time to return to wrap things up here. She returned to the lobby just in time to see the big sheriff guy and a bunch of armed guards emerging from a dock egress. The people in the lobby cheered and the guy waved in acceptance. Dragged along by the guards were two men and a woman in chains, all looking dishevelled, covered by soot and small burns. These people received a couple of boos. The big guy secretly shot Teu an approving grin, suggesting that her reward was perhaps in the bag. Back in the dock holding her Wing Courier she found the orange porter from before standing waiting impatiently. –– "Lonkar sends his regards. We... understood you might be leaving soon so we expedited the payout. Salvage goes to the interceptor crew and station though. Taxes have been deducted.", he summarised, then offered her a literal fantasy-style leather bag full of clinking precious metals. So Lonkar was the big sheriff guy's name? Teu just nodded and took the money. She wouldn't bother arguing about getting a cut of the salvage rights even though a ship was probably worth a lot. The porter immediately walked off at his uncanny pace. She stowed the heavy purse and shopping bags in the ship, and stood thinking for a while. Beutraze's corpse had perhaps already been discovered, so she was getting a bit nervous about remaining here and perhaps get the actual Security Bjuro on her half-covered ass. Should she jump to a system with a shipyard and swap out the ride? Or could that be tracked? Maybe she could engage in a bit of piracy and steal a ship? In space no one can hear you steal... But she realised she had one more errand now that she had money, so she ran to empty the gun shop! She got four stubby tommygun-like rifles, a sniper rifle, some lady guns, ammunition, grenades, and a light armoured vest. This set her back some 28000 in total, leaving her with ten for the next stop. Unfortunately she couldn't just leave since she was supposed to be tailing someone, so she returned to the lobby where she could see arrivals and departures. Then she waited for two hours, spending the time with a free magazine from the information services kiosk. It had a long article about recent mercenary fashion trends which wasn't actually too boring. It almost made her rush back to the shop to buy a little cool survival bracelet packing a bunch of useful instruments. Eventually she spotted a businessman who looked like he was readying for departure, and she tried to look interested. When his rather fancy looking ship could be seen leaving on the main projection screen she promptly returned to her Wing Courier. If the local security guys were actually watching then maybe she had just put the poor guy on a list... Once she had taken the Wing Courier out of dock she loosely followed the business man's trajectory out system until he jumped, which only took 36 minutes. His ship must've had a more expensive jump computer than hers, since she'd need over 80. While waiting she had already begun to browse the system catalog for her real target. She could have done that while waiting in the lobby but didn't think of it. It didn't take long to find a system with a decent shipyard which was also roughly in the same direction of that high goblin derelict. While it was a 12 lightyear jump to the shipyard she eventually decided to go for it. To actually complete the journey to the derelict coordinates though she'd need to go over 150 lightyears. She had three options for shortening the travel time for that trip. The first option would be to refit the Wing Courier with fuel tanks, which meant fewer trips system inward for refuelling. The second option would be to install a fuel skimmer, which meant free fuel from gas giants and shorter trips system inward – but only if lucky with planetary alignments. The third option would be to go via systems with refuelling stations. Since ships often entered system outward, that would normally be a lot of area to cover with refuelling stations vulnerable to pirate attacks. However, since brown and red dwarfs are fairly common and also valid jump targets, those kind of systems were often used for setting up refuelling stations. Lower star gravity meant a closer system entry, and less area to cover with stations. Unfortunately it also often meant that fuel had to be imported since smaller stars rarely form large gas planets. There have apparently been experiments with skimming hydrogen off "cooler" brown dwarfs, but the Wing Courier manual didn't elaborate much on the topic. She set up the jump and tried to take note of the countdown timer this time. Done with that, she undressed and just put on her old olive green factory top with the patched bullet hole, but went for something new for the bottom. The normal looking white panty she had bought was quite comfortable and well worth the steep price. The girls had made a home in Beutraze's cabin so she got the other one all to herself. She had been a bit of a loner as Teurana Zlayne, whilst the others were used to hanging out in their quarters on the factory platform. Beutraze's cabin was much larger though. The ship had plenty of soft things which could serve as mattress material, but she was surprised and dismayed to find that they had also used the clothes she bought as beddings. She'd have to address that. Right now they were eating hard candies and rather chaotically flipping through the best parts of the pulp magazines. Braids was browsing the smut magazine with intense focus, not noticing Teu looking over her shoulder. Upon closer inspection the magazine only contained a collection of artistic nudes to go along with pretentious texts by third rate philosophers, probably an attempt to lend the publication some gravitas – and the reader a self-created intellectual air. She'd be surprised if anyone read the texts. Braids surely didn't. Teu coughed to draw everyone's attention. –– "Hey, check out these comfortable panties. See how well they fit?", Teu opined, hands on hips. Her bush was now only very subtly visible as a dark triangular patch against the white, as opposed to being barbarically split in twain. –– "You are being so weird lately.", Firefly started in a displeased tone. –– "That thick fabric doesn't look quite right.", Braids continued, looking kind of disappointed. Then they both stood there wrinkling their noses with an identical judgey expression. 601 wasn't paying attention at all, being busy with a comic. –– "Anyways,", Teu ignored them, "you can put pants over it like this." She demonstrated her "putting pants on" move. –– "Now follow up with boots or shoes. Can't put those on before the pants, ha ha.", she fake laughed. –– "Shirt goes over top, and you're ready to rock and roll. Hit the club. Or go buy your own meal bars. Now why don't you all try it? Teu spun around, showing her figure and clothes, then froze with an expectant expression. Holding it. –– "Ehh?", Firefly let out after a while . –– "Pants are like, just a worse version of panties.", Braids observed quietly. –– "Nu-uh, pants are more like worse version of thigh-highs.", Firefly argued seriously, slapping hers. 601, who sat facing the other way and hadn't even turned to look seemed to focus at a point in the distance. Then she spoke as if sharing a revelation. –– "...if you cut the pants you could make both panties and thigh-highs." –– "Um, no you can't – the fabric is all wrong.", Braids blocked. 601 frowned for a while, then admitted defeat with a shrug, returning her attention to the magazine and plucking hard candies out of the box, also without looking. With that closure, all had returned to their activities, chatting and pointing at pictures. –– "Just pu- pu- put the fucking pants on!", Teu yelled, then immediately regretted it. The cabin got silent. They were totally going to start crying. –– "Fine. Don't. Do whatever you want.", she threw her hands up. –– "I'll just go and do my training exercises. Just enjoy... whatever you enjoy.", she added, gesturing to the now near empty box of hard candies. Frogs at the bottom of a well! She suddenly didn't want to bother with them. She and them were perhaps fundamentally different. Though it could be said that she wasn't even similar to other humans in her own universe. She had been a deadly assassin who mimicked social behaviours. Maybe she shouldn't have brought others along when escaping. So she left and shut herself in her cabin for some alone time. Things would cool off. Worker constructs were tuned to work well together, but part of that was the sustenance bars and they all had been eating rather heretically recently. Speaking of, she spotted one of her acquisitions on the table. It had a pale pink foiled paper wrapper with sparkles. The label said it could put you in a good mood, in addition to having other effects. She needed it right now. Teu nibbled on the libido bar – just a bit to see if it did anything. It looked like most other bars, being divided into a few square tabs. Seeing how it had no immediate effect on her actual libido after 20 minutes she figured it was either a marketing scam or a long term supplement for those in decline from normalcy. It was quite yummy and sweet however, giving her the buzz of an autonomous sensory meridian response. Maybe that was the effect? It tasted of comforting nostalgia and quietude. She actually finished the tab and then moved onto eating a whole muscle bar even though it tasted significantly worse. Those bars were quite large because they helped to build mass. She quickly got into her workout clothes, donning one of the new tops shaped like a sports bra, with a straight cut under the sternum. Being careful with her expensive new panties, she instead just put on a Type U. The muscle bar seemed to be effective because she felt great working out. However, when she got to the weighted wide horse stance the little taut panties gave her quite the strange squeeze. Haah? –o– The five discussed the weirdness of 722 for a while, then agreed to at least try on the clothes. They had been having fun on this adventure so far. This was better than work in the factory, even though they missed the routine a little. 722 was right in how they probably couldn't go out and have fun later without the excessive clothes – they had all seen the pictures by now – though they also knew that some people went completely naked. After a while they began to wonder why 722 was taking so long with her peculiar body training activity. Was she still angry at them? 722 had been shut into her cabin for two hours now. Finally they snuck up and all jumped in, attempting a big surprise in showing off the clothes they had all put on. The clothes were mostly off-white with some decorative coloured lines and subtle frills here and there. Some wore pants, some wore skirts, and some wore both. 722 however laid sprawled half naked on her back and covered in sweat. She had pulled her top over her breasts and had actually sensibly switched back into a low panty, which was bobbing up and down. But why was she kneading on it? Maybe she had an itch? Huh? What was going on? Why tell them to get dressed when she couldn't even be bothered herself? Was she playing games with them? Suddenly 722 eyes flicked open and she yelped strangely, shot up, shooed them out... and seemed to be in a bad mood again. She was so strange. So very strange. –o– Teu was left dazed by the unexpected arrival of a mighty jill off and only managed to break the delirious curse with a cold shower that lasted so long the pre-filter water reservoir warning light came on. She got fully dressed in her new clothes, as if feeling the need to cover up her shame. Just great. She thought the muff-diving incident was bad enough. Where was her credibility now? In the bin. And that's where that libido bar belonged. She thought about that "improbable" scenario in the smut novel, and promptly went to space the devious instigator in pink before it could cause an even larger incident. Hold on, hadn't she forgotten something… really important? The jump! She ran to the cockpit and checked the countdown timer. It was double zeroes. It must've been sitting there for quite some time. Why hadn't they jumped? She saw that a small bulb was lit on a console and had to look up its function in the manual. "JF2 – Jump failure indicator light – If a computer failure occurs, the jump will be automatically aborted and the jump calculations will have to be restarted. A computer failure can occur on its own, but is more likely a result of an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack. Please note that the preinstalled computer on the Mark 6 Wing Courier is only shielded against EMP class 1 strikes." That… didn't seem good. There was another little bulb on as well. "PA1 – Proximity sensor alarm indicator light. The ship is near an object in space, such as an asteroid, space debris, or another ship. This light doesn't come on during normal docking procedures." Huh? Suddenly there was a loud CLONK! The ship shook a bit. and within seconds she could hear a screeching sound from the docking door being forced open from the outside. Remembering the armoured vest and weapons she swung out of the seat... just in time to see a gas grenade tumble in. / Chapter 7 / Teu had another strange dream, but this one felt more normal, as far as dreams go that is. It just had Braids doing the silly dance from the old movie Metropolis while Teu was an immobilised observer, forced to watch as the somewhat menacing dancer drew uncomfortably close. Teu's old instincts warned her about danger and she forced herself awake. Blinking in confusion, she wasn't sure whether it had been a nightmare, or something else. She came to in a small room aboard a ship, at least by the looks of the walls and its moderate size. The others were asleep next to her propped up against the back wall. About two meters away three helmeted people in sleek black body armour stood guard at a door. The somewhat ominously styled armour looked like it was made out of heavy cloth and had plates covering the vital areas. It was a lighter armour variant judging by the vulnerable spots immediately apparent to Teu. – "Ah, one has woken up... that was quick.", a lazy voice said. The voice belonged to a fourth man slouching in a chair where he might have been waiting for a while. He was studying his nails, but it looked performative. He had the usual handsome face and was wearing a tidy suit instead of armour. His aura was that of a person who imagines himself in control and above consequences. – "We tried to radio you... why didn't you respond?" She… didn't know what to say and stayed silent, trying to look more dazed than she was. – "Where is Beutraze?", the man asked. Oh? They... don't know? – "Beutraze took something from the Security Bjuro she shouldn't have.", the man continued, as if monologuing. Huh? Are they talking about the little micro film? It's right there in the projector. They haven't checked? And why hadn't they put restraints on their prisoners? – "You... are just a worker construct, are you not? What is your serial?", he continued. Okay, is he playing ignorant? They haven't found their green tops with the numbers? Just then a guard opened the door and bent in. He didn't wear his helmet, instead exposing a head of ruffled red hair. – "The ship is a bit of a mess sir. We're going through the stuff now. Found lots of guns, unused, still in their packaging. And meal wrappers. And... other things.", the guard reported. – "Oh, and these combat knives. They look new as well, sir.", the guard added, handling the seated mystery man Teu's two knives. Then he left the small room, shutting the door. The seated man played with the knives and his eyes narrowed. – "It is a bad idea to leave dangerous tools around worker constructs.", he cautioned slowly. Teu figured it was about time to say something, so she stumbled up. – "How did you find the ship?" – "Counter interrogation? From a worker construct?" The man looked amused. – "I'll humor you. We got lucky. Just sent a few ships out to look. Ours was the one to find you. There was no trick.", he said, then he leaned forward and looked serious, "Now, where is Beutraze?" – "She was... taken... by the... the aliens", Teu started, then fell forward on her knees, looking about to collapse. The unprepared man didn't have time to react as she closed the distance in a single leap and drove a knee into his chest. He was wearing body armour underneath the suit and her knee could feel it. But the chair fell backwards with the man and she snatched the tumbling knives out of the air, driving one into the top of his skull with a meaty crunch sounding a bit hollow. With her strength and technique, it was like poking an egg shell. The other knife quickly went in and out of the neck of one of the guards. She swung around his body, making the two other guards momentarily hesitant to open fire. Teu however had no hesitation and had already grabbed the guard's rifle with her free hand. It was a small caliber thing which would go through a person but not continue out a ship's hull. She drove the guard's sagging body into one of the others, who stumbled, opening an opportunity for Teu to shove the rifle into his armpit and pull the trigger, muffling the sound. She swiftly fell in behind the new body, renewing her armoured meat shield. The last guard was perhaps a woman and worryingly she actually seemed about to ruthlessly open up fire on her comrade. She also covered her neck with one of her arms. Teu instead threw her knife into the hand holding the rifle. A single shot went off hitting Teu's meat shield. The gun fell to the floor with a clatter just as Teu slipped in, repeating the armpit kill. The guard's shot hadn't been loud, but might still have been heard. Had Teu been in the woman's shoes she would simply had used the prisoners as deterrence, also shouting a warning loud enough for reinforcements to hear. Teu waited for thirty seconds in an ambush position at the door. No one came. Had they perhaps thought the interrogator was just scaring the prisoner? Figuring she had some time, Teu took the chance to wrestle the female guard out of her armoured boots, pants, jacket, gloves and helmet, and then she hastily got into the armour herself, not quite securing every little strap. It took 45 seconds. Thankfully it was nothing like a medieval armour which would need enough time to boil a hot dog and the assistance of a squire to get into. She immediately exited the room and found herself in a somewhat familiar ship environment. She recognized the garbage chute outside of the door. It looked like she was inside another Wing Courier, but clearly with a different room layout. There was no one in the cockpit seat or the other three rooms. The ship seemed empty, but there must be others. She had seen another guard and that one had mentioned that others were searching her Wing Courier. Not too many, she hoped. Then she saw that the ship's docking door was open and the ship was connected to another via a 6 meter long orange tube. So they were still in space? If the other guards were over in her ship doing a search, maybe that's why no one heard the shot? Teu soon saw the redhaired guard making his way across the connecting tube, carrying a stack of green tops. He shot a glance at Teu in her armour. – "Is something up Ren?", he asked. His answer was a knife going into his head. She had yanked the tops away before his body hit the floor. Didn't want to get any blood on them. Teu then dragged the body off to the side and crossed over via the slightly wobbly zero gravity tube. There was only one more guard assisting in the search on board her Wing Courier. It was another woman. Teu just choked her out, permanently, deciding not to try and get any information out of her, then she started cleaning up the mess. After having returned things to their places – including her still sleeping shipmates, she stripped any useful stuff from the guards' bodies, gathered all of the corpses and any personal dirty junk into the now empty interrogation room, not wanting to startle the girls when they woke up. She even mopped up the blood. Feeling that things were somewhat settled, she returned to lean against a table in the girls' cabin to ponder the new and unexpected situation. She would just pretend nothing much had happened when the others woke up. What would she do with the extra ship though? It seemed like Beutraze's Wing Courier was now being actively pursued. But this imperial Security Bjuro apparently didn't know about Beutraze status as a corpse back on Factory Platform 8790. They might only have visited it, gotten the information about the ship's departure from the Grand Supervisor, then established a search radius. At least Teu hadn't been caught on Nez'ol's station... that could've gotten real messy with the crowds and local security... She couldn't think of a way to sell the hot Wing Courier without dealing with pirates. The girls couldn't fly it alone and the ships would get separated after a jump. They couldn't stay here for too long as someone else might have been alerted. It might just be best to set it adrift in a known orbit and potentially return for it at some point. So, they'd have to move into the new Wing Courier and somehow detach the docking tube thing. She had seen a space suit which could be used during the manoeuvre. She'd probably had to space walk or something. Ah, a few of the girls were coming to. –– "Hey there sleepyheads." They looked confused. –– "What happened? Did we fall asleep." –– "Someone actually attacked, but I made them go bye-bye.", she obfuscated. –– "Peppered them again?" –– "Pretty much, anyways, they left their ship behind and we're moving into it." –– "Let's check it out!", she ushered them on, under some protestations. 601 was still happily sleeping and the others were a bit groggy. Teu wanted to get a move on though. They were quite fascinated by the six meter tube connecting the butt of the two ships. There was no gravity in the tube – only the ships had gravity plating. Teu had cleaned up the enemy vessel a bit, to make it seem like they were getting a new house. She wasn't sure they'd appreciate having separate quarters, but they could leave the doors open. What they would be commandeering was actually a Mark 7 Wing Courier. It had a better computer, better sensors, and was outfitted as a troop transport with some extra fuel capacity. Like the Mark 6 it was a sort of rectangular wing shaped slab in battleship gray. There were four passenger cabins – or troop cabins in this case – two on each side of the wing. The cabins were just 2.5 by 2.2 meter and had been outfitted to hold two people each. The beds could be folded up to free some space and the wall separating the cabins was a modular thing installed for privacy. –– "Looks cozier, but also worse.", Firefly opined. –– "Can we move the furniture that can fit?", Braids wondered. –– "Sure, let's do that right away. But don't go into this room,", Teu gestured, "It has some pests I still need to get rid off." –– "Pests? Like the bugs in the magazines?" –– "Something like that, but a bit larger." Teu clapped to get them started right away. They seemed to be hesitantly on board with the boarding. Then she went to find the Mark 7 manual and read up on the whole space tube thing, and working the docking doors from the outside. After half an hour the girls – now all awake – had moved over most of the stuff. It would've taken less time if they hadn't been goofing around in the new cabins. Teu had much more to do, and spent another half an hour reading up on the space suit and autopilot programming. When she was ready she set the Mark 6 autopilot to engage on a timer of 60 minutes. The ship was to head out of the system, perpendicular to the planetary plane, then hopefully stop and play dead at 400 S U, assuming a 300 year orbit. Maybe they could come back and get it later? Fuel transfer was pretty simple since a hose was built into the "Umbilical tube". She was able to top up the Mark 7 which was a bit spent after having travelled here. She kind of forgot to do it before setting the autopilot timer though, and suddenly she only had 30 minutes left to detach the umbilical tube. Her nice plan was to stuff the tube full with the corpses so she didn't have to tediously space them one by one via the coffin-sized airlock. The macabre hauling could only start efter she had shooed the girls into their cabins with the excuse that she was "doing dangerous space stuff" – which was true, though the cabins weren't actually air tight so everyone would quite unfortunately die if she messed up. The whole tube operation didn't exactly go as planned. The suit took a while to put on. It was a clunky banded thing in an olive yellow, with a huge helmet dome. After putting it on she used the Mark 7 airlock, closed the external door, waded clumsily through six corpses and other garbage clogging the tube. Once she got over to the Mark 6 she closed its external door, and then she spent some long minutes depressurising the tube while remaining inside. The tube was dimensioned after one of the door standards and had internal handles securing it. Despite her increased strength these just wouldn't come off. She spent far too long wrestling with them until she spotted a little safety button on the handles that needed to be pressed. It was not mentioned in the manual. To obvious to mention – someone had probably thought. It made her unreasonably furious. After getting the tube loose the two ships began to drift apart. Teu could see the blackness of space as she almost began falling out of the tube along with the corpses and other stuff bumping her helmet dome and snagging on her limbs. Struggling to find purchase, she scrambled back inside and past the corpses. The loose tube had now begun to flail about worryingly, spilling its guts. Eventually she made it back to the Mark 7 and held onto a handle, now a bit nervous. Mark 6's engine was still kind of pointing threateningly in her direction. She had given herself a time limit she thought quite generous. How much time had passed again? Thankfully it was now rather simple to detach the tube, however... next she was left holding the thing as it flailed about in space. One was supposed to compact it, kind of like a bellow, but she only had one hand and she wasted more time than she would later admit to on a futile effort to preserve the tube. Eventually she just tossed the unwieldy damn wobbly thing into space and went into the airlock. The airlock filled with a Pssht as she breathed out. With just a few minutes left she was able to safely get some distance between the ships before the Mark 6 blasted off. She climbed out of the space suit and plopped into the pilot seat just in time to see the ship leave visi-nav range. She squinted at its signature on the sensor screen -- WC6-901-CU. See You later huh, CU? The girls were currently tearing down the wall separating the cabins on the righthand side of the ship so they could make a larger 2.5 by 4.5 meter room and furnish it more to their liking. They had returned to their usual skirtless and pantsless style. For some reason Teu had thought they looked a bit wrong in clothes – part of her brain had been conditioned over decades after all. They could just be themselves on the ship she supposed. She would get her own privacy, grabbing a cabin on the lefthand side, and the now emptied interrogation room would be reserved for miscellaneous use. Teu changed her mind about heading to the shipyard system now that she had a slightly more capable ship. Presently it seemed a much better idea to go via refuelling systems. As far as the Security Bjuro was concerned, maybe this ship was still on its mission looking for Beutraze. She couldn't really roleplay as any of its male crew, so maybe she'd use this "Ren" name the redhaired man had blurted out. She hadn't found IDs on any on the guards or the suit man. Beutraze also hadn't hidden one in her shoe heels like Teu had thought. It was rather strange. At any rate she couldn't linger here any longer so she tapped on the typewriter-like keys in the cockpit, setting up a jump to a refuelling system 11 lightyears distant. With the faster computer on this Mark 7 they were down to a 46 minute countdown wait. Reading up on it in the manual, she found that it had some sort of fancy "concurrent processor", taking advantage of the fact that some of the jump calculations could be done in parallel. She checked one of the storage cabinets at the front of the ship and found spare bedsheets neatly rolled up in compressor bags. It made sense to carry extra with the passenger configuration she supposed. Maybe they were disposable -- doing big item laundry onboard was not quite practical. She tossed three sets into the girls' cabin on the righthand side and then headed over carrying some of her stuff to the lefthand frontward cabin. The location probably had a name in sea-man speak, but she could never remember that sort of thing and it was possibly Earth-specific. When she shouldered open the door to what would be her private hidey-hole, Braids was there pantsless in the bottom bunk, laying on her back reading a magazine. Huh? Couldn't she easily fit in the other now larger room? Whatever. Teu fetched and extra set of bedding and threw her bedding onto the top bunk along with some reading material. She weirdly felt a little at home again, having triggered a memory of the quarters in the factory platform. After getting up into her bunk she flipped the Imperial Encyclopedia open. She didn't really know much about the imperium, worker constructs, or robots, and felt like she had been operating in the dark. She was about to finally get some answers. / Chapter 8 / "Imperium, The. – Summary – The Imperium is a benevolent centrally controlled empire regulating approximately 167000 star systems. It offers a high standard of living to all of its 93 billion citizens. It has a grand history dating back nearly 900 years, beginning with emperor Gonghez Pi The First who defeated the Zorgbhlorp menace and united The Four. Following the find of The Artifact and the resulting Longevity Program in 512, Imperial citizens were able to enjoy increased lifespans and improved health. The technological level of the Imperium is also high, leading to enriched lives, especially in comparison to lesser civilisations such as the Yuyium Rimworlds and the Dhzrell Super-hive, The enemies of the Imperium includes factions such as The Six Conclaves, The Gnunk, Amalgam of Greater Space Amoebas, and as of late – a few insignificant counter-imperial groupings." "Worker Constructs – While worker constructs may look human in shape they are simple meat machines optimised for monotonous tasks, providing the Imperium with the efficient, high yield, reliable labour that is needed for its daily operation. Worker constructs fortunately require little in the way of stimulation or sustenance, yet they are robust, with long productive life spans. Though they are produced in-vitrio from a base of homogenised genetic material they may still differ somewhat in outward physical appearance. Studies have shown worker constructs can achieve a score of 5.6 on the Grumble scale, which puts them below the level of true sentience." "Robotics – Though robots are rarely seen in daily life they are still a part of the important operational foundation of the imperium, just like worker constructs. Robots are of course mechanical machines consisting of servos, tensor tubes, and sensors held within a shell casing. Compared to other constructs the are more suitable for prolonged guard duty, hazard operations, and simple logic analysis. They are built in special secret facilities, and the design of their impressive cognitive processor can not be detailed here." Teu's eyes narrowed, but she continued looking up subjects of interest. "Artefact, The. – The Artefact was discovered in year 512 when the bicentennial expedition fleet was facing annihilation by a Wumpthi counter force. The Imperial fleet remnants discovered a system situated in what is now called "The Hollow" – a 30 lightyear void with only a dying star at its center. Around this ancient star orbited a lone planet with a crimson ocean, and it's this vast mass of liquid that is known as The Artefact. While the liquid appeared to be deadly, the exploration crew discovered that ingesting miniscule amounts could trigger small but beneficial alterations in their physiology, some were temporary, and some were permanent. It appeared to be effective on all of The Four as well, be it a Human, Duwarf, Meon, or Vynn. The find lead to the Longevity Program, and over the course of just a few years, the red liquid became a mandatory food supplement across the whole of the Imperium. The military benefitted as well, and soon the weak Wumpthi were driven out of the contested sector and can now only be considered a remnant civilization. The Hollow is now host to the most well defended system in the entire Imperium. "Sustenance Bars, Meal Bars, Food Bars – In early Imperial times food supply was a rather complex matter where the overlapping complexities of agriculture, medicine, and logistics resulted in huge procedural losses. Following the discovery of The Artefact in 512, and the Hyper-grain and Zeta-plankton five decades later, a new type of compact food was introduced. A daily bar just 16 cubic centimetres in volume can now provide a person with everything they need to flourish. They come in many different flavours, and specialised sustenance bars have also been developed to ensure an adaptable Imperial population. " "Death, Causes of. – While Imperial citizens now enjoy long and healthy lives, death can still occur, the enemies of the Imperium being a notable cause. In some cases where people have been forced or lured into resuming a so called natural diet, they have become bloated and died of either health issues or old age in a few short decades. Needless to say, people also die in accidents, such as falls, but thankfully few citizens die in production environments as the fields of industry and agriculture have been largely automated, excepting the production some luxury goods." Teu could think of many more causes of death to show the imperial overlords, but maybe that was just her... "Conservative Policy, The. – A century after old age was eradicated it was finally noticed that certain issues with population control and genetic stability had to be addressed. This lead to The Conservative Policy and the development of sustenance bars controlling fertility. Couples wishing to start a family must comply with Regulation 5, providing genealogical documents which match Imperial records. Regulation 9 addresses offspring limits, and Regulation 10 wartime exceptions." "Kore's Law – Alyn Kore was a female computer scientist (dead in 481) who predicted somewhat accurately that the kiloHortzoz clockspeed of a 4cm Zed-gate computer processor would roughly match the age of the Imperium." Teu heard Braids move about and was reminded that it was about time to check that jump countdown timer. She read one last entry. "S U – Short for Standard Unit, Space Unit, or Syl Unit. Syl was the innermost planet in Primus Zol – the capital system of the Imperium. An S U corresponds to the distance between Syl and its mother star. Though a simple and desolate world, the entire Imperium still mourned its destruction by the Amalgam of Greater Space Amoebas in 610." Space Amoebas huh? Spooky. Well, that was enough reading for now. She better not miss the jump, again. Braids was dangerously close after all. Suddenly she heard the crinkle of a wrapper. It was... probably Braids eating a meal bar? Teu swung her head out over the bunk edge and saw that Braids had flipped over on her belly and was reading a magazine... and also just about to take a bite out of the remains of Teu's hastily abandoned libido bar.