NOVEL NEXT Theeve Orbital Habitat
"Thanks for the ride, Herman," I waved.
The freighter captain gave me a thumbs up, "No problem! It's the least I could do after you helped them with the pirates after all!"
"Right, I suppose I'll be seeing you around."
"Take care, Tera! Be seeing you!"
I turned my attention to the other person who currently has their hands tied up behind her back, "Now, let's go."
"Don't treat me like a dog you fucking bitch," Yirfa growled.
"You either walk and shut up, or I stuff something in your mouth and shut you up, your choice."
She glared at me but moved as I directed towards the station's immigration customs.
Theeve Orbital Habitat Station was huge. Like an entire city's population kind of huge.
From what I learned, stations like these are akin to a floating city in space with populations reaching more than a few million in each of them.
They even had immigration checkpoints to check the people entering the station as well, which I admit kind of worried me a little considering the fact that I didn't exactly have legitimate credentials.
Or… At least I don't think I did? So I'm not sure what will happen when I try to enter the station like this.
Still, I already prepared a few excuses I could use to hopefully get through the checkpoint in the event that they found I had no registered identity.
I brought the pirate with me towards one of the booths manned by one of the officers overseeing entry into the station.
The man behind the counter raised an eyebrow when he saw me approach, "Merc?"
I nodded.
He then tapped on the side of his temple twice and his eyes seemed to change colour, which in turn caused the screen in front of him to react.
Yirfa's profile then appeared on the screen and I realised the officer was scanning her.
He whistled, "Oh wow. That's a pretty impressive bounty you've got. The security guys are going to have a field day with her."
"Thanks. I'm new to the bounty thing though, where do I bring her to process her?" I asked.
He raised an eyebrow and turned to me which made me shiver for some reason.
The screen then changed, surprisingly displaying my picture and my name.
"Tera huh? I see you're not a registered Merc. Still starting out?"
I nodded again.
"In that case, you can just take her directly to the Mercenary Guild. Just follow the street signs and you can register and hand her over to them at the same time."
Oh, that's perfect.
Also, it seems like my fear of not having an identity was unfounded. That's one less worry for me I guess. I didn't even need to bring up the anomaly or whatever they call it to try and bluff my way in.
He then waved for me to go through the checkpoint, making me step past a metallic scanner that I'm guessing was supposed to check whether we were bringing illegal goods.
I still had my blaster strapped to my hip, though I did not bring along a ballistic rifle since I thought that might have been overkill.
None of them batted an eye at it and I realised guns were allowed inside the station, since the next person I saw was a seven foot tall man with a minigun strapped to his back strolling to the checkpoint.
With the pirate still tied up with me holding the leash, I stepped towards the exit and into the station proper.
I realised that the place I had been was a building by itself and when I exited it, an actual street with familiarly shaped buildings on each side greeted me.
They weren't kidding when they said habitat stations were floating cities.
When I had been flying towards the station, the shape of it resembled a spinning top.
If I'm not mistaken, it spins around to create an artificial gravity within the station so when I looked up, I could see the city curving up towards the left and right. Sort of like the ground was being lifted up to the sky.
It was a rather surreal sight for me.
One unfamiliar thing was the fact that the vehicles that were travelling along the road definitely did not look like the normal cars I was used to and were a mix of either really sleek in design or very angular and boxy in shape.
The next thing I noticed was that there was an actual sky above which I assume must be a simulation to mimic a day and night cycle in the station.
The other thing I realised was the fact that this place had a lot of neon lights and the people walking around were obviously modded in some way.
By that I meant that they clearly had some kind of non organic adjustments made to their bodies. Some of them had mechanical limbs while others had metallic parts stuck around their bodies.
It really hammered in the feeling that I was not in my world anymore.
Yes, yes, I get it, I was literally flying around in space, but the people I have been meeting have all been obviously human so far so this really gave the alien feeling for me.
Unfortunately… I do not see any other beings except humans which was a little saddening.
I guess the cat and dog girls will still have to wait.
Where was I?
Oh right, Mercenary Guild. Now which way is it?
Yirfa spoke up beside me, "If you're looking for the stupid Guild, it's that building over that, dumbass. Is this your first time here?"
She was nodding at a tall tower a short walk down the street with disdain and I raised an eyebrow at her.
"While I am quite thankful for your help, I'm curious why you would even help me with that?"
"You think I want to be tied up like this and paraded around like some kind of animal?! Fuck you!"
Mmhmm… I guess it was indeed quite humiliating for her to be seen tied up like this like some kind of dog.
Anyway, apparently criminals like her wouldn't be killed but most likely enslaved or something. Over here, they believe that imprisonment was basically a drain of resources and something that benefitted the criminals more than the society.
By enslaving them, they would make them work off their 'debt' of the crime and they are allowed to earn back their freedom once they have served a period of time depending on the seriousness of their crime.
For Yirfa in particular, she had shared with me her guess that her supposedly biggest crime was stealing and selling some corporate secrets so she would most likely be enslaved for ten years or so.
I wondered if this was even a good idea since she would eventually be free to become a pirate and go around robbing and killing again if she so chose.
Then again… I suppose it'll be the same if she was imprisoned and it's not like I can change anything about how this works anyway so might as well just don't worry about it.
What I do need to worry about is her coming back for revenge I suppose. But that's also something to worry about in the far future and not now.
For my more immediate problems, I need to get myself registered as a Merc and turn her in for some Credits. Not to mention sell the pirate ship I had captured too since I'm pretty much broke right now.
There's a docking fee for docking your ship on this station and it's a hundred credits a day for visitors and ten credits for residents.
Herman helped me pay for the first day but I would like to be able to earn some credits on my own soon.
Since I didn't fancy myself getting some desk job or working a nine to five job in this station after coming to a new universe, the Mercenary Guild was the way to go.
Ah, I also intend to find the black market here too since Yirfa so helpfully gave me the details to it as well.
Alright, so first things first! Mercenary Guild!
Following her direction, I brought her to the tall tower she had pointed out and it was evident she was telling the truth since a sign that read 'Mercenary Guild' was hung above the metallic doors.
The moment I stepped through the doors, a loud roar could be heard followed by someone slamming a table with a fist.
"You think you're some hot shit just because you're a Gold rank?! I'll beat your bitch ass up right now! You wanna go?!"
I turned in the direction of the commotion and saw a few men surrounding a single woman with golden blonde hair who was staring straight at them without fear.
She rolled her eyes at them, "Please, you guys couldn't finish the job and then I had to finish it for you. Now you want to come here and demand I pay your share? What share do you want when you did zero share of the work?"
"Don't push your luck, Amber!! I'll fucking gut you!!"
Oh wow, is this a fight?