Chapter 7

There was.

This spaceport had more holes than a Kermac T-cruiser after meeting up with the Devastator. While the north end of the corridor and the People mover ended up at the spaceport terminal with all the necessary controls, the south end of the corridor, after about eight klicks ended up in the open at a freight transfer field with stacked containers and crates. Robotic cargo handlers and drones were impervious to rain, fog and the sweltering sauna conditions buzzing everywhere with bright lights and rotating yellow warning flashers. However busy and efficient, completely ignoring me or my Silverhawk-Monoflash.

The field was separated from a paved road and the natural vegetation of this world by a ten meters tall physical fence, not even a force field barrier. The gang of wet S-10 robots removing moss and climbing plants from that fence, most likely doing that chore over and over again, also ignored me my speeder slipped past the opening gate halves to let a ground effect train pulling seven sleds loaded with containers out onto the partially overgrown road.

Currently, there wasn’t actual rain falling, but the moisture in the air was so thick that my repellers worked at full speed to keep the windshield clean.

I had raised the folding canopy over the drivers’ compartment. The second it had snapped into the receiving ring, the soft transparent plastic had become rigid, forming a transparent half-sphere bubble over me and the small driver - passenger compartment.

Lun, the Plato had given me instructions after I had uploaded a map of the planet. Behind me was the spaceport and the domed city of Blisterbahl-Green. In front of me, the road of Duro crete piercing the almost solid wall of dark green vegetation. It was according to that map and Lun going straight towards the soon to be opening ‘Shaill Trail Park’, whatever that was and the 1500 klicks distant town of ‘Misty Heaven’ where the Blisterbahl development cooperation was building the planet’s second spaceport. Why they did not simply expand the one they had was not clear to me, but I never claimed to know much about these things in the first place.

I wanted to surprise the suckers and figured that they had an eye on the sky since they had to wait for the Gulliver to leave.

He was much smarter than the average guy. I would be hard-pressed to hunt a guy like him, Lun that is. I’ve noticed the Wolfcrafts myself, I did not know they were part of a battleships fighter contingent. If there was a Union Battleship in the system, there wasn’t anything bigger than a molecule slipping past the heliopause without them knowing.

Their sensors tracking anything in real space or quasi for at least twenty or maybe fifty light-years.

I said it before, I was Army my friend, but I can tell you there isn’t much more professional and efficient out there than Union Navy. The scanner and sensor operators of that Union battleship would not only know the type, registry, and transponder data of everything inside their sensor horizon but what the pilot had of lunch.

On the other hand, parking your ship with powered down engines on the freight deck of a Gulliver, paying the captain the freight charge perhaps stating that your TL engines need to be replaced or something, was a perfect way to leave a system completely un-noticed.

Union engineers and robots most likely constructed that twenty-meter wide band of glistening wet Duro-Crete through that Jungle.

It was almost like passing through a dark green tunnel. At one point I passed another gang of robots, that at the side of the road cut and trimmed encroaching vegetation.

The Shaill-Trail-Park was, so a sign informed me was an upcoming amusement attraction tailored for the needs and entertainment of Shaill.

I rushed by a busy construction site with bright floodlights and an army of beings and workers.

According to the interactive map, I had traveled about eight hundred klicks already and made good time. I would arrive well ahead of lift-off and thus find time to find them and figure out what to do exactly.

A Dura plast sign informed me that there was a rest stop ahead, A tavern by the name of “Cool Steam” promising cold beer, hot food, locally sourced mold for Shaill and license-free hard Tox.

There out of the wet, greenish haze of steamy jungle air an island of lights emerged. The colorful advertisement lights surrounded by diffusing halos and fist-sized flying things.

I wasn’t going to stop, but the sight of three dark green Nofret-500 with Taxis markings parked among other skimmers and flyers made me stop.

Perhaps it was just a watering hole for taxi pilots, and perhaps there was no other connection between that guy who’s nuts I roasted than the same type of taxi, but in situations like this, I trusted my instincts.

It wasn’t raining at the moment, but the sweltering steamy heat hit me like a wet fist wrapped in a wet towel, as I got out of my Monoflash. The building was about thirty meters removed from the edge of the actual road and was two-story high. One of the many lighted advertisement signs told me that, this was also a hotel with the added feature of seven latest model Sex robots. Two of them of the human female variety.

The entire building appeared to be nesting inside an alcove of foliage and snake-like branches. I also found out what Neeezz are. While my outfit looked like standard leather pants, blacktop, and a leather jacket. I was a spacer and my everyday clothing was also a functional space armor suit. Able to be sealed in moments, with a small emergency supply of liquefied oxygen, rad shielding, and thermal insulation. It was thankfully also Neeezz proof from the neck on down.

Somehow I doubted this joint would attract much in terms of the expected tourist trade. Double-checking my weapons, not wanting to sweat any more than necessary out in that thick soup of moisture, heavy plant odor and buzzing things, I quickly stepped over something crawling and went inside.

Behind the sliding doors was a strong air curtain that probably kept most of the flying things out and the cool air-conditioned and reasonably dry air in.