Chapter 4: Setting up Shop

The Zendi PlanSec officers didn’t even bother looking inside the ship before giving him a pass for his haphazard landing. Once Solan lowered the ramp and came down to surrender, the fumes of leaked engine coolant wafted through the entire landing bay. They both covered their noses as they glanced at the paperwork he’d gotten from Syntax, showing he was the new owner of the space.

“Make sure you register that with the Port Authority, or they’ll be sending us out here every time you land.” One of them said, backing away from the ship.

Solan nodded his thanks. He looked around the landing bay while the PlanSec car turned off its lights and took off. The space was an open square, maybe sixty meters long on each side. There were reels of hose and coils of wire sitting on top of barrels, racks of spare parts, tool chests, and even a few maintenance drones lining the walls. In one corner there were a couple of beaten old chairs sitting around the hub of what had once been a huge spool of cable being used as a table. Near the sad looking lounge in the southern wall was a door that led out to the street.

On the wall by the door was a control panel. It had the usual locking mechanism for the door, but it also had a second set of controls to close the roof over the landing bay. The thought of being trapped inside with the stench of engine coolant didn’t appeal to him so he left the roof open. He heard beeping coming from behind him as he continued to explore.

The service drones had activated and were rolling towards him, compartments on their sides opened to reveal long flexible arms. Each of them had a single yellow electronic eye in the smoke colored transparaplate dome on top of their short cylindrical bodies. As they came near, the lead drone scanned him, a wide beam of yellow light washed over Solan from head to toe.

All three drones paused once the scan was finished, then all three of them emitted a grating tone. Their eyes turned red, and they swarmed around him, arms reaching forward to grab him.

“Unauthorized access to this facility is not allowed. You must vacate the premises immediately.” The lead drone said in a low mechanical voice.

Solan backed up to the nearest wall, not eager to see what those grabber arms would do if they got a hold of him.

“Unauthorized access to this facility is not allowed. You must vacate the premises immediately.” Now from all three drones.

“I, uh, I have authorized access.” He told them.

The drones paused, “Negative. You are not on the owner’s approved access list.”

Solan rolled his eyes, “There is no ‘approved access list’, how can there be if there hasn’t been an owner for years? I just bought this ship today, I’m the new owner.”

The drones’ eyes went back to yellow, and the leader rolled even closer, leaning forward on its single wheel. “Verify.”

Solan held up the same hardcopy he had shown the PlanSec goons. Again, the scanner went over him, up and down. This time the eyes of the drones turned blue. All three backed up while their arms retracted into their bodies, panels closing so their sides were perfectly smooth again.

“Name?” The leader asked.

“Solan Darkner, owner.” He replied. The question must have had something to do with their programming. The scan would have clearly shown them his name.

“Verified.” A double chime emitted from each drone.

Solan relaxed and went to sit in one of the chairs by the cable spool table. A thick cloud of dust erupted around him as he sank down into the rickety chair. He did his best to clear the air around himself and motioned the lead drone over. It rolled over on its single gyroscopically stabilized wheel, stopping right in front of him. Between the landing, being followed by security officers, and then being attacked by maintenance drones he was exhausted. It was only early afternoon and he still needed to clean up the mess in the engine room before heading back to the Iron Fist.

“What is your function, other than security?” He asked.

“Ship and landing bay maintenance.” Replied the mechanical voice.

Apparently landing bay maintenance doesn’t extend to dusting. That’ll have to change.

“There’s a coolant leak in the engine room the size of the Rolnar Nebula, can you guys clean it up and air out the ship?” He asked it.

“Confirmed.”

The drones rolled away at top speed and disappeared up the ramp into the Dark Arrow. As he slumped into the chair, he could hear them vaporizing all of the chemicals that had flowed out of the broken engine. Not even half a day into owning his new ship and it was unflyable. He wasn’t looking forward to what Xu would say once she found out. Hopefully it was an easy fix, and he would be up and running again soon.

Solan looked over the Dark Arrow again while he waited for the drones to do their work. Even after the almost crash landing he couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride that it was his. The dull gleam of the unpainted hull shone in the afternoon sun. Up until the alarms had started going off, it had been the smoothest, most responsive craft he had ever piloted. He was sure Penja or Xu would be able to find him some cargo jobs once he got it safely running again. Perhaps another free dinner would convince Xu it was worth her time to help him with a few of the repairs.

All three of the drones rolled back down the ramp and came to him for further instructions. The leader again stopped closest to him and leaned forward on its wheel as if it was eager to please.

“Leaked coolant has been vaporized; ship has been fumigated. Awaiting orders.”

“Did you see where the leak started?” He asked.

The drone processed that for a moment before answering, “Confirmed. Hoses leading to sub-light engines had dried out and were unable to handle operating pressures.”

“Are there any replacements here that will work or are they all dried out too?” He looked around the landing bay at the piles of spare parts.

A scan swept around the room and the drone beeped. “Confirmed. Sufficient useable hoses are available.”

That gave Solan and idea, “Are all the spare parts here made for this ship?”

“Negative. Previous owner operated multiple vessels. These parts were for those ships.”

So much for that.

“Do you have a name?”

The drone straightened up and rolled backwards a few centimeters, as if confused by the question. “Negative. Service drones do not have names.”

“Well, I can’t just keep calling you ‘Service Drone’, so from now on you’re going to be number One. And you guys will be Two and Three.” He said, acknowledging the other drones.

There were a few cans of marking paint on the table in front of him. He picked one up and sprayed each drone with their number. The neon orange paint stood out clearly against the dark gray metal of their casings. None of them objected to that or their new names.

“Ok guys, get started on those hoses while I take a look around out here.”

All three of his helpers sprang into action and rolled back up into the freighter carrying reels of tubing in their long flexible arms. Solan did a full walk around the outside of the Dark Arrow. There were a few chips of paint left here and there, but no rust or any other signs of neglect or corrosion on the hull. The clear bubble of the cockpit didn’t have any cracks and looked like the seals were still solid. Meters of old dried out hose were being tossed out the back of the ship. It seemed as though nothing was salvageable from the engines.

Solan had to dodge another length of hose as he made his way up the ramp. All three drones were hard at work in the engine compartments. Hatches were opened up all over their bodies. Manipulator arms held the new hoses in place while torches softened them, and another set of arms clamped them into place. Each drone had at least a half dozen tools extended from their bodies in addition to their regular arms. He let them do their work while he made his way back to the cockpit to take a look at the damage there.

The smell of burnt circuitry lingered in the small space. Solan dropped into the pilot’s seat and let his breath out slowly. Going from his left to his right he started prying up control panels one after the other, being careful to keep the attached translations in place. It was going to be hard enough to fix his ship without having to guess what everything was. At least a third of the panels had bad wiring behind them or burnt-out circuitry. By the time he had made it halfway through the cockpit he was thoroughly frustrated. When the plate holding the coolant system gauges was removed, he found nothing but a pile of melted slag underneath.

“A black hole take this ship!” He screamed into the gaping hole in the dashboard. He resisted the urge to rip off the panel completely and throw it through the view screen. Instead, he dropped it back onto the dash and put his head in his hands. Maybe Xu had been right, this ship was going to be a lot more work than he had expected. Even with the maintenance drones, it was going to take weeks to sort all of this out. There had been enough ups and downs today for his liking. It was time to head back to the Iron Fist and start things fresh in the morning.

He got up to leave and almost jumped out of his skin when he turned around. One was waiting silently in the doorway. He hadn’t even heard him coming up the corridor.

“Son of a bitch One! You can’t just sneak up on people like that.” Solan yelled at the drone.

The little robot’s blue eye winked out for a second inside its head. “Apologies.”

Solan’s heartrate slowed back to normal as he calmed down. “Is that how your last owner died? Did you scare him into a heart attack?”

One rolled back and straightened up on his wheel. “Negative.”

That wasn’t entirely reassuring.

“How did he die? Do you know?” He asked.

“Fus’ al Starhunter, landing bay, and service drones were sold to cover outstanding debt to Cualto Organization. Amount obtained in sale was deemed insufficient to pay off amount owed. Previous owner was terminated.”

It was odd to hear such a grim explanation in the drone’s emotionless tone. No wonder the collector had sold out to Syntax. The Cualto’s were one of the worst crime organizations operating in the galaxy. More than one mining outpost had been stripped bare by them. If the collector was in deep with them, it made sense that he would try to offload his best assets to pay them off. The amount he must have owed had to be staggering considering how much it had cost him to buy the Dark Arrow. He wouldn’t want to owe the Cualtos a single credit, let alone that much.

“I’m sorry they killed him One.”

The drone’s light blinked again. “Confirmed.”

He hadn’t really expected much more than that from a maintenance drone. Their programming didn’t cover deep emotional connections. “Is everything ok in the engine room?”

“Confirmed. All coolant hoses have been successfully replaced. No replacement engine coolant is available. Awaiting further instructions.”

Yet another thing he’d have to pick up in the morning.

“That’s ok One, I’ll get some tomorrow. I want you and the others to run a full diagnostic on the ship, right down to the keel plating. I want to know everything that needs to be fixed when I get back in the morning, understand?”

One emitted a cheerful sounding chime. He could hear two more chimes echoing from farther away in the ship.

“Confirmed.” One stated, then rolled away to start his task.

Solan had no doubt that they would give him a thorough examination of the ship’s status in the morning. After his deal with Syntax, he had a little over 240,000 credits to work with. Depending on what was wrong with the ship, he would work through that in a hurry. Then he had to figure out how to get everything here. If Xu was set on being mad at him, then there was no way he could use her cab, and he didn’t want to roll barrels of engine coolant through the streets.

There was also the matter of registering the ship and the landing bay with the Port Authority. It was unlikely that Callorna Mining would pursue him this far into Fringe Space, but there were plenty of bounty hunters around that would do the work for them. Getting his name listed in an official planetary database would be like putting up a holo-ad with his name and face on it right over the landing bay. The Captain had told him to get a fake ID on Vosta, which he had intended to do before those S.I.S. agents showed up. He would need to find someone here that could create an ID for him before registering the ship.

The door out to the street slid open silently, letting the sounds and smells of the northside docks flow into his quiet refuge. It was amazing how effective the sandcrete walls were at blocking out the noise of an active spaceport. Zendi’s ports weren’t as crowded as the freighter port on Vosta had been, but there were still plenty of beings going about their business. Beige walls lined both sides of the wide street as far as he could see, indicating with their blank sandcrete surfaces that there were at least another fifty landing bays on this street alone. Flatbed speeders floated past, loaded down with cargo, either headed off world or just arriving, Solan couldn’t tell. A small personal transport lifted off a few spaces down from where he stood, bathing the street with the glow of its engines as it started its climb out of Zendi’s gravity well.

Solan walked slowly down the street, nodding politely to the beings he passed. He’d landed/crashed the Dark Arrow in the northside docks, where a lot of privately owned ships were kept. The Iron Fist was all the way across the city near the larger eastside docks, where the big corporate freighters landed. Although he’d been chauffeured across the city twice already by her, he still didn’t have Xu’s contact info, and he doubted she’d pick up today anyway. On Callorna, you could grab a public transport every other block in any city on the planet. There didn’t seem to be any such system here on the outskirts of Westgaze.

After going a few dozen landing bays closer to the city, he noticed a younger looking Zendi leaning against a hovercar that looked similar to Xu’s, just newer and less broken down. He approached the tall alien hopeful for a ride home, dodging around a flatbed cart and an exceedingly wide being with six arms on his way over. Solan was wondering if the strange alien would even fit down one of the Dark Arrow’s hallways when he reached the Zendi.

“Cab driver?” He asked, fingers crossed.

The tall alien rose to his full height and nodded his head slowly. “Yes, where may I transport you today?”

“The Iron Fist please, near the eastside docks.” Solan dropped into the backseat gratefully and waited for his driver to squeeze into the front and get them moving.

His driver didn’t speak again as they rose up from the street and flew across the city. It felt odd to watch the active metropolis pass by without hearing Xu’s stream of consciousness commentary. Ships were lifting off around them. The traffic controller who had told him not to land had been right, this was a very busy part of the city. The further away they moved from the open domes of the port, the lighter the traffic became. At the center of the city Solan could see a constant stream of lights, indicating the ever-moving crowd of hovercars going about their business.

The Zendi driving him avoided everything by skirting around the edge of the city. As the nose of the cab turned eastward, he could see huge freighters coming and going. The massive ships looked like they were barely moving at this distance. Solan knew that each one of their sub-light engines was probably larger than his entire ship. Every one of them made the Captain’s ship look small, though he doubted any of them were registered under as many names.

Green marble buildings with silver domes gave way to beige sandcrete as they dropped down closer to street level. The Iron Fist wasn’t located within the eastside docks proper, but it was close enough that the thrust generated by the enormous freighters would vibrate traditional Zendi construction to pieces. It was still early enough in the afternoon that the dinner crowd hadn’t settled into the bar yet, leaving plenty of parking out front. The cab dropped the last few meters to the ground right in front of the door.

“Welcome to your destination, that will be seventeen credits.” The Zendi turned awkwardly in the front seat and held out his hand.

Solan paid him, thinking it was going to add up quickly if he had to find a cab to and from his ship every day while he worked on it. It also occurred to him that Xu had never asked for payment after driving him around. One lousy dinner hardly added up to what he owed her.

A quick look around while he got out of the cab showed him that Xu wasn’t here currently, there was no sign of her half broken hovercar anywhere. When he stepped inside the bar it was much the same as the first time, brightly lit and clean. There were a few beings scattered around the main room of the bar, either early arrivals for dinner or holdovers that decided not to leave after lunch. Solan suspected Penja didn’t cater much to the sorts of beings that developed a symbiotic relationship with their bar stools, so there weren’t that many of the latter.

Penja himself was at his usual place behind the bar, going over figures on a data pad and arguing quietly with one of his server drones. Solan walked up and took a seat without saying anything, waiting for them to finish.

“I don’t care how ‘efficient’ it is, I’m not dividing up the bar into sectors so you only have to cover certain tables. This place isn’t that big. You can take the orders as they come up to any table in here, just like everybody else.” Penja was saying to the squat little drone on the other side of the bar. The server considered this and then started to beep and roll forwards to continue the argument.

“Or I can find another server that doesn’t mind how I run things and you can be the new bathroom attendant.”

The drone stopped and rolled backwards a step, making a harsh grinding noise.

Penja smiled, his startlingly white teeth flashing in the bright lights of the room. “That’s what I thought. Now get to work prepping for dinner with the others.”

The server rolled away through a door behind the bar, little beeps and grinding sounds emitting from its flat cylindrical head as it went.

“Mutter all you want, just get to work.” Penja yelled after it.

Soland smiled and asked, “Trouble with the help?”

His friend laughed and shook his head. “No more than usual. Drones are all programmed to be efficient. But the way they look at efficiency depends on who programmed them in the first place. Honestly, I think that one’s just lazy. Doesn’t want to have to cover the whole bar. So, I tell him he can work the bathrooms instead and that’ll buy me a couple weeks of quiet. He’ll start up again with it eventually though. How did your day go? A few of the dock workers were in here earlier telling me about some lunatic weaving through traffic in the northside docks that almost got himself killed. Have to watch out for that if you want to be an independent operator here.”

“Well, as it happens, I did find a ship this morning...” Solan said slowly.

“That’s great! I’m glad you’re getting off to such a fast start. How well does it fly?”

“Funny you should ask.” Solan recounted his afternoon, starting from his purchase of the Dark Arrow and Xu’s anger over it, all the way through his rough landing and the state of his ship. The only part he had left out was how he had paid for the whole thing. Penja had his own reasons for being out here in Fringe Space, so he didn’t think he would turn him in, but it wasn’t smart to tell everyone he knew about the stolen tenactite. If there had been a way to not talk about it in front of Xu without being rude, he would have. The political refugee didn’t ask any questions about his finances. He didn’t seem that fazed about Xu being angry either.

“She’ll come around.” He said. “Curiosity will get to her eventually. Won’t be able to stay angry when there’s a new ship and a new engine to get her hands on.”

“Let’s hope so.” Sold said.

The beginning of the dinner rush was starting, pulling Penja away to deal with other customers. Solan placed his order with the potential future bathroom attendant when it came back from the kitchen. As he waited for his food to come out, he casually eavesdropped on the growing rumble of conversation in the room. Many of the Iron Fist’s customers were spacers like him, every one of them more experienced in the trade.

“Stupid nav system is on the fritz again. Would’ve had me smash through a comet if I hadn’t doublechecked the course it set.” Said a short being with tight amber colored skin. It raised a small glass to the tables nearest it. “Here’s to not ending up as an anti-matter cloud.”

A group of Moltrids at one of the tables laughed loudly at that. “If you’re running a ship with anti-matter, it’s only a matter of time before you end up as space dust, comet or no comet. Give us good solid power crystals any day.”

Solan rolled his eyes at that. What kind of fuel you favored was a classic spacer debate. He’d been hearing it since he was a little kid in Callorna. Anti-matter was unstable but there were ways around that issue, and the reaction gave a ton of output for very little fuel. The crystals the Moltrids were talking about grew on one of the moons in their home system. They absorbed huge amounts of solar energy, making them the galaxy’s most efficient batteries. Not bad, as long as you had the cargo space to store crate after crate of them on a long run. The large, blockheaded aliens used them in their weapons too. He could see a few spare ammo cannisters at their belts, glowing from the charged crystals inside.

The debate continued when another table weighed in. This time it was three Gullans, their small leathery wings flapping behind their lean mottled brown bodies. Colorful feathers sprouted all over their heads except where their long, pointed snouts stuck out. “Crystals and anti-matter? What good are those next to premium biofuel?”

Dinner arrived and Solan tried to figure out what kind of biofuel they were using on this trip while he ate. There were a lot of options, from algae tanks to different mineral combinations. They would all do the job in a pinch, just not if you were hauling anything big or wanted to make good time. The energy output was too low. Except for...

“The next time dinner doesn’t sit right I’ll swing by your landing bay and top off your tanks. No reason my ship should stink.” The dark yellow alien that had avoided a comet shot back. This earned him a round of appreciative laughter as everyone settled into their meals and conversation died down between tables.

They must be on a quick trip from their homeworld, Solan thought. Either that or they had a very confident engineer.

Gullans used a very specific form of biofuel that no other species did. Some sort of gelatinous creature from their oceans excreted a substance that reacted wildly when exposed to xenon gas, which wasn’t found in their atmosphere. From what he had heard, the reaction rate and power output was on par with an anti-matter engine. The only problem was that if you were on a long trip and the thing died, that was it. No fuel and no way to fix it. Not to mention the fact that when it did work you had to keep a living creature in a tank against its will just to siphon off its waste. The Gullans had faced more than a few protests over the years because of it. Not to mention the fact that they caught the little blobs by skimming over the water with their wings and scooping them up in their mouths.

Seeing the three spindly aliens flap their wings as they ate brought Solan’s thoughts back to work. Whatever job had brought them this far from home must have paid a small fortune. There was no other reason to risk coming this far into the fringe and having your fuel making sea creature snuff it on the way. If there were freelance jobs available that paid that much to an experienced crew, then he should be able to get by on what a newbie’s pay would be.

He was lost in his dreams of success and didn’t notice Xu had walked in until she dropped down at the bar in the seat next to him. She didn’t say hello, but he took the fact that she chose to sit with him as a good sign. There were plenty of open spots around the room. The young cabbie smiled down at the other end of the bar at Penja as she reached over it to grab a clean towel to remove some of the grease from her hands and forehead. Penja frowned and held up his hands, but she just blew him a kiss. Once she was finished, she handed the dirty towel to a passing server and shouted her order to its back as it rolled into the kitchen.

“Heard a newsfeed about some dusty old shit box crashing into the northside docks...” Xu said by way of hello.

He had to admit, it must have felt good to hear that after her opposition to him buying it in the first place. Might as well let her enjoy that small victory.

“It’s still in one piece, even after a less than ideal first flight.” He replied. “And speaking of shit boxes...”

Solan proceeded to recount the fuel debate for her. Xu looked around the room as he talked, trying to fit faces to the story. When he got to the Gullans she turned back to him and wrinkled her nose.

“Ewww!! They actually do that? I always thought it was some kind of speciesist spacer joke. Imagine running your engine off whatever crap you can suck out of a deep space aquarium.”

They both laughed.

“So, I’m guessing your cab doesn’t have a little tank under the hood?” He teased her.

Xu snorted. “No way, I get dirty enough as it is. The old girl runs just fine on high density plasma cells. Besides, dad wouldn’t like it if I kept a creature captive just to turn on my headlights.”

“He’s a biologist, doesn’t he keep things to study them?”

“Nah, he’s some kind of weird purist. Thinks the only valid observations are made in their natural habitat.” She replied around a mouthful of food. She took a moment to actually chew and swallow before continuing. “His papers are all very well received I guess, but it doesn’t stop him from getting bit or stung by everything in the jungle. Poor guy is a walking petri dish of toxins at this point. He does help zoos find specimens for their exhibits sometimes though, as long as they have a good history of taking care of them.”

“Sorry to hear that he gets hurt so much. Must be hard to deal with.” Solan told her.

Xu shook her head in between bites. “It’s not that bad. He’s happy doing what he loves. Just means we have more meds in our house than you’ve ever seen.”

They ate in companionable silence for a few moments. The bar was almost full now, beings of every size and shape filled the tables. A low rumble rose to the ceiling from dozens of different conversations. Solan caught more than a few looks pass the Gullans’ way accompanied by jokes about ‘offloading’ fuel. The skinny winged aliens finished quickly and left without a word. Penja waived them out kindly as way of an apology.

Soon enough he and Xu were finished as well, and a server cleared the bar in front of them. He knew that sooner or later he would have to bring up the Dark Arrow with her, he just hoped she wouldn’t get angry again and walk out. Luckily, he didn’t have to worry. Xu brought up the subject in her usual, straightforward way.

“So ... When do I get another look at this pile of antiquated scrap metal?”

“That’s pretty rich coming from the woman that operates the world’s shakiest hovercar.” He replied sarcastically.

“She may be shaky, but she starts up every time. And air traffic has never issued a safety alert to PlanSec because of MY flying.” Xu answered with a smile.

“That’s true. I’d like to see you land a ship with an engine compartment flooded with loose coolant though.” She was definitely in a better mood if she was back to teasing him. Solan was glad, she was the only friend he had in nearly ten sectors of space. “You can come by and see it in the morning if you’re free.”

Xu smiled wide. “Of course, I’ll be free. But if you think I’m going to poop in a bucket so you can get it back in the air you’re crazy!”

Early the next day Solan was again poked awake by Xu. She waited for him to be fully conscious before allowing herself to be shooed from the room so he could get dressed. By the time he made it down to the bar, Xu was already halfway through her breakfast and was eyeing his next. Penja was nowhere to be seen, Xu told him that the servers only made an early meal for him because he was staying there.

“Then how did you get one?” He asked as he slid his plate away from her.

Xu shrugged, “The server drones just like me.”

They both finished eating and headed outside. Xu hopped into the driver’s seat of her cab and had it off the ground before Solan had even closed his door. The sun was barely creeping up over the western edge of the city as the hovercar slipped into the early morning traffic. Xu didn’t leave the street level this time, taking a route around the edge of the city through warehouses and industrial districts. When Solan asked her why she didn’t go up higher and fly directly to his ship all she said was that she wanted to show him some ‘local hotspots’.