Armful Bvetin's Story

A set of unblinking eyes looked over a railing from above as a set of flexible spider legs clung to metal railings. Along the top of his cephalothorax he wore a tightly anchored backpack where two cybernetic arms stuck out vertically though they were idle at the moment. Armful absently twiddled their thumbs. Vaulting the railing he hung vertically along the edge to look at the strange droid in the distance. A freshly minted humanoid automaton! No join stressing, no cylinder wear making for jerky movements, and full flexibility of the joints! Must be a military model. How interesting!

Armful walked sideways along the upper floor barely inclining his head to look at the interesting droid with his wide viewing angle ever interested in new things to learn and repair. The arms stopped thumb wrestling atop his backpack and handed to his clasps a small datapad to record his observations. He didn't have sensors on the pack, there wasn't room, but his mind absently chattered along in high-frequency Brown Quietus to control the datapad's interface. It was an encrypted language that took some cybernetic hardware for DNA decoding in the backpack to handle when Armful used his tongue to load it with more keys. It was how they passed such things though the other Gardeners didn't look at things with such a scientific bent. Building it took a lot of learning and buying of books from traders by Matriarch Volla. He only got a few basic repairs at first and they let him keep the service manuals. He got what work he could and lacking a need for sleep a gifted worker could learn with particular speed. Once word got around that the Gardners had a gifted cybernetics engineer the work got more formal but Volla helped with that. Gardeners were of particular interest for some types due to the Matriarchy's commitment to contractor neutrality.

Their understanding of social boundaries was sketchy at best, however, and the fact that he was an engineer of a type made things worse. Armful started along the underside of cross-beam to get closer to the droid he was so interested in.

Alpha kept on walking, every so often stopping to look to his hands and just run through calibration and diagnostics: the NC droids might be state of the art but the integration systems for the larger craft lacked. “Note to self: maintenance on the flight unit needs to be done before leaving” thinking more to himself, passing by civilians, some standing there and watching the new shiny looking robot, Most going about their own business.

Alpha’s hud lit up as the list of equipment flowed down one side of his vision the common usual stuff was the thought on the list his attention drawing to his motion detector pinging in the corner of his vision, stopping to look about, he didn’t quite pick up on the Gardener walking upside down on a beam towards him, Alpha quickly moved on staying at the same pace as before and keeping his Artificial mind calm, coming to and entering one of the specialised ship systems stores.

The Droid walked through the isles of the store observing the smaller systems and nav-computers on offer, he wasn’t here for anything of that sort but he was there to make a collection of a gyro shield systems computer, the basis of the shield is that it creates a small barrier large enough only to block singular high powered attacks, someone within project NC reached out to another group to have the experimental shield created, though not tested as of yet.

A number of security cameras were following armful. He could see the them turn with the multifocal nature of his complex eyes searching the dark corners without having to incur the momentum of moving his head. Though he was used to being several hundred pounds heavier. Honestly anything not the homeworld felt like it was made of grass he floated atop. Light skitter and scuff of scopulae clinging to steel came down from the ceiling as Armful's legs clambered over infrastructure. A wide and vertically spread eye-line gave them an impeccable sense of depth. The whole of their hives was all ceiling so moving at the droid's walking pace while squeezing through tight holes between pipes and light fixtures was second nature. He thought of the floors as actually rather bland.

As Armful got closer he stopped to bend upward to see the droid with his central eyes as a reflective layer of the retina cells flicker on and off randomly as small hemispherical fields of unusual reflective noise. It was to preserve his distance vision without sacrificing heightened light sensitivity in the near field. Though as he was behind the lighting it was likely more difficult for one to see him without filtering that came with military tech. Not that Armful was particularly stealthy about his position but ingrained instincts of the Bloodbath Era were things written in the line of his caste. Move behind light and take the covered path.

The PDA was more visible angled partly at the floor as it was. He quietly drew technical schematics of the droid on the floor. The interface was customized for a multithreaded interface as he used Quietus to interact with his tools rather than limbs. So much like a computer he used tools in parallel and executed his interest in recording the design thinking while periodically frozen in place.

While he waited for the side project to be brought from the store room in the back of the shop, Alpha, monitored his Motion detector having brought it into the focus of view, he was watching how quickly and freely the blip moved, effectively watching and re-watching a recording of when he spotted the blip the first time. Alpha steps away from the counter where he was waiting, of all the gear to get why didn’t i get fitted with the cloaking fields Alpha’s thoughts as usual were being monitored, for after a brief moment he’d see you aren’t a stealth and reconnaissance model.

Alpha would just read those words silently to himself not out of anger but somewhat joy. He wasn’t going to be the only NC Droid in operation or so he thought, Alpha glanced out the shop into the busy crowds of people going by his vision, switching between various vision modes: thermal, Electronic; basis of this vision type, is to see active electronics in view, as the basic few and then he’d shift his motion detector and add in a heartbeat detector, looking out again at the station from the shop, little help that it did with all the business of people coming and going with their lives. He’d flick through his vision modes again and then he noticed it, the smaller electronic device on the roof, with no active current leading up into the roof.
Already he had began and finished calculating the range and risk. His attention was snatched back to the reason he was in the store as the clerk returned from the back. “Where about do you need it taking?” “docking bay nine this floor actually, the silver armoured fighter with the purple cockpit” the man nods and radios to his team in the back to have the device carted off, first item fetched, he needed to move on.

Leaving the store he’d cut off his remote connection to the NC ship and approach towards the light hiding Armful stopping only when under the light and his curiosity had been sated “a giant Arachnid?” Alpha’s voice came out in a surprised tone if nothing else.

Armful had to move periodically through the store as the Droid moved about the store working as he went. When the robot started to cycle through vision modes certain properties of Gardeners likely became evident. First among them was the thermal cloud they left behind them. The hard shell was very much a blue color as poor a thermal conductor as it was. A single white-hot point of the mouth and the eyes showed most prominently on a thermal camera. Oversized high-pressure lungs that also handled cooling plumed a short hot zone trail from the downward slope of that mouth onto the ceiling. It faded fairly quickly on the metal ceiling parts but grew noticeably once the droid stopped as Armful did also. The plume was continuous and erratic given to the many hearts thumping away by needful asynchrony. If there were more of them it would be hard to tell how many by heartbeats alone. They even varied by numbers of hearts throughout their life as some beats were smaller than most.

The creature with all the hallmarks of expensive evolution strategies fueled by a protracted race war just sat quietly drawing artistic renderings of the new model on his tablet as the droid stared up at it. Armful was about to consider moving before the droid turned back to one of the humans. Armful quietly scuffed in place rotating to follow along the droid's path as the it moved closer. When Armful realized the droid was looking at him he instinctively clutched flush to the ceiling and the hairs all along its head that served for hearing stopped moving to listen acutely. The human arms attached to the backpack folded closer to the body.

When it expressed nothing but surprise Armful returned to the relaxed pose. The Human arms shot out in a v hands wide and shaking side to side. Then it remembered its transceiver was off. Gardeners didn't have vocal folds. They communicated with a 'noise' streamed in Quietus but nothing came out when you left yourself on mute. A small green LED lit on the backpack near to a robust speaker then Armful repeated itself.

Armful's english was still heavily modulated but the sound of joyful excitement, and sarcasm, came through, "EdEdedk! A shviny war toaster!"

They chose high pitched voices much like children as it sounded 'normal' for high-gravity worlds, "Aand Id'm Armful a Gardener engineeer, not a bug! I haave bones! Dvo you have service manualds releeased fvor your type?"

Alpha continued to look up at Armful and tilted his head “a gardener?” he brought up a window in his vision and began browsing databases and the wider galactic net to see what it knew on these odd beings. “i’m only a prototype so really no” he continued to watch the Gardener for a moment before reconnecting to his homebase, certainly giving his handler a good scare, a low chuckle escaped Alpha as he watched the sporadic writing appear in his vision, ignoring it he held up a hand to shake hands with Armful. “and I am Alpha, it is a pleasure.” the sporadic typing from the handler ended and a new handler had to be put on new handler, Joseph Alpha just watched the typing waiting for the response of this new handler. While still waiting for the animatronic hand of Armful’s back pack to shake.

The galactic net came up first with a gigantic amount of entries for mercenaries. Each came with requirements for room, board, and a decent market-rate for their skills. High Matriarch Bvetin and the Matriarchy outsourced the survival of their children. They apparently were unable to grow enough food for all of them given the failing biosphere. On that last point the wider galactic net was less clear.

The databases weren't entirely sure what had gone on either but scientific databases had far more data than the public did. Apparently the planet suffered some sort of ecological catastrophe at the hands of an unknown party that attempted to engineer them into a servitor species. The scientists involved seemed to be contracted xenoecologists, by and large, noting in their research papers that the genetic engineering appeared to fail to contain them. It did make the matriarchy dependent on a mentally compatible 'dreamer' of which the matriarch's were not species sensitive. That presence returned to each Matriarch all their sapience and more.

The children of the Gardener Matriarchy were learning quickly over the last decade or so and many now assisted the contractors directly in research. Armful's name actually came up many times in discussion of trader forums trying to figure out who the 'Armful' corporation was for this or that piece of hardware. Those that traded with the species went entirely through Matriarch Volla and pointed out Armful was a Who, not a What. There were even a few pieces of custom hardware for sale here with a Volla-authorized dealer with "Armful" listed as a manufacturer.

Jaunt made delivery of an asynchronous self-healing sensory DSP board, multiple continuous state field balancer, and a heavy emplacement cannon modified with a Gardener sawtooth mount so royal soldiers could carry and fire them. The last had mostly other Gardeners bidding though apparently there were a few merc companies too as Armful's hybrid floating resistance field mount had excellent configurable vibration resistance for its weapon class. With the sheer quantity of gardener 'mercenaries' available, nearly a third of their global population, the merc companies were usually first to hear of armful's listings.

~~~

Armful bent up more sharply and one could see the tightly clamped pistol holsters below his cephalothroax. Red-tipped legs stretched for the top of a shelf that creaked when he pulled himself across to it. Those rose tips and ends had a great deal of tack to them. They bent upward to remain flat to the shelving as Armful crawled quickly down to the floor. The shelving tipped a bit but Armful stabilized it with his back legs before letting go.

Centered on the droid Armful offered a backpack hand to Alpha in a very human greeting though it gesticulated wide with the clasps attached to its cephalothorax, "Then hello Alpha! I came to sell things to the market. Need to make money to put my home together!"

He shifted sideways to look at the counter then added, "You are building something interesting, yes? I have to make new projects now. Maybe a planting droid!"

After browsing through the information he was able to access, Alpha’s hand returned to his side. “i wouldn’t know anything about gardening, yet...not taken to try it” the droid would motion towards the door to leave as to not loiter in the store, he need to go and collect a drive core, from another location on the station, for the construction of the second ‘personal transport form’ of the new ‘sibling’ which was in the construction phases “there isn’t much on your race Armful...apart from a crime against your species as the reports indicate” Alpha felt whether flesh and blood or machine if it had sentience and free will it had the right to its own freedom and choices.

“well i’m not building anything right now just collecting components and parts” with how secretive the NC program was what with its mobile station and no solid allegiance to any government, it had to make do on private funding and budgets, though thanks to recent advancements such as Alpha and the others, such issues are less present.

Armful didn't have to turn its head much to move forward and still see Alpha while talking to him. At the end of an asile Armful turned slightly waiting for alpha to lead. Both arms moved as he chatted, "We still gather parts to build infrastructure and seeds to regrow our world! Most do not participate in the networks yet so many scientists do not know of us well. Anyway the crime of our oppressors is past now they have paid in blood so we do not dwell on our past suffering."

He made stabbing motions with the sharp front legs as the rear six kept him moving alongside Alpha, "The Matriarchy quelled their defenses after my High Matriarch Bvetin ended the bloodbath era with her Dreamer. He led the high soldiers to break into their fortress and damage our suppressor. Once we were free for a little while the Matriarchy could break away and the suppressor worked no more. The Matriarchy mustered a war council while try tried to retake our minds."

He pointed up at a porthole into stars and the childlike voice hesitated slightly, "The war council quickened them and their mountain fortress into different places alive into deep space. The rest could not flee and we composted all oppressors that remained with our dead to bring life back to soil. I read many books with my studies of engineering of people with histories like ours. That is more of our kind than you will find except in deep dark scientist books! We all train for when they try to return."

The hands on its pack pushed palm up, "Perhaps they will not return. The Dreamer carved words for us above the High Matriarch's chamber in memory. Have you heard of the words 'Sic semper tyrannis'?"

Alpha listened quietly to what Armful had to say about his people, more than just a combat A.I he had interests in other fields and took a fondness towards archaeology and Sciences, working with his father to design other NC A.I, though he was ordered not to intervene with the other A.I, when asked if he had ever heard the words ‘Sic semper tyrannis’ he shook his head “i have not, you see i am in the sense of age only eight months old” he nodded his head at the thought and stopped when his next destination had come into view.


“Alright” Alpha headed towards the structure and entered it, again making his order and having the device taken to his ‘ship’ so that it can be loaded and ready for ferrying back to HQ
Alpha reviewed all that had been said to him and that of what the wider nets knew of them.

Both hands on Armful's back gave a thumbs up and chattered along through the speaker on his pack, "A new birth? You have so much knowledge to learn for the first time! It means 'thus always to tyrants' in a dead language from the Dreamer's homeworld. And the Imperial people have the quote I think too. I think High Gothic it is called. I read whatever false Matriarch Volla can buy! Much knowledge crosses culture. What skill would you like to learn next new birth?"

The species as a whole were Eusocial and lacked a strong sense of most species' boundaries leaving the learned workers extremely chatty. Following strangers around didn't occur to Armful as a negative concern in even the least sense. They even tended to sleep in piles three deep on ceilings in 1G and there were a few pictures from merc humor groups about it. Lacking vocal flaps even in masses their sleeping was particularly quiet. The images were of woken masses of resting Gardener high soldiers pointing a great many rifle barrels from everywhere but the floor at an unwary sneak that hit the lights in the wrong room.

Armful opined on the part purchased following along as he was, "Oh, I wouldn't like that one for the homeworld. It would break down in high gravity atmosphere some of the internal contacts on the secondary daughter board would be destabilize over time. I have to use more robust parts in everything even the water pumps are silicon carbide!"

a newborn that’s an interesting way of putting it Alpha thought to himself and to his handler, though he did find the piles of gardeners images rather amusing. “an interesting observation Armful, what would you suggest?” he knelt down looking over the drive, opening it up and examining the internals.

[b]“where is the singularity core?” this question was more directed towards the salesman, Alpha stood up facing the man, the salesman glared at the robot, the tension growing, and Alpha if he could would raise an eyebrow awaiting a response “another buyer took it, look i ain’t going to fight you… they paid a higher price for it.” Alpha was monitoring the man’s vitals and nodded “i understand, was it recent? If so would they still be on the station?” the shakes his head.

[b]“just take the core to my ship” Alpha turned leaving the area and standing to the side figuring out what would be going on.

Armful thought the design over as Alpha inspected the new seller though Armful's diction suffered at first, "Iit has shieelding envelopes but they are for interference not corropsion. They use a water glue andh plastic tie it is bad for high-pressure sieals. I usse vacuum resin dispensed epoxy. It adheres well for carbon fiber structures and is better for heat. Maybe electrostatic layer of thermal barrier coating if going in really hot place. Easy to add some liquid cooling onto board inside epoxy in carbon fiber tubing."

Alpha interrogated the human for the next part revealing human had sold a promised part not actioned to a different seller. No wonder this merchant wasn't on Volla's list! Gardeners and much of the Matriarchy detested dishonorable negotiations. An engineering mind roiled with interest in what you'd build with these parts and a singularity core. Resources were scarce in the hive still but he got a good amount. Still it was too large a cost that anything he could pay!

Curious if there was someone to look for the other buyer in the docks there was a burst of EM transmission as Armful asked 'out loud' in Quietus' encrypted thought-encoding if any Gardener was on the station still. One high soldier replied that he was around in good health with attendant tasks involving moving cargo. There were a few other low soldiers like Armful with him helping that replied politely with their location. One was busy was eating small bits off some public shrub.

Armful chattered cheerfully while quietly scuffing behind Alpha as he left the store, "I can ask a high soldier to look for a person for you. That is a very expensive part! It is rare too I think? It is hard to get schematics for expensive things and False Matriarch Volla does not want to encourage traders to sell her stolen ones."

Alpha glanced to Armful and nodded.“any aid would be appreciated Thank you Armful, as for the rarity of the device, it is, the singularity core however, is stolen property, one of the engineers aboard my home station constructed it...hold on” Alpha watched the text from his handler appear within his vision. mission parameters have changed: locate singularity core; accept new mission parameters?...director has authorised use of lethal options unlocking equipment in..3...2...1

In response Alpha would silently nod allowing the handler to see his head nod through Alpha’s eyes, the weapons upon Alpha’s person which had been glowing with small green lights across them, would unlock, the lights switching off and the holsters and locks also visibly and audibly unlocking, from his back four small drones, the size of hummingbirds would eject and take flight, the tiny rotor drones would each take off flying in different directions scanning through the station in search of the Singularity core.

“Armful. The mission parameters have changed, i have orders to locate the core and ensure it isn’t damaged or used for...nefarious reasons, i must ask that as a civilian that you stay out of this” if Alpha found it, and it was being used for such...well sadly the station’s security would not be called to action.

Alpha could see the views of all four drones in the corner of his vision, monitoring them as they flew through and about the station, each one activating their cloaking fields and going completely invisible to the naked eye. electronic scanners and the like would pick up the drones that and the keen of hearing, though they were near silent as it is.

Armful torqued his body lengthwise but noted the energetic change in weapons by the noise they threw off, "Civilian? I am a low soldier but not civilian! Our society does not have civilians. Not as humans do. If there is war then every blade of the Matriarchy's grass must till the soil with blood."

Instinct heard the noise and movement of launching drones which flipped front legs up rigid and flexing some gleam free at the tip and sides. Sharp crystalline edges threw light before they vanished when he lowered them. His mind was switching into combat readiness as others around him did. Hypersocial creatures that they were.

He momentarily broadcasted Quietus that the transceiver saw as white noise, "*KHHT* Oh, sensor drones! Well noncombatants are not permitted to leave the homeworld. I can use my pistols well! The brief ammo shortage five years ago in this sector was partly False Matriarch Nemesis' fault. We bought a great deal of weapons for planetary human combat training. We don't like pirates and thieves that used our homeworld but they did make good target practice."

They hadn't the industrial equipment to make some of the fancy bits yet. They did however have the acumen to refurbish and clean a seized pirate ship which was docked to bring Armful here in the first place. Another burst of EM noise contained a Quietus declaration of thievery and a general schematic of the object from Armful's memory of a singularity core. The high soldiers did not ever leave their weapons behind and Jaunt reported he was getting ready once he'd heard the call. The other three sent neuroforms of their intent to leave for the ship to get their armor and backup weapons. Armful however carried his weapons with him always like sibling Jaunt and the backpack with mostly armor plated. He wanted to add a shielding unit to it someday but couldn't afford the microfusion reactor needed to power it.

He chirped pleasantly to Alpha, "I told the high soldier and three low soldiers of your stolen goods. You can call Jaunt if you wish him and my other siblings to do something he is not on contract and will help. They will watch the cargo dock near our ship."

Armful stretched his front clasps down gripping to pull his two pistols out of their spring holsters. The hands on his backpack rose to life as he used them to pull back the braces mounted to the top and bottom. One mounted to a bracing belt along his underside using his clasps the other anchored to a mounting rail that was a concealed recoil arrestor on the backpack itself. He sent a command through the backpack networking to enable his weapon. The weapon didn't actually have a trigger anymore as much as a safety.

If anyone checked the dock Armful mentioned they'd see a dusty-colored creature doing much the same. The size of a small car Jaunt readied a reciprocating twin bolter cannon normally used as an emplacement to mount to his two forelimbs. Those two front legs were flexible axes of limbs and the sharp talons twitched animatedly.

The pistols were clearly a custom build of strange design over a conventional plasma charge propelling an armor piercing projectile. It sucked the plasma through the barrel with a gauss chamber accelerating the bullet further and adding an incendiary burst behind every penetrating round. Any electronic assessment of the weapon package indicated it was one clearly intended for a heavy rifle class but in comparatively low firing rate. Lacking entirely the extra volume of recoil protection and weight for its added power. If a human fired that gauss-accelerated plasma pistol unassisted it would likely drive their arm into their torso and hit air. The projectile clip was small to save space but if aimed true hit hard whatever it struck just a bit harder than whoever fired it.

Alpha, stepped away from the banister and motioned for Armful to follow “we appreciate the help, you’ll be paid for your time and aid.” one of the drones would return and lock back into his back the plate sliding shut and covering its dock and protecting the drone, an opaque cloudy barrier forming over his entirety close to his form.

Alpha thought for a moment “i suggest keeping some of your kin about the docks, if they stole from the Project then they know what it is awe operate, somewhat...might i ask that one stay about my transport?” Alpha had drawn to the conclusion that if they had targeted his equipment they might go after his ‘ship’ and even the equipment to be transported there.

He took from his back the bullpup mrk95-HP-RG and from one of the pouches on his leg webbing, the ammunition didn’t look like anything of the traditional sense but solid black spikes of metal, he’d check the rifle over and allow the magazine to magnetize to his forearm while he ran through preliminary checks of the rifle, activating the power source within the rifle itself he loaded in the magazine and charged it, causing the lights on it that were originally green to glow red, showing that its live and ready for use. The same would be done for his sidearm check it ,load it, leave the safety and holster it.

“one of the drones have picked up the energy trail of the core, it wasn’t that long ago” he begins to pick up speed to make sure he doesn’t lose it… and to ensure no damage comes of it, arriving at the location of the hovering drones he stops and the shields drop and the three remaining drones return to their docks, the residue showing up in his vision.

Deactivation codes delivered, damage to core acknowledged; parameters change, render the singularity core inert Alpha understood what he had to do, moving forward following the trail, his shields rebooted and they’d head straight into one of the...unused regions of the space station.

High above the planet a ship glided down in careful descent more of unfamiliarity than any sort of damage. The ship had been recently painted with some emblem of hexagons as well as much of the rest of the ship. The structure would analyze very much as a pirate ship though its transponder read accurately through public ship registries. Assigned to one Rhia Nemesis of the Gardener Matriarchy. Such files would note its history of being a governmental seizure. Rhia herself had profiles among various interstellar merchant groups noting her as a general services trader and quartermaster for her mother, Matriarch Nemesis.

There was little about their home planet, Sopitos, as almost all information came from high soldiers sprinkled throughout the multiverse and all had a general sense of operational security. They had a widespread apparatus for providing service to their neutral mercenaries as well as funneling home income for purposes not well understood. What traders did know, as much as some researchers under NDAs leaked from time to time, is that some ecological catastrophe was being dealt with and precipitated their introduction to the universe at large. Thus most of their dealings named bottleneck intermediaries like Matriarch Volla or Rhia. Their mercs didn't deal with traders on their own so if Rhia was anywhere it generally meant trade.

~~~

Rhia gave her two compatriots an evil eye as both rough-housed in the pilot compartment. In zero grav their push-battles were more evenly matched when on leg-tips. Armful was an eighth of Jaunt's volume but much more technical. Jaunt solved his problems with hurled boulders and his sawtooth-mount assault cannon. It had to stop when she was about to land the vessel and didn't need them bouncing around the cieling.

Her antennae broadcast a message in Queitus which were more visual impressions of concepts than speech, [Two green low soldiers on stools pointing at corners with hard-tack tablets ricocheting off the back of their abdomens.]

They didn't reply but got to the saddle seats. Jaunt should know better so she was a little mean.

A very human-like voice came across commerce bands, "Rhia Nemesis to Fiari air control. Requesting permission to land. Three to disembark for trading."

The room was a bustle of activity, with control panels, desks and screens surveying the planet of Cortex, and it's surrounding orbit with a disciplined efficiency that mimicked a hive of worker ants.

One of the men at the desk peered in on his screen, squiinting slightly before twissting a dial, and bringing up a hologram in his small designated space within the room. His chair shifted slightly as he reached for a headset before double checking the visual was correct.

"Captain Larine, do you copy?"

The Captain's face was deepset and tanned, not concerned but focused on the task at hand, whether it existed or not. He pressed his two finger tiredly against the bridge of his nose, trying to ease off the tension growing there.

"Captine Larine speaking, report." he replied a little flatly, the whole day had been spent dealing with reports of debris and small rock particles from a a comet that had passed Cortex three nights ago. Whilst he glad the orbital station didn't miss anything, what the hell was he supposed to do to about debris?

"Sir, there is an unidentified spacecraft, approaching the city of Fiari, i repeat an unidentified spacecraft approaching the city of Fiari."

Finally something worthwhile he thought to himself. "Patch through the coordinates, over and out."
He moved around one of the situational command points within the network of the command centre, and approached a round desk. He pressed in his keycode on the keypad and a great spherical hologram of Cortex appeared in the space above the desk. He checked a creen and the coordinates of the vehicle were sent through. The map fuzzed slightly before shrinking to a point of dense light before re expanding to a picture of the city of Fiari. "And who just might you be?" he said out loud to no one. He cursed the surveillance team for their inadequacy, it wasn't often a ship got past them but with the comet shower he knew it would be unfair to report it.

He heard the incoming transmission just as he was preparing a communications device for contact. He signaled The Military Division on the surface, and the Civil force HQ to standby for further communications in the event of a threat.

"Unknown Vessel this is Helix Orbital Station, Captain Larine transmitting."

He pulled up the ships identifier on a console as he spoke and seemed to pull the ship from the hologram and into the console, which started scanning immediately and returned with any known information.

Search Complete...
Purpose:Trade
Captain: Rhia Nemesis
Affiliation: Neutral

She hadn't been lying, and he didn't see her being a threat.

"Rhia, Our information shows you are indeed a merchant, so i shall be lenient with you. We are now organizing a ground search of your ship for anything suspicious and or illegal. Usually we would call you back up here to do so but i don't fancy doing the paperwork. A ground team will be with you promptly to conduct the search, and in the future i ask that you check in with us, and our shuttle system can take you and your crew down to the surface. This prevents threats or us, and ensures the safety of any cargo of yours, precious or otherwise. While your vehicle is on the surface The Helix Corporation isn't liable for loss or damage of your items and or ship. If this is clear you may proceed to the surface."

Her voice replied cooly as she chattered in quietus to the panel flipping engine displays over to in-atmospheric flight, "Apologies, Captain Larine. The matriarchy had to blind quicken from Sopitos and find this place by gravity well. Relative momentum is conserved so I could either start landing or fall out of the sky. Our FTL engine still needs some maintenance. I was hoping you had parts I need to replace them."

A small broadband electromagnetic disturbance along her flight path discharged in orbit as a piece of metallic debris impacted the quicken point while it slowly closed. After a violent corona and a hard right angle the debris went from orbit to heading at quite a good speed away from the planet toward empty space.

There was a blast of air in the background which subdued her voice, "I am reducing atmospheric pressure. Please use respirators while on the interior. While breathable our environment on Sopitos is very heavily fluorinated and this freighter's former owners didn't care to install atmo scrubbers to life support. Please be aware this is a siezed freighter, while we have scoured the ship for non-schematic cargo locations we've been welding holes and picking things out of the walls for months. We will tend to the security of the ship while on the planet."

She looked back at Jaunt whom waved a huge blade-arm from his clamped bucket seat then added, "My high soldier is for my personal security. He is large and carries emplacement class weaponry. Please do not shoot him."

The freighter was a good size but while it had gotten more service in that three months than it had seen in its entire life under the pirates the large freighter was clearly a rugged piece of equipment. Most of the new sections were hacked-in gun ports that had been unscrewed and removed. Rhia rather preferred not to be shot at and needed more space than bullets. Rhia slowly piloted it in a holding pattern near a landing area while waiting for docking clearance then she would set it down.

" Roger that, ground team will be informed." Larine said in friendly tones, listening carefully in the din. He entered some information into a console.

"You should find a place for parts within the city, although looking at our information it could cost you a pretty penny, he observed the freighter on the holographic table. Could take some time to order in though. You are free to land, note the word land and not plummet." He laughed intending to lighten the mood as he pressed another button notifying the landing dock and the ground team set for the search of the situation.

"Welcome to Cortex. Enjoy your stay, over and out." he frowned slightly, shaking his head before moving off to do more work.

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The Ground Team were prepared, the intel was clear and they all turned their respirators on, which automatically diluted the proper amounts of various gasses into a chamber, depending on the atmospheric conditions it sensed. They watched as the ship hovered out above the landing dock, all serious in nature.

The man in charge made a few hand signals at the ship, intending for it to settle, then he made a few to his team, suggesting a simple search was all required, and that hostile activity wasn't expected.