Starbound: A Space Odyssey 13 The Erchius Mining Facility Incident 1

The Penguins of the s.p.a.ce are just like the ones in Earth, but just in appearance, little birds with a mixture of black and white color. In the s.p.a.ce, the penguins you find around all have high intelligence, but they are generally regarded as troublemakers of dubious moral standing, selling their services as mercenaries, mechanics, and merchants on the black market.

John looked around and saw a familiar face.

Lenny was taking with a middle-aged human man.

The man had an orange full beard and short hair. He was wearing an eye patch in his left eye, a black leather jacket, and jeans. He had an artificial metal right leg. His face had what could be said as a mean look, that of a person with almost no friends. He gives a dangerous vibe to those around him, his right eye was sharp and gleamed with a mysterious light from time to time.

"Watch yer doing? Gonna buy or not?" The bearded man impatiently asked Lenny. His voice was dry and somewhat loud.

"Can't you give me some discount ?" Lenny started to shamelessly plead.

"No!" The man decisively said.

"Ahhhhhh... Come on. 10 million pixels for that trashy s.p.a.ceship, really?"

"Yes, buy it or get out of here!" The man shouted.

"Hey Lenny, having fun?" John approached from behind, "You must be Penguin Pete, right?"

"Yer talkin' with him." The bearded man responded.

"I want to hire your services. I need my ship to be fixed" John said.

John placed a Data Chip inside his PIPS and then he gave it to Pete, "This is a resume of the situation of my ship, take a look."

Pete retrieved the chip and placed it in his own PIPS, "A Sparrow cla.s.s corvette, heh..." With a single glance, Pete identified the model of the ship.

The s.p.a.ceship can be divided into 5 cla.s.ses or types, the most basic one the Sparrow, then there are the Kestrel, Falcon, Eagle, and the most advanced Condor.

The ships are divided by their sizes and the amount of their crew.

The Sparrow cla.s.s is the most basic one. They have the basic 5 rooms and can accommodate at their maximum 5 members, including the captain, depending on which intention they were built for. John's ship was built for Exploration and to arrest criminals, that's why there is only one room for a crew member, the Captain's Quarters, but it has 3 prison cells. A normal Sparrow cla.s.s doesn't have a Crafting Room and neither a Prison Bay. Those two rooms would have been built to accommodate 4 crew members, 2 in each room if it was a normal Sparrow Cla.s.s.

The Kestrel cla.s.s is slightly more advanced, they are bigger and can accommodate 9 people, including the captain. They have 8 rooms that vary depending on what the ship was built to do.

The Falcon cla.s.s has 10 rooms and can accommodate up to 13 people.

The Eagle cla.s.s has 12 rooms and can accommodate up to 17 people.

And the Condor cla.s.s has 14 rooms and can accommodate up to 21 people.

The s.p.a.ceships usually aren't bigger than a Condor cla.s.s, because if it is bigger, the FTL Warp Drive won't be able to transport such a big and heavy ship through warps. That's why about 90% of the ships in the universe belong to one of those cla.s.ses.

...

Pete scrolled down at the resume of the situation of the ship, "d.a.m.n, yer ship is in a pretty bad situation." He started to calculate how much would cost to fix such damages, "It's possible to fix it. It will cost yer about 500 hundred thousand pixels."

"..." John looked at his PIPS and saw the miserable number of 2 thousand pixels in it, "Can't you give me a discount?"

"Impossible," Pete said without hesitation.

John glanced at the smirking Lenny at his side and annoyingly asked, "Do you have some pixels?"

"Nope, most of my money is stored inside the vault in my ship."

He sighed and helplessly said to Pete, "I came here because Esther asked..."

"Esther!?" Pete jumped high and almost fell down, "I-I'm sorry, lad, I didn't know. I-I-I'll fix yer ship with no problem." He tearfully said.

[What's up with that sudden change?] John confused, but elated at the same time, [Using Esther's name really worked, but why is him so fearful of her?]

"But-but there's a small problem..." Pete hesitated a little but still spoke.

"What is it?"

"You see... Yer ship's FTL Warp Drive engine is heavily damaged and there's no way to fix it. Yer is goin' to need a new one."

"Okay, then what's the problem?

"I'm out of Erchius Crystal. It was supposed to arrive about 20 of them two weeks ago, but till this day I heard nothin' about my shipment."

"Where I can find it? It will probably be faster if go personally."

"Well...*Ahem* there's just tiny little problem. The cargo is supposed to be smuggled from a Letheia's Mining Facility in the Lunar Base 12" Pete awkwardly said.

John's face twitched a little, [This guy really has b.a.l.l.s. To think that he would be smuggling goods from the Letheia Corporation.]

"Please... Don't tell Esther about or else I will be finished." Pete started to shamelessly beg John.

John could only nod and promise to not do so. But he was curious at the same time, what had Esther did to make Pete fear her so much.