chapter 207

We didn’t speak as we followed the overseer. That seemed to be on purpose. Both of us were sizing each other up. With every step, I got more information about this station, and with every passing moment, they were able to glean more from their passive scans about me, my ship, and my crew.

“Captain, they're sniffing around my servers,” FH sent me a message.

“If they do anything more, use standard countermeasures.”

“Acknowledged.”

The station was rotating constantly so that it could simulate a night and day cycle. I looked up to see the sun and clouds. That was a curious choice. The upper part where we were was like the surface of a planet. The only thing holding the atmosphere in was a huge shield-like dome.

This one wasn’t using space fabric manipulation; otherwise we couldn’t have flown through it. I believe they have the capability of activating a huge real shield if it came to combat, but this type of shield was much more practical for survival as it didn't let air out, held back bad radiation, while still allowing the heat and light of the sun to reach the surface.

The spaceport, or more accurately the landing zone, was quite large. It took us a bit to reach the edge where buildings showed up. They were basic boxes. Each open space, even on top of buildings, seemed to be covered in vegetation.

Looking closer, you could actually see the signs that water had been running down some of those walls. Now I understand the clouds. When approaching, we could see a lot of the surface area of the station filled with farming areas. It seemed that they watered them using rain.

It most definitely wasn’t the most efficient thing to do, but this was a closed loop. Eventually, that water was going to be reused, and they probably had top-of-the-line water purification machines at this station. That rain could also serve other purposes, mainly a boost to morale.

Most species aren’t meant to stay their whole lives in metal boxes. They need nature. I am pretty resistant to that myself, but even I need, from time to time, to see some nature; otherwise, we simply lose mental capacity.

We finally reached the conference room, as that was the best way of describing it. There was a large table, obviously split in half for two different groups to sit on opposite sides.

“This is where we usually conduct negotiations. With either the Salvagers Union or the Campers.” There was obvious spite against the Campers in the overseer’s voice.

“To get this meeting started, I have a few gifts for you. I hope that this shows that I’m not here to start any hostilities and to show my willingness to help with the survival of this station.” My words had the intended effect, as I saw gratitude in many of the people with the overseer.

Sam put the briefcase he was holding on the table and clicked the lock open. After opening it, he flipped it around so that the others could see what was in it. Inside were a singular skill stone and metal boxes, mostly made out of precious metals to hold the raw mana inside.

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“A skill stone that holds the Water Creation skill and enough raw mana for an individual to go through mana rebirth.”

That silenced the whole room. I swear you could have heard an ant walking about. None of them seemed to be breathing. The overseer was the first to recover, and for the first time, I saw movement on the surface of that chrome plate that covered half of his face. His one remaining eye seemed to widen a bit.

“We can finally give her a mana rebirth,” one of the people with the overseer said. The overseer then snapped his head towards him. That made the individual shut up and recompose himself immediately.

“This is too much for a gift. I must repay you somehow. What is it that you wish?”

“A gift is a gift, Overseer. All I am expecting from it is goodwill and understanding about what is to follow.”

The overseer was fully focused on me. “And what is to follow?”

“While we might look like a regular adventurer ship designed for fighting, we also do a lot of trade. Because of this, we have a lot of skill stones on board. We also have quite a lot of resources that would be incredibly useful to the station, but even more so, we have enough raw mana to trade for another 32 individuals to go through mana rebirth.”

Some of the security members inched their hands towards their weapons. The overseer raised his hand to stop them.

“That is a lot, too much for us to be able to trade for. We do not have the materials, and most of my people seem to have forgotten you most likely have contingency plans to make taking anything from you by force beyond suicidal for the entire station.”

“That’s what the gift was for, to show our goodwill. We understand how much what we're offering is worth, but you have more to offer than you think.” The overseer gave me a small nod to continue.

“We would still, of course, want whatever credits work on the station, as much as you can give without us destroying your economy. We are also more than happy to follow your restrictions on the quantity of everything else we can sell and what we shouldn't.” He gave me a firm nod at this.

“The rest I hope you can make up in data. First, I would like as much data as you have on the system, especially on the outer perimeter. Next, I’m guessing that you have data on different ship types and their parts?”

“We have such data, yes, but most of it is fragmented. Not in terms of the data being corrupted, but in the sense that most ships don’t end up in this system whole. If I may ask, why are you interested in so much data on ships?”

“I am a shipbuilder myself and a tinkerer. Most don’t understand how helpful it is to see how others have solved the problems you are facing. Civilizations are built upon what came before. Dismissing what came before is folly of the highest magnitude.”

“Well said. I assume you can store a lot of data on that ship, but even then, running the calculations, this does not seem enough.” All of us waited as the overseer continued to think.

“We also have a lot of encrypted data. Many of the ships that come here have excellent security, and about two-thirds of the data we have stored is inaccessible. Who knows what’s in it? Perhaps you can access some of it, perhaps not, but this should balance our sheets.”

I myself started to run calculations as the overseer sent over some numbers. We wouldn't have been able to store so much, but FH can store most of this compressed, which would give us enough room. To access it later, we would need to uncompress it, but that’s a problem for later.

“That is doable. Do we have a deal?” As he answered me, the overseer stood up and held out his hand to me.

“This is how humans agree upon a deal; at least this is what your universal translator key indicates. Is this true?”

I stood up and shook his hand. “It is indeed. To a fruitful cooperation.”

“To a fruitful cooperation,” the overseer answered back.

This went way better than I expected. Of course, we couldn't hand everything over immediately, so we returned to the ship, and over the course of the next two days, we transferred the raw mana to them while they transferred all the data they basically had stored on the station.

We sent over the list of materials we wanted to sell and handed over the skill stones. They set limits on how much we could sell on the market and limited us from selling any skill stones to anyone but the station itself. They purchased quite a lot, which made Bob very happy.

They also transferred the huge lump sum and gave us a warning not to spend it all immediately. Basically, if we were to do that, it would destabilize the economy here on the station. That would lead to price hikes and an eventual recession.

FH was handling the data about this system. While I was looking over the different ship designs that I now had available. The only problem was that most of these were old and, like he said, fragmented. If they were useful or not remained to be seen, but they were damn interesting nevertheless.

“Captain, can you stop already? It has been three days of you staring at those screens. I want to go to the market and see everything there is to offer. This isn’t like most stations where everything is listed online,” Bob begged me, and unlike the other times, he didn’t seem to be leaving this time.

“Fine, let's go and see what we can find on this station. We are rich after all.”

“Not really. All of it is going to be spent, and when we sell what we get, then we'll be rich,” Bob said with a huge smile on his face.