AN: 13 Advanced Chapters on my Patreon. Currently working on the final chapter for Book 1, trying to get it to 7,000-10,000 words.
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Mark lay on his bed contemplating things. It had been 3 days since he had picked up his 24 hitchhikers, and things had gone smoothly and thankfully, pretty uneventfully. Sure, the radar had picked up ships' transponders here and there, but they were just haulers and a handful of escort vessels. They were on the outskirts of mapped space, after all.
He had started to get used to the presence of the women on his ship, no longer being isolated from other human contact as quite the plus, but he had to admit that it was a little bit off-putting. After all, he had never, in either one of his lives, spent so much time completely surrounded by a bunch of women in what was pretty much a confined space.
They were now making their way to the last jump point before reaching a system with a station in it. Once they got there, he had planned to drop the girls off and let them get in contact with the IUC Navy, but beyond that, he hadn't fully fleshed out anything. To be honest, he didn't really know what to do next.
Anahrin had mentioned that he had created a false identity for him and opened a bank account under the name of Mark Shephard, a slight variation from his real last name, "Shepherd." Unless his memories were toying with him, then he had over a hundred thousand Imperial Credits, the currency of the Imperial Union of Celestine, the IUC. It should definitely be more than enough to do something, but unfortunately, his memories of this universe had been very sheltered and military-driven. He didn't have much of an idea of how much things truly cost or how much money he would need to go with Anahrin's suggestion of creating his own start-up and stepping into the corporate world.
He stretched and let out a long sigh before forcing himself off the ridiculously comfortable bed. "I have no fucking idea where you got the materials to create such a comfortable bed, hell, to create all of these luxuries throughout the ship," he said out loud, as if Anahrin was right next to him to answer his inquiries. "But damn, this is truly something else."
He walked to the bathroom, quickly showered, and brushed his teeth with some sort of paste that Anahrin had installed in his bathroom. He stepped back into his room feeling refreshed, his clothes in their dormant pendant form around his neck. He went with what he had been wearing after rescuing the girls, a pair of comfortable clothes in the shape of sweatpants and a hoodie.
He had come to find out that the girls actually appreciated his appearance outside of a uniform. It was something that made him feel more human to them, given his unnaturally perfect and symmetrical face and toned body. He wasn't blind or dense by any measure. Many times he had caught multiple of the women staring at him and blushing once they made eye contact.
Unfortunately for them, he wasn't really interested in any of them, except for Marie. Even if she did appear to kind of be an airhead at times and wasn't able to catch social cues too often, she did appear to be quite intelligent, something that attracted him. However, he interpreted this attraction to be one-sided, considering how Marie was more interested in the intricacies of the ship rather than actually having much of a conversation.
Mark made a quick pit-stop at the cafeteria, grabbed a coffee and a sweet almond croissant, said hello to a few of the women there, and walked out. He made his way to the bridge of the ship, coffee and croissant in hand, entering just as the notification of their arrival at their last jump point sounded out.
"Captain on deck!" A voice came as a male human figure wearing an old military coat materialized before Mark. It had a smirk plastered across its face and a cigar in between its index and middle finger on its right hand, its military cap barely hanging on its head.
"Jesus Marcos!" Mark's body took a screenshot, and he almost dropped his coffee at the appearance of the manly figure before him that almost looked like a drunkard.
This was just one of the many surprises Anahrin had left Mark to slowly discover on his ship. Over the past few days, Mark had discovered hidden features throughout the ship, with one of them being a self-aware AI that Anahrin had somehow coded into the ship. It had an easygoing, jovial, and friendly personality that tended to scare the shit out of Mark ever since he first activated it.
'This is the second time this fucker's done this,' Mark thought to himself as Marcos walked around the bridge. He had no idea just why Anahrin had put such a valuable piece of technology aboard his ship, along with everything else he put in it, and he couldn't even begin to explain how such things were put into place.
It had taken him about 4 months to redesign, print, build, and put into place a reactor and a pair of engines, yet Anahrin had somehow made one of the most advanced ships humanity had ever laid its eyes upon during that same time frame. And the more he thought about it, the more Mark learned about the ship, the worse he felt about himself. After all, the least advanced pieces of technology aboard this ship were both made by him, and they were the engines and the reactor.
"Morning, Marcos," Mark said to himself as he walked past Marcos and to his chair, cursing under his breath, "Not drawing attention, my ass."
The holographic figure grinned, puffing on his cigar. Smoke came out of his mouth in perfect loops of gray vapor that dissolved into the air before they could even drift far, though it was all digital. "Aw, c'mon, Captain. Don't tell me I didn't make a grand entrance! A proper ship deserves a proper welcome committee."
"You nearly made me wear my coffee, you jackass," Mark shot back, setting the mug down on the console. "Next time, materialize further away from me or use the intercom like a normal AI."
Marcos spread his arms in mock indignation. "Normal AI? You wound me, Cap. I'm a bespoke personality matrix with adaptive behavioral parameters. You think something like me just walks out of a mainframe?"
"That's one way to say 'overdesigned prank machine,'" Mark said under his breath, glancing at the data streaming across the main holodisplay. "What's our status?"
"Smooth sailing, boss," Marcos replied, leaning on the back of the copilot's chair, though his weight meant nothing to the seat beneath him. "All systems nominal. Engines reading at ninety-eight percent efficiency, reactor's humming like a happy drunk. We're clear for the last jump to Eidolon Reach."
Mark raised an eyebrow. "Eidolon Reach?"
"Yep. That's the name of the nearest pit stop this side of the belt. Busted station, mostly miners and traders. They get a couple of Navy patrols drifting through every few weeks, but they don't hang around long. I say this is a perfect place as any to offload twenty-four slightly traumatized passengers without drawing too much attention."
Mark smirked faintly. "You've been busy doing your homework."
"Someone's gotta keep this tub legal," Marcos said with a wink. "And between us, you don't exactly scream diplomatic face."
Mark chuckled, rubbing his temples. In all honesty, the AI was starting to grow on him. "I wasn't planning on making small talk."
The lights along the bridge dimmed slightly as the ship's systems prepared for the jump. The Strathos' Shepherd's hull vibrated ever so faintly, the kind of subtle resonance that only an engineer would be able to feel through the soles of their boots.
Marcos turned toward the main screen, his cigar vanishing in a pixelated shimmer. "Ready when you are, boss. The coordinates are locked in. Point-oh-five degrees yaw correction to avoid clipping the drift field around the Aurelian debris belt."
Mark rested his hands on the control pads. "You sure about those numbers?"
The AI scoffed. "Would I ever lie to you?"
"When you feel like being an asshole," Mark replied.
"Fair enough," Marcos said, tilting his head. "But not when it might kill us both."
Mark cracked a small grin. "Good enough."
He pressed the command and spoke through the intercom, warning the women. "Strathos' Shepherd, preparing for final jump sequence."
After that, the voice of the ship's automated systems replied in a smooth and calm feminine tone: "Jump field alignment in progress. Reactor synchronization stable. Gravitic field expansion at seventy percent."
The hum beneath Mark's feet grew deeper and more resonant, and the walls of the bridge shimmered with faint blue outlines as the jump coils charged up. Beyond the viewport, space distorted as the stars began bending inward. Mark felt the same old twinge in his stomach, even after everything he'd seen and experienced, FTL travel still made him feel like reality was about to invert.
"Gravitic field expansion complete. Jump field stable."
Marcos glanced sideways at him. "Want me to do the honors?"
Mark shook his head. "I'll take it from here." He tapped the console and held his breath for a second before speaking again. "Execute jump."
The universe tore open, and no matter how advanced the Shepherd was, no matter how perfectly calibrated the drive coils might be, every jump felt like being hurled through the eye of a hurricane. Space folded, reality stretched, and time seemed to take a step back to watch as the stars became ribbons of light. The jump bubble, a translucent golden shimmer, formed and surrounded the ship. Inside the bridge, the vibrations subsided. The ship entered that eerie, silent state between systems and time seemed to have lost meaning.
Marcos stood with his hands behind his back, eyes watching the light. "You know, I never get tired of this sight."
Mark's eyes flicked to him. "You don't even have eyes."
The AI grinned. "Then maybe it's my soul, Cap. Gotta appreciate the view somehow."
Mark rolled his eyes, taking another sip of his coffee. "Oh, so you're a philosopher now?"
"Anahrin gave me free will and bad taste in cigars," Marcos said, puffing again. "That's close enough, don't you think?"
Mark's grip tightened ever so slightly on the mug, and he said nothing for several seconds.
Marcos noticed, the AI's tone softening as he spoke. "He built me to keep you company, you know. Said you'd need someone to keep you talking when things got too quiet."
Mark looked down at the glowing symbols on the control surface. "…Yeah."
They fell into silence with the hum of the ship and the faint rippling sound of spacetime distortion filling the air. After about eight minutes, the forward display began to normalize. The golden field cracked apart and the fragments of light began dissolving back into darkness as the ship emerged from the jump with a faint lurch. The Shepherd's inertial dampeners caught up a fraction of a second later.
"Jump sequence complete. All systems stable. Arrival coordinates: Outer orbit, Eidolon Reach Station."
The holographic stars came alive again, bright pinpricks scattered across an ocean of black. Marcos manipulated the ship's cameras, focusing dead ahead on a pale blue star that burned faintly, surrounded by debris and the glitter of slow-moving station lights.
Marcos whistled. "Well, would you look at that. She's still standing."
The Eidolon Reach Station floated against the dark, a massive circular structure nearly four kilometers wide. It was once white in color, but now it was a patchwork of metallic grays and scorched plating. The outer docking rings rotated lazily, giving the illusion of motion in the otherwise still void. Dozens of blinking signal lights traced the edges of its form, while a handful of freighters and escort ships drifted nearby.
Mark exhaled quietly. "Looks like a scrapyard to me."
"Ah, but a profitable scrapyard," Marcos countered. "See that upper ring? Mining traffic. Mostly Helium-3 and trace element haulers. They get rich enough to afford a defense grid but too paranoid to trust anyone running it."
Mark tilted his head, reading the telemetry as it scrolled across his HUD while Marcos spoke. "Signal strength's stable, so that means they've got a traffic control array operational."
Before Mark could respond, the ship's communication channel pinged, and the familiar crackle of open-band static filled the air.
"Unidentified vessel, this is Eidolon Reach Traffic Control. Your transponder reads as Strathos' Shepherd, registry… pending verification. Please identify yourself and state your business."
Mark glanced at Marcos, who shrugged. "Told you they were jumpy."
Mark hit the comm switch, his deep voice resonating through the channel. "This is Captain Mark Shephard of the Strathos' Shepherd. I'm transporting twenty-four survivors rescued from a pirate attack three days ago. Looking to drop them off and conduct minor business aboard your station."
There was a pause, a long one that made Mark wonder if they had gone on a lunch break. Finally, the channel crackled back to life.
"Copy that, Shepherd. Stand by while we verify your credentials."
Mark leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of his coffee. "And here comes the waiting game."
Marcos materialized beside him again, sitting cross-legged on nothing. "You could've said you were delivering Girl Scouts, and they'd still run a background check. You may not know it, but the Reach gets half its traffic from smugglers with bad aliases."
Mark nodded slowly. "Hmm, for some reason, I'm not surprised."
Marcos looked thoughtful. "You know, you could've mentioned the class of ship you're flying. Might've saved some of the suspicion. Especially since this ship will be found nowhere on the registry, given the fact that she's only about 5 days old."
Mark shot him a dry look. "And what would you have me say? 'Hi, I'm flying the most advanced ship in known human space, built by an alien lifeform of a civilization that has long been extinct.'?"
Marcos smirked. "Shit, fuck it, why not? I mean, it would be honest."
Mark groaned. "I swear to God you're like a shittier Anahrin sometimes."
The AI laughed, leaning back with his hands behind his head. "Flattery will get you nowhere, my 'commandant.'"
The minutes dragged on, and before he knew it, over 30 minutes had gone by, but with the low hum of the engines and the quiet expanse of space around them, it felt longer. Mark occupied the time by scanning the outer ring of the station. Ships came and went at slow intervals, their engines flaring softly in the darkness. Most were rusted cargo haulers, but a few had the unmistakable silhouettes of armed escorts, compact and bristling with weapons.
"Security looks decent," he murmured. "For a place this far out."
"Eh, they've had their share of raids," Marcos replied. "Nothing like getting your docking bay looted to make you start hiring ex-Navy hardcases."
The console flickered, and the comms channel reopened.
"Strathos' Shepherd, this is Eidolon Reach Traffic Control. Any reason why your ship isn't registered?"
Marcos smirked at Mark. "Told you."
Mark gave him a side glance before responding. "She's brand new. I was actually on my way to get her registered when I ran into the stragglers I'm planning on dropping off here."
A tense moment of silence filled the comm channel before a response came through.
"Copy that. You're cleared for approach. Maintain approach vector 140 by -22, and once you get here, proceed to Docking Ring Three, Hangar 12A. Be advised, station security will be conducting a standard inspection on arrival. Given your claims of this being a new ship, they may be more thorough. Welcome to Eidolon Reach."
Mark nodded, tapping the acknowledgment key. "Copy that, Control. Strathos' Shepherd changing approach vector to 140 by -22. We should arrive within 3 hours at Docking Ring Three, Hangar 12A."
The comms cut off, and Marcos gave a low whistle. "See? Easy. Didn't even ask about your questionable passenger manifest."
"They probably will when we dock, never mind the fact that they said the inspection would be more thorough than usual. Try to stay out of their sight." Mark said, adjusting their trajectory. The Shepherd's thrusters pulsed faintly, aligning her bow toward the faint glow of the station's beacon.
The ship began its slow approach, the thrumming of the engines shifting tone, deepening as the vessel slipped into sublight cruise. The stars outside drifted lazily past as they traveled. After a few hours, the looming bulk of Eidolon Reach Station filled the viewport screens.
Even from a distance, the place had a haunting beauty. The main body of the station consisted of concentric rings orbiting a central hub, each spinning at different speeds to simulate gravity in designated sectors. Dozens of docking bays jutted from the outer rings, their magnetic fields glowing blue as ships came and went.
"Well, this is stirring some memories," Mark said quietly.
Marcos turned to him. "Anahrin mentioned you had a military background. He also mentioned you had another identity, but said he'd leave that up for you to discuss. So I'm going to go with this reminding you of Military ports?"
Mark gave him a side glance before nodding. "Yeah. The smell of recycled air and the constant background chatter doesn't change much, even at the edge of civilized space."
The AI smiled faintly. "You sound almost nostalgic."
Mark didn't answer.
As the Shepherd drew closer, the outer ring grew enormous, a massive arc of metal and light that filled the forward display. Guidance markers appeared on the console, plotting the entry corridor toward Docking Ring Three. The Shepherd's maneuvering thrusters fired in quick bursts, aligning perfectly with the approach vector.
"Helm control transferring to automated docking," Mark said, fingers gliding across the control pad. "Marcos, keep an eye on their security feed. I don't want anyone poking around where they shouldn't. And again, don't be seen."
Marcos took off his military cap and pressed it against his chest, bowing as he spoke. "You got it, Cap. I'll play bouncer from behind the curtains."
The ship drifted smoothly along the entry corridor. External lights guiding her descent, their reflections sliding across the Shepherd's golden-black hull. The docking bay opened before them, a massive circular chamber with retractable platforms and magnetic clamps waiting like open hands.
"Magnetic locks engaged. Atmospheric equalization in progress."
A low tremor passed through the ship as the clamps latched onto the hull. The engines wound down, leaving only the faint hum of environmental systems.
Mark exhaled. "Docking complete."
Marcos clapped his holographic hands. "My first flawless landing. Ten out of ten, no coffee spilled."
Mark let out a soft chuckle as the main lights of the hangar flooded the viewport's screens. Through the screens, Mark could see a squad of dockworkers and two station security officers waiting by the airlock entrance, some of them pointing in obvious awe at the ship that had just arrived at their station. It wasn't like anything they were used to; the Shepherd's 40-meter-long twin Railgun barrels dwarfed most by almost 20 meters.
But that wasn't the only thing that drew their attention. The Shepherd's lack of windows was a rare sight. Only some of the most advanced military vessels would rely on cameras and screens for a display due to their price and intricacies. A regular viewport was made of clear processed minerals that allowed for 2-meter-thick reinforced windows to view space with your own two eyes. A ship lacking that either meant that its owner had money to burn or it was a highly advanced military vessel, and by the looks of the railguns and the length of the ship, the workers were inferring the latter.
Mark leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. "Alright. Let's see how much red tape the Reach wants to throw at us."
Marcos gave him a sly grin. "Want me to run interference?"
Mark shook his head. "Nah. Let's keep things simple. The less attention we draw, the better."
"Less attention than we're already drawing? Shit, sure. Playing it cool." Marcos said.
Mark stared at the lights of Eidolon Reach Station, his reflection faint against the screens. 'What do I do, Ani..... what would you do?'