Ten days - that's how long he could last on his ship without another stop for supplies. Those wouldn't be comfortably well-fed days, but it was as long as he could reasonably go before he'd start risking malnourishment. His muscles wouldn't be too happy after that either, but that wasn't quite something he could fix for the time being. The walkable space within his cockpit wasn't much larger than a comfortably large bathroom after all. At the very least, the security-configured ship he'd been issued had localized gravity. He wasn't sure how long that'd last, though. It seemed like every handful of hours, a new system on the ship would report a new problem. Nothing urgent - for now - but certainly concerning. Fixing his ship had to wait until he found a path forward. It didn't seem like Doru was coming back, either.
He'd already burned a day of supplies just planning and grappling with his situation in his ship at this point. His comms gear hadn't made as much of a peep since he'd left the station besides the occasional broadcasts larger craft would make as they'd pass. Zenith was on a route to a nearby star, one he knew the Valen had few allies nearby. It was as safe a bet as he had for his own survival. Nearby stations were host to a number of high-paying contracts, but his now useless Blackwood credentials meant he'd have to accept them in person. These stations weren't exactly host to the best of Magnus, but it would just have to do. He could only hope that they wouldn't hassle him too much for, well, who he was. These types don't tend to trust the Valen, especially ones they don't know.
While re-inventorying all of his medical gear, Zenith's comms panel lit up with a distress signal. It was super recent and nearby, appearing to be from some sort of cargo vessel. His immediate thought was that saving a shipping vessel meant high payouts from the courier, that was something he'd heard from his mother before. Then, well, he remembered his mother. He didn't hesitate to dial the details from the distress message into his nav. Zenith couldn't help but feel a tad guilty for considering his own gains over the pilots lives, but there wasn't anything he could do about that. Blackwood put him in this situation. They'd, somewhat literally, killed him at this point. A two minute ETA sounded from the ships speakers as it propelled itself to full speed towards the distress coordinates.
Zenith's ship steered hard near the end of the estimate, locking onto the signature of the vessel that had sent the signal. It was immediately obvious that this wasn't a standard cargo ship. It bore no markings of any shipping company he was aware of, instead featuring some company's logo and slogan he didn't recognize. It was in immaculate shape with the exception of the massive breach in the cargo door. A much shoddier pirate vessel was partially pushed into the hole and seemed completely vacant. Zenith hastily flew his ship a few meters from the breach point on the cargo vessel, switching on the ship's Sentry Lockdown mode before popping the top hatch and climbing out of the cockpit. He took out his sidearm, ran down the front of his ship, and kicked off the nose.
His boots hit the cargo door with a magnetized clatter. Zenith peered through the massive hole before throwing himself into the cargo bay. He landed on a metal crate, kicking off it to get his feet to the floor. The Valen rushed through the interior airlock, hastily checking around the silent corners of the depressurized cargo bay on the way over. The airlock opened quickly after a smack at the large button beside the door. Zenith ducked under it as it opened before closing it back up with another button hit, the door locking down against the floor with a shudder. As air filled the airlock, Zenith began to hear the sound of voices among a loud commotion further into the ship. He backed himself up behind the slim walls edging the doorway into the ship, gun up against the wall. A light bar on the back of his sidearm lit up, indicating that localized gravity was taking over for the magnets in his boots.
The interior door parted horizontally, letting the bright interior lighting in and unmuffling the loud alarms ringing through the halls of the vessel. Zenith quickly swung around the corner, luckily encountering an empty hall. His ears turned toward the continued loud scuffling down the hallway. He ran down the hallway, gun out and visually clearing any open doors along the way. The "Lounge" - at least that's what was on the door sign- was where all the commotion was happening. Various items were in bits out into the hallway, smashed glass and everything.
Swinging the doorway with his gun trained inside revealed a group of bloodied folks of various species struggling with what appeared to be a tall, female Delphi. They were all quite preoccupied with themselves, the large possum woman kicking and throwing off the pirates like overly persistent children as they'd throw their weight back into her to try and knock her to the floor. They were all pounding their fists sloppily against her, barely managing what you could call punches. It didn't seem like any of them were armed at this point, though, their holsters empty. He'd clearly missed most of an interesting fight.
"FREEZE!" Zenith barked as loud as he could at the group, sidearm trained at them all. "Blackwood Security!" The pirates seemed to take notice almost immediately, but the Delphi didn't. She threw one of them straight into the ground, their head slamming against the floor with a loud clack as they went out cold. The other three clamored to get off her, looking quite dazed (albeit a tad drunk on adrenaline) as they'd stumbled away to focus on Zenith. Hands went up as they saw his sidearm, the now-parted group collectively catching their breath. "Now, who's ship is this?"
"Would happen to be mine, sir," the Delphi said, letting out a sigh. The pirates glared at Zenith, looking around for a window to make a move. One would flinch and Zenith snapped his aim right over to him, shooting the pirate a glare. "You need proof, sir?" The Delphi asked, her hands about half ways up in the air.
"Yes, please." Zenith's finger rested on the trigger, still aimed at the eager pirate. "You lot, on your knees. Any of you move and I'm shooting you." The bloodied pirates - at least the still conscious ones - begrudgingly got onto their knees with an assortment of winces.
The Delphi spoke toward the ceiling. "Ship, check rank." The ship would promptly reply.
"You own this vessel, Captain. You have unrestricted access." The Delphi looked back to Zenith.
"Any of these lot your crew?" Zenith asked. The Delphi shook her head no.
"Just me, no additional crew," she replied calmly. "Mind if I arm myself?"
"By all means." Zenith chuckled, letting himself relax just a bit while keeping his gaze on the pirates. "Is it just these four, then?"
"I think so," she'd say, re-locking the oven she'd just retrieved a pistol out of. "Dumb shits thought I was transporting ore or... something." She turned her gaze to the pirates. "I sell CLOTHING, it says on the ship you fuckin' morons." Zenith noticed just how torn up her clothing was, as well as how nice it appeared to once have been. Bit of an uncommon sight in space, that was for sure. "What are we doing with the degenerates, then?"
"Well, normally I'd have the Military sort them out but--" Zenith remembered that saying he was stateless wasn't exactly going to help maintain his leverage with these pirates. "Well... What do you think?" He turned to the possum woman for an answer. Sure, why not?
"Nobody's dead, though these guys sure fucked things up in here pretty bad." She wasn't exaggerating in the slightest, the whole place was torn up terribly. Zenith wasn't sure how long they'd been fighting in here, but it'd surely been a while since before the distress signal went out. "How about we just punch a few holes in their ship before we send them off?"
"Works for me," Zenith chuckled. "You three," he gestured with his pistol. "Pick up that guy and drag him back to the ship with you. And don't get any stupid ideas, I won't hesitate."
"Fucking Valen..." One of the pirates mumbled with a spit that turned into a bit of a bloody drool, carefully grabbing his own beat-up helmet and slotting it onto his suit. Another struggled to get a helmet on their unconscious ally, and soon enough Zenith and the captain were leading the four pirates out of the ship.
Zenith ordered his fighter to fire a few shots through the pirate vessel through his watch before they let the pirates board, blowing apart their weaponry and effectively disarming the ship. He was fairly sure he'd had destroyed their life support. That would make sure they wouldn't stick around. Sure enough, once they were all boarded, it was only a few short minutes before the vessel pulled out of the cargo ship and was sloppily piloted away by the pretty much untrained pirates.
"Think stupid is the right label for those guys," Zenith quipped over the interior radio channel. The captain chuckled.
"Harmless, too. Calling them pirates would be a compliment." She sighed. "Almost had 'em on my own too, but they managed to grab my gun off me. It's bio-auth, at least, but still. Wasn't getting any easier."
"Mmm." Zenith turned to look her over, although her body was pretty much covered with an emergency space suit at this point. "You injured at all?"
"I've got some activator in my system, I'm good. I'll survive, anyway." She turned to him. "Gonna have to thank you though. Why don't we get back inside and discuss things a bit? I wanna get out of this stuffy space suit anyway."
Zenith's ears perked up at the suggestion. "Yeah, sure, let's."
The two made their way back into the interior hallway, the captain spending much of her time going through the lengthy, security-intensive process of ending her ship's distress signal on her PDA as they walked through the ship. Zenith still had his guard up a bit - he wasn't sure who she was at this point, nor if there was any leftover pirates aboard the ship. Luckily, the two wouldn't encounter any further resistance.
"So, well... Thank you for the help, err..." The captain looked over at him for a name before snickering at herself. "Me first. I'm Jewel. Run a little apparel business, carry a wide variety of things for a wide variety of folks." She extends a hand, Zenith holstering his weapon so he could give it a good shake.
"I'm, mmm," Zenith hesitated ever so slightly, finding a name for himself. Didn't want to break his cover too quickly. "Nith."
"Nith?" An amused look spread across her face. "Sounds like a Kismek name, not a Valen one..." Jewel shrugged. "I won't ask questions, don't need to know." Zenith was rather relieved by that, though the new look on her face said he hadn't hid that too well. "About your compensation, well." Jewel studied Zenith in a way that made him feel a little uneasy.
"Yes?" After a long look with no real response, he deflected his gaze down the hallway. The ship was quite large just for one person, though very well maintained. Outside of the various bits of random damage and destroyed decor, that is. He looked back at her, and she raised a brow.
"Is there anything you want in particular?" She folded her arms, resting her back against the wall. "You did save my hide, would feel a tad bit bad sending you off without anything." Her possum tail was up to something behind her, though Zenith wasn't quite sure how to read her species in that way.
"Well. I am in need of, eheh, money at the moment." Zenith's ears tilted back just a bit at saying that. Asking for payment would normally be against the rules, but these weren't normal times. "Not that, well, I expect it or anything. It's, you know... good enough that we sent those guys away."
"No, I really insist." Jewel smiled down at him reassuringly. "Short on cash or not, you deserve a reward. You've definitely earned a good chunk of credits, but..." Her folded arms came down, one resting on her hip. "... you want anything else at all?"
"Uh." Zenith narrowed his eyes at her a little. "Well." He paused again. "... What else do you... have...?"
She rolled her eyes with a sigh. "Well, Nith, the ship's carrying a lot of clothes, gear. In case that's useful." Jewel dug her PDA out from her belt, flicking it on. "You on some kinda spy mission or something? I can kit you out pretty good."
He couldn't help but laugh a little at the idea, reining himself back in pretty quickly after getting another look, slightly more suspicious this time. "Err, no. But, well, something to cover up..." He'd gesture towards his torso, covered by a space suit that had various markings that identified him and the part of Blackwood he was assigned to. "... all this - that would be great."
"Jacket, then?" She looked back down at her PDA. "Think I've got some military surplus aboard we could use. That belt holster of yours is gonna need to change for that, too. Never gonna get your gun out from under a big jacket." She looked back up from her PDA at him. "You can wait in the lounge, get ready, whatever you want. Enjoy whatever's left in the kitchen, too. I'll go fetch some things and we'll see what you like, yeah?"
"That sounds great!" Zenith smiled big and Jewel giggled.
"Good, good. You know where to find the lounge by now, see ya there in a few." With that, Jewel headed off further down the hallway. Zenith wasn't sure what was in the crates in the back, but it clearly wasn't whatever she was hunting for.
Zenith spent a good half hour relaxing in the lounge, though the ten minutes preceding that were spent cleaning the place up enough to where he could feel comfortable. The place didn't smell as much like blood and sweat anymore at the very least. The bulk of the lounge was lined with a cushy, deep sectional bolted to the floor with various ottoman-y bits that could be slid around anywhere along it. He'd taken the chance to indulge in some fresh fruit Jewel had packed onto her ship, something that was somewhat uncommon to encounter out in space without making a special order. Zenith wasn't quite sure how long it'd be until he got another chance to eat an orange in the raw after all.
A little later, Jewel would finally emerge from the hallway. She'd fully changed outfits into something far less ragged, maybe even edging towards glitzy. For space, that is. Objectively, it was just a nice outfit that you might expect someone like her to wear on the terrestrial side of things. She had a green blazer over a light top, paired with a dark skirt that went just short of her knees. All accompanied by a fair display of jewelry, all quite befitting of her name. Outside of the scratches and cuts that had mostly cleaned themselves up by now, she looked quite nice. Jewel had rolled up with a cart full of jackets, as well as a proper mess of holsters sitting on the bottom tray of said cart. It felt like he'd hired a personal stylist.
"Anything pique your interest?" She grinned at him, peering around the big cart of clothes as she walked it in. "These should all go with your fur quite well, though you'll have to settle on an accent color you like."
Zenith stood up from the table, leaving behind a semi-contained mess of fruit husks. He jogged over to the cart to flip through some of the jackets on the racks. "These are all military surplus, huh?"
"Mhm, from various militaries and militias across Magnus. You'll want me to trim off the insignias and such, else you'll risk getting into a bar fight over something pointless." She chuckled. "Though, you're a pilot, so I'm sure you know that."
"Yeah." He didn't. "Just do what you have to do, I guess." He picked a few off the rack to look at them. Nothing Valen, of course - Blackwood would never let their stuff get off planet for resale.
Many of the jackets felt quite heavy, restrictive, or just didn't fit him quite right. Jewel mentioned she could help refit any of the jackets that didn't quite fit right, but regardless, much of the selection wasn't quite to his liking. Eventually, after much fussing, he settled upon a particular jacket that seemed to fit him fairly well.
"This one feels pretty good." Zenith stretched his arms around in the jacket, the fit across the back feeling great. It was light, seemed to have some sort of stab-resistant lining, and had plenty of storage from what he could tell. It had a yellow liner, as well as some yellow accenting on the arms and pockets. Zip-up, too, so he could throw it off in a jam if he really needed to.
"Suits you quite well, I'd say. Very sharp." Jewel's grin returned, seeming quite pleased with herself. "Definitely need to trim a bit off the bottom."
"Maybe shorten the sleeves up a bit, too?" Zenith rolled them up a bit. "Will just get cumbersome or get caught in stuff otherwise, I'd guess."
"I can do that, too." Jewel stepped up in front of him, adjusting the sleeves a bit to match on both sides. "Up to here?"
The two worked out the rest of the details of the outfit for quite a while, nailing down the exacts of the jacket trimming and even fitting him for a proper thigh-mounted holster for his pistol. She even worked out how to alter his belt to help support everything. By the end of it all, the two were sat at a table snacking on various items from Jewel's kitchen stash.
"So, Nith." She chuckled. "Or whatever your name is. 10,000 credits sound reasonable?"
"U-Uh." Zenith smiled wide. "That's, well, very generous of you!" He wasn't quite worried about much now - she had been more than hospitable at this point. Though, he was a tad confused about her motives now, though - 10,000 credits was a ton of money, even for a rescue bounty.
"Don't sweat it." She sat back, finishing off the last grape in her hand. "Not often I run into Valen, I may as well make a good first impression, ey?" Jewel grinned at him. "Doesn't seem like you've ran into many women like me out here, either."
"Delphi? Yeah, I haven't. Mostly just ran cargo escort before." Normally he wouldn't share such details with relative strangers, but whatever. Screw it. She seemed not terribly enthused by his answer, though. "Unless that's... not what you meant?"
"No, no." She smiled back at him. "You're clearly a new pilot. Always a pleasure running into them, is all. You got a next stop?"
"Just contracts, really."
"Contracts, huh?" Jewel raised a brow. "Sounds like some kinda undercover work to me."
"Well-"
"This something to do with that whole Blackwood terrorist thing?" Jewel snatched another grape from the bowl. "Nah, don't have to tell me. Spy stuff, right?"
"Kinda." Zenith smiled. Jewel smiled back, then snickered a bit.
"You seem like you're trying to do the right thing, at least."
"Trying, yeah." His smile faded just a bit.
"Just avoid moving cargo you can't inspect before you transport it. Or ambiguous livestock. Never good." Jewel folded her arms behind her head. "I don't have a ton more advice than that. Just avoid anything stupid. And come up with a better codename."
"What, uh, do you mean?" Zenith was immediately a bit tense, ears turned back a bit. Jewel just smiled at him.
"Well, Zenith." He really felt his blood run cold at hearing his name dropped so casually. "Your mom loves talking about you on the channels all the cargo pilots like to chat on."
"Wait, really?" Zenith perked right back up, feeling significantly better. "Is she, uh, still doing that?"
"Haven't heard from her for a few days, though she doesn't always talk on the radio channels. Very kind woman, though." Jewel smiled warmly at him. "If your real lucky, maybe you'll run into her out here sometime."
"Maybe." Zenith looked at the mostly empty bowls of fruits. Speaking with any of his family right now would almost certainly put them at risk of persecution if Blackwood found out. "What, uh, channel does she usually talk on?"
The two spent some time exchanging some radio programming values, as well as Jewel giving Zenith her codes to let him drop her a message in the future. His new outfit had a warranty, after all - at least, that's what she said. The two said their goodbyes, Zenith wishing her luck in sorting out the mess the pirates had made of things. He'd command his ship to fly itself over to the actual airlock this time, hopping over onto the nose of the craft and climbing in without any elaborate acrobatics.
And now, once again, Zenith found himself alone in his ship. It was a ways out to the nearest station with contracts worth pursuing, but at the very least he had off-network credits he could spend on some things while he was there. Getting his electrics fixed would have to be a separate stop, though plenty necessary at the moment. His fighter's weaponry was not too happy after being used only a single time, a number of new alerts listed in the diagnostic menu. Cooling system issues, sensor failures, all sorts of little problems that would cause him trouble if he got into any real danger. He tucked all the alerts away and just sat back in his pilot's chair, letting out an extended, exasperated sigh.
A few days and a number of jumps through the SENT network (a series of slow-entry FTL jump points setup by Blackwood throughout the galaxy) later, Zenith finally arrived at the station he'd been headed towards the whole time. Landing zone authorization went quite smoothly, the baymaster not seeming to care what-so-ever that his ship wasn't registered on the Exogrid to anyone. That was certainly a bad sign if you were hoping for a secure station, but Zenith had a decent idea of the kind of mess he was getting himself into. He had 10,000 credits, but he'd need at least another 5,000 to cover his ship - even more to be somewhat comfortable. Zenith landed his ship in his designated zone, locked it down and jogged along the walkway into the station.
To say he didn't fit in here was an understatement. There were Kismek all over the place, normally a somewhat uncommon occurrence in most of the galaxy otherwise. These snake-folks were almost always affiliated with activities Blackwood and other galactic authorities weren't too fond of. Though, really, that's just a generalization. On the flip side, this place was basically a pirate station. Rules by thieves, ran by thieves, and not overly well maintained. The bay doors were scratched to hell, corroded, and most of the automatic functions were unsteady and made loud grinding sounds when they actuated. When he wasn't getting piercing looks from folks far more weathered than himself, he'd notice maintenance crews charging through the station with carts full of various oils and lubricants all over the place. The intercom for the station was horribly blown out and blasted simultaneously through the crew's radios as they would pass. Though, the food smelled fantastic - if you could smell it over the lingering odors all throughout the hallways.
Zenith eventually, in spite of the massively outdated maps in the halls of the station, found his way to the Contract Center. He registered a better codename with them than he had with Jewel, this time opting for Apex. It was a fairly cocky name, but still quite similar in meaning to his real name. The clerks did everything they could to hassle him for info, try and charge him a bunch of junk fees to register. It all devolved into shouting and insults before they'd stopped trying to scam him out of credits, finally handing over his ID tag. At the very least, they'd spelled Apex right. He slotted the tag into his PDA and sat down at a nearby bench, paging through the various contracts he had access to now.
The station hadn't listed all of the contracts they had available on the Exogrid. Some of these were only visible to those with credentials the station issued. High bounty contracts that required meeting up with the client beforehand. Many of them seemed highly unethical to say the least. A few open hits, ship jacking, that kind of thing. Though, some were still quite high-paying in spite of a relatively low ask. Moving cargo, escorting ships, things like that. Easy stuff to do, stuff he'd done before in some capacity without much issue. Escorting a cargo vessel would be absolutely no issue for him in his ship, assuming he didn't run into whatever weaponry had gotten him into this mess again. That seemed unlikely. These escorts seemed like the safest bet, and the same person had listed multiple similar jobs on multiple different dates. All he had to do was have a meeting with, well, whoever this was to get approved for the job. Potentially dangerous, but what could go wrong, really? He had no intentions to deceive anyone, and working with someone with his reputation surely wouldn't be an issue. Why would it be? Anyone listing a contract in a place like this surely had pretty low standards.
After thoroughly convincing himself that everything would be fine, Zenith signed himself up for one of the contracts. If it went well, he could do multiple. He filtered out the extra-special jobs and continued on his search for other options, being interrupted just a few short minutes later by a request to meet. That guy who'd listed the escorts wanted to meet in an hour in a nearby bar, according to his message, that is. "Come alone" was the last bit of the message, two words that sat in the back of Zenith's head as he left the Contract Center. With a lack of the map, he'd spend quite a while struggling to find his way through the maze of hallways. He spent the whole walk hating the shitty space mall while catching more pirate glares than he could count.
And finally, a few short minutes before he was told to arrive, he would find the bar. It was honestly quite a nice looking establishment - wood paneling, lit-up signage, good display of beverages, and clean. It even smelled nice inside, far more like a coffee shop than a bar, and the bartender (a young male Damari) smiled at him for some reason. The patrons were a bit less friendly looking at first glance, but nevertheless it felt far more welcoming than the hallway. He sat down at a bar stool and smiled back at the young deer behind the counter, asking just for some water.
Zenith waited and waited, hands eventually sliding away from his thigh-mounted holster and into his lap. He checked the time occasionally, seeing the clock run past the meeting time a few minutes. Eventually, Zenith got bored and ordered himself a bit of lemonade. All of Jewel's fruit had left him with a bit of a craving for citrus. He thanked the bartender and went for a sip, tilting his head back a bit as he'd feel cold metal press against the back of his head.
"Don't turn around. Name." A rough voice, a Valen voice, demanded from behind him. They sounded old, male. He didn't recognize it. It was surprising how sharp the front iron sight felt against the back of his head. Zenith swallowed his lemonade, slowly setting the glass down.
"Apex," he replied as cool as he could, though he was extremely tense. He was really trying his best to not move, taming the panic trying to build in his head. His voice pitch had been off just a bit from usual.
"Real cute name." The gun slid along his head to the left side of his head, the bartender behind the counter seeming indifferent to what was going on. The deer just went along his business, serving other customers. The stranger seemed to sit down next to him, though he couldn't really tell in his peripheral.
"I don't appreciate sting operations, kid." The stranger let out a growling, frustrated sigh. Definitely Valen. "No playing hero. If you're here to try and bust me, you're leaving whether you like it or not. On my terms." The stranger seemed to adjust his grip on his gun, the iron sight scratching around on his head. "You got that?"
"I just need work, I swear." Zenith couldn't help but swallow again.
"Hands on the bar, 'Apex'. Now." The stranger pushed the gun a bit harder against Zenith's head. He took no time to begin to comply, albeit slowly raising his hands to the counter and pushing them far forward in front of him. "Good. Now, what fuckin' breed of idiot do you think I am?"
"I-" Zenith was immediately cut off.
"Don't." The older Valen let out another annoyed sigh. "You absolutely sure you're here on your own?" He felt his PDA get tugged off his waistband. The stranger reached over and dropped it down on the counter between his hands. "Unlock it."
That barrel was getting to be a familiar feeling against his skull. Zenith made deliberate movements again, this time to unlock his PDA, pushing a few fingers against the screen to ID himself. The stranger took the unlocked PDA back, the device disappearing into Zenith's peripheral. He moved his hands back to a "safe" and visible spot on the counter.
"Eyes forward. I will not hesitate to shoot you, Apex."