Every species had a different name for Chimera, but all names were based on some kind of “combination” mythology.
However, humanity was unique in having given the same name to both the star system and space station.
The veil of cerulean chaos ahead of the Dragonfly tore as Atticus cancelled his own [Alcubierre Bubble], dropping them back into the normal universe, a mere light minute from the station, strategically placed in orbit around a gas giant that sat just barely within the local star’s zone of interference, perfect for easy arrival, while the planet it was orbiting around was large enough to provide a sizeable zone of interference of its own, ensuring that no one could emerge too close to it.
Immediately, the ship’s comms picked up a continuous and repeating broadcast, instructing them where to go, what information to provide about themselves, all the usual rigmarole, as well as directing them to head to the purely human docks if this was their first time on station, so they could get a proper briefing.
And a few seconds later, a more targeted message arrived, originating from that very same human dock, its contents rather more pointed. To loosely paraphrase and strip away the florid language “get your asses over here, if you go on the station without the briefing and something goes wrong due to your own goddamn ignorance, it’s your own darn fault, and we won’t rescue you unless it’s really easy.”
Harsh, but somewhat understandable, Derek felt. At least in theory, it would encourage newcomers to visit and at least pretend to listen to the briefing, though at the same time, the kind of person who would forego the briefing despite being about to enter a literally alien place would most likely also assume that warning to be a bluff and be willing to call it.
Chimera Station had changed a lot over the years, but its current form had a massive and central sphere that held most of the markets and had a sizeable number of docks, while four long cylinders were evenly spaced on the outside, one for each species, with a long disc at the end, making each spar look like kind of bizzare mushroom, with the docks being located underneath said mushroom’s “cap.”
Derek tapped the comms control, directing his message to the human section.
“Chimera control, this is the armed freighter Dragonfly, transmitting our cargo manifest and intentions now,” he announced, fingers dancing across the arm of his seat as he did so. He actually had reserved dock space, but he still needed directions to that, as well as a flight path that was clear of anyone else.
Granted, any decently competent navigator could do that without instructions, but if everyone did that, things would get real chaotic, right quick.
But since clear courses were easy to calculate and check over for potential conflict, he got an answer barely five seconds later.
The Dragonfly soon drifted closer to Chimera station, main engine off, maneuvering thrusters burning in short bursts as Atticus matched the course they’d been provided. And while that happened, Derek began to focus on the local guardships.
A lot of star systems tended to go for a defensive approach in the vein of “you don’t have to be faster than what’s chasing you, you just have to be faster than the guy next to you. Pirates fought for money, money they couldn’t spend when they were dead. So they didn’t tend to for places that could defend themselves, and when they were out of wide-open targets, they went for the most vulnerable one that still had wealth.
Chimera … well, it had been caught in the incredibly shitty situation of both needing to be largely demilitarized on account of being intended as a diplomatic hub, and requiring powerful defenses due to the sheer amount of wealth moving through it.
As such, they’d wound up investing in artillery cruisers, which could easily be kept out of range of shipping but swiftly brought into range of any threat, where they’d concentrate enough firepower to melt even battleships in short order, as long as there weren’t too many.
Really, the concept behind artillery cruisers was quite simple. Normally, only destroyers and capital ships had spinal weaponry, the former because they were nimble enough to aim weapons that required aligning the entire ship on a target, while the latter used spatial magic to bend the beams onto their target.
The “in between” classes, cruisers, mostly, were too large to be maneuverable and too small to compensate with magic.
Hense, artillery cruisers, typically three to four hundred meters long, incredibly thin and lithe, basically a gun strapped to a rocket and wrapped in thrusters, more nimble than even destroyers, with their main gun harder-hitting than anything not found on a capital ship, and the range advantage that conferred let them destroy many other vessels before they could even shoot back … unless they were firing missiles.
Because not only were artillery cruisers too small to have any of their own, but they also had trouble mounting too many anti-missile lasers.
For those, each of the twenty artillery cruisers was escorted by four destroyer-sized point defense vessels, each were also covered in point defense weaponry, allowing them to stand off any even remotely resonable missile barrage.
Specialty ships were nearly always bad news. Sure, a proper all-rounder could beat them under most circumstances, but there was a reason people spent money on one-trick ponies, and that was because there were circumstances where such exotic designs were dominant to the point of near-guaranteed victory.
But what would make this situation really “interesting” was the fact that such ships were rarely deployed outside such circumstances, which meant that seeing one usually meant you were about to be on the receiving end of a fairly one-sided beatdown.
Overall, beating the defenses of Chimera station would require either a force built around several battleships, or expending a genuinely uneconomical number of missiles, and when it came to countering pirates, making a system uneconomical to attack was the next best thing to making it actually unassailable.
So yeah, according to all the various analyses that Derek had read, it would work … as long as the Assai didn’t lose track of an Annihilator again. Though considering that the immense capital ships had been in the middle of being decommissioned even during “The great diplomatic Cat-astrophe,” and as the process had continued, officially, they’d all been confirmed as destroyed.
As for what that had been … well, it was quite simple. The (now very much fired) human envoy had decided to pull in a passing S-Ranker, a cat beastkin, as a bodyguard for the meeting, to flex.
Problem was, the envoy had been of the older sorts, and had wound up finding himself “forced” to explain how cats were actually very lethal, and that lethality translated to cat beastkin, which had already been a massive faux pas, and almost certainly qualified as a threat.
But that would have been a problem that could have been papered over with some effort. That was when the pirates had attacked, run straight into one of the most lethal sapients in the known galaxy, and been utterly massacred.
In the end, cats and those with cat-like biology had gotten quite a nasty reputation among the non-human species, and it had once again been confirmed just how vulnerable even the six-kilometer-long Annihilators had been to an S-Ranker with an axe to grind.
For all the absurd size and firepower these superbattleships had had, it was also a terrible idea in this age of superhumans. There was always the chance that someone would have a [Skill] that was guaranteed to be able to wreck any individual target, something that was almost a guarantee where S-Rankers were concerned, and having too much firepower concentrated into a single ship was a truly abysmal idea.
Much better to take three divisions of battleships, eighteen capital ships, into battle with appropriate escorts and lose one of them to an enemy magic attack, than send out one absurdly overpowered vessel with escorts, and have a single enemy attack wipe out ninety-five plus percent of your firepower.
Though by that same metric, it genuinely beggared belief that the Assai had lost one of the ships to pirates, which was a large reason as for why many people believed that the mess had been an attempt at information gathering.
So enraptured was he by the ships they were drifting past that he almost missed Mimi entering the bridge, only to have to forcefully hold back a comment when he caught sight of her. Instead, it wound up being Atticus who shoved his foot in his mouth.
“Wait, what happened to your hair?”
Ye-in facepalmed, then sent him a withering glare, while Mimi simply shrugged and said, “It hides the ears. Aliens don’t like cats, remember?”
And then Derek finally realized just what he was looking at.
Mimi rarely wore the same hairdo more than one or two days in a row, but it was always one that kept her hair out of her face and anything she was working on.
Today, she’d wrapped it up on top of her head, completely surrounding the pair of fox ears that normally sat there.
“Uh, you’re not a cat, though?” Atticus asked.
“I don’t think an alien who’s never seen a cat or dog is going to know the difference,” Derek answered, then turned to Mimi. “Don’t you think a hat would be easier?”
Because that hair did look quite chaotic …
“Hats are useless in space,” she informed him.
“And if people only wore what’s functional, then we’d all be running around naked with only spatial rings,” Derek pointed out.
Mimi opened her mouth to respond, paused, then closed it again and nodded.
… Which left them with the small issue of actually finding a hat.
Her headgear was either functional, such as a welder’s mask, or form-fitting with cut-outs for the very ears they were trying to hide, such as her baseball cap.
And there was also the small issue of the hat in question needing to actually fit over the ears of the Sionnach Sidhe.
In the end, it turned out that Atticus had a spare bowler that did the trick. It made Mimi look like she should be starring in a noir movie, but that was certainly better than the “escaped mental patient” updo she’d been sporting previously.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The Dragonfly had docked during that point, guided in by Derek because Atticus had been forced to go rifling through his closet at the time, and they headed towards the main airlock at that, though they did take a moment to make sure the controls were locked down properly.
It wouldn’t stop everyone who might conceivably steal the ship; there were too many great and varied [Skills] and magics out there, and none of the Dragonfly’s crew had anything specific to prevent intrusion, but it should be safe in Chimera, in the grand scheme of things … hopefully.
The boarding tube slapped onto the hull without a sound, or at least not one that was loud enough to be heard from the inside, but the airlock controls flashing and requesting him to either accept or reject the connection indicated that it had happened, and upon Derek hitting “accept,” it took only a couple of seconds for the display to report a breathable atmosphere on the other side, rather than vacuum.
The four of them quickly headed down the tube and into the station proper, past another airlock, and towards a desk with a bored-looking guard sitting behind it.
“Anything to declare?” the man asked, gesturing at a large list hanging from the wall beside him.
“No,” Derek replied after skimming it despite having memorized it months ago.
“First time here?”
“Yes.”
Aaaaaaannd that’s when the lecture started.
“The Rules for Chimera are simple:
“Be nice, be polite, if there are issues, bring them to the authorities the instant things get heated, preferably before. We don’t want anything to happen that could spiral into something worse.
“The atmosphere in the human section of the station is Earth standard, and the alien sections have what they need, the central bubble mixes all of them except for the Dromon’s; no one finds that mixture comfortable, but it’s breathable to everyone and won’t kill anyone … except the Dromon.”
Because, while humans, Assai, and Koinians liked oxygen, needed a few trace gases, and nitrogen as a neutral buffer didn’t bother them, the Dromon used fluoride as the main energy source of their metabolism, resulting in just about anything about them being quite toxic to most known life, and the atmosphere of almost all life-bearing planets to suffocate them.
Which was part of why there were so very few of them out and about.
Oh, and there was the fact that they’d basically been a stone-age society when the [System] had arrived, had no technology save what they could buy, borrow, or steal, and had very nearly been shattered by first contact … but they had been given a place on this station, even if it was typically deserted.
Even as Derek had been running through that in his head, the guy continued to talk.
“If you have a ship’s cat, keep it inside. If you don’t know why that’s a rule, you should definitely familiarize yourself with this station’s recent history before you go in.
“Currency-wise, stellars are preferred; you can sometimes pay with Earth currency, but there is no guarantee.
“You can eat the food at the restaurants; it’ll be labeled based on what species can safely consume it. There are no guarantees of anything tasting good to aliens, but it’ll be safe.
“Anything someone gives you on the street won’t have the same guarantees. If you accept it and wind up poisoned, there’ll be an investigation. If it was malicious, they’re on the hook; if it was an honest mistake and you didn’t double-check, tough cookies; it’s your own fault.
“And above all, do not embarrass humanity. All species on here try to give random individual aliens the benefit of the doubt as much as possible, but that doesn’t mean you kids can act however you want.”
Derek nodded, fighting down the urge to roll his eyes.
Yeah, relations across species were still too new, too fragile, and could be damaged by individuals that acted sufficiently egregious, but could that have been phrased any more condescendingly?
“We’ll behave,” Mimi declared earnestly, and the rest of them simply nodded, trying to match that energy, hoping that that would get them out of here faster.
And it did. The door beside the desk slid open, and they hurried through as quickly as they could, without making it clear they were, in fact, fleeing … only to find themselves in yet another narrow corridor, with signs that directed them deeper.
Five minutes and three corridors later, they were finally in the central concourse of the human section of Chimera. Sheesh, had this place been designed by someone paranoid about having a large empty space too close to the outer hull, so they’d stuck a bunch of corridors and warehouses in between? But then why the hell was the entire damn ceiling a gigantic one-way window, showing the stars outside?
And, mind you, this wasn’t some fake image on a screen; Derek could feel it, [Cosmic Soul] making the black void feel oddly warm, in a way that merely seeing it on the Dragonfly’s screens did not. As such, this clearly was a direct view of the cosmos, so why the hell had they had to deal with that? Whatever reinforcement rendered the window safe could very easily have reinforced the walls to make all those layers unnecessary.
But he stood there for several more seconds, head craned back, staring up.
Man. He really should take a spacewalk one of these days. No starship, no space suit, nothing between him and the, well, nothingness out there. Purely for the hell of it.
Ye-in nudged him in the side, and Derek finally tore his gaze away from the “ceiling” to properly observe the concourse. The vastness of outer space aside, this place could have been an upscale mall on any remotely industrialized planet.
A ring of shops around the outside, interspersed with corridors that led towards the docks, clearly marked with letters, making it relatively easy to find your ship once again.
In the center of the vast chamber sat a wide, squat cylinder holding the elevators that would lead down to the central portion of the station, with a circle of greenery and benches between the shops and the center.
“Head down now, or look around here?” Derek asked.
“Look around here,” Ye-in said, prompting Atticus to add, “Might find something useful.”
“Okay,” Mimi said, and almost immediately seemed to vanish into the crowd.
I guess we’re splitting up, Derek thought, and gave a wave to his remaining crewmembers and likewise headed off to the nearest shop, which turned out to be a foodstall, though he wouldn’t have guessed that from the smell alone, which was … indescribably confusing, if contained to the store itself by some kind of [Skill].
As a sign above the door had declared, this shop was offering food from home, and when someone put just about every kind of foodstuff and food-associated product into a space barely larger than your average living room, you got this shit.
Most of what was in here would likely have smelled good in isolation, or even if there’d only been a few extra things within, but all of it? It wasn’t just confusing, but downright nauseating.
So he wound up heading right back out after looking around for a couple of seconds.
Someone nearby sniggered. He ignored it.
“The UN made them put that stall in, just so you know. They figured people would want the taste of home, and completely overlooked what that would be like, all in one place. Literally any food place is better than that one.”
Derek turned to find the speaker leaning against the wall next to the entrance, a man who seemed to be about his age visually, so was therefore likely quite a bit older, wearing a standard shipsuit, with heavy boots, a largely empty utility belt, and a leather jacket, combining to form an impression that was certainly interesting.
But when Derek’s eyes landed on him, he hauled himself off the wall and offered a hand that Derek shook on pure impulse alone.
“Tobias Fairchild, guide,” the man introduced himself. “Whatever brings you to this station, if you need any help with it, I’m your man.”
“And lemme guess: anyone dumb enough to go in there is obviously new?” Derek replied.
“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘dumb,’ but yeah,” Fairchild shrugged. “So, what brings you here? Assuming it’s not top secret?”
It wasn’t, but that didn’t mean that Derek was eager to announce their interest in “exposure therapy to aliens.”
So …
“I mean, I appreciate the offer of a guide, but right now, the point is to go exploring, not get the best deals possible. See Chimera as it presents itself, not the truth we’ll find eventually.”
Was that enough?
“A blind viewing … probably a good idea,” Fairchild shrugged. “Good luck.”
“I’ll remember you if I ever need advice,” Derek said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a card, Mr. Fairchild?”
“Of course I do,” he said and handed it over, and they split up after a quick goodbye.
The next store turned out to be offering generic resupply for starships, with the goods in the physical storefront simply being examples of what was located in the associated warehouse.
Commonly used spare parts, water, ration bars that provided maximal nutrition with minimal space requirements, etc. Nothing he needed, as they’d recently set out from Sol with a full set of all consumables, but it was good to know they’d be able to resupply thoroughly here.
The next couple of shops were proper restaurants, Indian and Italian, respectively, followed by an armory and finally, a specialty engineering shop.
Technology was easy enough to copy if you had the blueprints, and getting the blueprints was hardly difficult for anyone with the right [Skills].
And yet, trade was flourishing, even between industrialized systems that could easily manufacture anything for which they had the instructions. Because nowadays, there was much more to making things than simply having the capacity to create them physically.
Skill, [Skills], mana control, the artistry of individuals who touched something beyond mere technological principles …
Therefore, unless one could poach the original creators of something, or raise up someone with similar, if not identical, abilities, you needed to buy what you needed.
In fact, across the plaza, Derek could see a shop that looked suspiciously identical, yet the goods within were rather strange, might one say, alien?
Though, now that he was looking for it, he was starting to realize that quite a few shops here were merely reselling stuff that had clearly been bought in the core below, in the shared zone.
A “come do your shopping without having to deal with any filthy aliens” kind of deal. Because, considering the hefty markup that no doubt came with that “perk,” only those categorically incapable of dealing with those of another species or the terminally lazy would be shopping up here.
And the most egregious shop here was the one offering Aspects. Not the one selling ones found from the human summoning tables, which might be good for barter, but the one re-selling ones from the aliens’.
The reason why these were valuable was obvious; they were literally impossible for humans to get on their own, though at the same time, human and Koinian Aspects were very well desired, simply because they were the only species who’d found the combination of Aspects and Aspect [Skills] that would allow them to unlock the superior FTL [Skill].
Though it was quite likely that, without the theoretical work of Dr. Miguel Alcubierre, humanity’s version would also have had the boring name of [Warp Bubble].
Yet even though the stuff downstairs would doubtlessly be cheaper, the shop up here would have been labeled by humans, who thought in human terms and would have written down the points that would matter to humans, rather than what aliens thought that customers who thought in ways that were, well, alien to them.
So he could head in there, look around, take note of what he could use, and then buy it downstairs, where it’d be cheaper. But he’d do his best not to take up any of the clerks’ time; doing so without intending to buy anything would be rude.
A lot of the Aspects inside were pretty much analogous to what humans had access to on their own, various elemental monsters, ghosts, regeneration, etc. but it swiftly became obvious that much of that was because these were the basic Aspects, lower Tier stuff that was important as the basis for stronger ones, but not strong on their own merit.
And then he found something called a “Ki-Lun,” some kind of mage-poltergeist thing that had been bought from the Koinians, which had the ability to cast all sorts of interesting spells innately, and etch more on the inside of its body …
Part of Derek itched to buy one, to slam into the empty slot he’d gotten from with the 1st Evolution, but there was just that one problem … the only thing that could be stacked on top of alien Aspects were, you guessed it, more alien Aspects. To be clear, from the specific category of the specific alien species that the original Aspect had been bought from.
All the way up to Tier 10, where he’d be able to stack four Aspects. And that would get expensive. Not outright unaffordable, but still prohibitively costly. Perhaps something for later. And definitely something to get from the original “creators.” Perhaps even earn himself.
As such, with a heavy heart, Derek decided to turn back and head out, then started searching for the others.
Atticus turned out to have been standing by the elevators, already waiting, but the other two were nowhere to be seen … and then Derek spotted them heading into the corridor that led towards the Dragonfly, with Ye-in apparently playing the part of the pack mule, balancing a stack of boxes that nearly scraped the ceiling.
Wait a minute … they both had spatial rings. Just how much had they bought?
Derek decided to wait by the door to the corridor for their return, though only Ye-in showed up, two minutes later.
“So, what did you get?” he asked.
“Uh, tech,” Ye-in shrugged. “Ask Mimi.”
“I will,” he replied, and together, they waited a couple more minutes for their wayward engineer to show up. Which she did, after another five minutes, with a massive smile on her face.
“Did you know we rebuild our export tech from the ground up?” she declared.
“Someone’s paranoid?” Derek asked.
“Absolutely,” she said.
Interesting.
“How about we head downstairs?” Ye-in asked from the side, and Derek nodded.
“Let’s.”
And not even thirty seconds later, all four had found themselves an elevator, and began to be whisked away towards the core of the station.
