More than five days had passed in the blink of an eye, I was in the middle of reading a book on top of a chair. Sounds of paper being flipped was coming from my finger.
It was an archaic physical book supposedly almost extinct in this era. Nowadays, there was a hologram e-book capable to make the scene of the story real and be experienced by people. Although I knew that, I didn’t care. I always had a liking to read any kind of book about Science Fiction and Fantasy, which had been an initial inspiration for me becoming an explorer.
“No matter how many times I read this, it never gets boring, I wonder if I would ever encounter an alien artifact…. No, it will never happen.” I muttered before shaking my head and stored the book to my dimensional storage in the form of a transparent bracelet.
I’m always fond of touching this dimensional bracelet, thanks to the invention of the space compression and distortion technology, there’s this kind of technology that was so convenient.
Sadly, my dimensional storage is an outdated device and only had a size of 100 cubic meters. It was so expensive; I didn't have the money to buy a compressing storage room on my spaceship.
Just then, a sudden frosty and cold female voice appeared from the surrounding, [“Destination almost reached…. Estimating arriving at the target in 10 minutes…. Space Warp Travel will be slowed down to ensure a completely safe arrival!”]
As that statement got into my ear, I gazed at the clock at the hologram screen that showed 10 in the morning on 16 September 3153.
Just because most humans live in space, the government decided to make 0 GMT on Earth to be the universal time to adjust the calendar and time universally.
Hmm… though I remember that each planet had a different set of rotation time, they adjusted the total hour to 365 days.
Not long after, a void hole appeared in front of the ship and a view of a space littered with stars came from within. The lack of light from outside was no more, the darkness that encompassed the ship dispersed as the void became closer and closer to the ship.
What entered my vision wasn't a sunlight star in the middle of a solar system, but a light azure gas giant planet the size of Neptune with multiple icy moons orbiting it. There wasn’t any kind of star orbited by this planet, as if the planet was a lonely mother with the moons as its children. Yup, it was a rogue planet.
Not far from the azure gas giant, a big space station with a length of 50 kilometers was orbiting the gas planet leisurely. There was quite a lot of other spaceships going in and out of the station. The space station was of course, the Blue Moon Station. And the reason it was called so was that it orbited a unique rouge gas giant that radiated blue-azure color.
It’s been almost half a year since the last time I came to this place, I wonder if old Hussein is still alive.
I couldn’t help but grinned in wonder as my gaze landed on the Blue Moon Station.
Although I didn’t quite trust him, there wasn’t any better choice than this place to sell the Golden Star Dust.
Just then, the spaceship finally reached the Blue Moon Station and a request to dock was issued. Not long after, a confirmation was given from there.
Right after the confirmation was given, one of the hangars at the side of the station was opened and ATA controlled the ship to get into it. Despite the hangar opened into outer space, there wasn’t any air that came out as there was a layer force field that blocked it from leaking.
Unexpectedly, a brand-new 200 meters long Frigate class spaceship passed through my ship and got to a bigger hangar at the side. Seeing that, I gritted my teeth in irritation and my feet stomped the floor before swearing, “Shit, just because you had a fancy ship doesn’t make you act cocky!”
Then, my spaceship passed the force field and got into the hangar before docking in. As the hangar closed, steam of air filled the room with Oxygen, Nitrogen, and with the same atmospheric pressure as the Earth.
I took my plasma gun and wore the armor that I had prepared beforehand. The armor looked like a sci-fi armor made of black colored sophisticated ceramic, it was easy to put in despite it being a full body armor and the weight wasn’t heavy in the least.
I then carefully wore a smart glass-encased helmet, a little bit scared that I might damage it. There was a small logo of a word carved at the back of the helmet which was read ATHENA. ATHENA stood for the Artificial Technology Helmet of Endurance and Assistance. Yup, just as the name entailed, it had a smart A.I. implanted into it.
No matter how many times I wear this, I always feel shudder and goosebumps in my hand.
[“System on~! Activating all of the function! Good day, Master!”] A cheerful female voice came from inside the helmet.
ATHENA was my most important treasure as I had shared a deep history with it. Unlike ATA, which was frosty emotionless on its speech, ATHENA’s A.I. had a cheerful voice embed on it. Although ATHENA’s A.I. was smarter than ATA, it couldn't control the ship as skillfully as ATA, as it wasn't made for it.
I glanced out from the ship as the automatic door opened smoothly to left and right while the steel boarding ram extending forward to the bridge. My legs started moving on its own and it took its first step out from the ship gallantly just like the first man that took his first step to the Moon’s surface.
The Blue Moon Station had an artificial gravity that wasn’t created by an ancient centrifugal force but instead artificially made by an advanced attraction power. This technology was also commonly used by spaceships and habitats as it was more practical. The only drawback was that it used energy to make the attraction power.
I gazed at my spaceship; it was a Corvette class spaceship with a 60-meter length size with a larger cargo design than the spaceship of its class. A smile formed on my mouth by just looking at it.
When I crossed over the bridge of the big hangar filled with many other spaceships the size of my own. A symbol of X-05 was seen painted around the hangar, indicating that this was the hangar area X-05. There were also a few humanoid and floating drone robots stationed on a post that could be seen from afar.
The robot carried a plasma rifle in its hand as if guarding the site from any intruder that might be present. As for the drone robot, it was charging tax for the people that were just docking in.
The Blue Moon Station was a small-medium sized spaceport owned by multiple dark dealing private companies. Although it wasn't a pirate spaceport and had better security, I couldn’t stop being vigilant to my surroundings. This was also another reason why I chose this place to sell my belongings as it accepted almost anything with a quite fair price that didn’t fall too much from the market price.
Not long after, it was my turn. The drone robot scanned over my body with its camera before stating in a monotone voice, [“Victor P. Asterisk, 25 years old explorer with a Corvette class spaceship. No criminal record founded, a total of 500 credits per day will be charged automatically for the hangar tax, proceed?”]
500 credits!? That’s insane! I could spend buying a month worth of provision with that amount. Damn, the people that charge this place must have done corruption!
A perplexed look formed on my face as I was annoyed by this daylight robbery, but then conceded after thinking the amount that I could get by selling the Golden Star Dust.
"Proceed." I nodded my head with a stiff smile, if only I could slip passed without paying, I would have done so.
The transaction was done after making a digital contract to the bank that will be charged automatically. After the contract transaction was done, I proceeded to get into the inner part of the port.
Since the Blue Moon Station was quite big, there was a loop train that could be used to travel from one part to another. I got into one of the loop trains that traveled so fast before I reach my destination sector in a matter of seconds.
After leaving the loop train, I had my legs stood above a floating electromagnetic disk that sent me straight to the place of my destination. Just when I got into the periphery of a marketplace, I got off from the disk and decided to stroll in the market first.
“Guess, I will try to gather information and find some rare supply that might catch my eyes.”
