E DAte Octoboerium 8th 3224
08 Oct 2024Diguelo
How things have progressed. Im a multi Biollionare now, didnt even know until I went on a trip to try and find Tir to unlock an Engineer. Got about 3000 LY past Hellsgrind out in the black and got woke up. My Auto distress receiver had fired up some time back, but my wonderous sleep aid (Kaltorian Ale) is incredibly effective and sobering up at my age seems like a bad idea. Anyhow, the message Id received had come from the Zaonce government. Last time I had heard from them was when I didnt pay the Lave landing duties for 6 months and they sent a squad out to claim my ships. Seems there had been some kind of accident involving a freighter my parents were on and a couple of Zaonce military fighters on exercises and now both Parents had been killed.This in itself was a blow that sobered my head back to the present day. I cancelled the FSD calibrations and headed back to Hellsgrind. The base government allowed me to use their Intergalactic comms to get my parents certificates and belongings handed in to the local 154th and get the funeral arrangements sorted out. I hadnt thought what my parents would be worth now, seeing as we had all lived from hand to mouth since as far back as I can recall. I cleared off the last of the details and thanked the station manager for his help.
Sitting in the seat of my Explorer, I looked at the document tab I had received from my mothers bank, seems she had a safe store in the bank at Lave station. I can recall going there as a stripling of a kid and bouncing my power ball off the walls and floors while they did things I didnt understand or care about. That memory recalled out of the black area that hadnt been used in my head for so long I wondered how id remembered it so clearly. I saw her put the yellow card into the bank store and we left the bank. The only thing I recalled from that conversation was money owed etc.
I plotted the course back to Diso to go and see what was left of their property for me either pay off or salvage if I could. The trip back took longer than the trip out. I swear the star systems had parted by light years just to make each jump on the edge of travel tolerance. By the time I got back to somewhere local, my eyes hurt and my body ached from the badly adjusted Inertial dampers that needed a full refit.
I left the ship in the local station and took an Apex taxi to the home I hadnt been to in years. The garden had gone, replaced by magna plating and a weird statue of something Ive never recognised before or since seeing it. The door panel was dimmer than I remembered, the surface worn from years of using the same pass codes. I tried my old one and wonder of wonders it didnt work. Tried my parents code, it didnt work and a message appeared to contact the Bank for access. Oh well nice of them to leave me everything they ever gave me, more debt. I took a transport to the bar in town and spent the night working on my drinking skills and finally had something called food. I wasnt used to it having lived on suppliments for months of travelling about. My stomach felt like it would explode. Oh well, I walked up to my room and oh my look at this, the girl next door had tourned into a woman but still wore the same look and dress code she had grown up with. I looked at her for a few minutes before I approached her and asked her name. All I got back was a slap round the face and a knee to the groin. She obviously remembered our last night together. "Where the hell have you been?" she half screamed and half bellowed, I never worked out how she could do that, most men cant achieve that audio quality.
Waving off the pain I looked her in the eye and told her that space is a big place and I was elsewhere in it. Dragging me into a room she kind of dropped me and walked over the a cabinet. Taking a tab from the shelf in there she tossed it to me and said that it had been dropped off with her by a friend of my Fathers. I sat down and looked at the tab closely it had my parents code on the surround and a well worn patch where a thumb went. I stuffed it in my jacket. "Well arent you going to read it you selfish pig" she scolded, yes she remembered that last night. "No not right now, Im aching where I shouldnt be and when that goes ill think about it."
I sat for a moment thinking if the relationship should be rescued or not and decided, nah, it would be a waste or air trying to talk to someone who held grudges that ended in pain. "Thanks for the tab and keeping it for me" I drew out a 100 credit coin and tossed it to her. "For your trouble". I left a woman with a temper to rival a storm cloud and walked to my own room. Once insdie and sealed in, I contacted a local supplier of comms and had a new comms unit delivered to the Hotel along with an old security unit that slotted into it perfectly. I called the bank and made arrangements to go there in the morning period.
The morning arrived and it looked just like the night only the clock had changed. I left the room and headed to the bank. The manager was waiting to see me. Manager waiting made me suspicious, they dont do that. "Come in Commander, si tdown and let me get you a drink". Ok Managers dont do that either, what goes on?
One the desk sat the store box I had seen in my memory the other day. Unopened and the pad on it looking a little worn. "Seems you owe us some credits Commander" nothing new there then, life returned to normal. "Here are the contracts for your parents property, two choices here we take it and give you the change or we take it and you can go on your way." "So Im guessing here they left me a list of demands". We ceased the belongings at the star port and as you found out the property is under black list until we have decided what to do with you."
Oh joy at least they are as consistent in death as they were in life. Pass on the bills and spend the money. "What do they owe you after you capitalised the property?" . The Manager stood and walked over to a terminal and called up the list. The screen scrolled by lots of red and few black notes scrolled by. Finally the list stopped and the weirdest thing it was in Black, that meant they owed me something. "After of course we take off this final commision bill you will be in debt to use for a couple of million credits"
"What final bill is this?" I looked him straight in the eye and he shot his gaze elsewhere immediately. "Wheres the key for the store? he said. "In my head where it staying for now".
I looked at the store box, strange the marks on it seemed to have been added. "Well the box stays here, it cant be unlocked outside of this office anyhow"
"So the box is what the bill is for" the penny dropped.
"I doubt it contains anything worthwhile" he said, probably had the thing probed before I got there. "Open it and lets see what it contains".
I stood up and turned the store to face me and put my thumb on the pad, needles pierced my skin from the DNA sniffer in the thing and a beam glanced in my eye scanning my retina. I typed in the code and a dim panel turned green and the lid opened. All there was inside was the yellow pad id seen deposited years back in my past. "Whats that ?" he said. "Looking at the pad I tapped the pad it came to life with a sequence of numbers that to me seemed familiar. "Its a comms number, probably someone else my parents owed money too" I dropped the pad on the desk. I know Ive seen those numbers before.
"So, the final bill stands, 1,845,249 credits. Pay now and you can keep the property. We will need an hour to unlock the place and the belongings in there arent worth much but they are yours." I took out my card and placed it on the desk, scanned my retina and tranferred the money out of my fuel stash to the Bank.
I took the yellow pad and left, the building where most of our money had gone and never returned.
I called in at a local food court and had a warm meal and a drink, no doubt the home unit would be bear of food and drink. Two hours later i got to the front door. The lock pad had been replaced with a new one and I entered the code the Bank had sent me. The door slid open and stale air hit my nostrils. I looked around and saw the air recyling plant had been turned off. I switched it on and the stale air was soon replaced by a familiar smell of home. The lights had been dimmed and the rooms of fthe main hall were now all open. I walked into each one, surprisingly neat, then I thought the Banks guys would have had a good search round for anything of worth.
My old room was more or less how I had left it. Stuff I hadnt seen in decades left on shelves to gather dust and other junk. My old pistol and rifle from the days of scout training stood in the corner. I checked each of them to see what was in them, both werent loaded the power lugs depleted years back. I stuck them against the power plate in the room and left them to charge.
The room felt cold all of a sudden and a noise of tapping came through the vents. Damn air con is busted, again.
The panel was blinking warning lights and a message to enter a service code. No doubt a way for the Bank to get more money out of me. The number of digits needed matched the number that Id read on the yellow pad. OMG My parents had made a service contract and put it away in a locked store box, I laughed at the stupidity, but I tried the number in there anyhow. nothing, well thats simple. I tried the number backwards, what the ll it might work. The panel changed to a systems display. The to an even more familiar screen a star system on the edge of known space. And a planetary blip. As I watched a small countdown ticked by and on hitting zero the display returned to normal, the unit started working again and the rattle had gone.
Id been to that system with my parents years ago and had spent time ice sled riding on the plains while they did whatever people did on an ice covered moon. I returned to my room and lay down on the all too familiar dent in my bed. Sleep soon took me and drifted into oblivion once more.
The following day I worked up a sweat clearing out the place and changing its identity to suit my life. The place looked good now and fit to be lived in. The food and water was working again and Id got just enough credits left after fueling the ship to get a new set of matresses for the beds. Looking at the time I locked the place using a new locking pad I had that couldnt be hacked into by the bank. the star port was quiet that time of day and I boarded my ship and took a flight out past Lave. A ship had followed me from the port, so I went into the local market, bought some cargo and set a course. Bouncing around between markets is enough to make anyone go crazy and soon a dispatch from the market took me out and the guys werent following so the FSD came on and 3 jumps later i was sat next to a beacon with my weapons drawn ready for them to appear. They didnt.
Id got a full tank and so I linked in the scoop and started heading out to the planet from my youth. The bearing was in my head and the landing spot on the planet was about 700 miles south of the norht pole on a sheet of Ice.
I turned out the lights and stared into the twilight world. I could make out breaks in the Ice where someone had been digging. Floating the ship over the hole I lauched a collector limpet into the chasm expecting the usual Limpet destroyed message, but it came back and obediently dropped into the cargo scoop then returned to the bay.
The bag in the tray looked frozen, I left it there to warm up. The contents lumpy. Knowing my luck and my parents it was ice cube sandwiches. But a few hours later after a well deserved nap. I opened the bag. The glassy looking rocks inside kind of sparkled. I stuck a rock in the sampling machine and got a Error message on the readout.
And so it came down to lookig and trying to find something along the lines of what I had in my hand in the Codex. Hardly a useful thing to do, but after a few hours, I came across nothing that came even close to what it was.
I departed the planet having had a close look in the area where the message had taken me. The journey to see an old friend took a day or so of jumping and scooping, but the journey proved worthwhile. The overall time spent analysing and searching, discovered a very rare Low Temperature Diamond with a band of some unknown element in its core. Out of curiosity we had put it in a power chamber to see what it was electrically and surprises hit on all sides. The rock absorbed power and amplified the output by 50 or so times. Didnt give off heat or radiation just a mild green light.
Zanix kind of stared at it and then at the displays then at me. So what to do, we can try and find a buyer, but I can guarantee all we will find will be a galaxy of Pirates wanting this. I would say to sell it to the Rhea Government and let them do the hard work on it. I know someone in their tech who would pay well for it. Id sooner be fairly rich and alive than be stupidly rich and watching my back all the time.
% days later I walked into the Zaonce bank, bought the place, sacked the Manager and his staff and left the place being run by Zanix. Its nice to be free and happy.