My ship's radar bleeped with the parking symbol of the destination among the tiny green dots of moving traffic. Those were the smaller ships departing or arriving.
The front viewer zoomed in on a cluster of large grey ship parking garages in the designated fly zone of Capital Planet Eden.
My hand pressed on the glowing yellow button on the right arm of the pilot chair.
"666-888 to Garage Tower 10, automatic docking sequence received. Over," I confirmed the sequence.
The ship shook so badly when it passed through the storm cell. I thought we were going to shatter into pieces a few thousand feet above the planet's surface.
The window rattled while the rusty bolts and rivets looked ready to pop during the descent through the low-lying storm clouds.
'You get what you paid for', echoed the words of Arabaki when I first brought back this crusty, rust ridden merchant class ship.
A flash of lightning narrowly missed my ship. Even if it hits, the deflector shields will counter the high voltage.
My ship soon cleared the small group of thunderstorm clouds looming over Sector 111 in Capital Planet Eden. At this altitude, I could see the metropolis in greater detail.
Well trimmed trees, orderly hovercraft traffic and tall skyscraper entertainment shopping malls with hanging gardens of luscious green plants and offices peppered the landscape as far as the eye can see.
The only eyesores are the floating electro-neon advertisement billboards stuck on buildings over the city. All flashed the latest news or condolences to the Inti survivors, irritating the heck out of me.
I adjusted the galactic time to planetary time based on the time displays on the billboards in my neural chip.
In the Great Swirl galaxy, the four consortiums used a standardized way of using the galaxy's center to calculate time in interstellar space and for interplanetary issues.
We can also convert galactic time to planetary time, but most prefer to log the two times on official records or documents for synchronisation convenience.
On the planets, a full rotation of each planet counts as a day and each planet's day length is different depending on the planetary system.
A miracle happened when all the known spacefaring species in our galactic quadrant agreed to use standardised galactic time and stellar distance measurement units. Our species usually disagreed on almost everything.
Forget the primitive non-spacefaring species in certain inhabited systems. Ignorance is bliss for them. Less they know about how rowdy this galactic quadrant is, the better.
An enormous billboard in front of the garage reported no violent crime in the last seven rotational days of the Capital planet.
Last time I came to Eden, murders and robberies took place every rotational day.
Eight billion individuals of different humanoid species living together and there's no murder?
When the utopia sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Either the Council drugged both the food and water supplies with some peace-loving drug, or the criminal elements hid bodies in the sewers on behalf of a corrupt politician.
I wondered about the number of decomposing bodies in the sewer pits of Eden right now. From old memories, the sewers of Eden were often a popular body disposable area, for both the unwanted living and dead.
No slums, except for the shoddy looking grey ship parking garages with their open rooftops big enough to accommodate most designated small merchant transport class sized ships.
Out of an old habit, the optical implant in my eyes zeroed in on the hidden weapon silos, highlighted in red, between the ground gardens around us.
Security is tight for the rich and powerful residents, mostly the Haolean elites of the Great Swirl Council, since the working masses hate their exploitation of other planetary resources, enough to attempt assassinations.
My flimsy scavenger engineered merchant class ship executed the final auto parking sequence.
It continued lowering into one of the scummy parking garages to dock on the decrepit looking metal platform.
I stared at my front command panel smeared with mild oil stains, highlighted by the light streaming through the clouds.
At least with Arabaki's repairs, I can somehow trust the ship's safety for this trip since the droid swarm needed a few items from Eden.
*BOOM*
Or maybe not.
The ship vibrated with such vehemence at the sound. I pressed the button for the visual sensors on the control panel, which brought up the disturbing scene.
The main engine of my death trap ship vented its protest at being overworked at its age, through the central exhaust vent at the back.
The vent farted a plume of black smoke from the exhaust vent, showering the neighbouring swanky Velesian ship with varying shades of grey particles.
My hand reached out to pull the throttles towards the lock position to power down the engines completely.
*TWONK*
I turned my head to look. My eyes trailed down to the fallen metal panel, then traced upwards at the exposed circuitry on the ceiling.
Before getting out of the ship, I strapped on the holsters for two neutraliser guns and a dagger.
On the back of my special holster, I flipped a tiny switch for intra-dimensional stealth mode to make my weapons undetectable to the security scanners and security cameras. Then wore a black leather jacket over.
I switched on the solar energy collection cells and did a final check of the ship's system before opening the door.
For a second, a picture of the ship falling into pieces the moment I walked out popped into my mind.
A grubby parking robotic attendant blocked my way with its cylindrical shaped body at the height of my waist. The robot resembled a century-old antique with a few mismatched patches of metal for a telltale sigh of a dodgy cheapskate parking operator.
"Welcome to Great Swirl Council's Capital Planet Eden, Sector 111. Please select payment options for space parking," the grubby robot hovered nearer to me with its cracked touch screen face, listing the payment options.
It looked pitiful. Even I don't treat Arabaki badly.
Capitalistic opportunists always collect payment first, and asked questions later.
The only payment option open to me are the mined rocks in my pouch. 100 points of diamonds, low grade - that's galactic robbery legalized at its best.
In Eden, the orbital control tower allocated the limited parking garages with vacancies on a first-come-first-served basis. The tower offered two choices of parking, if available - clamped parking or layered parking.
I preferred layered parking. Clamped parking and paintwork in the parking garages never got along. Not to mention the dents they left on the hull while dangling the ship in the garage like clothes on racks.
My hands fumbled in the pouch for the payment and fished out an unrefined rock of diamond.
I pulled the drawer out from the lower half of the robot and placed the rock into the robot.
It halted in the air as the screen showed processing. Once the robot finished analysing the unrefined gem to confirm its value, the selection screen turned into a smiling face.
An automated thank you came with a "Do come again!"
Nah, never. Not unless I need to.
*VROOSH*
I look above at a nearby merchant transport vessel, taking off from a few floors up and immediately moved away from my ship to the sheltered area.
The damn pilot fired up thrusters, which puffed out a mix of space dust and engine soot in the air. Had I stood in my earlier spot, the grey dust will cover me like the Velesian ship with an additional layer of grey now.
Dust went smack into the artificial lens on top of my eyes. The dust stung my eyes sharply, causing tears to flow while the swirling air whipped my long hair against my face and eyes.
My optical implant in the eye immediately protested, with never ending lines of red warnings in my line of vision, giving me a slight migraine.
The background in my vision blurred from the tears building up to wash away the dirt in my eye. I pulled out a small white cloth to wipe my face and streaked the cloth with grey smears. No thanks to the departing vessel.
Whoever designed this ship parking garage never planned for thrusters or the full force of take-off.
*CLUNK*
Or considered the safety of their customers.
A rusty reinforcing hull panel from above dropped on the dust covered Velesian ship parked on the platform next to mine.
Maybe I should park in another sector the next time.