I headed towards the dull looking five lane grey passage.
Only three lanes, each separated by a waist level forcefield barrier, opened. The other two were closed off, cordoned off by a blinking holographic closure notice.
I chose the third lane, the middle one. No particular reason, other than the closed lane next to it. The Eden border guards would usually open that lane next for crowd management.
The passage of lanes led to the secured border entry channel at the far end of the floor.
I continued rubbing my tearing, stinging eyes to stop my optical implant from scrolling up more complaints over my vision.
[Warning: Lens may dislocate from position.]
That message flashed in enlarged font size. I cussed my bad luck. The artificial lens masked the true colour of my irises in my eye.
Can't let the lens dislocation happen, or else those lazy guards ahead will be my problem when my irises are in their natural red colour, instead of pink.
Surveillance cameras lined the passageway from all angles, increasing my difficulty of settling the artificial lens without causing suspicion.
[Warning: Concealed prohibited weapons detected on 86 individuals]
The optical implant in my eye didn't need to confirm what I already knew. The messages were annoying enough with a pair of dislodged lens.
Not everyone felt safe in Eden. Eden only allowed stun tasers for self-defence, and those have to be declared before they stepped through the scanner.
In front of me, long queues of other humanoid species in three lanes walked through the individual scanners on each lane towards the counters of the busy border guards behind the three counters. One guard sat behind the counters, busy checking the identification of incoming travellers.
"Weapon detected," the automated voice declared loudly enough to reach my ears without the need for amplification by the cochlear implants. Some poor sod caught red-handed because his concealment technique failed.
More guards appeared to apprehend the culprit for one night in jail and a hefty fine amidst the murmurs of the crowd.
I heard the turning whirl of the surveillance cameras being redirected, probably towards the scanners, just in case the moron tries to escape.
Taking the chance, I pretended to rub my eyes to readjust the positioning of the lens through the eyelid. A soft click reconfirmed the successful repositioning.
"You there, move up," a grumpy voice ordered behind.
I turned around only to see a towering muscular Thorian standing behind me with his large arms folded, giving me the stink eye look.
Maybe I looked like a weak little crybaby. At least, the tearing in my eyes stopped.
No need for a second invitation to scurry up in the snaking queue. Once Thorian speak with a talk-down tone, they already sized you up for a fight. Either comply or get a bashing. I complied.
Fighting a Thorian would demolish the surrounding area with those cameras watching. I prefer not to resort to violence for no reason. Too much effort.
Thorians are exceptional in close quarter hand-to-hand combat. Even with my military experience and enhanced abilities, they are hard to take down.
Even each Thorian bone is denser than my cybernetic enhanced bone density or my atomite fused repaired bones. Hence, the old galactic saying, 'a Thorian is a hammer that pounds the nail down'.
They are the undisputed hammers of all humanoid species - direct, blunt and brutish in personality.
The odds are 50-50 for me against a Thorian.
Not to mention, I didn't want to spend more time in any detention center than I should in Eden. Several potential violations and their listed penalties ran across my mind, and I cannot stay away too long from Arabaki.
Or draw more attention than I should when using a fake identity.
"Heard about the latest information about the Inti system?"
My ears pricked up at the mention and my cochlear implant amplified the sound of the conversation while others started gossiping about the new information concerning the Inti.
Others were rehashing old news earlier. Nothing I didn't already know from the Nuwans' information.
The destruction of an inhabited planetary system meant the talk of Eden and the rest of the whole galactic quadrant.
"What's the latest?" The Thorian asked.
"Well, my cousin said that the Inti found a rogue exoplanet with a strange ship. They suspect that their destruction had something to do with that ship."
I frowned while eavesdropping. Rogue exoplanets are uncommon and I only knew of six floating ice giant exoplanets. The gravitational force of the stars pulls most planets into their orbit. Rogue exoplanets are without stars and they moved erratically.
None of the six are terrestrial.
If so, they found the ship in orbit around the exoplanet. A ship won't survive re-entry into those six ice giants. The heat will melt the ice into gas and set off a chain reaction which will blast the ship into smithereens.
"Ship? Did he mention which species it belonged to?"
"I don't know - he is only a communication officer patching in conversations between the Inti Commander and his. All he knows is that the Inti called it strange, like… I think his commander mentioned that it's similar to the old Kamuy ships."
Shivers went up my spine at the mention of my species.
"What's a Kamuy?"
I guess we were not that memorable.
"Damn, did they teach you Velesians anything? Something also blew apart the Kamuy system before my great great grandparents were even born," the Thorian replied. "How did they recognize the old design? I don't even know what a Kamuy ship looks like."
That was the reason I didn't want to bring the war cruiser over to Eden. Its appearance will raise questions and trouble.
In interstellar space, my war cruiser would be hard to spot because of its special onyx stealth armor and dark matter shields.
To an untrained eye, my war cruiser's design looked similar to the non-militarised Nuwan cruiser class ship.
"Well, the Council still holds old visual records of the Kamuy ships. My cousin only said it spooked his commander like heck. He mentioned some old battle carrier class ship."
My brain searched through those long hidden memories. Something popped up. I recalled a battle carrier despatched to scout a strange signal, three rotational weeks before the destruction.
None of the crew returned, which made the then High Command very concerned. I was part of that search party, but the trail went cold.
This new information, if true, can provide clues to the mysterious enemy. I added a fact-finding trip to the Public Library first on top of the shopping.
"COME OVER TO THE NEW LINE HERE," the entry guards yelled, interrupting the conversation as another directed some of us into the new queue. The forcefield barriers between the third lane and fourth dropped at my section to divert the crowds.
I deliberately followed behind the three Velesians who gossiped earlier about the new information. By that time, their conversation topic changed to their business destination while we trudged to the front.
"Any weapons to declare?" said the entry guard at the side of the scanner.
"No."
I am walked through the scanner. No beep heard.
"Cleared, proceed to identification," he said and directed me to the identification checking area.
A few paces brought me in front of a counter with a chubby guard sitting behind. He yawned, revealing yellow teeth stuck with thick plaque.
"Card?"
I handed him my identification card, which he took and inserted into a small machine to run the matching process with the entry application.
"Business?"
"Gem merchant from Derid system," I replied.
Traders of gems and fine goods are no stranger to Eden, being the playground planet of the wealthiest dickheads in the galactic quadrant.
In the Derid system under the Nuwan Imperium, the planets held a miner's dream of the rarest and finest gems within the Great Swirl galaxy.
Deridians are famous for being the best gem merchants. Their hallmark characteristics of their species are their strange pink eyes, green fingernails and toenails.
Pretending to be a Deridian proved easier than pretending to be a Nuwan.
My artificial lens and atomite-changed nail color allowed me to pass off as Deridian. I also wore a pair of silvery earrings like the typical Deridian trader.
Except those aren't real earrings.
"Hrmphh name?"
"Temari," I replied.
The frozen corpse of the real Temari in his space pod laid floating somewhere in the vacuum of space en route to the Narakan system.
Arabaki and I chanced upon his freshly frozen body, broken ship and his stock of fine gems, on our way to the Narakan system a long time ago.
Deridian funerary customs involved laying the dead body in their escape pods and ejecting the pod into space. I gave Temari a traditional farewell of his people as a big thanks.
Easy to guess the late Temari ran from space pirates because he never activated the distress beacon on his ship.
The blackened holes in his ship hull were also a giveaway of the space pirates' handiwork.
Distress beacon's subspace signals gave away a ship's location. And the last thing anyone wants a space pirate to know is their location.
With a bit of bribery and hacking done via one of the readily available criminal syndicates in the Narakan system, I became a slimmer Temari.
The guard threw a deadpan glance at me and tapped on the face scanner on top of his desk.
I looked at it and a red laser ran across my face to perform cross referencing between the card and their database for identity confirmation.
"Odd," the guard muttered and looked over at his colleague sitting behind the next counter. "Can you come check this?"
Keep calm, look straight, I told myself as my cybernetic relays kicked in and controlled my heartbeats, pacing them in a regular slow rhythm. The surveillance cameras above the guards' desk could detect any sudden increase in heart beats and respiratory rate.
His colleague narrowed his eyes at me and then focused his gaze on the monitor, tapping away at the controls on the desk.