Through the front viewer of my merchant ship, I gazed at the familiar unending darkness which was our universe.
Millions of glittering specks laid peppered across the endless horizon everywhere, away from the central orange glowing ball of Eden planetary system.
Some specks are stars or nebula clouds reflecting off some stellar light. The rest are far away galaxies, like Amanogawa.
Observational scientists often reported primitive pre-spacefaring species in this galactic quadrant worshiped the stars, the popular being the primary star which their planet revolved around.
An unspoken rule among most spacefaring species in the Great Swirl Galaxy imposed upon us to avoid the primitive pre-spacefaring ones.
If we revealed ourselves by any accident, we needed to give them some gobbledygook explanation about being their secret celestial guardians.
Even all the spacefaring species, including mine, shared the same nonsensical stories of gods during our pre-spacefaring stage.
Legends of gods, mythological creatures and mystical ships which can sail on the clouds were hogwash designed to cover up our benefactors' existence.
Of course, there are always deviant species, which taught innocent pre-spacefaring ones the science behind spacefaring tech in the name of the greater good.
I could think of a few planetary worlds which developed from this questionable approach. Perunians, Thorians and Velesians are examples of those who received knowledge from their so-called god-like founding fathers.
Space is dangerous, even for a planetary system. The anomaly which devastated my home system and the Inti system was one of the biggest phenomenon.
Aside from the anomaly, any wandering comet or a renegade meteor flying at the wrong place and time can change its course and smite a planet out of its living civilisations' existence.
That's why most Kamuy wandered across galaxies, never settling down.
Five more planets to pass and one asteroid belt, then I'm home free to Tengshe Planetary system.
How long had I been playing the game of predator and prey?
I sat up straight in disbelief at the bright thready looking crack in space.
My plotted route avoided going near their inhabitable planets and remained far away from the satellites. Only ones who can use the hyperdrives are the Great Swirl Council's military combat ships.
How the fuck did they find me?
"Battle Fortress 154 to Merchant Ship 666-888, do you receive? Over," the transmitter suddenly blared as I stared at the sudden unwelcome sight of a gargantuan battle carrier resembling five skyscrapers stuck together, flashing into existence in front of my viewer.
I jolted up in the seat, wide eyed and switched the autopilot to manual flight control, preparing to steer it out of the collision course with that monster of a ship.
Someone should fire the engineers and ship architects who came up with this hideous design flaw of the battle fortress. The larger the ship, the easier to hit.
Size was the major weakness of such a monstrosity. The firepower of the battle fortress may be impressive, but a few shots to the battle fortress's weapons would cause it to implode. You don't even need to aim at the generators.
With its protruding structure dwarfing my tiny ship, my darn shitty luck brought one battle fortress 'jumping' into my vicinity.
Had the battle fortress navigation crew miscalculated the 'jump' in so many stories I had heard, the battle fortress would've squished my ship and I like a bug.
"666-888 to Battle Fortress 154, received. Moving out of your way. Over," I replied, keeping calm and in control.
"Battle Fortress 154 to Merchant Ship 666-888, we've your ship in the tractor beam…"
Maybe the commander of this battle fortress employed a competent navigation crew and ended up with a terrible communication crew.
The transmission stopped for a second as I closed my eyes momentarily. Tractor beams from this class of ship are impossible to break out of, unless I wanted to tear the merchant class ship apart.
Only war cruisers or battle cruisers possess the capabilities to wrench their way out of the beam by sending a high focus reversal of charged beams.
"We need to board for checks."
"666-888 to Battle Fortress 154. This is unusual. May I know why?" I knew the reason, but it's better to play dumb for the time to think through an extrication plan.
"Battle Fortress 154 to Merchant Ship 666-888, routine security checks. Something happened on Eden and your ship is one of those which left Eden during the time."
Routine security check, my ass. The past few times I had visited Eden, those battle fortresses performed no checks.
I sighed. "666-888 to Battle Fortress 154. Send docking procedures."
If they allowed me to dock ship side, a couple of soldiers would enter my ship for a check and let me off on my way after a cursory check of the papers.
"Battle Fortress 154 to Merchant Ship 666-888, no need to dock. Your ship is small enough for the inspection bay."
Inspection bay meant enormous trouble. In the inspection bays, the pilot, i.e. me, had to step out into a well equipped area filled with military grade scanners.
Civilian scanners only detected weapons and do little more, but military grade technology was more advanced.
Mahara's warning about bio scanners twisted up my gut.
My eyes fell on my droid ring. If the authorities detained me, they would make me remove all accessories and even change clothes under guard as a precaution.
If I wanted to escape, those two droids will facilitate my plans.
I pulled off my ring and place it in my mouth. The atomite structure of the droids recognized the genetic signature of my body and their fellow atomites flowing within my vessels.
[Attachment initiated]
My tongue felt the tingling feeling of the droids separating and crawling around my mouth to find a hiding place. One clamped onto the soft mucosa of my upper palate and the other around the gums of my upper back molars.
What was a bit of irritation for two droid lifesavers?
I disarmed myself, removing the weapons on the holster, then the holster which switched back to normal space and got up to store them in the secured cabinet at the side of the front deck behind the pilot's chair.
Neutraliser guns and other weapons are of no concern to the authorities since no one travels space unarmed. As long as I stored them in sight and not on my body, it won't be a problem when the soldiers check.
From the beam, laser rings formed to move through my ship, illuminating the interior systematically. Those laser rings are scanning for mounted weapons on the ship.
My merchant ship won't have a problem since I ensured it met the bare minimum registration criteria, which included allowing the Great Swirl Council, Tamtun and Nuwan military crafts to safely pull it in for docking or this newfangled bay inspection.
This ship just can't travel to the territories under the Iktomin control because I refuse to have anything to do with those psycho entertainers. So three out of the four major consortiums had my registration on hand.
The ship shivered as the tractor beam reeled it towards the lighted mouth of the Battle Fortress's deck, like a big predator catching its small prey.
An outstretched claw-like structure of clamps waiting at the entrance slid under my merchant ship.
*THUMP*
The sounds of the clamp grasping my ship tightly echoed through the chamber, and my ship moved forward into the brightly lit bay as the clamp pulled it into the bay with a few merchant ships parked in a row.
Ack. Bright lights again. Fortunately, I hadn't discarded my disguise as a Deridian.