I gave him my best disarming smile, amused at his over-inflated confidence before answering, "Self praise is no praise."
True, Perunians are pretty suave in the eyes and good at reading behaviors coupled with the smooth talking from my experience.
Like when I went virtually shopping for the sonic washer in Eden. The Perunian salesman seemed to know what I wanted. He closed the sale pretty fast.
I wondered if Arabaki already installed the sonic washer on my warship.
Besides, Perunians had a hand in the Great Swirl Council's surveillance technology, even though they still can't beat Iktomin spying tech.
"So, what else do you want from me? Other than hacking."
With insiders planted in the Ultramax, it wasn't just to ask me for help in hacking and gaining anything. Besides, I'm a newcomer.
If he meant fighting our way out, he was crazy. I memorized the layout on entry, the security is almost airtight. Even if we got out of this prison sector, how do we even escape the Ultramax?
The Ultramax in Shoah system is in the middle of nowhere in this region of space.
Space ships rarely come near the Shoah planetary system. I never explored the area too. If he assumed I did, then he was in for a disappointment.
"Your tech."
I raised my eyebrow at the sudden mention of our tech. So, Zhiva sees a future in further cooperation.
What does he know about Kamuy tech enough to ask? How much does he actually know?
"What can your tech do?" He asked.
He was fishing for information like a card game. First one to reveal the most cards loses. My habit in dealing with information meant exchanging one useful bit for another of the same useful value.
He may have provided me with information, trying to lure me to make a slip on my true capabilities, but those tidbits told me nothing.
Even the shard he gave me in Eden is useless without the exact location of the debris field.
"In this Ultramax, if you help me escape…I will consider telling you," I replied with utmost diplomacy.
Zhiva's smiling facade faded, replaced with an impassive mask while his eyes, now cold, stared at me. He knew my guard didn't drop.
"What you can do for us?" he muttered. "It isn't for the break. I want that Kamuy battle cruiser we found and only a Kamuy can access it."
Shouldn't he be worrying about the escape plan than a battle cruiser far from our location? I should be the one with more interest. Who exactly is the Kamuy here?
And then, there are priorities.
Escape is the first. Anything else - not a priority.
"Why?"
Now, I held the upper hand. Zhiva doesn't know that Kamuy spaceships will never allow a non-Kamuy to access the consoles via a genetic scan or an atomite scan on the ships to guard against hijacking. Our bodies are the key.
A whole range of protocols will activate once I board any of our ships. If I wanted to eliminate a gang of space pirates following me, I can flush them out by initiating shields to herd them into an airlock area and flush them out into space.
Arabaki, the droid swarm, can fly my war cruiser because of the atomite scanner on all the systems.
The thought of Arabaki made me wonder what the droid swarm might do to my war cruiser now. I shuddered at the 101 possibilities, none of them good.
"Every species has useful tech. One develops a weapon. Another will devise a countermeasure. That's the way of the universe," Zhiva blabbered on, as though I was the dumbest shit in the galaxy, lapping up every word he said. "Everyone is different with their tech. One will work over the other, but not another."
In short, he proposed stealing Kamuy tech by using me, to my face, after the escape.
I had never heard of a funnier joke than this.
"Noticed something?" I asked.
"What?"
"We are still stuck in an Ultramax without a ship, in the butt fuck, out of nowhere."
"Ah that," he smirked with a certain deviousness in his eyes. "The others will wait to hijack that penal transport ship. They know where we are."
"You sound so sure that they'll come."
Why would their fellow space pirates risk their necks out?
"Now here's the juicy tidbit. It's an automated junk. The ship is controlled remotely through a secured frequency."
"They won't let a ship move out unguarded. The council may be stupid, but not that stupid," I added.
"Armed escorts until it jumps."
Until it jumps - the key operative terms. The end of those wormholes can go anywhere in the quadrant, but not to the nearest deadliest black hole I can think of. However, it can also make a few jumps to the edge of a black hole.
Or the Council found a usable blackhole in their space backyard.
"And…?" I pressed for information.
"Take out the armed escorts first."
Garan made it sound so simple. I knew the space pirate fleet owned Perunian warships, but how many? If we spoke of one accompanying battle fortress and the standard five battle cruiser escorts, perhaps possible.
If more than that, sneak attacks would be hard.
"How big is your fleet in the first place?"
"Big enough to cause terror in the galaxy." Garan eyed me with suspicion, and I didn't blame him.
Numbers counted in an attack. He would never give me a hint of an estimate, and he held all the information in his hands.
Right now, the loose string is how accurate his informant inside gave him. I don't know his informant to assess if the fellow is trustworthy enough. And I may never know who it is.
We could sit here and ridicule the council as stupid, moronic, and anything else related to their intelligence.
Those are only but empty insults.
What if it's a trap for all of us?
The authorities also could release false information to Garan's informant or switch to a secondary plan.
Seen that happen, done that before.
Too many variables, too many mistakes to make.
The plan is too risky and easily jeopardised, with the price being our lives.
"If you fail, what's Plan B?" I asked.