I got the information for the delivery from Clent where so supposedly rich guy in another system wanted this creature delivered to them.
Unfortunately, what they were planning to do with the turtle was not ntioned so I don’t know what the fate of the turtle was.
From what I know about these kinds of rich people, they probably want the animal as so kind of exotic pet or sothing.
Either way, it’s not my business as long as I get paid I guess...
I an... There’s the option of keeping the animal but the fact that the turtle was also not friendly to ans that it was a potential danger to my crew and I would pick my girls over a random animal a hundred percent.
To transport the turtle over, I had to pretend like I had so kind of strength gene mod where I managed to lift the animal up over my head to carry it over to my ship.
I was worried that the smugglers might ask questions after seeing that but... Surprisingly, they did not.
If I had to guess, I think they were just happy that soone else was dealing with the turtle and they didn’t care about anything else.
Or... People with these types of gene mods were common in the Inner Colonies so this was normal...
The turtle also didn’t seem to mind being carried though it did try to snap at again when I got a little too close to its mouth.
Not that I had anything to worry about since I was still wearing Renata to begin with.
I dumped the turtle in a corner of the cargo bay and I also decided to bring over the original container that was used to contain the animal so that Ries could try and fix it.
After all... I doubt the client would appreciate literally carrying the animal into the station to hand it over to them... Considering they did engage a smuggler to do this for them after all, I doubt they want others to see this turtle being led through the station in broad daylight.
...
Speaking of which... What does this turtle eat anyway? We would no doubt have to feed it, right?
When I asked Clent about it, he just told he didn’t know since the animal was ant to be locked inside the container to begin with so there wasn’t actually any instruction to feed the turtle.
I figured I would just feed it at or sothing since that’s what the original animal would eat.
Hopefully that doesn’t actually kill it... It would be ironic that the turtle could tank gunshots but then ended up dying because it ate sothing wrong.
Once the turtle was secured on my ship, things weren’t over yet as Clent now needed to be questioned by the security team since he did jump into this system and had not responded to any hails.
They sent a security detachnt to board his ship and I wasn’t sure if they would go through his cargo and have him arrested once they find out he’s a smuggler so... I was prepared to intervene if I needed to.
Fortunately, he managed to co up with an excuse telling them how an unidentified creature had sohow found its way to the ship which was why he ended up in the position he had been in earlier.
And given that the corpses of the creatures were still in the cargo bay, they bought that excuse pretty easily. The fact that the place was also filled with the corpses of those creatures also dissuaded the security team from wading through all that just to check their cargo as well so they just took his word for it.
His interrogators ended up feeling sorry for him and just let him go after that.
Apparently it wasn’t too rare for ship captains to get stranded in space like the smuggler had so it wasn’t really that surprising to hear his story.
They didn’t even question him about the fact that his ship was unregistered which was a huge red flag to begin with... I guess your mind would be occupied with other concerns too when you find an entire cargo bay filled with dead alien cretures...
Before he left, Clent sent a ssage saying that he would definitely find a good buyer for the stuff I handed to him and he’ll transfer the money once they have been sold.
If he had Credits, I would have just sold it off directly to him and he could just go and get the money back by selling it off in the black market, but the guy didn’t have enough Credits to buy everything from so we had an agreent where he would get ten percent of the sales from selling them.
Naturally, I wasn’t going to trust a smuggler by their words alone so we needed a collateral from them that we would return after he made the sale.
The problem was that they literally had nothing to give us that could match the value of what we were handing over to them. That kind of complicated matters because I certainly wasn’t going to trust them with their word alone.
In the end, a red haired Renata ca to save the day where she would accompany those smugglers to their destination and watch over them to make sure they don’t run off with the stuff.
The smugglers gave her a pointed look and I could clearly see lust in their eyes but... Well... I don’t bla them since Renata does have a really attractive figure... I would know since I’ve seen what’s under that maid uniform of hers countless tis and I’m still not tired of it.
I’m also not worried for Renata but more worried for them...
Who knows what Renata might do if I wasn’t there to supervise her? She might get them into all kinds of eldritch trouble...
In the end, since we didn’t really have a better option, I let Renata go with them and the smugglers promised that they would take good care of her and that she would return once they were done with the sale.
Also... Before they left, Renata milked a copious amount of honey that she stored in several jars before she stored it in the red haired clone of her.
Seriously, you’re making it look like my honey acted as fuel for you or sothing...
I wished them good luck and the smugglers left the system with the stuff.
We returned to the station and while the Iridescence docked at the docking arm, I went back to the hangar bay.
But as I approached the landing pad, I found a large group of people gathered there and quite a number of them don’t seem to be too happy while a small group was acting as a barrier to hold them back from the landing pad.
I shut off the engines on my ship and got onto the exit ramp and shouts imdiately ca from the group the mont I appeared.
"Look!! Look!! There’s already new scratches on the ship!! How dare she?!!"
"She dared to damage such a priceless treasure!! She should be arrested!!"
"See?! This is what happens when you allow idiots like them to fly!! Soone should just lock her up!!"
"She has to pay for the damages!!"
"Yeah!! She needs to surrender this ship over to us!! We’ll take better care of it than she ever will!!"
...
You’ve got to be kidding ...
I looked at the people that were holding this unruly crowd back and one of them was shooting an exasperated look, clearly trying to show that they did not share their sentints.
I turned to the crowd and crossed my arms at them, "Do you all not have better things to do?"
One of them shook his fist at , "We’re trying to preserve an artefact right now! An artefact that you have already damaged more than necessary!! Do you even have a conscience?!!"
I gestured at the ship behind , "I’m properly using it... Instead of letting it gather dust in so random dark corner sowhere... Isn’t that the point?"
"This isn’t sothing you can use!! It’s ant to be preserved!!"
"What is a thing if it isn’t ant to be used? It’s not like this ship is at the end of its life and it’s on the verge of breaking down? It’s still perfectly functional and capable of space flight..."
"That’s precisely the point!! This may be the only perfectly preserved specin of the original Verlandi and you’re using it like it’s just a replica!! How dare you?!"
"Might I remind you that this is my ship and it’s literally through my generosity that you are even allowed to lay eyes on it? If I weren’t here, you might have gone your entire life without even seeing one up close?"
"That’s why we have to make sure you don’t abuse it anymore than you already have!! Who knows how much damage you have already done to it without us knowing?!"
Geez... These people really are crazy...
Forget it, I don’t want to deal with this...
I turned to the people that were holding them back, "I’ll leave them to you I suppose..."
Without waiting for a response, I trudged off, ignoring the shouts coming from behind.
I really didn’t expect people to go as crazy as this for a ship...
I guess that is expected of hardcore enthusiasts like these people...
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