The interview with the authorities was actually not that difficult. My armor's ability to record was something I had forgotten about, and when I showed it, they were more than happy to put things in my favor and told me to watch Meemee. Meemee sighed, and soon, we packed everything up on board with new passengers, both hidden and in sight. We brought the new captains for Ura to train with, as well as my new Bounty Hunter instructor, Bounty Hunter, Meemee. We finished putting their stuff aboard, and I turned to Meemee as we finished everything up.
"Meemee, that is your bedroom and place until we figure out what ship people in the future will be with whom. I might even take you on as a full-time member of our ship if you are interested." I told her seriously.
"I would love to join you with Ura and yourself full-time," Meemee said with a grin.
"We will see, but now that we have this settled, Ura and I do have something to do tonight together. But we should take you out to get settled with some new gear. Or do you want to do that tomorrow before we leave the planet?" I asked.
"Never know when something is going to happen," Meemee said seriously, and Ura climbed up the crew hatch.
"Okay, so the ship is going to be a bit cramped. We put a couple in the Extra seating just in case, along with the packages. Are you and Meemee okay? Are we still on for tonight?" Ura finished and turned to me, her voice turning sultry.
"Meemee will be joining us first, and we will pick up her gear before sending her back to the ship to get used to it," I told her bluntly. Ura looked slightly disappointed until I finished my sentence, which turned into a smile.
"Perfect, I forgot about that after dealing with her personal issues. Let's get going then, Sleepy." She paused as she was about to go down and turned back to look at me. " Contract filled? " she asked.
"Shit, I will do it right now; start going without me," I said, and I pointed at Meemee to follow her, and she nodded as I grabbed my Tablet, no longer able to put this off. I was lucky I had not accrued debt, hopefully, on this, because they did not know about it.
Quickly, I followed up and found my credit balance.
—-
Current Balance:
Federation Credits:611270
—-
Then I looked into how much my last transfer from that contract was and grinned. It had four hundred thousand-odd credits, which was amazing from what I have seen. I still can't believe how many credits compared to what I have seen on the forums. Now, though, I had to cut that in half, and I winced as I took that fifty percent and sent it to the account that I had to pay into that contract.
—--
Federation Credits 390550
—--
I winced as the number in my account dropped substantially, but it was what it was. I had to fulfill the contract, and suddenly, I got a notification.
—-
New Trait Unlocked: They might not know, but I do
A guilty conscience is a deadly opening.
—--
I officially did not get these traits. They sometimes sounded like fulfillment conditions; other times, they were little phrases. Was there a difference, or did they just have a hard time coming up with a phrase for each one? Was this even still a fucking game?
My mind wanted to rampage at the notification, but I sighed instead and wondered if the report card thing was real. Instead of caring too much, I turned and started to head out. I got on the ladder and slid down, following after Ura and Meemee. It did not take us long to get a car, and soon, we were at a more modest building that Meemee had told us she wanted to go to. Outside, it had no name, and I walked in with Meemee to my left and Ura to my right.
"This is one of the best places on the planet to get drone supplies. I think it is the best because they go with an eye to keeping the less mainstream drone operator stuff on hand. Others argue it's the Drone highway that sells in Pac City." Meemee said with growing excitement. The automatic doors opened, and Mee mme almost sprang to enter, looking at the new equipment.
Instantly, Meemee was like a kid in a Christmas candy rush, looking at all the toys that she was allowed to purchase. I watched her run off and looked around at a bunch of things that I did not understand. I looked at Ura. "Did we set a budget?" I asked bluntly, and Ura blushed a little.
"No, I think she is worth investing in, though. Do you want to go for a risky amount? Or keep it safe?" Ura asked, her voice dropping a little.
"I am going to put up a hundred and fifty thousand; I want to put good gear on her," I said.
"I will add two hundred and fifty to make it four hundred. I think more than that would be excessive on her, and we have others to outfit," Ura said, and I nodded.
"I plan to start bounty hunting on each planet to gather experience and temper what we have before the next ships arrive.
"Good idea, and with someone like her along," Ura pointed at Meemee, looking at some type of wristband. With how good she was in that video, I think you might be able to make up for the sunken cost quickly."
"I hope you're right," I said, turning back. We are going to where our new headquarters are going to be on the next planet. I will go to the surface and bounty hunt with Meemee, Emily, and Eny to figure out the situation and gather some extra credits. How is the legitimate cash flow at the moment?"
"Good. Since you have joined up, people are willing to pay more for the gun escort on the last legs of the journey. This part of space seems to have an issue with people hijacking and saying it never happened. I am using the issue that the insurance companies are having to increase our prices. So the insurance rates go down a nice chunk because of you, and I can still give out savings to people using our services while increasing our prices more and more."
"So, all we need to do is keep a track record of safe deliveries going?" I asked.
"Yep! Do that, and we will make more credits. We have a very high-reliability factor at the moment," Ura said with a smile, and I nodded.
I did not think about how much this would reflect reality. If we continued with an almost one hundred percent delivery rate, then we would become an insurance company's best friend. We would be reliable, and they would make free credits, where we would make more because of our record. It would be a nice little circle in which all parties would be happier because of it.
"Okay, I will let Meemee know how much she can spend," I said, moving forward. I winced at the amount of credits we were about to spend. Meemee looked excited, and as I caught up, she looked at me with a wrist mount in one hand and a visor in the other. "So, what are you looking at?" I asked.
"This visor is a situation and brain reader that allows the computer to pick up certain thoughts while filtering others. It will pick up my need to roll forward or walk, run, move behind a tree, or anything really. Then I have to modify it to input what I want to watch in the surrounding area, and this Visor is made for situational awareness. It comes with night vision and more augmentations that I can modify, as well as HUD control for linked drones. So this allows me to move and keep perfect situational awareness. This also comes with an interface with an attachment to allow for further scanning drones to bring in more information and processing compounding. So I can link multiple drones together and combine their processing power to make the Artificial intelligence in each of them stronger. That will allow load sharing and dumping of my own attention towards mundane or preset methods to do certain things, like Evasion. It is a great mid-range visor.
"Then you pair it with something like this Linkstat wrist mount, and this allows for further customization and control for aiming with your hands, linking more actions with your situational awareness and manual aiming. It brings a screen and further launching and ammo features. So, let's say I have multiple ammo-type drones. It allows me to load them faster by calling them up from my side mounts. It is incredibly complex, but it allows my actions in combat to be smoother and dumps more of the load into automation to allow my mind to focus on more important things like aiming, evasion, and the overall situation. Oh, and movement." She quickly added and smiled, "I have to ask, how much can I spend, and should I start in the budget area and replace it or," Meemee let her excited voice trail off, and I took a deep breath.
"We are giving you an OVERALL Budget of Four hundred thousand credits, where you will work and pay us back with bounty hunting."
Meemee froze, and her smile turned bright. "Wow, okay, that is amazing news. Can I, like, Um, fully customize for myself?" she asked stupidly.
"Of course, I want you covering my back in combat, while I have yours," I replied.
"Okay, okay, this is a little overwhelming. I thought I was going to have to go budget, but I can at least go mid- and some parts of the upper range. Okay, let's start with the basics," Meemee said, clearly distracted. She put down the visor and headed over to the others. She looked through the guide, found something, ran down the shelves, and stopped before something.
I walked over, and she was grinning. I raised an eyebrow. It was a half helmet with a blue visor that covered down to her nose if she put it on. She was grinning and brought it over to me, "This is my visor; this is a stacking visor called the 5997X Gambit series for parallel processing and stacking. This is a mid-to-high range visor with seventy thousand credits. It is a powerful machine and something that I can hold onto and use for a long time before something better comes out or we make enough to upgrade me to something that can control even more. This might even allow me, after some practice, to be able to control thirty drones or more instead of just twenty-five."
She handed it to me, and I held it in my hand, stupidly, as she quickly took off to another part of the store. Ura walked up to me and looked just as confused as I was. Suddenly, Meemee came running back with a massive smile, "SCORE~!" She cried out, brought up a wrist mount, and grinned, "This is an old Greggory Mark 9. It is on the cheaper side, but this is something more midrange with a budget price. This thing, along with something like Gambit Services, is amazing. See, the Greggory Mark 9 is extremely well known for evasion, AI smoothness, and aiming. It works like a dream, and the company that made them is no longer in business. So this little guy is one of my favorites, and to get the same performance in the things this guy does well, we would have to go to the ultra two hundred thousand for a mount. The problem with the Greggory is that the load sharing is a little harsh. So, it needs more parallel processing, which is what the Gambit series is for. They work extremely well together. So this one is only thirty thousand credits. I will go pick up my next piece~!" Meemee finished leaving me and Ura here looking a little lost on what the fuck she just said, and ran off.
"Okay, is she going to do that each time?" Ura asked curiously after a minute, and I shrugged,
"I have no idea. She is going crazy for these things; I can't blame her. She has been away from her favorite things for over two years now. Now she gets to play with them again," I said with pity.
Suddenly, she was in sight once more with a large, clear bag. She was grinning, and I noticed something in her other hand as she came towards us. "I got what I was looking for with a bag," she happily cried out as she approached.
"This is a Drone master 4900 series; it can fit up to forty drones with various ammo loaders. If I want grenades, it will load them up quickly, while if I want ammo, it will do that in seconds. It is a fast loader mid-series backpack with a large extra processor to add more load capability. They are not that common, and it has full emergency launch functions and shooting functions. So it can shoot the drones up silently into the air if I can't hand-launch them, and it is just as silent. In fact, it can launch every single one at the same time. Then it comes with autoloaders on the side, so all I have to do is slot the drone's ammo bay into it, and it will insert the ammo type I will command into it." Meemee reported, "This bag is a hundred thousand on its own; I know I am spending a lot on the basics, but it will be worth it, I promise," Meemee said to our unmoving faces.
She passed me the bag and showed me the other thing in her hands, "This is a Drone specialist's leg suppressor. This is for drone operators who are a little louder on their feet. It comes with a handgun slot and a couple of clips. It comes with a sound suppressor for my feet and even more parallel processors. It will be a great addition to my drone network. I might not have the best drones to start off with, but I won't have to replace base gear for a long time with this!" She exclaimed, handed Ura the leg mounts, and headed off.
While she was off spending more of our credits, I waved down an employee and chatted with them, and soon, we had a hover cart to hold everything we wanted. Just as we were about to go looking for Meemee, she found us. Her eyes widened, and she smiled, "Oh, you got a hovercart! I should have thought of that," Meemee said as she had something in her hand, "Come with me; we need to load up the last of what we need, and I have it in a pile just over here!" Meemee said, and I nodded.
I followed her over, and a pile of round disk drones, which I had watched in her interview video, was in front of us. "These are Gallery 5's mixed munition drones. They can either be loaded with bullets or grenades. Each is fifteen hundred credits, and frankly, they are budget, but they are what I am used to for now, and I can have eighty of them for use. That means I can spend the rest of the credits on the right types of ammunition for bounty hunting!" She exclaimed, and I winced as she stacked everything up.
With the leg mounts being twenty thousand credits and the drones being a hundred and twenty thousand credits, we walked up and started to purchase all the gear and specialized Drone ammo for a nice discount of ten percent, which was used to purchase another set of flash-bang grenades. Altogether, it came out to 399760 credits.
—--
Federation Credits 240550
—---
I sent Ura my part, and she spent the rest. We both winced at the cost as the store packed them up in weapon containers, which were free with the purchase. Meemee was smiling ear to ear, and I looked at her. Tomorrow, you and I will go through and figure out where to put everything. We will have them shipped tomorrow morning, so we have time to figure everything out. Go enjoy having a nice shower."
"Yes, Bosses, I will see you back at the sh. I i cannot wait to get off the planet! Thank you so much," Meemee sa,id and I nodded.
"I am sending you ten thousand credits. Buy yourself some clothes and things that will fit you. Get something sturdy for bounty hunting, too," Ura said. Meemee looked surprised, and I turned to her, questioning.
"Why?" Meemee asked.
"Because we will have to live with each other, and you smell, and so do your clothes. We will get rid of those clothes," Ura said. Now, go; you have spent enough of our credits today," Ura said, waving the girl away, who happily nodded. We watched her get into the AI car and speed away, and I looked at Ura with a grin.
"Ready to destroy a hotel room?" I asked, and Ura pulled out the pills and suddenly popped them in her mouth.
"More than ready," She said with a smile that lit up the store.
-------------------
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