"Sigh! I should leave"
Lucian muttered, putting on a new pair of clothes he had prepared beforehand while burning the previous set to ciders.
"They should be here anyti too"
Taking a long look at the data chop in his hands, he also made the decision to destroy it. He didn’t need it anymore.
Walking out through the back door, Lucian walked away slowly making his way in the direction of the slums.
Few minutes later, he arrived in the place which disgusted him the most, as he almost couldn’t resist the urge to go back to the middle zone and get a gas mask before stepping in there.
Unfortunately, there were more important things to do and worry about, so he had to make do with the thick and oily feeling the air in the slums gave off.
Walking slowly and taking more random turns to shake anyone who might still be on his tail, Lucian finally arrived in a dark alley.
Walking in, there was nothing but a brick wall a few ters ahead, a dead end. But Lucian didn’t seem too bothered.
"Get up, old thing!"
He said to apparently no one, but at the sound of his voice which wasn’t altered this ti.
A faint movent could be seen at the bottom of the wall, as the person there who would’ve easily been missed, rose from his lying position to face whoever had called out to him.
"It’s you! I see you aren’t dead yet, but what’s with the sloppy disguise?"
The old man leaned forward, his face coming into the illumination of the night sky, revealing his appearance of a beggar.
Even with his poor appearance, there was a peculiar glint in his eyes that didn’t match his stature and current position.
Lucian ignored the man’s disappointed tone when he ntioned that he wasn’t dead yet.
"I’m conducting an investigation, the details are none of your business. So, don’t ask."
"Tch!"
A sound of dissatisfaction was heard from the figure who had retreated back into the darkness.
"So, what is it you want from then? A better disguise?"
"No need, this is good enough. I need a flight off world"
"Off world? Why would you see for that? Take the normal route or sothing, the port city is just a few kiloters from here! Cough! Cough!!"
The man ended with a rough cough and a deep sigh.
"...."
Lucian remained silent and the air in the alley changed as the old man realized the gravity of his request.
"You want to go off-world through my thods? Just who did you offend, Mr detective?."
"Sigh! Where do you want to go?"
The old man sighed and asked in a tone that definitely didn’t match that of a beggar he had before.
"It’s a low level planet, section K42, planet number D6"
Lucian gave the coordinates of the planet to the old man who went silent for a whole before giving a reply.
"I’m sorry, but I can’t get you to that desolate place! I can get you directly to C6 though. It’s the farthest I can reach. You’d have to complete the rest of the journey on your own!"
The old beggar said within the darkness.
"That’s good enough! I’ll take it!"
Lucian accepted the offer. He had already expected sothing like this. Underground thods of getting off-world were quite limited.
It was already impressive that he could even get to C6 in a single go. After that, all that was needed were a few more jumps across planets and he would arrive at the D6"
"Hmm. Here, take this and go to port city. Make your way to a shop called capsized ships, show them this and tell them you’re heading to C6. They should get you there!"
"Hmm."
"You should leave now. At least to avoid whoever would want to get on your tail again. Their next voyage shouldn’t be too far anyways!"
The old man advised Lucian whose cold eyes were currently flickering, thinking of several different possibilities.
Turning around to leave, he tossed a black coin at the old man.
"Hahaha! As generous as always, detective. Good luck on your investigation!"
The old man’s voice beca elated upon receiving the black coin with slight gold inscriptions. In this manner, he once again resembles a beggar. One that had gotten a fortune.
Lucian walked away from the alley, out of the slums and out of the city itself. He needed to get to Harbour city before sunrise.
On his way out, he got a bike, speeding his way towards his destination.
....
Arriving at the huge entrance of Harbour city which was several levels lower when compared to Crane city.
It was understandable considering that their purposes were different. One had been built to serve as the comrcial heart of the planet. Crane city easily fit into the top 20 comrcial hubs in the current human empire.
Lucian didn’t waste anyti sightseeing. This wasn’t the first ti had been to Harbour city, although on official business.
He followed the directions the old beggar had given him, managing to locate the shop with its na, Capsized Ships, written boldly on it.
Looking at the big entrance, Lucian had to say, calling it just a shop was rather insulting to how big the place was and to the scale of work going on inside.
Even from where he stood outside, his ears easily picked up the clanging sound of tal against tal.
Walking into the building, he was t with a bustling workshop with people shuffling around the place.
On his left were a couple of boxes he guessed were luggages to be transported which were being moved to a huge back door.
On his right was more of a work shop area, where several workers were working on ship body parts, both dostic and space vesseles.
Further down on the right was another workshop where they were working on several ships.
’Hmm? Why waste their ti?’
Lucian thought, watching as they all moved around working on what happened to be wrecked ships. As soone with an advanced and prestigious background, the Zexrers, the whole ship should just be scrapped.
But he watched on for minutes and observed how they worked, his curiosity stirred and surprise appeared on his face seeing them make visible progress.
’It’s a little rough and dangerous, but it works!’
Lucian thought, seeing them work.
He had been here for a while now and yet no one had eveb noticed him. They were all imrsed in their works and Lucian who was currently under disguise had been suppressing his presence to a barely noticeable state.
Finally, one of their workers happened to sight the stranger who wasn’t part of them and just stood watching their ship repair team work.
’Seems like they picked that na for a reason after all–’
"What can we help you with, sir?"
Lucian’s thoughts were interrupted by the words of the staff who had seen him a while ago.
"Hmm. I need a way to get off-world!"
Lucian said and watched as the expression on the man’s beca slightly dark as he said with a hard smile.
"You must have gotten the wrong place. We only transport goods and fix ships. We don’t transport humans, it’s against the rules."
The man politely explained to Lucian who was unmoved by his words.
When he was done and was about to ask him to leave if he had nothing else to do, Lucian threw him sothing, catching him off guard as he hurriedly caught the object in his hand.
Opening up his closed fist, he saw a scrunched up piece of paper and looked up at Lucian.
’Seems like this one is up for trouble’
"What is this?"
"Open it up"
Opening the paper, the man’s expression changed as he read through its content.
"You’re from the old man. You should have said so brother. Co, co, let take you to a proper place!"
The man said warming up to him almost instantly as he pulled Lucian closer and wrapped his arms around his shoulder, taking them away from the workshop.
He just didn’t notice the cold look and hint of disgust that appeared on his face when he did that.
When they got into a space more suited for conversations, the man asked,
"To what die we owe a vist from the old man’s guest?"
"Call Rishan, and I want to go off world."
Lucian said to the man with the sa stoic expression.
"You already said so, but where do you want to go?"
"Section k42. He said you would be able to get to planet C6 at least."
Lucian repeated what the old man had told him.
The other man, hearing those words, sighed deeply.
"Sorry, but we can’t get you that far. The farthest we can go is C3 and even that’s a risk!"
"What do you an?"
Lucian asked, noticing the tenseness in his voice.
"If you know anything about where you’re going, then you should know that section k42 has never been really safe, but recently there have been a series of unclear happenings there and mysterious disappearances of late."
"Our last crew that went out to C6 stopper contact about a month ago and we pretty muvh managed to verify their deaths!"
The man said with a troubled expression.
’Well, isn’t this just wonderful?’
Lucian thought, wanting to press on with his mission as quickly as possible.
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