---Next Day---
Sitting down for breakfast with my family and our guests, I suggested heading to the Grakkan Empire for our two-week vacation. Asking everyone for their opinion, aside from Loki, no one had any complaints about visiting a new region of space. Rubbing her hands together enthusiastically, Samus suggested taking a few jobs while we were in the region, much to Roxanne’s delight. Curious to know why Samus was so energetic about it, Clarice and Deirdre inquired if there was sothing special about our destination.
“While I have never visited the region personally, word is that region of space is packed with high bounty targets. Since the region is politically unstable, nations are more focused on border protection than pirate elimination. While the Grakkan Empire does have a small pirate-hunting fleet, it mostly outsources the work to the rcenary Association.”, Samus explained, grinning like a bandit. “All that said, we will be fighting an uphill battle as bounty hunters. rcenaries treat us like shit because they can be forced into temporary military service while we cannot.”
“Other than butting heads with local rcenaries, I am not seeing a downside here. Why haven’t more bounty hunters relocated there? Surely there must be a catch you are leaving out.”, Angelica remarked, sipping on her coffee.
Nodding her head in confirmation, Samus took a bite of French toast before continuing to speak.
“Getting to the Grakkan Empire is not easy; it is quite far from this region of the universe. To get there, ships have only two options. First, a ship can pay an exorbitantly high transit fee to use an Interstellar Gate. The cost is two billion credits per use, but it is the sa price no matter where you are going.”, Samus said, taking a sip of orange juice. “Second, they could use a Blink or Folding drive, but only a handful of people have them. To my knowledge, Victor is the only person with an entire fleet of vessels equipped with them. Outside of his organization, the few that do exist were extracted from the wreckages of ancient vessels.”
“The transit is fucking two billion credits!?”, Bo-Katan gasped, choking on so water. “Jeez, I knew the fees were ridiculous, but that is just insane.”
“To be fair, these are highly advanced ancient machines we are talking about. Maintenance, operation, and replacent parts probably cost sowhere in the quadrillions of credits.”, Ahsoka asserted. “Two billion is a very reasonable price, all things considered.”
“Uh… Not to sound ignorant, but what exactly are Interstellar Gates? I have never heard of artifacts like that before.”, Ionica said, hesitantly fishing for additional information.
Pulling up a photo of the device on her tablet, Ahsoka slid it in front of her and began to explain how it worked. To start with, each inhabited region of space had four to six of these strange devices sowhere along the border with Deep Intergalactic Space. Each device had a unique identifier that allowed other gates to dial them, which would establish a quantum entanglent link between the two gates. Once the connection stabilized, an interdinsional bridge would form, allowing instant travel between the two points.
“I see, it sounds very similar to what Victor is trying to implent within the Imperium of Man.”, Ionica remarked, glancing over at . “Will the Imperium have to face such steep maintenance costs to maintain your proposed system? It is not my place to tell my husband what to do, but if the cost is high, I think we should look at other alternatives.”
“If you feel I am doing sothing questionable or wrong, do not hesitate to point it out to . I may be a Primarch, but I am still human at my core.”, I chuckled, giving her a reassuring nod. “As for your question, no, the Imperial people will not have to foot an expensive bill. My design includes built-in auto repair functions that will require no external assistance to keep things running. As the Emperor’s grandson, I have a moral obligation to ensure that taxes are spent wisely.”
“Excuse … Can I make a request for our vacation place?”, my adoptive Eldar daughter Nuelalla spoke up, wanting to return to our original topic. “If it is not too much trouble… May we go sowhere that has dolphins? I want to swim with them really badly.”
Clutching her stuffed animal tightly, Nuelalla looked down at her plate as everyone glanced over at her. Elated that she had gathered the courage to speak up, Amallyn and Mylene imdiately began showering the young girl with praises. Turning their eyes toward , everyone waited for to answer my daughter.
“If my daughter wishes to swim with dolphins, I will make that happen.”, I swore, with a content smile. “Since we are all in agreent, let’s see what options are available to us.”
Casting my screen to the hologram projector at the center of the table, I brought up a travel website and went to the page dedicated to the Grakkan Empire. Tapping on the filtering option, the first thing I checked was the requirent that aquatic animals be present. Tossing in a few other requirents, like a private beach, shopping venues, and a spa, the ten thousand-plus listings dropped to just fifty.
“Oh, that one there has a hot spring!”, Loki gasped, pointing to a lavishly equipped island. “That is where we should go.”
“I thought you were against going on vacation- “, Balder began to say, before she delivered a strong backhand to his face.
“I am entitled to change my mind, jackass.”, Loki huffed as he and his chair fell to the ground.
Snickering uncontrollably, Cegorach and Hoac smacked the table repeatedly, trying to hold in their laughter. Picking himself back up, Balder told them to shut it because it was not that funny. Assuring him that it was, they assured him that it was hilarious because he never fought back.
“To be honest with you, Balder used to fight back when we were children. After getting his ass handed to him several dozen tis, he gave up and has endured it since then.”, Loki arrogantly proclaid, glancing at . “You should learn from my brother and heed my words better.”
“How about no.”, I stated, rejecting her suggestion. “As for your vacation suggestion, I see nothing wrong with it. Thoughts?”
“Ahem… It may be wise to pick a location with multiple residences. Our guests will probably enjoy so privacy from us so they can relax and unwind.”, one of the concubines recomnded.
Grateful to them for keeping the reasoning age appropriate, I agreed with her statent. Checking the box for multi-family, the listings dropped to ten. Tossing the first five out, as they were already booked up, I focused on a listing where the main residence was underwater.
“Oh my, is the ho built into the reef? That looks amazing!”, Isha comnted. “I am for going there.”
“We will be there just as the sea turtles will be coming in to nest.”, Olivia pointed out, motioning to a footnote beneath a picture.
“I think it is safe to say that we are all onboard with going there.”, Lucoa giggled as everyone collectively nodded their heads.
Without our destination picked, I went ahead and booked us the private island for two weeks. As the staff were currently cleaning up after the last guest, the soonest we would be able to get in was tomorrow at noon local ti. Seeing no issue with that, I approved the booking and almost instantly received the details in my inbox.
“Since we have so ti to kill before check-in, how about we check out a nearby star system.”, I said, bringing my screen back to . ‘Oh! The vacation world is five systems away from the Termaine star system. If I rember correctly, that is where Reborn as a Space rcenary started. Let’s start our adventure in the Grakkan Empire there and nab up so juicy bounties.’
Sending the star system’s coordinates to Luxion, he charted us a course and fired up the Folding Drive.
---Termaine System, Grakkan Empire---
Popping into the star system near Termaine II, we imdiately received a hail from the mining operation in orbit over the gas giant. Answering their call with a smile, the radio operator began to speak until he set eyes upon . Turning pale as a ghost, his once confident voice turned into a sopping ss.
“Are you pirates!? Please let us go!! We are just a simple mining operation.”, he wailed. “I have a wife and four children back ho. Have rcy on us!”
“Haha, no, we are not pirates. My na is Primarch Victor von Stark of the Imperium of Man; my apologies for startling you with our surprise arrival.”, I said.
“Oh… I see.”, he sighed, before realizing what I said. “Wait, you are from the Imperium of Man?! How in the hell did you get out here?”
“Folding drive.”, I answered honestly.
Puckering his lips in shock, he thanked for taking his call before abruptly hanging up. Shrugging off his reaction, I guided the city-ship toward the Space Station Termaine Pri.
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