Flying around, spinning in place with his head in the same location, Mark had a sudden thought
"Won't it be hard to get the Sparrow into a public port with it looking like that?"
In his view were the Sparrow, it was anchored by a massive crane that clutched down on the mid-section of the craft while a swarm of drones flew back and forth with parts and material and remolded it, by now most of the front end internals had finished being refit and repaired and the little one had begun mounting the cockpit plating.
According to Mark's whim the front end plating had been modeled to "Add teeth to the frontal plating, make it look like a predator" which had turned out much more menacing looking than he had expected, the little one had turned the entire front end into set or large jaws filled with overlapping jagged teeth that could move independently and split apart to reveal locally shielded hard points
[I have no idea, but I imagine it won't look too much out of place, both modular upgrade packages as well as cosmetic body work is somewhat common on personal ships]
"Right… But I imagine this type of complete refit and remodeling isn't too common, right?"
[No it is not, however once the outer plating have been bolted and welded into place a high frequency scanner placed in very close proximity will be needed to even tell that the remodel isn't just a cosmetic add-on package]
'So as far as anyone can tell, I am now just a car guy that has welded a plastic spoiler to the back end of their beater to make it look better… I can live with that I guess…'
"In that case, it's fine"
[This will work to our advantage as well, people assuming this a cheap cosmetic kit are also likely to assume that the craft will be out of balance due to the added weight and underpowered auxiliary thrusters, when in reality it will be perfectly tuned with added auxiliary thrusters, the secondary drive we are salvaging from this outpost and a pilot callable of perfectly melding with their craft without any physical restrictions or limitations]
"Other than direct starlight, yeah"
[Yes, with the new specifications as well as your skills as a pilot, becoming a high ranking mercenary as planed won't be a problem]
Mark nodded, having gotten his hands on an armed ship and been able to refit it, the two of them had gamed out various scenarios for the future. While living in complete isolation except when Mark needed to feed would limit the chances of anyone finding out how different the two of them were and attracting the wrong kind of attention, it wasn't exactly feasible
Working from there, they had settled on a couple of nonnegotiable needs, first came being physical mobility, being able to dip out of any system where they had attracted too much attention limited the kinds of jobs Mark could work to avoid suspicion
Second came being able to defend themselves, sure walking around armed on a colony wasn't strange and Mark would be reasonably able to overpower most combatants in hands to hands combat, however out in the void it was a different story and flying a highly armed ship from system to system and not using it to earn a living would attract more suspicion
So in the end they had settled on joining the mercenary guild in order to finance weapon and general upgrades for the Sparrow but also to work up a general report with the guild in order to shield themselves from any non-confirmed accusations since one of the most basic principles that allowed the mercenary guild to exist was trust and guarantee none of his personal details would be leaked
'Well, if anything gets caught on tape we would likely still have to flee, but it's better than nothing…'
"...Speaking of fleeing, anything on the scope yet?"
[Negative, so far a total of 46 different vessel sized contacts have been logged on the long range sensors, however none have been heading in our direction much less appear to have noticed our presence]
"Strange… Surely some sort of contact should have been made so far, nothing on the contact net either?"
[Negative, no situation request has arrived from any mining company, while no communication from the outpost have gone out it is still passively monitored]
"So either the company running this outpost have lost it in paperwork or a merger or someone isn't doing their job"
[While ignorance or intentional mismanagement shouldn't be ruled out entirely, there is a 3rd likeliest and far more dire option remaining]
"What's that?"
[General system or sector wide unrest if not outright anarchy]
At the possibility Mark stopped spinning around in place and muttered
"...Surely not"
[Given the information currently available to me without any form of outgoing communications, as well as the political climate 38 years ago at my last connection to the SubNet, it appears the then succession crisis has evolved further. While full on civil war is unlikely, most outer non strategically important systems, such as Creh will be most affected]
"Well, we'll know for sure once the Sparrow is fixed up"
-
As the days passed by idly for Mark the little one finished the remodeling of the Sparrow, only minor tuning of the new secondary drive salvaged from the mining outpost, power distributor and thrusters were left
Mark flew around the Sparrow and looked it over, by now it looked like a large giant whale shark with smoothed out fish like features and a giant maw of interlocking teeth at the front, it had grown slightly in length to make room for the second drive, and now measured 15 meters long, 6 meters high, and 8 meters wide
"It's looking good, thanks for your hard work"
[Thank you, Mark I will be finished in… Unidentified crafts are approaching]
"How far are they out?"
[8 minutes at the most, what shall we do? I can plot a ambush vector on their exit point]
"Hmm… No, scuttle the outpost as planned, we're dipping out before they arrive"
A few moments passed before the front of the Sparrow opened up
[Confirmed, please enter at once]
Mark showed a smile and flew in and boarded the Sparrow, after a moment the cables that connected the Sparrow to the outpost disconnected and the entire outpost powered down as it lost power
[Exit vector plotted, please be mindful that the final tuning have yet to be completed]
Mark nodded and melded his senses with the Sparrow, feeling his connection much smoother than last time he had no problems kicking on the main drive and throttling up the thrusters, igniting the left one first Mark spun the Sparrow around before he kicked on the right thruster and boosted out of the outpost's proximity. Mere moments after the Sparrow left the passive gravity field of the outpost, it lit up from inside as the Gravity Forge sucked the capacitors dry and liquified the entire Ficer array, ensuring all traces of them were permanently deleted, a moment later the entire outpost was cut apart as it violently exploded
-
[5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Brace]
The cockpit lit up as the shields flashed from the FTL exit, a moment later the view Kruban had expected to see didn't come into view he let out a curse
"What the fuck is this!?"
A few moments of stunned silence later, a voice echoed out from communications equipment
[No idea, but it looks like someone touched the place boss]
Kruban clenched his teeth as he watched what should have been an active mining outpost floating around in its newfound form of a slag metal debris field for a few moments before he yelled
"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE!?"
[Boss, your orders?]
After taking a few moments to calm himself, Kruban let out a sigh and spoke
"Alcia?"
[There's nothing on the scope, whoever blew up this place ran away… They're either too far for the sensors or running cold]
"Jeqer?"
[I agree with Alcia, without a large mobilization or a high-powered sensor array we monitor this belt or shift through it either… What do you want to do boss? Should I call the others?]
Kruban let out another sigh and leaned back in his seat, after thinking for a few moments he spoke
"No, gather any and all traces present instead… Give the debris a once over too, we can't risk shaking things up over a single unknown rouge element this close to our day of reckoning"
[Got it]
[Understood, I'll get started with sifting through the debris]
Let out yet another sigh Kruban flicked a switch to repressurize the cockpit after which he opened up his visor and pulled out a Stim-stick and drew a deep breath though it, to outsiders Kruban was nothing but a mid-level pirate that lead his own group of scum and misfits.
'4 years I've played pirate in this backwater system…'
However, in reality he was knight dispatched by the Rulith kingdom that ruled over around a hundred systems including Creh to keep a bare minimum of order while a succession struggle played out
Running around like common enforces would only unite the more unsavory factions that had grown larger in the chaos, thus the was acting like a pirate to siphon information of the other factions as well as cull them if they grew too big. However, by now the succession struggle had just about finished up and Kruban had received word that before long control would be established
'We can't risk blowing our cover for a single rouge element…'
Kruban blew out another plume of smoke before he clicked his tongue and muttered
"Soon we will restore proper order here… You got that, Jeqer, Alcia?"
[Got it boss]
[Understood]