He led us off the landing platform and into a tunnel that had a road on the ground and some sort of plexi glass surrounding it, showing us an unobstructed view of space in every direction.

"Hoo, that's cool," I whispered as I looked around, enjoying the view of space as we sped along the tunnel.

All too soon, we reached the other side and entered into an intersection that the guy blew through continuing down the road. We passed through two more of those until he finally turned left and entered a new tunnel with an unobstructed view of space. This instantly sucked me back into admiring all the twinkling stars as I mused at how beautiful it was. I was quickly pulled out of my musing when the guy announced.

"Welcome to 4D or, if you like, 4th Dumping Yard." he waved one of his hands in fanfare as he announced this.

I looked into the yard as he drove in, and saw dozens of ships parked on landing zones. Many had stuff piled up around and under them, as if he had been pulling them apart or installing new stuff into them. He didn't stop until we had reached the very back of the yard. Nestled away in the corner behind a battle cruiser that looked more like scrap than ship, sat the damaged frigate, somehow still looking regal and majestic. He slowed and stopped the flat bed in front of the frigate, and the three of us got off and started walking towards the ship.

"This is the ship of your dreams, trust me, it is an Ancient Frigate Class ship that needs a little fixing up, and the interesting bit about its history is that it is part of the pseudo Lost series, meaning it was modelled after the legendary Lost Series of ten ships."

He grinned at me and then gave me a knowing look like owning this ship would be some kind of badge of honour or something. Moments later, when I didn't bite whatever he was trying to wag at me, he started talking again after coughing politely.

"In the back you have a landing zone for up to two small crafts, like drop-ships for instance, moving forward from there is a large cargo hold, for resupplying other ships in the fleet, or merchant work if you want to come in with big teeth. If you then go a floor up, you will have the eco habitat, where you can grow vegetables and fruit or even herbs if you like. Ahead of that is the housing habitat, with kitchen, mess hall, bathrooms, entertainment. This one even has a conference room in there. If you then go up another floor, you will find the manufacturing plant, it has an industrial grade fabricator. I don't know why the pencil pushers didn't take that, but that is a win for you, right?

He chuckled softly at his own small joke, but I didn't get it, I was a little more focused on looking over the ship, including eyeing that huge hole in its side. I guess my lack of response encouraged him to continue.

"Uh, behind that towards the back of the ship is engineering with the engines, life support, water treatment plant and waste management. However, in front of the manufacturing plant is the weapons systems. There is a sweet array of weapons controls systems in there for three different kinds of weapons. You have the laser defence grid, the close range small ships fire guns, and the ones I like to call the wow guns, the long range missile launchers. I have fiddled with those a bit, they have some serious and accurate range on them. Uh, then up one more floor is the bridge with a dedicated life support system for that floor, behind the bridge is the officers quarters. However, there is a peculiar bit on that floor the ship is bigger than the inside suggests, so there might be a hidden compartment in there somewhere, but I could never find it."

He turned to look at me and waited for a few moments before glancing at the ship. He was trying to gauge how much it was worth or how much I would pay for it before turning to look at me.

"I could part with this fine ship, undoubtedly, the ship of your dreams for, say, two hundred thousand credits?"

I winced, I did not have that kind of money, but I was saved from turning away or trying to start haggling by Brendan jumping in and yelling at the man.

"Are you out of your damn mind! This is a frigate, not a cruiser! And it has a huge hole in its side, your talking about shit that is most likely broken and trashed, assuming all its pieces are even still in there, and it would all take some serious money and work just to get it back in order, there is no way this piece of scrap metal is worth two hundred thousand credits!"

"Alright, alright, keep your hair on, I can go down to one hundred and fifty thousand, but I assure you everything I have told you about is in there and the price is a good one for this kind of ship, it's a pseudo lost series, you have to expect to pay a little for the brand my friend."

I was already considering calling Zeo and telling her to come back and pick us up because there was no way I was going to be able to afford this ship. I had begun to turn away when I heard Brendan again.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"See, look you have offended our Flight Captain, she is offended by your outrageous price, who cares if it is branded, it's just scrap metal sitting here, and you have been trying to get rid of it for at least decades, now it's in the way of your newest purchase, and you can't even offer us a reasonable price on this scrap metal, that might not even have the juice to actually fly out of here!"

I noticed the man wince and quickly glance at the engine area of the ship that looked like it had been hit by something that had created that big hole in the side of the ship.

"Alright, you are driving a really hard wedge into my bottom line, I can not go below ninety thousand, otherwise I will be taking a loss, and I would rather it rot there than take a loss."

I quickly raised my hand to keep Brendan from saying anything else as I turned to eye the man that was now red in the face and glaring daggers at Brendan.

"Fine, I will take it for ninety thousand credits." I stated simply before turning to look at the ship again.

He still looked slightly pissed, but I could have sworn I saw a slight smirk as he turned and walked back towards the flat bed, he suddenly shouted over his shoulder.

"I'll get started on the paperwork while you take a look around your new, mostly used ship."

After the man was gone, I turned to look at Brendan and gave him the 'what the hell' face.

"What?"

"What? You what? Explain all that nonsense."

"Eeh? Uh, well, you see the frigate is heavily damaged. While a scrapyard salesman can never lie in the process of selling a ship, they also don't have to tell you the entire truth. For instance, the eco habitat is in there and everything he said about it is true. You could grow vegetables in that room if you wanted to, but if we walked inside, we might see that all the tanks have cracks in the glass. And they leak like a sieve, unable to hold water, which turns the entire thing into useless equipment. That is assuming it's hydroponics based, it could be aeroponics based or even pillow based. Either way, if it's damaged, then we would have to rip the entire thing out and replace it with stuff printed off the fabricator while in zero g. Not to mention the 'Pencil pushers' that he mentioned left the industrial Fabricator behind, those things are very expensive. The only reason to leave it behind is if it's broken, and it would cost a hefty price tag to fix it."

"So what you're telling me is I just bought a money pit, and I am about to burn more money to get it into working order?" I groaned.

"Yea, pretty much" he replied as he smiled at me.

"Why are you smiling? How is this good news?" I asked as I looked over my shoulder at the man standing by the flat bed looking at a glass screen.

"This is good, because I am from a clan that is known for its engineering prowess… among other things, of course."

"Of course" I parroted as I watched him for more details.

He sighed and rolled his eyes before pointing at the bag on his back and continued speaking.

"I carry a portable parts fabricator, ya know for field repairs of armour or weapons, but I do have a lot of licences so I could, if needed, use it to fix a fabricator, or build one so I can use it to print the bigger pieces that I need."

I slowly grinned as I looked him over in a new light. He grinned back, and then we both glanced back at the man before I had to ask.

"How badly did I get ripped off by agreeing to that ninety price tag?"

"Ha! You stole the damn ship. It is honestly worth the two hundred thousand he asked for because that is the price tag for a broken industrial fabricator. Unless it is slagged, then it's worth nothing. Oh, this might be harder to fix than I thought. Well, I won't know until I get in there and look."

He slowly started to frown as I watched the cogs turn in his head as he tried to work it out. However, after a few moments, he continued.

"He was throwing the ship away if I'm being honest, even if the fabricator is slagged before I started complaining, the only way the Ship would actually be worth a low price like ninety thousand is…" He trailed off as he narrowed his eyes at the ship.

"Is what?" I prompted as I started to feel nervous about this purchase. I looked between him and the ship and back again.

"Oh, uh, if everything in the ship is slagged to the point that we would have to rip it all out, reprocess it and turn it into resources for the fabricator, I would then have to rebuild everything. If that is the case, then it would be cheaper to just buy a brand-new frigate."

"Okay, I have everything crossed in hopes that's not it."

"You have what?" He asked with a look of confusion on his face.

"Oh, uh, it's a metaphor from my planet, it is a way to show or say that you are hoping for the best or really hoping for it."

"Oh, well yes, cross every inch of you then, though I am not sure if that is even physically possible for our race."

"It's a metaphor, Brendan, I'm not going to actually do it."

"Yea, sure, I believe you."

I glared at him before turning my head to see the man was walking back towards us. I turned to face him so I could see what he had for me and to alert Brendan that he was coming back. As he reached us, he flicked his finger from himself to me, and a ping went off on my HUD as I received a contract.

"Here is the bill of sale, attached to the contract, that states you are the new owner of this civilian Ancient Frigate Class ship. You take ownership and responsibility for the ship and everything inside of it. This last little bit down here states that you have twenty-four hours to vacate the landing zone or owe me, the owner of this landing zone, two thousand credits for another twenty-four hours. Please sign and transfer the credits"

I signed it and sent it back to him along with the ninety thousand credits. He bowed slightly and said "have a nice day" before turning and walking off towards his flat bed. Brendan and I turned back to the newly purchased ship and let out sighs.

"Now to get it into space where we don't owe anyone any money before I have a new debt to pay… I wonder if… status"

Name: Kenna Rowan Mackenzie

Clan: Mackenzie

Clan rank: Solar Baron

Military Rank: Flight Captain

Military Position: Captain of The Ice Hound. Frigate Class Ship

Galactic Credits: 1,761

Class: Void Pilot

Guild: Blossoming Terranova

Guild Position: Guild Mistress

Guild Level: 3

"What the hells The Ice Hound?" I asked in confusion.

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