It had taken me a few hours stumbling around, but I finally found the guild mess hall. Inside was bustling with people, but I managed to quickly find a seat and drop into it. I glanced at the table as I dropped my game card onto it, noticing it wasn't black anymore, but my attention had been quickly stolen by the holographic food all over the table. It looked so good, and my stomach was growling. It took me a few more minutes to work out how to get the food. Turns out by touching a plate would cause it to vanish, sending the order to the kitchen. A few minutes later, a waiter would come out and place the plate of actual food down in front of you. I was super excited but winced when five credits vanished from my account, I was feeling the pinch being down to 756 credits. I looked up at the nearby wall, feeling a little dejected and wondering how I was going to be able to afford to get the frigate on its feet. Let alone how I was going to protect my Solar System now. The nearby wall had caught my attention because on it was a holographic display that a camera on the outside of the Orbital Station Base was currently filming. It was showing a close up of the dry docks, allowing me to see my frigate sitting in dock 3. I could also clearly see the huge hole in it, but what had kept my attention on that display and left my food forgotten was I could see panels being removed from around the hole in the ship. I slowly stood up as I asked.
"What the hell are they doing to the frigate?"
I had not noticed the man sitting next to me, who was wearing overalls and had grease in his ginger hair that looked like a wet mop was on his head, until he spoke.
"Oh, Clara wanted us to take off the damaged pieces around that nasty hole, she wants to analyse them because it's made of some sort of alloy that she doesn't recognise and doesn't want to just slap steel or something onto the side of the ship when whatever it's currently made out of is far superior."
"That makes sense." I mumbled as I slowly sat back down into my seat.
My attention slowly drifted back to the food, lured there by the delicious smell. Moments later, I was digging in, enjoying the warm meat that happened to be the freshest and most delicious I had ever tasted. It practically fell apart on my tongue and the juices flowed freely, I will not lie, I moaned when I first tasted it. The worker next to me chuckled when he heard me.
"First time? Everyone moans the first time, the food up here is amazing. I have a buddy who works in the eco lab, he told me they purchased the licence for this sort of paste that they can produce down there. Then they bring it up here and put it into the food processor in the kitchen, and it literally prints out food. He then waved his hand over the holographic images of the food in front of us, before continuing. "And that is how all this ends up on our table at the perfect temperature, and tasting like it belongs on the tables of gods." he chuckled again before turning back to his meal.
I nodded my head having to agree with him, this was very good food, and I was convinced top-rated chefs across the Earth would be eating their hats in envy. I was halfway through my plate and starting to feel stuffed when someone poked my on the shoulder.
"Lady Kenna?"
I turned around to see a young girl no more than ten standing behind me, looking a little scared as if I was about to eat her and simply poking my shoulder had taken all of her courage.
"Uh, yes?" I asked.
"Eek, uh, Lady Clara has wanted me to ask you, to come to the dry docks as soon as possible please" she replied.
I nodded my head as I said, "I will be there shortly". The young girl nodded her head and fled the room as fast as she could, leaving me to turn back to the man I presumed worked on the dock and ask him the burning questions I suddenly had.
"The hell is a ten-year-old doing delivering messages? Why isn't she in school?"
"We don't have a school up here yet, and getting the ten to fifteen-year-old children to run messages gets them a little bit of credits to bring home to their families, ya know, because buying food to eat is not the cheapest at the moment, this guild mess hall is cheap, but it is for guild members only, and there is not enough room in the guild for entire families yet, there are other reasons of course, mostly people claim it's just to give them something to do. Those that are older than fifteen take on actual jobs and stuff, it's a big city out there and lots needs to be built. Plus, you have all the back groundwork, like kitchen staff and those down in eco that make the stuff the kitchen staff needs to cook. The waiter that brought you food just now was sixteen." he slowly turned to look at me as if to ask if I really wanted to know this or if I should be getting down to the dock and stop wasting Clara's time, from the look on his face I knew which one he wanted me to pick, so I grabbed the silver metallic game card that used to be my void card and slowly stood up nodding my head at the man.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"Right, well, I guess I will see you around." I said as I turned and left. I walked out the guild mess hall and towards the middle of the guild hall, where the elevators were located. I jumped in the elevator and descended to the ground floor before exiting the guild tower and turning in the direction of the docks, I was about to start walking when I noticed a certain car sitting in a parking bay nearby and my mouth fell open.
"No, fucking way!" how the hell did you get up here?" I squealed in delight as I rushed over to my car. I ran my fingers slowly over the door, looking for the slight dent that the car had gotten on my second day in America, it wasn't my fault, an ass ran a red light and clipped me. I took the car to a garage, but there was this tiny dent that they just couldn't get out for some reason, I knew they were lying or being lazy. I found it moments later and quickly pulled the handle of the car only to find it locked.
"Son of a bitch" I screamed in my head in frustration. I was about to turn my attention to my HUD and ask my father if he knew where the keys to the car were when someone interrupted me.
"Hey! Get away from that car before I have to drag you down to the police station!"
I turned to see a man in what looked like an Australian Police Officer uniform, my mouth fell open as I stared at him. He was walking across the street towards me with one hand resting on the taser that was holstered on his belt. I quickly raised my hands to show him I was no threat.
"It's my car." I said nervously as I kept eyeing the taser on his hip.
"Likely story, where are your keys and ID then?"
I frowned as I had no idea where my keys were and what good was a driver's licence up here where there were no road rules and regulations. I quickly glanced at my HUD and searched for my father's name on the call list and mentally clicked to call him.
"Kenna? What do I owe for the pleasure of your call today?" my father asked as he answered. I could see the grin on his face, but it was quickly wiped off when I responded.
"Cop! There is an Australian cop! Why is there an Australian cop? And more importantly, why is he telling me to get away from my car? And where are the keys? Do we have drivers licences up here yet?" I said it all in a rush and wasn't entirely sure it was coherent.
"Wow, slow down, haha, there are a fair few people from around earth up here now, and they come from all sorts of professions, It's honestly not that surprising that a police officer would end up on the station, as for the keys to your car, well I left them in the lock box, in the usual spot you use when going scuba diving." I instantly glanced towards the rear of my car and considered moving towards it, but the cop was making me really nervous with his grip on that taser tightening.
"And the ID?" I prompted as my eyes locked back onto the cop who was a few feet away from me now.
"Yes, please show it to me now" he stated as I saw the taser move slightly in its holster.
"Oh, we have resorted to displaying a modified version of our status, you can modify it by thinking about what you want displayed as you open it." my father said as he glanced over his shoulder then smiled and waved to me before continuing. "I have to get back to work, I am really sorry Kenna, I will call you soon." he then vanished, and I quickly thought about showing him a small bit of my status screen before he shot me with the taser which he had slid halfway out of its holster.
Name: Kenna Rowan Mackenzie
Clan: Mackenzie
Clan rank: Solar Baron
Military Rank: Discharged Flight Captain
Military Position: Discharged Civilian
Class: Void Pilot
Guild: Blossoming Terranova
Guild Position: Guild Mistress
I observed the status screen and was thinking about removing more as the military bit was clearly no longer needed. My thought processes were interrupted by the sound of him slamming the taser back into the holster and snapping to attention as he saluted me for a few moments, before dropping it as he blushed slightly.
"Sorry, old habits, I used to be in the Military back on earth. It's nice to meet the Lady in charge of all this, though."
"Right, uh, the keys are in a lock box on the car… uh, if you don't mind me asking, why are you wearing an Australian Police Officer uniform?" I said slowly as I took a step away from him.
"To be honest, I'm not really sure, I mean I am Australian, and I was a soldier, but my clan leader called in some sort of favour, I was then discharged from the Military and told by my clan to get on a plane that flew us to England from there we all were shuttled up here, then once I got here and heard about it, it became an instant dream to start my own guild and earn credits by forming companies with my army buddies to run the war zones in the game, but a guild hall is expensive and so is uplink time, so instead I joined the station's police force so I could save up the credits needed to buy the guild hall, and as for the uniform, the advanced tech locker gave it to me."
"Right, well, good luck with all that" I said as I quickly retrieved the lockbox from its hiding spot and used the key fob to unlocked the car. I tossed the lockbox on the back seat and was about to get into the driver's seat when the police officer stopped me.
"Uh, apologies but I can't let you drive, my squad left me here to monitor the car while they ran to get dinner, we are meant to keep the vehicle secure and escort the owner across the city, it's the chief of polices orders. They shouldn't be too long" he stated nervously.
I let out a groan of annoyance as I slammed the door shut and leant against the side of the bonnet of my car as I stared at him. It was then I noticed his eyes shift slightly to the left like he was looking at his HUD, causing me to realise he had probably been in contact with his squad the entire time. I had been too focused on the taser to notice.
If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.