[b]Persephone station
Approach vector[/b]

MSV [i]Friedrich Lochland[/i] slowly drifted into one of Persephone station’s cavernous docking bays, inching along on thrusters only. It’s GDC engine was shut down in order to not rip the station apart with massive gravitational forces. Usually it was more convenient to assume orbit and simply shuttle personnel back and forth to the station, or moor at one of the far out docking spars, only requiring reduced power to the GDC rather than a full shutdown. But a multi day long stay involving significant maintenance and cargo loading required nothing less than a docking bay, and thus a full shutdown.

MSV was perhaps a misleading prefix for the [i]Friedrich Lochland[/i]. It was indeed registered with the Commonwealth Ministry of Commerce as a “Merchant Space Vessel”, but it was considerably faster and better armed than most ships of the same designation. [i]Friedrich Lochland[/i] was in fact a decommissioned Unyielding class heavy cruiser, purchased and refurbished from the scrapyards above Bravia. Formerly named RCNS [i]Impatient[/i], the vessel’s original hull was over a hundred years old, and it had been mothballed for 50 years before being refurbished and renamed. The Unyielding class predated Commonwealth positron technology, so its turrets were less potent ionized particle cannons. Combined with the removal of its axial weapons, it was cleared for civilian ownership and operations, but it was still very much a warship. Just a very, very old one.

The expense of purchasing and maintaining such a vessel massively exceeded the costs of a more traditional freighter, but the [i]Friedrich Lochland[/i]’s captain had come to possess it under some interesting circumstances. The captain himself was an interesting man, engaged in all sorts of interesting business. His name...was also Friedrich Lochland. Lochland was a bit of everything; innocent cargo hauler when it suited him, smuggler and gun for hire most of the time. He occasionally took passengers as well; there wasn’t much of a market for high security high discretion personal transport, but those few who needed the service tended to pay well.

Lochland prowled around the bridge, deep within his ship’s armoured bulk. He was a male Vit’azny, a touch over 70. He wasn’t tall, but he wasn’t short either. His frame was lithe, but well muscled, and he twisted a stylus between his fingers with tremendous dexterity. Shutting down the GDC always left him feeling vulnerable and therefore fidgety. “Status?” he called out.
“We’re about 100 meters out, Captain. Shutting down thrusters and letting station tractors take over,” Vana replied with a touch of exasperation. Vana Sadi was a Yanissan woman who served as Lochland’s pilot and first officer. On most ships, the two roles were filled by seperate people, but Lochland insisted that he was the only one allowed to walk around the bridge looking ‘captain-y’.
“Well I’m sorry that my concern is bothering you Vana,” Lochland replied sarcastically. “We’re just a little exposed here, and starships are very expensive. I think about these things Vana, that’s why I’m Captain and you’re...well, definitely not Captain. With the GDC down, a stray drop of frozen piss could punch a hole through the hull.”
A hologram abruptly flickered on by Lochland’s side. It was avatar of the ship’s Virtual Intelligence. Aside from the blue tinge and occasional flickering, it looked exactly like Lochland, and was commonly referred to as Freddy. “Rude!” it said indignantly. “My armour can take considerably more than that.”
“I’m sorry Freddy,” Lochland replied. “You know I’m just worried about you.”
“Apology accepted Cap. And might I say you’re looking particularly dashing today.”
“Thank you Freddy, but I’m still not going to promote you to first officer, much as I would like too. You’re not quite sentient enough.”

As part of his refits to the ship he’d named after himself, Lochland had wanted to incorporate an AI personality. Commonwealth AI tech was rubbish, so he’d gone to the Valerians. Despite his best efforts, he’d only managed to secure a virtual intelligence, rather than truly thinking software. The Valerians had plenty of the things, but they were highly restricted, used only for the military and research. Freddy was a prettty good substitute though. He could flawlessly immitate organic behaviour, hold conversations, even pass basic sentience tests. His command and control faculties were also impressive, easily handling much of shipboard operations, letting the ship run with a crew of only 80, a shade more than a tenth of its designed crew capacity. But Freddy couldn’t truly think, couldn’t improvise, couldn’t contemplate his own existence and self-improve.

“If you two are done jerking eachother off, we’re docked,” Vana called out from the helm station.
“Excellent,” Lochland said. “Freddy, draw up the usual port duty rotations for the crew, and tell Sully to meet me and Vana at the main airlock. If he’s so picky about parts, he can come with us and pick them out himself. Oh, and you’re in charge until I get back.”

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[b]Persephone station
Main concourse
[/b]
The station was mostly populated by humans, but there were enough aliens scattered throughout the crowds that Lochland and Vana didn’t stand out too much. Sully, unfortunately, was bound to draw a lot of attention whereever he went. Sulnatar was a Szitzu, and he towered head and shoulders over anything else in the crowd. He served as the [i]Friedrich Lochland[/i]’s chief engineer, and he grunted in protest whenever anyone called him Sully, which was all the time. He was coming along on Lochland’s little shopping trip because he was incredibly fussy about the quality of any and all hardware used on the ship, and Lochland was tired of being cussed out when some recent purchase failed to meet Sully’s rigorous standards.

They stopped by a number of shops and stalls full of various high tech looking devices. The storefronts were largely irrelevant; merchants put them up to display the quality of wares, but all their stock was usually kept in cargo bays in the utility levels of the station. The display wares were not necessarily representative of the quality of the actual goods, and most buyers were more interested in raw materials that they could assemble into the desired goods themselves. Sully seemed to know what he was looking for though, and eventually selected a vendor who met his criteria.

Lochland introduced himself and his companions, but then let Vana take over. Lochland was a fast talker and good at securing a deal, but Vana was even better, and she had certain advantages. She and the vendor went at it while Lochland and Sully relegated themselves to the background. After a while, she shook the vendor’s hand and rejoined her companions.

“Well?” Sully asked curtly.
“He’s solid. He agreed to meet us for an inspection later today, and I didn’t pick up any traces of duplicity. The readings on his exotic isotope stocks he’s got on display are accurate too,” Vana replied.
“Great. We’ll work on pricing if his goods pass inspection. You got what you needed for your pheromone thingy?“
“Yes. His sweaty palms were a bonus, I expect he’ll negotiate very reasonably this afternoon.”

Vana had two main advantages in most negotiations. One she was born with; a trickle of telepathy, just enough to read surface thoughts and emotions, but fortunately for her, not enough to have been snapped up by Toolbox, as most Yanissan psintegrae were. The other advantage, she’d picked up later. In the Yanissan Principalities, genetic modification was the norm rather than the exception. One very popular modification allowed pheromone manipulation, and was so widespread that anyone without it (or at least countermeasures) would be hopelessly disadvantaged in all social and business settings. The tech was originally tailored to Yanissan physiology, but further modification could let it adapt to alien biologies, even individual preferences. The more contact the user had with the target, the better the results. Vana now had a solid sample of the vendor’s biochemistry; next time she spoke to him, the man would find her absolutely irresistible. Unless he didn’t happen to like women; then they were pretty much hosed.

“Alright, let’s get some lunch,” Lochland began leading them towards a restaurant. “I’ll see if we can take care of our other business while we’re at it.”
As luck would have it, the eatery they chose was already playing host to some of those telepathic tentacle balls that Lochland had encountered a few times before, Zedic or Zecidic or something. In comparison, Sully looked distinctly normal, and the three of them were able to grab a table and order food with minimum fuss. Lochland pinged their contact on the station, and settled down to enjoy a hearty meal while they waited.