“Don’t worry baby, I still love ya,” Jocasta said patting the console fondly and accidentally inducing a slight wobble in their approach vector from which she quickly recovered. Cygi stuck out her tongue, flickered into a metallic outfit with a glowing red eye, saluted and disappeared. To many people in the galaxy AI was a dirty word. It conjured up phrases like ‘the Zin Zhou disaster’,’ the Silicon War’ and ‘Nebula Nine’. Although basic computer assistants were ubiquitous, AI which approached self-awareness were feared, shunned, and illegal anywhere that had enough government to have laws. That was an increasingly small section of the galaxy these days. Certainly plenty of people would be willing to blast the Grasshopper out of space if they knew about her second officers silicon heart. Perhaps Dirk shared this prejudice, or perhaps he just found Cygi annoying.

 

“A word of advice with Cygi, just make sure whatever you do you don’t…”

“Vessel Grasshopper you are cleared for approach,” a voice said through the comms. Obidently a glowing golden flight path projected onto the view screen. Jocasta made several small adjustments and the ship settled into the designated trajectory.

 

“Whoa,” Jocasta breathed as they came up over the horizon on Baylan’s only city, also creatively named Baylan. Subconsciously she had expected the kind of run down squalor that passed for civilization on most of the outworlds, but for once she was presently surprised. A geodesic dome spanned a crater  a dozen kilometers in width. It was made of bright, transparent, armorcrys that stretched out above a cerulean sea dotted with purplish islands. Here and there sail craft could be seen skipping across the surface of the water. It stood out against the stark lunar surface like a jewel among dingy pebbles.

 

“I didn’t expect it to be so…”

 

“Expensive?” Dirk asked, peering down at the dome.

“I was going to go with nice,” Jocasta admitted. The Grasshopper curved down towards landing area, a smaller, shallower crater that intersected the first like a weighted ven diagram. Lights flared on its rim, guiding the little corvette over the lip. Rather than another dome, hangars had been fared into the rock of the crater wall with blast doors which had been styled to look like timber, though the sensors reported them as solid steel.

 

“One of the Uranium Shieks built this place as a private harem,” Dirk said. Jocasta wasn’t entirely sure if he was reading a data feed from someplace inside that helmet of his. Why hadn’t she thought to hack that? She must be getting soft. Maybe Cygi would be interested in taking a shot seeing she seemed to be in a bit of a mood.

 

“Supposedly he had a different harem girl for every island,” Dirk continued. Jocasta snorted in amusement.

 

“That is a lot of disappointed women in one place,” she remarked as she fluffed the forward thrusters and set the ship down on the pad with a gentle thump. The doors began to cycle closed and air began to fill the chamber with a pressurized hiss.

“That’s what the Orion Pirates thought after the Uranium Sheiks lost control of Cabah and Sil,” Dirk continued. Jocasta cocked an eyebrow interested inspite of herself. Such shifts in power were common and usually portended violence and misery for everyone involved.

 

“So they snatched up all the girls?” Jocasta prompted, Dirk shook his head, his helmet swiveling back and forth.

 

“Apparently the harem had been so disappointed with the Sheik’s lack of attention that they had decided to start stockpiling guns. When the pirates broke down the doors they all acted like it was party time until the pirates dropped their britches, then they shot the lot of them.” Dirk concluded. Jocasta swiveled in her chair and looked at him askance, wondering if he were joking, but of course his armored face gave away nothing.

 

It took perhaps half an hour to disembark and find their way along a magnificent concourse to the main docks. Literal water docks rather than space docks. There were apparently no prohibitions on weaponry, thought he place seemed peaceful enough. The dome had been treated so that it was invisible from the underside affording a view out at the fantastic brown purple mass of the gas giant. Reflected light from the great gas ball provided all the light and radiation the place needed apparently. There was a large map made of semi-precious stones laid into the stonework before the docks showing each of the islands. Although nothing was visible to the naked eye, subtle public information software provided information on each to any standard scanner. Jocasta glanced at Dirk.

“Well I guess you won’t meet the dress code for the nude beach,” she teased.