25 Eden: Perkuna Zhiva 2

"Tell me what's so special about the rock that you want to do business with me?"

"What makes you think it is over a rock?" Zhiva snapped.

"Your reaction."

His eyes studied mine for a while. "How much do you know about this Perunian delegation trip from your sources?"

I shrugged.

"Not my business. Perunians are part of the Great Swirl Council members. So what's unusual about them coming for a visit?"

Facts are just facts.

"But you, a space pirate coming in… that's unusual when Eden would have top security given the delegation's arrival," I pointed out.

An arrival of a big shot like General Perkuna and his delegation came with heightened security, including surveillance drones. The Eden authorities did not want a high-profile assassination to occur here.

"Eden…" Zhiva shifted his gaze upon the spires of skyscrapers. "… is an illusion. Worse than Narakan. A damn fucking filthy lie of hypocrisy."

A vague but truthful statement uttered by one with such influence to resort to space piracy. His words hinted at something more than meets the eye.

"Tell me something new." I folded my arms.

"Hah! You are funny. But the business I want to do with you is…" Zhiva fumbled around his coat for something and pulled out a familiar black shiny shard, much to my surprise.

[Identification: Onyx metal alloy]

[Components: Momunofium, Wazarium, Silica Quartzite, Ferrum ore]

[Grading: 0.1% impurities]

Where did he find it in the galactic quadrant?

"Don't worry, I'll not stab you." He mistook my reaction as he offered me the shard to inspect. "There's a place we found. Plenty of these came from a debris field near a pulsar. We don't know what it is. Or how it can be used."

"Looks like onyx," I replied as casually as I could, while taking it from his hand.

I recognized it too well even without my optical implant analyses in my vision. My war cruiser used this special alloy of onyx metal as an exterior armor. All Kamuy ships have that.

The onyx metal armour reduced the effectiveness of sensors to detect us and also allowed us to do a trans-dimensional shift to jump on the enemy unaware. The additional benefit came with its hardness, like those of tightly bounded carbon diamonds.

For a debris field full of onyx metal shards, something must have hit them hard.

"What're you thinking of?" Zhiva asked, disrupting my thoughts.

"Interesting," I replied while pretending to scrutinize it.

My heart beat increased into fast thumps. A debris graveyard of a Kamuy ship - did the rest end up dead too?

"To find out what it is, I need to know where you found it," I replied, trying to sound nonchalant.

I needed the location. Now.

"What for?" Zhiva looked at me with suspicion.

"Are you sure it is a debris field and not some random asteroid splintering into pieces?" I asked to draw away his suspicions. "If I don't know the astro-geological makeup of the space around, what makes you think it's a debris field if you can't even identify it?"

Zhiva rubbed his chin in deep thought, considering my question confirming that there's more he was not telling.

"You know of the Inti system destruction."

I rolled my eyes.

"Who in Eden wouldn't?" I pointed to the signboard floating near the spherical spire of a skyscraper. "Seen the plastered condolences all over Sector 111?"

"Heh. You have a point. But have you heard of the Kamuy planetary system?"

"That name doesn't exist on the interstellar maps," I replied, pretending to be ignorant.

Zhiva leaned against the tree and studied me. "They suffered the same fate as the Inti…"

Yeah, I know. I witnessed the entire incident, but I couldn't tell Zhiva.

"… you might not believe this, but where we found it… is one of our usual hideouts. The debris field wasn't there when we left it alone for a while. Less than a galactic cycle. And to our surprise, we found an entire field of debris, like a fierce battle took place. What's even more surprising…"

I raised my eyebrow at him. Even his story sound too fantastical for me.

"We saw Kamuy old battle cruiser nearby dead in the water. The ones my great grandfather used to share tales with me about. He had old recordings of them. The Kamuy apparently traded with Perunians before we joined the Great Swirl Council."

I sensed where the direction of his statement went.

Deridians also traded with us in the past. They would keep records, analyses, documents of anything sold or got from the Kamuy.

The Deridians link their gem scanners to a central database which held the key information to all known elements, metals and gems. However, we never traded that alloy.

"And what can a Deridian like me do for you?"

"Information on the shard. More of a full analysis regarding the composite elements."

Even if the Deridians scanned the alloy, they won't be able to identify two of the elements fused with it.

Those two elements, Momunofium and Wazarium, are synthetics, a result of highly focused particulate nuclear bombardment technology. The technology originated from Amanogawa.

A cruder method exists but required going near a pulsar, a neutron star. That method cannot achieve 0.1% impurity grade alloy. Maybe 10% but not 0.1%.

A pulsar's blast of radiation pulses may change the number of protons around the nucleus of the element. However, the reality of using a pulsar is like shooting a bullet at a needle at the bottom of the ocean and hoping both fused together.

A long time ago, my experiment with a pulsar to generate the elements to create the alloy yielded a defective 20% impurity in the alloy.

"Mind if I ask a question?"

"You are already asking me one." Zhiva narrowed his eyes.

"Fine, then we don't do—"

"Alright," Zhiva waved his hand. "Just ask away."

"That old battle cruiser - why don't you just board it? See what you can find?" I asked, already knowing the answer - he can't.

"No one can board it because the shields won't go down. It's too near a pulsar. Pulse radiation blasts may interfere with our sensors, which may explain why we noticed the ship."

Of course, the shields won't go down. Whoever left it there allowed the battle cruiser to charge continuously from the rays of the pulsar.

But that didn't explain the debris field because pulse radiation blasts wouldn't blow apart our ships.

While tempted to know more, I knew if I push more, Zhiva would grow suspicious.

"I see. That's a problem."

"That's why I approached you to see if you can analyse this shard. Come to think of it…" Zhiva paused for a moment and then continued, "Deridians have a good relationship with the Nuwans, right?"

I nodded, unaware of where he was going with this question, but my instincts perked up at a bad feeling.

"Ever seen a black Nuwan cruiser, you know, those top of the line cruisers?"

Not good news, since he could refer to my war cruiser.

"Well, Nuwans use them as civilian leisure crafts, so no mandated colors… in fact, it can be as colorful as a rainbow. Why do you ask?"

Yeah, the Nuwan civilians had happily decorated those leisure cruisers to zip around in space for a show of their wealth. I've had seen rainbow colored Nuwan cruiser and even a glowing neon Nuwan cruiser passing by.

Why would a black 'one' be of any difference?

I held the shard out for Zhiva to take, but he shook his hand, refusing to take the shard.

"Someone outran me with that blackened Nuwan ship. Wondered if you saw one around."

His unintentional admission about piloting that damn pirate warship made me bite my lip hard.

"So, why are you after it? Did it identify you?"

The corners of Zhiva's mouth curled up as his eyes wandered to another part of the garden, thinking of something probably not-so-good. Was this brat actually amused by that damn fight in space?

"Nah, just interested to know who I tangled with, but it's not important."

"Must've really impressed you," I said.

He smirked.

"Well, if you spot it, will you let me know? Just go frequency Alpha Epsilon and say black Nuwan cruiser. The boys won't bother you once they know your call sign."

I narrowed my eyes, but smiled to hide my distaste and replied, "Sure."

Yeah right, no way.