Chapter four: The Moon Docking

"ETA in 10 minutes." Ivy announced.

Oliver gets up, half awake and realises Ari is right next to him. She looks peaceful in her sleep and he has a smirk formed up on his not so clean shaven face.

"Get up," shaking her up.

She comes to be confused and mad to some degree of how she had been woken up. Oliver loved messing around with her. Pranks, sarcasm you name it. And Ari loved every moment of it.

Due to what happened to earth light fold space ships were banned from the mars atmosphere, they had a carbon footprint of a tiny town, so they had to dock in orbit or an artificial moon.

They choose the moon.

Ronaldo, the moon, was relatively new and its true intention was for planetary defense with plasma cannons several hundred metres long.

"aproach the highlighted docking station," ivy announced.

The docking station was highlighted on the screen and ari steered the ship to the station on the moon. One could not tell that the station had been artificially constructed using asteroids. It had dirt compact on the ground with its own gravity. The engines weren't as loud as the moon had a very thin layer of atmosphere.

"They should have done this years ago. Landing has never been this easy," Ari talked with a hint of excitement. Finaly, the ship touched the ground in what seemed like an enourmous dome sealed in a force field to keep air inside the station.

The station was massive. It could hold 50 ships the size of a soccer field. Most skeptics worried about the fragility of such a huge structure. They thought it would come crushing down at some point and for that, they left their ships on auto pilot at orbit.

"They raised the total fee by 10,000 credits," ivy had observed.

"these asswipes are ruining the only good thing they had for them going. Might as well leave the ship in orbit. Sometimes i wonder why we still do jobs for them." Oliver was mad.

He had a right to be. But was not mad enough to revolt. He however knew if there ever was a resistance against the government, that he would side with the government. They kept order, order that was lacking in other parts if the beta sector that he had visited and seen. The horror and suffering under people with power. The government was also a source of jobs for him and in his years of studying how the galaxy worked, he knew that if the government went down, so would the currency of credits.

"Go get the princess, I'll handle the beaurocrats," Oliver told ari.

She left down the elevator and he walked to his chair and picked up a gun. It had an interface where a stock would be. Its computer was used to connect to the implant in the neck. It had no physical trigger most guns didn't, you had to fire them using your thoughts. That way, you could never be shot using your own gun.

He pointed it at the two.

"Alright we are here, we don't have a bounty on you but we can't let you stay here." he said after throwing a pair of cuffs at them.

"i don't understand, i thought you were okay with us?" chad was confused.

" They were not okay, there was nothing we could have done deep in space. The AI flys the ship and it only listens to them. On the way to the planet, we could out muscle them and control the shuttle they'll use. " Jinie explained to him.

They cuffed themselves and proceeded to the ships hanger. There they met with Ari and the princess. Ari was in our ships shuttle with julia in the back with the hand cuffs connected to a metal right between her legs. The two got on and did the same. Oliver got on but did not seat down. They were headed to the hanger offices at the entrance. The shuttle was the size of a truck and easy to handle.

Outside the office was a shuttle park with a 30 shuttles capacity. It looked almost as a car park. They landed and oliver got out and headed to the office.

You wouldn't be dealing with the government unless there was a line.

There was a line.

He waited for 30 minutes until it was his turn. While at the station, they saw a government ship come from the war with only the cockpit pressurized. The was a hole right through the middle of the ship about 10 metres wide.

"The things a plasma cannon could do," said the man seated at the desk. "lets shake a tail, huh, my shift is almost over." he said.

Oliver looked at him and smiled. He looked, older than most people he had ever met. His hair had spots of grey hair.

"parking fee, station repair fee, tax, insurance fee, category 3 ship fee, security fee and lastly the war effort fee all equal to 150,000 credits." the man read out the invoice.

Oliver was in shock. His eveys were wide, his mouth ajar.

"apologies for the error, the fee increament is 100,000 not 10,000." the man smiling added.

"I'm not surprised, screw the government." Oliver replied. "what are you lot going to charge for next, the air we breath?" mad is an understatement.

" they are about to pass legislation on the oxygen.." he added and stopped mid sentence.

"lets just get this over with," oliver told him.

He handed him a block of gold aldum, used to make solid credits.

"Thats 200k the 50 will cover aldum fuel." he said.

The man interacted with his computers interface for a few seconds and looked back at him and smiled.

"It is done," he told him.

"thank you," Oliver told him and left.

He thanked everyone that did something for him even if it was his job. He tried to be nice all the time.

He got into the shuttle and Ari moved it through the force field and slowly accelerated. In minutes they were entering the red planets atmosphere. The shuttle started to shake and wobble. The engine noise was audible and the burning craft was loud than their own voices, not like either of them tried to talk.

The shuttle slowed down until they were cruising. They continued to fall for a few minutes until the city of Pompay, the government capitol in the surrounding area was in vision.

"Galaxy 1 shuttle requesting permission to land." Ari talked in the coms.

Everything was calm now. Oliver was seated at the back with the prisoners. Everyone had been silent.

"Consider what I've told you. If you change your mind, come get me, that is, if I'm still alive," Julia told Oliver looking at him.

He didn't answer he just looked at her with an expressionless face.

"permission Granted," a voice replied through the communication array.

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