Engineered Empress - The story of Bia

Engineered Empress Part 19

Chapter19

"Well go ahead with Zar and take a look around. I stay for the other team. You might want to see where you can sell your wares." Damon told Bia and Zar, the later stood there, feeding all the oil sludge filled cups into a recycler. Looking from the cups to the now contaminated oven she said to Zar.

"I'm in serious need of a cup of coffee. Let's go find one." He agreed inclining his head, and they took off to find a bistro. Damon watched them go and smiled at how she moved. Bia no longer was self-conscious with her body. The white ship suit and the purple tunic she chose hugged her form splendidly but everybody watching could see she walked like a predator. At least that went well. Damon still worried about how and when she will break down because of this incident.

Keplar III was a newer space station, designed as a wheel were the spokes connected an inner and outer ring. The outer ring was used by the warehouses and the chandlery, to easily get big amounts of cargo from one docking bay to another. Big loading sleds where run by plenty of other crew. In between you saw the crewmen entering and leaving the area with swiftly.

From Hunters Back station Bia knew that the ships pay for their docking per hour the same as here and it explained why everyone here hurried to do their business. Bia and Zar went into one of the connecting spokes, that would end in the inner ring, that was the main hub, of the station. The inner ring surrounded the core of the station where the utilities and citizens were housed. It was also the home of the shops, restaurants and bars of Keplar III.

When the tantalizing smell of caramel and apples enticed Zar. He followed the smell to Aunt Mollie's. It was a small café a bit into one of the spokes from the hub. When they came into it, a small reed thin octogenarian with silver hair shouted at them.

"There is a table near the kitchen, seat yourself! I'll be right there." Bia and Zar went and found the table and sat down. When their server arrived.

"Hi, welcome. I am aunt Mollie, what would you like to drink? And do you want our special? Today we have apple pie for sweet and curry samosa for savory on our menue." Bia grinned at her then pointed her finger at Zar.

"This guy smelled your apple pies from the other spoke over, so I take one and a big coffee please." Zar grinned and nodded enthusiastically at the old woman.

"Yes ma'am, for me the same please." Mollie winked smiling at both, tipped on her tablet and went on her way. As soon as she was gone Bia began in hushed tone.

"Okay, I never sold anything. Well other than our algae and that one is just a system on our station net. Do you know how that works here?" Bia asked huddling over the table.

"Bee, you can look at the station network if they have a market section. For the algae I would go to the chandlery, they provide those for every ship anyway. For the fruits and veggies, I don't know." Bia connected her DOA to the station systems and looked up the prized for algae starter and veggies and fruits. When she found she had enough to compare everything she looked at Zar.

"I can't believe it. I found out our algae is prized three times of what we take on Hunters Back for it. And five times what any other starter costs. I knew we have a great product but that is just excessive." Zar thought about that.

"May be it is racketeering, maybe just demand." He looked at her as she let those thoughts sink in and then asked.

"Bia, do you know of one case where the algae died before the by procedure specified timeframe?"

"No. We never heard of it. Marr still runs the third batch at home, from when she started making them. That's 50 years easy." She explained proudly.