Chapter 661: They Want An Escort Back Too

So... Mara wasn’t kidding about getting the checkup done within a day...

Even before the day was done, she had already returned to the ship while carrying an empty glass container under her arm.

"That was fast..." I muttered.

Mara tilted her head, "I’m curious what Captain thinks your idea of a medical check looks like?"

"Haven’t you been doing that to me? My thoughts of a medical check is having some machine scan me slowly while I’m laying on your examination chair and your mouth attached to my crotch. How else does a medical check look like?"

She paused for a moment before letting out a single word, "Ah."

Yeah that’s right, who do you think is to blame for me thinking that’s how medical checks are like?

She cleared her throat, "Ahem... I do thorough examinations for you, Captain. I do not do the same for them. That’s why it’s faster. Speaking of which... Where are those creatures?"

"Renata stuffed them inside the storage room and I’m even surprised they just let us shove them in there without trying to escape. Do you want to inspect them now or something?"

"Not at all, I was merely wondering where they were. There was still one more thing though..."

I tilted my head at her, "What? Did some of them need to be treated or something?"

"No, no. The results of the checkup were clear. They didn’t even suffer from malnourishment either. Perhaps if we came back after a month, signs of that would show but at this stage, they just need to go back to eating a little bit more and they’ll recover naturally. There weren’t even any side effects from being used by those parasites either."

"Right... Were you also using them as test subjects to find out more about the creatures?"

"Of course, Captain. If I had found something in them that showed those parasites were dangerous, I would have told you to get rid of them immediately."

At least she’s sensible about this... I was afraid she might be one of those researchers who would ignore the risks in pursuit of their research...

"So what’s the ’thing’ you were talking about?" I asked.

She clapped her hands together, "Ah, that’s right. You remember they are supposed to supply those Ketrite crystals to that forge station, correct?"

I nodded, "That’s the whole reason why we’re here to begin with, after all... what about it?"

"They actually have a ship loaded up and ready to deliver the crystals they had mined before that incident happened. So they’re also asking if we could just escort them there since we would be heading there anyway."

I raised an eyebrow, "I’m going to ask just in case... But are they going to pay us for that?"

"They said that you could most likely make a request for it to their commanding officer but it would be unlikely since they would argue we were also flying back there anyway. What should we do?"

I waved my hand, "We’ll just ask whoever we need to ask when we get them to the station. Even if we don’t end up getting paid, it’s not a big deal anyway. Speaking of which, there’s one thing I’m curious about... They should at least be getting supplies somehow, right? Has no supply ships flown here to check on them?"

"They get their supplies directly from the forge station, Captain. The arrangement is that they would only get more supplies if they were to deliver those crystals to that station and since no crystals were being delivered, they weren’t getting any supplies either. That’s why they are quite desperate to get this delivery out as soon as possible since their stash of supplies is running low."

That makes sense... They’ve been here for a few weeks already and even if they were only eating synthfood, they can’t have several months of them saved up in stock either.

"Well, I guess we should let them know that we’re ready to set out when they are," I decided.

"Before that... Where’s the other Zwerger?"

I realised he was asking about the Zwerger that the girls had taken away for... Interrogation.

I wasn’t stupid, of course. The fact that they called for Renata to deal with the mess pretty much told me that their ’too enthusiastic’ means most likely got him killed, so they needed Renata to clean up his corpse.

Honestly, I don’t really have a problem with that. Bastard took advantage of us and even tried to steal my ship after I gave him a way out. If Renata didn’t find him first and I saw him doing that instead, I would have just shot him without question.

That’s why I was a little confused why Mara was asking me that when I was pretty sure she was also aware of his fate when she was also present when Amber came along to ask for Renata’s help.

Maybe she wanted to see if I was aware of it by my answer?

I played dumb and shrugged, "I’m not sure. The girls got Renata to go into the room and I never heard from them after that. I assume they’re still going at him or something."

Mara paused before nodding, "I see... Should we announce that we’re setting out then? They are ready to go at any time."

Huh... She’s not going to correct me I see? Maybe she felt there wasn’t a need to.

"Got it. In that case, I’ll go start up the ship. Could you go tell the girls to get ready? Amber would need to go back to fly her own ship after all."

"Leave it to me, Captain."

I returned to the cockpit and connected to the comms before attempting to hail the station.

Unlike the last time where we tried and had no response, this time the call connected and a Zwerger I did not recognise appeared on the screen.

"Oh, hey. You’re the Merc that rescued us! Thanks again! We finally managed to get the comms of this station back up and running again and we’ve already sent a message to the forge station to let them know of your deeds! So you don’t need to worry about them questioning you!"

"Ah... That’s not a problem. I was just calling to let you guys know that we’re happy to escort your transport ship back to the forge station as well."

"Oh! That would help us a lot! Hold on, let me connect you to the transport ship captain..."

There was a pause as he fiddled with the terminal in front of him before another screen appeared beside him, showing another Zwerger whom I assumed was the captain of the transport ship.

"What are you calling me for? I’m still wait-- Oh! It’s the Merc! If you’re calling does that mean you’re agreeing to escort my transport to the station? I could really use the help because if I don’t get this there, this entire station is going to starve! I would ask the others for help but their ships aren’t ready to fly and I can’t wait for them to be ready so it would literally be a matter of life and death for us here!"

I nodded, "That is the plan, but I would first like to ask if you’re also expecting us to escort you back here as well? I would have to warn you that I have no intention of doing so unless we’re being paid for it. We are at least willing to escort you to the forge station even if we aren’t paid for it so you don’t need to worry about us abandoning you."

He waved his hand in front of him, "Ah, ya don’t need to worry ’bout that then! I can just ask for an escort from some of the security forces there! They would help escort me back! You just need to bring me to the forge station and we’ll take care of everything else! So are you prepared to go because I already am!"

"I’m just waiting for one of my pilots to get her ship started and we would be ready to go. Just to let you know, we do have a C Class Combat Freighter waiting outside the asteroid field which is our main ship. You can hitch a ride with us once we’re outside."

"Oh! That would be even better! Then it’s even less likely we’ll be attacked while we’re travelling there then! You Mercs really are our absolute saviours! Wahahaha!!"

I then received a notification which was a message from Amber telling me that she was prepared to take off as well.

That was fast? Did she sprint out of my ship the moment Mara went to tell her the news?

I turned back to the Zwerger captain, "We’re ready to leave now. Shall we?"

"Aye! Open the doors and let’s get out of here! I have supplies I need to deliver!!"

I turned off the comms and started up the engines of the ship.

Time to go girls~