Once John filled the Phoenix Hawk's cargo hold with the majority of the stuff that seemed shiny enough to bother salvaging, he set the autopilot to hold position near the INP frigates. The police were still ransacking the pirate base, so the mercs were on standby until they finished.

  He got up and made his way down to the galley, the chocote bar he had no longer keeping his hunger at bay. He grabbed a coffee and something that looked like a BLT sandwich, then moved into the dining area.

  Three of the mercs were sitting around a table, the red-haired dwarf woman, the bck-haired dwarf man, and the elf. They were talking excitedly about the battle, none of them noticing him arrive in the room. He took a seat nearby and opened his link, intending to look up the prices of the materials he had just salvaged, but they were loud enough that he couldn't help overhearing their conversation.

  "Bhahah, 'ow does it feel to be the damsel in distress, Greg? 'Argh! Help! Help! Woe is me, a big, bad destroyer just snuck up on me!' " The female dwarf said to Greg, the small woman csping her hands in front of her chest, acting like some princess in a storybook.

  She was short, like the few dwarves he had met in The Great Cleric, around four feet tall, and fairly ft-chested. She had fair skin and a dusting of freckles, her bright green eyes twinkling in merriment. Her bright red hair reminded him of Rias, though it was tied back in a ponytail that ran down to the middle of her back. She looked like she was in her mid twenties, but as he learned in that other world, that could mean she could easily be a hundred years old or more.

  Rias... God, I haven't thought about that world for a while. Hell, I forgot to ask at the healers' guild if resurrection magic was even a thing. It definitely isn't in any of those tomes. I really need to write this stuff down somewhere.

  "Ah, shut it ya twerp!" Greg said, taking a swat at the other dwarf. "I was too busy guarding yer dumb ass to watch to see if that relic was still mobile. That damn thing was built over two centuries ago. Why would I think it would even still function, let alone be able to knock out my shields? If my shields were fresh, it would have been a different fight!"

  Greg was a bit taller than the other dwarf, with more muscle and bck hair. The family resembnce was clear between the two, both of them having the same bright green eyes.

  "No, Greg, I am pretty sure you would have been crushed under that ship. It only hit you with a couple long-ranged volleys. If you got close enough to bring your weapons to bear on it, you probably would have been turned to ashes instead of just getting burned. You are lucky there was an Auto-Doc onboard this... insane ship." The elf said, taking a drink of whatever was in her mug.

  "That isn't the word I would use to describe this ship. Awesome, or terrifying maybe. Insane is what I would describe you, Ash. What in the hell were you doing out there? Chris is going to kill you if you have damaged the Tengu after she just fixed it. If she weren't down in the hangar right now trying to patch up the consequences of Greg's poor situational awareness, she would be giving you a piece of her mind.

  Oh, and she watched the fight from the cockpit this time, so you don't get to pretend you didn't ‘fly it like you had stolen it’ again." The female dwarf said, focusing on the elf but still managing to make a dig at her brother

  "What? We needed to sow chaos, so I did just that." Ash said, defending herself.

  So she was on the ship that was darting around inside the swarm of pirate ships? Even with my skill, I don't think I would be able to duplicate that insanity.

  "Admit it, you 'ere just showing off for that Captain. Handsome human like him, with 'is own carrier, he could help catapult you to the gold ranks if he hired ya as part of 'is crew." The dwarf woman continued, teasing Ash. "Maybe next time ya meet him, ya can just offer your breasts for him to grope, just to get it out of the way. Then you can ask to join his crew, maybe get imprinted, you naughty girl."

  "Tanya! It... No... Argh! That was only an accident! I just want to apologise to him for the incident at the guild. Being mopey at him not complementing my breasts was just... Argh... a drunken mistake, okay!" Ash said, getting flustered.

  A pyful thought went through John’s mind then, so he spoke up. "Apology accepted. Oh, and I was being polite and not saying anything, but if you insist, you have nice breasts, Miss Ash, though I found your eyes much more striking."

  "C-Captain! Did you hear... Eeekkkk!" Ash screeched and then rushed out of the room.

  They watched her dart out of the room, her two friends just shaking their heads at her retreating form. John turned to them and just asked. "Is she always this excitable?"

  "Only around guys she likes," Greg replied, Tanya nodding along with him.

  Likes? She doesn't even know me.

  John just shook his head.

  These worlds never failed to find new ways to surprise him.

  John hung out in the lounge for a bit with the two dwarves, intent on learning more about this world than what he already managed to get from Kat and his Link. After a round of proper introductions, the pair of them bowed their heads to him, thanking him for saving Greg from being killed.

  The three dwarves were indeed siblings, Greg being the twins' older brother. The two of them had been mercenaries for nearly fifteen years now, leaving home to gain experience around the Empire at their father's behest. Chris, the blue-haired twin, was actually an engineer, but was working as a mechanic to earn money while the three of them were away from their home world.

  This area of space was, as he expected from his prior research, a backwater mining colony that was on the edge of the Kestrel Empire's controlled territory. Until recently, the pirates were the main threat in the region, which is why there were so many mercenaries at the guild. Though with the Javarian's becoming active again, many mercs were considering moving elsewhere, not wanting to try going toe to toe with the weird bioships the insectoids flew.

  "Not us, though. Our old man would kill us if he knew we ran away before the fighting even started. He fought in the st conflict a 'undred years ago, and expects us to do the same if it kicks off again 'ere. Family honour and all." Greg said, picking away at a pte of weird looking snacks he had gotten out of the food synth. "He doesn't want us to die standing our ground or anything stupid like that, he is just making sure we know the real enemy of all the humanoid races."

  "Bioships? Are they alive?"

  "I 'aven't seen it in person, but yeah. Their ships are grown, the bugs using some weird magic to meld their drones into the ship. The ships themselves don't have normal propulsion systems either, everything runs on mana. Weird, corrupted mana if you hear Ash expin it.

  Speaking of mana, Ash said you can use magic. Do you have elf blood in your veins? Not many other humanoid races can use it, and any half-bloods of those races stand out physically." Greg asked him.

  He pondered the question for a moment, but the cat was already out of the bag. Though it seemed like it wasn't that uncommon to be half-blooded. "Not to my knowledge, though if I am, that would be interesting. You see..." John said, then expined his memory loss to them, and the bnk navigational logs in the ship did not let him know where they came from.

  "Well damn, my next question was where you got such a powerful ship, but I guess you can't answer that," Tanya said, looking at him thoughtfully. "Say, do you want to do some jobs together? With your ship and our ranks, we could take on some very well paying escort jobs."

  "I would like to, but currently I am under an extended contract with the INP. I am looking at hiring some crewmembers when we get back, but I can't take any non-INP contracts for a year. I still have a bunch of research to do to see what the going rates are." John said, turning down her offer.

  "Well, if you want to save money, hiring IDS is usually the cheapest route, though you may need to train them up. Hiring free mercs directly can be more expensive as you have to pay them their full rate, but you will have a known quality by their rank. I would suggest you stop by the guild and talk with Jahred. He manages the staffing pool for the mercenaries and will be able to point you to people looking for more permanent positions. As for IDS, head over to the local INP offices, not the one by the docks. They can provide you with a list of IDS contracts you can purchase."

  "Well, I will talk with Jahred then. I am not comfortable with the thought of having a s- IDS, it seems a bit barbaric." John replied, the conversation reminding him that svery was a thing in this world, too.

  "Why? It isn't like the ones you will be hiring are the criminals who do heinous crimes. It is the poor, the destitute, or in Greg's case, gambling with more money than he had, like an idiot." Tanya said, bonking her brother on the head. Hard

  "Tanya!" Greg hollered, grasping his head in pain.

  "What? I had to bail your ass out of your stupidity!"

  "Wait, your brother is your sv- IDS?" John asked, confused.

  "Was. I paid my debt to her a few years ago." Greg said, slugging his sister in the shoulder. She yelped, but was still ughing.

  "Yep. Dumb dumb here made some bets with separate bookies, trying to make a quick buck. Well, Sylvie, our friend and former merc, ended up crashing her pod in the race, and this guy ended up a quarter million in debt.

  To save him from working for the bookies for the next three decades for pennies, I had to pay out his contract. He then belonged to me until he paid me back plus thirty percent. Took him three years, the majority of his earnings from the guild coming back to me." Tanya told him. "I had to pay him a small wage, but otherwise everything he earned went to me."

  John just blinked a few times, his headache returning. He thought he understood what she was trying to tell him, but it just didn't make sense. Well, it made sense, but he didn't want it to make sense.

  "So, I have to buy someone's contract outright, then they need to pay me back over several years with interest? And during that time, I need to pay them a wage? How is that cheaper than just hiring a merc outright?"

  "Easy. Say you are hiring an engineer. That is a technical job that requires extensive training. If you hired one from the guild or off the street, you would need to pay them around six thousand credits a month or more. If you hired one who is an IDS, you would only have to pay half their market rate a month until they have paid you back. So if their debt was a hundred thousand, they need to pay you a hundred and thirty thousand before they are free.

  That is three and a half years of reduced bour cost for you at the minimum, more than likely five to ten years, unless they saved every credit you paid them. There are a few other details, like needing to house and feed them, but those costs are minimal. Especially in your case, as this ship is better than most apartments on the station."

  "That is all well and good, but what is preventing them from just up and running away? What happens to this... fuck... this 'investment' then?" John asked, not sure why he was even considering these IDS.

  Wait... is this the canon pushing me to consider it?

  "When you are processed, you are fitted with a small tracking bead in your spine. If you run away from your master, they will report it to the INP. They then activate the device, which blocks all electrical impulses to your limbs, allowing you to be recovered by the police. An investigation is then initiated, and if no abuse is found on the part of the Master, the IDS is punished, possibly even sent to a penal mine. The government will then refund the Master the cost of the IDS contract.

  If the IDS cannot be found, well, the bead will explode. The Master will be refunded in that case as well." Greg said, his tone sounding like he was discussing the weather.

  John was at a loss for words.

  What the hell is with this world?