Chapter 39 Double agent.
After setting up the research, Andrew ordered another 4 component manufacturing modules to be created.
With the 8 he had now it would take one day to get them done.
He could have just bought them from the merchant earlier, but he decided to start making more and more of his own modules to become self-sufficient as soon as possible.
-Aelita, did you use the seeds you bought in the hydroponics modules?
He asked, remembering that he wanted her to start growing some of her world's food.
-Not yet.
She answered.
-Then it might be a good idea to do so now, the faster you do that the faster you will have your homeworld food to eat.
He said, hoping that she would go because he wanted to read more of the chat logs and see what more he could learn from it.
Till now he found out that one of the station masters was a doctor and the other was a fleet commander but he still had no idea about the other two.
He didn't count Lanarine as he knew who she was and thanks to the chat he confirmed that she told the truth when she said she didn't have any combat training because her rank was given to her, thanks to her specialization and her family influence.
-I will go plant them now.
Aelita said getting up with a hiss of pain.
Andrew had a hard time containing his laughter at the sight.
-Maybe, you should go to the medical module first and get that pain treated before anything else.
He suggested, innocently.
He could have sworn that for a fraction of a second, the girl almost exploded but managed to control herself.
-Good idea.
She said and left.
When she was away he finally burst laughing.
The whole situation was hilarious.
She wanted to seduce him and got herself into a lot of pain doing so.
He confirmed that she went to the medical module before he started to read the chat logs again.
There were weeks' worth of conversations in there, some of them with the station masters who were no longer active.
However, he learned that not all of them were dead, most of the females survived and to his surprise, every female in this system was a humanoid which could not be said about the males.
According to the chat log, there were only two other humanoid males in the system and they both got themselves killed.
Of the original 10 females, in the system, only two died the rest got themselves enough materials to get the cryogenic module and put themselves on ice until the other ladies could reach them.
This meant that there were three more ladies out there in this system and he had no idea about it.
He wondered why Aelita didn't tell him about it until he found the messages where she decided to go and ask him to be her protector and the other ladies asked her to keep it a secret.
Reading through the chat also informed him that the bastard who tried to kill him and got killed by him instead was the last male other than Andrew in this system and he was the one responsible for exterminating other males and the two females.
Thinking about it now, staying away from the local group chat, kept him from information, but at the same time, it might have saved his life as well.
As far as he could determine, the males were targeted as soon as they started to send messages on the chat and now he was the last one standing surrounded by 9 females, of which he suspected at least one wanted to conquer the system and get him to submit to her.
-Not in this lifetime.
He said to himself.
Submitting to others was the last thing he wanted to do right now and the only way to avoid it was to conquer the system himself.
What's more, the chat showed clearly that the ladies were forming an alliance, and if he wasn't careful, he would end up either as their prisoner or dead.
Both of these options sucked so he was aiming for the third one which was to conquer them all, but to achieve that he needed first to conquer the beauty he had on his station first.
Thinking about it, he realized that aside from Aelita and Lanarine, he had no idea what the rest of the females looked like.
He opened the research menu once more to see if the upgrade he wanted was available.
It took a few minutes but he found it and it was not only available but also dirt cheap, requiring only 50 tonnes of materials and an hour to research.
Taking all that into consideration he immediately ordered the research.
This technology was so useless to him until now that he almost forgot that it existed.
Now that it became useful, not to mention that Aelita would most likely love it, he decided to get it.
The video call upgrade for the communications module would be a great way to find out what the others looked like and from that he could learn a lot about them, which was important if he wanted to conquer them.
Elite returned an hour later in a much better mood since her body didn't hurt anymore and she even got the seeds to the hydroponics.
-I have something, that you might like.
He said to her as soon as she entered.
-What is it?
She asked, intrigued.
It didn't surprise her anymore that he did something to make her happy, but she still was curious about what he came up with.
-Come here and take a look.
He said with a smile.
When she looked at the research she almost squealed.
-Really, I will be able to talk with the others using a video call?
She asked, just to be sure that it was not a dream.
-Yes and the research will end soon so we can order the upgrade as soon as it's done.
He confirmed and got a big hug and a kiss as a reward.
-Thank you.
She said, letting him go and smiling from ear to ear.
-I'll let others know about it.
She said and went straight to the communication station to inform the other about the upgrade.
It turned out that none of them had the upgrade, but since it was cheap and didn't take long to complete, they all ordered it immediately.
All the ladies were excited about the prospect of being able to see one another on the Holo screen as they chatted.
Then she proceeded to inform the others about her exercise session and how painful it ended up being.
This made most of the ladies laugh and tease her a bit for not thinking before doing something like this.
The ladies continued to chat away unaware that they had a spectator who was using the chance to learn as much about them as possible.
Andrew quickly learned that the ladies talked about everything, even which research they were doing at the time or what they bought from the merchant.
-Andrew, can you tell me why are you doing the space engine research now?
Aelita asked suddenly, but he already knew that it was a question from one of the other station masters.
-I need it to upgrade the drones.
He answered, and it was the truth, but he didn't mention that he needed it for the ships as well.
This made him realize that the ladies were using Aelita to gain information about him.
It pissed him off.
Not the information gathering as that was normal but that they were using their friend to do it, not caring if she would be in danger for revealing the information about him.
If it was someone else, he might perceive this as a betrayal and deal with her as if she were the traitor.
Unfortunately, she didn't even realize that she was giving away vital information about him and his station while chatting with her friends, but she also had no idea that he was gaining information about them as well thanks to her, making her a double agent, and he had an idea about feeding the ladies some false information.
Andrew needed them to lower their guard and when they finally realized what was going on, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.
He was already formulating a plan of taking them all down, one after the other, starting with the fleet commander who had the second biggest station, smaller only than his own.
If he managed to either get her to submit which was the preferred option or take her out, which was the last resort, the rest of the ladies would be easy pickings.
As for the ladies in the cryomodules, he already had an idea about it, but he would have to wait to implement it.
All this made him forget about the scan he ordered using the relay.
The process was over long ago and the maximum range of 50 lightyears in every direction was scanned, revealing three more systems near to his.
However, only one system showed signs of station masters inhabiting it while the other two only had a wreckage of the stations.
-They have either taken each other out or the pirates did it.
Andrew thought looking over the scan data.
The few active stations, were not his concern for now, since there was no way for them to get to his system and cause any trouble.
The real concern was the ships in the vicinity, there were at least a dozen of them and he was sure that they were the pirates since the traders just left not long ago, and there was no way in hell that someone could produce their own ships this fast.