Chapter 149: Executions
Away from the outskirts of the city, Han was taken to a dilapidated salvage boat by the two thugs, the ship quickly took off and flew into the dark space. And at that time, Han also finally got to meet these salvage workers’ leaders in the warehouse.
They appeared to be just a bunch of very ordinary workers. Due to the perennial labor, their hands were full of calluses, and they are all in work clothes, boots, and there’s even a middle-aged woman.
“Mr. Han, we are sorry to take you to outer space.” The oldest leader ordered his men to give Han a chair, and then said in a deep voice, “On the ground there are Leader Forin’s men everywhere, so being onboard is the only way to escape his eyes.”
Han nodded and smiled, “I understand you guys, it’s not easy to live under others’ watch.”
The old man nodded and sat down across from Han, “My name is Lynch, you can think of me as the spokesperson for our gang of salvage workers. I heard that you need a large amount of robots, can you let me know what specific amount you are looking for?”
Han said sincerely, “No matter how many you have, I want them all.”
Hulala~
The workers behind Lynch began murmuring in doubt.
Lynch frowned and asked, “Are you being serious? All our full set robots, you want to buy them all?”
Han nodded, then said lightly, “Not only full sets, as long as it’s robot-related, even it’s a screw, I want it all. After all, robots will be damaged after long term use, so I will need the spare parts as well.”
“But the cost will be an astronomical figure, you…”
Shua~
With finger gently slid across Lunar Mark, Han pulled out a blueprint and placed it in Lynch’s hand and said, “This is the blueprint of Yankasasi-class frigate, you can easily sell it for 80 billion GC in any exchange center in the Milky Way Galaxy.”
The price of blueprints are determined by its product price, and Yankasasi-class frigates are commonly sold for 1.5 billion GC each. If the shipyard has its blueprint, it can easily manufacture 2 or 3 every month, and within a month, the cost of the blueprint would be made back. So, Han was even being a little conservative when he said 80 billion GC. If they encounter a good buyer, it can be sold for twice or even thrice more.
The salvage workers were shocked! Lynch stood up and made a look to the people behind him, then politely said to Han, “Please wait a moment, this deal is very important so we will have to discuss.”
“Go ahead.” Han smiled and replied.
The workers quickly exited the room, only leaving behind a little servant girl that’s about 12 or 13 years old. She poured a cup of tea for Han and also found some cheap-looking seal-packaged dessert.
Han slightly frowned, looked at the little girl’s hand and said, “What’s with the wound on your hand? It will leave a scar if not handled properly, and that won’t be pretty anymore. This is a healing agent, spray twice every day on the wound, and you will see the effect.”
The somewhat shy little girl took the healing agent and held it in her hands, and she suddenly grew closer to Han.
Outside, the leaders were talking loudly, it sounded like there was a disagreement and a heated argument.
“What are they arguing about?” Han asked in curiosity.
“Grandpa Lynch want to sell the robots we store in secret to you, but that would be against the law and Forin will look for trouble from us.” The little girl isn’t that cautious, feeling that Han’s a good guy so she told Han.
“Law?” Han was puzzled, “There’s still law in the galactic wilderness?”
“Yep, the law created by leader Forin. Us workers that do the salvaging can’t sell robots on our own, not even a part of a robot. We have to sell through the dealers on the market, and after the dealers get the money they first have to pay taxes to Forin, and only what’s left over is ours.”
“Is the tax rate very high?”
“Yep, the dealer gets 5%, Leader Forin gets 80%.”
Han suddenly hesitated, frowned, this tax rate is pretty cruel. The salvage workers work that hard and they only get 15% of the profit? That is, only 1500 GC for each robot set.
You must know that the salvaging process also comes with a cost, and the majority of products salvaged are robot parts, which require many women and children to put together to a full set before they can sell it. This little girl’s wound on her hand probably came from being cut by some sharp robot parts.
So hardworking, only to earn this little money? Han felt moved by these workers’ suffering.
Hoo~
Han let out a sigh. He’s just a traveler, how can he control that much? The galactic wilderness is meant to be that unfair and lawless, so even if Han saw the whole situation, he still can’t give the workers too much help.
Soon, Lynch came back to the room with the other worker leaders. They seemed to have come to an agreement, and from most of their nervous faces it’s easy to see that they are taking great risk doing this deal with him.
“We have finished our discussion. We have a large storage of robots, very mixed, and the overwhelming majority are still just parts. There was no time to count them at all before, so we can’t give you an exact number too. The only thing we can tell you is that this batch of products is no less than 200 thousand cubic meters.” Lynch swallowed spittle and sternly said.
200 thousand cubic meters?!
Han was suddenly shocked. This is no doubt a big batch of products. If the parts of one robot takes up about 1 cubic meter, then there’s at least potential to make 200 thousand robots?
And among them, beside normal engineering robots there are probably even more advanced combat robots and maintenance robots.
Nodded, Han said in a deep voice, “Very good, I will take them all. In addition, I want to find some logic chips. If you guys have any, I’m willing to pay top prices.”
Lynch started smiling bitterly, “To be honest, we really don’t have any logic chips. There was one year where a pre-historic civilization’s transportation ship that shipwrecked here. Although it was carrying all robots, but when they transport robots they would take out all robots’ logic chip first.”
“Over the years, we only found a total of over 4 full complete logic chips and we handed them all to leader Forin. The robots that carried logic chip are all working robots on that transportation ship, the other robots are all just sitting obsolete.”
Han felt a little pity.
“It’s fine, being able to have this group of non-intelligent robots is already tons of help for me. Let’s talk about the deal now.” Han said with a little helplessness.
Lynch lowered his voice and said, “I will give you a coordinate. After you leave the Undercurrent Fortress, wait for us there. We will trade in space. Oh right, bring your transportation ship.”
Han doesn’t have transportation ship, but he’s got an armed mining ship with a storage space of over 1 million cubic meters, which is plenty to hold those robot parts.
At the moment, the armed mining ship is floating in outer space under Yuan Yuan’s command. Han told Yuan Yuan to input the coordinate to the mining ship to meet up at the destination.
Immediately after, Han went to the airport, grabbed No. Demon Claw and left Undercurrent Fortress.
Before departure the greedy tax collector charged another 20 thousand GC as tax. Han doesn’t like leader Forin and his men’s doing here, but since money isn’t a problem to Han, he didn’t say anything.
Shua~
After going through two hyperspace transitions, No. Demon Claw arrived at the scheduled pick-up location. After a few hours, Han’s armed mining ship arrived too. One big one small, both ships floated in space waiting.
“How come they are still not here? Did something happen to them?” Han thought as he practiced the 46 Ensemble in the cockpit.
Suddenly~
Just when Han’s impatiently waiting, a ragged space shuttle drilled out of the transition passage and hurriedly approached Han. From the traveling state of the space shuttle, it is undoubtedly piloted by a novice.
“Use Stagnation Beam! This boat is crazy, it will crash into us!”
Han immediately used the beam to slow down the shuttle and slowly dragged it to No. Demon Claw, and then opened the docking module.
“Han, please save grandpa Lynch and my dad!”
It wasn’t Lynch that came, but the little girl Han met yesterday and an even younger boy. The shuttle was piloted by that little boy, so no wonder it was swirling around and almost hit Han’s ship.
“Don’t be nervous, first tell me what happened.” Han brought the two kids into the cockpit and asked.
After a few minutes, Han finally understood the whole situation.
Due to the long term exploitation by leader Forin, in order to survive these salvage works would always hide half of their harvest. After a long time, they eventually saved up to 200 thousand cubic meters of robot parts.
Robots are a big taboo in the Milky Way Galaxy. Although some people will buy, but no one dares to buy in large quantity at once like Han. So although Lynch and the others saved up a great inventory, they couldn’t get these products out of their hands for a long time.
This time coincidently Han came and said that he’s buying up their entire stock, so Lynch took Han out for a meet in outer space. Han’s sincerity was very tempting for them, although it’s very risky, but they still decided to sell all the robot parts they stored over the years to Han all at once.
Just after the deal was negotiated, Lynch went back to look for men to prepare moving out the robot parts they had been hiding. After all it’s a large load, he would be needing at least a hundred men.
But just as he returned to Undercurrent Fortress, Forin’s army rushed in and arrested all the salvage worker leaders, and even placed all the salvage workers under close watch.
Because the little girl and his brother are still kids, they were just able to avoid Forin’s soldiers and secretly pilot a space shuttle to meet Han. Among the people that were arrested there was their father, so under the urgent situation both kids started crying right after meeting Han.
Han listened, frowned, although his level and combat power makes it unnecessary for him to be afraid of Forin, but after all the galactic wilderness is not a battlefield he’s familiar with, and Forin also has dozens of warships, including the largest one which is a Caracal-class missile frigate.
“Yuan Yuan, activate the radar array scan on maximum power to scan Undercurrent Fortress, I want to know where Lynch is kept and what Forin planned on doing to them.”
Very soon, Yuan Yuan said in an indignant tone, “Master! Undercurrent Fortress already made an announcement, they are executing the 58 salvage worker leaders today at noon, by cannons!”
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As a token of appreciation for your patience when time was tough on me, I added another 20$ to the pool so the chap was only 10$
I think the best way to keep my mind off of things is just Overwatch and Noodletown. I will start piling up chaps and let you guys know when I have a bunch ready for instant bonus release.
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