It was time for the last deceleration burn, and then about two hours of slowly drifting towards the docking bay I purchased. Well, I didn’t purchase it yet just promised the station authorities that I was going to pay to stay in there for two weeks, which was going to cost me 167,000 mana credits.

  Another reason why I couldn’t just stay here to rebuild my entire ship. The docking fees were going to bankrupt me if I was going to do that.

  One of the programs I made for the communication computer was a docking overlay, and here, unlike the other stations, I couldn’t deviate from it even a little. Things were run tight here, but I could understand why—there were simply so many ships around the station, constantly moving.

  What wasn’t helping were the literally tens of thousands of small ships that resembled what forklifts did. I bet there was only one person per ship, if they weren’t automated, but from the looks of the ships, I didn’t think so.

  They would pick up standardized cargo containers, especially from that freighter that had thousands upon thousands of those kinds of ships moving from it and to the space station, constantly transferring cargo from and to the freighter.

  Managing all of this was probably a nightmare. It was also a bit difficult to stay exactly on course because some of the RCS thrusters had been destroyed, but we managed, even if we needed to expend more fuel to do so.

  “Lola, what’s the atmosphere and gravity in our docking area and overall in the station? Do you have that information?”

  “Yes, I do have access to this. The docking bay we requested is suitable for your atmosphere and the size of you, but you will need a mask to enter some sections of the station.”

  “The gravity is a standard 0.4 across the entire station. There might be a chance, if I understand things correctly, that we might be able to adjust how much gravity is in our docking bay. That being said, I’m pretty sure it would also be extra to do so.”

  “...Well, 0.4 isn’t too bad. But I do wonder why that’s standard?”

  “It’s because plenty of species actually come from gas giant moons instead of big planets like Earth. And for them, gravity of 1G for a long period would be unpleasant. And besides that, moving cargo in lower gravity is cheaper.”

  “I can believe that last part more than the comfort of some species. How much of the space station would be off-limits to me because of my biological limitations?”

  “Medium-size species like yourself have the most freedom, although areas for small classification species would be a bit of a tight fit, and you wouldn't be able to do anything in areas meant for tiny species.”

  She was about to continue, but I had to stop her.

  “Wait, what classifications are we talking about?”

  “All intelligent species are classified by size: Tiny, Small, Medium—that’s the size of humans—Large, and then Huge. There is also a size above that, but even this station doesn't cater to them.”

  “And they’re all intelligent? Wait, how large is Large?”

  “That’s actually quite hard to classify, but mostly to do with height. Some can also be too long to fit into a certain category. So Large are creatures 4 to 12 meters tall.”

  “Wow… and Tiny?”

  “Up to your shins.”

  “How did species like that even become capable of space travel?”

  “Well, besides the size classification, there are five types of spacefaring species. I will display it on a screen.”

  Humanoid: Species with upright posture and clearly differentiated limbs—arms specialized for fine manipulation, legs for movement.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Quadrupoid: Species primarily moving on multiple limbs (usually four or more) but can use some limbs for fine manipulation.

  Cephaloid: Species primarily using head, mouthparts, antennae, or similar head-based appendages for fine manipulation.

  Variformoid: Species with unique, specialized anatomical adaptations for fine manipulation, not fitting into other categories.

  Technoid(often called Uplifted): Species without natural methods of fine manipulation, reliant on technology, augmentations, or external assistance for precise interactions.

  “I assume ‘Humanoid’ is because of a translation?”

  “Correct. You know what’s interesting?” Lola asked me in a curious tone.

  “I would be quite interested to hear what you have to say.”

  “80% of spacefaring species are Humanoid. The second biggest are Quadrupoid, with 10%. 4% are Technoid, with the lowest percentage being Variformoid. Yet Humanoid species that have reached sapiens would most likely not be more than 30% of all the species who have reached sapiens.”

  “I think I see what you’re getting at. It's because most intelligent species wouldn't have a way to sufficiently manipulate the environment around them to eventually achieve space travel, and because of the universal law, they're left alone. So space is dominated by species who are best at manipulating their surroundings, and in their classification of humanoids, I could understand why they would be the highest.”

  “Isn’t it fascinating?”

  “It is, but it also means that the vine people we saw were quite the rarity.”

  The following hours went by quite fast, but eventually we were quite close to our dock. We saw large hangar doors opening up the entire ceiling of our berth. A large portion of the wheels didn’t extend properly, so we needed to put the ship on its belly. Hopefully, there will be some things that will help us lift the ship so I can get underneath it.

  I tried to be as careful as possible, but it was incredibly hard to set us down without having our rear hit the floor first, because there were simply too few RCS thrusters functioning back there. The bang of us hitting the floor was quite loud, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to pay if I scuffed the floors.

  All kinds of lights flashed and alarms blared even after we sat down, but when the ceiling closed up again, the room outside was pressurised and the warnings disappeared. It was time to go outside the ship for the first time since I left Earth.

  I got out of the pilot chair, but before I descended, I looked in the mirror. Thanks to me being able to control my hair growth, everything was still neat as always.

  I was wearing my stab and cut resistant hoodie, and above it, a brown trench coat I found in some rich person's apartment. It was over designed, and used the best materials money could buy, which meant that it was actually bulletproof to a certain degree.

  It was literally the best defensive clothing I had access to. I had army boots on that were also quite good. My pants were quite generic army wear, but they were dark grey in colour like my hoodie.

  Unfortunately, Lola found out that you couldn’t carry heavy weaponry, but you were actually allowed to carry some weapons, which said a lot. So, at the lowest part of my back, there was a holster with a large knife in it, and on my right hip, a beast of a revolver I also got from that rich person’s apartment.

  It kind of looked like the really old revolvers, but it was incredibly overdesigned. It had room for six bullets, but they were .50 calibre, and he even had a few special bullets that are actually the reason why our power core is so efficient—and the reason why we could leave Earth.

  So, whoever you were, I thank you for spending so much money getting this type of weapon made.

  It was weird to be in normal direction of gravity, but it was nice to slide down the ladders that connected the different decks of the ship. I had made some modifications to the trench coat, so I loaded 5 drones—3 of them were seekers and 2 of them were cutters. If I had the time, I would be making those into proper assault drones.

  I also woke a lot of the drones because there was a lot of work to do.

  When I tried to open the ramp, it didn’t budge an inch. With the damage there was outside, it didn't surprise me, but it was good to confirm this. The front airlock it is.

  On my way out, I also grabbed two huge bags that weighed quite a lot, they had a lot of gold and platinum in them.

  The two airlocks opened at the same time, and the atmosphere inside the ship and outside equalized without any noticeable disturbance.

  Walking forward, I reached the edge of the ship and realized I didn’t actually have any steps installed here, and it was about a metre and a half jump to the ground.

  I tossed the gold and platinum bags down and then jumped after them.

  Drones followed me, but they had no problems as they were the flying kind. It was interesting to hear their chatter as they started to examine the ship. The nanomachines had done their job, and it was now safe to be around the ship.

  While I couldn’t look underneath the ship entirely, there was enough armor missing in the middle that there was a gap large enough to even fit my head through to see the damage. Without the extra thickness to secure the wheels inside the ship, we would have certainly lost the cargo hold, if not the entire ship.

  The left engine also had a large gaping hole where the containment failed. I don’t know if it’s even worth fixing that.

  Then I reached the backside. There were so many small holes almost entirely through the armor. I guess it made sense because the missiles exploded so close, and they were moving so fast that they had a ridiculous amount of energy—even when only small pieces hit us.

  Furthermore, to receive such damage, each of those explosions must have been 10 to 20 kilograms of TNT. If a larger chunk form that missile hit, it would have gone straight through.

  “Station authorities are requesting entrance to our docking bay. Should I grant them access?”

  “Yes, but why would they be asking?”

  “Most likely some sort of protocols. I should be able to know more soon. They’re most likely here for the payment.”

  On one side of the room, a door opened, and about 12 people started to move toward me. They were quite cute, but I wasn’t going to mention that to them.

  They were small—maybe to my knee. They had two legs and two arms, but those legs were moving so fast that they were actually moving faster than a normal human.

  Watching them get close to me like that, with only their legs moving and their bodies and heads staying eerily still, was kinda comical.

  “Greetings, Graves Remy, the captain of Forward Horizon Mark One. I am in charge of this section of the 42nd Arm.” Said the only one of the twelve that held a tablet that looked like a clipboard in one hand and a long pencil looking thing in the other.

  “Greetings to you as well. Here is my payment and some extra I hope I can add to my account,” I said while extending the two bags I was holding toward them.

  We both looked at each other awkwardly until I figured out that there was no way they would be able to take those bags from me, so I set them on the ground, and six of them moved immediately towards the bags—three for each—and started to go through them using some sort of scanners.

  “While they do that, I see that you are a human, but I’m not seeing your name or ship on your species’ companies—sorry, nations—permission list. There is a warrant out for anyone not a part of your species’ nation.”

  “Now, we are not in the habit of enforcing other nations’ warrants, but if you do not have a reason for this visit that complies with your species’ nations' laws, I’m afraid I must report you to them.”

  “My species what?”