Chapter 56

*Hello everyone, sorry for not uploading anything for the past 10 days, I was in the midst of my Midterms, looking for scholarships, and having discussions with Grad Schools was quite pressing as well, so I had no free time to edit anything, and the small amount of free time I did have, I spent it with my girlfriend and resting.

I'm on spring break now, girlfriend went back to her family in Tennessee and I'm back in NYC with a shitton of free time and nothing to do. So I'll try to edit and upload multiple chapters a day from today until Saturday. Enjoy!*

"Then I'll stay. It's not like I've got a better place to go to," Erica said as she scratched the back of her head. There was also a desire within her to see if Ajax would live up to his words or if he would just be one of the many who crashed and burned on takeoff.

"Then," Ajax grinned, and stretched out his fist arm for a fistbump, "I guess this marks the beginning of our friendship."

Erica gave Ajax a fistbump as she chuckled, "Anyone ever tell you how corny you are? Anyway, what's the situation with her?" Erica suddenly pointed to Lily who was sleeping like a log. She had never heard of children being able to pilot mechs.

"She's a... she's a monster..." Ajax said as he smiled wryly, not knowing how else to explain it.

"Be honest with me, do you actually have a plan? To my understanding of Bach, he will likely launch an attack here tonight or tomorrow morning," Erica said as she glanced at the mining area behind her.

"Yes I do, I will attack their camp before they can attack us here. I'll attack them tonight," Ajax said as his eyes became sharp. He wouldn't just sit here and wait for death to come to him, after all, offense is the best defense.

"You're going tonight?" Erica straightened her posture as she asked, "By yourself? As if you'd be enough..." It wasn't that she didn't believe in Ajax's skills, but people should know when to give up, and well, this was without a shred of doubt like throwing an egg at a boulder and expecting the boulder to crack.

"Of course, in fact, the three of us are more than enough," Ajax said confidently as he glanced at the sleeping Lily, the confidence in his voice palpable. Sometimes numbers weren't needed for an attack to be effective.

"I don't know cowboy," Erica said as she knocked on the leg armor of her mech, "it'll be a while before my mech is repaired." She had pushed her mech to its limits in the previous battle, the wear and tear of the mech had taken its toll on it, and even its shield was heavily damaged.

"Ehhh, it'll buff out. As long as its core and its CS are intact, I should be able to make it look brand new," Ajax said and he continued looking the mech up and down. If not for the fact that he was waiting for Lily to rest and having to repair the mechs, he would've already moved to action.

Just when Erica was about to continue speaking, Monkey walked over with a sense of loss plastered on his face. "Aja- Sir, I just went through our inventory. We don't have much ammunition or food left, and the energy blocks..."

There was only a small warehouse in the mining area, but its supplies were only enough for the original defenders to consume. The warehouse woucl eb empty by the morning with so many people seeking refuge here.

"Fuck..." Ajax cursed, all he had thought about was fighting, he had never considered the issue of supplies. His plans for tonight's operation also required a lot of ammunition and missile support, so this problem had brought everything to a sudden halt.

"Do you think we can buy more? Where do you usually get your supplies from?" Ajax asked after thinking for a second.

"Only Bomen and Antoine had direct purchasing channels. We would then buy things in the trading area and the business district of the camp. But you know we can't do that now..." Monkey said as he started to trail off.

Ajax's brain was firing on all cylinders causing him to get a slight headache. He hadn't been part of the Lazoole Society for long and wasn't privy to this information before everything went to shit. 'Fuck, being a leader sure ain't easy...'

"I might be able to help with that," Erica said as she popped another mint into her mouth. "One of my contacts will provide supplies, slowly but at a very cheap price. The other can get us our supplies fast but... that's going to milk you dry of eddies. Choice is yours."

"Fuck it, money is the least of our worries right now, not to mention, I have enough eddies to splurge," Ajax responded quickly, what he lacks most now is time.

Erica took out her Vox and after a few taps, a virtual window popped up, "Here you go, list, prices, everything you need is here." There was a picture showing densely packed materials and their corresponding prices.

It only took a glance for Ajax to realize that the prices were 2.5 to 3 times the market price. Take the simplest white energy block as an example, it was priced at three eddies in the market, but here it sold for eight eddies, and a Knight-Level mech worth about a hundred thousand eddies was being sold for half a million eddies.

"What type of fucking bullshit channel are you... how the fuck is everything so expensive..." Ajax swallowed. According to the price here, plus the things he needs to buy, the 300,000 eddies he had was far from enough.

"Airdrops." Erica pointed to the sky, "You order, and within half a day, any material, anywhere on this planet, will be airdropped. Getting what you want when you want isn't cheap bucko."

"What do you mean by 'it's airdropped'?" Ajax having seen so little of the planet was confused, but even Monkey who had been living at the border for a long time was a little confused.

"It's shipped from Bedrichi's Space Port, and it's delivered by a Rakshasa-Class transport plane, they go all out on ensuring you get your shit, so it costs a lot." Erica continued to explain.

"From the Space Port... That's fucking nuts... How can anyone buy things directly from there?..." Ajax smiled wryly. He knew that the Space Port was located in the outer orbit of Bedrichi and that it served as a dock for spaceships.

"It's not nuts, life up there is just like life down here. They have merchants on the Space Port that supply goods to passing fleets, be they gangsters, military, pirates, as long as you got the eddies they got the goods." Erica said as she sat down by her mech.

"How reliable is it? Have you ever bought anything from them?" Ajax said as he kept on looking at the prices. He could already feel the sting in his pocket.

"Nah, never bought shit from there before. Shit is so expensive, no normal person would buy from them, but my dad said they were very reliable. Interstellar merchants are usually very trustworthy and can get anything, they make enemies if they're not, lose eddies, credibility, probably their life too."

Ajax was speechless, if people weren't put in a tough spot, no one would consider buying from them. "Do you know if I can pay in installments? I don't seem to have all the money at hand..." Ajax asked weakly. Bomen had handed over the Lazoole Society to him, but he didn't give him any money, and he wasn't able to get any supplies from the camp...

"I don't think you can. they only accept full payments in the manner of transfers through the Interstellar Bank." Erica shook her head, and swiped her Vox again, "I have 80,000 eddies here, you can have them." During the period when she was the leader of the Four Tribes, the Four Tribes were so poor that they couldn't afford to misuse their savings, this was all they had left.

"I don't think that'll be enough..." Ajax gave Erica a pitying look, she was even poorer than him. He needs to buy at least 20 missiles, at 25,000 a pop, it would cost at least 500,000 eddies, not to mention other things.

"I don't have any money either..." Monkey said as he emptied his pockets. He had worked so hard for a month, yet he could only get a few thousand eddies which were spent on basic needs, he had no luxury of having savings.

After thinking for a long time, Ajax took a deep breath, turned around and took out his Vox, and entered a number.

"Hello?" a female voice responded, sounding tired and groggy as if she had just woken up.

"Did I wake you up..." Ajax said nervously.

"Ajax?!" Alana's asked, sounding awake now. Ajax hadn't contacted her for a while.

"How have you been?"

"I'm fine, how about you?" There was a rustling sound from Alana's side as she sat up from her bed.

"I'm fine for the time being. Hey listen, I'm sorry I didn't contact you all this while, but I want to ask you for a favor..." Ajax dillydally and went straight to the point.

"Huh, what can I do for you?" Alana asked surprised, Ajax wasn't the type to ask for help, so it caught her off-guard.

"I was wondering if you could... wondering if you could lend me some eddies..." Ajax said with difficulty, embarrassed that he hadn't contacted her all this time and that when he finally did contact her, it was to ask for money...