Just standard customer service.

Elias slowed down and flew to face the airlock of the Intoshi ship. The hatch was an oversized and overcomplicated aperture opening , full of dozens of moving parts necessitating a perfectfit and that was probably a hell to service. He noted the absence of a control panel on the outside, this thing probably didn't conform to the Free Planets Alliance's regulations.

The inside was the same bright white as the hull and the second hatch of the airlock was identical to the first, because why not double the number of things that could fail in a small enclosed space without manual controls and no way to see or be seen from the outside?

The second door opened and he entered the ship proper. His first surprise was that he wasn't in a hallway or a technical area like in most ship but in what looked like the main space of it, combining living area and bridge. Or at least he guessed so. There were alcoves in the walls, two with a bunk bed and another two with a regular one, a table with 6 chairs and finally a single armchair facing some small screen on a bulbous shape with sides made of a teal material (the only break to the monotonous white except for the floor and a few elements that were of a mat silver color.). The shape of the room was all in curves, not an angle or really straight line in sight. At the back of the ship was a small area that looked like a food distributor and an open door that showed a very small shower/toilet area. There wasn't a trace of a way to access the more technical parts of the ship.

There were 4 people inside the ship, two men and two women. The first man was, tall, white skinned, bald, wearing some blue pants and a black turtleneck. The second man was of average size, blond with a short beard and was wearing some sort of loose white pants with a matching shirt (no buttons, v-neck, wide sleeves. The most surprising were the women. A tall blonde, that was standing near the second man, she was wearing a long white dress that did little to hide the impressive volume of her chest. She had some sort of thick collar around her neck, made of a white material. And the weirdest for last, the short brunette with an hourglass figure and very massive tits for her size was almost completely naked. The only things on her were two small white round shells covering her nipples and an oval one on her pussy, each had the Intoshi sigil on it. She had the same collar as a the other woman and the same weird device of the ubiquitous material around her left ear that all four sported.

"Welcome, I'm administrator Sculley from customer service. These are Steve and Natasha Cook," said the tall, bald man, showing the couple.

"Captain Finley. Who is she?" asked Elias, pointing to the naked girl. He had removed the helmet of his space suit but not the suit itself.

"She's just an i-maid45, this is a defective unit, she's of no concern." this made Elias twich. Slavery was not really a rarity in space, but the absolutely dehumanizing kind was still really creepy to him. The disturbing part was the collar on the other woman, he had never heard that women were all **** like in status in Intoshi society and the couple was clearly married. He decided to focus on the way to make some easy cash out of this and to make sure that his insurance was in reach the whole time.

"Can you show me how to access the engine room? I need to check your hyperdrive. If you lost both FTL and coms it's probably the resonator, but better be sure before calling for help. Wouldn't want the rescue ship to come all this way without the right part." While it was possible to create an hypercom without an hyperdrive, the easiest and most efficient way to make one on a ship was to use the resonator of the hyperdrive, the piece that pierced the fabric of space to jump, as an antenna. It gave the thing a greater range too.

"This mission was short enough that we didn't need a Genius on board. But even I know that there's no such thing as an engine room on this vessel. We have evolved beyond such primitive designs. And during this trip I read some information about this marvel of technology. The technology on it is truly the summum of human ingenuity, they used the hull of the ship as a resonator, making the entry in jump-space smoother and increasing jump range!"

'And disabling it and the coms if you suffer any damage' thought Elias. Truly wonderful. Even if he was allowed to try to repair it there would be nothing he could do for something like that.

"nothing I can do then, can't diagnostic if I don't have access to it. Plan B it is then. What were you doing in such a lost place anyway? We're out of most trade routes, no Gates around, first inhabited world is 2 jumps away. I need to know a bit more before we start talking fees," he asked.

"Just standard customer service. The Cooks are from Los Altos, they recently bought the i-maid45. Sadly Natasha violated the EULA, by using her unit for unauthorized purposes and voided the warranty. I'm bringing back the unit to Cupertino for refurbishing, Natasha for induction and Steve to pick a new unit. The navigator showed it as a shortcut. We must have hit something during the last jump."

If the guy was saying the truth the ship had a very nice range indeed. Just from where they were to the Cupertino system it would probably be more than 20 jumps and long ones, enough to deplete a few rods of hyperfuel. And he had no idea how far this Los Altos was. Sending a ship with a single passenger for such a round trip was rather suicidal. But then again, who would attack them? There was nothing to steal on board. Even the fuel rods they used were hexagonal rather than round in section and wouldn't fit a normal hyperdrive...

"Induction? You're going to turn her into an i-maid too? What could have she done to deserve that?"

"Violating the EULA at all is grave enough. But she tampered with the unit to have her perform acts of sexual nature on her. This goes against the factory settings and all that is prescribed in the user manual! How much will it cost to let us call Cupertino? I have a restrained budget for this operation."

Elias thought about it for a few seconds. He had no illusion about it being juicy now. Maybe trying to make some quick change at low cost was the best option.

"That's outside of the sector of my operator. I'll get surcharge for using relays of another brand. Best I can do is 1000." A bit of a lie, the surcharge would be rather minimal, especially if he kept it a text or video message rather than open conversation.

"That will be an issue. I only have 857 reward points left of my budget. Would you be ready to accept that?"

"What the fuck are reward points? I want credits. Always get shafted trying to change weird currencies." Holy hell these weirdos use their own currency rather than the ones used by pretty much everyone else.

"I don't have credits, I'm paid in reward point, as is my budget. Besides, they are not convertible in other currency. There seems to be a dead end..."

Elias looked around, there was nothing visible that wasn't bolted to the floor, except for the passengers...

His eyes fell down on the two girls, one having suffered, the other awaiting some gruesome experience. Perhaps there was a way to get a deal in the end. He would have to negotiate hard, but it was a shot to try.