“Careful there. We may not eat, but I still have teeth.” Senjen remarked when Light tapped his jaw. He was capable of speaking or making any other sound without moving his mouth at all, though Utaysi usually ended up doing so anyway. He had found that aliens were sometimes surprised at how many parts they constructed their frames with that were vestigial for machines, or how many mannerisms they had that were “unnecessary”, or just inefficient. What was strange to them just felt natural to the Utaysi.

After the tentacle moved away, Senjen tapped a claw to the side of his head. “The data’s tucked away safe, hidden with a bunch of other garbage. It’s encrypted anyway, and no, I didn’t try to access it.”

Senjen detached himself from the wall as well after they arrived in-system. “And speaking of garbage…” He muttered as he cast his gaze around the control room. While Light brought them in, he pushed himself closer to the center of the room to start gathering up the collection of loose objects that had shaken free and secure them somewhere. Fourteen Factories was a station that simulated gravity, so the automated systems broadcasted warnings to secure loose cargo on approach. 

For large-scale shipping, loading and unloading in microgravity was more efficient, but only for ships that followed standardized templates which meshed well with automated procedures. Microgravity was more trouble than it was worth for dealing with small, privately-owned freighters like their own. The station broadcast a rather [i]precise[/i] path for their vessel to follow to match the rotation of the station itself, though any decent autopilot could follow a simple flight plan. In fact, the station enforced strict regulations against the use of manual controls within its vicinity, as all incoming and outgoing traffic was AI directed for optimal efficiency, not to mention safety. Looking at the displays as they drew near, it was not hard to see why. The sheer number of ships coming and going to the station could make space feel [i]crowded[/i]. Nearing the docking bay itself, the autopilot brought them in close enough to other “lanes” of traffic that Senjen could read the lettering painted on their hulls just through their own cameras. 

Once in the docking bay and matched in velocity to the station’s rotation, their ship was “caught” by magnetic clamps and its engines immediately powered down so they could be pulled into position on their designated landing pad. The station itself was massive, and was arranged in ringed layers radiating out from its center. The perceived centrifugal force from the station’s rotation was what mimicked the force of gravity, at about sixty percent of the planet’s surface gravity. It was more than enough to prevent the docking bay from being filled with random loose objects from the veritable crowd of ships it hosted on any given day. 

Senjen’s claws were latched onto what became the ceiling once their ship began to experience the station’s “gravity”, but he was actually rather graceful in dropping down and flipping over onto his feet once they were stationary. Right away, he moved back into the hold to start getting their cargo ready for unloading. “Say, is that gel suit of yours still good for a vacuum? It doesn’t look as, uh, ‘healthy’ as some others I’ve seen...if that’s the word for it.” Senjen asked. It was not practical for the station to repeatedly pressurize and depressurize chambers large enough to accommodate entire ships, so it was the responsibility of the crews of private freighters to be able to handle work in a vacuum.