"I'm sorry, I still have work to complete and can't accept your offer of employment, but I'd like to make a deal with you if I can."

"What deal?" A deep disappointment flashed in the eyes of Madeleine Callivan, who was rejected, but she quickly regained her spirits, since she couldn't be recruited, it was also a good choice to let Chen Guo owe a favor: "Your Excellency, you say." ”

"Actually, it's nothing, I just want to exchange a battleship for a cruiser with you." As he spoke, Chen Guo took out the contract and thank you note from the Mechanic God Cult as if by magic.

"Huh?" Madeleine Callivan silently took the letter, quickly glanced at it, and immediately showed a look of disbelief on her face: "This is the thank you letter and exchange contract of the Mechanicus Cult?" Can be redeemed for a Retribution-class battleship that can be customized as standard...... How is this possible? ”

Madeleine Callivan is a full-fledged Rogue Trader who has traveled to half of the galaxy, and she has traveled to many Forge Worlds, Mechanicus outposts, and seen too many Sages, Warlords, and Forge Generals.

But she had never seen how grateful these rigid cyborgs would be to a human, and she solemnly wrote a thank you letter.

She was under the impression that they would only give orders in a superior tone, and make the most demanding demands on each transaction, and even pick and choose at each receipt in order to give the lowest price, and even use physical threats to make the transaction unequal.

Recalling the ugly display of the mechanical face in her mind, Madeleine Callivan read the thank you letter and the contract again, this time she looked very carefully, and finally succeeded in finding the key information on the thank you note...... Adamantite veins.

Seeing these words, Madeleine Callivan suddenly breathed a sigh of relief, and suddenly felt much better in her heart.

The value of an entire vein of pure gold was actually only exchanged for a retribution-class battleship, and those sages, masters, and casting generals of the Mechanicus God Cult didn't seem to be degenerate, and they were still so picky, so it was no wonder that they would write such a thank you letter.

With a thank you letter, she saved a lot of money and covered up the guilt in her heart, she will do this business to her, and she will do it better, and the letter will be written more sincerely.

"The casting of a battleship takes years, even up to a dozen years.

But I don't want to wait that long, so I want to exchange a new battleship for a heavy cruiser in good condition. Chen Guo took out the black metal key again and kept playing with it in his hand.

“…… Your Excellency, you can, but I can't cash it out to you right now, I don't have a cruiser in my hands right now, and I have to contact other branches of the family to see if I can transfer a cruiser to you. Madeleine Callivan hesitated, not daring to answer in the affirmative immediately.

Chen Guo smiled, "I'm not in a hurry, otherwise I'll give you this key and contract first, you leave me the address of the galaxy where your Callivan family is located, and I'll go to you when I finish dealing with the matter at hand, and when the time comes, how about you and me cash it out?" After speaking, Chen Guo threw the key in his hand to the other party without hesitation.

"Your Excellency, aren't you afraid that I will turn my face and deny people when the time comes?" Rubbing the key, Madeleine Callivan suddenly showed a playful expression on her face, and her tone was kind as if she was treating her lover.

"Hahaha, what's there to be afraid of, if you dare to deny it at that time, I will let your Calivan family disappear from this universe, believe me, I can definitely do it!" Chen Guo's only left eye began to glow with blue electricity, causing Madeleine Callivan's body to shake uncontrollably.

"I understand, then I will wait for your Excellency's arrival in the family." Putting away the contract and the key, Madeleine Callivan asked again, "Where are you going, I'll give you a ride!" ”

"Badab!"

-------------------------------------

Interstellar journeys are particularly boring, and from the star map, the two galaxies are close at hand, and it takes a month or even months for a huge fleet to reach the two galaxies that are close at hand, without being able to make subspace jumps.

The subspace storm around the Badab system continues, and according to the Navigator's assessment and estimate, the scope of the storm is intensifying.

It is estimated that a super-large subspace storm that will last for decades or even hundreds of years is about to be born.

For such a subspace storm, the old crew members have long been accustomed to it.

After all, they spend most of their lives on ships, ships fly fast and slowly, and the scenery outside the window is the same.

But for a new crew like Chen Guo, a long trip to the stars is boring and tedious.

Although Chen Guo is not alone, he can see a lot of crew members when he walks around the ship every day, but for some reason, the crew here seems to be very afraid of him.

No matter where Chen Guo went, he whispered about him, and no one was willing to take the initiative to talk to him, so he could only hide in the cabin and talk to himself every day, no different from being alone, he was about to be depressed.

Chen Guo had broken up with Madeleine Calivan for nearly two months, but although he had broken up with her, the cruiser that Chen Guo was riding on at this moment was still from the Callivan family, but it belonged to the fleet under the command of another family master.

It was an extremely large fleet fleet, larger than the one Madeleine Callivan had before, including five main battle cruisers, more than twenty-five frigates, and dozens of transports.

In addition, there seems to be a colony ship, which is densely frozen, with nearly 700,000 interstellar colonists, but they will not be awakened until they reach their destination.

The fleet's destination is the dark world on the edge of the Extreme Western Regions - Markf VII, a world that has just been conquered by the expeditionary fleet, the Callivan Merchant Rogue family has taken orders from the Ministry of the Interior, the Colonial Department and the Mechanicus to set sail from Ben III in the solar system, responsible for transporting colonists and a large amount of steel building materials in the past, preparing to assist the Imperial Navy who is building a starport there, reoccupy the dark galaxy on the edge of the lighthouse shroud, and transform it into an agricultural planet.

Originally, this fleet was not going to stop in the chaotic Badab Star Zone, but was going to resupply and refuel in the Carylante Galaxy, which is close to the Badab system but has many times better security.

However, because of Chen Guo's relationship with Madeleine Callivan, the head of this fleet specially changed the course for Chen Guo and prepared to dock at Badab 3 in the Badab Star Zone, which is the capital planet of the Badab Star Zone.

Although Chen Guo didn't say much on the surface, he knew that he owed Madeleine Callivan a favor again.

Changing the route of the fleet is not a trivial matter, and it is not known how Madeleine Caleven persuaded her aunt.

It's speechless enough, Chen Guo has never owed favors in his previous life, but he didn't expect that he would already owe a lot of favor debts before he even reached a year, and they were all the kind of favor debts that he wanted to pay off.

Flipping through the wizard books in his hand, Chen Guo forced himself to imprint these weird and boring runes into his mind as much as possible.

Although he didn't understand the meaning of these runes at all, and he didn't have a dictionary to look it up, this was the best way for Chen Guo to pass the time besides meditation and meditation.

In the past three months, he has memorized several books, and he feels that if he can work hard like this in his last life, he will not be just a master who opens a tower crane, but will definitely be admitted to a famous university and have a better future...... It's weird.

Shaking his head to sober his cranky head, Chen Guo put down the books in his hand and prepared to go to the cafeteria for a meal, and then come back to have a good rest and sleep, and recharge his energy for tomorrow to try to break through the fourth layer of the Thunder Horizontal Training.

Not long after leaving the cabin, Chen Guo arrived at the cafeteria located on this deck, although the food here was really not very tasty, but it was much better than the sour energy bar.

casually walked to the corner with a plate and sat down, Chen Guo listened to the chats of the surrounding crew while eating.

After listening carefully, Chen Guo didn't hear any meaningful topics, these guys were not talking about work topics, or gossip about which female crew member slept with which retainer, or they were constantly drinking and bragging, chatting about their strange experiences in various galaxies.

The life of an interstellar crew is even more boring than that of a planetary seafarer, after all, a seafarer on a planet does not return home for a maximum of several months, and a crew member between stars can only return home at least once a few years.

Some even go back once in more than ten years or decades, often the last time they left home, the child was only a few years old, and when they went back again, not only did they have children and grandchildren, but even great-grandchildren were even great-grandchildren.

What do you mean by that?

The moment a mortal steps into the starry sky is not the beginning of a journey, but the beginning of death.

After slowly eating the vegetable puree on the plate, Chen Guo was just about to leave but stopped.

Because, he finally heard a topic that interested him.

"Hey, have you signed up?"

"What's your name?"

"Explore the ruins! You don't know? ”

"Explore the ruins, what ruins? Don't sell it, just say it. ”

"The advance fleet found the ruins of an underground city left over from a golden age of extinct technological civilization on a barren planet ahead, and the head of the family decided to dock in that barren galaxy for a period of time, preparing to send an expedition to explore and salvage the ruins, and now recruiting volunteers in the entire fleet!"

"Really, how did the advance team know that it was a relic of the Golden Age? Besides, isn't the fleet on the main interstellar channel? Even if there were really relics of the Golden Age, how could it be that no fleet had discovered them until now? ”

"Alas, yes, if you want to say that it is in the fringe star area, forget it, we are now walking on the trade route, and the planets that can be colonized along the way have been developed and colonized, how can there be barren planets? Are you reading it wrong? ”

"Phew, I'm not mistaken, it's a barren galaxy, otherwise how could the head of the family issue a voluntary order?"

“…… If that's true, then I'll have to sign up, and if I find some golden age treasure, not only will I be able to retire, but my children won't have to be crew members anymore. ”

"Forget it, the requirement on the volunteer order is to be proficient in at least a certain amount of individual combat ability, you have been a boiler engineer all your life, and you are good at repairing radiant shields, but you can't even take a laser gun, what are you going to do? As cannon fodder? …… I advise you, don't think about it, this volunteer order is issued to the Ministry of Armed Forces and mercenaries, and you and I have no effect at all. ”

"Then you still talk about it with great fanfare, I thought that this time the requirements were relaxed, and I was happy in vain!"

"I'm just gossiping, why are you so unfunny?"

……

After eating, Chen Guo learned about the so-called volunteer order.

The so-called volunteer order is actually more like a bounty within the merchant rogue fleet.

Because the retainers' troops are not the regular army of the empire after all, but the private army belonging to the major merchants, they are not necessarily inferior to the imperial navy and the imperial army in terms of combat effectiveness, but they have a fatal shortcoming, that is, there is no place to replenish the source of troops in time.

Therefore, in order to preserve its strength, ensure that the ship has enough troops to deal with emergencies and interstellar pirate gang battles during the voyage. When encountering barren planets and rebellious planets with oil and water, the Traders and Wanderers often do not send the main force on the ship, but will choose to spend a lot of money to recruit non-combatants inside the ship, but have a certain amount of actual combat experience, or hire those hired interstellar mercenaries for a second time, and hire them to explore or conquer the planet on behalf of the fleet.

It's like this barren planet that Callivan's fleet has just discovered at this moment, although I don't know why this planet on the main trade route has not been occupied and colonized so far, but it is obvious that the Callivan family master, Madeleine Califin's aunt, is tempted.

After all, if she's lucky enough to find some tech items and lost technologies from this relic planet, then maybe she'll be able to add one or two more cruisers, or even battleships, to her fleet.

"The relics of the Golden Age......" Chen Guo's eyes flashed, he was about to get moldy for more than three months, and there was just such an opportunity, he also wanted to go on a trip, and at the same time, see if he could find one or two items from this planet that could make the fantasy materials manifest and recognized, so that it could be refreshed again.

Otherwise, the things that can be used in it have been exchanged for almost, and the rest is either useless garbage or treasures that cannot be exchanged, and tens of thousands of cash points are left in vain.

It's just that Chen Guo is neither a retainer, nor a sailor, nor a mercenary, he is just a passing passerby, and there is no reason to participate in the expedition...... It seems that Madeleine Callivan's relationship is going to be used again.