Alexander was just finishing up a work order when Mingyu Na came through the door followed by five security officers.

  He put dowool he was holding and looked at the Captain. “So this is it then?”

  “I told you when we spoke earlier that this was the most likely oute.”

  “You did. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.” He hated it, and he couldn’t do anything about the faot because he didn’t want to though. He physically couldn’t stop them because of the damris in the trol box.

  “Don’t be like this, Mr. Kane. I didn’t want this oute any more than you did. But we have to be practical. Petrov Station only has a popution of just over a huhousand people. If I had to guess, Omni employs more than that just at one of their stru yards. We pushed the mega-giant as much as we were willing to for your sake.”

  Alexander ughed. “My sake? How much is the station pocketing from this deal?”

  Na’s smile thinned but he didn’t reply.

  “Just take the stuff a out of my shop.”

  The Captain motioned with his head and the security officers waved in some workers who set about putting the printer on a dolly. While they worked, the Captain walked over and stood o Alexander while he watched his work being stolen.

  “We did try,” Na spoke quietly.

  “I believe you. But that’s not the point, Captain. You only tried because there was something in it for you and the station.”

  “Everyone wants something, Mr. Kane, you are no exception. One day you will realize this and see we did what was best. Try not to let this color our retionship. There is much we do to help each other.”

  Alexander focused his attention on the man without adjusting his avatar. Did the Captain seriously believe he would work with them after they sold off his hard work to help liheir own pockets? The gall.

  If it wasn’t for the fact he was stu this station, he would have told the man off. But until he figured out how to bypass Yuri’s hardcoded restris, he was left at the mercy of those who rarov Station.

  He chose not to respond to the Captain’s st statement. He simply waited for the workers to finish and everyoo leave. Captain Na was the st o, the man paused in the doorway.

  “Think about what I said, Mr. Kane. Your talents are wasted down here. Your at should have your settlement already deposited.” With that statement, the cil Captai his shop.

  A flicker of anger ran through Alexander’s mind, vanishing before he could even process it. He didn’t bother cheg to see how muni had paid to steal his iion, he simply turned around a back to work.

  ***

  Mingyu kept his face pcid, but inside he was fuming, not because of what Alexander Kane had said to him. The man was uandably upset. Were he in the man’s shoes, he would be raising hell. It seemed Kane was a much more level-headed individual than him.

  He had tried to vey the importance of w with Mr. Kao the other Captains but they couldn’t see what he could. Most seemed to only care about the short-term gains of fleeg money from the mega-corporation. Over a measly one hundred millios. That was barely the operating budget for Petrov for a full year. Had they instead stood behind Kane and helped him grow, the man could have earhe station billions. Their idiotid short-sighted approach caused him to reevaluate his opinion of some of the Captains.

  It was foolish to alienate such a talented individual. Just the fact that Omni had sent someoo take his work should have poihat out. Someone like Alexander Kane came around on a lifetime.

  Instead of standing behind the man, they squandered any opportunity to get in his good graces. Something that could have propelled Petrov Station to greater heights. Even a token effort to have the man at the trial probably would have been enough to stay on his good side. But no, they threw it all away to carve out the most mohey could.

  He knew some of the Captains were struggling but he didn’t think they were so bad off that they would pletely dismiss his suggestions. It made him angry but also made him wonder.

  After being outvoted, he looked into the station finances, and what he found was troubling. The st time Mingyu had station duty was five years ago. Back theation finances were doing okay. They weren’t great, but then again they never really had been. With Petrov being so far from the rest of human-occupied space, it didn’t see a huge influx of traffic or trade. But evehey made ends meet.

  Now the station was running a deficit and it seemed to be growing with each year. It wasn’t clear how or why that had happehe books were in disorder. What he could see was that Kovalenko and Hoffman had been taking e loans against the station's finances.

  Sihe trial was ongoing, Mingyu hadn’t frohe men about the issue. Acg one of the family heads, let alowo of financial misduct was unheard of. Mingyu couldn’t deny the evidehough. Both men had retly done majrades to their ships.

  While not in itself damning evide was suspicious. The Na family wasn’t the richest family orov Station, that title fell to the Weiss family. But even a family as wealthy as the Weiss didn’t do more than one ship system upgrade at a time. It was impractical and expensive.

  Without access to Kovalenko’s and Hoffman’s personal financial records, he couldn’t say for certain, but he could almost guarah of their families were less financially stable than his own. While that didn’t mean they were poor, it did mean they couldn’t afford these ship upgrades. Dock records also showed that her of these men had done any active mining or cargo hauling in nearly a year.

  Money didn’t just appear from thin air. If her of these Captains were active, aheir crew were still employed aing paid, the money had to be ing from some other source. There were only two options that he could think of, aher was good.

  Mingyu had found pre the archive of one family being stripped of their power after s with pirates early iation’s life. While there was no evidence of collusion in this case, this situation was equally as bad. He hoped he was wrong and that these men were just both really bad at managing finances.

  No matter what was found, it was likely both men would be stripped of their positions and exiled. The station was the lifeblood of all the families and over a huhousand people. To not evehe cil of this financial issue was gross inpete the very least.

  The issue with the Captains and Alexander weighed heavily on his mind. He sighed quietly and followed the cargo and security officers to the VIP hangar. It was time to get this transfer over with ahe pompous Omni rep off their station ond for all.

  ***

  Theodore Pembrooke watched as a group of workers carted in a rge crate atop a dolly. He couldn’t help thinking, ‘This is what three hundred million buys you.’

  The cart was followed by station security, which immediately made his own security people tense up.

  Last came one of the cil, Captain Na. The man’s face was tight with annoyance as he watched the handoff of the cargo to Theo’s people.

  Ohe cargo was secure aboard his ship, the Captain spoke. “Your dog privileges expire iy minutes. I suggest you hurry unless you wish to be charged for an additional day.” Theo only smiled at that.

  No more words were exged, and sooation personnel evacuated the bay. Once aboard and sealed up, his ship started p up. They didn’t hurry though, that would show the cil that Omni was worried about their little threat. Twenty-five mier, his ship floated out of the dock, soo by their escorts.

  It was quite something that the STO fleet had left only the day before. Almost like it had been pnned, he chuckled internally. He was sure his insight into that little affair would stir up some discussion bae, but for now, he was curious to see what OMNI’s iment had garhem.

  He walked over to a panel and clicked on engineering. “Yeah, what is it?” a gruff voice responded.

  “Chief, it’s Mr. Pembrooke. When you have a moment, could you meet me in the hangar?”

  The man grumbled, obviously wanting him to hear since sound couldn’t be transmitted without the button being pressed. “Give me twenty minutes. I o make sure the powerpnt is operating properly after being offline for so long.”

  There was a soft click, indig the other side had disected. Theo smiled at that. The Chief engineer was a hoot. The man really was the Chief Engineer. Not just of this ship, but of OMNI as a whole. The Chief Engineer occasionally took trips like this as a form of vacation or when he was needed for his expertise. The man also didn’t care who he eaking with. He spoke his mind and that was that.

  The Chief got away with it because he was a genius, and OMNI wouldn’t be where it is today without him and his iions. Particurly his advances in AI modeling.

  Twenty minutes passed rather quickly and soon enough a stocky older man tromped into the hangar. “What is it you wanna waste my time on now ya glorified errand boy?”

  Theo chuckled. “Oh, how I have missed your acerbic wit, Chief Benning.”

  “Quit trying to butter me up with your fancy words. I’m not one of your pillow girls. Just tell me what you want.”

  “I was hoping you could give me some insight into our most ret acquisition?”

  “Waste of my damn time,” the man grumbled under his breath. The engineer walked over to a locker and pulled out a drill before stomping over to the crate and removing the bolts that secured the top and sides.

  With a grunt, he pushed the items off and looked ihis is the shit you bought?”

  Theo frowned. “Did they switch it on us?” He didn’t think the station Captains had the balls to do something like that but you never could be certain with some people.

  “What are you yammering about?”

  While he did enjoy the man’s cutting entary, he was starting to get annoyed. “Is it or is it not what we were supposed to get?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  A vein pulsed in Theo's forehead and he pulled out his tablet and scrolled to the page that showed what they were supposed to receive. Then he ha over to the Chief. The man g it momentarily before handing it back. “Yeah, that’s what we have.”

  “Good, for a moment you had me worried.”

  “You should be. This is shit.”

  He took a deep breath before responding. “ you eborate?”

  “Shit, it es out your rear end. But if you are referring to the specific shit in front of us, just look at it.” The man waved to the device like he should uand.

  “Please tinue.”

  The man shook his head. “This is why I keep telling those idiots in corporate not to purchase shit without sulting with me. This ‘printer’, if you even call it that, is forty years out of date. My grandchild has a more advanced printer and he's five.”

  “What about the modifications, surely those are important.”

  The Chief scoffed. “I wasn’t sure what they were at first gnce, but after taking in the whole thing I’m pretty sure I know what they do.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Nothing any newer industrial printer ’t. If my guess is correct, and they usually are, it’s a ring desigo emit aromagic field.”

  Theo was fused. He didn’t know a whole lot about teology, but he wasn’t pletely unfamiliar with certain things. “Why would someone want to create aric field ihe print area?”

  “Aromagic field, not aric field, ya nitwit. Normally there would be no point. The field this little thing create would be too weak to do anything, especially on a p. And the OMNI orbital printers already have simir teology built into them.”

  Uanding came to Theo. “That device cels the effect of gravity?” If that were true, this purchase was even bigger than he realized.

  The engineer burst into ughter. “What are you smoking? Of course, it doesn’t. All it likely does is teract the field produced by gravity pting. Hell, it probably doesn’t even do that. It probably just weakens it. While I will give the ma for ing up with a unique way of going about it, it is funally useless. Any printer created i decade pensate for the effects of gravity while it prints. And newer ships just switch off ses of gravity to produce better effects.”

  No, that didn’t make sense. He had bee out here personally to oversee this acquisition. He was starting to hyperventite. “What about the designs I sent you?”

  “What about them?”

  “There has to be something worthwhile there?” Theo’s panic began to rise, causing his voice to break slightly.

  The old engineer quirked an eyebrow at that. “Just how much did this cost OMNI?”

  Theodore told him. He had to wait ten minutes before the man stopped ughing long enough to speak. “You wasted three hundred million. I could have saved us four months and a trip out here if someone had just spoken to me first. Sure, OMNI will probably make their money back… eventually.”

  “Eventually? But we could implement this into new designs.”

  “No, you ’t because our new engine designs have already elimihose inefficies. Hell, the -gen engines are more effit yet. The only thing these designs are good for is improviing installs of older models, and you know how OMNI feels about that.”

  He did know. OMNI’s current sales philosophy revolved around new engine installs, not upgrading ines. So why had corporate sent him out here to buy it… unless. His face went pale.

  “Oh ho! Looks like someone finally caught on,” Benning chuckled.

  “But- I’ve been a model employee. Why would they want to set me up for failure.”

  “You are but a small cog in a rge mae, Pembrooke. Someone high up the saw this opportunity and gambled on it. Or maybe they thought you were getting too big for your britches. Either way,” he shrugged. “Do you think they are going to take the fall when it turns out the iment of three ships and over five months was wasted? But don’t worry your tiny little brain, they probably won’t fire you and if they sent you out here, you’re obviously not being liquidated.” Chief Benning chuckled again.

  A cold creepiio down Theo’s back. He was usually the one who liquidated people, so he knew what that meant.

  “They will simply demote and reassign you. Good luck with that by the way.” The man cpped him on the shoulder before walking out of the hold ughing.

  This wasn’t funny, why was he ughing?