Chapter 47

Civilian stations in Outer Space were a mess. Unlike the OCD-compliant city planning found within the Galactic Empire, these places looked like someone had just kept slapping box-shaped modules together until they grew into a structural accident.

The Cleo 4 Star System, the closest neighbor to the Alpha Star System, boasted a pair of suns and a collection of planets tracing orbital paths so complex they’d give a mathematician a stroke. Right in the middle of this gravitational mosh pit floated the Cleo Multi-Connected Station.

"...Complete and utter failure. Not a single bite," Teiro moaned.

He was currently slumped in the lounge of the Plum II, which was moored to a spindly pier extending from the station. The lounge was the ship's social heart, packed with tables, sofas, rugs, and enough tea-making equipment to drown a small moon.

While the Plum II did have a formal briefing room, the crew usually ended up here for their strategy sessions—mostly because the chairs were softer.

"Hmm, the demand should be there. Maybe we're just too expensive?" Marl mused.

She was curled up on the sofa next to him, the sweet, soothing aroma of black tea wafting from her cup to tickle Teiro’s nose. They were both staring at a display showing the trade goods they’d listed on the station’s local market. Unlike the Empire, where specialized dealers handled everything, logistics out here were about as stable as a unicycle on an ice rink, so this kind of "post and pray" bidding was the norm. The neural net’s auction house was currently hemorrhaging tens of millions of listings.

"Actually, scratch that," Marl said, correcting herself. "I just saw an older model of our Warp Stabilizers sell for a similar price. Why isn't ours moving?"

"Maybe they need a specific brand? Or maybe the local ships have weird proprietary slots?" Teiro rubbed his temples. "Look, if we don't move these by the end of the day, we’re just going to dump them on a buy-back agent. My patience is officially at zero."

They had been sitting on these Warp Stabilizers for two full days. Back in the Empire—or even at a backwater like Alpha—these things would have been snapped up in hours. Selling to a general buy-back agent was the nuclear option; those vultures would nickel-and-dime them until they were practically paying the agent to take the cargo.

"Well, well. Why the long faces, children?"

Bella sauntered in, a cigar clamped between her teeth and an expression of cool indifference plastered on her face. She offered a brief "Excuse me" as she sat across from Teiro, taking a drink from a subordinate who trailed behind her like a well-trained shadow.

"Hey, Bella," Teiro groaned, sliding down the sofa until he was basically a puddle of misery. "Our inventory is dead in the water. We can’t shift a single unit."

Bella gave him a look reserved for particularly slow toddlers and activated her own terminal. "Warp Stabilizers, huh? Good gear. Terrible sales pitch. You're doing it all wrong."

Teiro snapped upright so fast he nearly threw out his back. "What do you mean 'wrong'!?"

Bella winced at the volume. "In this big, messy galaxy, your 'corp' is a nobody. This isn't the Empire, kid. People out here are paranoid. They see high-end tech being sold by a group they’ve never heard of, and they start wondering what the catch is."

The lightbulbs finally flickered to life over Teiro and Marl’s heads.

"So, to them, we're just some shady outfit hawking top-tier hardware from the back of a van," Teiro muttered. "Yeah, I wouldn't buy from us either."

"It's true," Marl added. "They probably think the stabilizers are stolen. What if we attached the original Sales Contract to the listing?"

"Great idea! Let's just scan a copy," Teiro said, reaching for his terminal.

"Don't be a moron, boy," Bella interrupted. "Unless you're looking for a one-way ticket to a tax evasion audit. If you want a duplicate, go to a specialist who can issue a Duplicate Certificate. It'll cost you a few credits, but they’ll give you a verified chip. It proves you’re legit."

"Ugh, paperwork? Fine, let's do it. If this doesn't work, I'm retiring."

It worked. After Teiro visited a duplication firm and updated the listing with the certified contract, the market went into a frenzy. Within minutes, every single stabilizer was sold—and for a significantly higher price than they had originally asked.

"Note to self: hire a local before I lose my shirt next time," Teiro sighed as the credits hit their account.

"And who was it that sent us to do the local survey around the Alpha Star System again?" Bella asked with a shark-like grin.

Teiro turned a magnificent shade of crimson and studied his shoes in silence.

With their pockets lined and the Cleo Star System behind them, the Plum II set a course for their first real objective: Point 01. They burned through Stargates and pushed the Quadro-Pulse Engine through more Overdrive cycles than Teiro cared to count.

The journey was relatively safe, but the sheer emptiness of Outer Space started to get to him. In the Empire, space felt lived-in. Out here, the only time you saw another ship was near a gate. It was a haunting, lonely vastness.

He still had the mental scars from that year spent alone with Koume on the ghost ship, but this felt different. It wasn't just isolation; it was the realization that the Empire’s safety net was gone. To cope, he spent as much time as possible with the crew, who were more than happy to have the distraction.

"Alright, roll for initiative. A fumble? Oof. Sucks to be you. Your character trips into the pit and takes six points of damage."

Teiro became a one-man entertainment troupe, introducing his crewmates to ancient, "analog" games and bizarre hobbies he’d cooked up on the fly. He jokingly called himself a 'Genius of Solo-Play,' but to the bored-to-tears spacers, he was basically a god of fun.

Two weeks passed since they’d left Alpha. By the time they reached the outskirts of Point 01, Teiro had managed to gamble and game his way out of his existential funk.

"I guess the Empire is like a strict, overbearing dad," Teiro remarked, staring at a derelict station on the monitor.

"Where is this coming from?" Marl asked.

"Just thinking. People complain about the Empire being too hands-off or too tyrannical, but you really miss the old man when he's not around to keep the lights on."

"Obviously," Marl agreed. "You need a foundation for everything—mental, physical, social. The Empire is the bedrock. I don't even want to joke about what would happen if it collapsed."

Teiro nodded. "Total anarchy. No trade, just endless war. I never really gave the concept of a 'State' much credit back home, but it turns out they're pretty handy."

He thought back to Earth—specifically Japan. He tried to conjure the faces of his family and friends, but they were starting to slip. He knew they existed, but they appeared in his mind as nothing more than blurry, out-of-focus shapes.

If only I could clear up my memories as easily as those pixels on a dirty video...

"Did you say something?" Marl asked.

"Nothing, just talking to myself," Teiro waved her off. "Anyway, is that the Point 01 the Doctor mentioned?"

A few thousand kilometers ahead, a tiny structure drifted in the void. It had once been a Star System Observation Station. The Plum II’s sensors picked up a faint, dying beacon, marking it as a tiny blip on the Radar Screen.

[[ SHIELD DEFENSE: OUTPUT 2.2% ]]

The notification flashed across Teiro’s BISHOP interface. He leapt out of his skin, then scrambled back into his pilot’s seat.

"Enemy?! What?! Space debris?! Did we hit a bird?!"

"Unknown, Mr. Teiro," Koume’s voice rang out, perfectly calm. "However, it was not debris. Analysis suggests a beam weapon, though it was heavily diffused by the time it reached us. Hull integrity is nominal."

Teiro clutched his chest, trying to convince his heart to stay inside his ribs. "Diffused? So it was a stray shot from beyond effective range? What are the odds of that?!"

"According to the Galactic Empire Statistics Bureau, such an occurrence happens fewer than several dozen times a year across the entire galaxy. My, what a truly valuable experience for us all, Mr. Teiro."

"Why do you sound so smug about us getting shot at?! Never mind—run a scan!"

"Already on it," Marl said, her fingers flying across her console. "I'm focusing the sensors... Got them. Putting it on the main screen now."

The Radar Screen zoomed out, the scale shrinking until it covered a massive swath of space. Far to the front-right of the Plum II, a cluster of yellow icons flickered into existence.

"Counting... twenty-two ships. That’s a whole fleet," Teiro whispered. "What the hell are they doing out here?"

Marl looked at him, her expression grim. "What’s the play, Teiro?"

"We've got no choice," he said, squinting at the icons. "We wait and see."