Nori looked around her. “This place can seat fifty people easily. Isn’t it a bit of a waste of space?”

  Lana crossed her arms. “Unity is now our home. If we’re going to live here, we should have a few comforts. Trust me, there’s enough space to supply our every need.”

  “The science officer’s observation is correct.” Unity’s orb hovered into the area. “The extra rooms—”

  “Shhh,” Lana said. “Don’t spoil the surprise.” She walked through the open lounge area. A pair of meter-wide corridors spanned the sides of the ship, leading farther inside. The woman led the rest of the crew through the left corridor. Four meters in was a right turn into another corridor which spanned the ship’s width, meeting with the right corridor on the other side. Nine doors lined its sides.

  “Are those separate quarters?” Cattie said eagerly. “Please tell me it's our new quarters.”

  Lana’s face fell. “Oh, no … I’m sorry.”

  Cattie’s expression slackened immediately.

  “Quarters sounds too much like military bunks,” Lana said with a smile and opened the first door. “I much prefer to think of these as our new crew cabins.”

  The room was about fifteen square meters with a high, nearly four-meter-tall ceiling. There was a bed hanging on a raised platform, some shelves, a dresser, and a narrow, yet tall, cabinet. There was another small interior door at the far side of the room.

  Lana pointed at it. “That’s the shower and bathroom.”

  “A private bathroom.” Cattie closed her eyes in bliss. “I could French kiss you.”

  Lana coughed and shifted uncomfortably.

  Nori came to her rescue. “Are all the rooms the same?”

  “Oh, no, that’s just my room. Everything inside is foldable: the furniture, the bathroom, even the hanging bed. You can each redesign your own living space as you’d like—even use Unity’s restructuring option if you want something a bit more heavy duty.”

  “How come there are four doors on this side of the corridor and five on the other one?” Nori asked.

  Lana smirked. “I think you’re going to like it. Come on.”

  She led them to the end of the corridor and opened the last door on the left. It opened to reveal a room twice the size of the first one. “I give you the captain’s cabin,” Lana said proudly. “You have enough room here to raise some partitions, make a separate bedroom if you’d like.

  Nori took a step back, shaking her head. “That’s too much. I can’t accept it. I’m no different than any of you. I’ll take one of the standard rooms.”

  “A captain should maintain appearances,” Serk spoke up unexpectedly. “Status is important. Future crew members, as well as outsiders, would show you more respect if they see your higher station”

  “Just accept it, Nori,” Bulco added. “The little green dude is right. Earth Force might be a new faction, but hierarchy is important. It helps maintain order, and this will help.”

  Nori looked uncertain, meeting Cattie and Nathan’s eyes. The two ex-students nodded back at her.

  “Alright,” she said reluctantly and threw Lana a stern look. “Next time, ask me before making a decision on my behalf.”

  “Aye aye, Captain,” the dark-haired woman said brightly. “Just one last area left to show you. Come on.”

  She led them back to the main corridor along the side of the ship and walked toward the rear. The corridor ended in a bend to meet up with its counterpart at the far side. Five doors were built along it.

  Lana reached the first door and opened it, revealing a spacious chamber, nearly forty square meters in size. “Science lab,” she said proudly. She continued walking at a brisk pace along the corridor, opening each door in turn. “Med Bay, empty unallocated room, empty unallocated room, and empty unallocated room.” She reached the end of the corridor and turned to face her friends, grinning. “And that’s it, folks! Unity’s new and improved interior. What do you think?”

  Bulco shook his head. “You did an amazing job, girl. I didn’t think we had enough Trinium left to accomplish even half of what you did.”

  “Well...” Lana winced. “I did scavenge some Trinium from the walls I tore down, and I repurposed the parts I used to compartmentalize the boarding team. I still had to be a little creative. Apart from the armory, most of the internal partitions are very thin. We might want to fix that when we get some more Trinium to spend.”

  “Still, it’s pretty amazing,” Nori said. “We have so many empty rooms now, I don’t know what we’ll use them for.”

  “We’ll need to buy proper equipment first,” Lana cautioned. “Specialized tools for a science lab, medical supplies, and so forth.”

  Nori nodded. “Once we sell everything we should have plenty. Unity, how long until we arrive?”

  “Forty-six minutes, Captain.”

  Lana rubbed her hands together. “Looks like we have some time. Who’s up for a hot drink and some snacks in the lounge?”

  ***

  Nori easily guided the ship through the incoming and outgoing traffic around the space station, and they soon landed on one of the top balconies in the pristine administrator tower.

  “Okay.” Lana, back at her seat on the bridge, cracked her fingers. “We’ve reconnected with the station’s network. Now sit back and watch the Expert work.”

  Several brightly colored holo monitors materialized around her.

  Nori wrinkled her forehead as the science officer’s hands blurred over several different consoles. “What are you doing?”

  “First, I’m sending that smelter, Tre’gak, a request for a meeting. Second, I’m checking the local regulations and standard shipping procedures. Third, I’m requesting to open a line of credit with the station and routing it to our account. And … I’m … done.”

  A small yellow dot pinged on one of the hovering displays.

  “Right on time,” Lana said smugly. She pressed a button on her console and the main viewscreen changed to display a three-meter tall image of the Inthidlon Metallurgist they’d met earlier.

  “Tre’gak, thank you for accepting my call.” Lana smiled at him.”

  The alien frowned. “You’re the one called Lana, right? Do you have more aluminum to sell me?”

  “Nope. But we do have some Nadirium.”

  His eyes widened. “You do? That’s excellent. As I agreed, I’ll pay 120 piTec per kilo of raw Nadirium. That’s 20% higher than the station’s rate.”

  “Actually,” Lana said pleasantly. “We want to pay you.”

  “I … don’t understand.”

  “We want to hire you to refine the Nadirium for us.”

  “You do?” He frowned. “But the cost … ah, of course, with your tax waiver that would be quite the lucrative enterprise for you. Very well, how much raw Nadirium do you have?”

  “Thirty-two kilos.”

  He nodded. “A respectable amount. Very well, my fee for that much is 3,200 piTec. If that’s all, we can sign the contract.”

  Lana smile. “That’s not all. Is your facility capable of synthesizing Erodium?”

  “Of course.” He scoffed. “I’m no second-rate smelter. My equipment is the best. It’s capable of processing up to grade B materials. But producing Erodium is even more expen—” He stopped speaking and stared at the smug Expert.

  “Yup, the tax waiver thing again. So, can you do it?”

  He nodded slowly. “Three point two kilos of refined Nadirium will be sufficient to produce over a hundred and fifty kilos of Erodium. The cost for that job is 12,800 piTec.”

  “Actually,” Lana said, obviously enjoying herself. “We also have 26 kilos of refined Nadirium already and would like them converted as well.”

  The alien stared hard at her. “Any more surprises you wish to share?”

  “Nope, that’s all.”

  “Very well.” He rubbed his chin in a very human-like manner, then he typed something on his wrist console. “The total cost, including refining the raw Nadirium comes out to 107,200 piTec in total,” he said. He tried to sound nonchalant, but his glittering eyes betrayed his excitement.

  “How long will it take?”

  “Not long. Perhaps seven or eight hours.”

  “We’ll pay you a bonus for a total of 120,000 piTec if you can deliver the Erodium back to us in less than five hours,” Lana said. “How does that sound?”

  Tre’gak’s expression turned almost hungry. “Agreed. I’ll recruit more workers immediately. You will have your Erodium in four and a half hours. Sign the contract please.”

  A different console beeped, and Lana turned it toward Nori. “Captain’s approval is required.”

  Nori stepped forward and approved the contract after a brief glance. Immediately, several robotic arms, visible on the side viewscreens, emerged from beneath the landing pad and moved toward Unity’s aft.

  Lana turned back to her consoles, her hands a blur over the controls.

  “What was the deal with the bonus?” Bulco grunted. “We could have used those extra thirteen thousand piTec.”

  Lana raised one finger and continued inputting a series of commands with her other hand.

  At last, she finished and raised her head, looking pleased with herself. “Nori, can you please check our bank account?”

  Nori gave the Expert a strange look but raised her wrist and tapped the small light console that appeared over it. A moment later, she looked up at Lana, shocked.

  “What is it?” Cattie asked.

  “We just received a deposit of 963,000 piTec,” she said, awestruck.

  Lana smirked. “Do you remember that on top of the tax waiver, Alzigo’s brother promised to buy our resources at a ten percent markup? That on its own was worth an extra 80,000 piTec, so I’d say giving away 13,000 as an incentive was well worth the spend.”

  “But …” Nori stared down at her wrist than back up at the grinning young woman. “How?”

  “Easy. I was able to forward our contract with Tre’gak to the station and complete the transaction with them based on that. The payment was transferred to us, and the Erodium doesn’t even have to go over to us first—it’ll transfer straight into the station’s stores. I’ve even set up an auto payment for Tre’gak, once he delivers.”

  “That’s our brainiac,” Cattie said affectionately. She approached the smug young woman and ruffled her hair.

  “Alright, Cung,” Nori said, bringing up her personal console again. “I’m transferring your payment now. 6760 piTec, as agreed, plus 20 percent bonus.”

  Cung nodded and checked her own wrist. “Thank you, Nori. It was a pleasure working with you and your crew. Until next time.” She turned and left for the exit.

  “Well, well,” Bulco said brightly. “So we now have over eight hundred thousand piTec. How are we going to spend it? Personally, I’m liking the idea of some serious firepower upgrade for this tub.”

  “We need to set aside 50,000 to charter a freighter to get back to Earth and start bringing in shipments of aluminum,” Lana said.

  Nori nodded. “And I want to get useful gadgets for our people back home.”

  Bulco nodded. “You’re right. But we still need to fix Unity’s null tunnel drive and purchase a few other upgrades. They won’t come cheap.”

  “Plus, now that we’re rich, I’d like to have one of those cool-looking alien guns,” Cattie said.

  “I’ll need some parts for my mech as well,” Serk added.

  Nori sighed. “Suddenly a million piTec doesn’t sound like much. Alright, looks like we’re off to do some shopping.

  ***

  Once they disembarked, Lana spent a few moments tinkering with the docking bay’s console.

  “All done,” she said, stepping away from the device. “I’ve commissioned the null drive upgrade for 72,000 piTec.”

  They took the elevator out of the tower and boarded a tram capsule back to the Metrodome, the commercial heart of the station.

  “I think we should split up,” Nori said, looking at the many shops and businesses stretching on both sides of the main road. “First priority is for cheap and useful stuff we can buy in bulk to help the folks back home. Let’s keep an open comm channel to coordinate. Lana, you’re with me. Cattie, go with Nathan. Bulco—”

  “I don’t need a chaperone,” the large man said indignantly. “I can handle myself.”

  Cattie frowned. “Why didn’t Serk join us?”

  Bulco shrugged. “He might do that later, but for now, he said he wanted to continue working on the mech. Gave me a list of stuff to get him.”

  “Alright,” Nori said. “Then let’s spread out. Patsy said this dome is safe, but stay vigilant anyway. I don’t know if that Karnaf captain was bluffing or not about their affiliation with the Syndicate, but it's probably best if we conclude our business here as quickly as possible and leave the station. Agreed?”

  Everyone nodded, then spread out in different directions.

  ***

  “Holy deep-fried butter on a stick!” Cattie exclaimed and stopped in her tracks, eyeing a shop at the side of the road.

  Nathan nearly bumped into her and stared at the Sharpshooter. “A holy what?”

  “What? It’s a thing,” the woman said defensively. “Saw it at a county fair once.”

  The young Technomancer shook his head. “Why did we stop?”

  “Check this out.” She pointed at a large alien rifle in the front of the shop. It looked like someone had taken a small anti-aircraft cannon and slapped retractable plates all over it.

  Nathan raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s an alien sniper rifle,” Cattie explained. “Grade E. According to my Path, it’s foldable, has a built-in anti-grav carrier, and an effective range of up to five kilometers. Momma gotta have her one of those.”

  Nathan approached the store and shook his head. “Expensive.”

  The small holographic price tag indicated the weapon cost 25,000 piTec.

  “Hey, we can afford it,” the woman objected. “If I had this baby when we fought the mech …”

  “Then Serk would be dead,” Nathan said simply. “I believe the captain would agree.”

  “Yeah, but come on—”

  “Nathan’s right,” Nori said over their comms. “Check if the store sells any cheap mass produced weapons. Something we could deliver back to the people on Earth.”

  “You’re no fun,” Cattie grunted and entered the store.

  ***

  Nori turned back to Lana. “You sure about it? It’s very expensive.”

  They were standing inside a shop dealing in heavy machinery and stared at a circular machine roughly the size of a family car.

  Lana nodded. “I think it’s the best option. This fabricator will let the settlements mass produce Tec-infused components of their own. This will allow them to build weapons, communication arrays, and foldable sheets—anything that requires specialized alien-based technology, really.”

  Nori nodded slowly. “But wouldn’t that mean they’ll have to use Trinium or more advanced alloys?”

  Lana offered the Navigator a small smile. “I already thought of that. Trinium is basically made up of commonly found minerals that are specifically interlaced at the molecular level. With a little modification to our factories back on Earth, we could be producing those alloys on our own. And guess where we can get the components required to upgrade said factories?” She eyed the bulky fabricator meaningfully.

  “Not bad,” Nori said slowly. “Two hundred thousand piTec is not a small expense, but I think you’re right.

  The younger woman winced. “Two hundred fifty, actually. This unit is too big—it requires an external power source, so we’ll need to buy a small power core to run it for an extra fifty.”

  “Still worth it,” the Navigator said decisively. She highlighted the two items, adding them to their shopping list.

  Continuing to browse the machinery shop, they also added an industrial-sized power charger bank meant to recharge weapons’ power cells en masse. Luckily, among the thousands of free schematics the fabricator came with, was the design for manufacturing empty power cells. With the charger bank they would be able to support thousands of energy-based weapons.

  The store also sold portable engineering kits—basically a small suitcase that unfolded into a rudimentary workbench that included commonly used tools in Tec-based technology. They went for 500 piTec each, but Lana managed to persuade the shop owner to give them a bulk discount, bringing the price down to 320 apiece. They ended up buying 200 units.

  Not a bad haul for 329,000 piTec, Nori thought. Wincing slightly, she approved the transaction, which also included the delivery of everything to the awaiting freighter.

  “Guys,” Nori spoke through her comm implant. “We’ve got 467,000 piTec left, so make them count.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it, kid,” Bulco’s voice answered. “I’m looking at just what we need.”

  ***

  The Engineer stood inside a dilapidated warehouse full of what looked like discarded garbage. In front of him stood a slimy merchant.

  Literally.

  The alien who owned the place looked like a giant, pulsating booger. To his credit, Bulco didn’t let any of the revulsion he felt show on his face, though without any discernible face of its own, the alien probably couldn’t tell what such an expression would mean.

  “Eighty thousand piTec,” the alien said stubbornly in a gurgling voice.

  Bulco crossed his arms. “Look here, buddy, all you have here are piles of junk and a bunch of broken components. Hauling this shit away is going to cost me more than what it’s worth. Twenty-five thousand, take it or leave it.”

  “Some of the machinery still works,” the giant-sized booger protested. “It’s in bad shape, but it still functions.”

  “I’m an AstroTec,” Bulco replied. “You know what my Path is showing me?” He turned toward one of the piles and started pointing at some of the scattered pieces. “Unstable matrix, ruptured power conduits, radiation leakage, catastrophic power fluctuations—” He stopped and furrowed his brow. “I’m not an expert on local laws, but is it even legal to store something like that inside a civilian, pressurized dome?”