A new Admiral has joined our Royal Ranks. We welcome you, Admiral Maël MOREAU.
May your fleet glide through the cosmos and show every maggot just how great Humanity is! Spread our name, spread our glory, and rise, Admiral Maël MOREAU! For it is an honor to have you amongst our ranks.
As your Fleet Admiral, I, Crimson_Reapr, welcome you, honor your commitment to our cause, and thank you for your service. May our power reach beyond the edges of charted space, and may ruin fall upon all who stand against humanity's strength.
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POV: Mark
It had now been over a month since I had decided to dive headfirst into this business venture, and I'll be honest, this shit is not working out. I was looking over my expenses report for the last month in the Shepherd's galley, enjoying some breakfast in the company of Lyra, who was staring at the holo-screen where two caricatures in a cartoon chased each other in a way that reminded me of my childhood. It was all being projected right before her eyes by Marcos, who decided to use his ability to change his avatar at any given moment in a better way than just messing with me.
"Fuck..." I sighed lowly. It had been almost two weeks since the production of the Thermal-Flow Vents had finished. So many days had passed, and I still sat with the same stock I had produced. 4,000 units of Model 1A, 2,000 units of Model 1B, and 1C. They all pretty much lay in storage, accumulating dust.
I had calculated that I would have been raking in a good amount of money by now. Not enough to get me into the big leagues, but more than enough to allow me to start expanding and hopefully become a household name someday. But it just seemed like I was spinning my wheels at the moment, and not having made a single sale only made the frustration within me rise.
I ran a hand across my face in an attempt to smother out the frustration that was starting to take hold of me, and looked up to Lyra, who was staring at me with a cute, innocent smile.
"Fuck," she repeated the same word I had said, though in an adorable tone.
"No, don't say that," I said, raising my eyebrows and shaking my head at her.
"Fuck!" she repeated, with more enthusiasm this time.
"Hey!" I said, trying to make my voice sound stern. But it was to no avail as Lyra started giggling.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" she said, giggling.
I stood up from my chair and went to get to her eye level to reprimand her, but she shot out of her chair as well and darted for the entrance of the galley while repeating the word over and over again.
I straightened up and chased after her, all the while she just kept on saying "fuck" while giggling and running. It took me about 10 seconds to catch her and lift her up in the air, her giggles and antics drowning out the worries and frustration that once clouded my mind.
"Hey, you're not supposed to be saying that word," I said as I tickled her.
She squirmed and tried to break free from my hold, her giggles quickly giving way to full-blown laughter.
"But-but-but, but papa, you say it," she said through a mixture of laughs and gasps for air from the tickles.
"But it is a grown-up word," I retorted while I continued torturing her with tickles. "And this is the punishment for saying grown-up words when you're still little."
"Ha ha ha ha ha," she let out her laughs. "Papa, stop, stop, stop, too much tickles."
But I didn't stop immediately. I kept the tickle attack going for another minute, letting the sound of her unbridled joy wash over the galley as I carried her back. It was the best kind of cleanser for the grime of business failure clinging to my mood. For a moment, the unsold Thermal-Flow Vents and the stagnant bank account didn't exist. There was just Lyra and me, her face flushed pink, kicking her legs in the air as she tried to fend off my hands.
Eventually, I did end up showing mercy, scooping her up one last time and tossing her gently onto a cushioned bench of the galley booth. She landed with a soft whump and a final giggle, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.
I sat down next to her, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. "Okay, okay, truce," I said, holding up my hands in surrender.
Lyra took a deep breath, her eyes still sparkling with mischief. "You... you lose, Papa."
"Oh, I lose? I think you were the one begging for mercy," I grinned, tapping her nose. She scrunched it up, swatting my hand away.
I let the silence settle for a second as I shifted gears. My relationship with Lyra had progressed quite far in the past month, and I had honestly come to see myself as her father, rather than her adoptive father. And right about now, I needed to be Dad, not just the tickle monster.
"But hey," I started, trying to keep my voice light but serious. "We need to talk about that word, Lyra."
Her smile faltered just a fraction, and she began to pick at the synthetic fabric of her pants, avoiding my eyes. "The F-word?"
"Yeah, that one. And the S-word too," I said, leaning forward to make sure she was listening. "Those are bad words, Lyra. You can't be running around shouting them, especially not when you visit the orphanage."
She looked up at me, her lower lip jutting out in a pout that was weapon-grade adorable. "But you say them! You said it at the screen, and you say it a lot when you think!"
I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. There was nothing like a kid pointing out your own hypocrisy with laser precision. "I know, and I shouldn't. But like I said, those are grown-up words. Sometimes grown-ups say silly things when they're frustrated. But when you're little, you have to use nice words."
"That's not fair," she grumbled, crossing her little arms.
"Maybe not," I admitted. "But those are the rules. If you say those words, people act differently. It's not polite." I paused, deciding to bring out the big guns. "And, if I hear you saying them again... that means an earlier bedtime."
Her eyes went wide. "No!"
"Yes," I nodded firmly. "And... it might mean less time playing with your friends at the orphanage and less time for cartoons. We can't have you teaching the other kids bad words, right?"
I watched as her face morphed adorably with genuine horror. After all, the orphanage and the cartoons were the center of her universe, and losing that playtime or screen time was a fate worse than death.
"But I want to play and watch cartoons!" she whined.
"Then we have a deal?" I held out my hand. "No bad words. Even if Papa slips up and says them."
She looked at my hand, then up at my face, weighing her options. The desire to mimic me warred with the desire to play tag with kids her own size. However, the social calendar won out.
"Okay," she sighed, shaking my hand with solemn gravity. "No bad words."
"Atta girl." I leaned over and kissed her forehead and grabbed her breakfast, placing it before her. "Now, finish your breakfast before it gets cold."
As she turned to her plate, picking up a piece of synthetic toast, the air in the galley shimmered, and Marcos's avatar, currently looking like a stylized, glowing butler, materialized leaning against the bulkhead.
"A masterful display of parenting," Marcos said, his voice dripping with amusement. "Truly inspiring. 'Do as I say, not as I do.' A classic human philosophy."
I shot his hologram a glare. "Shut it, Marcos."
"I am merely suggesting," the AI continued, examining his digital fingernails, "that perhaps the child would not require such complex negotiation regarding her vocabulary if her primary role model did not sound like a sailor who stubbed his toe every time he looked at a spreadsheet."
"I don't sound like a sailor," I grumbled, grabbing my cooling coffee.
"Mark, my auditory logs from the last hour alone contain seventeen distinct expletives," Marcos countered cheerfully. "Maybe if you expanded your vocabulary, she wouldn't be so limited to the four-letter variety. Just a thought."
I opened my mouth to retort, realized he was right, and closed it again. I looked at Lyra, who was happily munching her toast, oblivious to the fact that what was technically the ship was roasting her father.
"Just... put the cartoons back on," I muttered, hiding my face in my mug.
"With pleasure," Marcos replied, and with a flicker, the chasing caricatures returned to the screen, accompanied by the sound of Lyra's giggles and Marcos' low, digital chuckle.
"What the fu-" I caught myself before the word had fully escaped my lips, "hell, what the hell am I going to do?"
I quickly glanced at Lyra to see if she had noticed, but thankfully, she was too entranced in what she was watching to pay attention to my soft musings. I had a total potential revenue of 6 million credits minus the 1.2 million it technically costs to make them, if I hadn't hooked up the facility's power to the Shepherd's reactor. You take from that 6 million another 25 percent, and that would leave me with a total profit of 3.3 million credits.
That amount of profit would put me well above my target range of the required 500k yearly credits needed for expansion. What I would have to figure out after that would be how to expand, who to hire, and maybe create an R&D department. But what I truly want to do is build starships, but I need to build my reputation up first.
"Let me stop myself right there," I said to myself. "I'm looking too far into the future when I need to be focusing on what I have right now and the issues I'm facing."
And the only issue I was currently facing was sales. I had the product, and I had set up a price that, although more expensive, still undercut the competition in the price-to-performance ratio. But the issue that was strangling my sales was the location.
No independent freighter pilot was going to strut around and navigate the heavy industrial ring just to see what some LCC was selling. And then there were the ads I was paying for. They were pretty much fine print in comparison to the more attractive ads of the corporations and other established LCCs. Business on Nova Celeste and its surrounding stations was a world of dog-eat-dog, and I wasn't eating jack shit.
"Marcos, I think we're going to need to bring the product to the customers," I said. "I'm going to need to shift to a distribution model that doesn't rely on them coming here."
"A mobile distribution unit would be optimal," Marcos agreed with me. "However, purchasing a small transport vehicle would further deplete our liquid capital, and the LCC regulations limit us to one physical storefront, which is this shipyard."
"I know the rules," I said, leaning back in the booth. "We can't just open a second store. But I thoroughly read the terms and conditions, and they never said anything against operating from a mobile base of operations that is, technically, a part of our primary asset.... I mean, the Shepherd has a large cargo bay, doesn't it?"
Marcos was quiet for a second before his avatar materialized in front of me, his height shifting to meet my eyes. I glanced over his shoulder and noticed that the holographic screen was still displaying cartoons for Lyra.
"You could've just done that the entire time?" I asked.
"I could," he nodded. "What are you planning, Mark?"
I smiled at his avatar, "I'm thinking we convert the forward section of the cargo bay into a mobile demonstration and sales center. We grab a good portion of our stocked supplies, maybe a few thousand units of the vents, and then we take the Shepherd to the independent docking bays, preferably the ones on the lower tier of the commercial ring, where the courier ships, mining tugs, and cargo transports usually land. I will sell the vents directly out of the ship."
"Mark," he said, tilting his head. "You said you read the terms and conditions thoroughly."
"I did."
"Then you should know that doing that is highly irregular and runs the risk of attracting attention from the IUC Commercial Enforcement and the Merchant's Association. It would also take you away from the yard for an extended period of time."
"I say it's a necessary risk," I replied. "I mean, the yard, though it's not needed for now, can pretty much run itself on autopilot with you in command. And as for enforcement, I'm not opening a 'store.' I'm utilizing my registered LCC office, which is the yard, for fabrication, and conducting 'on-site client consultation and product delivery' from my personal, registered vessel. When it comes down to technicalities, it's compliant, even if it skirts the spirit of the law."
The internal debate wasn't even fierce. Desperation came in and won without any pushback. I needed to move the product and start making money off it.
For the next two days, the Shepherd underwent a rapid transformation as Marcos and the drones converted one of the auxiliary airlocks into a temporary display window, lining the forward cargo bay with racks of the newly manufactured SOW Thermal-Flow Vents. The office was manned by the terminal, and the yard was locked down, running on automated power cycles.
I went to drop Lyra off at the orphanage on Wednesday morning, feeling nervous but focused. When I got there, Sister Elara was standing at the door with her arms folded across her chest.
"You know," she started, "the orphanage is a place for children who have unfortunately been dealt a bad hand. Lyra, however bad her hand originally was, is not in the same situation as the other children. You can't just message us like you did last night, simply informing us that you'll be offloading her to us for a week to do business. You can always just take her with you."
I sighed and nodded at Sister Elara, one of my hands holding Lyra's bag and the other clutching her hand. "Yeah, I know. But this little lady insisted on staying so she could play with her friends."
"Yay, play!" Lyra said and started practically vibrating next to me.
"Daycares exist, you know," Sister Elara deadpanned at me.
"Yeah, but I know they don't take care of children because it's the right thing to do," I replied.
Sister Elara sighed and nodded her head. "Yeah, this universe is not kind, nor is it selfless... Okay, Lyra, you can go with your friends."
Lyra was about to dart away from me when I held her in place. I then knelt down to her eye level and put the backpack in front of her. "Papa is going to be gone for a few days on the ship. But I'll be back. In the meantime, you will stay here with Sister Elara and all your friends. Okay?"
She nodded, clutching her coloring book a little tighter. "Papa, why you take the ship?"
"Papa has to sell the new parts we made," I said softly. "I'm going to go where the other ships are, so they know where to find us when they need a repair."
"Be careful, Papa," she said seriously, giving me a hug. "Don't let Jory hit your ship."
I chuckled for a second before answering her. "I won't, I promise."
And with that, she darted through the door of the orphanage, backpack slung over one shoulder. Sister Elara put her hands on her hips and shook her head slowly.
"You know, we can't keep this up," she said. "It violates our contractual obligation with the governing powers of the station."
I raised an eyebrow at her and nodded. "I was just thinking I should give the orphanage a donation of about 40,000 credits. For the kids and all."
"I think we can make some arrangements," she said with a soft smile on her face. "After all, a donation never hurt anybody."
I shook my head and chuckled, stepping into the office to make the donation, bringing the balance of my personal checking account down to 198,495 credits.
---
I maneuvered the Shepherd through the crowded traffic lanes of the industrial ring and down into the commercial tier's independent docking platform, Docking Platform 7. This area was a chaotic, buzzing hive of small-time commerce. Grungy haulers, sleek couriers, utilitarian tugboats, and a handful of cargo transports lined up shoulder-to-shoulder.
I found an open bay near the main pedestrian thoroughfare, activated the magnetic clamps, and opened the auxiliary airlock. Over the weeks I had with no sales, I had come to find out that docking on Mechanicus Station is free for ships that are associated with an LCC that has a shop on the station, or for anyone who owns or rents any property on the station.
The reason for this trickled down to the fact that most people who owned a starship didn't really have a set place to call home. Their ship was their home, and therefore, the number of people who owned a ship and either owned or rented any property on the station was extremely low. It made sense, too. What's the point of owning a starship if your business is in one set location?
After docking, I set up a small, temporary sign that read: "SOW: Thermal-Flow Vents - Guaranteed 50% Thermal Flow Efficiency - On-Site Installation Available."
I stood in the cargo bay, its doors open, effectively acting as the universe's most over-equipped starship parts street vendor.
The first few hours were terrible. People glanced at the sign, saw the sleek, imposing lines of the Shepherd, a vessel that clearly looked like it didn't belong in this class of traffic with its menacing railguns, and steered clear. They assumed I was either a corporate spy trying to buy up small assets or some sort of scam artist.
But I waited. I had to overcome the reputation of my size, the ship, and the suspicion of its owner.
Eventually, my patience paid off as a grizzled man with a maintenance vest stepped off a beat-up hauling ship named the Dust Bunny. He looked around for a while before finally locking eyes with me, and then shifting his eyes to my sign. He walked up to me and paused.
"Fifty percent flow, huh?" he drawled, adjusting his cap. "That's a bold claim. If it's so good, then why haven't I seen them before? Who are you with?"
I smiled at the man, adopting a friendly non-threatening posture and leaning back against one of the stock racks. "Shephard Orbital Works," I said. "My name is Mark Shephard. We're a brand new LCC, fabricating here on the station. We're small and haven't really had a chance to spread our wings, but one thing's for sure, we build and design better."
"Better than who?" The man questioned, narrowing his eyes.
"Better than the IUC-approved standard factory issue from any of the bigwigs that you're certainly running on the Bunny," I challenged. "I can see the exhaust vents from here. They're running hotter than they should be, and those standard units cost you 550 credits a pop just to choke your engine."
The man grunted. He knew the price of standard parts well.
"That's burning fuel and costing you maintenance cycles," I continued, dropping my goggles down from my forehead to my eyes and tapping on them, a gesture that indicated Marcos to scan the ship's current cooling array.
"Scanning complete." I heard Marcos' voice in my ear. "The vessel is running six standard IUC-34 vents. Its current thermal flow is restricted, forcing the system to compensate by increasing fuel consumption by 4.2%."
The data was redirected to my Q-comm, which I pulled out to show the man."You're burning credits on thermal waste. Give my vents a try. I'd say you most likely need Model 1B. We replace one of yours for 750 credits, and I can assure you that you would get a direct-fit replacement that bumps your thermal flow efficiency to 50% and nets you a hard 3% increase in fuel efficiency. And in the off-chance that it doesn't, I'll pull it out and give you your money back. No questions asked."
The man squinted at the numbers.
"Seven-fifty? The IUC-approved standard is only five-fifty. You're charging a hefty premium."
"Quality rarely comes cheap. Plus, I'm charging for the engineering, not the stamped metal," I countered. "The IUC-approved vents are cheap to buy, in relation to mine, but they are way more expensive to run. My vent only costs you 200 credits more upfront, but with a 3% in fuel savings and higher efficiency, it will pay the difference in a single standard hauling run. After that, every credit you save is pure profit in your pocket."
He hesitated, calculating the fuel costs in his head. Then he pulled out his comms. "Fine. But you install it. But if I see that it's just performing at the same rate, if not worse, I'm coming back, and I'm putting boot to ass."
"I doubt it, but you've got yourself a deal," I said while reaching out to shake his hand.
The installation was simple. Marcos guided the Shepherd's small, integrated utility drone to the Dust Bunny's hull, removed the old Type-B vent, and installed the new SOW 1B unit in less than three minutes.
I watched the pilot's reaction on his diagnostic panel, a smile spreading across his face.
"Jumpin' j-drives... look at that flow rate," he exclaimed. "The core temps on this vent just bottomed out to optimal."
"So, you want to get them all switched out?" I asked, a proud smirk making its way on my face.
"Do I want them switched out? Hell yeah!"
I had made my first legitimate starship sale. Apart from him, I sold six more units that day, targeting the most battered, obviously inefficient vessels. My sales pitch had narrowed to "premium performance, fuel savings, money back guarantee."
By the end of the week, running this sales operation from the Shepherd for three full days, the results were astounding. I had sold 150 units of the SOW Thermal-Flow Vent, netting me 112,500 credits. If I took away the material and fabrication cost, then I had made a gross profit of 90,000 credits in just three days.
I had finally found something that could net me money sustainably.
I returned the Shepherd to Dock 1 of the shipyard late Friday evening, exhausted but triumphant.
"Marcos," I said, stepping off the bridge and heading to the exit to pick Lyra up from the Orphanage. "Log the sales data. We just achieved a gross profit of 90,000 credits in three days. We are no longer the station's premier appliance repair shop."
"You got it. Your business account now holds 123,500 credits and a remaining stock of 7,850 units. At this rate of sale and margin, we will break even on the initial material investment in less than ten days, and we will hit the 500,000 credit annual profit requirement significantly ahead of schedule, allowing you to apply for expansion."
I picked up Lyra that night and watched a movie with her, feeling the lightness of success.
---
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