Aelea is just as beautiful as it was months ago. The clean and well-planned cityscape with it’s cute hubs and parks and rings line the distance as we land at the Garden Castle. There’s no one there to meet us, nor is there usually, but there’s a weight of expectation in the air that I’d never felt before. Is that me? Or perhaps Zia flooding the air with that feeling? Or is it the populace?

  “Would you be mad if I took a few hours to collect myself and plan for tomorrow’s assault?” Zia ask me with her wide, Elven eyes.

  “Nah, baby, I am literally here for you. You need a few hours, you got them. I have business an hour away, so let me know when you want me around.”

  “Can you be here for dinner and after? I will likely still be busy after dinner, but you calm me and I’d like to cuddle while I putter with stuff.”

  Aww, listen to this cutie. I pull her into a hug and kiss her head again. “Of course.”

  I make sure my girl is settled and comfortable, including an extra-long shower that reminds her that we belong together, and then I have Aria take me to my latest persistent headache. Can’t I just be tangled up in my fiancée for a whole day? Empress’ sakes, life is a hassle sometimes.

  Aria pushes herself overland, as there are no regulations over the un-claimed lands between Penbroke and Pulsar Station. It’s still wild to think that I own an independent holding on the Capitol Planet of the Empire. Penny encouraged me to put another Ansible up to further connect the planet – so I did – which has increased my ability to deliver goods in-place.

  When I arrive, two construction drones are still working on my plantation house and a few large machines can be seen working in the distance. To my surprise, there is a man in slacks and a polo to greet me as I land.

  “Good afternoon Station Operator. How may I assist you today?”

  Ambushed by the man, I ask for his contact card, which he immediately proffers. William ‘Billy’ Hanover. That sound suspiciously like a politician’s son.

  “Nepo baby?” I ask rudely. He winces.

  “Of a kind. I have a class for asset management, and I am inclined for real-estate instead of finance.” I give him a read with my magic eyes to find he is telling the truth.

  “Last personal question for now, are you the Station’s employee or do you work for multiple entities?”

  “Did you not know of my employ? Has this been a mistake?”

  I raise my hand and motion pumping the breaks, “Hold up Billy. I have an eccentric business partner. She often does good things in the wrong ways, and I’m just trying to catch up. You’re safe.”

  He visibly relaxes, “I am employed solely by Remnant Holdings. I am compensated to my satisfaction. I was told there may be other holdings for me to manage once I met you?”

  I chuckle at his eagerness paired with his nebulous fear. The fact that he can still function feeling all of what he is, remains a minor miracle. “This is fine, Billy. I’d like you to keep apprised of my other major business, NovaChem, but the Station and more specifically the Plantation will be your primary concern. That said, what progress have the loggers I’ve hired made?”

  “If they’re not dealing with the trees they cut, the loggers can manage 10 hectares a week. If they have to deal with processing the wood, it comes down to about 6 hectares. However, with the price of industrial wood pulp, we could do well with selling our waste to Merc Arms.”

  I nod in concurrence, “Several thousand pounds of pulp a week is a good score for cordite production. I definitely approve. What of the several tons of berries you’ve collected?”

  “I’ve sold approximately 20% of the pods to tea shops and confectioners. We still have a few shipping pods full of the berries though.”

  It sounds as though he’s been doing a stellar job but being hamstrung by my lack of presence.

  “Our biggest problem so far is logistics out of the station. We don’t have a transport, we don’t have an elevator from warehouse to shipping, and we don’t have a space on the next inter-system freighter. They are taking priority orders only.”

  “I mean, Billy, that list is there for a reason. If you want me to relax the loading requirements to those that can fill it instead of the people that commissioned the product in the first place, that is a debasement of business law.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  He waves my statement off, “I was more intending to ask for an allowance to be made for standard general goods and goods already budgeted aboard.”

  “If I have extra space, that’s an easy agreement. How about 15% overrun on order goods, and up to a 30% overrun on high volume goods as long as there is cargo room?”

  “That is more than reasonable owner.”

  “I should note that all of the coca leaves are spoken for. Until we have overrun above what our Voosel contract can take, I’m not willing to go negative on this particular asset.”

  He nods at that, scribbling a few things on a screen that I can’t see. “It should be brought to your attention that I think your G-berry orchard should be increased to 10 Hectares to keep up with your ramping demand.”

  I shrug. “Alright, make it so. With a thousand hectares at my disposal, we have the room and my potions pay the bills.”

  He looks at me strangely for a moment, quirking his head between written notes. “You’re not worried that I might do something against your liking?”

  I smile and shake my head. “You have been honest for the months that you’ve been operating alone, and I have enough skills and people that care about me, that no matter how you hurt me, worse will come for my aggressors.” I pat him on the shoulder. “So no, Billy, I genuinely don’t worry about it: My friends are awesome and scary.” He tilts his head and narrows his eyes at me. Is he trying to see if I’m joking? Huh. “Oh! Do we need to switch you over to a contract with me instead of whomever hired you?”

  “Yes we do. I’ll be honest, I was expecting a more permanent supervisor, so I’m not sure about all of this?”

  “Is there a reason that person can’t be you? You can pick the other staff that you need, after sending me a proposal of course, and you’d manage the planning and scheduling of farm operations and shipping operations while the person you hire to manage the actual farming can do the hard parts. I have a freight hauler with a Captain that knows her business, so the logistics of that will be taken care of."

  “Would that be a Captain Owens? I have several messages and I was nervous to wait too much longer.”

  “That is something you should bring up. You know that since you’re my employee you can send me messages directly right? If it’s business related, send me anything you think I should see.” He brightens up at that and sends me a load of shit, mostly payroll. Ugh, I take a moment to set up another account for Pulsar Station and give him access to an account that I’ll post payroll to every month with enough extra to handle some incidentals.

  “Alright, I asked for that. Now, give me tour please.” He nods with a smirk at the pain he just sent me and proceeds to walk toward the larger of the two warehouses? I thought the big one was for the machines. He opens the person door on the big sliding door on the warehouse and I step through.

  I walk into a weird-ass hydroponics-like room thousands of bins stacked three high. I hope this was a fresh harvest or this is going to rot like a motherfucker.

  “From the look on your face, you think your product is degrading. We keep the room moist until shipping if it’s going to be less than three weeks. Otherwise we would let them desiccate and have hydration happen on the manufacturing end.”

  “Well, fuck. What’s the harvest schedule on these trees? Our transit cycle is like three months!” he nods at my statement and offers me a tablet to look at something. “Dude, just send it to me, I don’t like to hold things when I’m anxious.” He does and I see the harvest cycle. Two months and two weeks. Ten weeks over the shipping 22 weeks. Fuck me. The Astorian trees have a faster cycle than anticipated.

  “How many harvests can this place store?”

  “Two and a half, maybe.” He replies.

  I want to say fuck math, but I need to do it now. Weight of the primary mash process, plus the solvent . . . roughly three times the original weight . . .? Lets go with four. Say, 12 tons per harvest batch. Plus tank, nah. Who am I kidding, that freighter isn’t going to be full.

  “Tell you what, Billy, we’re going to buy tanks so that we can do primary processing and add the solvent so that we don’t get weird shit on the leaves, and I can leave the harvest in a more stable form. More work on this side, more money up front, but it beats tossing out a million creds on moldy product a year. Send this to your machine guy, or contract another warehouse to make this happen.”

  “Yes, Dr. Summers gave me a construction contact.”

  “I put a quarter mil in the payroll and expense account. Should cover the changes. I currently can’t afford any of this crop to suffer, so sooner is better. You help me meet my next deadline, there’s a 100 credit bonus in it for everyone.”

  “That’s 2700 credits.” He replies with some disbelief. Am I insane? 100 credits is like 16k old US? Sounds right.

  “I meant what I said. We get the next eight harvests loaded without spoilage, and I hit my delivery target, y’all get the cash. You’ll get an extra bonus if you can figure out a way to keep it up.”

  “I-I can do that ma’am!” Do I sense a bit of motivation? Hells yeah. You get-em Billy. We’ll see if he arrives at vacuum storing the tanks once the solvent is added. If not, I’ll let him know before too long. Gods, those chemistry downloads really have helped me in my life. I should probably look for some engineering ones. Unless . . . I will absolutely ask Aria later today.

  I would enjoy that as well. My city planning suffers when I have to split my focus to look up codes and why they are necessary.

  Pfft, right. You just want to hear Aria’s teacher voice. I mean, I do too, but you are a stricken idiot for her. Tova says nothing, but I know the bitch is blushing. You’re so gone Tova. Almost as bad as I am for Zizi. Heh, I’m going to marry that woman.

  The good Station Manager and I talk a few more logistics, new manning, etc.; and then I declare my duty spent and take off to look at the new farmhouse manor. Aria tells me that I have been requested by my Mate to attend her so I change direction and hop aboard my ship as she takes me to my Pinkie-saur.