Glen carefully maneuvered the alien object through the narrow corridors of his hollowed asteroid base. The object, shimmering with an otherworldly glow, seemed to pulse with a mysterious energy that set his heart racing. As he reached the testing chamber, Glen set the object down on a polished metal table, its surface reflecting the soft hum of the base's power generators.

"Welcome, my friends," Glen said as he activated the holographic interfaces of his two AI bots, Watson and Marie. “Watson, Marie start with a general scan and then check for any openings or interfaces.”

Watson, with its sleek silver design and calm demeanor, was his general assistant bot, always ready to provide information or a helping tool. Marie, on the other hand, was his trusty tester bot, equipped with an array of sensors and analysis tools to help scan and find weaknesses in different things such as metals and alloys.

Together, the trio set to work unraveling the secrets of the object before them. Watson began scanning the object's exterior, searching for any clues about its origin or purpose. Marie extended her mechanical arms, and began running a standard series of tests. Glen was not expecting to find much from Marie’s tests, but he could at least establish a baseline and check for things his human eyes had no way to detect.

Hours passed in investigation as Glen, Watson, and Marie delved deeper into the alien object's enigmatic nature. Watson's search revealed intricate patterns etched into the object's surface, resembling constellations seen only in the far reaches of space.

Marie, with her array of sensors and analysis tools, had found the metal was an unknown alloy, but detected no emanations or signals coming from the object. For some reason Glen’s intuition told him that this object was meant for some sort of communication or signal relay.

The alert of an incoming communication signal interrupted them, and Glen left the exam room and headed to the communications suite.

As he sent his availability response to the incoming signal, Glen checked the latest updates to see the status of the scheduled ore drones.

“That can’t be right,” he mumbled. “They are just leaving? Two weeks behind schedule? Even for Sol Mining, that means they have had a huge Cluster-Fuck to be that late.”

Checking the numbers, Glen swore. He TOLD them that they needed to send enough capacity to haul the upgraded tonnage that the drones were now mining, and it looked like they hadn’t listened. With the late start of the drones, the storage space for ore was going to be full before the drones got here. And since they were not sending enough capacity they were going to fill up the storage again long before the next window.

A tone from the screen in front of him caused Glen to look up to find the face of his least favorite man to deal with in all of Sol Mining's corporate structure. Rick Tolman, or as Glen liked to call him Dickless Toady-man, was a brown-nosing type who was nowhere near as smart as he thought he was. Toady had worked his way up the ladder the usual way - with his lips firmly planted on the asses of people who had large egos that needed stroking.

“Mr. Toad…er, Tolman, why are you contacting me, today?”

“Ahh, Glen, I am letting you know that the cargo drones are on their way along with your new partner…” Rick stated.

“Why are they starting 2 weeks late and short on capacity? And what is this about a partner, you should be talking about my replacement.” Glen interrupted.

“There have been some changes back here, and it took a little while for things to be ready, Glen. And we sent enough capacity to bring back the same tonnage as the last shipment.”

“I told Conway that I had worked out a fix for the drones and we would meet the original target for this quarter. I have implemented the fix and since you are late sending out the haulers. We are going to have to shut down production for 2 days as it is since the storage will be completely full. Where is Conway?”

“Ahh, that is one of the changes I mentioned. Mr Conway has… moved on. And I am now in charge of this division…”

Glen was glad his father had taught him to play poker when he was younger as his expression did not change. Who was stupid enough to put Toady in charge of anything more complicated than scheduling bathroom breaks?

“… and the production levels have been the same for the last 3 years. I know you think you are some hot-shot engineer, but even if you have come up with a resolution, you can’t have implemented it from out there. And production can’t have increased that much…”

“Did you bother to read the daily reports? Or since you don’t seem to bother with those did you check the storage cameras to see how full the container is?” Glen grated out.

“Storage cameras? Since when…”

“Since 6 months ago - 2 days after the parts came in with the last supply run. And AGAIN, why exactly are there not 2 people coming out? I have 4 more drones to retrofit and then I have completed the terms of my contract. I should have them done in 4 days at the most. Are you really going to leave me out here for another 6 months? My contract says you have to keep paying me for however long I am out here, and like you have often complained, my services out here are not cheap.”

The expression on Rick's weasel-like face turned gleeful and Glen was extremely glad that he had hired the contract lawyer he had and Rick played the predictable card that he "thought" was his ace up his sleeve.

"Yes, while working on the contracted issues your pay is quite excessive, but once you finish your contracted duties, your wages revert and you will be paid the usual wage for maintenance..." Rick started as Glen burst into laughter.

"Stop Rick, thanks for showing you did not look at the AMENDED contract I gave back to you after having my lawyer look over it. I had him rewrite several sections, and remove several clauses that included the abusive section you just tried to apply. I am going to do you a HUGE favor and give you an hour to do some conferring with your contracts department and when you come back I suggest you have Mr. Lee, or whoever is your divisional VP with you, since I highly doubt you want to pay me the triple salary that is in my NON-Standard contract for the time I am left out here past the end of my contracted duties. You are already going to be on the hook for most of 2 weeks of triple pay after I finish those last 4 drones, and I find myself highly motivated to finish those last 4 quickly. So would you like to take a break, or continue on..."

Rick was only too happy to call for a recess to the meeting.