Several hours had passed since the so-called Commodore and his squadron of ships had announced their presence. Kimon Rayden was loathe to admit that, upon hearing of a stars-damned cruiser appearing out of the void on a least-time burn, he’d damn near shit himself.

His second course of action, after slamming down a shot of finely aged barley visk, had been to get ahold of Commodore Glennon to see just what they were up against. While he knew that cruisers were meaner than frigates in general, the sheer number of types, sizes, variations and such made it easy to grab a five-hundred-meter freighter, slap on a railgun and call it a ‘heavy assault cruiser’ or whatever else you wanted.

“I don’t know what that is.” The mercenary replied to his inquiry, obviously struggling to make himself look calm. “It’s eight times heavier than one of my frigates, and longer than the meanest heavy cruisers to come out of a Hegemony shipyard.”

“I…I hope our contract is…” Kimon had mumbled, knowing deep in his heart that the mercenary would immediately turn around and flee —leaving his merchant ships as bait— if the odds looked bad enough. That’s what mercenaries did…and considering this was the Commodore’s first job after retiring from the Republican navy, he had no proven track record. Only the bottom-barrel escort rates had managed to seal the deal.

“It will be honored.” Glennon nodded, his voice suddenly steady —though his face betrayed a man battling with fear—. “But I doubt we could do much if he decided to attack. That monster right there…it scares me, Vice-President. If you’re a religious man, I suggest you pray or meditate. Hopefully they are just a ‘patrol’, and this is not an elaborate pirate ambush…’

Kimon nodded, chuckling at the veteran’s morbid suggestion. “Surely, we’re not talking about an actual warship…right?”

“Oh, that’s a warship alright.” Glennon chuckled. “Your sensors are too weak to see it, but mine are at least half as good as the navy’s, and I’ve got people fresh out of service looking at the readings. The acceleration alone screams military, and its active sensors are mean. The hull’s geometry is built to deflect sensor pings to such a degree that my people only realized it because we were getting garbage radar returns. I wouldn’t want to find out what kind of weapons it has. If I were you, Vice-President, I would be very fucking careful about listening to their instructions.”

+++

After another four hours, the ANS Whitefang had gotten close enough to the merchant convoy to attempt real-time communications. Albin had just woken up thirty minutes before, and was sitting in his compact flag bridge with a half-eaten {thing}-shaped pastry in hand.

By now, his squadron had turned in place to show their propulsion packaged to the merchant convoy, slowing down in a precise curved course to attain a speed, acceleration and heading similar to the merchies and their escorts.

‘Those poor fucking escorts…’ He thought, barely holding back a chuckle. He knew exactly just how scared the poor sod in command of those corvettes had to be.

Four under-armed, under-equipped and half-blind corvettes, against a proper cruiser and a pair of heavy frigates. His squadron could steamroll them even if it was commanded by a broken fridge computer; it wasn’t even a question.

Chowing down the last of the pastry, he turned to his communications officer.

“Lieutenant, hail the merchant fleet on the radio. Ask for the commanding officer of the escort ships, and the person in charge of the merchant ships.”

“Aye sir.”

Only a minute later, he was greeted by two new faces on his terminal’s screen.

One was of a slightly chubby, green-eyed bald man with the barest hint of a second chin, wearing a black suit decorated with stylized animal pins made of a silvery-white alloy; platinum, rhodium or any other kind of precious metal worth a small fortune. The header above the transmission read:

Kimon Rayden, Vice-President, Rayden & Sons Shipping Corporations

The other was a distinctly military man with a chiseled, albeit aged, face and thick snow-white hair. He wore a military uniform, decorated with a handful of colorful ribbons above his left breast but otherwise plain-looking.

Jonas Glennon, Commodore & CEO, 104 Security Services

“Gentlemen.” Albin nodded towards the camera lightly. “On behalf of the duke, I thank you for acknowledging law and order. I’m sure businessmen such as yourselves understand the need for safety and stability.”

Commodore Glennon raised an eyebrow at his words, his mouth hanging slightly agape. Vice-President Rayden, however, took them in stride.

“Of course, of course…Commodore. We apologize for the misunderstanding, though I hope you understand we weren’t expecting a welcome committee. We weren’t expected any ship, for that matter…at least none with honest intentions in mind.”

Albin nodded in acknowledgment. “It is true that prior to His Grace’s arrival, this system was unguarded. I understand that shutting off your transponders was meant to delay your detection by would-be malcontents. That is why you are excused. I hope, however, that it does not happen again.”

The two men nodded emphatically, their shoulders sagging in relief.

“In any case, I would like to officially welcome you to Pollux. I’ve been authorized to escort you until we pass the orbital path of Pollux VI. If you maintain your current flight plan, that will happen in approximately one and a half standard Terran days or thirty six standard Terran hours. Is that metric familiar to you?”

“It is.” Vice-President Ryden confirmed, though the question had obviously confused him.

“Excellent. If you need anything more, feel free to radio us on this frequency. Goodbye and good evening, gentlemen.”

+++

RSSC’s merchant convoy arrived in Polaris a week later, having deccelerated for three days straight in order to enter geosynchronous orbit. It wasn’t Kimon’s first time in Polaris, having visited for trade two times in the last four years. ‘Fringe duty’, as his father called it, was the family’s way of testing its youngest members’ skills without risking too much. Trading in the core worlds was lucrative, but margins were thin and a single bad negotiation could set the company back millions. But out in the fringe worlds, the high demand for manufactured goods and low, irregular supply made trade a high-margin affair —though earnings were limited—.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

The last time Kimon had been here, the family had sent a minder to cover for him if the situation got out of control. But this time Kimon was all alone at the top, and though the responsibility of so much capital was cause for much anxiety, he felt immense pride in his role…as well as the hunger of ambition that all up-and-coming merchants ought to hold in their hearts. And though Kimon was young, he was now a proper merchant.

Which is why he was careful to note all the changes in the young colony, both on the ground and in orbit.

Even the cheapest civilian shuttles had a proper long-range telescope, so it was no wonder the Camilla Rayden was capable of surveying the chilly planet’s surface. Looking at the various settlements of the colonial state, a layman would only see steady growth —as expected of a profitable venture—. Kimon saw not just growth, but change.

The main focus of Polaris remained the same as before. Platinum group metals, or PGMs, the currency of interstellar civilization and some of the only raw materials merchants would willingly buy off your hands and ship to markets themselves.

Yet he also saw expansions into other types of minerals. The mines and refineries looked the same as they would be in a platinum-rich area, but the spectroscopy scans Kimon had bought off the colony two years ago showed that they were opening entirely new mines in other areas, poor in PGMs but very rich in minerals like iron, nickel and copper. The backbones of manufacturing, yet utterly useless as exports, which meant the government of Polaris was looking to use them.

And Kimon also knew one possible reason. It was orbiting right next to the fleet, the most important piece of infrastructure a colony had. Polaris’s orbital was covered in scaffolding, with little heat signatures flying about. Human workers in exosuits, construction drones and even a pair of transorbital shuttles.

They were expanding the station, a lot.

…

“Vice-President Rayden, it is good to see you.” Governor Polk greeted him in a decorated conference room, an obvious upgrade from the shuttle bay meetings they’d had the past two times.

‘Another change, to add to the ever-growing list’ Kimon thought, putting on his ‘friendly trader’ face as he shook the governor’s hand.

“It is good to see you too, Governor. The markets are hungry for platinum, as they always are.”

“And we are ready to provide, at a reasonable rate of course.” The woman replied, her handshake noticeably stronger than last time they’d exchanged greetings.

Kimon barely held back a raised eyebrow at the latter comment. In his experience, and those of many family elders, colonial governors were —with very few exceptions— all the same. Middling businessmen, company executives, military officers or bureaucrats that had the doors to higher power firmly shut in their faces, and decided to take another route.

To their ‘citizens’, ‘subjects’, ‘members’ or ‘loyalists’ —the term varied from place to place—, they were absolute rulers who never took no for an answer and governed the colony with an iron fist. But to traders like him, who traded the hard work of their people for manufactured goods, luxury products, weapons and all the other things they needed or wanted, they were…submissive.

“Of…course, Governor. I suggest we get to it immediately.” He asked, hoping to startle her with speed. During his previous visit the Governor had led him through a carefully-controlled safari, hunting the exotic wildlife of Polaris, but the charm offensive had hardly changed his rates. If she wanted to play feisty, so be it: he was walking out of here richer anyhow.

As was long-standing tradition in the merchant world, each party presented a folder containing all the goods they had to offer, as well as their price. This prevented tit-for-tat approaches where one party would increase the price of its goods and attempt to trade them for another high-priced good, effectively scamming its trading partners.

Kimon and Polk both opened the folders at the same time, though neither actually looked at them. The mere existence of a price list in the other party’s hands would keep a trader honest, but throughout time humans preferred to talk about business face-to-face rather than exchange neatly-written letters.

“Forty tons of H-PGMA at the standard ratio, at a hundred and fifty million per kilo.”

H-PGMA was a standardized family of alloys which contained all or some metals of the platinum group. Known as white gold or veisgolt, after the metal that was once considered invaluable by humanity, it formed the basis for many national currencies and some states even accepted pure veisgolt bullion as currency.

“You’re not serious?” Kimon balked at her offer. “That’s twenty-five more than the previous rate! The aurum is still tied to the platinum standard, Governor; my rates are pegged to the exchange rates. I’ll give you one hundred and twenty-five, and I’ll let this hiccup slide because this is our third trade.”

Polk shook her head. “I know what my goods are worth, Vice-President. Messenger boat came in a few days before you did; the Republicans and the Heggies aren’t backing off, and the platinum standard is feeling the heat.That gives you plenty of room to make a tidy profit even with all the mercenaries you’ve brought over. Those frigates are very…cute?” She chuckled, a most unusual reaction to gunboat diplomacy.

This entire situation was wrong. Those mercenaries weren’t just anti-piracy screens: they were supposed to serve as intimidation. All’s fair in love and war, and war was war whether you fought with in space or in the negotiation room. But why wasn’t Polk even slightly affected by the presence of four warships in orbit of her colony?

‘Wait, the…oh, fuuuck.’ Kimon’s eyebrows twitched as realization struck.

This…’duke’ and his warships had turned Polaris into a protectorate.

He was no longer talking with the absolute ruler of a tiny little colony weeks away from civilization. This was the mere pawn of a warlord, one with enough firepower to wipe his trade convoy ten times over.

+++

Further negotiations had proven…regrettable. The price of veisgolt had been the subject of some back-and-forth, but Kimon thankfully managed to bring it down to an acceptable —if barely— one hundred and thirty five million aurums per kilogram.

Of course, he hadn’t actually paid out the vast majority of the sum. Like most colonies, Polaris circulated a tightly-controlled currency made up of synth-fiber notes, and the aurum sitting in its vaults was useless until some other trader arrived with goods to sell. Instead, he’d paid with goods.

Electronics, spare parts, industrial goods and a variety of mining, refining and machining equipment. Such items fetched a very high price in out-of-the-way places like Vicky’s Arm; a modular CNC fabrication suite, the kind that could fit in a standard transport container, might sell for three million aurums in the core worlds but five in the outer rim.

He’d also sold a flight of ten transorbital shuttles, the rugged fuel-efficient kind that colonies absolutely loved, as well as an equal number of trainers.

Last but definitely not least…missiles.

Space was dangerous, and well-defended were more than happy to sell sub-par defense equipment to third parties for absurd prices. Trusted trading companies like RSMC were licensed to buy export variants of defense equipment and sell them, and the profit margins on such goods were so utterly insane that the mountains of bureaucracy were absolutely worth it.

And that was all he sold…but not all he bought.

Just before the merchant convoy left, a fuel ship arrived from Pollux V under the escort of a mean-looking destroyer. Governor Polk offered him fuel…at a crazy price. Market price, but for the core worlds. The offer had completely blindsided him…and made him a tidy profit. Had he paid more for the bullion? Yes, but he’d also paid significantly less for the fuel: two thirds of what a scammer like the Lion of Leonis would charge.

Profiting after being outplayed —by a colonial governor of all people— left Kimon feeling…strange. Where in the infinite hells had she found that confidence?