CHAPTER 8 CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN!
Lina seemed much better two days after recovering. She was able to interface with the ship and communicate with MD. MD added her to the crew on my request and I knew it was time to make my play.
“MD, I think we should vote for a captain of the Prometheus among the crew.” I new it was a strong play and I was slightly worried how MD would react. Would he kill us, disband the crew or allow us to vote? MD seemed to be thinking for a long time without response. I become more and more nervous, sure he was planning to disable me and Lina and kill us.
“A vote for captain and controller of the ship would be advised to guide the crew. The captain of the Prometheus would be responsible for determining all future goals and objectives of the crew and ship. He would be able to alter current objectives.” I was very nervous now. I had obviously overstepped and MD would not want to go against his programming. “I nominate Jed Knight for the position of captain. If there are no other nominations we can vote now.” I was stunned and speechless. I nodded and Lina standing 10 meters away also nodded. “I vote for Jed Knight.” MD concluded. I then thought this whole thing through. MD had spent a very long time hopping from planet to planet investigating the populace. If he was an AI he was probably getting lonely and probably bored. Did he set this up so that someone else could take control? Was I thinking too highly of him? “Who will you cast your vote for, Jed?” MD spoke breaking me out of my focused thoughts.
“I vote for Jed Knight.” I stammered out. MD informed me the vote was unanimous and Jed Knight was promoted to the position of captain on the Prometheus. I had obviously missed Lina casting her vote but did notice the huge grin on her face. I could only image what she was thinking. A few months ago she a minor detective on a backwater colony world and now she was a crew member on the most advanced spaceship in the universe.
A brief pause and suddenly my holo display started flashing. New title of Captain had been unlocked but a long scrolling text was reveling 1,328 new systems being adding to the game. Then something weird happened. Everything seemed to be slowing down and moving in slow motion and then stop. Lina was frozen and I could not move either. I think ten minutes passed and then I noticed the scroll bar start listing each of the systems as being active in the game. Then I nearly choked as I saw my experience climb by 3,545,912 for discovering these ‘new’ systems. My advancement in level started beeping as I climbed to level 14. I had discovered a cheat in this game. I was still dumbfounded as I raised my intelligence stat to 20 and education stat to 14. My unspent 11 skill points now presented a problem. I received a few bonus to stats, +2 to constitution for not dying through 10 levels of advancement, +1 to education for reaching intelligence reaching 20, and one bonus stat point for reaching level 10 which I also added to education.
I was deep in thought paging through all the new systems. Two new alien races were in the grouping. One was a humanoid bear-like creature and the other was an insectoid praying mantis. There were 191 systems with inhabitable planets. Unfortunately none of the systems were the platinum class. Guess that would be too much to hope for. Of the 191 systems 42 were ‘occupied’. Of these 42, 30 were colonized by humans, 3 by the Feyr, 4 by the Orcus, 4 by the new insectoid race called celopods, and 1 by the new bear-like race. As I was studying these 42 systems a message popped up. It ‘required’ opening. The message read:
Dear ALLSPACE Players,
We greatly apologize for the recent server crash. The server actually did not crash but a large volume of new star systems were all ‘discovered’ at once. The processing power required to generate over 1300 new explored star systems at once was the cause of the recent freeze. We looked into the problem and the possibility of a player character hacking the system. It was found that a player found an alien archive that was randomly generated by the game system. We congratulate the player on his success and encourage all players to continuing exploring the galaxy!
Please also note a new event has been triggered: Bug Campaign Invasion! The Celopod Race has been discovered and will be attacking the realm of men! Good Luck!
Alden Masterson, VP of ALLSPACE Player Relations
My first thought was at least I was not in trouble. Did they know I also had a starship more technically advanced than anything else available in the galaxy? “Lina you are hereby promoted to first officer and MD you are promoted to science office.” Both seemed pleased with their new titles. Everything was falling into place!
Jed, I wanted to make you aware that you have reached level 10 and can now form your own corporation. With the plethora of messages I thought you might have missed it. Athena chimed in. I was taken aback by the intrusion. Athena had been fairly quiet. But her information was well received. The training for running a corporation was optional and I had not completed it. I figured I would join a corporation once I got closer to the core systems. The main benefit of forming a cooperative group were the pooling of funds to purchase spaceships. Usually a person paid dues to the corporation and had access to the corporation’s database. They also formed crews that explored and fought in campaigns together for experience. I decided since I had my own ship I didn't need to join another corporation and forming my own would be a great idea. I selected the new icon and selected create option. It asked for a name and a graphic. Since my vessel had a strong link to fire I decided on Phoenix Corp. This corporation already exists, please select another. Hmm, How about ‘Black Phoenix Corp’. I typed in the new name and waited a second before the next screen appeared waiting for the corporations graphic. It took some time but eventually I had a black phoenix bird rising from a fire on a field of white. The next few screens were all about micro management. Since I was the only member I selected the title of CEO and no additional members. I transferred all my assets to the corporation. I set my corporate headquarters to my most valuable asset, the distillery/brewery. On the final screen the establishment cost 2500 credits per member of the corporation. Future members could be added at a cost of 2500 credits as well. I paid the fee. Using the new corporation I selected 5 systems that were close by the Capsulite system heading toward the core worlds and auctioned them off. My goal was to make people think Black Phoenix was corporation dedicated to exploring and not a single person who had just stumbled across the data for 1300 new systems. One of the systems had two habitable planets and another had a very rich asteroid mining opportunity. I waited a few minutes and the auction for the system data yielded 50,000 credits for the habitable system, 40,000 credits for the mineral rich system and 25,000 credits for each of the last 3 systems, which had average resources and some terraformable planets. The 165,000 credits was deposited into my corporate account. I smiled as I know had a numerous possible cash flows. I noticed I had been occupied for the better part of a day and went to my quarters to sleep on expanding my new corporate empire.
Lina woke me by ringing my door. I thought I should get the word captain inscribed on the door for future. I opened the door and Lina was standing there, “Sorry cap, can not let you sleep all day. We have work to do?” It sounded like she was anxious. I think she wanted to take this ship to the stars and start hopping around. I didn't want to rush things and had a few plans left for the Capsulite system.
“Lina I have a very important task for you,” I said steadily. She looked excited. “We need to increase our crew. I want you to take a shuttle to Barstow and find me a great engineer for the crew.” I could see her disappointment with the task. “Once we add an engineer to our crew we will be in a position to take off.” This statement seemed to appease her. “You know the personality type that would fit in and I trust your judgment.” I swear her eyes ‘winkled’ when I said the word trust. She was gung-ho to get going. “Oh and I need a ride back to the sheriff station, I seem to have wrecked my jeep,” saying sheepishly. “We will leave in an hour.”
I quickly tied up some loose ends. I set MD to a cease and desist of all current actions and to just defend against any foreign invaders to the ship. Our new mission would be to find the ‘platinum’ systems. But that had to wait for now. I went to the replicator and tried to create some high tech items since I was now the captain and thought I would have higher access. I could make tools and parts but nothing in the forms of weapons or awesome tech outside ship parts. I did notice a new sub menu for personal shuttle. Apparently I could now manufacture shuttle parts in the replicator. Only the main structure was too large for the device. I was able to download the schematic of the 20 meter long shuttle. Perhaps I could get some frames built and then install the components.
I walked through the sanctuary on my way off the ship and checked the progress. Most of the trees were about as tall as me and were flowering. The white marble path was complete and looked fantastic. This would make a great path to run on in the future. The outer wall vines were almost to the ceiling and I could see some grapes forming already! The room smelled earthy and I could feel a cool breeze and hear the water running. The grass was shimmering green. I could spend the rest of my life in this room. After watching some birds making a nest for nearly 40 minutes I finally tuned back in and went to meet the waiting Lina at the hover cycle.
Lina was waiting impatiently. I straddled the bike behind her and she took off immediately forcing me to grab her waist and squeeze my legs gripping the bike. The ride was quick as my mind was drifting trying to go manage all the notes I had made last night. When we got back to Mycell Ellie was waiting inside the sheriff office. She came up and gave Lina a passionate hug completely ignoring me. She then seemed to notice me and blushed at her display of affection toward Lina a few seconds prior. Well I guess I had no chance with Lina. Ellie was quiet. I thought for a minute. “Lina why don't you take Ellie with you. I will transfer 20,000 credits to you for your trip to Barstow and it is ok if you spend it all. Please be back here in two weeks with the potential crewmember. And please consider the process they will have to undergo to join our crew.” Both women now seemed to be excited at the prospect of going shopping in the city of Wellington. I left the women and went across the street to pick up my skill data pad. I then went and checked out the new holding facility and introduce myself to the new personal and check out my office. The structure was pre-fab concrete and the attached structures were kind of ugly. The office was spartan but had a private bath and small sleeping chamber. I sat down on the bed and quickly ordered 1500 credits of new furniture and a new bed for the office. It would take 7 days to get here from Barstow. I had to also do something about the ugly appearance of the facility. Looking at the possible upgrades they ranged from 5,000 to 100,000 credits. I made some selections for paint, trim and some plants and the total was 8,500 credits. Pleased with the result I hit the pay button and an error came up, insufficient funds. The head sheriff balance was only at 833 credits. Damn. I ‘donated’ the needed credits from my new corporation and purchased the upgrades. Happy with my work so far I went to look into a staff upgrade. I opened the hiring menu for this facility and transferred my new hover truck and added six more personal. The maintenance was going to add 650 credits a month but I wanted to automate this facility. That done I went back to personal matters.
I purchased the sugar cane field and put it under operations of the Kommish family. I then expanded the Chevalier Sapphire Distillery by 50% to include rum production as well as expanding current operations. I also tripled the guards at the facility. The total cost was 52,000 credits but increased income by 60%, a success in my mind. I also purchased two abandoned adjacent fields by the Valentine estate so they could expand their fields, also adding 3 planting mechs, a second warehouse and 5 acres of greenhouses. The total bill was 69,600 credits but I now had 52 square miles of fields. I added a small farmhouse for a few thousand credits on the new property and let the Kommish family know they could hire a family to help them with operations. I also let them know I had seeds for lemon, lime, coffee, avocado and pecan for the new greenhouses, which they would have in one month. Having completely exhausted my accounts I thought briefly about selling more system data but knew it would be soon.
The next two weeks while waiting for Lina and Ellie to return I traveled between my new properties and watched the upgrades being made as the materials came in on the shuttle. It was great to finally relax a bit. A small gang of four men had tried to hijack a truck full of vodka. Fortunately I had two of my guards riding along and they managed to kill two of the men and capture the other two. The two hover cycles and the jeep were transferred for use by the distillery. When the captured men were in the holding facility I interrogated them and found the location of their operations. Apparently they were a small criminal syndicate based a few hundred miles away. Exact numbers were not known but a new mission objective came up about eliminating the criminal syndicate on Bruin IV. I called up all my sheriff’s, got 10 of my light armored guards from the distillery and a dozen men from the prison and headed out to deal with them. The entire convoy was two dozen hover cycles and the hover truck filled with men. The base was fairly large and the scouts determined about 30 men and women. We had no snipers with us so the plan I determined was an all out assault from two sides.
Half the men, wearing the best armor would strike first from the west and once they engaged the other men would flank them from the south with me leading them. The plan went off without a hitch. The armored men trigged the perimeter alarms and 20 men came streaming out of the large box-like building firing. Two men had heavy weapons and I saw two of my sheriffs fall before focused fire took them down. I then led my flank squad toward the criminals. They were surprised as we laid into them. I managed to go through three clips of ammo before the syndicate surrendered. The final dead tally was three sheriffs, two prison guards, one distillery guard and twenty-one syndicate members. We captured fifteen syndicate members and found twenty-one prisoners in an expansive dungeon network below the structure. A bunch of missions had scrolled past and were instantly completed. I informed Athena to limit the mission scroll to things I would find interesting. The best of the bunch was to capture or kill the syndicate boss, Fran Falcone. He was among the dead. The release of prisoners seemed to greatly increase the moral of my posse. To summarize I had just gained 25,340 experience, 190,000 credits and a whole bunch of equipment and weapons. I gave out 90,000 credits in bonuses to the men and allowed them to take any weapons they wanted, I assigned 10 captured hover cycles to my prison and sold off the rest of the gear for 185,000 credits. All in all this excursion had ended a major threat on planet and yielded me 285,009 credits!
Profession Leveled: Sheriff IV, 250 experience, +1 stat point, +1 to Drive (any) or Gun Combat (any). Good news. If I could only get to level five then I could switch to another profession. The stat point went straight into education and I choose to increase my ballistic pistol skill by one.
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Back at the holding complex I had to hire replacements for dead NPC characters. I found 3,243 applications! I guess giving out the bonuses increased the profile of the jobs. I know the news networks were playing parts of the assault all over the system. I let Athena filter and select the best person for the open positions rather than spend time paging through NPC profiles.
I was again asked to come to Barstow and receive a reward. I managed to pull off having Lina accept the award on behalf of my sheriffs department since she was already there. Part of the reward garnered me a +1 to my social standing. However when she returned four days later she was extremely angry. Apparently not waiting for her to return to be part of the assault was a huge slight to her. She had a young women with her in her late teens who seemed very timid as Lina laid into me yelling about duty and having my back and recklessness. The young women had dark hair, was a head shorter than Lina and weighed maybe 45 kilos. She was dressed in civilian clothes and the fact she was cowering under Lina’s berating made me hope this was not out new crew member. After finishing the yell fest Lina did introduce her as such.
“This is Roseline Watershed. She is the new ship’s engineer. I think you will be quite happy with her resume. She just completed her 6th year of college with a focus in spacecraft design and engineering. She was probably the smartest person on Barstow and just turned 20.” Lina seemed to be waiting for me to approve her. I was content to study the young women. She still seemed a little timid. I was not sure she could make it through the ‘new crew’ process. Lina seemed to be reading my mind, “I assure you captain she has been made aware of the ‘requirements’ for joining your crew and can handle them.” I was more relieved that Lina had seemed to calm down a bit than the support for Roseline. “She also prefers to be called Rose.”
I could feel was at a crossroad here. I didn't feel strongly either way on Rose. However, I did feel that I could gain back some favor with Lina. Also I had to show how much I trusted Lina and not go back on my word, “Welcome aboard Rose! Lina will take you to the ship tomorrow to get acclimated and start the orientation. I will meet up with you in a few days.” I held out my hand and I could see her eyes brighten and a smile stretch across her face. She was much prettier when she smiled. She muttered a thank you and I was worried about her timid nature. But she seemed to sense this and straightened up and said, “I will not let you down captain,” and saluted. Now I was not too much for formality but I suddenly felt important and really appreciated the gesture. Guess I was growing an ego.
Roseline 'Rose' Watershed
Age 20.1
Level 7
Strength 4
Dexterity 6
Constitution 5
Intelligence 13
Education 11
Social Standing 6
Life Points 59
Comms 1
Computer 4
Drive: Ground 1
Engineering: Power Systems 3
Engineering: Life Support 4
Engineering: FTL Drives 3
Mechanical 3
Trade: Starship Design 4
Vacc Suit 1
Zero-G 1
Athena also let me know that Lina had leveled to 10! NPC companions gained 10% of whatever I gained. Also you could never hire an NPC higher level than yourself. I could assign the new stat points and skill points however I wanted. NPCs had the advantage that any new skills were automatically learned. However they did not receive any bonus skills from completed missions other than gains to social standing. Rather than do the stat/skill adjustments I had Athena set it to auto. This basically let the companion choose what they wanted.
Your relationship with Lina Sinova has changed from Friend to Ally. Great. From my training I knew the stronger the relationship with a companion the more effective they were. She had already found me the best ship’s engineer in the entire system. I made myself a mental note to continue trusting her.
I spent the next four days trying to spend my new wealth. In my mind I had three good paths of investment. I could continue to expand my crops and distillery. My Chevalier Sapphire brand was becoming a big hit. People just called it Blue Knight Beer though, guess the NPCs were not too keen on my fancy name. The hard alcohol was selling well with the first shipments of rum reaching Barstow. I was only competing with one other facility on Bruin IV and my thoughts were to make a monopoly. The quality of the other brewery was well below mine and if I did purchase it I could see someone coming in and starting a new plant. Well they filled a niche of cheap low quality beer and alcohol. My other thought along this front was to start a vineyard for wine. The current wine was fermented fruits and not very good. My second option was to invest in businesses on Barstow. There were a wide variety but I did not see many good profit lines and I kind of felt Bruin IV was my home. My final option and most long term high investment was construction. I thought I could build a trading space station above Bruin IV. Yes the cost was around 10 million credits for functional 500 meter station but I could start small and build it up. I wanted the 500 meter station because this was the smallest station that could have the add-on space yard for building spaceships. The returns were also phenomenal, about 2 million credits a year for a the 500 meter space station and it also affected trade in the entire system. It also gained me two points in social standing if I could complete it. Well I dream big. The smallest facility was just a depot and measured 50 meters. Basically it was just an orbiting warehouse. It had no long term crew and was not a great investment. The next size up was an orbital and measured 100 meters. The cost was 200,000 credits and had space for up to 50 crewmembers. It also had 10 slots for upgrades and already had warehouse space built in. I was resisting selling system data to just raise the money and get everything done in one shot. Now I opened up the systems mining, there were six minable regions in this system. Two were claimed and getting a license to mine one of the others was only 10,000 credits plus a 10% tax on sale. If I could mine my own raw materials for the station I could greatly reduce its cost. The problem was the cost of the mining ships and orbital refinery. A simple non FTL mining ship was 2,500,000 credits and the size of a frigate. But…paging through the files the plans for a mining ship were only 10,000 credits and there were two derelict mining ships in the system for sale, 25,000 credits each. Both had been stripped of everything useful and had major damage to the hull. The damage was listed as collision with asteroid. With the schematics I could have Prometheus manufacture the repair parts. I was getting excited. I purchased both hulls and the schematics. I took care of all my basic sheriff duties and was off on my hover cycle to meet up with Lina and see how Rose was doing under MDs knife.
Taking the hover cycle to open throttle I shot across the dirt roads to the hill plains leading to Prometheus. It felt like flying with no cares in the world. I didn't even notice the wildlife of trees, I was just focused on reaching the horizon at top speed. Coming up the ship loomed into sight. The dark blue Canadian Cruiser was impressive. The only thing is the ship was not capable of atmospheric landing but I decided I could bluff it as an upgrade. MD had registered the ship and the ships name was scrolled across the bow in the hologram and also on the real hull as well. To my surprise a black phoenix rising from dark red flames and all outlined in white was also on the hull in a 20 meter high graphic. It looked very impressive. The ship was registered under the corporation but I was surprised to see MD to take initiative to apply it to the hull. Was he excited to do something other explore planet after planet?
I actually swung around and pulled my cycle into the flight bay and parked it next to Lina’s. I brought up my map and found my two companions in the lab. I walked slowly and entered the room to Rose’s screams. She was into the process and Lina was by her side as well as Ellie? This confused me. I didn't want to brooch the subject of her being here at the moment. I walked up to the other side of Rose and spent an hour reassuring her. I was surprised that she seemed to calm down and most of the fidgeting with her brain that MD was doing was eliciting just quiet screams and moans now. She looked helpless on the table but I knew Lina had things in hand. The current session ended and Rose was helped by Ellie to go rest. Lina and MD waited patiently until the exit slide closed.
MD spoke first through the psionic connection, Some problems captain. She has well developed pathways and in order to not damage her I have to go a little slower to safely awaken her. I expect it will take 25 more days to complete. I didn't have a problem with it but MD seemed to think he had let me down. “She is doing good though. She eats and recovers well after each session and arrives promptly for her next session early every day. She is really excited to have access to the ship’s databse and it has motivated her! She also tends to spend quite a bit of time on sanctuary deck which helps, that place is beautiful captain!” Lina added.
I needed to support both these crew members and their effort, “You both have done a fantastic job and I know she will make a fine addition to the crew.” The affirmation seemed to be taken well. “MD if the tree seeds are ready for the greenhouses please have them prepared. I will bring them to the Kommish family tomorrow.” I got an affirmative from MD. “Well we have other issues to discuss…” I paused waiting for them to fill in the fact of Ellie’s presence was odd. Neither MD or Lina said anything and the pause dragged out. “About Ellie I said. I don't think I we can take on another crewmember right now.” The expression on Lina’s face scared me a bit. Obviously something serious was going on here.
“Ellie came halfway around the planet to help search for you when you disappeared and led countless parties looking for you. And you would cast her aside?” It was an outright challenge and it seemed Lina had quite a bit of fire in her for my companion. I needed a diplomatic out.
“Does she even want to on this starship?” I realized that I was going to be getting quickly outnumbered by the female gender.
It seemed by asking the question I had approved her the crew. Lina jumped on the question turning it around by thinking as long as she wanted to be on the ship then she could join the crew. “Yes! She does not want to undergo the awakening but she has been cooking for us every night using the fresh foods on sanctuary deck. She wants to be the ships cook! And she is a great cook. We even downloaded every recipe available. Thank you!” Whoa. So many things went through my mind. Good food was first but then I had always thought first with my stomach. When did I agree? Could she be on the ship without being a crewmember? Well everything on the ship had been resized in the last few weeks by MD for human crew including a crew dining facility. This is where I was ‘escorted’ by Lina. The room was spacious and I noticed there were tables and counted 56 chairs and an attached kitchen with some fantastic smells coming from it where Ellie was toiling away. Her pace seemed to increase when we entered the room. Rose was sitting weekly at one of the tables were four place settings were. We walked over as Ellie brought out the meal. It was a steak and mashed potatoes with gravy and butter. A colorful salad was placed on the side and cold beer was placed in my hand. I knew what this was. It was a plan and simple set up. This was the final step in me confirming Ellie for the crew, the taste test.
Well it was a high quality meal that could be served in any restaurant. The steak was cooked perfectly and melted in my mouth. The mashed potatoes had some herbs I couldn't place and the gravy didn't overpower the flavor and creaminess. The butter also had a hint of herb I couldn't place. The beer was from my own brewery and was the perfect clean to the pallet between bites. “Ok you are hired,” I said between mouthfuls. I ate with vigor not hiding my satisfaction. My crew was very happy with my decision and I later learned Ellie was sharing Lina quarters.
I retired to my quarters and brought up an interface for the replicator and added MD on the channel as I worked to help me. The current raw material stores could rebuild about 30% of one of the mining ships. With MD help I ordered the remainder of the raw materials from Barstow and would pick them up in two days in orbit. I also posted a hiring request to man both mining ships. Each required a crew of 5 to function effectively. I also ordered depot above Bruin IV, resigned to start small. The materials and depot would cost me 175,000 credits. The materials would completely fill the replicator forge supply and most of the free space in the flight bay and cargo bays. Oh well we would have to be careful to maintain the illusion of the Canadian cruiser while loading. MD set the replicator to start utilizing existing stores to get a head start. I slept well that night.
The next day I voyaged to sanctuary deck and was astonished with the process. MD was hovering close by and letting me know some of the changes and identifying the progress. I was most pleased with the beach – standing there with the fake sun above in the VR I felt like I was back on vacation in Hawaii, the sand even smelled like it but I think it was a trick of the VR. I spent a few hours before grabbing the package MD had prepared with the seeds.
When I arrived at the Kommish house Able was there to meet me. He did not look happy and exploded pointing a finger at me, “You have the seeds? You know I have barely slept in months. First you go missing and then you give me more work than any normal farmer can handle.” I seemed to have overloaded Able’s abilities. I checked some past messages from Able that I had ignored and found that he had been requesting help for weeks. I needed to mediate.
“Ah, Able sorry I have been busy. I came over when I had a chance to help you and thank you for searching for me when I went missing. I noticed the a family moved into the attached farm. I will also be buying the house unit for the sugar cane estate. You can go ahead and hire a family work the land. I also approve of you hiring a mechanic to help Adeline with maintenance. I am also going to purchase twelve new harvesters, two hunting drones, and 2 trucks. Does that cover everything you wanted? I came buy to surprise you with these seeds for the new green houses.” My smile was weak, and then I added, “I have also added a small raise for your services.” Quickly tapping out the commands in the display. Able seemed more than placated.
“Uh, sir I was just giving you a hard time. I was not trying to blackmail you for anything. I am happy you are alive and well and this farm has been the best thing to ever happen to my family.” Damn I had just spent 76,400 credits for a very small increase in profit. I couldn't believe Able was faking his displeasure and my smile became hard as I said, “No problem, I had planned on getting around to everything on your wish list.” Of course I had not and didn't see it as a good investment.
“You are going to purchase the Haven estate as well?” Able came back. What? I did a quick search and found the request from way back when he first moved in. It was just a ‘suggestion’ about acquiring the Haven Estate, which had the most fertile land in the region and was the most productive…lets see…27 square miles and 229,000 credits! I had to let him down and let him know that was not on my list of purchases. To alleviate his disappointment I let him now maybe in the future. Able gave me a tour of the upgrades I had not had the time to see. All eight greenhouses, five of the ready for the new seeds I had handed him a short time ago. Everything was going well. It took most of the day to see everything except the cane fields, which I could not get to. I had dinner with the Kommish family and the boys looked to be growing well. At the end of dinner Adeline came up to me and discreetly let me know an upgrade to the mechanics workshop greatly help and Able was too afraid to ask for a doubling of the greenhouses and a soil sifter. Damn I was always a sucker for a women. Did Able plan this too? In the end I ordered everything, 50,000 credits, and noticed my balance had once again dropped precariously low and the increase to profits went up about 2000 a month, not bad actually as I would get my investment back in a little over two years, it mollified me a bit. I stayed in the guest room and one thing I could say was how neat everything was. I know the property had been a bit of a wreck when I purchased it and in the real world a lot of farms had junk lying around. The Kommish family seemed fastidious in cleaning not just the property but also the home. The guest room was very clean and the word I would describe it as is crisp. I felt really happy that my charges had this mentality.