Veda leaned across the table and applied her seal to the document in front of them. It attached a copy of her DNA to be coded into the digital draft of the agreement next to her. The lizardfolk lawyer watched benevolently.

Colonel Ames eyed the document warily.

"You sure you need me to sign this?" he asked the corporate lawyer they had hired. "I don't want to be the front man on this company. I'm not the right choice."

"You can designate an alternative to take over from you later," the lawyer said. She was a lizardfolk woman Veda had never dealt with before. She wasn’t affiliated with any of the big three interstellar conglomerations. In fact, Hal’Rhee was a radical affiliated with an indigenous species rights group. It had taken Veda some effort to find her without raising any flags. Proxima was watching her every move, but Veda hoped they wouldn't expect this.

Ames leaned forward and pressed his thumb against the document's scanner. Lawyer Hal’Rhee sat back in her chair and folded her long, webbed hands together.

"Very well. It's done. And now I would like to satisfy my own curiosity as to what's going on. It's clear you're trying some sort of end run around someone."

“I’m just trying to make sure my sponsees get a fair deal," Veda said. "I'm worried about Proxima finding a way around the contract I've made with them. I promised I wouldn't sell them out, but Proxima is making a bid to buy out my company. That would turn their contracts over to people who do not have their best interests in mind.”

Hal’Rhee winced. "I've seen what your team is doing. It's inspirational to those of us who work to support the rights of the species we supplant. Proxima certainly can't be happy with what's going on."

"No, indeed," Ames agreed.

"May I make a suggestion?" the lawyer said.

"Please." Veda glanced at the clock. "We're paying for your time by the hour, after all. Might as well get every piece of advice you can give us."

The lawyer's wide, lipless mouth spread open, and her tongue flicked rapidly out as she sampled the air in the room. Veda knew from long experience it was the lizardfolk equivalent of a mammal's smile.

“You hired me to oversee the agreement between you and make sure it will stand up. What I'm about to suggest is outside my role there. So, as a matter of fact," she glanced at the clock and made a record, "I will not be charging you for this, because it is not advice I am giving you as your lawyer. It is, instead, pro bono for my activist work."

Hal’Rhee paused, seeming to collect her thoughts. "I've looked over the documents you provided me, your agreement with the team, your work representing your company, and your family, Veda, invested you as their representative.”

“I know, but they've revoked that now."

Hal’Rhee held up a scaly paw. "They have, but that's not retroactive. The forms they filed are millennia old, dating back to when we had few ships capable of easy travel between systems. Company representatives could be working on their own for years at a time. Your company agreed to let you use company assets for your own personal gain with the understanding that you would return the profits to them."

"Well, of course I would."

Hal’Rhee shook her head. "You misunderstand. The contracts that you've made are between you personally and the miners. Now, if you try to unilaterally cancel the contracts, your company can and should sue you for breach of fiduciary responsibility. They expect to get what they deserve, but they cannot just reassign those contracts to someone else without your approval. And more importantly," the lizardfolk woman slicked her tongue out again, "the exploit license you have that says you successfully completed Phase Two, with all those glowing endorsements, that belongs to you until you assign that back to the company."

Veda felt as though she'd just been punched in the stomach. She sat back, breathing rhythmically in through one nostril, out through the other, trying to collect her thoughts. Was it even possible? The lawyer wouldn't lie to her, surely.

She sent queries to her personal system, asking it to analyze the authority her family had granted her.

It replied quickly with a high-level analysis. What Hal’Rhee said was true enough, but — “When I signed these agreements, I also placed myself as a willing subservient to my family, saying I would accept orders they give. If I go against what they want, they can call in penalties.” Veda paged through the documentation her system had sent. “Including,” she looked up, feeling the bottom of her stomach drop out, “being disowned by my family.”

"Well, yes, you could," Hal’Rhee said, "but that won't get them the contracts and the license. You'll have a ceremony at the end of this exploit where you assign all profits and the license to them, and they release you from that particularly onerous bond.”

“And if I don’t?”

“They can call in a financial penalty. It would wipe you out and put a lien against your future earnings for probably the next 150 years." Hal’Rhee shrugged. "You'll just have to decide for yourself what that's worth."

Ames turned to her. "That does open up some interesting possibilities," he said.

Veda blinked. "Yes, yes, you're right, it does. For example," she smiled savagely and turned back to the lawyer, "I'd like to hire you again to write a contract assigning the contracts I have with all of my miners to the corporation that Colonel Ames and I have just formed, in exchange for, oh, 90% of their earnings against the outstanding debt and expected profit margin."

"That's easy," Hal’Rhee said calmly. "I'll have that to you in less than an hour. I want to make sure that I get the forms right. Now, because you're a member both of the Tvedra Corporation and," she glanced down, “Brightfeather Earthborn Unlimited, we'll have to make sure to have all of the financial disclosures up front so no one can accuse you of bad dealing."

"I don't want to cheat my family," Veda said. "I love them very much, and I want to see what's best for them. But Proxima is manipulating them in order to get to me. To get to Team Twofeather," she amended. "I want them protected as soon as possible.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“And we'll make sure they are," Hal’Rhee said.

Veda turned to Ames. "Any other clauses you want to add in light of this?"

Ames shook his head. "No, but as soon as we can get Louis Twofeather and Juana Lopez up here, I want them taking my place on this contract."

"Why them?" Hal'Rhee asked cautiously. She tapped one long, taloned finger on her desk. "Colonel Twofeather has made quite a splash, but it's his grandson that's got everyone talking, and Juana Lopez only handles behind-the-scenes stuff, doesn't she?"

"Exactly," Ames said. "Lopez is the organizational brain of that outfit. If we're going to make it something more than just a bunch of cowboys, we need her. I'm going to ask you to recommend some sort of crash course in galactic business management for her. And Louis’s got a much cooler head than Shad. Plus, we don't need Shad worrying about the details of contracts and laws. He's best when he's shooting from the hip, taking the fight to them. Louis, though, he needs a bit more skin in the game."

"I'll make notes," Hal’Rhee said. "Once they've been added, it will take a quorum to add or remove anyone else as executors of this contract."

Veda nodded. She was effectively handing control of their fate back over to the humans. They needed her, and not just as a figurehead, though that was important, too. What she had said to Ames before was true. There were plenty of galactics who would not have any dealings with a company solely led by miners just off their first reality engine.

Hal’Rhee checked something. She stiffened. "If that's all," she said, "I think you two are going to have business elsewhere."

"Why? What's that?" Veda asked.

“You might turn your feeds back on.”

Veda had disabled her incoming notifications. Now she turned them back on. A whole stream of messages from her mother popped in.

"What are you doing?"

"How long have you been planning this?"

"What are you up to?"

"Proxima's going to kill us!"

"We'll all go back into storage!"

"You've got to stop this!"

"We've lost everything!"

"How could you do this to me?"

"I don't understand," Veda said aloud.

Ames was staring off into space, his lips moving. He shook his head. "Well, I just hope Twofeather knows what they're doing," he said. He stood up and went to the door. Veda leapt up to follow him.

"Wait, what's Shad done now?"

Her system let her know who was waiting at her pod, and Veda considered just not going back. Wandering the Hub, having a late lunch in one of the many restaurants. But sooner or later, they'd corner her, and she honestly preferred it to be in private.

So she went back, and found her mother and the Proxima representative, Dreamwarden, outside her pod. Veda put on her most business-like expression and invited them in.

By now, Veda had read the Hub news reports and knew exactly what it was Shad had done. She couldn't understand why, and her initial impression was it was a suicidally dumb thing to do. Maybe Shad had been overcome with one of his periodic fits of petulant insanity. Or perhaps the young Earthling knew what he was doing.

Veda sat herself behind her desk and offered a pair of cushions to her guests. Her mother looked around, scowling.

"What did you do with all of the decorations?" she asked.

"Didn't match my style. I put them back in the digital archives."

"Do you have any idea how long I spent decorating this place for your father to make it a little piece of home wherever he went?"

Veda had checked the owner's records of the pod and knew her father, like her, preferred a minimalist decoration. Bare walls with occasional light tapestries hanging from them were more her style. Her mother had programmed in an interior decorating package that included a lot of chintz, lace, and pastels. It had throw pillows on the bed, for progenitors’ sake.

She instead turned to Dreamwarden. "Dreamwarden? What may I do for you today?"

"You can explain just what your team thinks they're doing," he growled.

"I assume you mean they're choosing to partner with a reality engine-allied faction and invoke a secondary rule set?" Veda shrugged. "It was an option. If you didn't want them to pick it, it shouldn't have been on the list.”

“You know as well as I do that this exploit is unpredictable. That entry was put in place by the reality engine itself. We took great care to make sure no one would ever choose it. In fact, it should only have revealed itself after a member of an exploit team encountered one of the minion mobs located inside the instances. And since all teams must have picked a faction in order to enter the instance, I don't see how that was possible."

You tried to cheat and are worried someone else cheated back. Hah. “I’m afraid I haven't been able to make contact with my team yet and learn what was going on. But you must know that Team Twofeather has a knack for the unexpected," she said.

"We are quite aware of Team Twofeather's proclivities. It was a mistake to allow an indigenous team so much leeway in Phase Two. I will be leveling sanctions against your corporation for not taking proper precautions."

"Is that so," Veda said. "I wonder what the Council for the Protection of Indigenous Rights would have to say. Or perhaps the Church of the Progenitors? You know they always say that the indigenous have as much right to an exploit as the rest of us do."

"Nonsense," Dreamwarden snarled. "Without us, the reality engines would be sitting around wasted."

Veda felt her blood rising. "Without you, the humans would have claimed this reality engine for themselves in ten years," she snapped. "I've seen the logs. I know why this exploit was so rushed. That's why we're suffering so many setbacks. That's why you're in such a hurry to abandon it. You messed up. And now you're trying to cover up. How long have you known about the rogue reality engine?" she demanded. "I've looked into those. The challenge level for them is much higher, especially since there's no Indigenous population to serve as workers. Preparation for one of those takes galactic centuries. And you claim to have just discovered it and be opening it up for exploit in the next couple of years? That's cron-doc.”

Her mother winced at the expletive. "Veda, you were raised better than that."

"I don't care," Veda said, plunging on. "My team has done everything within the rules. We will continue to do so. That doesn't mean we're not trying to win."

"Indigenous species never win," Dreamwarden snapped back.

"These ones will," Veda retorted.

"Veda Androst Garnali Tvedra," her mother said. "We are here to put an end to this nonsense right now. Your rights to run this exploit have already been revoked. I am turning over control of this exploit to a person of Dreamwarden's choosing. They will —“

“Do absolutely nothing to Team Twofeather," Veda snarled. "Because you and the family picked the wrong damn contracts when you put me in charge. My deals with the humans are through me, not the company. And I've assigned those contracts to another company right now. Oh, you'll get the money, mother. Never fear," she said. "You'll be taken care of. The family is going to be better off than we ever dreamed. But I am not abandoning my people to these—these—" Words failed her, and she waved a hand at Dreamwarden, shaking her head.

"You're making a terrible mistake," Dreamwarden said. “We are not easily thwarted.”

“You turn over whatever contracts you have to us immediately," her mother demanded. "Or we'll call in our end. You'll be indentured to the family for the rest of your life. And we won't be letting you run reality exploits either. I'll—I'll—I'll have you assigned a marriage to a— to a space orc from Drak'tal," she said, spluttering.

"You do what you need to do," Veda said quietly. "And I'll do what I need to do here. Mother, this pod was given to me in Father's will. It belongs to me, and I am done with guests for the day. Please leave. Dreamwarden, I am sending you a copy of the secondary contracts I have just made with Brightfeather Unlimited."

“And who are they?"

"It's a new venture. The Earthlings have formed a corporation by galactic law and are taking control of their own exploit," Veda said. "Also, Mother, you can assign me whatever indenture you want, but as long as I can pay it back, you can't force me home or into a marriage."

"You'll never be able to pay," her mother said.

"I will if they win," Veda said bravely, though with the terms Shad and company had just accepted, there was no way they'd be able to win this. She'd worry about that later. Right now, she just wanted her mother and Dreamwarden out of her hair.

"Please leave. I have work to do."

As soon as they left, her mother fuming, Dreamwarden politely hostile, she looked into the secondary ruleset Team Twofeather had invoked.

“What the -- what the void did you do, Shad?”