Adam watched as Kor-Na's ship left the hangar, setting course for the Earth of all places in the universe. He had told him it would be the only place he would be safe from the criminals who would fear him revealing their secrets. Five of his crew joined him, mostly those working in the administration part of his operation. It made sense; those were the guys who knew who the clients actually were. The rest, all 64 of them, were joining him. All mechanics and low-level engineers, to a few high-end, were willing to join him. Some even asked about joining the clan for extra protection. Adam had told them they would be allowed after a month on Dirt, but he would never ask. They would have to approach him about it.

They had three ships that he got with the deal, along with equipment for a lot more than he had paid for. It wasn’t until Kor-Na had left he found out why. Five goons had cornered him and inquired about Kor-Na’s; Adam told them he didn’t know as it had been part of the deal. He even showed them the contract to prove he knew nothing. It clearly stated he was not allowed to ask where he had left. Kor-Na had told him but that the goons didn’t need to know that part. Instead, he assured them that Kor-Na had retired and promised never to reveal his client list.

When one of the goons didn’t believe him, Roks stepped in and beat him to a pulp while Adam’s Droid took a protective stance in front of Adam. After Roks had finished, he addressed the rest, telling them that the business was closed and not to try anything. One positive part was that the workshop was still there, and they could easily take it over and hire a new crew. The remaining goons had to agree on the positive news and scattered like roaches into the dark underbelly of the Hub.

Adam chatted with the rest of the crew and realized why he got it so cheap. Kor-Na was already rich, and he had only been looking for protection for his crew, not profit. Adam had shown that he would be able to provide them that. He gave them one day to prepear and then they were ready to leave.

As they were about to leave, Adam pulled Roks aside. “I need you to take them to Dirt alone and get them settled while I head to pick up the professors. And I want you to be my rage when you get home. Take Jork and Vorts aside, expose their extra project, and tell them I'm very disappointed. They will have until I return to prove it was worth spending resources on. No violence, okay? That way, I can be the good cop, and you’re the bad. Oh, and have The Dream loaded up again and do another run, but dock at the hub and wait for me there when I return with the professors. Pick somebody you trust.”

“What you guys know about good cop, bad cop?” Roks said surprised and they booth realized it must be a galactic thing.” I love playing bad cop. Sure, I will put the fear of the Gods in them.” Roks grinned before he asked. “How are you getting there?”

“I bought a yacht. If we are going to shuttle people, we should do it in a certain style. It costs as much as The Dream, so this one is hopefully an investment we can have this crew work on later.” Adam replied, and Roks looked excited.

“I got to see this one before we leave, and I want to take it for a spin later.”

“It’s at the hub, I’m taking the shuttle, and I ordered this one there. Is should be fuelled and ready at the docks when I arrive.” Adam took out his pad and showed him, and Roks whistled.

“Damn, okay I got an idea. I will have Kina do the route and join you when you return the professors. Then, we take your yacht for a spin while you take your dream home. Deal? She will love that. “

“Sure, Just don’t crash it.” Adam laughed.

“Bring D01 with you to the hub. I don’t want to find out you got in trouble without me.”

“Don’t worry. If I get into trouble, I will call you to come and join me. But yeah, I’ll bring him along to make you feel safe.”

“You just got jumped by a bunch of goons, so yeah, I will be worried,” Roks replied.

Adam smiled. “And that’s why you're my best friend, second in command. Now get those people safely home.”

He headed to the shuttle transport agency to book a trip back to the hub. It was one week of relaxation as he worked on his pad. He tried his luck at gambling but didn’t win much, though he met a few interesting people and learned more about the sectors and politics. When he arrived at the Hub, he went to the lawyers to pick up the deed to the ship, which came with a butler and maid Droid and set him back a million credits. He named it Gateway and made arrangements to pick up the professors. He really hoped it would pay off in the long run.

With their assistance, the three professors were clearly impressed as they met him, and Min-Na decided to join as well to help with any legal issues that might arise. Adam expected it also had to do with the yacht.

Adam found the dean and professor of exploration, Professor Jayko, to be the most interesting companion. He was a Buskar, a species known for being curious and patient. Jayko looked humanoid with a head like a rabbit with whiskers and red eyes but with short ears and hands with six fingers. He also had a monkey’s tail and wore a violet robe with a green belt. He looked almost like a monk if it were not for the bright white hair that hung in four large ponytails.

“I'm impressed with your work. Thought you seemed to have had a lot of luck here.”

“Well, I suspect the luck was the bad initial survey of the system. They saw empty planets without nitrogen, so they assumed the planets were dead ones. Then, they scanned for minerals and focused on the wrong materials. As I understand, this part of the galaxy is not so focused on terraforming?” Adam replied as the Maid droid served them a non-alcoholic drink.

“That’s not completely true. We do a lot of terraforming, but not at this scale. It's too costly and takes a long time. However, you seemed to have been able to do it much cheaper than expected and faster. To set off the volcanoes was a stroke of genius. It allows you to control the flow of gasses and the downfall of ashes and where they affect the planet. Of course, the lack of nitrogen is a huge problem.” Jayko replied, and the others agreed. It was clear he was the voice of Authority among these academics. Min-Na sat silently observing them.

“Yes, but we have more than enough Nitrogen on the gas planet Onic. We simply need to transport it from there to Dirt.” Adam said calmly, completely forgetting what Onic meant. The name was not lost on the academics, some of whom laughed politely.

“Onic? And an interesting name for a gas giant.” Jayko replied, and Adam caught on and then chuckled.

“I let the children name that one, and it’s a fun joke. The other gas giant is named Hanori just to counter the smell.” He winked, and even Professor Jayko smiled at that.

“So, you plan to seed the planet with resources from the system to make Dirt habitable?” One of the other professors asked. Adam turned to her and nodded.

“Yes, We humans will do this. We try not to give up and work with what we have. That’s how we ended up with the Asteroid cities. They are humanity's backup plan. Not everybody knows where these hollowed-out moons are, but we know a few million humans live there with access to all our technology in case humanity gets attacked, as they did during the Butcher War. Not that we need them now with us spreading so far and wide.”

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“I hope I’m not stepping out of line. I heard about the Butcher War, but it sounds too incredible. Earth exterminated the Galactic Republic and several of their seventeen species.” A Haran professor named Birn-Nan asked, and Adam leaned back on the couch.

“Oh, that old war? From what I have read we got pushed against the wall and had a choice to make. Us or them. You guys should be glad we chose them. They viewed everybody who was not in their Republic as food. That would have included you guys. Honestly, I don’t know much about the actual war, only that it was bloody and we broke many of our own rules of engadment. We don’t like what happened, but we see it as an unfortunate necessity. I only learned about it in history class. It's one of the few cases with a clear bad guy to fight.” Adam replied, drawing mostly blanks as he tried remembering his history classes.

“So that’s a human trait? To choose fight instead of flight in extreme situations?” The professor asked, and Adam realized why he had asked.

“Yeah, we tend to. We dislike giving up, and we consider it a weakness. Even the physically weakest of us will be admired if they show endurance. It’s why I saw this system as a fixer-upper and not something to abandon. I was planning to do it all by myself, then I met Roks, and well, now there are about a hundred living there.”

“It's impressive. Even if it fails to become a breathable atmosphere, you have made it livable by making the bases there. From a research standpoint, we have much to learn by observing your actions and studying the planet and system. So why are you so hesitant to allow us to come?” Professor Jayko asked.

“Mega corporations and pirates. If the corporation finds something they like, then they might just invade, and before I can lodge a complaint, I would be killed in a hostile takeover. Pirates are self-explanatory.” Adam said with a shrug, and the professors wanted to argue against it, but the professor raised his hand to silence them and looked at Adam.

“And you fear that us coming there will make that happen?”

“Yes and no, I don’t think you will do it intentionally. I fear some will accidentally reveal something that would attract them before I have secured my system against at least a clear attack. We all know what would happen if, let's say, we find a large node of precious metal. They will come in, take over, and strip mine the whole system, and you can forget about gaining more research on this form of terraforming. They would cut you guys off as well, and they would not leave any witnesses, so in a way, I'm protecting your colleagues and students as well.” Adam replied, and Min-Na smirked.

“He is correct. There is not much I would be able to do if he is dead. Any mega-company would have at least three to five years of access to the system before the court would toss them out, and by that time, any victims would be just a matter of a couple of thousand credits in fine.”

The professors and assistants looked at her, and Adam nodded to her. “Business at that level is deadly; they only care about profit, so I must keep my system off their radar at all costs, which is why she is here. You have to sign the non-disclosure agreement. It’s a simple contract to ensure that you do not reveal the location and allow me to approve information you can share. Now I’m not going to stop anything else except the information that would risk our lives.”

Min-Na got out the pads and handed everybody one. “Please read and sign when you're ready. We will not enter the system before everybody has signed, including me, which is why.“ She signed her pad and gave it to Adam, who looked at it and handed it to the butler droid. “I will sign first, and if you know anything about me and my firm, then you should know it is safe. “ The others acknowledged her and then read the contract. Min-Na had to clarify a few points, and then they all signed. When they had all signed, Adam allowed the alcohol to be served.

The rest of the trip went quickly, and Adam started to suspect that Min-Na and Birn-Nan were sneaking away for private time. They apparently knew each other from before. Adam spent the time between exercise and discussing with Professor Jayko about planets with mixed flora and fauna. He recommended keeping the biospheres separated at the beginning. They went over the map of the world and how the oceans would divide the planet. The obvious plan would be to seed each continent with a different biosphere and have a few smaller islands with mixed biosphere for observation. When they arrived at the system, they had already made a rough plan that could be set in motion, and the university would help provide the new biosphere flora and fauna DNA to be planted.

Adam was surprised when the alarm went off when they entered the system. Then he smiled as he went to the bridge, took personal control of the system, and contacted Dirt.

“You got the warning system up?” He asked, and Surn replied.

“Yes, we did; I got the traffic control duty. I got a nice view here.” He replied and Adam chuckled.

“Well, we are inbound. Anything I need to know?”

“You will see. They had a slight panic a week after you left and almost worked themselves to death. I think you will like what they did. You should stop by Onic and check it out. I think your guests will like it, giving Vorts and Jork time to wake up. Roks has really had them working.“ Surn replied, and Adam laughed.

“Will do. Please send me any intel about that operation so I have something to tell the guest.” He asked, and Surn sent him the update. Adam thanked him and set the course as he reviewed the information. It was impressive. It was clearly Jork’s unrestrained brain that was working there. He put them on autopilot when they got close and gathered the professors on the observation deck.

They saw a small platform with several drone ships being charged up. Rising from Onic’s atmosphere was a cube of frozen Nitrogen 10 square kilometers. Sixteen drones were attached to the ice cube, keeping it within a forcefield; the whole cube was being pushed out of the atmosphere by a Roks hauler that seemed to have four extra drones attached to it to help with the push. Once it broke free from the gravity pull, the drones took over and started the long haul towards Dirt. Roks hauler waited for sixteen new drones to detach from the platform and attach themselves to the hauler before diving back down to start the process again; the professors watched in awe at the simplicity of the operation.

“How long until the Nitrogen reaches Dirt?” They asked, and Adam checked his pad.

“34 hours. Three are already on the way. If we can get more ships and drones, we can speed up the process. The satellite platform has a reactor that chargers the drones and can hold sixty-four drones simultaneously. It is fully automated with a simple directive. Gather nitrogen and transport it to Dirt. We can shut it down or reprogram it from Dirt, and if needed, we have shuttles that can come up to do repairs. We plan to attach an engineer droid to the platform for simple repairs.” Adam tried to relax but realized Jork must have mass-produced drones. He dreaded to find out the number.

“That is truly impressive; it will take you a couple of million trips, thought.”

“Not necessarily; now that we got it working, we can expand the amount. All sixty-four droids at once should be able to take fifty square kilometers or even bigger. We have to do the math. It should give us a chance to seed the oceans with nitrogen, and if we can add oxygen, we can get algae life in the wild, which is the first goal. Another project we are working on. We will see how far they have gotten with that when we arrive. Shall we?” He walked back inside, went to the pilot seat, and started to fly towards Dirt, ensuring he passed the Nitrogen cubes as closely as he could for the guests to admire.

As they got closer, they saw two cubes hanging above the atmosphere. One was currently being cut into smaller pieces and lowered into the atmosphere. The other was inside the atmosphere, and the bottom was being melted into gas form and released about 50 km above the surface. Adam was as shocked as his guests, but mostly because his scan showed 0.5 oxygen in the atmosphere, and where the five giant lakes were, there were oceans, not small oceans. They had finally melted twenty-five percent of the poles, only five left. It was clear where the oceans would be formed now, and he saw several small oxygen factories. Spewing out oxygen into the air and water. He aimed the yacht toward one of the factories and flew past it. They could see green algae on the surface, and Adam was impressed as he set the course for the base. When they approached, he saw they had built a hanger big enough for the yacht, and the droids were also working on constructing another. It was a new model, and he realized what had happened. Jork had truly gone berserk. He must have dissected construction droids and made his own version. They were not as effective as the factory once, but if you had enough, then it wouldn’t matter.

He parked the yacht in the hangar and checked the sensors. When the air was breathable, he gathered the professors and walked outside to Roks.

“Welcome back, Master Wrangler. You were right. All we needed to do was to put the fear of gods in them. I suggest we let them sleep a little longer.” Roks grinned.