I awoke feeling mentally refreshed and reset. The SLUMBER scenario was more of a kids game than an actual challenge. You had to escape from a prison on a forest planet. After getting free you ran through the forest evading wild animals. Then you entered the remote star port and had to blast your way to hijack an enemy gunship on a launch pad. As you lifted off you had to fend off small planetary fighters and rendezvous with your crew and ship in orbit. Each step was completed easily enough. It was still fun and a mental vacation.

I went to my terminal ignoring my flashing PerCom for a moment. Crap. We had already received five shipments from the station. Eve was funneling everything through the main lower cargo hold and using the freight elevators to get everything to its proper location for storage or installation. Only a few bots were actually installing the furnishings all the others were moving cargo. Nero and Gabby were directing the engineering bots as their materials arrived to complete repairs and replace components. Wow, a lot actually got done while I had slept.

I reviewed my PerCom quickly and approved a few requests. I had one hundred and eight communication requests from the station and moon on my PerCom backlog. I reviewed each over the next hour. Half were in regards to our purchase orders. A quarter were sales pitches and the rest were either passenger requests, resumes for crew or potential cargo contracts. The post war recession was hitting this remote star system. Apparently unemployment was over 12%. I didn’t commit to anything but replied with, ‘thanks for contacting me. Your request is being reviewed’ when applicable. I probably should incorporate and come up with a company name. Transportation Inc? Too mundane. I would have to think on it.

I went and found Shinade and Vanessa overseeing a cabin on the luxury deck getting outfitted with new furniture. They were both giving me the cold shoulder but this cabin was looking pretty good. I told them it looked great before moving on to find Tora...I was still being ignored even after my compliment.

Tora was fine tuning the maneuvering thrusters in the port bow section. We talked for quite a while and she said she enjoyed working on propulsion systems much more than navigation systems. Maybe she could have some utility after all? I questioned her for a good thirty minutes on the propulsion systems on the ship and she did have a good grasp of them. I told her to run some emergency scenarios in the role of a propulsion engineer and I would review her results. Tora might have just saved herself from getting booted from my crew.

I spent a few hours with Gabby in the robotics lab. She worked on her dog musculature and fur while I started my project for Eve. I was only embarrassed briefly when I was projecting a three dimensional image of my progress. Gabby was enthralled and asked a lot of questions…a lot of good questions. Eventually I transferred my files for Eve’s advanced skin to her so she could study them. I made some notes on my PerCom to see if Gabby could pursue a robotics track in the future. She was definitely passionate about it. She was already starting to pack some solutions I had developed for Eve into her hounds.

I needed to head down to the moon and get my Sol Bank device. I went and talked directly with Eve and she was upset that she wasn’t coming. I told her she needed to remain on board and watch the crew and supervise deliveries. She asked if I was going to get any crew. I had only planned to get my bank chip and do some light shopping. Eve suggested I get a computer engineer on the planet to integrate the university AI into the ships AI. I had been putting that off. I told her I would try to interview a few people.

I went to my cabin and changed into some social clothes but still had my skin suit on underneath. I connected to the moon side terminal for more information. I booked a shuttle pickup for 200 credits. The shuttle would come to my ship and bring me to planet and return me to my ship for another 200 credits.

I had two hours to wait for my pickup. I studied the moon factoids. It was one of seven moons that orbited the gas giant. It had a population of just over 7 million. There were only two land masses on the opposite poles, the rest of the planet was water with some fantastically large creatures. The moon had a nearly perfect perpendicular orbit to the gas giants ecliptic of the sun giving it a steady day-night cycle of 26 hours. The gravity was 1.1 g so heavier than I was accustomed too. It was the only moon with a habitable atmosphere for humans, even then it was a little heavy with nitrogen.

Decontamination and health inspections took about 30 minutes on landing. There were not many tourist attractions…a submersible tour of the ocean…a massive underground cave network with colorful crystal formations…a theater putting on some ancient plays by Shakespeare…an alien zoo menagerie.

My shuttle arrived and I boarded under the alias of Devon Wellspring. The trip to planet was quick. The shuttle wasn’t as nice as my luxury shuttle but I didn't brag to the pilot and co-pilot. I didn’t take my own shuttle as it would have been subjected to scans and the costs about equaled out either way. The pilot was taking me to the largest city on the moon in the North Pole. I watched as the blue green ocean was soon beneath us and we raced above the water. The ocean was dark but I did spot a few interesting white creatures near the surface. We were moving too fast to accurately make them out though.

The city was a clustered bunch of sky scrapers. Due to the moon’s turbulent tides and tsunamis there were no coastal cities. After landing and getting ready to depart the shuttle for the medical decontamination I could feel the higher gravity. I made a note on my PerCom to train for this in the future. There were specialized fitness cubes with adjustable gravity and one had already been purchased from the station. It was small, just 12m by 12m, but should do the trick. The decontamination went quickly and soon I was out in the city walking between the skyscrapers and heading for the bank. The Sol Bank had its own building with its logo blazing on it so it was easy to find.

The lobby was extravagant, white marble floors, silver etched blue marble walls and the ceiling was a screen the perfectly simulated a pink and blue sky from a world I was not familiar with. This was actually only the third planet I had even stood on. After gawking at the Sol Bank display of wealth and power I checked in for my appointment. The bank facilitator was an older man and he talked to me in his richly appointed office. I had three options for my bank accounting device. The standard option, which was free, was a black box the size of a person’s head. The second option was a heavy bracelet and this cost 200 Sol credits. The third option was a bone graft, similar to my PerCom but on the other arm. This option cost 1,200 Sol credits. All options were biometrically coded to my person. The best part of the unit? All my credits were immediately exchanged for local credits at just a 1% fee, much better than the system exchange rates.

I asked what if the device was damaged. The rep said the damaged parts could be returned to any branch of the Sol bank. If data was not recoverable then I would have to wait one Earth year and then the last balance would be applied to the account. This was to insure any transactions processed would reach the central processing computer on Earth through the FTL com network. The third option could be done almost immediately and would take thirty minutes but he warned of lingering pain for few days.

I decided on the third option and after calling in two medical staff I had the procedure completed. It was less discomforting than the PerCom but itched a lot as I was walking out. I was wandering the city when I came to a restaurant advertising itself as the best in system. My internal scientist decided such boasts needed confirmation.

The food was extremely excellent! Definitely one of the best meals I had ever had. I found the waiter and learned they quick freeze process for meals and they could be packaged for use in space travel. A generic reheater would work but he suggested the CUISINE-PREP-20L. He said that would give me the best results. I made sure we could get a half dozen for the ship and ordered them from the restaurant. Then I ordered 5000 meals to be sent to my ship. It was an extravagant expense at roughly a total cost of 2,500 Sol credits but thought it would help with crew morale.

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Crew morale was in part of my coursework at the academy for reaching higher grades. I had never applied what I learned just memorized enough to pass the certs. Now actually being in charge of a crew I could see the need. Tora was isolated. Shinade and Vanessa were angry with me for having Samantha on board. Samantha was...well I hadn't talked to her once since the first day she was on board. Henry was ok but lacked confidence and broke under pressure. Nero was reserved and I didn't really know what was going through his mind. I still had to talk with him about his use of the female steward bots. If we did accept passengers then that would have to end...maybe I could just get him a regular sex bot as those were relatively cheap? Gabby was doing fantastic and I had established a firm mentor-mentee wall between us.

With a full stomach I was heading back to the space port and ready to call the shuttle but remembered Eve had requested I make an attempt to hire a computer engineer. With unemployment so high in the system I might be able to find someone I liked. I decided to book a suite with a bedroom at a hotel so I could make interviews. I commed Eve and Nero to let them know I would be moon side for at least half a day longer.

I called a personnel head hunter and she came to my hotel suite in less than 30 minutes to work with me. Her name was Suruchi Lozano. She was extremely short, just 1.5m. She was in her early 30s I think and had silky black hair in a bun, dark brown eyes, medium toned skin highlighted her brilliant white smile. She had a power suit on well sculpted figure. She came super prepared and even had lawyer credentials so our discussions could be deemed as attorney client privilege in the Sapphire Empire. She had a holo screen setup and started asking me questions about my needs. I took a shot in the dark and asked about hiring POWs. She had a wealth of information for me on the subject. The first and most important bit was that POWs were only taken during fleet and planetary engagements. If crews abandoned their ships or were never captured before the end of the war they owed no service. What that meant was Samantha was not in any danger of getting detained if she departed here. I guess I should have been worried about myself as well as I was technically an engineer in the Union navy. Political prisoners were taken post war and the reason according to her was they had numerous links to the controlling corporations. This allowed the Empire to charge much higher release fees to these prisoners, reducing the capital of the corporation. Unfortunately you couldn't hire POW's or prisoners from the war. They were restricted to two planets doing work in light and heavy manufacturing facilities.

She also had details on hand on how to pay for the release and pickup of prisoners. We spent some time going over those details and the more she talked the more I felt confident and secure in heading to pick up Abby. We moved onto my needs of a computer engineer. After describing what I needed she had a list of six candidates ready for me to review. I dropped the top two immediately as they had served in the Empire's navy. The next one was too old...83. No life prolonging treatments noted in her resume and her photo in her profile showed her age. With advanced medicine and life prolonging treatments an average person could double life expectancy and live to 200, or about 180 quality years before cognitive decline. I spent some time reviewing the fourth candidate. He had his doctorate in computer engineering and certs in robotics. He was 29 years old and looked to have been a scholar at the local university. Definitely an option.

The last two were a young married couple. It didn't say they came as a pair though. I asked to interview the 29 year old, Emon Alkhaiwani. He looked to be a blend of Indian and African ancestry from his picture and twenty minutes later we started a video interview. The conversation went pretty good. He had taught at the local university for three years and his research grants had expired so he was looking to relocate and didn't mind signing a three year contract on a passenger liner. It didn't take long to iron out a contract after that with Suruchi's assistance.

Suruchi asked if I needed to hire anyone else. She had just received a sizable bonus and Emon's salary for the next three years had been placed in an escrow account with her company. Well I needed a personal director for my ship, was she available? She said I couldn't afford her and I asked how much. I did the conversation in my head...about 10,000 Silverstream credits annually. About 5 times what an experienced crewman made. It's not like I didn't have the funds. I had only converted about 5% of my precious metal cargo to credits here...well 5.3% to be accurate. Having an experienced director would take a large burden off my shoulders.

When I accepted her counter offer it wasn't the end. It took nearly two hours to iron out her contract. It was a one year contract that could be renewed by her indefinitely. If I terminated her for any reason I had to pay a penalty of two years wages that would be held in escrow. I was probably being taken major advantage of in the negotiations but hopefully with Suruchi handling all further negotiations I would be better off in the long run.

We didn't finalize the contract. Suruchi wanted to utilize her company's resources to fill out my ship's roster. I sent it over to her after converting the pay scale to Sol bank credits. A Silverstream credit was similar in value to Sapphire Empire credit so this is what my potential crew looked like.

VOID PHOENIX CREW Name Monthly Pay (Sol) 1 First Officer, Personal Director Suruchi 1111.1 2 FTL Engineer/Owner Devon 277.8 3 Pilot 222.2 4 Medical Officer 222.2 5 Propulsion Engineer 222.2 6 Navigation Engineer Tora 200.0 7 Navigation Henry 166.7 8 Life Support Engineer Nero 133.3 9 Shuttle Pilot Eve 111.1 10 Logistics Officer Vanessa 111.1 11 Security Officer Shinade 111.1 12 Computer Engineer/Robotics Engineer Emon 111.1 13 Chief Steward 88.9 14 Assistant Life Support Engineer Gabby 33.3 Total = 3122.2

The first thing she asked was how many passengers my ship would taking on each leg. I paged through my PerCom to see. We should have 24 luxury cabins and 39 regular passenger cabins. The luxury cabins had two bedrooms each and the regular cabins had one double bed and a pull out single bed. So with full a full booking...63 to 213. Next she asked for her crew budget. She had worked with many crew captains and thought my wages were a little high and I made a bad joke about lowering her wages if they were too high. She just reminded me she had officially signed the contract. I decided to set the sum of the crew wages to be 5000 Sol credits monthly with meals and cabins included. She could work with that figure.

She said she needed to get on the ship as soon as possible before making any further hiring plans. She needed to know what she was working with. I had talked up my vessel and obviously had a well of funds. I also told her we needed to discuss which positions to fill from the populace here on Gunther Prime. She would have complete discretion to hire whoever she deemed fit though.

Suruchi went home and hired a company to pack her belongs and transport them. I noted she didn't have them shipped immediately. She hadn't seen the ship or signed the contract. After she did her tasks I called my shuttle and we both flew up to the Void Phoenix. On the trip up she tried to get me to change the ship's name to something more catching for a passenger liner but I declined. We also settled on hiring six more crew from this system, a medical officer, a shuttle pilot, a shuttle technician, a shuttle engineer, a chief steward and a logistics officer. Vanessa was leaving her post so that role needed to be filled. Suruchi seemed to think the med bot was not sufficient for a luxury liner no matter how much I tried to explain how friggin advanced and expensive it was. I hoped I could find a few Union POWs to fill out some other roles. On approach to the ship I was a bit nervous...how would Suruchi view her once she toured the vessel?