Kenjiro Takagi walked over to the wall where his framed degrees and his "Researcher of the Year" plaque hung. He took the plaque down and took in its weight. It felt light and hollow, like it wasn't really worth the metal it was made of. He stared at it for a few seconds and nodded while letting out a soft "Mhmm," before placing it face down on his desk.
"Shepherd Orbital Works," he spoke softly. The name sounded industrial and grounded, something that aimed at making actual improvements rather than spreading to every single corner of human space.
He grabbed his datapad and transferred the files Estarlyn had sent him onto a secure, encrypted drive before wiping the trace of the transfer from the SIGS server. He wasn't a corporate spy, but he knew how SIGS operated. If they caught wind of this technology, they wouldn't try to buy it. They would try to bury it, or steal it and ruin the man who made it to avoid disrupting their market share. That is, if they don't kill him first.
Kenjiro checked his reflection in the darkened window, and staring back at him was a man in a perfectly tailored suit, a man who had played the game and won, only to realize the prize was ultimately worthless.
"I guess it's time to see how the other half lives," he murmured.
He cracked his left wrist and tapped his G-comm. "Secretary?"
"Yes, Dr. Takagi?" the chirpy voice of the automated assistant replied.
"Cancel my meetings for the next week," he ordered. "And tell the Director I have a family emergency."
"Understood, Doctor," the AI chirped. "Shall I send flowers?"
"No," Kenjiro smiled. "Send a shuttle ticket."
The journey from Elyse to Mechanicus was a descent through the social strata of Nova Celeste.
Kenjiro sat in the passenger cabin of a commercial transport shuttle, squeezed between a miner who smelled of ozone and processed algae, and a silent droid that kept clicking every thirty seconds. He had traded his silk suit for a nondescript gray jumpsuit he had bought from a surplus store on the lower promenade of Elyse before departing. He felt ridiculous, like a cosplayer pretending to be working class, but he hoped it would be enough to keep him from getting mugged the moment he stepped off the dock.
The view out the viewport shifted as they approached the industrial station. Elyse had been a jewel, bright, white, and sparkling. Mechanicus was the complete opposite. It was dark metal, punctuated by the angry orange flares of gas refineries and the strobing lights of heavy docking bays. It looked like a giant engine turned inside out. But it had its own allure, especially to Kenjiro.
When the shuttle docked, the change in pressure popped Kenjiro's ears. The air that rushed in when the doors opened tasted metallic. It was thick, humid, and carried the unmistakable tang of welding fumes.
Kenjiro stepped out onto the platform, clutching his small travel bag as his senses were assaulted by everything around him. Shouts, the grinding of gears, the hiss of hydraulics, and the thumping bass of music coming from a nearby cargo bar created a chaotic and dirty atmosphere that would never be seen on Elyse. However, something about it attracted him. It wasn't what he was used to, it wasn't perfect, it wasn't monotonous. It was alive.
He navigated the concourse, checking the map on his datapad for Docking Platform 2 in the Industrial Sector.
It took him about an hour to find it, getting lost twice in the labyrinthine corridors of the station. He had to ask directions from a vendor selling fried synth-meat on a stick, who took a glance at Kenjiro's clean hands and charged him double for the information, which Kenjiro paid without complaint.
When he finally arrived at the entrance to Platform 2, he stopped. It wasn't just a platform. It was a fortress of industry. There were a few names he recognized, some of the signs being of a few subsidiaries of SIGS. He walked for about ten minutes before finally coming across the place he was looking for.
The signage was new, and crisp holographic letters were projected above reinforced glass that allowed a clear view into the shipyard and the handful of structures in it. It had three letters and then three words below them: S. O. W.SHEPHARD ORBITAL WORKS.
But what caught his eye wasn't the sign. It was what he could see through the transparisteel on the doors. There was a line. A literal queue of vessels hovering in the approach vector, waiting for clearance. Lined up at the forefront were ships that surprised him the most. They were military-grade gunships painted in the colors of a mercenary group he'd personally hired before, The Void Vanguard. Lined up behind them were a handful of independent haulers and mining tugs.
"So he's not only supplying to the common folk, but to Mercenaries too?" Kenjiro whispered. "He's supplying mercenaries?"
He walked toward the observation gallery, a public walkway that ran above the docking bays, protected by thick reinforced glass. From there, he looked down into the yard.
It was breathtaking.
In one bay, a massive, predatory-looking warship sat, its railguns far longer than anything in its class should have any business handling. In the same bay also sat another ship with the same colors of the Void Vanguard, though this one seemed to be quite damaged. In the next bay, he saw a stripped-down ship, smaller in scale, along with a bunch of materials. And finally, in the adjacent bays were four Void Vanguard gunships docked. And swarming over them were a bunch of drones.
Kenjiro pressed his hands against the glass, his breath fogging it up. He watched as a drone removed a vent from a gunship. Something about these drones was different than anything he had seen. They moved with a fluidity that SIGS automation lacked, not just unbolting, but manipulating the part, rotating it, and inspecting the seal.
His eyes drifted over the bay until they landed on Mark.
Estarlyn hadn't exaggerated. The man was a giant. He was down on the deck, wearing a grease-stained tank top and heavy cargo pants. His arms were perfect, not too muscular, but obviously strong as he lifted a piece of plating that should have probably required a hydraulic lift. He was laughing, talking to one of the mercenary pilots, clapping the man on the shoulder with enough force to stagger him.
He looked... happy.
Kenjiro watched as Mark walked over to a console, tapping commands. He saw the drones respond instantly, their synchronization flawless.
"He's not just manufacturing," Kenjiro realized, analyzing the workflow. "He's optimizing the refit process in real-time. That drone pathing... It's adaptive. As if someone was controlling them and making them move a certain way."
Kenjiro pulled out his datapad, recording the scene. He zoomed in on a rack of fresh vents waiting to be installed. Even from this distance, he could see the difference in the finish. They weren't shiny. They were matte black and textured. They looked like they had been grown, not cast.
He stood there for a long time, just watching. He watched the two bays with the gunships seal up before another door opened, allowing the flight of gunships to leave, their engines purring with a deep, resonant thrum that spoke of perfect combustion. He watched Mark high-five a small girl who ran out from the office, his daughter, presumably, and lift her onto his shoulders as if she weighed nothing.
It was a family business. A mom-and-pop shop whose single product was heavily outperforming a trillion-credit conglomerate.
Kenjiro felt a strange emotion welling up in his chest, one he hadn't felt since his early days as an engineer. It was admiration, though it was accompanied by a profound sense of loss for his own career. This is what he had wanted to be. A builder. A creator. Not an optimizing algorithm in a suit.
He turned away from the glass, his mind racing. He couldn't just walk down there and say, "Hello, I work for your biggest competitor, please show me your secrets." He would be thrown out, or worse.
He needed a way in. He needed to talk to this man, engineer to engineer.
He walked back toward the commercial district of Mechanicus, his brain firing on all cylinders. He needed a cover. No, not a cover. He needed a proposition.
He stopped at a public terminal and pulled up the public registry for Shephard Orbital Works. LCC. Sole Proprietor: Mark Shephard. Registered Assets: 1 Heavy Frigate, 1 Leased Shipyard.
"No patents," Kenjiro noted, his eyes widening. "He hasn't filed a single patent."
It was madness. It was suicide. If SIGS got hold of one of those vents and reverse-engineered it, they would file the patent themselves and sue Shephard into oblivion for infringement of a patent they stole from him. It happened all the time.
Kenjiro stood in the middle of the bustling corridor, people bumping past him.
He had a choice.
He could go back to Elyse. He could buy a Model 1B vent, take it to the SIGS lab, reverse engineer it, and claim the credit. He would be promoted. He would be rich. He would be the Director of R&D within a year. It would be the smart, corporate thing to do.
Kenjiro looked back toward the shipyard. He thought of the fractal lattice. He thought of the man laughing with his daughter. He thought of the "aluminum shit" he was forced to design and the opportunities that this man might bring him.
"Screw doing the smart thing," Kenjiro muttered to himself. "I'm an engineer, damnit, progress is what I seek. And if progress requires a setback, then it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
He pulled up his resignation letter on his G-comm, a draft he had written three years ago but never sent. He quickly modified part of it and thrn hovered his finger over the 'Send' button.
It was crazy. He was giving up a pension, a salary, a life of luxury. For what? A chance to work in a chop-shop?
Kenjiro wanted to create progress, he wanted to be remembered, and he wanted to leave his mark on humanity, just like every other bright mind in its history. So, when he thought of the 0.3%, of the party they had thrown for something that wasn't even worth clapping for, he felt his blood boil. That kind of thing was not going to get him what he dreamed of.
There was no point in mulling over it anymore. He took a deep breath and hit 'Send'.
He felt a weight he hadn't realized he had been carrying vanish from his shoulders. He took a deep breath of the smoggy, metallic air of Mechanicus, and, for some reason, it tasted better than the jasmine of Elyse.
He needed to prepare for his meeting with this man. He couldn't go in empty-handed. He needed to bring something to the table that Mark Shephard didn't have.
Mark had the tech, the muscle, and the raw talent. That was something you couldn't just teach or obtain.
But Kenjiro? Kenjiro knew the system, the patents, and the sharks dressed in business suits that were swimming in the water, waiting for a drop of blood. And he knew exactly how to build a cage to keep them out.
He walked toward a nearby hotel, a capsule place that looked barely sanitary in his eyes. He needed to sleep, shower, and he needed to formulate a pitch. Tomorrow, he wouldn't go as a researcher from SIGS. He would go as Kenjiro Takagi, a man who was tired of building garbage and wanted to open the door to advancements.
As he lay in the cramped capsule, staring at the stained plastic ceiling, he felt his G-comm unit buzz. It was an automated message from SIGS HR, confirming receipt of his resignation and flagging his account for immediate lockout.
He let out a shaky smile, but remained steadfast in his decision.
"Let them lock it," he whispered to himself. "I'm sick and tired of wasting my life creating absolutely nothing."
---
POV Shift: Mark Shephard
I had taken a look at the patent documents required, and well, it was a lot. But I didn't really need to pay that much attention to it, after all, who cares about a small startup? And sure, my business was starting to pick up. I was no longer having to hop all over the station trying to sell my vents like some vendor; the ships were coming to me.
I had finished the Thermal Vent order for the Void Vanguard yesterday, retrofitting all of them, and begun my work on Vanguard One. I turned off the gravity of Bay 1 so that the process of stripping it of its armor plating would be a rather smooth and quick process.
I had dropped Lyra off at the Orphanage about an hour ago, letting her return to the life a child should have. A worry-free, bright life full of fun and games. I knew she would need to start formal schooling soon, but I figured that with Marcos on my side and the fact that he has access to pretty much all of humanity's knowledge in his storage, it wouldn't be something I should worry about.
I was staring out the transparisteel window of my office at Berth 1, watching the drones easily cut away all of the scarred and damaged plating off the ship I had to pretty much rebuild from the ground up. I then shifted my sight to Berths 3 and 4, watching the drones make quick work of replacing the Thermal Vents of a small Liner, my first "business class" ship. Now that I was out of the way, each Vent retrofit for an entire ship took only 10 to 15 minutes with the drones and Marcos, who was the one controlling them.
"I should probably stop putting off those patents," I said to myself while scratching the back of my neck. "Especially with Marcos taking care of things for the time being... maybe I should-"
I had my thoughts interrupted by the sound of the office doors sliding open, something that kind of caught me off guard since I was not expecting any guests. I turned around, and before me stood a man of Asian descent with neatly combed hair. He had a bag strapped over his shoulder and was wearing a gray jumpsuit that totally did not match the vibe he gave off. He seemed kind of uncomfortable in it, as if he was not used to wearing such clothes.
"Hey, we're no longer doing small household repairs," I said to the man, thinking he was here to have some cooking apparatus repaired like that one lady almost two months ago. "We've moved on to only starship-related repairs and retrofits. For any inquiries, you should reach out through the net, and we'll get back to you in a timely manner. As you can see, we're starting to accumulate quite a queue."
The man frowned for a second before shaking his head. "No, I'm not here to inquire about starship repairs."
I tilted my head in confusion. "Then what can I do for you?"
The man took a step forward and stretched out his hand while introducing himself. "I am Dr. Taka- ahem. My name is Kenjiro Takagi, and I would like to have a conversation with you about your Thermal Flow Vents."
The words hung in the air for a while. My hand, which had been casually resting on the edge of the terminal desk, instinctively drifted behind me while I thought of opening up my inventory and equipping a heavy pistol I had bought when I arrived at the station a few months back. I felt its weight in my hand as it materialized and felt reassured. It wasn't paranoia if the galaxy was actually out to get you, and to my knowledge, people showing up unannounced asking about proprietary tech usually fell into two categories: thieves or competitors. And this guy, with his soft hands and his pristine haircut that looked like it cost more than the average dockhand's weekly food budget, didn't look like a thief.
He looked like a lawyer or a corporate suit trying to blend in.
I shifted my stance, letting my full height do the talking. At seven feet tall, I had a distinct advantage in non-verbal intimidation. I leaned back against the desk, put my pistol back in my inventory, and crossed my arms over my chest, letting the flexing muscles of my biceps bunch up visibly.
"Thermal Flow Vents," I repeated, keeping my voice flat. "What about them? If you're looking to buy, there's a waiting list. You can talk to the terminal outside."
"I'm not looking to buy, Mr. Shephard," Takagi said. His voice was steady, though I could hear a slight tremor of nervousness underneath. He was trying hard to project confidence, but his body language screamed 'fish out of water.' He tugged at the collar of his gray jumpsuit as if the synthetic fabric was offending his skin. "I'm looking to discuss the internal geometry of your Model 1B. Specifically, the fractal lattice structure you're using to achieve a forty percent reduction in thermal buildup."
My eyes narrowed into slits.
I had claimed a 50% efficiency increase, but I hadn't let the specs of how that 50% efficiency was distributed be known. And like all products, I had claimed 50%, and sure, it would do 50% on some ships, though for others the efficiency will be 3 to 4 percent off what was listed. It may mean overperformance, or it may mean underperformance.
I also hadn't filed a patent yet, mostly because I was lazy and hated paperwork, and partly because Marcos had assured me that there wasn't anything to worry about for the moment. The only ones who knew about the fractal lattice were I, Marcos, and the nanoprinters.
"That's a very specific guess," I said, making my voice sound threatening. "You've been scanning my inventory with unauthorized equipment? Because on this station, that's grounds for a very unpleasant conversation with station security. Or just me."
"No, no, no, no- no scans," Takagi said quickly, raising his hands slightly, palms out. "And it wasn't a guess. I saw the telemetry data from a hauler captain named Estarlyn Florez. He's a friend. He sent me the raw readout from his engine core. 480 Kelvin at 115% thrust. That's impossible with standard casting. It violates the thermal conductivity limits of durasteel alloys unless you have drastically increased the surface area within a finite volume. The only mathematical model that fits that efficiency curve is a recursive fractal lattice."
He rattled it off like he was reading a textbook, his eyes lighting up as he spoke the language of physics.
"I see," I said, not moving an inch. "So you're a smart guy. Good for you. What do you want? A job? A cookie?"
"I want to warn you," he said, his expression sobering. "You haven't filed for a patent, Mr. Shephard."
I scoffed, rolling my eyes. "Yeah, I've been getting nagged about that by my secretary all week. I'll get to it. It's on the to-do list right under 'make it big' and 'don't die'."
"If it's on the to-do list, you're already too late," Takagi stepped forward, his intensity spiking. "In the corporate sector, if you release a product without a provisional patent number filed with the IUC Commerce Guild, you have effectively placed it in the public domain. Any competitor can buy one unit, reverse engineer it, file the patent themselves, and then sue you for retroactive infringement on the technology you invented."
I stared at him, the silence in the office stretching thin.
"Who are you?" I asked, abandoning the casual facade. I stood up fully, towering over him, casting a shadow that swallowed his small frame. "You aren't a mechanic. You aren't a spacer. You walk like you're used to having everything done for you. You talk like a textbook. And you know way too much about corporate patent law for a guy wearing a surplus store jumpsuit that still has the crease lines from the packaging."
Takagi held my gaze. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a second, and then exhaled, his shoulders dropping as if he was shedding a heavy weight.
"You're right," he said quietly. "I'm not a mechanic."
He reached into his bag. I tensed, ready to move, but he only pulled out a datapad. He tapped the screen and turned it toward me. It displayed a personnel file: High clearance and a corporate branding in the form of a stylized blue star in the corner.
SIGS. Starship and Inter-Galactic Solutions.
"My name is Kenjiro Takagi," he said. "Until 0900 hours yesterday morning, I was the Lead Thermal Dynamics Engineer for the Nova Celeste Sector of SIGS. I oversaw the R&D budget for the entire Mark IV vent line. The aluminum shit you're currently outperforming? I designed it."
I looked at the datapad, then back at him.
"So," I said, my voice icy. "You're a spy."
"No," he shook his head firmly. "If I were a spy, I wouldn't be here. I would be on Elyse, in my ambient-controlled office, instructing a legal team to draft a cease-and-desist order while my lab techs dissected your Model 1B. I wouldn't even need to talk to you. A single call would be enough for me to just crush you."
"Then why are you here?" I demanded, taking a step toward him. "Why come all the way to this station to talk to a guy who's just starting out? Is this some kind of sick victory lap? You want to see the face of the guy you're about to bury?"
"I'm here because I quit!" he shouted. The outburst cracked his composed demeanor. He looked flushed, angry, and desperate. "I resigned. I walked away from a salary that puts me in the top one percent of the system. I walked away from tenure, from status, from everything."
"What? Why?" I asked, genuinely baffled. "Why the hell would you do that?"
"Because of the zero point three percent!" he yelled, pacing in a small circle in front of me. "Last week, my team achieved a 0.3% increase in thermal efficiency for the Mark IV. Do you know what the company did? They threw a gala. They gave me a plaque. They treated it like I had discovered fire. 0.3 percent! It's a rounding error! It's nothing! But to them, it was enough to justify a price hike and a new marketing campaign."
He stopped pacing and looked at me, his eyes burning with a manic intensity. "And then Estarlyn calls me. He tells me about a guy in a shipyard who just casually improved efficiency by forty percent. Forty. It's not an improvement, Shephard. That's a multi-generational jump, a paradigm shift. It's the difference between a horse cart and a fusion reactor."
He gestured wildly toward the window, toward the drones working outside.
"I have spent ten years of my life optimizing mediocrity because it was 'safe' and 'cost-effective'. I have buried designs because the board said they were too expensive to manufacture," he said, frustration clearly marring his face. "I have wasted my life making sure the shareholders got their dividends while the technology stagnated. And then I see you. A man without a budget, with no lab, no board of directors. Just a man and a machine, building the future in what is essentially a garage."
He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw the hunger in his eyes. It wasn't greed. It was the starving look of an artist who had been forced to paint fences for a decade and finally saw a canvas.
"It reminds me of those creators of humanity's cradle. Men who started off with nothing but an idea in a small room of their homes. I want to build something that matters," Takagi said, his voice lowering to a whisper. "I'm tired of the game, Shephard. I'm tired of the hollow awards. I want to do real engineering. And you... you have the key. But trust me when I say this, you're walking into a minefield blindfolded."
I stayed silent for a long moment, processing his outburst. It sounded sincere. It sounded like the kind of existential crisis a smart man has when he realizes he's a cog in a broken machine.
"That's a touching story, Kenjiro," I said, crossing my arms again. "Really. Breaks my heart. But here's the thing. You're asking me to trust you, a guy who was on the payroll of the biggest shark in the tank twenty-four hours ago. How do I know you're not wearing a wire? How do I know this isn't some psychological play to get me to lower my guard so you can swoop in and steal the specs?"
Kenjiro sighed, adjusting his glasses. "Because if I wanted to steal them, I wouldn't need you. You haven't patented the fractal lattice. I could have bought a vent through a shell company, scanned it, and filed the patent myself yesterday afternoon. I could have legally locked you out of your own invention before I even boarded the shuttle to come here."
He stepped closer, invading my personal space, looking up at me with zero fear now.
"Do you know what SIGS does to startups like yours, Mark?" he asked, his eyes staring directly into mine. "They have a playbook. It's called 'Aggressive Acquisition via Litigation'. Step one: They buy your product. Step two: They find a similar patent they own, and trust me, they own thousands of vague, broad patents, and then they claim you infringed on it. Step three: They sue you. Not to win, but to bleed you dry. They drown you in discovery motions and court fees until you run out of cash. Then comes step four: They offer to settle. They drop the lawsuit in exchange for buying your company for pennies on the credit. They take your tech, they fire you, and they bury your invention if it threatens their current product line."
He ticked the steps off on his fingers. "Or, option B: The 'Parallel Development' strategy. They steal your idea, file a patent, and claim they were working on it for years in a secret lab. They backdate the documents. They have teams of lawyers who do nothing but forge R&D timelines. By the time you prove they're lying, it's ten years later and you're bankrupt."
He pointed a finger at my chest. "You are naked in a room full of knives, Mr. Shephard. You have the tech. You have the muscle. You have the raw talent. But you don't know the system. You don't know the monsters you're waking up. SIGS isn't going to ignore a 40% cooling efficiency jump. As soon as word gets out, and it will, with these mercenaries running your gear, they will come for you. And they won't come with drones. They'll come with injunctions."
I clenched my jaw. Everything he was saying made sense. It was the exact kind of bureaucratic warfare that plagued the very own IUC Navy. It was the reason I hadn't made the shift to a higher commanding role. Politics and paperwork were killing good men. And I was a victim of that very damn system, surviving due to a pure miracle called Anahrin.
"So what?" I challenged. "You're the savior? You're going to block the knives?"
"I helped sharpen the knives, Mark," Kenjiro said softly. "I know how they cut. I know the patent loopholes. I know the filing protocols. I know exactly how to structure a holding company to shield your assets. I know how to file a defensive patent cluster that makes litigation too expensive for them to pursue."
He gestured to himself. "I'm not asking for charity. I'm offering a trade. You let me work here. You let me design. You let me get my hands dirty on real engineering. And in return, I build you a fortress. I take your tech, and I make it untouchable. I handle the patents, the certifications, and the legal shielding. I keep SIGS and any other corporation off your back so you can focus on what you're building."
I looked at him. He was sweating slightly under the collar, but his gaze was unwavering. He was offering me a shield.
But I still needed verification.
"Marcos," I said, not looking away from Kenjiro.
"I'm here, Mark," the AI's voice cut through the tension, emanating from the desktop terminal speakers. Kenjiro jumped slightly, looking around for the source.
"You've been listening?" I asked.
"I have been monitoring the conversation since Dr. Takagi entered the perimeter," Marcos replied. "I have also taken the liberty of accessing the public subspace communications relay logs for the Elyse sector."
"And?" I asked.
"Dr. Takagi is telling the truth," Marcos stated, his voice calm and analytical. "At 0842 hours yesterday, a resignation letter was transmitted from Kenjiro Takagi's terminal to the SIGS Regional Director. The content was... colorful. He referred to the Board of Directors as 'visionless parasites' and suggested they perform an anatomical impossibility with their awards."
A ghost of a smile touched my lips. "Did he now?"
"Furthermore," Marcos continued, "I have been monitoring Dr. Takagi's biometrics via the infrared sensors in the office security camera. His heart rate was elevated at 110 beats per minute upon entry, consistent with high social anxiety and fear of physical confrontation, likely due to your intimidating stature, Mark. However, during his explanation of the engineering principles and his resignation, his heart rate stabilized, and his galvanic skin response indicated high levels of sincerity. There are no micro-tremors in his voice indicative of deception. He is passionate, he is angry at his former employer, and he is, scientifically speaking, telling the truth."
Kenjiro looked at the speaker, then back at me, his mouth slightly open. "You... you have an AI that can read galvanic skin response? That's military-grade interrogation tech."
"I have a lot of things I shouldn't have," I said, finally relaxing my posture. "That's why I need to be careful."
I looked at Kenjiro Takagi. I saw the suit he had shed, the comfortable life he had torched, and the raw desire to create something real. I saw a bit of myself in him, a man who refused to conform to the bureaucracy of the Navy.
I wasn't just a mechanic, and he wasn't just a suit. We were both guys who wanted to build cool shit and not get crushed by the system.
Marcos, why hadn't you mentioned any of this to me before?" I asked. "All of these possible outcomes that could have destroyed Lyra's future."
"I had not thought it would ever come to that..." Marcos replied in a downcast tone. "Human greed is quite... terrifying."
I let out a long breath, rubbing the back of my neck. "Alright."
"Alright?" Kenjiro asked, blinking.
"You're hired," I said. "Or partnered. Or whatever we want to call it. We can work out the equity details later. But right now, I have a feeling I'm about to get very busy, and if you can keep the lawyers off my back, you're worth your weight in iridium."
Kenjiro stared at me, then a slow, genuine smile spread across his face. It transformed him from a nervous ex-corp researcher into something younger, brighter. "I can keep them off your back. I can bury them in paperwork so deep they'll need a mining laser to find daylight."
I extended my hand. My palm was calloused. His was soft, but as he gripped it, his shake was firm.
"Welcome to Shephard Orbital Works, Kenji," I said, grinning. "Don't expect a dental plan, and the coffee is terrible."
"I brought my own tea," Kenjiro replied, pumping my hand. "And Mark... thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," I turned, walking back to the terminal. "Marcos, pull up the patent forms. All of them. Transfer access to Kenji's datapad. If he's the expert, let's put him to work."
"Access transferred," Marcos chirped. "Welcome to the team, Dr. Takagi. I look forward to analyzing your neural patterns further. You have a fascinatingly high index of impulsivity for a theoretical physicist."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Kenjiro said, pulling out his datapad and already syncing it with our network. He looked up at me. "So, where do I start?"
"You start by saving my ass from SIGS," I said, pointing to the queue of ships outside. "And then, once we're ready to get this show on the road... I want to show you something. I've got a capacitor bank design for the Vanguard-One refit that Marcos thinks is unstable. I want a second opinion."
Kenjiro's eyes lit up. "The 'Hellfire' capacitors? I saw the schematics on your screen when I walked in. You're using a tri-phase discharge loop?"
"Yeah."
"That's why it's unstable," Kenjiro said, dropping his bag and walking over to the holo-table, his fingers flying across the interface. "You're creating a feedback resonance in the third phase. But... if we introduce a harmonic dampener here, and switch the conduit material to a superconductive ceramic..."
He trailed off, manipulating the hologram, his brain already running a thousand miles an hour.
I watched him work. He was already rewriting the power flow protocols, muttering to himself about thermal load and resistance coefficients. He fit right in.
I sat back in my chair, watching the two of them start to collaborate.
"Well, there was no way you would have been able to teach me everything in such a short time frame, Ani," I thought to myself. "But you did teach me patience, and patience will be key to continue learning."
"Marcos," I muttered.
"Yes, Mark?"
"Order two pizzas," I said. "And maybe some green tea for the new guy."
"Already done," Marcos replied.
I looked out the window at the shipyard. The Vanguard-One was still being stripped, and Marcos had fed the drones a program so that they could continue the replacement of the vents on the incoming ships. And now, inside the office, the legal fortress was being built.
Now it felt like pieces were starting to fall into place.
"Hey, Kenji," I called out.
He looked up from the glowing blue schematic, his glasses reflecting the light. "Yes?"
"You said you quit because of the 0.3 percent, right?" I asked.
"That's right," he nodded.
I nodded. "How much more efficiency do you think we can squeeze out of these capacitors if we redesign the cooling loop with your fractal lattice?"
Kenjiro looked at the numbers. He did a quick mental calculation. He looked back at me, and his grin was wolfish.
"With the lattice? And if we overdrive the input?" He paused for dramatic effect. "Maybe sixty percent. But the ship might glow in the dark."
I laughed and shook my head. "I'm starting to like you already."
---
You can read up to 26 Advanced Chapters on my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/cw/Crimson_Reapr
Crimson_Reapr is the name, and writing Sci-fi is the way.