When Adam docked at the Hub, he was met by Mr. Knug with his two bodyguards; Adam walked over to them. Mr. Knut looked around and saw three droids with Adam.

  “Nobody else? No bodyguard?” Mr. Knug asked, and Adam smiled.

  “Archangel, here is my bodyguard. He is quite enough. Besides, we are at the hub. We are all civilized, right? The worst I should fear is a lawsuit.” As he spoke, D01 changed its name tag to ‘Archangel.’

  “Yes, we are mostly safe, Mr. Wrangler. Did you bring the wares?” He looked around, and Adam nodded.

  “These two will be your promotion droids. I have 2000 maid droids and 2000 construction droids in the hull. We can talk about other designs at your office.”

  “The maid droid does not look like much; they won't sell much.” Mr. Knug said, and Adam just smirked.

  “Are you sure? Scisya slaves are the most popular for such work, right?”

  Mr. Knug smiled and nodded. “ Yeah, they sure are easy to… wow… what?”

  As he spoke, the Maid turned into a very exotic-looking Scisya woman. Adam just smiled. “She is fully functional. If you know what I mean, or do you want a male version?” The droid turned from female to male.

  “Perhaps is the hair color wrong? You want one with blue hair?” As he spoke, the droid changed its hair color to blue. Then Adam turned to the droid. “Return to factory setting, please.”

  Mr. Knug just stared, lost for words, as the droid turned back to its original shape, a plastic version of a bipedal android.

  “Shall we go to your office? We can talk about all the settings and apps that we can add. “

  Mr. Knug shook himself out of shock. “Yeah, this one will sell. Let us go to the office.”

  Adam ensured that Mr. Heri-ro-ro joined them; he wanted somebody on his side in this discussion. Adam explained how the Maid Droid worked when they got to the office. He could see Mr. Knug plotting, and Adam started to get worried. It was late into the evening when he had enough.

  “Look, I don’t know how many times we have to go over it. No, you don’t get access to the MudSkin formula or the nano processor, and honestly, I do not know why you even ask. If you sell those, I will sue you for three times what they offered you, and they will most likely kill you to hide their source. You are now part of my company, which will introduce the Mudskin to this part of the galaxy, and our competition will be months behind us before they can produce this quality.” He was tired as he shifted in the chair, and suddenly, the door opened, and Mr. Knug lowered his head.

  “I'm sorry, they threatened to kill me if I didn’t keep you here.” He said, and Adam simply let out a deep breath.

  Adam looked over the newcomers. Five lawyers stood at the door; it was clear from their stance and clothes and Mr Heri-ro-ro's reaction as he saw them.

  “Mr. Jar-Mork, I see you brought your cheerleaders.” He said then Mr Heri-ro-ro turned to Mr. Knug.

  “I see what happened. I think you should leave and let Mr. Wrangler and I deal with them.”

  Adam looked at his lawyer and then at Mr. Knug and gave him a nod. “Put the droids in the storage and start the sales according to plan. We will talk about this later.”

  Mr. Knug left quickly, and Adam looked at the new lawyers. “And what may I help you with?”

  The identified lawyer sat down opposite Adam and took out a pad. “You can sell your company to the Mugga Corporation; we have put together a fair offer.” He handed it to Adam, who looked to Mr. Heri-ro-ro, who took the pad, looked at it, and laughed.

  “That’s not even close to what the company is worth. It’s actually an insult.” He said, finding the offer amusing.

  “It’s the best offer he will get; he is growing too big too fast, and you know it. Your boss has been hiding him, but there are rumours about him. His last sales of minerals, his investments, and how his contract have been circulating. He is getting dangerous. And now this. He was buying up a slave pen and changing it to a droid company. We would normally ignore such foolishness if it weren’t for how many clients he got. That put him on our radar; every mega-corporation has now seen what happened on the dock as he came in. We all saw his droid, and they all will want a piece of it.” The lawyer completely ignored Adam and speking to Mr. heri-ro-ro. Mr. Heri-ro-ro calm ly turned to Adam.

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  “Looks like you ruffled some feather, Sir. What do you want to do about this?”

  Adam thought for a moment, then smiled. “Sell… “Mr. Jar-Mok smiled, but then the smile vanished as Adam continued. “Sell more droids, of course. Yes, I offer something new, and from where I’m from, That leaves you with two choices: adapt or go broke. These new droids are coming to the market with or without me. You’re forgetting I’m just one human. Do you think I’m the only one? “

  He looked at the lawyers behind Mr. Jar-Mok. “You represent a giant company and their interests. Why try to crush me when you could work with me? You come here trying to threaten me? That will not work, so please leave and let us sell our goods. This conversation has, of course, been recorded. If anything happens to Mr. Knug, this shop, or its customer, then I have to inform the federal government about your attempt to sabotage commerce. You might win, but you will have to go to court, which will drag on for a long time. Your company’s enemy would love to help us kick you off the hub, as you would them. So please leave and next time you come to visit. Show some manners. The smart ones bring gifts, not treaths. “

  Jar-Mok smirked,” It will be hard to prove that in court. There isn’t any recording device in this room that works.”

  “Archangel, did you record the conversation?” Adam said, and a small hologram of the room appeared between him and Jar-Mok, showing the whole conversation.

  “Humans had the same problem when we used our jammers against alien tech. It’s not that ours is better, it’s just too alien for your jammers.“Adam smiled and stood up. “So, now that it’s proven, let’s start a new one next time I’m at the hub, and maybe we can negotiate a beneficial deal between us. You’re, after all, a mega-corporation, and there are things I would like to change that your guys can help me with.”

  Jar-mok stood up, smiling. “Like what? “

  “Well, an alternative to slavery that would be profitable for all of us.”

  “We got Clone-droids for that, and we still have slaves. People prefer alive people; droids are simple AI’s and not as good as a person’s natural cognitive process.” Jar-Mok said, and Adam sighed.

  “Guess so? Still, what we offer is cheaper and doesn’t require a growth period; the factory can spit out a thousand a day now, probably a hundred thousand within a year. Maybe I’m wrong and go bankrupt, or I might be right and do pretty well. We will see. So, let’s just agree to wait and see then.” Adam replied.

  “I guess so. Let’s hope you stay safe until we find out. Here is some friendly advice: There are lots of pirates who are already upset with you. Apparently, you killed one of their pirate lords as he was traveling incognito with his brides. If his men find out where you are, they will attack and enslave you all. Have a nice day.” Jar-Mok said as he stood up and left the office.

  Adam looked after him and then to Mr. Heri-ro-ro as they were alone. “Did he really threaten me with pirates after I showed him everything was recorded?”

  Mr. Heri-ro-ro chuckled. “Yes, and it was meant as a friendly warning. It can only be used against him and his company if you actually get attacked by pirates. Mugga Corp will claim he acted on his own. But give me a copy of this meeting and I will start building a case if something happens.” Adam agreed, and Archangel sent Mr. Heri-ro-ro a copy. Then, Adam talked to Mr. Knug about what had happened. He found out several of the corporations had sent lawyers; some had wanted to invest, and others tried to push them out. Which was strange as the goods were not even on the market yet.

  Adam told him that he should contact Mr. Heri-ro-ro the next time this happens. Now, he should start selling the droids. If pirates came by, he should tell them the truth. You don’t know where my location is, but they can leave a contact, and Adam will get in touch with them. He smiled as he left. Anyone who was stupid enough to do that would be leaking to Kira; he just needed to find a way to contact her.

  After that he contacted Min-Na and explained the current situation, she insisted on sending a couple of media personnel and federation inspector to Dirt for inspection. If they could approve of his operation they could apply for military protection from pirates, as they now had a credible threat.

  The argument lasted two hours, and in the end, Adam had seven journalists, five inspectors, two lawyers, and a law clerk to inspect the office at his base. Well, at least the trip back was interesting.

  Both Mis-Jin and Hart-Nei did their best to help him navigate the media personnel, who were doing their best to discover everything they could about this human.

  Adam was fed up when they entered the system. One of the media personnel had started to talk about the chaos that came to bring order and life to the dead world. Adam laughed and said, “Another one? Does this guy die, too?” After that, they tried to find out what he meant with another one and had already heard about Cansha. Adam quickly changed the subject and did his best to avoid the media; they were crazy.

  Instead, he focused on showing them what they had done. The inspectors were impressed and discussed the potential for a new large-scale industry. Adam played it down when he saw the Nitrogen cubes had grown in size to 75 cubic kilometers and that there was a steady stream going toward Dirt.

  When they landed, Vorts and Jork met them. Vorts looked at the media following Adam and then at Jork. “Looks like Kaina won the bet. She will be happy.”

  Adam spent the rest of the day guiding them around the facility and answering questions. The next day, he let them wander around by themselves because they wanted to do some interviews without him hovering nearby. He had somebody watching them anyway because he didn’t trust any of media.

  Roks and Kina arrived the next day with a full cargo and lots of good news. Several groups would like to settle at Dirt, so they wanted to make sure it was okay with Adam before they brought them here. Adam said it was, of course, okay, and they would pick them up when the inspectors and media returned to the hub.

  The next day, he was sitting down at lunch when the alarm went off, and he contacted Surn, who was in the admin room on control duty.

  “Surn? What’s the alarm about? What’s happened?”

  “We got five inbound ships, sir! Military ships, Sir. They just blew up the observation satellite. They missed the secondary system. I think they are pirates, sir!”