As typical for Saturdays, soft snores rumbled from Ivan's bed the next morning, but somehow, sunlight blazed through the window as Mark awoke. Confused, he rolled over on his bed and glanced at his clock.

'11:26,' the clock displayed.

Damn, Mark thought, I'm supposed to study for Monday's physics exam today.

Following their battle the previous night, the Innocent Bystanders paid the Wraiths their agreed upon performance bonus, which totaled just under eight million credits, and Sid Griffen also added another ten million. 'For the trouble', or so he said. As their earnings pushed the Wraiths well over the necessary funding to start their dominion, Stevie made arrangements with a production org to begin construction of their new dominion. Though highly profitable, the extended dominion war delayed the Wraith's weekly org meeting and Mark's subsequent bedtime. Unintentional as it may be, he slept through his typical homework time.

At least it's Saturday, he thought.

Grudgingly, Mark started on his Saturday morning routine, only this day, he started over two hours late. Between homework, cleaning, and laundry, his work would last well past noon, so Mark mentally rearranged his schedule. With the semester in full swing, he needed to complete assignments for several classes and to study for two exams in the upcoming week. Having overslept, Mark could only forgo his afternoon dive into Parallax. It looks like I'm missing this afternoon's ship purchase.

Mark sent a brief message to Stevie though the Wraith's chat channel, then seated himself to begin his assignments.

“This is Stevie Mentz, known client ID zero-zero-zero, zero-four-one, and five escorts. I have a meeting with Mirth.”

Like most player owned systems, entry into Hephaestus was restricted by system security to recognized players. However, as the home of a major production org, Arms and a Leg, those recognized players encompassed all the org's customers. Thanks to their reputation of producing high-quality fighters and ships, their home system was one of few player systems in Parallax busy enough to require air traffic controllers, with thousands of client ships in the system at any given time. The necessary security and guard ships alone would outnumber the ships in most other dominions.

A new voice came onto the channel.

“Thank you, Hephaestus Control,” Stevie said, inwardly sighing. How many times has that happened now?

The Temple Wraiths and most other small orgs did not have the ability to independently build ships or replace their losses. Instead, they purchased ships from production orgs such as Arms and a Leg. In contrast with NPC shipbuilders, player manufacturers offered a wider selection of options and build qualities, provided the buyers were willing to pay the price. Over the months of purchases for the Temple Wraiths, Stevie built a rapport with several production oriented players, including Mirth Gaiet, the head of Arms and a Leg.

The jolly man stood waiting for him in the docking bay as they arrived. “You're back already Stevie!” Mirth greeted him with a dazzling smile. “I couldn' believe it when you said you were goin' to make another big purchase.”

“Just as I said in the mail, Mirth,” Stevie said. They moved to Mirth's office, which overlooked the showroom for single and twin-seater craft. “We lost a few more yesterday, and we need to expand our fleet capabilities."

“Didn' you just replace your whole fleet last week?” he asked. “Your boys must've been busy. I'm startin' to wonder how that lil' org of yours gets all those credits.”

“Doesn't your own org work on a much larger scale, Mirth?” Stevie asked. “We had a few big jobs. They paid well enough to keep us in the black.”

“No kiddin',” Mirth said with a hearty laugh. “You blew a big hole in our stocks the las' two times. Purchasin' as much as you did the last two weeks would bankrup' most my customers. Now everythin's barely back in stock since yesterday and here you are again. So, what're you lookin' for today?”

“First, we need two new Vipers, standard configuration, and one new Rattler, twin plasma cannon configuration. All three with your best respective generators and shield units of course. Our standard org colors, also.”

Mirth nodded as he the order into his tablet. “Not bad comparin' to last week. Oh, we developed a new upgrade for the interceptor engines a few days back. Wan' those added on too? Ups the max thrust about five percen'. It'll cos' about ten percen' more for the propulsion unit.”

Stevie worked the math in his head. The standard unit costs about one-twenty k, so its twelve thousand for the upgrade. The final price for each would be about eight hundred thousand, so the difference would disappear in the rounding once we start negotiating on the final price.

“Yes, add those too,” Stevie said. “Those guys would take every edge they can get. Oh, speaking of upgrades, Nova requests you add 'shut up' to the AI commands list.”

“The lil' ace girl always says the most amusin' things,” Mirth laughed. He tapped his tablet a few more times and scribbled some notes. “Your fighters will be assembled in the next thirty minutes. And I passed the lady's words to the AI dev group.”

“The speed of your delivery amazes me.”

“Hah! Mos' our buyers have to wait a week!” Mirth laughed. “But you, Stevie, you have the only two digit ID still active. No one else's been buying for longer or has bough' as much from us as you have. Of course you've got top priority. So tell me, what's this big purchase you mailed me abou' yesterday?”

“For that,” Stevie said, “we need a forge ship. Big enough to build a mid-size station.”

“Well that is pretty big,” Mirth said. “But what the hell is a comba' org like yours doin' with a forge ship?”

“We found something interesting,” Stevie said. “I can't say too much, only that we intend to protect it.”

“Interestin' enough to build stations around it I see,” Mirth said. “Well, let's take a lil' tour and I'll show you what we have.”

As their name suggested, a forge ship was a mobile factory whose purpose was to shape metal, most often to make parts for orbital structures and stations. With a larger forge ship came a faster construction rate and the most advanced ships included features to fabricate the subsystems contained within its constructs rather than necessitate their purchase and import. Altogether, these uses made buying a forge ship the first step of building a dominion.

They walked through the station corridors to the industrial ship showroom. On the way, every passing player and NPC greeted Mirth while Stevie reviewed the org needs and his budget. The Wraith's needed a station large enough for the Phantasm, which required a forge ship at least five hundred meters in size. Based on this, Sinn authorized a budget of fifty million credits for the purchase.

Fifty mil would cover the cost, Stevie thought, but I can get it down to forty after some haggling. Or, I could aim to get a better ship for the fifty mil as a future investment. Aero would prefer that.

“For starters,” Mirth said, “I'm assumin' you need a full feature forger. You don' wanna be buyin' parts after the station's assembled you know. We can do that for anythin' bigger than three hundred meters, but for a mid-size station, you'll want five hundred. If you feel like investin' a hundred mil credits, I can build you a kilometer-size vessel, excep' it can't fly through the gate.” Mirth laughed at his own joke. “So how big do you want?”

“Tell me,” Stevie said, “what's the biggest that will fly through the gates?”

“Seven hundred if you upgrade the thrusters,” Mirth said. “Kills the purpose though, 'cause those extra thrusters will take down your equipmen' space. Mos' of the time, six hundred meters is the size we'd sell.”

Stevie scanned his eyes over the showroom section which presented the Arms and a Leg forge ships. Banners and holograms detailed the systems and features of the class. In his mind, Stevie gave each feature a credit value based on his own evaluation. “Okay, what's the price on a full feature six hundred?”

“Whoa there, Stevie,” Mirth said. “I know your org has the money, but that's the size people use to build dominions.”

“We plan for that in the future,” Stevie said. “Investing early is rarely a bad thing.”

“If you're puttin' it like that, I won' say nothin'. Sixty-five's the sticker price.”

Stevie simply nodded. Your reputation for quality goes a long way Mirth, he thought. Arms and a Leg built a solid name for their development and use of high-end components in their ship builds. Early on, the phrase 'You get what you pay for.' easily applied to their product, but recently, Stevie thought the org bumped prices up too far. “That's a steep mark-up you've added.”

“Oh?” Mirth rubbed his chin. “What makes you think so?”

“Well, a six hundred meter hull costs about fifteen mil to construct. Navigation, life support, and thrusters combined cost about five million for a ship that size, and the generators another four million. The actual multi-purpose forge units are practically free compared to the other parts but let's just say one mil. Even with a generous estimate, semiconductor or superconductor fabricators and gas refineries won't cost more than five million each. In all, the cost of building that ship doesn't reach forty million.”

“You didn' consider the research investments I had to make,” Mirth said.

Does that work on your other clients? Stevie chuckled. “If you haven't recouped the research and development spending on forge ships by now, then you'd better replace that division.”

“Hahaha! Nothin' gets by you, Stevie!” Mirth laughed. “So how much are you willin' to pay?”

“Forty-five.”

“Make it fifty. We still have to earn something you know.”

“Include the three interceptors and I can give you fifty for the lot.”

Mirth suppressed a laugh. “I'd kill my salespeople if they sold this bunch so cheaply, but I will as a favor for you, Stevie. So, can you do me a favor too?”

“What is that?”

“When you leave with the forger, use the Blue Steel Gate. A bunch of rats're scurryin' around, stealin' ships and scarin' away some clients.”

“Pest control?” Stevie thought. “Sure we can do that for you.”

“Hi Mark. Fancy seeing you here.” A familiar voice greeted Mark when he set foot inside the engineering library. Turning, Mark found Regina leaned against a wall by the library entrance playing with her tablet.

“Oh. Hi Regina,” Mark said, “I'm here every weekend, but what are you doing in this deserted place?”

She turned her tablet to reveal a screen filled with computer code. “I'm supposed to be meeting with my partner to work on a computer languages project. She's late though.”

“I see,” Mark said. “Well, I'm heading upstairs to study, so see you later.”

“Okay, later.”

With a quick wave, he turned to the stairwell. Settling in his favorite seat overlooking the courtyard, Mark grabbed his physics notes to review. As he started checking over his previous homework assignment, not ten minutes later, his focus was broken by someone taking the neighboring desk. Barely ten people in this building and you pick a seat next to me?

Mark looked up to check who disrupted him and came face to face with a blithe Regina smiling back at him.

“My partner ditched me,” Regina said. “You don't mind if I join you, right?”

“I don't mind,” Mark said, “but why'd you go through the effort of finding me when so many seats are open?”

Swaying back and forth, Regina said, “it's nothing. I just like working in the company of others, even if we're doing different things.”

Mark looked back to his own studies. “Suit yourself.”

The two proceeded with their own tasks without any discussion. Mark flipped between his textbook, review problems, and online resources as he practiced the exam content. Soft taps emanated from Regina's desk as her rhythmic typing staved off the silence of the near vacant study area.

Halfway done, Mark stretched in his seat. He then glanced at the next seat over before resuming his studies. Regina reclined in her chair as her fingers beat against a keyboard projected on the desktop. I guess this isn't too bad either.

As the sunlight faded from the sky, Regina finally ended the silence between them. “Hey, Mark?” she asked. “Do you have any plans for later?”

“I usually get dinner with Ivan before logging in on Parallax,” Mark said. “We haven't actually planned anything though.”

“Well, my roommate and I are going for dinner at the Pier Gardens Restaurant pretty soon. Want to come along? Ivan can join us too.”

I suppose I've done enough for now. He had skimmed all the relevant text chapters, reorganized all his class notes, and completed an old exam the professor provided with limited issues. In all, Mark already felt comfortable with the upcoming exam's scope and content. “Sure, I'll ask him."