Finding her voice again, Betta stepped forward. “I didn’t just choose you because of your status. I chose you because each one of you attempted to do the right thing in the end. Not only that, each of you had some talent or unique ability that was being ignored to erase a wrong done by someone else.”
Betta felt a final squeeze on her shoulder from Teena before the contact ended. “An organization on the black-market killed my father. He left me this station so that I could have a new start. This station is more than just marks. It’s a fresh start for all of you as well. I want this place to give you something you never had. A community that looks out for one another.”
The clapping was not expected. The shouts of approval caught her off guard. A single tear ran to her chin, and Betta quickly swiped it away.
“We still need to make a profit,” she raised her voice above the crowd, and all went silent. “The Miner’s Half-Holiday is coming and I want this station to be something unique that this sector will remember. Let’s be legends.”
The next round of applause was overwhelming. Betta looked to Teena who gave a questioning look. Betta returned a look of what she hoped was approval and trust.
Teena steeped forward so that the two women now stood side by side. “This place. Betta’s Station. Let’s make it more than just some upgrade to a derelict station, let’s make it the place we all dreamed we would have. I know, I know, I sound like an advertisement, but after I read the list, I felt I knew each and every one of you. This is our chance.”
“And what is to say that Pilo doesn’t do as they did before?” a Hyn, Diatus Po, Betta identified, asked from the back. The Hyn always reminded her of fairytale dwarves, and she wondered, not for the first time, if they had visited earth when those fairy tales were first created.
“I am,” Betta said confidently. “If they try to screw us, I will make them rue the day Betta’s Station was created.”
The crowd laughed.
Betta laughed with them. “I don’t have an army,” she said when they settled. “I have no leverage over any business or even enough influence in the galaxy to starve out Pilo. What I have is a group of people that are not gullible to Pilo’s old tricks. This is a group that has lost significantly to the corruption of the black-market. Most of all, we have the protection of isolation. This station was left derelict for a reason. We have a few hundred years of growth ahead of us with the new colony traffic and the miners. After that, we take our profits and find a new place in the galaxy. As I said, this place is your start, as well as mine, and I encourage you all to think beyond Betta’s Station.”
“Are you going to find your father’s killer?” Betta couldn’t locate the speaker from the glare of the light.
Teena grimaced, meeting her eyes. “I can answer—”
Betta didn’t hesitate. “Yes, and I will make sure that they die a slow, painful death.”
No applause this time, only expressions that were sympathetic or just as resolved as she felt internally.
“If we all get revenge, this station is going to be very tense and distracted.” A Human man, Victor Alessandro, stood to make his statement. He had the look of a few rejuvenations under him. His flesh was too perfect, and his way of speech was ancient. “You keep repeating ‘new start.’ New start means wiping the slate clean and starting over again. Revenge will not bring our loved ones back. My daughter—” He didn’t continue. Instead, he went silent and sat.
She’d been ready to argue with him until his last unfinished sentence. After a long moment where Betta watched Victor stare into the past, she slowly inclined her head. “You’re right. This is our new start. It doesn’t mean I’m going to stop looking for a way to find my father’s killer, but it does mean that I will put Betta’s Station and its community first.”
Teena clapped her hands. “Let’s end on that. There are some refreshments in the adjoining room. Betta and I will be available if you have any other questions or even just to chat. If you have any personal issues, please do not hesitate to send us a message.”
Coming down the stairs, there were a crowd of owners, managers, and workers that greeted Betta. They shook her hand, thanked her, and she in turn thanked them.
The Antogin she had met earlier, Sera Rankor stood unmoving at the end of the line of employees that included Hyns, Drafers, Lytens, and Humans. Amongst them all, Sera was the lone Antogin, his ant-like body larger than them all. His antennae twitched when Betta finally approached him and his black-saucer eyes bore into her. She fought the strange terror that gripped her body every time she saw him. Looking away from his gaze was not an option, so she gathered what courage she could and faced him directly.
“Sera Rankor.” Betta extended her hand as she’d done with the others.
The Antogin extended a thin reed of an arm. At the end, a hairy claw retreated to reveal fleshy round finger-like attachments that enclosed her hand. It was surprisingly warm. Sera’s mandibles moved and she could just make out the grunts and clicks at the edge of her hearing before the translator spoke. “I come to represent The Five. We are in your debt for freeing us from our prison of eternal hibernation.”
“What was done to your people was not fair. I was happy to help,” Betta said softly.
The Five were a colony of Antogin that claimed a planet at the outer edges of their sector in space. Pilo never laid claim to the planet though many of their holdings were close. As resources dwindled in the neighboring sector, surveyors detected that the planet occupied by The Five was rich with the materials needed to continue manufacturing.
It was the strangest administrative trail Betta had ever studied. Requests to use deadly force to acquire resources against Antogin occupation was the first. This was followed by a request to mark the planet under the ownership of Pilo, which was the first sign that it never belonged to Pilo to start with. The next request was to keep all associated documentation regarding the planet under a level 5 security clearance. This would effectively keep their actions hidden from any employees, especially Antogins with low security clearances.
It took a few months, but approvals were issued. A week later, a memo was generated that suggested no matter the security clearance, it only took a single Antogin to have knowledge of the incident.
If the entire thing weren’t so sickening, Betta would have laughed. They had planned to massacre an entire planet of Antogin, put in paperwork to do so, in a company that employed Antogin, and every level of the administration forgot that these creatures worked with a hive mind. What one of them knew, so did they all. Sera Rankor was among the many workers that were forced into hibernation during the incident. The massacre was avoided, but The Five lost some of their number before hostilities ended. Pilo provided compensation, but Sera Rankor, and his fellow workers, were never released, though they had done nothing wrong.
Until now.
“Will your people leave once your queen arrives?” Betta asked.
“Our fate is uncertain. Antogin are rare in this sector and our separation from the Center is complicated,” Sera said.
“How so?”
Though no other part of his body moved, Sera’s antennae stroked the air. “We do not know the state of the hive. If we are no longer valuable to the whole then we will be reabsorbed.”
Betta didn’t know what being reabsorbed entailed, but she couldn’t imagine any way that would be good for anyone. Even though she had some instinctual fear response to the sight of Sera, she still felt for The Five, and for him. “Is there anything we can do to help you, Sera?”