The Starlight Runner—now fully rebranded as the Millennium Seagull II—hummed with a power that Ford wasn't used to. It was quiet. Smooth.

  They were in the mess hall again, staring at the sector map. The jump to Vega was plotted, but Carol was frowning at the navigation line.

  "I've been thinking," she said, tapping the table. "We shouldn't dump it all at Vega."

  Ford looked up from his datapad. "Why? Bulk payout is easier. One transaction, one bribe."

  "It's too clean," Carol shook her head. "We show up with exactly 5,000 tons of refined Platinum. The Starlight Runner disappeared with exactly 5,000 tons. Even if we scrub the serial numbers, the weight matches perfectly. It will raise flags with the Trade Authority algorithms."

  She adjusted the map, adding three new waypoints.

  "We sell the platinum at four different ports," she proposed. "We hit Vega, Osiris, Kestrel, and Titan. We offload 25% at each stop."

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  "That adds three weeks to the trip," Ford noted. "We're in a rush, aren't we?"

  "We're in a rush to be powerful, not to be caught," Carol countered. "It's not that critical. We sell 1/4 at Vega. We use that cash to buy a load of... I don't know, Agricultural Drones. We take those to Osiris. Sell the platinum and the drones. Buy something else."

  Ford nodded slowly. He saw the logic. It was a classic "Launder Loop," but on an industrial scale.

  "We wash the cargo," Ford said. "By the time we hit Titan, we aren't selling stolen ore. We're selling a mixed manifest of legitimate goods with a paperwork trail that goes back four sectors."

  "Exactly," Carol smiled. "And four trades later, we'll have a freshly laundered fortune. Perfectly legal. Impossible to trace."

  Ford leaned back. "You have a criminal mind, Carol. I approve."

  "In the meantime," Carol pulled up a new file on the screen, titled Fleet Acquisition. "We need to look into what ships are available. Where to buy them. And where to put them."

  "We can't just park a fleet at a public dock," Ford mused. "We need a base."

  "I was thinking about that 'Moon' idea you had earlier," Carol said. "Maybe we don't buy one. Maybe we find one nobody else wants."

  "Sector 9?" Ford guessed.

  "Why not?" Carol shrugged. "We already know the ghosts. They might make good neighbors."

  Ford laughed. "Let's sell the platinum first. Then we can talk about becoming evil overlords of the Dead Sector."