Independent Station Association releases framework for non-corporate arbitration.
I paused on that last one. The Independent Station Association. The new entity that arose from the still-smoldering ashes of the corporations. Not a government. Not a rebellion. Just a structure; a way for stations to talk to each other without corporate intermediaries.
The galaxy was reorganizing.
I set the datapad down on my lap and pressed my palms against my eyes. The pressure felt good. Grounding. I'd spent so long bracing for the worst that I didn't know what to do with evidence that the worst might not be coming.
The comm panel on my wall chimed.
I dropped my hands and stared at it from the bunk. The identifier read ENCRYPTED — RELAY CHAIN — ORIGIN MASKED, which narrowed it down to about three people in the galaxy who hadboth my contact protocols and the technical capacity to route through that many proxies.
I accepted the call without getting up.
Leesa's face resolved on the small screen, slightly pixelated from the compression. She looked tired. Not the performative exhaustion she sometimes affected when she wanted sympathy or leverage, but the real thing—shadows under her eyes, hair pulled back in a way that suggested she hadn't thought about it in days.
"You're free," Leesa said. "I wasn't sure."
"Free," I confirmed. "Intact. Mostly."
"Mostly." Her mouth twitched. "That's more than most people can say right now. I've been trying to reach you for hours. Your protocols kept bouncing."
"I was taking a well-deserved rest. My crew must have muted my comms."
"Your crew." She repeated the phrase as if she were tasting it. "You sound like someone who's been spending time with military types."
I almost smiled. "Maybe."
"Well." She shifted, and the camera angle changed slightly; she was somewhere cramped, probably a ship. "I'm glad you're not dead. I have questions, but they can wait. First, tell me you've been watching the feeds."
"Just finished."
"And?"
I considered the question. She was trying to figure out where I stood in the new landscape so she could figure out where she stood relative to me.
"It's not what I expected," I said. "I thought it would be worse."
"Worse how?"
"More violent. More desperate. I kept waiting for the riots to start, the supply chain failures, the—" I stopped. "But that's not what's happening."
Leesa nodded slowly. "The corporations built systems that depended on them. When they crumbled, everyone assumed those systems would fail. But it turns out the systems were already being held together by the people the corporations were exploiting. They just needed the weight off their backs to start doing it the way they wanted to."
"You sound almost optimistic."
"I'm a realist." Her expression didn't change. "The next six months are going to be brutal. There will be shortages. There will be conflicts. People will die because supply lines have to be renegotiated or because some local strongman decides this is their chance to grab power. But the bones of something new are already there. I've been watching it form in the black market for years. Now it's just... visible."
I thought about that. Leesa had always been better at seeing patterns in chaos. It was what made her good at what she did: the ability to look at a fragmented landscape and identify where value was hiding.
"How's business?" I asked.
She laughed, short and sharp. "Complicated. Half my buyers have disappeared. The corporate proxies, mostly. They're either frozen out of their accounts or lying low until they figure out which way the wind blows. But the other half..." She shrugged. "There's opportunity, if you know where to look. Artifacts that were locked up in corporate vaults are starting to move. Collections that haven't been accessible in decades. It's like someone opened a door."
"And you're walking through it."
"I'm being careful." Her eyes met mine through the screen. "That's actually why I called. It isn’t just a friendly call to check if you were alive, though I'm glad you are. I need to ask you something."
I waited.
