Cpt. Androse smiles at Lukas avuncularly:

“Lukas, you’re such a damn good pilot, I sometimes forget you’re not actually from a corpo. world. Executives aren’t the kind of people you just happen to run into on a half-built resort station! This is really serious business. Lukas, do you know why the Supreme Commander is the Supreme Commander?"

“Uh, no sir. Talent and hard work?” Lukas responds, idly re-checking their vector.

A few of the crew chuckle. Lukas may be a clueless swamprat but he’s THEIR swamprat.

“Heh! That’s a good one. No, our Supreme Commander is one of the last Executives of FRIGOMEK, descended from a long line of FRIGO executives before him. They pass it down the family line, you know. The executives aren’t like everyone else; they have some kind of sweetheart deal, back from the real early days, and they have more money than God Himself. This ship, and half of the Cosmic Navy besides is all funded from his personal account. That’s why our “resupply check” is signed by him personally.”

“I had the honor of meeting him once. He invited me to the victory celebration over the Rinans.”

“I never knew you actually met the Supreme Commander. What’s he like?”, she asks, reverently.

“It’s never been relevant before. They’re not gods, just people with a lot more money than sense. He was a weird guy, but he’s alright. He wants what’s best for the species. That makes him alright in my book.”

“But it’s also why this situation is so odd! It doesn’t make sense! There’s only 6 Executives, period, and last time I checked, ‘Amethyst’ isn’t one of them…."

“Perhaps COMMS is right about there being a secret Executive. Or maybe PACNA finally tracked down the heir of its last Executive, and told them about their secret heritage,” he suggests.

“Captain, look at this – It looks like … some kind of skeletal balloon. I can’t get a good scan of the interior, but it looks like there are several probable-docking-hangers that could accommodate the ship”?

The station is quite different from anything OPS has seen before. Where Terran Accord stations have a certain brutalist, cost-saving aesthetic, Amethyst’s station looks like a spherical honeycomb of open sections spinning itself out of fine silver threads. The superstructure is almost ridiculously thin compared to the volume the station is engulfing, but it also isn’t spinning or otherwise under gravitational stress, so the materials don’t need to be that strong to support it.

The TCN ship can’t see the interior very well, but brief glimpses through various windows and half-built walls suggest a design that is optimized to use every bit of space — not to make the interior cramped, but rather to make as many usable open areas as possible. The interior quite clearly does not have a preferred gravitational orientation.

The lighting of the finished sections visible through some windows is golden and silver and altogether more like sunlight and moonlight than the harsh fluorescents common in Terran architecture. 

“It’s been marked by PACNA as the 'latest destination in their exclusive resort lineup’”. 

“Alright, hail PACNA, and ask whether this new station is courtesy of our erstwhile executive.”

“Ex. Amethyst, you have an inquiry from the TCN ship, they’re asking about the station. How would you like to respond?”

Amethyst looks up from her notes.

“Oh, good. Please patch me through to them, and also send me a copy of the radio encryption standard you use so I can answer direct hails in the future,” she requests. “I’d like to explain that they’re welcome to dock or send shuttlecraft over, and explain some of the amenities I’m putting in.”

“I’ve autopurchased the PACNA radio app for you directly to your SmartSet, Ex. Amethyst. Channel open to TCN Captain Androse.”

She looks up at the point of view of the emulated camera, her soft, wavy hair perfectly framing her face against the backdrop of PACNA’s high-class lounge.

“Hello, Captain Androse! My name is Amethyst. I am from another universe, and I’m hoping to bring some of the useful technology from my universe to help people here,” she explains, leaving unsaid that perhaps the most important part of that technology is the social technology of ‘not letting corporations take over everything’. “Is there anything you need help with immediately? Otherwise, would you like to dock at my station so we can meet in person?”

She disassembles the PACNA radio app and starts figuring out the encryption, so that she doesn’t need to rely on the antenna in her (emulated) SmartSet or the relay from PACNA next time she runs into another ship.

What’s the angle here? Some runaway heir, newly come into their Executiveship, LARPing being an extra-universal benefactor? It wouldn’t be that out of place compared to the others, though it’s disappointing that these delusions seem to have started so young.

Nothing for it though, you have to work with what you have.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ex. Amethyst.”

“Oh, you don’t need to call me that. Just Amethyst will do,” she responds. “But yes, it’s good to meet you! If you have the time, I have some questions about how the Terran Cosmic Navy works. In the meantime, though, I can offer you repairs and resupply for your ship, medical assistance and leisure for your crew, and help purchasing things from PACNA.”

She also really wants a look at some gosh-darned artificial gravity generators, and whatever they use for FTL. But she will probably get those from PACNA in a few minutes even if she can’t get the TCN ship to land on her station.

He was planning on bringing up the possibility of aid after an extended dance around the brute economic facts of the situation. What does Amethyst bringing it up first-thing imply? If anything, her not having any obvious asks makes him more suspicious – anything gained only on Amethyst’s whims can be lost just as easily.

Bringing it up this way does cut off his next step in the negotiation, leaving him off-balance. In that regard it’s a clever opening move. Perhaps that’s the point, to make him more off-balance. It would also explain why she claims to want to learn more about the TCN. 

Still, he can just play along for now – perhaps the questions she asks about the Navy will shed more light on her angle, and she can hardly fault him for following the conversation down the path she’s laid!

“For you, my schedule is clear. And I’d be delighted to discuss the finer details of the Cosmic Navy with you. Would now be a bad time?”

“Not at all. Would you prefer to continue speaking remotely, to dock at my station, or for me to make my way over to your ship?” she asks. “I’m fairly used to telepresence, but I know not everyone is comfortable with it.”

Interesting that she didn’t mention the possibility of meeting at Canopy. Perhaps it’s an invitation to discuss business out of earshot of PACNA.

He can take the implicit offer of trust, and invite her to the ship. Or he can extend her an offer of trust, and meet her on her territory.

In a practiced motion, he shifts his hand slightly to subtly point at COMMS. Then a second later he turns to his crew, trusting that Amethyst is now watching a briefly looped “resting video” of his face and audio.

“OPS, what do you make of that station? Is it standard corpo construction?”

“There’s no way that’s a standard corpo station. There’s no pavement and the spatial metric is completely flat. Maybe Ex. Amethyst dug up some concept art or something, or it’s some hippie design from the 2200s.”

This station is obviously something that Amethyst has put a lot of effort into. She’s probably excited to show it off. That seals the deal – he’ll visit her.

“Bring me back.”

He squares his face with the camera and COMMS smoothly syncs the video.

“I’ll take a shuttle over to your lovely station, and tickets for 3. Please have PACNA send docking instructions and bill me personally.” 

Amethyst cuts herself off, because she was about to just give him docking instructions herself. She relays a trajectory to PACNA that will take them smoothly into one of the docking bays she’s retrofitted onto the station design.

“An ideal of my people is that everyone should be able to travel freely,” she responds. “I will cover the cost of as many tickets as you need. PACNA should be sending you a trajectory now. I’ll stand by to receive you.”

The one of her at the center of the station flies to stand on the edge of the docking bay, and prioritizes it in the build queue. It grows walls, railings, signage, lighting, and a dedicated guidance computer. The exterior docking lights pulse a gentle blue, guiding the TCN ship in.

"Well friends, we’ve got ourselves a bit of an away mission here. Who wants to volunteer?"

“I’ll go, worst case you want someone who can get you out of there in a hurry. And I want to get a look at the inside of that station.” 

“I’d like to go too, sir,” Lukas adds. “I can fly the shuttle.”

He wants to see the inside of the station too. And to actually get the chance to go on an away mission, instead of staying cooped up in the ship pouring over astrogation charts.