The golden holographic charter shimmered fifty feet above the thawed gravel of Open-Pit #1, casting long, sharp shadows across the terraced rock.
Overseer Korg stood proudly on the brass railing of his hover-barge. His ugly face twisted in triumphant glee, and his spiked iron tusks bared as he threw his heavy head back and howled with laughter.
“Look at Article Seven, you little delivery peasant!” Korg roared, pointing his claw at the glowing legal text. “The mandatory buyout clause! Fifty billion Astral Merit Coins in cold, unbonded cash! That is the only legal way under galactic treaty to strip the Blood-Tax Star Chamber of sovereign title!”
Beside Korg, a pudgy man in a purple velvet robe stepped forward to the railing. It was Notary Pym, the regional legal counsel for the slave syndicate. Pym adjusted his thick brass spectacles, stroking his round chin with greasy fingers as he sneered down at the crowd.
“I drafted that exact clause myself ten years ago,” Pym boasted, his shrill voice echoing off the canyon walls. “The high-grade surface iron on this miserable rock is already depleted. The remaining ore is worth barely three billion coins. Nobody with half a brain would ever pay fifty billion for a freezing slag heap! I bet my entire forty-year judicial pension that this clause would never be triggered! This planet belongs to the Blood-Tax Chamber until the end of time!”
