The great harvest festival across Worlds 15 to 18 had barely ended when the morning commuter trains began rumbling toward the next four worlds in the Broken Star Belt.
Inside the municipal hall on World 17, Pei Xuan sat behind a plain wooden desk, sipping a cup of hot Sweet-Spring green tea while checking the glowing blue screen of his RTS Territory Map. Over the past week, Ye Guhan had already sliced a flat, four-lane highway tunnel past World 18, reaching the edge of the middle trading sector—a cluster of four bustling merchant planets known as Worlds 19, 20, 21, and 22.
Unlike the junk worlds before them, these four worlds were covered in busy cargo docks, noisy markets, and tall stone bank towers. According to the scout pigeons, twelve billion people lived there, working day and night in weaving mills, spirit-herb drying sheds, and ore-sorting yards.
“Once our cargo trains start trading Meat-Potatoes and steel tractors with Worlds 19 through 22, our daily income should easily cross a trillion and a half,” Pei Xuan murmured, tapping the floating map with one finger.
Just as he reached for a plate of steamed red-bean buns, a loud BOOM shook the courtyard outside.
