The mood in south salvage was different. She knew tat for sure. Put she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. North salvage ops were small but they were identified with the planetary system. They were one of its unexpected success stories, growing out of the older and more respectable resource management companies.
In South system salvagers were less numerous and somewhat ignored but at the same time they weren’t controversial. They weren’t seen as upstarts trying to steal away the culture of the system. In fact, they were cautiously embraced by the resource management firms and existence and the much larger and only tangentially related Energey Harvesting companies that operated acrossSouth’s various satellites.
That’s what she didn’t understand about her boss’s attitude. This was a fertile field in which to operate. her boss should have been overjoyed that she was here. Instead her boss just seemed jealous and looking for excuses for her to fail.
But she wasn’t failing. She knew that. Her salvage was as strong as ever and buyers were snapping it up. She panicked when she thought about the need to maintain the consistency of her discoveries. She was deathly afraid her luck would run out as would her stream of good salvage. But so far it didn’t seem that way.
She hoped that after a long enough track record, she could be established in south and allowed to solidify her contributions. Granted, she did not want to become tied only to her boss. She loved the ability to do side enterprises. It’s why she had left RCON and signed on with such a small operation like SHOE. But she didn’t want it to end. She dreaded the idea that she might be cut free.
That’s when her comm flashed. It was Brittany from the planet Delvalli.
“Hey Brit, what’s up?”
“Are you sitting down?” Brittany said. “I debated with my husband whether I should tell you this, but in the end it would be unfair not to.”
“What?”
“I just got a call from SHOE.”
Brittany did some freelance work from time to time so that wasn’t that surprising.
“It was from Connor. He offered me your job. They said they weren’t going to keep you on after the next quarter was over.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I’d think about it. But unless you want me to say yes— I mean— I’m not a salvager really. I just thought you should know.”
She sat down. Now what?
