David Shen-Abraham watched smoke curl up from the still-smoldering ruins of New Abraham's downtown, the morning light filtering through newly-restored kinetic barriers to cast his office in an amber haze that worsened his growing headache. His fingers drummed against the rich mahogany of his desk—real wood, imported from Earth at obscene expense. The same expense that had gone into every detail of this office, this tower, this colony.

  His colony.

  The colony that had nearly fallen last night.

  Below, emergency crews swarmed through the wreckage like ants, hardsuits glinting in the morning light. A medical transport screamed past the window, emergency lights painting stark shadows across scarred buildings.

  Around him, his crisis team argued, their voices overlapping in a familiar cadence that usually meant progress but today just sounded like chaos.

  Dr. Mehta stood at the holo-display, her usually pristine colony engineering jacket stained with hydraulic fluid and what might have been blood. Her fingers, calloused from years of work she refused to delegate, traced patterns in the holographic interface. "The defense grid failure wasn't just catastrophic. It was perfectly executed," New Abraham's security specialist near-ranted. "Look at the sequence-"

  "The sequence doesn't matter," Chen interrupted, his lawyer's suit wrinkled from a sleepless night of drafting statements. David watched him pace, five steps one way, five steps back, like a caged varren. "The Alliance-"

  "The Alliance isn't here yet," He turned from the window, slate-grey eyes meeting his own weathered reflection. Forty hours without sleep etched into every line of his angular face. "But they will be." His voice dropped to a quiet monotone. "So let's focus on what we know."

  Santos, his PR director, jumped in before he could continue, her omni-tool casting her face in an orange glow as she scrolled through reports. "The footage is everywhere. Sir, it's been a day since it was leaked. Dozens of videos. Hundreds of millions of views and climbing, just for one trap alone, let alone the actual fighting he did. The extranet is calling him-"

  "The Engineer of Death," Martinez finished, her colonel's insignia glinting as he leaned forward with a frown.

  Dr. Patel hummed to himself. "Quite like that one myself. Much better than 'Dark Avenger'."

  Martinez shot the man a look.

  Patel shrunk slightly. "My apologies."

  Martinez's grip tightened on her cup until the disposable military-grade polymer threatened to crack. "Kid's going viral. The helmet cam we pulled from those Batarian corpses…" She swallowed hard, the normally hard-to-shake woman flinching slightly. "Shows him almost predicting their fire paths, that mining laser just... God, the screaming-"

  Dr. Park's voice cut through the chaos, sharp as a scalpel: "He's seventeen years old and his heart has stopped twice since we brought him in." She projected medical readouts that painted David's expensive wooden desk in harsh red warning signs. "The cocktail in his system… It's like nothing I've seen. Some kind of insane stim, possibly an analogue of red sand with a much longer half-life, and something else that should have fried his nerves. Something new."

  David felt his jaw tighten. Nine months. The kid had been in his colony nine months, running that little repair shop, charging barely enough to eat, and now… "How long until he's stable?"

  "That's not the primary concern," Chen interjected, but David silenced him with a look.

  "It's exactly the concern. Everything else—the Alliance, the media, the defense failures—all of it hinges on what that kid does when he wakes up." David turned back to Dr. Park. "How long?"

  She studied her readouts, frowning. "Forty-eight hours, minimum. Conscious…" she shook her head. "I can't say. Whatever he took… I'm surprised he's still alive. That he could push his system without dying. The combination of chemicals, the timing… it's sheer luck or some incredible tenacity."

  Head of Engineering Patel unfolded himself from his chair, his fingers dancing across his omni-tool. The holographic display shifted from medical readouts to schematics—crude recordings from militia helmet cams showing improvised weapons that shouldn't have worked but devastatingly did.

  "You need to see this," Patel said, his voice carrying the quiet awe of someone who'd found something unprecedented. "The modifications he made… they're at least at the very top of Alliance standards. Beyond anything I've seen in practice. Certainly better than what I've witnessed outside of a lab. Look at the resonance patterns he created just with these mining lasers."

  David leaned forward despite himself. The schematics rotated in the air, a dance of innovation that made his head hurt just trying to follow. "Explain."

  "He didn't just modify them—he rewrote their operational parameters completely to adjust, altering the frequency modulators to sync with theshield harmonics, letting it cut through entire squads with a single pass. Even if you could modify the laser to work like this, despite the insanity of it, unless it was a constant stream, a kinetic barrier would mitigate damage enough to let you get out of the way." Patel shook his head and let out a raspy laugh. "With civilian equipment, the implications alone-"

  "Found a way," Martinez interrupted, caff cup clenched in her scarred hand. "Like he always does. One of mine mentioned him to me, bragging about his upgraded omni 'bout a few months back. Every time someone brings him broken tech, he doesn't just fix it—he makes it better. Soldiers swear by him. Miners too. But he never asks for more than bare-minimum payment. Just… tinkers. Improves. Disappears back to that shop of his."

  Santos scrolled through her datapad rapidly. "The media's already spinning narratives. 'Teen Savior.' 'The Wizard of New Abraham.' That video of him using the modified harvester as a trap… the liquid nitrogen dispersal pattern alone has at least one weapons manufacturer salivating. We received calls from—"

  "Absolutely not," Chen cut in sharply. "No weapons manufacturers. No military contractors. Not yet. He's still legally a minor and—"

  "And he just killed two hundred and twelve Batarian raiders," David said, his practiced smile appearing briefly, devoid of warmth. The room fell silent at his tone—the one that ended conversations permanently.

  He turned from the window, fixing each of them with a steady gaze. "Using farming equipment. While high on a cocktail of drugs that should have killed him. After nine months of living here virtually unnoticed except for fixing broken tech at prices that wouldn't have been enough to get him off the streets if he didn't work so fast."

  He let that sink in. The implications hung in the air like the smoke still rising from downtown.

  "Dr. Park," he continued, "you said his drug cocktail was sophisticated, things you've never seen before. Like his engineering. Patel, you're saying his modifications are beyond Alliance standards. Martinez, you're telling me he's been deliberately keeping a low profile while showcasing extraordinary capabilities. And Chen..."

  He turned to his legal advisor, hands behind his back. "You're worried about the Alliance. But I'm starting to think we should be more worried about who this kid really is. And why he chose New Abraham."

  The silence that followed was heavy with unasked questions. David watched his team exchange glances, seeing his own concerns reflected in their expressions.

  "His background checks were clean," Chen said finally, but the uncertainty in his voice betrayed him. His omni-tool flickered as he pulled up records. "Too clean, maybe. Basic colonial registration. A few certifications in engineering and technology. Minimum documentation. Nothing that would raise flags on the other end, but nothing substantial either. It's like he..."

  "Appeared out of nowhere," David finished, mind racing through implications. The one-hundred year old bottle of brandy caught his eye—a gift from Lawrence for founding the colony. His big brother would know how to handle this. Probably. "Santos, what's the current reach on the footage?"

  Santos's fingers flew across her datapad. "1.7 billion views and climbing exponentially, and that's for every single video already leaked…" She let out a sigh. "Sir, it's barely been forty hours. Major news networks are picking it up. Alliance News Network is running it as their lead story. Even Westerlund—"

  "Mute Westerlund," David and Chen said simultaneously. Under different circumstances, it might have been funny.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Dr. Mehta cleared her throat. "We're missing the bigger security issue. Someone had to give the Batarians our defense protocols. The timing of the raid, the precision of the strikes... they knew exactly when our militia would be conducting southern training exercises. They knew our communication vulnerabilities. They—"

  "They failed," David cut in sharply. "Because a seventeen-year-old with a repair shop decided to weaponize our agricultural equipment. Think about that. Really think about it. In the time it took our militia to organize a response, he had already set up kill zones across the suburban sectors. Using equipment he'd been repairing for months..."

  Martinez straightened suddenly. "Son of a bitch. He knew. He must have known something like this could happen. The way he modified that equipment—those weren't spur-of-the-moment changes. He had plans ready. Contingencies."

  Patel shook his head slowly, scanned schematics of the recovered broken tools spinning faster in the air. "No… no, I wish it were so simple. He did this spur of the moment. We have footage of him performing these modifications, while running and fighting…" He trailed off, the implications hanging heavy in the air.

  Dr. Park's omni-tool pinged in the silence.

  She checked it, face tightening. "His neural readings are... unusual. Even accounting for the drugs, there are activity patterns I've never seen before. It's like his brain is processing multiple parallel..."

  "How long until he's stable?" David asked again, more forcefully this time. "And don't tell me forty-eight hours unless you're certain."

  She met his gaze steadily. "Thirty-six to forty-eight hours. But David... when he wakes up, he's going to need time to—"

  "We don't have time," Chen interjected. "The Alliance will be here within—"

  "I don't care about the Alliance right now," David said, surprising himself with the force in his voice. "I care about the fact that someone who could be the most valuable asset this colony has—or its biggest threat—is unconscious in my med bay after saving my colony from a raid we didn't handle in the first place." They should've doubled up on the shielding.

  Over-shielding prefabs though?

  It just hadn't seemed worth the expense.

  He turned back to the window, watching the emergency crews still working in the streets below. The morning light caught on their hardsuits, making them look like ants scurrying around the wreckage of what had almost been a catastrophe, a section of downtown turned into a war zone for what was simply a diversion.

  What would have been a catastrophe, if not for...

  "Five million credits," he said suddenly.

  The room fell silent, David's words hanging in the air like the amber light filtering through the kinetic barriers. He felt their stares boring into his back as he gazed out over his wounded colony.

  "Five million credits," he repeated, turning back to face them as he nodded his head slowly with each syllable. "Plus a house. Something substantial—maybe that new development in the East Quarter I've been sitting on. Full ownership, no strings attached."

  Chen's datapad clattered to the polished wood desk. "David, you can't be serious. The legal implications alone—"

  "Write them off as colony defense expenditures," David countered, already running through a plan of how not to get caught committing something uncomfortably close to bribery. You simply had to know these things before your first trillion dollars—even when nearly all of it came from a trust fund. "Emergency appropriation under section 29.4b. Same provision that lets us grant him adult status. We timestamp it before the raid, make it look like we had him on retainer as a… what was it? An independent security consultant." He shot a glance over at the colonel, another idea in mind. "Besides, you said he's done work for your soldiers before?"

  Martinez nodded curtly.

  David allowed himself a smile, a small one. "That covers the weapons charges, the property damage, everything."

  Santos leaned forward, eyes bright with sudden understanding. "A narrative. The young genius we secretly contracted to improve colonial defense systems, who happened to be in the right place at the right time..."

  "With the right modifications already in place," Patel added, his engineering schematics still spinning in the air. "Still, I can't believe it. These designs… they're insane on the face of it and I can't imagine how to replicate it safely or reliably… still, if he'd brought the innovations and thought behind them to any major corporation, they'd have offered him triple what you're suggesting. The shield harmonics adaptation alone—"

  "He didn't, though, did he?" Martinez interrupted, setting down her coffee. "Kid's been living like a hermit, charging pocket change for repairs that should cost thousands. There's something we're missing here. Something big."

  Dr. Park's hands shook slightly as she pulled up the scan. "There's something else. The major drug compound in his system... it's not necessarily sophisticated, but it is… worrisome. I only have snapshots from the first scans of last night but just those alone…" She blinked. "The way it interfaces with neural pathways, enhances cognitive processing while maintaining motor function... someone with this level of expertise in biochemistry, engineering, and combat tactics..." She trailed off, implications hanging heavy in the air.

  "Special forces?" Chen suggested quietly. "Some kind of deep-cover operative?"

  "At seventeen?" Martinez barked out a harsh laugh, but her hand instinctively touched his sidearm. "No way. Listen, I've worked with spec ops. Trained with them. They don't move like he did. That was manic and more suicidal than anything. That footage... it was like he was conducting an experiment. Testing theories. Who does that in the middle of a firefight?"

  David watched the debate unfold, mind racing. The brandy bottle caught his eye again. What would Lawrence do? But he already knew. His brother would see the opportunity here, the potential.

  And the risk of letting it slip away.

  "The house in East Quarter," he said decisively. "The one with the private dock and the reinforced basement. Full workshop facilities. We offer him that, five million credits, and complete autonomy. No official position, no direct oversight. And full weapons and armor licenses, development, the works. Just…" he restrained the urge to sigh., "just the right to buy any innovations he develops."

  "And if he refuses?" Santos asked, voicing the fear they were all sharing.

  David turned back to the window, watching an emergency vehicle lift off from the medical center where their mysterious savior lay unconscious. "Then we pray he likes us enough to stick around anyway. Because after today... every merc band and slaver group in the Terminus is going to think twice about hitting New Abraham. Not because of our militia. Not because of our defenses. But because they're afraid of what one teenager might do to them."

  He paused, a slow smile spreading across his face. "And, personally, I love the thought of that."

  Dr. Park's omni-tool pinged again. The sound felt like a gunshot in the sudden silence.

  "His neural activity is spiking," she said, her eyes scanning the readout. "The patterns... they're stabilizing. Accelerating recovery. He could be conscious within forty-eight hours. Stable within… twenty-four."

  "Then we have two days," David said, straightening his shoulders. "Santos, draft the statements. Chen, get the paperwork ready. Patel, start analyzing every modification he's made in the colony. Park, I want to know the instant his condition changes. And somebody get me everything we have on his activities for the past nine months. Every repair job, every upgrade, every conversation."

  "And the Alliance?" Chen asked.

  "The Alliance can wait. Right now, our priority is making sure that when that kid wakes up, he sees us as allies." David picked up the brandy bottle, studying its amber contents. "Because I don't want whatever he's got in his head pointed my way."

  The morning light shifted, catching the kinetic barriers at a new angle.

  For a moment, the entire room bathed in blood-red light. None of them spoke.

  None of them had to. They all understood what was at stake.

  Twenty-four hours, David thought, the words echoing in his head. To prepare for a conversation that could determine the future of New Abraham. He poured himself another tumbler and stared at the honey-colored contents in front of him.

  I'm going to need something stronger than brandy.