I meet my first officer’s eyes across our strategy screen. I know what he’s thinking. We both just saw the readout from the sensors.

I say nothing at first, but once our men have this well in hand, I ask my first officer to join me in my prep room off the bridge. I sit down as he remains standing. “Yes?”

“You saw the readout. There are Water people on that ship. We should sell them to the Empire.”

“No.”

“We could make a good profit.”

“We will sell them as volunteers to the Home Planet.”

“Commander, I know you are biased because of your valet. But you must see reason here. The crew wants that money, and the Empire loves Water people. We could get twenty times the amount if we sold them to Imperials.”

“I will think about it,” I say and dismiss him. I watch my first officer go and know I am pushing my crew if I don’t sell them to the Empire. Water people, if they are young and healthy, can bring in a lot of money. However, now that Volunteer 4711 is in my life if it is more difficult for me to sell them to an unknown future. From the moment I met her, she has been honest and moral. She works hard to learn my language and complete her duties on my ship. If she is representational of her species, then the more Water people we have on the Home Planet, the better. Unfortunately, I know my fleet will not see it that way. And as the fleet is structured, we all share the profits. It does not help either that we are close to the Imperial border. So close that I would bet there are already some Imperials that were waiting to buy these Water people, and I will be contacted soon to see if I want to sell them.

I return to the bridge, and not a second later, my comms officer tells me an Imperial ship wants to talk. “I’ll take it in my prep room,” I say. I leave the bridge and open the communications. I see a dark grey-skinned man with black hair on the other end.

“Captain,” I address him after reading his rank. “How can I help you?”

“I think you have acquired some humans; Silvers call them ‘Water people.’ And I was planning on buying them before you acquired their ship and crew.”

“What would you want with Water people? I thought the GC made it illegal for Imperials to own them as pets.”

“Not as pets but as residents,” he says, clearly perplexed that I would care about Water people.

“If they are meant to be residents, why are you buying them? Shouldn’t they be coming freely?” Then, I answer my own question when he is silent. “Oh, that’s right, Water people are not in the GC and cannot become residents of the Empire. I am not selling them to you.”

“Commander, if you could hear me out. I am offering a lot of UCs for them. Double what I was going to pay the Agnorrian pirates. I will give you 5,000 UCs per Water person.”