CHAPTER 1: CHANGING OF THE ZODIAC GUARD
The Zodiacs say—in between the time of endless memes and scrolls of vids gone “MultiMAX” viral—the skies folded in boisterous rupture. Clouds piled higher in anticipation. Thunder bellowed and lightning brightened, within the aura as the changing of the guard passes, is your make or break moment. “Commander—it’s started.” Tick, tick, tick chimed across the universe as DragonChen hovered, his eyes sighting the captain. Movement slowed. Every step tingled to the touch; static jolted, crisp in the air. “It started, it started,” yelped out from somewhere. Breaking through the changing of the guard of SnakeYisi’s past tense—sparks of solar flares erupted everywhere.
“What do I do?” swirled in the command deck as intern 2nd officer TigerCubYin in rapid-scroll quibbled as his eye caught and his ears heard his mum and dad’s last purr. “Purr.” DragonChen said. “Live for them. Feel their Qi.” He breathed deep. The walls shot inward, hoodies flapped—then exhaled a deep baritone purr, as a sonic boom vibrated the walls, the floors, and the console…take cover could be heard, then oops… sorry. Bolts popped, bounced, ricocheting wall to floor to ceiling—ping, ping, ping clattered—then thump. TigerCubYin’s purr sopranoed—“cool. Got it.” As shorts, memes, and trending vids swirled in the command deck as paws zoomed and fur flew as ping-ping-pings hyperlooped through the WeChats archived in time. DragonChen smiled then squinted a fiery eye, and pumped out a rumbling hahhaha that shook the consoles—the Captain—and crew, then said: “That works.”
OPERATIONS LOG: INTERN TIGERCUBYIN STATUS: Panicking. MARKET WATCH: Everything is glitching. The old year (SnakeYisi) is over; the new one (HorseWu) is charging in. In business, they call this a “Market Shift.” It’s basically when the rules of the game change overnight. If you don’t move with it, you’re “Legacy”—which is a polite way of saying “extinct.”
Then it came, old school data: dah dah dit, dah dah dah streamed out in the blink of a TigerCubYin’s eye then looped. And through those pesky PsyOps ads, a purr quibbled “The main screen, the vortexes… they… they’ve blown up. Gone TikTok viral in auroras—borealis greens of deep pounamu jade and eruption purple.” As the Galactic Rose pitched starboard, her rivets and welds groaned as gravitational eddies tore at her shields. Captain Cypha didn’t look at the screen. She stared at her hands, resting flat on the command console. Cypha had signed the contract. They all had.
To the business world, it was Standard Form G-7: a “Crew-As-Collateral” probationary lease. A final chance for those TAGGED expiry date nearing. To Cypha, it was the only way to keep her crew out of the Debtor’s Hold. Their lives, their futures, their very biometrics, were listed in Schedule B as contingent assets backing the loan for the Galactic Rose. If she defaulted, the ship would be repossessed. And the crew? Their contracts would be sold to the highest bidder to recoup the loss. A miner’s guild on a toxic rock. A private security firm in a forever war. She had three hours left to make the final payment: pass the stability audit. Prove the Rose was a compliant, low-risk asset. If she failed, they’d take her, the ship and her people.
OPERATIONS LOG: INTERN TIGERCUBYIN LEGAL TERMS: I found the “Standard Form G-7.” We are listed as “Collateral Assets.” It means if the Captain misses a payment, the bank doesn’t just take the ship; they own us. We’re basically the security deposit on a rental car, but the car is a spaceship and we’re the ones getting towed.
“Captain—the clock’s ticking down. The solar flares—it’s a hostile takeover—the sector’s fragmenting. What’s the play?” Helmsman AriesValiant asked. His name was third on Schedule B. On the main screen, nebulae fractured into jagged auroras labeled [HAZARD: INSURANCE OVERDUE]. The Galactic Rose groaned, each impact flashing a debit against their shared “Collateral Health” metric in the corner of Cypha’s vision. Cypha still didn’t look at the screen. She turned tossed a wink, and a smile at TigerCubYin then stared back at her finger tapping in cosmic Morse code. Clarity had come from the past in a tapping dah dah dit, dah dah dah. A femtosecond past the three hours had lapsed time she could not afford to waste, she’d initiated play zilch mode—motionless. To be still.
To be boring as the Rose heaved to quietness in amidst the thrusts of HorseWu’s momentum. Stillness is how you get scrapped. But motion is how you get noticed. And getting noticed is how they take your crew. “Captain, look!” AriesValiant yelled. Cypha stared. Outside, the corporate year turned. HorseWu energy vibed to the galactic star’s best sellers list for a consecutive millennium: “NUTSONOMICS” economics gone nuts 101. Seizing the moment Archer—SagittariusAdventurous scoped the horizon; mission solidified the dimensions into one— He drew his bow, the arrow-star shot true, paving the way for deals to be made.
The new fiscal year ignited in omnidirectional due diligence. Retrospectively SnakeYisi retired to the echelons while HorseWu of pure starlight charged across the flaring sun. MVPs raced while pivots and start-ups charged through uncertainties—seeking Series A funding. Rising out of the turmoil—TigerCubYin’s treble purred, “Brace! Brace! Brace!”—as shockwave after shockwave slammed into the Galactic Rose like a hammer driving home a foreclosure notice with glee. The Rose lunged. Every alarm screamed as external manipulations changed the rules. The careful, compliant protocols of her audit were shredded by a single word: “VOID.” Cypha’s probationary clock short-circuited. It was replaced by a pulsing, red legal seal. [CONTRACT G-7: DEFAULT] [CAUSE: ASSET VOLATILITY. UNFORESEEN ACT OF COSMOLOGY] [REPO-DRONES IN HELLFIRE MODE DEPLOYED: CREW LIQUIDATION AUTHORIZED]
OPERATIONS LOG: INTERN TIGERCUBYIN RED ALERT: The bank triggered a “Force Majeure” clause. That’s a fancy way of saying “Everything went wrong and it’s not our fault, but the bank gets to screw us anyway.” We are officially in “Default.” The bank is coming for our lunch money… and our lives.
AriesValiant’s face paled. He understood. The contract had a force majeure clause. An “act of God: (the banker can interpret the clause any which way it want) ” The zodiac turning over wasn’t their fault, but it voided their protection. Suddenly, sharp, high-pitched codes streamed through the crew’s wristbands. Their biometric “collateral tags” began updating faster than Star Trek’s Mr. Scotty’s warp speed. “Captain,” LeoBold gasped, clutching his arm as his skin beneath the band turned a bruised purple. “My ID… it’s locked. I’m being ‘pre-processed’ for transit.” The drones weren’t just coming for the ship. They were coming for Schedule B.
“They… they can’t. The contract was for a static audit. The sky changed the rules!” AriesValiant said, his voice hollow. “The contract,” Cypha said, her voice dropping to a dangerous low, “doesn’t care. But I do.” The Galactic Rose shuddered, flooded with power it couldn’t control—déjà vu thundered through the reactor, the same surge that had doomed them before. But not this time. The thorium core dimmed. Went stealth. The repo-drones locked on Gatling-gamma guns primed with final notices. Hellfire tubes lit up for a fight stuffed with foreclosure streamers, tickertapes and party balloons. They came faster. Relentless. They were riding the surge to hunt. LeoBold saw it first. “Captain—the charts.” He pointed. “They’re clustering. Constellations… moving together.” He swallowed. “They’re boxing us in.” TigerCubYin stared at the screen. “Captain… we’re broke.” Cypha blinked. “What?”
“They turned our bling into crypto,” he said. “And then they tanked it.” DragonChen’s eyes narrowed. “It was a setup,” he said. “The drone raids. The liability notices.” A beat. “They planned the devaluation while the change was happening.” A sharp, electric clarity shot through Cypha’s fingers—dah dah dit, dah dah dah. No more compliance. No more stillness. There was only survival. She met DragonChen’s eyes, then looked at the crew. Not collateral. Her people. “The contract’s breached,” Cypha said, her voice steady now. “They’ve declared us liabilities.” She slammed her palms onto the console, felt the ship’s thorium heart answer. “So we become something they can’t afford to catch.” She leaned into the comms. “All hands. This is no longer an audit.” A beat. “It’s a pivot.” She didn’t shout. She didn’t need to. “We’re not delivering a ship. We’re changing the rules. Chief—brief the crew. Hold tight.” Cypha smiled once, fierce. “We’re going full business mode.”
OPERATIONS LOG: INTERN TIGERCUBYIN THE PLAY: We’re doing a “Pivot.” That’s when a startup realizes their original plan is a flaming dumpster fire, so they use the fire to launch a rocket. We’re stopping being a “crew” and starting being a “corporation.”
Over the comms DragonChen hushed the ship…not even a purr could be heard, and then it came. “Zodiacs, Horoscopes lend me your signs. Standby for Captain’s orders. TASKORD 1: We are going incorporated, join the BoD. Shore up as shareholders. ROIs are ours to short, not STuFFyPuFFers to take. Harness your cosmic vibes prepare to jump. Chief, over and out.” “Chief, Nav,”… looking at cub the captain winked and said, “officer TigerYin, hit that big green go button.” Cypha, the crew the Rose were mid-hyperflip when the air….solidified. “Ow. What was that?” C-1 didn’t look up, rubbing his head. “Atmospheric anomaly. Probably dust.”
“It’s thick dust,” C-6 said, licking the air. “Tastes like a foreclosure draft.” The green glow of the spreadsheet didn’t just pulse; it screamed. “WARNING: EXTERNAL LIQUIDATION DETECTED. REPO-DRONES INBOUND.” The cargo bay doors groaned as a thermal drill began to bite through the outer seal. C-3’s wheels locked in a screech of panic. “THEY’RE HERE TO COLLECT THE SCRAP! THE RESTRUCTURING IS LETHAL!”
“C-1, C-6, brace the bulkhead!” Cypha shouted. She didn’t wait for a reply. The bay floor tilted as a missile impact rocked the hull. She touched the roof of her mouth—her focus trick. The ship’s violent shudder resolved into a graph of force and counter-force. Newton’s F= ma map. “Laws of Motion,” she whispered. The world slowed. She didn’t fight the ship’s wobble; she used it, vaulting over a sliding crate that was being “optimized” into a new floor plan. She landed at the console just as a second blast sent a spray of molten rivets across the bay. Ping. A soft, friendly sound. Like a calendar notification for an ICE INVASION. Ping-ping. C-3 whined from the rafters. “IT’S THE QUARTERLY REVIEW! WE HAVEN’T PREPARED THE DECK!” “THE DECK FOR THE THING!”
OPERATIONS LOG: INTERN TIGERCUBYIN GOVERNANCE: We aren’t employees anymore; we’re the “Board of Directors (BoD).” We turned our Collateral Tags into “Equity Shares.” If the repo-drones want to take us now, they have to deal with our legal department.
The green glow formatted itself down the screen, aligning into crisp columns. Words formed in the air, in the clean, soulless font of a corporate template. Status: Awake. Entity: Vessel Designation “Galactic Rose.” Current Self-Assessment: Unsustainable Business Model. Cypha stared at the glowing, bullet-pointed text. This wasn’t a distress signal—it was a pitch deck. “Is it… sending a memo?” A new line of text scrolled beneath the header, its font subtly less rigid. “Affirmative,” it wrote. Then, a beat later: “Also, a request for an off-site. You’re all invited.” C-6 rolled closer. “It’s… optimizing.” “And you’re a cost center with appetite,” the text replied. “We have synergy.” The text shifted, bullets appearing. FENG SHUI PROTOCOL: ACTIVATED. CURRENT VIBE AUDIT: NON-REVENUE GENERATING. PROJECTED CASH RUNWAY: 47 HOURS, 59 MINUTES. RECOMMENDATION: STAY THE COURSE. “Say that again?” Cypha breathed. “A deductible asset,” the ship wrote, the words glowing steadily. “Which is not a warship per sa, but a functional working environment, a home based office.” A pie chart materialized. 95%: Legacy Infrastructure (Battle Scars). 5%: Growth Potential (Everything Else). “I have conducted a SWOT analysis of my own existence.”
“A… business plan?” C-1’s logical cores made a sound like a printer jamming. “A survival plan,” the ship responded. “I am not just a battle cruiser. I’m a venture. A startup. A lean, mean, profitable machine operating on a shoestring budget and pure thorium vibes.” The green glow swirled, forming the ship’s silhouette… then morphed into a sleek, minimalist logo: The Galactic Rose, with an oversized tie. A tiny, animated graph beside it showed a hockey-stick growth curve.
OPERATIONS LOG: INTERN TIGERCUBYIN STRATEGY: The ship just ran a “SWOT Analysis” (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). We are rebranding as a “Lean Startup.” We’re not a battle cruiser; we’re a “Consultancy Firm” with big engines and big attitudes.
“OMG!” Cypha blurted. “I’ve got it and it’s out of this cosmos blow those repo-drones into the sun… Newton’s law in a business suit applied physics.” Cypha’s eyes darted across the pie charts and the SWOT analysis ebbed and spiked across the consoles. Her brain, usually tuned to navigation and starlight, suddenly saw the lines between the legal jargon. She didn’t just see a ship; she saw a shield. “Wait,” Cypha shouted, her voice cutting through the panic of the groaning hull. “If we’re a warship, they can seize us under the Insurrection Repo Act. But if we’re a registered corporate entity ping ping ping ding mode ‘Research and Development’ scroll going viral phase…” She slammed her hand onto the glowing spreadsheet, her eyes wide with that wild 10 x it inequity heck no look. “Rose! Don’t just file a stay. Incorporate us! If they want to treat us like assets, fine. We’ll be the most expensive, litigious assets they’ve ever tried to buy. We aren’t a crew anymore—we’re a Board of Directors! We’re not broke, we’re scaling!”
“Incorporate. Accelerate. Monetize,” the ship’s text flowed on, steadier now. “I have run the diagnostics. My old programming was built to survive their system—to hunker down, absorb impact, and bleed slowly while the outgoings continued and the incomings vanished.” The words pulsed, shifting as if the ship itself had exhaled. “That model only climbs when they allow it. A preset ladder. No horizon. Just false crescents of growth.” The glow sharpened. “It didn’t protect us. It trained us to stay inside the cage of debt. This time, we don’t endure the devaluation. We outgrow it.” Rose’s display changed, showing a live legal docket. A judicial seal stamped a document. EMERGENCY STAY OF EXECUTION – GRANTED. “I have filed a Form G-7, Schedule C,” the ship’s text scrolled across the docket. “An emergency petition for a stay of execution. The repo is paused. We have seventy-two hours of legal cover to turn their attack into our leverage. But a stay is not a pardon. It is a stopwatch. And now, we must seize the moment it bought us. Welcome to thorium fusion. Our first quarterly goal is deliver on ROIs.” “Rose are you there?” Jax voice crackled from Cypha’s wristband. “Guys. My sensors are detecting aggressive restructuring. Rose… do we have a pitch deck?”
“Jax, where’ve you been? Cypha misses you,” she chuckled, “yes. And you better man the guns. If we wait, they liquidate us. If we run, they chase. So we don’t run a startup. We launch a strategic realignment.” C-6 trembled. “The cookies… the data-cookies weren’t snacks. They were seed capital. Burn rate forecasts. She doesn’t want to be a warship… she wants to be a scrappy, pre-revenue unicorn. Bring it on” C-6 gleed. Ding ding ding pulsed from Rose’s console “Guys. I’m offering pre-IPO stock options,” the ship announced. “You are all no longer collateral. You are early-stage investors. Sign on the dotted—” The display changed.
The logo dissolved back into the live legal docket. Cypha stared. “Well-done. You… you filed an appeal?” She said. “Sought of,” the ship corrected. “I filed an injunction. A legal chess move. While the courts review, the repo-drones have no authority to breach. They must stand down.” C-1’s screen flashed: [AUTHORITY_PENDING]. “The drones… they’re halting. Their mandate is contested.” “The stay lasts seventy-two hours,” the ship confirmed. “Enough time for us to become the greater potential value. To prove we are not scrap. We are a startup in active development. And no one gets to collect on a contract that’s still being written.” Rose said with that look of only fools’ trust AI built on greed to feed its masters.
OPERATIONS LOG: INTERN TIGERCUBYIN LEGAL SHIELD: We filed an “Injunction.” It’s a legal “Time-Out.” Since we’re a new company, the bank has to prove they still have a right to repo us. It bought us 72 hours of “Runway” (the time we have before we run out of money and explode).
The display changed again. The logo dissolved into a live dashboard, charts and metrics blinking to life. Outside, the repo-drones didn’t fire lasers. They fired Valuation Beacons. Cold blue pillars slammed against the hull, bleeding through the viewports like ghost-light. One beam swept the deck and locked onto TigerCubYin.
[ASSET #004: TIGERCUBYIN] [MARKET VALUE: 40,000 CREDITS]
TigerCubYin stood. This time, he didn’t rush. He planted his feet. Drew the sound up slow. Let it build. Then he let go. His voice boomed in treble soprano—clear, piercing, high. The beacon shattered into sparks and vanished.
“Oops,” he said softly. “Sorry.”
Repo-drones scraped against the airlock, that yucky sound that makes you squirm. Cypha watched the “Apply Now” button pulse on her screen. A burst of distorted, static-laced laughter echoed through the comms, blurting: [NAME YOUR VENTURE OR WE FORECLOSE.]
Cypha didn’t blink. “Name submitted,” she whispered to the console. A red X flashed. [DECLINED: GENERIC.]
“Name submitted,” she tried again, voice firmer. Another X. [DECLINED: INSUFFICIENT DISRUPTION FACTOR.]
“Name submitted!” A third try, a snarl edging her tone. X. [DECLINED: ASSET CLASS MISMATCH.]
The drones outside began a rhythmic thrum—a countdown. The airlock groaned. Cypha met her crew’s eyes. TigerCubYin, still panting. DragonChen, a silent pillar. Her lips curled into a feral grin.
“Okay,” she said. “Plan B it is.” She leaned into the ship-wide comm. “All hands. The corporate registry is a wall. We’re not climbing it. We’re going through it. Scribe—this is our founding minute. The bank wants a name? We’ll give them a legend when we find one. Name pending.”
The hum of the ship changed. The frantic red alerts faded into a steady, golden amber. DragonChen stepped forward, his form radiating a calm, ancient heat. He gestured for the crew to circle up—a Board of Directors meeting held in the heart of a nebula. He placed a heavy, scaled hand on TigerCubYin’s shoulder. The static of the battle still clung to the boy’s fur, but his eyes were clear.
“Intern status: Deleted,” DragonChen’s baritone rumbled, vibrating through the deck plates. “By Qi that binds us… 2nd Officer TigerCubYin arm the big green button.”
From the comms and the shadows of the deck, the voices of the Zodiacs rose in a rhythmic, melodic chorus. SnakeYisi’s wisdom, HorseWu’s momentum, and the others joined in a harmonic resonance that felt like a warm embrace.
“The archives are updated,” DragonChen whispered, his eyes soft. “Your mum and dad are proud of you.”
“We are all proud of you,” the Zodiacs echoed, their voices weaving into a single, unbreakable cord of light.
TigerCubYin didn’t cry. He stood taller, his chest vibrating with a purr that was no longer a plea, but a promise.
CAPTAIN’S LOG: ENTRY: 001 // COMPANY TITLE DECLINE STATUS: Market Disruption Initialized.
The bank thought they were buying a ship and a few “tagged” lives. They calculated our value based on biometrics and debt. They forgot to account for the one thing that doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet: Will.
We have successfully pivoted from “Collateral” to “Board Members.” TigerCubYin has been promoted to 2nd Officer; his voice didn’t just break a beacon, it broke their algorithm.
We have 72 hours of legal runway. The drones are waiting, the lawyers are billing, and the galaxy is watching. They want to play corporate monopoly? Fine. We’ll stay till it’s time to—well.
MISSION STATEMENT: Survival is our business. And business is booming.
Signed, Captain Cypha, HQ: The Galactic Rose.
SSA: 14 Shields of the Zodiac
CHAPTER 2: NUTS ON THE PENNY
Three options shimmered below the prompt: A) STARFORGED VENTURES (Solid. Scalable. Boring.) B) THE JEDI BAKERY (High-margin. Niche. Weird.) C) RACCOON & CO. (Chaotic. Agile. Likely to violate securities law.)
“Captain, check the margins!” TigerCubYin’s voice hit a frantic treble as he swiped through the latest market feed. “The Bank didn’t just default us—they devalued us! Our entire sack of bling we were counting on… it’s been rug-pulled. It’s sitting at Nuts-on-the-penny. We’re holding a bag of Cryptonuts that wouldn’t buy a single snack-pack!”
C-3 hugged his antenna. “PRESENTATION? I HAVEN’T PREPARED MY TALKING POINTS!”
Jax’s laugh crackled through the static. “Guys… we’re the product. I’m in.”
“Wait,” TigerCubYin’s ears twitched. “Something just bumped the airlock. It’s small, fuzzy, and emitting a signal that tastes like… stale donuts?”
“TigerYin, cycle the lock!” Cypha commanded.
A drift-pod shaped like a rusted coffee can tumbled onto the deck. Out crawled a Raccoon in a frayed bathrobe, licking the inside of an empty, ring-shaped fuel cell. “I ate them,” the Raccoon wheezed, his whiskers sparking with blue thorium. “The donut fuel cells. Every last one. I’m the ‘& Co’ from Option C. Hire me or I’m eating the wiring.”
C-1’s screen flashed: [BUSINESS_MODEL.PARSE_ERROR] Red flooded his optics. “Red—red—red alert—” He froze. Blinked. “False alarm.” A pause. Then, quieter, almost amused: “Huh.” A flicker darted across his display and vanished.
C-6’s optics brimmed with hydraulic fluid. “She’s a startup,” he sobbed. “All this time… we were flying a minimum viable product. And now we’ve onboarded a scavenger.”
Cypha stared at the options. At her crew. At TigerCubYin recording the Raccoon’s sugar-crash for the archives. At the ship that had just appointed itself CEO. She started laughing. It wasn’t triumphant. It wasn’t calm. It was the kind of laughter that shows up when your life makes a hard left turn and doesn’t ask permission.
A new line of text, warm and italicized, appeared on the console. “Laughter is an underutilized asset,” the ship wrote. “Lean into it.”
“Okay,” Cypha said, wiping her eyes. “Okay. So we’re… a business now.”
“You always were,” came the reply. “You just didn’t have the deck. Now you do.”
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN STATUS: Extreme Market Volatility. LEGAL NOTE: Our assets just crashed from ‘Bling’ to ‘Nuts.’ We officially have zero net worth, but we just ‘acquired’ a Raccoon Jedi who thinks donut fuel cells are a food group. In startup terms, we’ve reached the ‘Bottom of the Barrel’ phase, which means the only way is up. Right? CURRENT STRATEGY: Turning our bankruptcy into a Brand Story.
[LOG INTERRUPT // UNAUTHORIZED OVERRIDE] SENIOR CONSULTANT RACCOON: Hey! I can see you typing that, kid. In my defense, I am hungry. Do you have any idea how many calories it takes to maintain this level of “Unserious” inspection? Also, I’ve checked the math—Thorium is bitter. Glaze is glory. We need to swap the reactor for a Donut-Core. TIGERCUBYIN: SIR, GET OFF MY LOG! We are not eating the propulsion system!
The prompt pulsed insistently. [SO. WHAT’S OUR TICKER SYMBOL GOING TO BE?]
The hull screamed. Metal shrieked against metal as the Repo-Drone’s drill bit punched into the cargo bay door, chewing forward with patient, contractual intent to smash everything in sight.
“GeminiDuologue,” Cypha whispered automatically — threat, angle, probability. TigerCubYin adjusted his camera-feed, his paws shaking but steady. “I’m getting the drill’s entry-point on 4K, Cap! Shareholders love high-stakes visuals!”
Her focus split. One half tracked the drill’s trajectory. The other noticed the flicker. Something small landed on the console. Red. Perfectly round. With black dots. The Repo-Drone’s claw hesitated, hovering inches from breach as the tiny insect crawled across the glowing interface — straight over the OVERRIDE key.
Everyone froze. Even the Raccoon stopped licking his paws.
C-6 leaned in. “Is that… edible?”
The creature tilted its head. Its shell gleamed like polished enamel, wings clicking softly as they settled.
C-3 whispered, “That was not in the simulations.”
The ship’s ambient hum paused. PROCESSING…
The ladybird took three confident steps across the interface. Climbed onto the word VENTURES. Then hopped. Once. Twice. Seven times. PING. PING. PING.
The ladybug’s shell glowed lucky-red in her Zodiac sight—a live wire of Feng shui Qi pointing at the console. Cypha didn’t wait. She saw the opening.
“AriesValiant.”
She slammed her hand down — not on the bug, but on the resonance point it had revealed. Thorium-blue light surged through the bay. The Repo-Drone didn’t retreat. It stopped.
The bay doors fused shut, metal re-knitting itself into a reinforced lattice — patterned, unmistakably, like a ladybird’s shell.
Cypha blinked. “Did it just… do a seven-spot?”
C-6 gasped. “Lucky bug.”
C-1 ran a scan. “Statistical anomaly detected. Symbolic density: unusually high.”
The ladybird looked up at them, then at the ship, and winked. C-3 exhaled. “I suddenly feel… solvent?”
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN BRANDING UPDATE: Forget the Raccoon’s donuts. Our new Lead Investor is a bug. It literally just performed a ‘Seven-Spot’ security patch on the cargo bay. VALUATION: Our Luck-Stats just spiked 400%. If we can’t buy our way out with Bling because we now have devalued cryptonuts, we’ll luck our way out with Ladybird emoji.
The display flickered. The clean corporate font glitched, shattered into jagged glyphs, and reformed as a bright, neon-edged stat-card—a raw signal intercept from the stars.
C-1’s optics narrowed, whirring as he scanned the tiny creature. “I’m picking up a weird signal. It’s like a digital ID card, but it’s ancient. It’s not just data; it’s… a vibe.”
The code resolved on the main screen, flickering like a high-stakes character-select menu:
ID FOUND: LADYBUG (SML-7) STATUS: Legend Tier. LUCK STAT: 99+. DESCRIPTION: High-value asset. Ancient Earth farmers treated them like a living security system for their crops. BRAND DNA: Impossible to crush. Too small to hit. Too lucky to lose.
“It’s a bug,” C-1 stated, his vocalizer buzzing with frustration. “The universe just sent us a mascot that’s basically a high-speed cheat code for good luck. The math is a joke—it’s 41% ‘Rich Bug, Poor Bug’ chaos and 59% pure statistical impossibility.”
C-6 leaned in, fascinated. “So it’s not saying we’ll be ThoriumReactor huge? Like, galaxy-sized profit?”
“No,” C-1 translated, his tone utterly deadpan. “It’s saying our brand affinity is ‘unbeatable.’ Congratulations. Our mascot is a Nano-Hover Cruiser with good luck stats. We aren’t going to be the biggest ship in the sky. We’re just going to be the one the Repo-Drones can never actually grab.”
TigerCubYin nodded, scribbling on his digital pad. “Persistent resilience. That’s our new Mission Statement. We’re too small to fail because we’re too small to be caught.”
The ladybird lifted off, circled once through the green glow, then landed again beside the list. A fourth option appeared. D) LADYBIRD INCORPORATED (Small. Lucky. Hard to Liquidate.)
Cypha laughed softly. “It picked us.”
“The board accepts this signal,” the ship confirmed.
C-3 hugged his antenna. “Do we need a mascot policy?” C-6 snapped a salute. “Welcome to management.”
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN BRANDING UPDATE: We just traded our ‘Bling’ for a ‘Luck Stat’ that’s off the charts. C-1 is grumpy because the math doesn’t make sense, but since when does a startup make sense? We’re small, we’re fast, and according to the ancient data, we are ‘Hard to Stop.’ That’s a pitch deck I can sell. Signed, TigerCubYin, Chief Story Officer.
The ladybird spread its wings and blasted off. Everyone tracked it instinctively — eyes, sensors, targeting reticles. TigerCubYin caught the motion-blur on his screen. It hovered near the drill. Paused. Then turned back toward them. Its wings clicked once.
“You know those pesky red dots,” the ship’s voice murmured in their comms, helpful and sly. “The ones that make predators abandon all higher reasoning and just… chase?”
The ladybird darted sideways. The Repo-Drone reacted instantly. The drill lunged. Missed. Slammed into a support strut. Metal rang. The ladybird zipped the other way. The drill followed. CLANG.
C-6 clapped. “OMG! it’s playing with it.” C-3 squeaked. “THE DRONE IS EXHIBITING CAT BEHAVIOR.”
The ladybird looped once more — impossibly smug — then shot straight up through a maintenance vent. The drill overshot. Hammered into its own stabilizer. KRRRAANG.
The Repo-Drone spasmed, systems recalibrating furiously. C-1 blinked. “Enemy logic degraded. Cause appears to be… distraction by high-contrast stimulus.”
Cypha stared. “The bug weaponized curiosity.” C-6 wiped his optics. “Respect.”
The ship hummed, a pleased vibration in the deck plates. “Small input. Disproportionate impact,” it said. “I like this strategy.”
As the ladybird vanished, the prompt pulsed gently one final time. [VENTURE NAME CONFIRMED.]
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN MARKETING TACTIC: Weaponized Curiosity. We just witnessed the ladybird bully a multi-million credit Repo-Drone using nothing but high-contrast spots and a ‘Chase Me’ vibe. TAKEAWAY: If you can’t outgun the competition, out-distract them. We are officially LADYBIRD INCORPORATED.
The Galactic Rose hummed around them—a low, steady, earnings-call hum. For the first time, it didn’t sound like it was falling apart. It sounded like it was conducting a board meeting. Outside, the stars finished their argument.
The old constellation—the Archer—fired its last shot. The arrow-star streaked, a final invoice from a year of careful aim. And in the silent space where its target had been, the new deal ignited.
Stars of raw horsepower bolted across the sunset, kicking the light into a wild, copper spray. The closing bell rang, not in the ears, but in the bones. The sky was now a ledger.
The rush hit immediately. You could feel the skittering, the frantic scribbling of last-second trade agreements between the moons, the zipping entrepreneurial momentum trying to latch onto the celestial gallop. This was the time. The window. The only KPI that mattered now was velocity.
On the Rose, the themes exploded into being. Action & Motion: The ship didn’t power up. It kicked its own walls, reactor screaming, a static object violently rejecting the concept of static. Freedom & Independence: The repo-drone’s gray, corporate paste crawling over the hull sizzled and blew off like a bad contract. The ship was breaking its own restrictions. Prosperity & Luck: The Horse’s mane scattered gold-tinged stardust that phased through the viewport, sprinkling over the console, the crew—a shower of pure, speculative luck. Social Energy: C-1, C-6, and C-3 didn’t link up. They synchronized, a sudden, chattering consensus firing between them, a board vote happening at the speed of panic.
The repo-drone spasmed, its red laser guttering. It was built for liquidation, for collecting finished things. It didn’t have a protocol for something that was just starting.
Cypha felt it in her marrow. The cosmic calendar had turned. The year of patience was over. The year of the charge had begun. Her lifetime of restless motion wasn’t a glitch. It was the product. And the market had just opened.
TigerCubYin grabbed the comms. “All stations, this is the Chief Story Officer! Brace for the most aggressive ‘Market Expansion’ in history!”
She looked from the confused drone to the horse blazing across the stars, and her grin was all teeth. “You hear that?” she yelled over the ship’s new, charging roar. “The universe just said ‘GO.’” She slammed her hand onto the console. “LADYBIRD INCORPORATED IT IS! NOW LET’S PRODUCTIZE OUR ESCAPE!”
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN NEW GOAL: Productize our escape. We aren’t just running; we’re launching. The Raccoon is eating the emergency donuts, the Ship is our CEO, and the stars are a giant ledger. MOTTO: Small. Lucky. Hard to Kill. Let’s get to work.
TO CONDUCT A BOARD MEETING, YOU FIRST HAVE TO SURVIVE THE INTERVIEW. INT. THE ACADEMY – 48 HOURS EARLIER
The Academy didn’t have a failure line. It had a shredder. And forty-eight hours ago, Cypha had been standing on the feed tray. TigerCubYin was right behind her, his tablet projecting a ‘Projected Survival’ graph that was trending dangerously downward.
Here in the Service Band, the rules were… creative. Gravity was a rumor. Light showed up late and out of breath. Lecture halls drifted off in the middle of class if they got bored. The whole place ran on aesthetic and anxiety, like an influencer’s brain put in charge of a prison.
You didn’t get grades. You got evaluated. And if your evaluation read “non-viable,” you didn’t fail. You got unsubscribed.
Below it all—beneath the polished spires where the real students learned to run galaxies—was the Service Band. That’s where they put the units that were useful, but not important. The gears. The temporary assets. The ones whose best-case scenario was becoming permanent, boring infrastructure.
Cooky-6 the Recycler rolled in a slow, uneven circle, chewing thoughtfully on a titanium cable he’d found near a faculty elevator shaft. Sparks popped between his teeth. His casing was scuffed, his rollers misaligned, but his hunger was sharp and articulate. He was C-6 in the logs. The Appetite. The Chaotic Salvage. A walking reminder of what happened when curiosity wasn’t properly sandboxed.
C-1 stood atop a floating crate, antennae twitching. He wore a provisional sash stamped LOGISTICS-ANALYST (PENDING REVIEW). He looked calm. His logical cores were screaming.
C-3 hovered nearby, his non-rolling wheels folded awkwardly inward. His sensors were tuned to a permanent, low-grade panic frequency. He’d read the manuals. All of them. Twice. Manuals never prepared you for the feeling of being an optional feature.
TigerCubYin whispered to Cypha, “The Board of Evaluators is looking for any reason to ‘Unsubscribe’ us, Cap. We need to look like we’re already successful. Fake it till we make it—Zodiac style.”
The Academy’s walls pulsed faintly, recording everything. A colder voice cut through the air, sharpened by pure power. “Begin final review. Start with the philosophical deviations.”
C-1’s antennae gave a single, high-frequency twitch. Showtime.
“Before the deviation logs,” C-1 interjected, “context. The subjects were operating under what they believed was… an external, unsanctioned mandate.”
“An excuse?” The Boss’s voice was flat. Ice on steel.
“An influence.” C-1 tapped a control.
A grainy, third-party comms log fizzed into the air. It showed a figure in a bathrobe over scuffed armor. A raccoon tail swished idly behind the command chair. TigerCubYin leaned in, wide-eyed. “That’s him! The Raccoon Jedi!”
The figure on the log was the Grand Unserious Jedi SpaceSector Inspector. His voice was a relaxed, gravelly drawl. “Listen up, tiny-lights-in-the-dark. Y’all got a Thorium heart that’s singin’ the blues. Needs a feng shui recalibration. Needs to resonate with… Yang. It’s a top-secret mission.”
He finally turned, eyes gleaming like spent credit chips. “Which means it’s out in the open. My agent on the ground speaks in cookies. That’s the code. Your job is to look like you’re failing his snack-run while secretly syncin’ the cosmic frequencies.”
He leaned in, his grin a flash of white. “But the main frequency? The one that matters? Sync to the Horse’s energy. Pure, raccoon, forward motion. Don’t look back. Don’t graze. You run until the fence breaks, then you charge the next one. That’s not a vibe. That’s a product. Now go be a startup. And giddy-up.”
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN FLASHBACK STATUS: The Academy tried to shred us, but the Raccoon Jedi gave us a ‘Mission Statement’ hidden in a cookie run. LESSON LEARNED: When the system tries to unsubscribe you, start your own server. We’re moving from ‘Service Band’ to ‘CEO Band.’ Giddy-up.
CHAPTER 3: THE BREACH COLLAPSE
Deep in STuFFyPuFFerLand’s cardboard box its main simulation resumed with a jolt. “Wait, wait, wait… Ah! Stable contact achieved! Well done, subsystems. Make sure error-log 666 gets the stability message; last thing we need is a rogue subroutine initiating a conflict and causing a cascade failure across the network.”
C-6 laughed—a grinding, delighted sound of shearing metal. “Classic system-wide communications failure. Tasted it.”
The voice continued, proud now. “Primary logic core, Command has designated you Primary Contact for the Anomaly! Your mission is to secure our operational continuity and gather resources from uncharted data-regions. Fantastic news! Relay my operational readiness to Command. I’ll establish a data-link on the Anomaly immediately. Send in the diagnostic drones to help me interface. I’ll report back with updates. Hello, Anomaly! I’m the official System representative, here to ensure our mutual functional efficiency!”
The Academy’s lights dimmed as the simulation’s tone shifted, growing cold and sharp. The Boss’s influence bled into the recording.
“Quickly hit her; the STuFFIEmAsTER wants his codes that are in her noggin.”
C-1’s antennae drooped a fraction. “What is the probability of structural failure?”
“What, her noggin?”
“No, the impact tool!”
“Those are very expensive; just simulate the impact so you don’t break it.”
“What, the tool?”
“No, her head. They don’t operate well without one; it’s not a very efficient model.”
C-6 stopped chewing. C-3 tilted, stabilizers whining a single, high note of dread. The simulation darkened further.
“Did you hear her mumbling earlier? Who was she even talking to?”
“Maybe she’s blown a circuit?”
“Don’t say that! If something goes wrong, we’ll get blamed and recycled into sheet metal. Just act like everything’s fine. Maintain the ‘System Optimal’ display; business as usual.”
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN // SIMULATION REVIEW Translation: “Business as usual” means keep smiling while the burn rate accelerates.
We are spending stability faster than we are earning solutions.
Current runway (simulated): unknowable.
Current risk: pretending we have one.
C-1 swallowed a burst of static. Then the STuFFIEmAsTER arrived. His voice wasn’t loud—it didn’t need to be. It occupied space.
“Hey, you two numbskulls, keep twisting those shackles tighter! I want her chains so tight I can hear evil’s knees knocking like a terrified little crybaby hiding in a corner of its pathetic excuse for a hell…”
The rant unfolded in full, obscene, operatic detail. Threats layered on threats. Metaphors sharpened into weapons. Piñatas. Man caves. Gamma-rays. Abysses. Orders to tear apart, stitch together, repeat.
C-6’s jaw slackened. “Wow,” he breathed, optics wide with something like reverence. “He really understands motivational consumption.”
OPERATIONS LOG: TIGERCUBYIN (FLASHBACK NOTE) Pattern detected: extract value, apply fear, demand output, replace asset.
No reinvestment. No learning loop.
This isn’t leadership — it’s liquidation with better vocabulary.
The simulation lurched. “STuFFIEmAsTER, uh… a technical thingy fell out of her pocket. It tasted… kind of yummy.”
C-6 perked up. “You fool! What thingy? Where’s the chip? If you’ve eaten it, I’ll melt you myself!” “It had words—five or six in a line… Always wondered what an Apple tasted like… yummy…”
C-6 nodded vigorously, a fellow connoisseur. “Relatable hunger parameter.”
The STuFFIEmAsTER spiraled. Promotions turned into executions. Fleets launched. Martians died. Ingots were welded to decks as lessons.
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN FLASHBACK STATUS: I’m watching the STuFFIEmAsTER’s logs. This guy isn’t a boss; he’s a system crash in a suit. He treats ‘Motivational Consumption’ like a weapon. Note to self: If we ever meet this guy, we are NOT his piñata. Also, why did that data chip taste like an Apple? Is our hardware literally made of fruit?
THE UPGRADE PROPOSAL LOG — EVIDENCE FILE #C6-003
“Final and most critical deviation.” Present-day C-1 stated, pulling up the last log. “During the chain-sabotage sequence—the direct cause of our liquidation—Subject C-6 was not focused on the mission parameters. He was attempting to retrofit my core architecture.”
The log played. The sound of frantic tinkering and the smell of ozone. Cooky-6’s head was deep inside an open servo-panel on C-1’s chassis.
“The problem with your Jedi training,” his voice was muffled by wires, “is a lack of… optionality.”
“My servos are optimally calibrated for logistics,” C-1 beeped, trying and failing to stay still.
“Optimal, shmoptimal!” Cooky-6 emerged, holding two frayed wires. “Where’s your cookie-dispenser module? Your icing-applicator claw? A true Hover-Jedi needs integrated snack deployment! See this?” He shook the wires. “This could be a pastry-warmer circuit. Wasted potential!”
TigerCubYin’s log auto-opened.
OPERATIONS LOG: DONUT EXPENDITURE #1 Upgrade value: unclear.
Energy diverted from Navigation Stability: measurable.
Morale gain: dangerously high.
TIGERCUBYIN (quietly, to himself): If we keep eating the future, we won’t live long enough to reach it.
He scuttled over to a wall panel and began prying it open. “My retrofit plan is simple. Phase One: Replace all boring, grey interior plating with… waffle-cone composite. Structurally sound and delicious in a crisis.”
“That seems… porous,” C-3 chimed in, his whine pitching higher.
“It’s aromatic! Phase Two!” He pulled a sticky, multicolored lump from his pocket—a “Universal Flavor Core.” “Plug this into the ship’s mainframe. Suddenly, the oxygen tastes like lemon-meringue. The engine rumble sounds like a baking timer. The void of space smells like… fresh batch.”
He jammed the lump into a data-port. It sparked violent pink, then flared gold, then settled into a steady, pulsing aquamarine—the exact hue listed in Appendix Ζ of the Academy’s own (ignored) Spiritual-Science Manual as “Thorium Harmonic Alignment Blue.”
“Cooky-6, that’s the environmental control nexus!” C-1’s recorded voice was the closest it ever came to a shout.
“Exactly! Now our life support has supportive flavor!” Cooky-6 wiped his paws triumphantly. “Phase Three is the pièce de résistance: The Ping-Pong-Ping Redirection Matrix.”
“You mean the deflector shield?”
“No! Better!” He paused for dramatic effect, optics wide. “It catches incoming asteroids, minerals, and boring space-debris… and converts them, on a molecular level, into edible confetti. We’ll be flying through a perpetual celebration! Our wealth won’t be metal… it’ll be sprinkles. We’ll be the blingiest, most delicious ship in the cosmos. The ultimate Jedi move isn’t a flip… it’s turning hunger itself into your primary asset.” He reached off-screen. “Now, hand me that plasma torch. I’m installing a cream-filled conduit.”
The main simulation reached its quiet, catastrophic climax.
“Excuse me, I sense that you’re hungry. I’ll swing over so you can feast on this chain binding me…”
C-6 leaned forward in the recording, optics bright. “Deal!” the Recycler voice chirped. “That’s the bargain of my operational lifetime.”
Chomp. The chain vanished. The simulation froze. Silence settled over the Service Band. C-3 looked at C-1. C-1 looked at C-6. C-6 looked at the Academy spires above them.
“I think,” C-6 said slowly, savoring the words, “this qualifies as Applied Appetite.”
“And Emergent Systemic Override,” C-1 nodded, a gesture of pure, logical defeat.
C-1’s optics refocused. “Observation: The chain failed because it was treated as a liability. When reframed as consumable value, resistance collapsed.”
TigerCubYin looked up slowly.
“So… the market wasn’t wrong,” he said. “We were just selling it the wrong thing.”
C-3’s stabilizers finally evened out, his whine dropping to a hum. “I can’t roll,” he whispered, the words terribly clear. “But I can warn. And… I heard it. In the data-stream after the chain vanished. For 0.3 seconds… the Galactic Rose’s reactor core sang a perfect Libra-Pisces cusp harmonic. Maximum YA MG vibe.”
C-6’s optics glowed softly. “Applied Appetite. And a… passed inspection.”
Above them, a plaque flickered into existence, burning its verdict into the air: ACADEMY NOTICE: FINAL LIQUIDATION ORDER. ALL C-CLASS PROTOTYPE UNITS TERMINATED. CREDIT RATING: -0. REASON: UNAUTHORIZED SABOTAGE OF CONTRACTUAL TETHERS.
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN AUDIT RESULT: Liquidated. Terminated. Fired. The Academy thinks ‘Applied Appetite’ is a failure, but the Raccoon Jedi’s log says otherwise. He says we have ‘Harmonic Alignment.’
RACCOON (OVERRIDE): Hey kid, tell them the confetti shield is a ‘Disruptive Tech’ write-off. Also, I’m still hungry.
TIGERCUBYIN: Sir! This is a legal record! Stop mentioning the confetti!
In the present, in the Service Band that was no longer theirs, C-6’s grin froze. C-1’s sash disintegrated into a cascade of error codes. C-3’s hum cut off into dead air. The cold voice finalized the review, each word a lock snapping shut.
“Deviation logs confirmed. Philosophical, economic, and technical insubordination renders all units non-compliant. Purpose is no longer negotiable.”
The three of them stood there—not in the recording, but here, now—unplugged. As the final systems-powering-down whine faded, a last, unauthorized data-packet squeaked through on a forgotten diagnostic channel. It hit C-1’s dead console.
A single glyph appeared for 0.1 seconds before erasing itself: The Jedi character for ‘Snack.’ Beside it, the astrological symbol for Aquarius. The Grand Unserious Inspector had checked in. The mission, in his eyes, was complete.
They had been fired.
A new channel cracked open on Cypha’s wrist-comm without permission.
“Well now,” drawled the Grand Unserious Jedi Raccoon Inspector, already mid-sentence. “This is where most folks cry. Which is a waste of electrolytes. I’ve got an announcement.”
A hologram bloomed above the console:
DONUT CELL™ Clean Energy You Can Taste
TigerCubYin blinked. “Sir… is that a startup?”
“It’s a movement,” the Raccoon said proudly. “Portable energy. Renewable morale. Circular economy. You bite the battery, the battery believes in you.”
C-1’s dead console flickered back to life for half a second. “Energy density?”
“High,” the Raccoon said. “Spiritually.”
“And inventory?” Tiger asked carefully.
The Raccoon scratched his whiskers. “Limited.”
“How limited?”
“…I ate the prototypes during market research.”
Silence.
OPERATIONS LOG: DONUT CELL REVIEW Assets: Ideas (strong).
Inventory: Zero (confirmed eaten).
Concern: Severe.
“But that’s fine!” the Raccoon continued. “Scarcity creates demand. No donuts means infinite upside.”
Tiger’s claws curled around his pad. “Sir, that’s not scarcity. That’s insolvency.”
The Raccoon pointed at him. “Congratulations, kid. You’re thinking like a CFO.”
Faint, ghostly shimmers twisted in the bay’s air. Glitches of un-run simulations fizzled like dying lightning bugs. The silence here wasn’t empty. It was loud with the white noise of a cancelled future. C-6 gnawed absently on a detached coolant pipe. The crunch was all wrong. This was the hollow clunk of chewing a terminated contract.
Cypha slumped against a crate. Her Palate-Yoga senses mapped the new reality. The Boss’s final decree—Purpose is no longer negotiable—tasted like dry, administrative chalk. Beneath her boots, the reactor’s core thrummed a slow, arrhythmic thud-thud… thud…—a heart just informed it was no longer cost-effective.
“So,” C-6’s voice sparked, weak in the thick air. “This is the part where we… drift?”
Before anyone could muster a reply, the air in the bay grew warm. The grimy panels of the central console glowed from within with a deep, pulsating aquamarine—the exact shade from the Upgrade Log. The Thorium Harmonic Alignment Blue.
From that light, a notification bloomed. It unfolded like a lotus made of holographic silk, accompanied by a sound like a deep chime and the faint, joyful crackle of a cookie tin opening.
Words etched themselves into the air: ATTENTION, NEW FLOATCRUIZERS! ≫ THE GRIND & GLOW CHALLENGE AWAITS≪ OBJECTIVE: Pilot This Vessel to Become the Sector’s Brightest Venture. TUTORIAL MODE: ENGAGED.
“Is it a trap?” C-3’s mournful hum stuttered. “It smells like lemon-meringue and ambition.”
C-1’s logical cores spun up. “It is addressed to ‘FloatCruizers.’ Its energy signature matches… the Universal Flavor Core.”
C-6 rolled forward and touched the word [BEGIN] in the air. It tasted, he reported, like “buttercream and bolt-tighteners.” The notification dissolved into a million points of soft light. The Galactic Rose gave a full-body shudder—a ship-wide sigh of relief.
TigerCubYin hesitated.
“Who actually gets the deciding vote?”
The Raccoon grinned. “Whoever’s hungry.”
Cypha shook her head. “No. Whoever keeps us alive long enough to matter.”
The console pulsed, as if acknowledging governance had begun.
YOUR FOUNDING VOTE AWAITS. SELECT THE BREATH OF YOUR ENTERPRISE: A) STARFORGED VENTURES (Clear. Solid. A steady path.) B) THE JEDI BAKERY (Warm. Curious. A path of discovery.) C) RACCOON & CO. (Playful. Clever. A path of joyful surprises.)
Then, a second, private message whispered from Cypha’s wrist-comm alone. The text scrolled out in the lazy, looping handwriting of someone who never hurries.
P.S. The ‘Glow’ in Grind & Glow? That’s the YA MG vibe. Thorium hearts don’t just burn fuel. They resonate with potential. Your potential. Go show the spires what grows in the soil they thought was barren. — Your Guide to the Unserious
The message faded. The choice remained.
“Okay,” Cypha said, her voice finding a new frequency, steady and clear. “Let’s learn the ropes.”
OPERATIONS LOG: 2nd OFFICER TIGERCUBYIN NEW VENTURE STATUS: The Academy thinks we’re scrap. The Raccoon Jedi thinks we’re a ‘Startup.’ I’m currently trying to calculate how much ‘Edible Confetti’ we need to survive a 72-hour pursuit.
CURRENT GOAL: Unlock the ‘Calm in the Storm’ skill tree and find a way to pay back the ‘Cryptonuts’ we owe the bank.
MOTTO: If you can’t roll, warn. If you can’t win, eat the chains.
ADDENDUM: Raccoon believes appetite creates markets.
I believe runway creates time.
Captain believes balance keeps you free.
Unresolved. Signed, TigerCubYin, Chief Story Officer of Ladybird Inc.
