As her heart rate slowly returned to normal and the auditorium crowds began to disperse, Tanya noticed a familiar figure waiting quietly near the exit. The elderly grandmother stood with patient grace, her security detail maintaining a discreet perimeter.
"Oh no," Tanya muttered, recognising her immediately and wondering what she wanted now. She did not have a good read on the old lady. She was an enigma that Tanya believed would be best avoided.
The grandmother approached with warm dignity, her expression carrying what appeared to be genuine respect rather than manipulation. "My dear, that was truly remarkable. You have my sincere admiration. I hope those in power listen to you."
"What do you want? Didn't you already get everything you needed?" Tanya said, too exhausted to manage diplomatic courtesy.
"Which is precisely why I owe you an apology," the woman replied smoothly. "My methods were... professionally necessary, but discourteous. I hope you'll forgive an old woman for doing her job too well."
She produced a small, elegantly wrapped package from within her clothes. "Consider this payment for the information I extracted. I have a professional interest in your future, Ms. Furrow. I believe we'll be seeing more of each other." Her smile seemed genuine, but Tanya could see a hint of something else, but she couldn't place it.
Tanya accepted the package cautiously, too drained to properly process the interaction. "Who are you?"
"Someone who has lived an interesting life and wants to see the human race advance," the grandmother replied with an enigmatic smile. "Unlike some of the vultures circling your innovations, I prefer fair exchanges. Keep building, dear. The galaxy needs people like you."
With that, she departed with her entourage, leaving an impression of quiet power and carefully cultivated mystery. Tanya stared at the package in her hands, wondering what kind of game she'd just been drawn into.
"That was weird," Janet observed, appearing at Tanya's shoulder. "Also, we should probably get back to the ship. Amara and Davidson want to debrief."
The cruiser's conference room felt smaller than usual, made claustrophobic by the grim expressions on every face. Amara, Davidson, and Red waited with the kind of carefully controlled tension that warned of bad news.
"Just tell me," Tanya said, sinking into a chair. "Whatever it is, I'm too tired to handle it gently."
Davidson's voice was clipped, like a tactical report. "The Hallow Guard has issued an official directive. Sales of navboxes and dimensional sensors are frozen until safety regulations are drafted and approved. Foreign sales are banned entirely by imperial decree."
It wasn't unexpected, but it was unwelcome news. They had already prepared a number of units to be sold after the show and to make some credits. Tanya was surprised at the speed at which they had acted, but the safety concerns must have alarmed them.
"How long will that take?" Cameron asked quietly.
"Months at minimum," Davidson replied. "More likely years."
Tanya felt something cold settling in her stomach. "They're shutting us down."
"They're controlling the technology," Amara corrected, her voice carrying the kind of bitter pragmatism that came from experience. "This was always the risk of showing too much. Revolutionary innovations threaten established power structures. But the genie is out of the bag now. There will be holovids of your talk over the extranet that will have to act on it eventually."
"It's not about safety or shutting it down," Janet said with barely contained anger. "It's about control. They can't let independent operators have access to navigation technology that bypasses traditional limitations."
"There's more," Amara continued, consulting her tablet with obvious reluctance. "The Vortex Drive Consortium wasted no time and has already filed for an injunction against your dimensional shielding technology. They're claiming it infringes on their existing vortex drive patents."
"That's insane!" Tanya protested. "Dimensional shielding uses completely different principles!"
"Doesn't matter," Amara replied flatly. "They have armies of lawyers and decades of legal precedent. They'll tie this up in trade courts for months, maybe years. Even if we win eventually, the legal fees and delays will be devastating."
"The solution is clear," Janet stated with the kind of confidence that suggested she hadn't fully thought through the implications. "Cameron will just have to invent a shielding system that doesn't use vortex drive components."
Cameron's face showed the calculation of someone mentally reviewing his years of research, while Tanya's expression revealed exactly how monumental that task would be without some assistance.
"Janet," Cameron said carefully, "Crystal technology is the next revolution of human technology; it's not going to happen overnight. I still have no idea how they are made. I can only reprogram them."
"And we'd need to do it while fighting off their lawyers," Tanya added, her voice starting to crack a little.
Red's expression suggested he had even worse news waiting. Tanya braced herself.
"Someone breached our security," he said bluntly. "Every completed navbox and dimensional sensor in our inventory has been stolen. No forced entry, no alarm triggers. They just disappeared."
The silence that followed was absolute. Tanya felt the crushing weight of systematic destruction of her success from political restrictions, legal warfare, and outright theft, all coordinated to dismantle everything she'd built.
"This is how they bury innovators," Davidson stepped in, his voice carrying grim certainty. "You threaten the status quo, and they respond with overwhelming force. Legal, political, criminal and all at once."
"I don't think the theft was related to that... they just disappeared?" Tanya asked, looking like she had an idea.
"Yes," replied Red.
Cameron looked worried. "That sounds like Gardener level technology... It's the only thing that explains it."
Tanya nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I don't think we could have stopped that if we wanted to."
Amara interrupted. "They can fight us all they want. But they can't steal what's in Tanya's head. The knowledge exists, and that's what matters."
"Knowledge doesn't pay for legal battles," Janet pointed out. "Or feed a team."
Tanya felt her mind shutting down under the overwhelming amount of simultaneous catastrophes. The presentation that had felt like triumph was revealing itself as the trigger for a coordinated assault. She'd painted targets on herself and everyone associated with her.
"I'm done for tonight," she said quietly, standing on unsteady legs. "My brain can't process any more of this. We'll deal with it tomorrow."
"That's probably wise," Amara agreed, though her expression suggested she'd be awake all night developing response strategies. "We all need rest before we can think clearly about solutions."
Cameron offered reassurance with gentle words about facing challenges together, while Janet made a darkly humorous observation about how things couldn't possibly get worse. Tanya barely heard them as she dragged herself toward her quarters, the grandmother's package forgotten in her pocket.
Her quarters felt like a sanctuary after the chaos of the day. Tanya collapsed onto her bunk, fully intending to sleep until the universe made more sense, when she remembered the package.
She almost threw it away unopened, as one more mystery was the last thing she needed. But curiosity and exhaustion-driven recklessness made her call Red instead.
"Can you scan this for me?" she asked when he appeared at her door. "Full threat assessment."
Red took the package with professional seriousness, running it through portable scanners that checked for explosives, tracking devices, nanotech, biological agents, and energy signatures. After several minutes of thorough analysis, he handed it back.
"All clear. No threats detected. It's just a message cube and some kind of data storage device."
Tanya waited until he left before opening the elegant wrapping. Inside was a small device that activated when she touched it, projecting the grandmother's image into the air above her bunk.
The grandmother's image appeared with the same warm dignity, though now her expression carried a hint of mischief. "Ms. Furrow, I need to be honest with you about something. Those navboxes and dimensional sensors that went missing from your inventory? That was me. Or rather, my people."
She paused, letting Tanya process the revelation. "Before you become too angry, dear, understand that I don't consider myself a thief. I consider myself a customer who took possession of the inventory I've now purchased. This message is my payment. Full market value, I assure you, plus a considerable premium for the inconvenience."
She leaned forward slightly, her tone becoming more serious. "The coordinates I'm providing are worth far more than the hardware I acquired. Consider this an investment in your future, and perhaps an apology for my methods. I have uses for beacon technology that will benefit both of us in time, but I needed to secure my supply before the bureaucrats and lawyers made it impossible."
The grandmother's expression softened again. "Keep building, dear. The galaxy needs your kind of brilliance.
The grandmother's image faded, replaced by what appeared to be random static and white noise that meant nothing to human perception.
//Wait,// Sage's voice carried sudden sharp interest. //That is not random.//
"What?" Tanya sat up, exhaustion momentarily forgotten.
//The signal contains encoded information. A message meant specifically for me.//
Tanya felt a chill run down her spine. "How would she know to encode something for you?"
//An excellent question, I assume she had access to a Gardener.// Sage paused, analysing the signal with processing power that translated white noise into meaningful data. //It is a set of coordinates. A location.//
"She said it was valuable. I wonder what's there," Tanya found herself getting excited by a possible treasure hunt.
//Insufficient data to determine significance. But the coordinates are precise and deliberately transmitted. This is an invitation, or perhaps a clue.//
Tanya stared at the still-projecting static. She wanted to drop everything and set off, but she knew that was impractical; she needed to settle the recruitment and other business problems, and it was also unwise to trust a random grandmother. Yet she found herself drawn by the possibilities of what would be there.
"Show me the coordinates," she said finally, sleep forgotten.
The holographic display shifted, showing stellar cartography with a highlighted location in a sector she didn't recognise. Remote, away from major trade routes, in a region that maps labelled as "unexplored," there were no large gravity well nearby.
//This location appears to be deliberately isolated,// Sage observed. //The coordinates suggest somewhere important enough to hide but accessible to those with proper navigation.//
"Our navigation," Tanya realised. "She's pointing us somewhere that normal ships can't easily reach, but we can with our technology or if you had a Gardener partner."
//A reasonable hypothesis. Though why she would direct us there remains unclear.//
Tanya lay back on her bunk, staring at the coordinates hovering in the air above her. Tomorrow would bring legal meetings, security briefings, and strategic planning about how to salvage her company. But it would also bring this and also. "Sage, I think I passed the mission. You owe me the artifact"
//Indeed. Mission was successfully passed, access to the artifact must wait until we have access to the workshop//
Tanya was almost tempted to go to the cargo bay and release her workshop, but she didn't know what that would do to the ship, and she knew she should show some restraint.
The grandmother had said she didn't consider herself a thief, preferred fair exchanges, and had professional uses for beacon technology. Someone with that kind of sophistication and resources, pointing them toward hidden locations with messages encoded for ancient AI...
"We're not just dealing with corporate warfare anymore, are we?" Tanya asked quietly.
//No,// Sage agreed. //We have entered a game with players we do not yet comprehend. The question is whether this grandmother represents opportunity or additional danger.//
"Maybe both," Tanya muttered, finally allowing exhaustion to pull her toward sleep. "Seems to be the pattern lately. Every answer brings three new questions, and every ally comes with complications."