Aesop shrank in his seat, as the rest of the Torrian Parliament got up and started filing out. Panos, the Prime Minister, gave Aesop a disgruntled and annoyed glare, then headed out himself. Before long, pretty much everyone was gone, going back to their normal businesses. Probably insider trading or gambling or something.
Admittedly, in his youth, Aesop had been just as bad. He’d made his initial wealth on inventing and selling weapons to the various paramilitary units that protected Torr territories overall, but he’d also made some cruel choices, like buying the rights to other weapon designs, and creating a monopoly on combined tool-weaponry products, building tools that could be turned into weapons at a moment’s notice, designed for building fortifications in battle zones.
Within a couple of years, he was a multi-millionaire. With a little market manipulation, Aesop was nearly a billionaire. And considering his intellect, wealth and knowledge about defence contracts, the Torr For Unity Party initially hired him as an advisor. After several particularly corrupt folks had to step down, Aesop found himself becoming the demi-minister of military maintenance, before suddenly being promoted to Secondary Minister of the Torr. One below the Prime Minister.
Much to Aesop’s dismay though, he quickly realized that it was a ceremonial position. Yes, he got a LOT of bonuses, but he was only really there to make Panos look good. Considering Panos was an annoyingly charismatic asshole, Aesop felt pretty useless.
Aesop had been Secondary Minister for seven years now, and while, yes, his duties could probably have been automated, Aesop had realized that, well, the Torr kinda… sucked, and there wasn’t much Aesop could do to change it. Sure, Aesop believed in capitalism and the free market, in being independent and pulling yourself up, racing to the top, all Torr did. But… the Torr were somewhat alone in those beliefs. Sure, other races had capitalism too, sure, they weren’t overall as rich as the Torr, but they spread their wealth out a little bit. They had safety nets.
They also had each other. Other races could ask each other for help. Right now, the Lanex were asking for assistance in evacuating several planets near the northern edge of the universe. The Rethans had immediately offered a fleet of ships, and the Temthans were helping too. According to the Minister of External Affairs for Kaironian Races, the Spasts were also weirdly helping as well. But the Lanex’s request for extra ships from the Torr had been denied. Why? No reason other than sheer hatred.
Aesop didn’t like that. No wonder the other races all hated the Torr. If their positions were reversed, Aesop was certain that the Lanex would have offered assistance. In fact, they had offered assistance during a series of mine collapses last year, and they’d saved a few folks that had otherwise been considered left for dead.
Really, Aesop was angry. This was a chance for the Torr to show that they weren’t complete assholes, and, again, Panos and his cronies had decided to be assholes.
The chamber was empty now, apart from a couple of cleaners, who were emptying bins and sweeping. They were mostly done, but Aesop realised he was somewhat in the way.
“Hello…” Aesop muttered.
“Hello!” the cleaner smiled, just happy to have a job and be recognized. “Are you alright?”
“No. Not really.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Will you do something about it?”
Aesop looked the cleaner up and down. Typical statements. The Torr taught themselves that, if something was wrong, they needed to fix it. And the cleaner absolutely was right, there was something wrong, and Aesop needed to correct that wrong.
“Of course!” Aesop smiled as he got up. “Sorry for being in your way, dear!”
The cleaner bowed, and Aesop headed out of the chamber, up to his office. The first thing he did as he got there was open up his computer, and look at the prices of various companies. Most Torr companies had stock open to be sold pretty much all the time, and Aesop was pretty sure there was an airline or something that was recently risking bankruptcy.
A quick internet search proved Aesop right. Torr Space Travels, a budget airline, was slowly going under, and had been looking at reorganizing and restructuring. Which meant they were probably going to fire most of their staff. That meant that they would almost certainly accept a near billionaire like Aesop buying out majority shares. And they certainly wouldn’t mind if Aesop abused his majority control to start sending super cheap flights out to Lanex territories.
Would this cut into Aesop’s wealth in a colossal way? Certainly. Was Aesop also risking his job as the Secondary Minister of the Torr? Definitely. But, for the first time in a long, long time, Aesop wanted to do something selfless. Do something for others. Because, while the Torr only seemed to care about themselves, they were also digging themselves into a pit, from which other races would not help them. But Aesop was willing to risk his comfort to help the less fortunate.
Something beeped, distracting Aesop. His phone. He’d gotten a message. Several messages. About something breaking in. Breaking into the universe. And a nearby Torr territory being in the line of fire. Aesop expected to see a final message, requesting a call back into the Parliamentary Chamber, but no, it seemed like Panos was ignoring everything.
Feeling very uncertain, Aesop sent several messages of his own. One to a secretary, to get contact information for buying shares in Torr Space Travels, one to his main accountant, to work out how much Aesop could sink into charitable causes, and one to his lawyer. He was certain he was going to need her.
In the mean time, Aesop checked the news. Not the standard Torr Broadcasting Service though. Not even Spast news either. Aesop knew that, if he needed fresh, deep, dark news, he needed to check Skyavok news websites. The little shadow beasts always picked up on everything. And they had picked up on whatever this break in was.
Actually, they’d picked up on a lot of stuff. The Lanex evacuating their home world. Rethan, Ksithan and Temthan ships congregating up north, equipped with incendiary weapons. Banikans using their ancient ships to help out as well. Skyavok… shadowjumping between planets to move important people to safety…
Things were bad. Worst than anyone was willing to admit.
Aesop sighed to himself. Since no one had responded to his messages, Aesop picked up his phone and immediately called his lawyer. He needed to do something.
“Hello, Secondary Minister. How can I help?”
“Hi, Cassius. Give me a second. Need to merge some things.”
With a few button presses, Aesop invited his head accountant, his main advisor and his secretary to the call as well.
“Hiya, boss. Looking to save some more money?”
Another sigh. “No, no. Cassius, Phylandros, Cresslia, Gneissos I actually want to spend some money. And by that, I mean spend a lot of money. I want to buy controlling shares in Torr Space Travels, and I want to use their fleet to start evacuating people.”
“Sir, didn’t the Prime Minister say-”
“Fuck what Panos says. He’s blind. We need to do something. And this is my way of doing something in particularly Torrian fashion. Buying out a company and bending them to my will. You lot, how quickly can you help me put my plan into action?”
There were some confused grunts and tuts.
“Why?” Cresslia, Aesop’s secretary asked.
“Because I want to help. And I don’t want the Torr to go down as the race who sat on their asses doing fuck all while everyone else got to work.”
“Alright…” Cassius growled. “Give me an hour to get the paperwork in order. TST are already open to being bought, shouldn’t take too long.”
“What do you need from me?”
“I’ll find out and call you back. Phylandros, get into a call with me, now.”
Cassius left the call, and Phylandros swiftly followed. Gneissos tutted, said goodbye, then disappeared.
“Is there anything you need from me, boss?” Cresslia asked. “This isn’t like you.”
“I know. But I want to do something good for once.”
“I… I guess. I’ll leave you to it.”
The line closed, and Aesop was on his own once more. He turned his attention back to the news site. There were a few articles about a need for fire weapons. Something Aesop knew a little too much about.
With a small smile, Aesop got to work, drawing up plans for some easy-to-produce flamethrowers. He’d been meaning to get back into weapon design for a while, and this was the perfect opportunity to experiment…