"I leave the details to you," said Everest. "Not least because I have attempted my own investigation in the past and bungled it. Again, I spare you the history so as to not contaminate your process, but I attempted something similar targeting BlackSun's auction records, which was what tipped my hand in the first place."

She did not flinch from her confession of failure. Mrs. Everest certainly had her faults, but that alone put her far from the worst supervisors you have dealt with.

"If this is something I could have handled myself, I would have. It is not. In this matter, if you achieve results you will have surpassed my abilities. That achievement will be worth a great deal of consideration in the future."

BlackSun. Corporate logo: A black sphere, haloed in gold. Brand aesthetic: Luxury with collateral damage. A union of multiple private spaceflight interests that together took control of NASA during the early phases of the Red Decades. Their wildcat approach to orbital mining and trailblazing approach to android design produced great wealth and was instrumental in the establishment of multiple orbital habitats and a permanent luxury city on the surface of Luna. In the process, carelessness or malice caused a Kessler Syndrome chain reaction in several critical orbital bands, wiping out huge swathes of critical satellites. They are profoundly unpopular amidst the general public, not least for their fairly blatant fascist aesthetics and sympathies, but they are the only serious players in space which puts them above a lot of concerns. Their mission is Mars and they are perfectly happy to burn Earth and all its people on their way there.