Nicodemus leaned back in his chair at the conference table. The room was packed with everyone who was important on Binary Bloom. Leaders of trade and craft guilds, members of his administrative staff, two of his engineers who had just finished their damage report, a few other influential people, even a representative of the Erulas’ marines had been invited.


    Silence had fallen over the room at the end of the report. Nicodemus let it linger for a while and then filled it with the conclusion he himself had come to an hour earlier: ?You see why I have gathered you all for this meeting. While the major station machinery such as the generators and the gravity field are back online, the total damage to Binary Bloom is massive. Most of the medical devices in the medbay have been destroyed, we all lost our personal tablets and computers, lots of household appliances are scrap. It would take months to replace all of it, not to mention the cost.“


    He took a deep breath. It was still difficult to say it out loud: ?Binary Bloom is done for. We have almost eleven-thousand people on the station currently. How will we feed them if most cooking equipment, both private and in the restaurants is fried? We have close to three hundred wounded in the medbay and the doctors have no advanced diagnosis or treatment equipment. We lost at least some of our primary merchandise, no telling at this time how much.“


    He stopped speaking and let it sink in. His eyes wandered around the room, scanning faces. He could see a few who had already come to the same conclusion by themselves. It was the sadness in their faces, the hope that he had found a way out that he had had to destroy. Others were in shock or surprised. Some had the internal conflict written on their faces as they struggled with the realization of it all.


    One of the guild leaders cleared his throat: ?I’m sure your assessment is correct, Nico. But most of us have our entire lives here. My people are running businesses and have families. They have been hit hard already. Giving up on Bloom means they’ll lose everything.“


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    There was a murmur of agreement from most of the others. They and those they represented were in similar situations.


    ?Could we“, someone else spoke up, ?Reduce the population temporarily and rebuild?“


    Hope appeared in the faces here and there. Nicodemus felt physical pain over having to extinguish it before it spread too far, making the rational decision impossible: ?We have discussed this. The sustainable population of the station with the damage we have suffered is a few hundred. That is the amount we could support with the ships docked. You’ve heard that the main control room escaped serious damage, but tons of smaller systems are fried. Let me tell you in plain language what my guys said in technical terms earlier: We are on the brink of a thermal disaster. Most of the sensors around the station are destroyed, so we are regulating the temperature by hand from the central control room, with the guards reporting in every hour which sections should be warmed or cooled. It’s the same for a dozen or so essential systems.“


    He held their gazes while looking at them one after the other, even though it killed him on the inside to speak like this and to cause so much pain to his people: ?And how will we keep resupplying a repair crew with the auto-landing system damaged? Everyone who wants to dock with Bloom has to fly in manually. It’s only a matter of time until someone misjudges by a few percents and a few hundred tons of metal smash into the docking bay. And I’ve not even mentioned that most of the machining and maintenance equipment would need to be replaced before we can even begin repairs. Please don’t make me go on, I hate this as much as any of you.“


    Finally, someone had come around and spoke up to agree with him: ?Nico is right. Even if we could get repairs going, how are we going to pay for it? If there is no operational Binary Bloom, we can’t send out crews and can’t sell alien tech. That’s pretty much the only exports we have.“


    Nicodemus felt a wave of relief rolling over him. The dam had been broken. He saw a few others starting to nod. Others would need more time to realize the truth.


    ?Folks“, he said to the room, ?Let’s all take some time to let it all sink in. How about we meet again in two hours to discuss the details?“