> She was an avid inventor, had been ever since she was a small child. She had been born on a world controlled by DeReggers but her family had moved away from that place and into Galactic Alliance space finally settling on a haven world that allowed for havenworlders and deathworlders to live together. When she was 9, she'd found a way to improve upon the translators that allowed for better communication with other species. When she was 13, she'd graduated from school with honors and entered university at 14. And now, here she was, at 21 and having graduated universities with honors. She, with help from others for the project had begun when she was 17, had built a massive space station with all the reinforcements and luxuries a human could design into the thing for all species they could think of. And, thanks to the landing fees, and immense commerce this huge hub had, she had managed to not only grow quite wealthy, bring bring the rest of her family out from DeRegger space and set them up with good homes of their own here on the station.
> The problem is, the Leaders of the DeReggers were NOT happy with this. Someone born from their worlds, even though her family had moved away with her when she was only a little girl, living in Alliance space and getting wealthy without THEM getting a cut?? And then now pulling away hundreds of people that had once been under their thumb to give them the lives that the DeRegger leaders had insisted were NOT possible for people like that? They were going to make sure their voices were heard! -- [DaniAndShali](https://www.internutter.org/bb/user/daniandshali)
They called it the Patriot Tax, and were trying to retroactively enact it for all ex-citizens of Greater Deregulation Lower East[1]. It was a debilitating tax and would, dependent on the gender of the "patriot", reduce their effective income to nearly or beyond nil. In her case, it would put her income into the negative and place all her property and earnings into the greedy, grasping hands of her place of origin.
She would have none of it. Rylie spent the allotted time to comply in studying the very letter of that law in combination with all the other letters of their law. Such as they were. They of course had conflicting laws in place that could make life a living hell for the uninitiated and the underfunded. What she specifically went for was the loopholes.
Once she had them by the loopholes, she had them by the goolies. She had enough money to do it and, once done, it was next to impossible to _un_-do... which was the important part. Revenge may be a dish served ice cold, but in this case, it paired well with a side of boiling rage and retaliation. She therefore re-entered Deregger space with a slim folio and her head held high.
The board of CEO's and Chief Executive In Charge sat on their polished thrones with a greasy smugness that expected her to cry or beg. Half of them were looking down their noses at her. The other half barely acknowledged her presence by looking her way as she entered.
Rylie put down the folio and said, "Gentlemen. You are all fired."
"You don't have the authority," barked someone on the board, possibly by reflex, since they had been playing with an app right up until that very moment.
"Oh, but I do. There is no law in place forbidding foreign ownership of shell companies based in your territories... and no law against those shell companies separately buying controlling interest in all your varied corporations. Corporations that make the law of your lands." She smiled at them in the same way that a snake smiles at a mouse. "That is... your lands until recently. Those shell companies own a maximum possible interest in each and every controlling corporation here on Greater Deregulation Lower East. Now that those companies have aggregated, according to your own laws, I now own all of them. I own the companies that make the law, and by doing so, I own you." She handed over the slim folio. "I re-iterate. You're fired."
"You don't have the right..." murmured the CEIC.
"Correction: twenty years ago, when I fled this allegedly great polity on a shoddy lifepod with my dying mother, I didn't have the right. She barely had the right to bear children and she certainly didn't have the right to try and keep me. If I had been kept in this polity, I would not have the right to an education, to medicine if I needed it, nor to my own free will. I might be given the right to recite some select phrases if I was pretty enough to be sold to an alleged gentleman of your... calibre." Calibre, here pronounced as, _plainly dubious qualities._ "In your alleged care, I wouldn't even have the right to a family name."
The folio contained only a few pages, carefully contrived for even the smallest attention span. In large, friendly letters and in easy-to-read format, it explained how a woman they might have relegated to a dumpster ten years ago now owned everything that owned them. There was even a pink slip for each of them.
"Why does this say we owe the polity estate money?"
Rylie smiled the kind of smile that waits on riverbanks for unsuspecting and thirsty ungulates. "According to the newly enacted laws of this property, I am deducting from your severance pay all hours spent not working, according also to the Greatest Health Initiative of two hundred and seventy-four years prior."
"But that wasn't meant for _us_," protested one of the lesser CEO's.
"I'm in charge, now, gentlemen. I say which laws are for whom. I say _all_ laws are for _all_ citizens. Unless you'd like to surrender your citizenship and come under the jurisdiction of the Cogniscent Rights Committee?" Who had, they all knew, several warrants out that would come into effect if they ever left the protection of Greater Deregulation Lower East.
The assembled gentlemen of the board - now forcibly retired - were coming to the slow and certain realisation that they were between a rock and a hard place.
"I can't pay this," sputtered one.
"An assets liquidation team will be sent to your assorted residences at the earliest possible time," said Rylie. "We'll start with liberating all the women in your bawdy farms and giving them a remedial education. That will be concurrent with the new administration's infotainment division educating everyone about the right to bodily autonomy. Have fun with that. There will be global testing at the end of the next fiscal year."
"What happens when we fail?" quavered another CEO, who may have been ahead of the curve when it came to figuring out what was up.
"As you yourself said, sir," she pronounced 'sir' with a C, "If'n they can't learn good, they don't deserve to eat."
They were going to learn. They were especially going to learn that it was not a good idea to rile anyone with that kind of power and those kinds of resources. It was especially not a good idea to anger anyone with a brilliant mind and a razor-sharp edge to their justice.
[1] The placement of identically-named polities in Galactic Society is based upon agreed 'directions' relative to the galactic core and the Great Attractor. "North" points always towards the Great Attractor, whilst "East" indicates the direction of spin. "Up" points towards the oldest extant civilisation hub and is therefore subject to change if that civilisation perishes. From this we can conclude little more than the rough location of this Deregulation's origin colony stellar system.
[Image <a href="https://www.canstockphoto.com">(c) Can Stock Photo / JanPietruszka</a>]
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