The Family Business

The Family Business was a box. A huge box. Orbiting a star.

Inside the box were other boxes, and many of them had other boxes.

Some boxes were factories. Others were time machines.

No one other than the Family and its employees had ever been inside the box.

The main business model was simple: a client would arrive with an order, it would be filled in and stored in the vault, and moments later they’d receive the product — and pay for it.

It didn’t matter if the product took a day or a century to create. It didn’t matter whether the manufacturing would take place centuries or millennia from now.

All that mattered was that the order would be sent to the vault with all the information on what was expected and the time coordinates to send the product back to. Somewhere down the line, someone from the Family would eventually see it, fulfil it, and send back the results.

There were limitations: the time machines could only send to the past, and not without someone being there to operate the machine in order to perform the reception; plus, they couldn’t send life.

The Family was wealthy. It was an amazing business, and they already knew how long it would last — although they had never shared that information with outsiders.

When the ship docked, aside from their order, the young man was hoping to see at least the inner boxes.

This was the first time they were filling an order with the Family, and they were excited to do so.

But they got far more excitement than they bargained for.

As the salesman was asking the young man questions about his order, a battleship warped in.

Space pirates.

This was also a first. No one had ever tried to take the Family Business, even though everyone knew how wealthy the Family was, and how expensive those time machines were.

The Family, however, was prepared for this.

As soon as the battleship warped in, someone hit the panic button. From that moment on, and until someone hit the button again, every input from the Family’s members would be recorded into a new order, ready to be flushed into the vault.

They all described the battleship: size, model, expected crew size, weapons, position, movement, everything.

As the battleship locked its weapons on the box, someone hit the button again.

The message was shot into the vault with the time coordinates. The vault shut and someone initiated the process to receive a new package, and this one would be huge.

For the first time ever, the big box opened, for everyone to see.

The inner boxes didn’t take that much space after all.

Above them, five battleships.

Fully automated.

No crew required.

All bigger than the pirate ship.

The pirates didn’t surrender immediately, and some of them died with the first shot.

Soon, the Family would sell six battleships, one at a special price due to damage, to the highest bidders in the galaxy.

At the counter, the salesman turned his attention to the young man again:

- You were saying, about your order?

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