"Energia Lunar Orbiter approaching re-entry point," announced the mission controller.

Erik, Aaron, Friedrich, Hajime, and Saladin were all gathered in the mission control room, watching the telemetry data from the Lunar Orbiter.

"I've fought wars, but this tension is something else," said Saladin, watching the monitors nervously.

"We sank nearly a trillion into this project, it's only natural," replied Erik.

"We have re-entry," announced the controller.

They all held their breath, as both telescopic and radar tracking stations monitored the Lunar Orbiter's descent.

The orbiter's heat shield glowed bright orange as it entered the Earth's atmosphere, dropping like a stone towards the surface.

"Re-entry stable, approaching glide path," announced the controller.

The orbiter fired a series of small thrusters to adjust its trajectory, and slow its descent, before deploying its landing gear.

"Landing gear deployed," announced the controller.

The orbiter touched down smoothly on the long landing strip, a parachute deploying from its rear to help slow it down.

It finally slowed to a stop, and a series of trucks approached it to unload the precious cargo of titanium.

The cargo bay doors hissed open, revealing gleaming ingots of refined titanium nestled inside, held in place by electromagnetic clamps.

Cranes quickly unloaded the ingots onto the trucks, which then drove into the main mission control building.

Erik, Aaron, Friedrich, Hajime, and Saladin all breathed a sigh of relief, as the mission was declared a success.

"Congratulations, everyone. We've done it," said Erik, smiling broadly.

"Now the real work begins," added Friedrich, as they all headed into the building to oversee the unloading of the titanium ingots.

----

"This is incredible! The quality of this titanium is off the charts!" exclaimed Friedrich, as he examined a freshly unloaded ingot of lunar titanium.

"Definitely worth the effort and the risk of pissing off everyone," added Hajime, as he ran his hand over the smooth surface of another ingot.

Aaron nodded in agreement. "This is just one shipment. We'll need to set up a regular schedule to bring down more," he said.

"Well, as agreed, this shipment will be split 5 ways, each of us gets 48 tonnes, with the rest stockpiled for new launch vehicles," said Erik.

With that, the ingots were packaged up for shipping to their respective factories.

----

"Mr. Gorbachev. This is a gross violation of international law governing the exploitation of space resources! You cannot be just stripping the moon for metals! Isn't exploitation of Earth's resources brutal enough?" thundered Elijah Edelstein.

"Oh shut it you windbag! The outer space treaty was drafted to stop the militarization of space, not to prevent the extraction of resources!" retorted Erik.

"How dare you! Don't you have a lick of common sense! Lunar gravity is what produces Earth's tidal effects, and plate tectonics! If we start stripping the moon, what pray tell will happen to that balance?" screamed Elijah.

"Why Mr. Edelstein, if I didn't know better, I'd say you're a werewolf with the way you're going on," mocked Saladin.

"I'm not going to sit here and take insults from the likes of genocidal dogs like you!" shouted Elijah springing to his feet.

His fellow delegates seized him and forced him back down, but their anger was evident as well.

"As far as I'm concerned, we're just the first movers. I'm sure your American allies are already plotting their own mission," said Erik, nodding to a red-faced Daniel Goldberg.

"The Outer Space Treaty is clear on this matter. No nation may claim sovereignty over celestial bodies, but it does not prohibit private entities from extracting resources," said Daniel stiffly.

"Which is exactly what we're doing. Rostov Systems is a private corporation, and we're operating within the bounds of international law," replied Erik.

"In which case, I demand that all material extracted from the moon be shared equally among all nations!" shouted Elijah.

"You're free to buy whatever we produce on the open market," replied Erik.

"That's not good enough! The moon belongs to all humanity, and its resources should be shared equally! I demand payload space!" shouted Elijah.

"And I thought that we Russians were the Communists," chuckled Erik.

"We have precedent on that with the ISS agreements," said Elijah icily.

"Hey, there's nothing stopping you from launching your own damn missions, just like we did," said Erik.

"That's not the point!" snarled Daniel.

"That is the point! Nobody said anything when you boys did the Apollo missions back in the day! In fact, everybody just cheered you on! Or are you telling me that all that was just a CIA stunt?" retorted Erik.

"All right you! I propose a fully international consortium that doesn't include Russia to start our own lunar mining operations! You don't want to share? Let's see how far you get alone!" shouted Daniel, with the rest of the UN delegates roaring in agreement.

----

Back at Sirius Software headquarters, Aaron had already allocated his share of the lunar titanium to both his aerospace division, and to Margaret's The Feminine Professional, for the production of more engineered clothing and footwear.

"With Lunar titanium, we can scale up production of the heels for even low-level employees. Michael will be thrilled," he mused, going over the projections.

He frowned slightly at the graphs.

"Vikram, get your butt in here," he called into his intercom.

A few moments later, Vikram entered the office.

"What's up boss?" asked Vikram.

"Is it just me or are these projections off? It feels like it's more profitable to mine Lunar titanium than to just buy terrestrial titanium," said Aaron.

"Well, that's because you basically own the mining infrastructure. The titanium we buy normally, comes with import tariffs, and other BS," chuckled Vikram.

"Hmm, I thought that our paying Rostov Systems for the launches would even that out," mused Aaron.

"Not really. Rostov Systems is charging you for the launches, but you're avoiding all the other BS, like the cut Uncle Sam takes, and the various middlemen fees," explained Vikram.

"I'm now wondering if I should have waited until we had a full lunar mining setup before I poured billions into this HQ," said Aaron thoughtfully.

"Well, hindsight is 20/20 boss. At least now we have a steady supply of high-quality titanium, and we're building even more stuff like that HellVortex helicopter," said Vikram.

"That's true. All right, keep an eye on the number, and come up with expansion estimates for scaling this up," said Aaron.

"Will do boss," replied Vikram, heading out.

----

"I'm not entirely sure about this Aaron. One Energia Lunar launch vaporized the launch pad, and made the entire world shit itself. You're talking about more launches, to set up operations for iron, tungsten and even uranium! Just this one launch blew a trillion bucks!" said Friedrich, as they sat around a table in the Sirius Software HQ conference bar - a sleek fine-dining private restaurant inside the HQ building itself, serviced and catered by DuPont Hospitality services.

"Haven't you boys run the numbers? Yeah, we'll have to sink a few more trillions, but we'll have access to high-grade metals without the usual BS," said Aaron, as a uniformed waitress approached the table, and laid out their first appetizer course, her titanium heels clicking on the floor in a pleasant staccato rhythm.

"Yeah, we did. Small problem though. NATO has basically told us that any more launches of Energia Lunar will be met with a nuclear strike, and our leadership has been spooked enough to tell me to put a lid on it," said Erik, once the waitress left.

"What about our shipment launches?" asked Aaron.

"Those are fine, Energia Lunar Block 2 which is just the orbiter and a few booster stages can get the job done, and that's not sanctioned," replied Erik.

"Speaking of NATO, any word on that consortium thing that they were raving about?" asked Hajime.

"Have you ever tried to get nearly a hundred screaming children to agree on something? The US is trying to win over support, but everyone else is bickering over how much they get," chuckled Saladin.

Aaron tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"I wonder. What if we offered to launch their stuff for them using the Energia Lunar? That way, everyone can get in on the action, and we get paid handsomely for it. We charge them 2 trillion per Energia Lunar launch, and we launch our own stuff on the side," he mused.

"And leave NASA and the US government trying to pick up what's left of their consortium? I like it!" said Erik.

"That gives us immunity to be able to launch Energia Lunar missions without the threat of them nuking us," said Aaron, with a small smile.

"It sounds like a plan, but I think I like having a monopoly on lunar mining," said Friedrich.

"I said we're only letting them borrow the launchers, they'll have to make their own mining setups. We're still the only ones who can pull this off at scale without direct human supervision. The rest of them will be stuck with habitation facilities, and astronauts being turned into exploited slaves. Not exactly a profitable venture," said Aaron confidently.

"Are you sure about that? It will only be a matter of time before somebody else either steals our tech or figures it out on their own," said Hajime.

"True, but by then, it won't really matter. We'll be in the lead, and we'll have more than enough resources to protect ourselves," replied Aaron.

"You think the US will just sit back and let us do this?" asked Saladin.

"The US military-industrial complex has become a bloated mess. It would take a full-scale existential threat to shake them into action, a pearl-harbor moment if you will. I don't see that happening over a lunar mining operation. An invasion on their soil? That would do it, but not this," said Aaron confidently.

"To bloated bureaucracies, may they stay bloated," toasted Saladin, raising his glass.

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