Narrator:Aboard the mercenary warship Touch-And-Go. . .
Thurl:Hey... where'd all our money go?
Tagon:Thurl, you're making my skin crawl. What's wrong?
Thurl:It looks like, yeah, it was. Massey just spent our last fifty thousand with a broker.
Tagon:Get him in here.
Ennesby:Captain, Lieutenant Massey Reynstein has rented a flat in Port Weber. Per operational security we're not supposed to call him.
Thurl:Uh-oh. . . I just figured out what he spent the money on.
Thurl:He's short-selling HTRN stock, and the price almost doubled.
Thurl:He borrowed a hundred thousand shares at 53, and HTRN is at 96.50 in open trading.
Tagon:So the stock price went up. That's good, right?
Thurl:No, it's bad. We don't own the shares. We own debt worth a hundred thousand times the difference between 53 and 96.50.
Thurl:The broker must have called in an interest payment on our four-point-three million in debt.
Tagon:Before I decide which of Lieutenant Reynstein's limbs to use when I beat him to death, please tell me I didn't agree to this plan somewhere along the line.
