Chapter 561 New Year, New Tax Dodgers

Chapter 561 New Year, New Tax Dodgers

(Ed note: Sorry about the delay. Hay fever hit hard and early this year and I was completely unprepared for it; it usually comes in April, not mid-March.) This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

The Voyager 2 probe spent an hour inside the stealth ship before being ejected. As the ship had matched course and speed with it, it continued on its way with no apparent changes. Unless someone happened to have been watching the entire process from start to finish, the disappearance wouldn’t even have been noticed.

Even for keen-eyed observers, if they noticed the disappearance it would seem like a sensor glitch on their side, as nothing about the venerable space probe had changed, at least outwardly. The only difference was that the insides of the probe had been swapped out for nanite colonies that took the shape of the components that were already there, but with the vastly increased capabilities of imperial tech.

The nanite colonies had vastly improved the sensors of the Voyager 2, though the communication issue had been a little bit trickier. Since radio waves were interceptable and quantum teleportation required more energy than the probe should be able to generate, the new method of communication with Earth was via ultrahigh frequency whisker lasers through a relay network of stealthed repeater probes.

Voyager 2 would passively collect material from the interstellar medium and print probes on its own from there on, and Captain de Groot’s crew would lay the remainder during their return journey.

(Ed note: Space isn’t completely empty. There’s a lot of gas and dust particles floating around in it, ranging from a handful of particles per cubic centimeter to tens, or even thousands of particles per cubic centimeter.)

The stealth ship laid the first probe, then began the journey home.

The ultra-wealthy weren’t happy about what they saw as “draconian” tax collection and income tracking laws. It had historically been something of a game they played with the government and tax agencies, where they would see how much they could hide and avoid paying taxes on and the government tried to find and tax the undeclared income. But now they couldn’t play those games, leaving them rather unhappy with the outcome.

At first, they had attempted the same thing they’d always done: resort to bribing officials to get the system changed to benefit the wealthy. But with no way to “lobby” the imperial government, at least not legally, they were completely at a loss. After all, if the officials aren’t elected, there’s no need for them to collect “campaign funds”.

So they opted to attempt outright bribes, sending sacks of cash and other valuables to the officials along with promises of lucrative positions once they leave their cushy government jobs.

But that just spectacularly backfired on them.

Every government employee knew they were subject to constant monitoring of their job performance. Their training had even told them what to do in case someone attempted to bribe them: accept the bribe, make the promise, and report the person who bribed them to their superior. As a reward for reporting it, they could even keep whatever was used to bribe them, be it cash or otherwise.

If they didn’t report it, however, they would be caught and sentenced to an even stricter sentence than the person attempting to bribe them. Accepting bribes was seen as even worse than the bribery itself, and every single agency had a department dedicated to investigating the employees of that agency, much like the internal affairs division of police forces.

Little did they know, however, that the “people” responsible for catching them were the librarians keeping the record of their brain data in the Akashic Library. Every time they violated the rules, a report would be generated and sent to an investigator, who would “catch” the rule-breaker and punish them on the spot.

The ultra-wealthy had finally been met with a government that was impossible for them to influence in any way.