Chapter 56: The Empress' Personal Treasury

In the morning they met the minister of finance, the first nerd she had seen in Zothea. He was thin to the point of emaciation and his poor tail was nearly bald from the way he nervously plucked at its hair. She wondered if he suffered from the same color-blindness as the drones because the brown tunic he wore with blue pants clashed terribly.

When Logan told him Ellis's plan, the minister sighed and tossed down his pen. He rubbed his eyes as he spoke. "Emperor, I simply do not have the funds. Any reduction in revenue at this point would be catastrophic when we still haven't recovered from losing a planet. We're already struggling to pay for our obligations, let alone the things we need to fight this war. We need ships, but building them would take too long, and the merchants aren't willing to sell us theirs at a decent rate. I keep telling them that they won't have any business left anyway if the Federation crumbles but they either don't believe me or they don't care. We nee