By Allah, Ego just wanted to scream. All it took was one single confirmed contaminated crate, and now everything in the Almanac's cargo hold had to be unloaded, inspected, decontaminated, inspected again, and reloaded. As he watched the mule lifts enter the cargo hold and exit with secured stacks of crates, all he could think about was the days and possibly weeks of lost time this was going to cause. Lost time meant lost wages, delays meant losing out on other contracts, and contamination incidents required a lengthy report on his end that his captain would need as soon as possible.

He knew something was going to happen when he saw the outpost freighters were all being unloaded into the warehouse at the same time with no breaks for proper inspections in-between, but neither he nor the captain could control what happened in the warehouses. Their role was just to transport goods off-planet. But, they couldn't transport any cargo contaminated with seedlings of Kepler-62f's slinking creeper vine. Though it was a non-issue here on Kepler-62f, slinking creeper thrived on planets where nothing used it as a food source. And the fines for harboring and disseminating highly invasive species? Astronomical.

At least the climate of Kepler-62f was agreeable. Clear skies. Cool air. A gentle breeze. That was probably the only thing keeping him from losing his mind as he stood and watched his cargo crew transferring crates from the Almanac to an outpost freighter that would take it to a decontamination facility. He knew the captain would recoup some lost wages at the expense of the outpost responsible for the initial contaminated crates, but those things took time and Ego had no patience.