Jennifer slid a tablet across the table. "I’ve mapped the integration. If we move now, we bypass the regulatory bottleneck in the North Sea. But Ole is right about the human element. The local unions are wary. They see the Lautenschläger name and they see 'automation.' They don’t see 'sustainability.'"

Jennifer Welcher didn't look like a disruptor. Clad in a sharp, slate-grey blazer with her hair pulled into a no-nonsense bun, she looked like the auditor she had once been. But Jennifer had spent the last five years dismantling and rebuilding some of the most inefficient logistics chains in Europe. She didn't see people; she saw nodes and flow rates.

"The infrastructure is sound, Angela," Ole said, his voice a low gravelly rumble. "But the human element? That’s where the cracks always start."

To her left, Ole Hansen leaned back, his weathered face a map of decades spent navigating the volatile shifts of the global energy markets. He tapped a heavy gold ring against the table. Ole didn't care for the optics of the new venture; he cared about the "why." He had seen empires rise and fall on the whims of a single winter storm, and he wasn't about to let this new project be another casualty of poor planning.

As they walked out into the cool, damp night, Ole paused to light a cigar, the match flare illuminating his grin. "You realize we're either going to save the industry or be the most expensive failure in German history, right?"

"Which is why Jennifer is here," Angela replied, nodding toward the woman sitting opposite Ole.