At the water's edge...

[Gir Quee]

Fairview, Hast

Gir stood on the top floor of his cliffside villa, looking across the blue expanse of waters towards the fading sun. Pale gold light glimmered across the undulating surface of the sea. He could hear the waves gently lapped against the breakwater dozens of meters beneath him even as a gentle tropical breeze rose up to caress his skin. Quee unbuttoned the collar of his loose-fitting white shirt, reveling in the simple pleasures of being in a natural environment after so many weeks of cooped up space travel. The uniform cadence of heavy footsteps caused the man to slowly turn around to face a gold-plated protocol droid.

"Yes?"

"Sir, I wished to inform you that our sensors have detected a craft approaching the island."

Gir briefly contemplated that relevation. As his family's private island, Fairview was rarely approached by anyone. There simply was no need to approach an isolated island that was usually only occupied by caretaker droids. Unless they had an ill motive. Normally, he would have activated its automated security and defensive systems. A handful of surface to air missiles combined with the dwelling's shield generators would have made any interloper think twice about raiding the place. But instead of all that, he simply glanced at his wrist chrono before looking up at the droid.

"I've lost track of time, it would seem. Go ahead and turn on the guidance beacons. I will join our guest at the landing pad shortly."

"Yes sir."

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Reshmar guided his private shuttle into a curse for the small island home of [member="Gir Quee"]. The meeting was on the books but the two men had taken to not scheduling them for security reasons. The price on his head had made Reshmar set up a strictly open schedule where his whereabouts would be harder to ascertain. Keeping his time frame constantly evolving and not telling anyone his plans would keep him safe while not aboard his ship. He knew Gir was expecting him, he just did not know exactly when Reshmar would be showing up. Reshmar typed in a set of commands into the shuttles panel and opened a channel. "Fairview approach this is Leviathan one requesting permission to land." said Reshmar. A moment later a voice answered.

"Leviathan One you are cleared for approach and landing on the main platform" said the voice of the traffic control officer. he islands main platform was visable at this distance to Reshmar guided his shuttle in manually to land. As he closed on the island and the platform the shape of a man standing on the platform cleared and Reshmar saw Admiral Quee awaiting him. HE brought the craft in ans set it down.

"Dee Seven, power down the ship for me" said Reshmar to the droid sitting in the copilots crash couch.

"Of course Sir shall I power down the reactor or leave it on standby?" asked the droid.

"Yes, please I intend to stay awhile." answered Reshmar. He turned and walked out the hatch and down the ramp and the awaiting Admiral Quee.

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir watched Leviathan One cruise over the water's edge before it descended to come to a rest on the duracrete landing pad. He allowed his eyes to briefly wander around the structures as he waited for [member="Reshmar"] to exit his shuttle. Fairview had started as little more than an island hideout that smugglers had used before the authorities seized it. His father bought it in an seized assets auction and started gradual improvements to it before he and his wife disappeared. Gir had mostly left it be until his retirement from Republic service, which had seen his old man's dreams combined with Gir's own concepts to create compound that made extensive use of its remote location and mostly ceraglass construction to give it a unusually roomy feeling.

He hadn't any guests to the building yet aside from Salmakk. But as a member of his family, Salmakk wasn't exactly the high profile guest that he had designed it to appeal to. But then again, neither was Reshmar. It wasn't due to any lack of respect or admiration that Gir felt towards the mon calamari, but rather that their friendship wasn't based on image alone. Still, he guessed that for practical reasons, Fairview appealed to Reshmar for its remoteness and privacy given the recent bounty put on his head. I wonder if I'll ever get one of those...I suppose that will depend on who I manage to spite, and how deep their pockets are... Gir slowly walked towards the starship's exit as the mon calamari came out of his ship.

"How was your trip, admiral?"

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Reshmars four security escorts exited the shuttle first. He knew he was safe on the admiral island but his security would not give on their protocol and secured the shuttles and made sure everything was good before letting Reshmar exit. HE walked down the ramp and out sway from the shuttle towards Gir. Reshmar rolled his eyes pleasantly indicating he was glad to see the man, and reached out his webbed hand to shake Admiral Quee.

"Admiral, I like what you have done with the place" Reshmar looked around at the villa and the land surrounding it. A breeze lofted across the platform and the fresh salty air pleased Reshmar's senses. "I hope I have not come at an inconvenient time"

[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir let a smile creep across his face, "Probably one of the better times, actually."

After a brief lapse of peace, or perhaps rather a lack of escalation between nations, conflict had erupted across the Galaxy. It seemed that he only existed to travel from conflict to conflict, from the streets of Coruscant to the spacelanes around Kashyyyk. But finally he had managed to claw his way out of the battles and voyages for a bit of relaxation and recharge time. It had seemed utterly foreign, but all too enticing to simply lounge around Fairview for the first few days, but his mind had quickly rebelled at the lack of activity. While he had started sketching up some plans and ideas for the Directorate and Lucerne Labs, he hadn't felt it really productive. It wasn't something that he could go and show people as concrete work. But Admiral [member="Reshmar"]'s arrival meant that he had a good chance of accomplishing something concrete. Something that he could show to other's that his stay on Hast had been productive. And perhaps more importantly, to relieve any potential guilt he might feel for not being on the front lines.

He briefly cocked his head to the side as they walked down into the house itself, with its glass-like walls displaying a vista of the sea bathed in the declining light of Hast's sun. He offered for Reshmar to sit down as he himself took a seat on one of the room's sofa.

"I've had some time here to clear my mind and rejuvenate somewhat," said Gir, "but I imagine I'll go crazy if I don't go back out to space sometime soon. But what is on your mind?"

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Reshmar grabbed a holo projector from his coat pocket and sat it flat in his hand. The holographic image of a ship appear then cycled to a list of Lucerne products. the image finally rested on a small box. "I want to get a few hundrid Anti-concussion field generators from you. I plan on integrating them into my new MC line." Said Reshmar as the hologram changed again to display the specifics and information on the system. Reshmar turned off the holor projector and put it back into his pocket then took in a deep breath of the moist air. He missed his home, he had been gone too long this trip and witht he price on his head he may not see the warm waters of his homeworld again for some time.

"I will of course pay for this in credits or another shipment of my double redundant shield projectors if you prefer those." Said Reshmar almost knowing the answer.

[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir felt like he only caught a glimpse of the design before it disappeared, but he saw enough for his inherent curiosity of starship design to be thoroughly baited. Hopefully I'll be able to see more of it later on. The component list began to propagate, revealing a little bit more about the proposed starship line. He blinked and glanced down at the polished stone surface of a coffee table. A ship series combining both anti-concussion field generators and their characteristic shielding technology would be pretty formidable...very tough to crack. As intriguing and appealing as that idea was, he knew he had to consider logistics before committing to a contract.

Several hundred units is something that we should be able to do if we outsource one of the factory ship bays for the job. Actually, that's a large enough order that it would be worth committing a Hephaestus to. If we dedicated all of the bays to it, we could accomplish that order reasonably quickly without having to change any of the ground side manufacturing lines. The blonde-haired man turned his eyes upwards towards [member="Reshmar"].

"We will take you up on your offer for the shield generators," said Gir, "if you would not object, I will likely send one of the company's factory ships, probably the Brilliant, to wherever you are producing these ships. They can then produce the field generators onsite for your use. That might hasten up production time a little, instead of having to wait on shipments from our freighters."

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Reshmar considered the mans offer and thought it through. As of yet there was no set facility for producing the new ships, but a factory vessel there could be useful in getting production online and on schedule from the get go. The new class would take time to build. They were designed on the principle of the ancient Mon Calamari ship builders. Each ship a work of art rather than the modern standardized ships being produced. Each ship would be its own design and class and each would have its own personality. For now, Reshmar only knew that the ships would be built one at a time, for now at least. The ships may see a more standard class my come from the ships but the first three were each individual's and would not conform to any set specifications.

"That sounds excellent, in fact, can one of these vessel be assigned to build other segments of the ships. With one producing the field generators and one say working on producing modular capacitor banks and power regulators, it would helo with the construction time considerably." asked Reshmar hopeing the man had enough of the ships to spare two.

[member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir noticably blinked before he began to process the thought. There weren't many Hephaestus-class Factory Ships in service yet. Two of them were operated by Coruscant's government, but the rest of the vessels were currently in the company's own fleet. Most of these had been dispatched into Wild Space and the Unknown Regions as part of the Vanguard Project. Two more of the factory ships were under construction, but he wasn't sure if they would be ready soon enough to be of use to Admiral [member="Reshmar"]. That left him with one real option.

"One of the factory ships, the Stellar Enterprise, is on its way back from rebuilding Coruscant," said Gir, "it should be halfway down the Perlemian by now. If you would like, I can redirect her to start travelling towards your build site. With some luck, she could arrive at Mon Calamari in about a week, give or take a few days. I'm afraid that I haven't been keeping a precise track of the Lab's fleet these last couple of days. Though I can probably pull up an update on her progress from the local net, if you would like."

Gir walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a datapad keyed to the compound's communication's network. If briefly displayed the four-pointed star logo of Lucerne Labs as it began to connect into the local subspace radio network. This may take a few minutes. His eyes fell upon a clear wine bottle filled with a shimmering red liquid. The blonde man set the datapad down on the caf table and pulled out the bottle to show the mon calamari admiral.

"It looks like it'll take a few minutes to connect to the local network. Can I interest you with a drink, in the meantime? I bartered for this bottle off of a trader near Felucia. He claimed it was one of their wines, which I'm not so sure about now. Still, it's really quite good for a ruby. It has a light floral and raspberry taste with a slight aftertaste of cocoa. Of course, I have some other liquors in the cabinet, if you'd be interested in them."

 

[ADM. Reshmar]

Reshmar waved off the man's offer for a drink. Reshmar had been abstaining from anything which might dull his mind. With the price on his head he wanted his faculties to be at their best in case he needed them. "No thank you" he said then returned to waiting while Gir poured his own drink. he turned his head to look at the ocean through the large windows and thought about his home once again. Mon Cala was where most people looking for him would go. That was his corporate headquarters and his home. That was where his family lived, what was left of them anyway. It was where his staff had him currently residing for anyone who looked him up on the holonet. He was a man without a home for the foreseeable future and he hoped one day to return to his birth world not worried about the price on his head. He feared that day would never come yet he kept the idea of it in his mind. He had an idea for a way for him to be safe and not constantly have to move around but it would take work. for now he would stick to the schedule of ship switching and world hoping his security team had given him and carry one from afar.

Reshmar turned back to Gir and the data station now bringing up data on his ship. Reshmar thought about the project and where he would send the factory. He would not want the vessel over Mon Cala, it was too obvious a target if he had to visit the site. One of his off world factories would be best. "Admiral Gir, please send the vessel to Krinemonen III, that is where we will begin." said Reshmar to his friend. The new MC line would start there, The Mon Orishma would be built among the shores of the sanctuary water world and usher in a new day for Mon Calamari Shipyards.

[member="Gir Quee"]