Private Business Meeting (solo thread)

[Beltran Rarr]

(Image Credit)

Obsidian Star Mega-Complex
Denon
864 ABY
​

Beltran Rarr sat at the finely polished conference table. He was placed several seats down from where Debbis Endo sat at the head of the table, the ostensible leader of this negotiation. It was rare these days for Beltran to make a personal appearance on Denon. He had fallen out of favor with the hacker group known as Darkwire, and while neither they nor he had made any aggressive moves against the other, he usually thought it best not to tempt them. Today, however, was an auspicious day and Beltran thought it required is own personal touch. For perhaps the first time since Beltran had secretly taken over the arms company, they were being visited by royalty. Well nobility, but at the end of the day really what was the difference?

Lady Rowan Vale, the Ducha of the Hapan world known as Terephon had requested a meeting with the top levels of Obsidian Star and Beltran wanted to know why. It wasn't out of the ordinary for Obsidian Star to be contacted by purchasing committees for various Silver Concord worlds. In fact, he had engineered several dozen such deals himself as a member of the Antarian Rangers-ensuring that his men had the best equipment possible, and lining his own pockets at the same time. After all, it wasn't corruption or nepotism if the equipment was the best, right?

"Excuse me sir?" Said a young Bothan intern who stood at the entrance to the conference room. Beltran looked up but didn't answer, as she wasn't looking at him but rather the CEO of Obsidian Star, Mr. Endo. "I've just received word that Lady Vale's ship has arrived. The reception group will be leading her down in just a few moments."

"Thank you Star'ah," Endo replied somewhat absently. Beltran could tell from the small tells in the man's demeanor that he didn't like having the Lorrdian at the table. Beltran prided himself on being intimidating, and he had threatened Endo more than once over the years to keep him in line. It didn't much matter whether Endo liked it or not. Beltran would be overseeing this negotiation and that was that.

For the purposes of today, Beltran had traded his Antarian uniform for a sleek looking suit cut in the Lorrdian style. He would be playing the role of Dr. Demetrius Sneed, chief engineer in charge of manufacturing operations. Sitting next to him were the presidents of both Obisidian Star Aerospace and Obsidian Star BioMed and a small host of other executives. He would be just one more face in a see of suits and yes-men, just the way he liked it.

 

[Lady Rowan Vale]

Lady Rowan Vale walked down the boarding ramp of her shuttle, a pair of bodyguards and a small group of staffers in tow. She tugged on the tunic of her dress uniform, stretching out any creases that might have come from the brief journey to the surface. Her personal flagship, the Hapan Battle Dragon "Bane of Lorell" waited for her in orbit. It was a symbol of Hapan might and warrior prowess, even if it's technology was severely outdated and it dominated the Denon skyline.

"Lady Vale," Spoke one of the functionaries who had come to meet her. He was an aging Neimodian who spoke in heavily accented basic. "You do us a great honor in choosing to make the journey to Denon to meet with us. I have been asked by our illustrious CEO, Mister Debbis Endo, to convey you and your party to one of our finest meetings rooms. I am told that our board is already assembled and anxious to begin."

Rowan struggled to keep a sneer off of her sharp face. There was something inherently distrustful about Neimodians, she'd always thought, and this one did little to dissuade her from that opinion. Still, she was here to trade and a certain amount of seediness was always present in business. With a curt nod of her head, she spoke.

"Then by all means," She said, returning none of the being's pleasantries. "Let us get on with it. I have a rather busy schedule today."

She could tell that her curtness had thrown her host off kilter, which was exactly what she she'd intended to accomplish with it. She wanted this being, and those she was about to meet with to see her as someone who negotiated multi-billion credit deals as a matter of course and not the petty ruler of a backwater world with a fleet whose technology had been out of date eight hundred years ago.

"Of course, Lady." The Neimodian replied, actually dipping his head twice in a kind of bow before gesturing to the lift. "If you'll follow me."

 

[Beltran Rarr]

Beltran's first thought upon seeing Lady Rowan Vale for the first time was wow. It wasn't often that he saw someone command such authority from the first moment they walked into the room. He could do it and had on several occasions, but it had always been with the undertone of potential violence. Intimidation is not respect, He thought to himself, and respect was certainly what Lady Vale commanded.

All the beings in the room had stood for the arrival of the Hapan noble. Beltran had half expected to see her dressed in the finest robes from Alderaan, but she wore her Officer's uniform and carried a side-arm at her side. Practical, He considered. While still leaving no doubt about who she is.

"Lady Vale," Debbis Endo said giving her a gracious smile as he extended his hand as he met her at the doorway. "Thank you for arranging this meeting. We at Obsidian Star are most excited at the prospect of having the Duchy of Terephon as one of our clients."

"Thank you," The Hapan noblewoman replied, gripping Endo's hand. Beltran could see the slight wince Endo gave as she squeezed it and felt the corner of his lip tug upward. "Shall we get to it then?"

"Of course," Endo replied, taking his hand back and gesturing for her to take the empty seat at the foot of the table. Her functionaries took each of the empty seats on the side of the table closest to the door, filling the space between Endo and herself.

"As we are set to begin," He continued. "Please allow me to introduce my executive board. This is Starlan Rawd, president of our Aerospace division and Dr. Amelia Essh, president of our BioMed division. Also with us today is Dr. Demetrius Sneed, our chief Engineer in charge of Manufacturing." At his introduction, Beltran simply nodded-keeping his eyes averted in a practiced servility that he usually donned for these kinds of performances.

Gesturing to her own staff in return, the Lady first indicated another woman also wearing an officer's uniform. "My chief of staff, Captain Valara Stone." Moving on, she continued. "This is my aunt and head advisor, the Lady Cerilla Vale and this is Borand Toll, president of the Royal Terephon Engineers."
The two armored bodyguards were not introduced, nor did they even seem to notice. They simply stood on either side of the doorway, rifles at port arms, with a discipline that reminded Beltran of his Rangers.

Once the introductions were complete and everyone had returned to their seat, Endo spoke once more. "Well then, my Lady. Perhaps you'd care to tell us why you've asked for this meeting today?"

 

[Lady Rowan Vale]

Rowan nodded once before speaking. "Of course," She began. "Terephon, as you may or may not know, is a member of the Hapes Consortium and has been so for millennia. We exist, almost completely engulfed in a stellar phenomenon known as the Transitory Mists. It essentially cuts us off from most of the Consortium and much of the galaxy at large."

"But," She continued. "It also insulates us from threats, such as pirate attacks and Sith marauders. Even as the galaxy around us has been engulfed in the fires of war, we have remained relatively at peace for centuries. As such, much of our military base is...shall we say, outdated."

Endo nodded along, appearing somewhat bored. Rowan might have felt a tinge of irritation at the man if she didn't recognize it as such an obvious ploy. He wanted her to feel like a backwater nobody, that way she would probably say yes to whatever price he asked for what she needed. Sorry old man, She thought to herself. Educated on Coruscant. Can't fool me, but nice try.

"The reason I am here today is that, in essence, Terephon's military forces need an overhaul. We updated turbolasers, missiles, shield systems, point defense systems...you name it, we need the works. Overhauls on twenty warships, five Battle Dragons and fifteen Nova cruisers to be exact."

Rowan felt a small measure of triumph as she wanted Endo blink in surprise. "And what kind of time-table are you looking for on getting this done?" He asked after a moment.

"Six months, to a year."

 

[Beltran Rarr]

Even Beltran had to stifle his surprise as he heard that.

"Six months, to a year?!" Endo exclaimed. "My Lady! That's quite an undertaking you're proposing!" Once again, Debbis Endo's penchant for understatement was being utilized. "That would take virtually all of our resources. I just don't think we can swing it."

Certainly not for a price you could afford, my Lady. Beltran thought to himself. Twenty Capital class ships would fill every dry-dock berth on Obsidian Star Aerospace's primary shipyard, and they would all have to be done at the same time. That meant that they would have to push contracts to the Silver Jedi Concord, the Antarian Rangers and a dozen other independent buyers. Just the contract cancellation fees alone would be in the multi-billions.

Lady Vale simply smiled indulgently. "Actually, it won't." She told him. "I'm proposing that the majority of the work be done in the Terephon system, at the dry-docks managed by the Royal Engineers. We will buy the components from you in bulk, pay for them to be transported to Terephon and install them ourselves. Only a small handful of our ships, say five, would need to be retrofitted immediately at your shipyard."

"My Lady," Beltran spoke up, raising his hand. "We don't even know if our components can be installed on your ships as they are. We will likely have to upgrade your entire power distribution system. That's not something we can simply tell your people how to do."

"Of course not!" Lady Vale scoffed. "We will also pay for a team of consultants to join us on Terephon for the duration of the refit. They will approve all specifications and plans, while our people do the actual labor. This will allow you to maintain your tempo while bringing in the additional revenue that my proposal will generate and will allow my fleet to be battle ready inside a year."

"Buy why," Endo interrupted, attempting to take charge of the meeting once more. "The need for such haste?"

"Simply put?" She answered. "The Bryn'adul."

 

[Lady Rowan Vale]

Taking a sip of water from the glass that had been set in front of her, Rowan allowed herself a moment to choose her words. She was about to walk a number of very tenuous tightropes in the span of a few sentences and she did not want to say anything that could be taken out of context later. "Officially speaking," She said slowly. "The position of the Hapes Consortium and the Queen Mother is that the Bryn'adul are a Concord problem. We exist on the other side of the Silver Sphere and are doubly insulated by the Transitory Mists."

"I'll not speak ill of my Monarch, nor the Admiralty which advises her, but I am on record as being in disagreement with this assessment. I've seen the holo's from Yurb and Nar Kreeta, and I've studied the intelligence files. It is my belief that the Bryn'adul are a very real and credible threat to the Consortium and my homeworld of Terephon. As an officer in the Hapan Royal Navy, I am not at liberty to discuss the state of the rest of our fleet, but as Ducha of Terephon I can tell you quite simply: My people are not ready. If the Bryn'adul invade our system, we will lose."

She had no doubt about the words she was speaking. "By my own authority as Ducha," He continued. "I have nationalized much of Terephon's GNP for this year." It was a fancy way of saying she'd just taken it, but it was what it was. "This has given my government a net budget surplus of approximately twenty-billion credits. Twenty-billion, that I propose to funnel into this project and others like it, in order to bring the Terephon military into the modern age."

To say that it had been an unpopular move back home would have been more than an understatement. Protests and even some street-level violence had been stirred up as antigovernmental groups used it as a rallying cry against the aristocracy. She'd been very careful, however. No businesses had been bankrupted, they all just enjoyed a far smaller profit this year than they'd been expecting. Profit for which they would receive tax breaks from for the next decade. Some of the money was also being funneled into the social services for the inevitable layoffs that would come when business executives' end of year bonuses got smaller, though she didn't imagine that would be a problem for long.

Once the refit was underway, the Royal Engineers would be hiring every able-bodied being they could get their hands on. This time next year, the economy would be in a boom. She was sure of it. Either that, or they'd all be speaking Bryn. That was a distinct possibility too.

 

[Beltran Rarr]

Beltran felt the collective air rush out of the room. Twenty billion was more than double their profit for the last two years combined, and it wouldn't require their reneging on their current contracts?

Damn, The Lorrdian thought to himself. This Lady is good.

He could tell from Lady Vale's expression that she knew she had them. There was no way that Endo would turn this down. Even if he did, Beltran would simply put two bullets in the back of his head and have the next CEO of Obsidian Star Technologies make a personal visit to Terephon to grovel on Endo's behalf.

Endo, for his part, was flabbergasted. "Tha-that's quite an offer, Lady. But I must ask, why us?"

"Because your equipment is the best." She answered without missing a beat. "I could probably go to a dozen other companies and piecemeal this deal together for half the price, but I saw what the Antarian Rangers did at the Shield Outpost on Yurb. If your starship components are half as rugged as those soldiers' armor was, I think we can give the Bryn'adul a decent fight. For you, this might all be theoretical. Numbers of spreadsheets. But for my people, this could very well be the difference between victory and annihilation."

"Well," Endo responded. "I don't have to tell you that we'll need to see a contract before we agree to anything."

 

[Lady Rowan Vale]

"Of course." Rowan responded with a crisp smile. "I have a preliminary draft already drawn up. Your legal team can comb over it and send it back to us for any revisions. The entire proposal is detailed within." Standing from her chair, she walked over to where Endo was sitting. "I will have my Chief of Staff transmit the draft to you once we return to my ship. Assuming all goes well, the Bane of Lorell will be among those ships we send for immediate retrofit."

She held her hand out for Endo to shake, signaling to her staff that it was time to stand. She trusted her aunt and Captain Stone to ensure the best deal possible and would allow the rest of the back and forth to be done via correspondence. Time would tell whether she'd made the right decision but she truly believed that they would be squaring off with the Bryn'adul sooner rather than later.

With a shake of the hand, the meeting was concluded and Lady Vale was shown back to the hangar. While her earlier comment had been intended to come off as arrogant, she really did have a full schedule today.