Private Commerce and Common Ground

[Ra'a'mah]

Ra'a'mah had spent the better part of several weeks quietly testing the waters around the Mahporeem Imperial Remnant. Nothing so formal as a diplomatic overture had been sent, nor had she approached its government directly. Instead, questions had begun appearing through the commercial channels she had spent decades cultivating. What restrictions existed on foreign merchants? Which ports accepted outside traffic? Was there interest in establishing new trade relationships, and were there local businesses looking for markets beyond Mahporeem's borders? Individually, none of the inquiries meant very much. Taken together, they suggested someone was interested in opening a door.

Ra had never expected her involvement to remain anonymous for long. Her companies operated across too many systems, and enough merchants knew her personally that eventually someone would connect the questions to their source. That was partly the point. She wasn't attempting to hide her interest, merely avoiding the unnecessary spectacle of announcing diplomatic intentions before she knew whether there was anything worth discussing. Trade was often an easier way to learn about another government than politics. Governments could disagree on a number of things while their people continued to buy what they needed from one another.

Apparently, her questions had reached the right ears. The message from High Commander Victport Graras arrived not long afterward, inviting her to visit and discuss the interest she had been showing in his territory. Ra had been mildly impressed that the response came from the High Commander himself. He could easily have passed the matter to a trade minister or some unfortunate bureaucrat assigned to determine exactly what Ra'a'mah Numare wanted. Instead, he had chosen to meet her in person, and she considered that reason enough to accept.

There were practical possibilities to consider. Protectorate worlds produced goods that needed buyers, just as they required resources that couldn't always be sourced efficiently within their own borders. New markets meant greater resilience when established routes were disrupted, while commercial traffic created connections between governments that otherwise had little reason to speak. Ra knew better than to mistake commerce for friendship, but it could provide the foundation for one. A freighter crossing a border regularly could accomplish surprisingly more than a dozen speeches about cooperation.

By the time her ship approached Mahporeem, Ra had reviewed enough information to know what questions she wanted answered, but anything resembling a treaty had deliberately been left behind. She wasn't arriving to recruit another government into the Protectorate, nor did she intend to place an alliance proposal in front of Victport before they'd exchanged more than messages. This was the first conversation between two people whose interests had crossed paths.

If all they discovered was that their governments could profitably trade with one another, Ra would consider the journey worthwhile. If they discovered something more, there would be enough time to discuss it once they were sitting across from one another.

Victport Graras

 

[Victport Graras]

VICTPORT GRARAS
CORROX, MAHPOREEM
OBJECTIVE: MAKE A DEAL?

Victport Graras really wished that Ra'a'mah would just be straightforward with him.

At first, the questions were sporadic and innocuous enough: What restrictions existed on foreign merchants? Which ports accepted outside traffic? Was there interest in establishing new trade relationships, and were there local businesses looking for markets beyond Mahporeem's borders? They were fairly standard for what one might expect from those looking to do business with the Imperial Remnant, but as time went on, so to did the frequency and intensity of what was being asked of Mahporeem. Obviously, Ra'a'mah was interested in more than just making a couple of credits, even if she wouldn't come out and say it.

So Victport had taken the unusual step of inviting Ra'a'mah to Mahporeem to hold a private meeting between the pair. On its outset, it was about economics, but in reality Victport had a feeling that there was much more to what Ra'a'mah wanted for herself. That was why he had declined to take Illithor Du'thra or Prystill Oasay with him, which normally would have made quite a bit of sense for him. Before he could offer his experts, he needed to know exactly what the nature of Ra'a'mah 's feelings and ideas were.

Getting them to come visit had been easy enough, and Ra'a'mah 's shuttle had been fast tracked through Mahporeenian secuity, despite the raid from the Wild Space Rebellion a scant few weeks ago. If Ra'a'mah had hostile intent, she wouldn't have bothered with this convoluted approach to diplomacy, something that Victport easily recognized. No, she wanted something of substance that she was hesitant to say aloud, hence, her roundabout approach.

Whatever that was, Victport would be sure to find out.

As usual, the location of the meeting would be Collaboration Tower, and Victport had naturally selected the building's finest room to host Ra'a'mah in. Once they arrived, Victport could finally get down to business. Then again, there would be no telling the nature of their conversation or how the meeting might go until Ra'a'mah was honest with him, or at the very least upfront about what they wanted. If there was one thing Mahporeenians appreciated it was people who didn't play games, people who were honest and didn't dance around whatever topic they wished to bring up. Perhaps it was a side effect of Mahporeem's thousand year exile, or perhaps it was simply a quirk of the Mahporeenian people.

Whatever it may be, it would have to be something that Ra'a'mah took into account when she began her dealings with Victport...

TAGS:
Ra'a'mah

 

[Ra'a'mah]

The expedited clearance had not escaped Ra'a'mah's notice. Given the recent trouble with the Wild Space Rebellion, she had expected considerably more scrutiny before being allowed anywhere near Mahporeem, and she wouldn't have held it against them. Instead, her shuttle had been passed through with surprising efficiency, leaving her with the distinct impression that Victport Graras was every bit as interested in this meeting as she was. By the time she arrived at Collaboration Tower, she had already decided there was little reason to continue communicating through the commercial feelers that had brought them this far.

Ra entered the appointed room without an entourage of her own advisers. She had people who could discuss tariffs, shipping regulations, market projections, and a dozen other subjects in considerably greater detail if they reached that point. For a first meeting, however, she preferred simplicity. Victport was close enough in age to her own that she expected they had both accumulated sufficient experience to recognize when ceremony was useful and when it merely delayed a conversation. "High Commander," she greeted him, offering her hand along with a pleasant smile. "Thank you for the invitation. I was beginning to wonder how long it would take before someone traced all those questions back to me."

There was humor in the admission rather than embarrassment. Ra had never intended to conceal her interest, only to determine whether there was anything worth pursuing before approaching his government directly. "I imagine you've already realized I'm interested in more than selling a few shipments of goods on Mahporeem. Trade was where I wanted to begin, because there's little sense discussing closer relations between our governments if our people can't work together on something as straightforward as commerce." She settled comfortably into the conversation rather than attempting to dress the thought in diplomatic language. "What I'm actually interested in is whether the Imperial Remnant and the Protectorate might have enough in common to become useful partners. I didn't know that when I started asking questions. I still don't. But I thought it was worth finding out."

Victport Graras