Contract I Highjacked the Frequencies

[Rusty]

The hotel had an excellent breakfast buffet.

Honestly, that was the only reason Rusty had chosen the place. He didn't take his HRD out very often, but when he did, he liked to make use of its capabilities. Eating was one of his favorites, right before drinking and right after sex. Best part was, he didn't have to worry about calories like a normal organic. The droid body was perfectly capable of burning off any excess calories loaded on without threatening the almost comically chiseled physique. The Shard wasn't fond of the way it stood out in a crowd, but there were some definite perks to the setup.

Now he and his assistant, Koko, were sitting around at a large conference table made out of a solid slab of Endorian redwood, both of them stuffed to the gills and none the worse for it.

The two were a study in contrasts.

Rusty's HRD was almost exactly two meters tall, with dark hair, tanned skin, an extremely well muscled frame and a jawline you could use as a battering ram. Koko, on the other hand, was slender, with pale skin and bone white hair and rather delicate features. Both of them wore charcoal gray business suits, though while Koko made it look respectable, Rusty looked like a well paid thug. Might have had something to do with the way the rather startling array of weaponry he had on his person bulged out from the jacket, or the fact that he clanked every time he shifted in his seat.

Koko had tried to talk him out of packing an arsenal, but since the other party knew they were armed, he figured he might as well make sure he was armed.

Today was a momentous day for the pair that constituted RCFC's workforce. Rusty had been looking for contracts for a while, and this looked like it would be worthwhile. Not only were his toys getting out into the world, he would be getting phrik in return. The metal was highly sought after for its utility in fighting Force Users, but the Shard was more concerned with its applications in gunsmithing. With a high mechanical strength and light weight, the sky was literally the limit. Off the top of his head, he figured phrik barrels for Gertrude and Olga were in order. With those, he could ditch the cryogenic cooling jackets, saving weight and allowing him to shunt more power into the inertial dampers.

Still, as Koko was fond of reminding him, it was too early to get excited. They still had to hammer out the terms of the contract, and they had to sort out the legalese before any of it would be binding. That's why they were here in this swanky hotel on the shipbuilding world of Gyndine. None of the major powers had managed to sink their teeth into it yet, which meant they could conduct business without having to worry about anyone interfering. Hopefully. If that wasn't the case, he suspected that there would be enough firepower in the room to wage war once the other guys arrived.

Now all he and Koko had to do was wait.
[member="Miss Blonde"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="Rusty"]

Miss Blonde was shot, completely and utterly done. She had been working on Demonsgate non stop moving phrik ore like no tomorrow and now she had a meeting to set up some contract with Rusty to get his business selling phrik products. Now here was the thing about contracts, while going through legal channels they were certainly all well and dandy, but this wasn't exactly the legal world. This was the criminal underground and they would sell phrik to anyone who needed it and the contract was really just a formality as an understanding of the term and conditions of their deal.

With her hair a mess and her eyes red and tired the woman proceeded into the conference room trailed by a posse of armed guards that had a variety of blaster and slug pistol tucked within their jackets and pants. As for Miss Blonde she wore a standard cheap black suit and had a two pistols in holsters around her slim chest.

Taking a sit the the woman flopped into the chair opposite to rusty and his assistant, really she was just wanting to get the meeting over and done with and wasn't in the mood for small talk and and other pleasantries. People wanted phrik and it sold like waffles to drunks at three o'clock in the morning. Her hair covered most of her face that was starting to sink in by now, so she puffed a strand of hair away from her face and then sighed pushing it back behind her head.

"I have a lot of phrik to move, so forgive my brash attitude. But please state your needs and I will see if they are acceptable. Currently we have the capability to sell around a thousand pounds of refined phrik ingots every week, but raw phrik ore can go upwards to five thousand pounds per sale. The price is one million credits per unrefined ore, and one point five for refined. However contracted buyers will receive a frequent shopper discount that can be upwards to ten percent depending on the volume of orders being sold." Miss Blonde said in a very grungy voice.

 

[Rusty]

Rusty raised an eyebrow. Someone hadn't had their caf this morning.

"I'm fairly easy to please. 50 pounds of refined ore per month will be more than enough to meet our needs on a regular basis, with the option to acquire more for special projects. Comes out to a cash value of about 75,000 credits monthly. In return, we supply your organization with equivalent amounts of high quality weaponry and ammunition. If we need more that the 50 pounds, we'll pay for it in credits. You can get your goods from our catalog, or you can commission any special pieces that meet either your personal needs or the needs of your organization."

He slid a datapad across the table with the details of what they currently had available and projected R&D costs for new products of various sizes. The quoted figures for R&D were absurdly low compared to what one might find from a larger company. Rusty did pretty much all of it himself, and since he didn't need to sleep, that significantly compressed the development and testing cycle.

"As a sign of goodwill, I'd be happy to provide you with coordinates of a currently unclaimed planet where you'd be able to mine beskar ore if you've the desire to expand your operations. I just picked up a few tons of the stuff myself on a day trip not long ago."

[member="Miss Blonde"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="Rusty"]

Miss Blonde was rather tuned out from everything Rusty was saying, going through the motions and it all sounded very basic and acceptable which she was more than willing to move forward on. But what made her snap out of her little daze of the word Beskar, honestly she had no idea how to forge the stuff and she was certain that the mandos had that all locked down. But that didn't mean she couldn't make an absolute killing on selling the ore, if people freaked for phrik then they were going to lose their god damn minds for this stuff.

"Mister Rusty you had my curiosity, now you have my full attention." The woman reached back and tied her hair into a neat ponytail.

Her face was visibly tired but now a lot more focused than it had previously been, she was set and wanted to know where this beskar was. If she could get the information she could be on the forefront of the galaxy when it came to selling crap like this.

"Your terms are more than acceptable, and I believe me in exchange for information like this we are more than willing to give much more phrik than what you ask for." Blonde said as she snapped her fingers over towards one of her men.

Lugging in a heavy briefcase the man heaved and groaned setting it down with a hard clinking noise.

"Samples." She said as she faced the briefcase over to rusty and slid it over allowing him to open it himself.

 

[Rusty]

"Place is called Echoy'la. Used to be held by some religious cultists by the name of Primeval, but they went under, and it's more or less unattended. Place is basically a free for all right now, but the locals don't mess with anyone they can't take easily. Lotta money to be made."

The Shard grinned as he slid over yet another datapad, this time with the intel he had collected from his adventures there. His grin widened as he examined the sample. He pulled a beskar file he'd forged out of its place in his sleeve and rasped it against the phrik. It bit, but only just. Between the two metals, beskar was harder, but phrik was lighter and more common. Also a lot, lot easier to work with.

"This is good stuff."
[member="Miss Blonde"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

[member="Rusty"]

"Sounds like a groovy place." Blonde said with a slight smile.

"Also yes, yes it is. It's from Demonsgate, the black rose let's us mine there and I pay then a good percentage for the profits in credits. It's a little more than I'd like but you have to spend money to make money." Miss blonde said before she took her datapad from another man by her.

"Well if you can wire me the coordinates after this deal has been forged I'd certainly appreciate it, no doubt the mandos are going to want to get their grubby little hands on it as soon as they can. So I want to get a base set up there as soon as possible." But then an idea hit her and honestly it only seemed fair.

"Tell you what, since we are signing a contract here how about we share on this little beskar escapade. I'd certainly like someone like you helping me move ore and as much as we can before the mandos show up to shut down everyone's party. What do you think?" Blonde asked the shard with serious intent.

 

[Rusty]

Rusty glanced over at Koko, who picked up from there.

"RCFC is not currently equipped to move large volumes of ore," she said, her voice a smooth contralto that contrasted pleasantly with Rusty's gravelly rumble. "And at any rate, there simply isn't a market for it. The Mandalorians have done an excellent job of keeping their supplies out of the hands of the general public, and Primeval never advertised the presence of their planet. If you try to flood the market with high quality beskar ore, it's a near certainty that not only will the public be highly suspicious of its origin, the Mandalorians themselves are also likely to get involved."

She smiled, but there was nothing soft or pleasant about the expression. It was more akin to the look of a fox in a chicken coop.

"However, let's say you manage to obtain a large quantity of beskar ore, enough to constitute a stockpile. With the market price of a pound of ore rivaling precious metals like gold, one could make money off a stockpile like that for years. If you sell just enough to create a demand, you can set the price as high as you'd like and some poor fool would pay it. A single heavy freighter's worth of ore could turn into billions of credits over a span of a few years. Of course, I would be amazed if you stopped at a singe freighter's worth. If I were in your shoes, I'd keep on extracting as much ore as possible until someone notices that Echoy'la is free for the taking and scoops it up. You can rest assured that whatever government claims it will lock down the ore supplies as a 'strategic resource' or some such nonsense."

[member="Miss Blonde"]