Corinth is famous for its leather!

[Corey's OOC]

Marek Starchaser was actually excited for this meeting. For months he had been wanting to start working on projects for the Confederacy with several companies, and at least one was already working with his delegates, and that was BlasTech. They were off building firearms and weapons for the government. The next was getting the starfighters and other projects off hte ground with Santhe.

He'd known [member="Jared Ovmar"] for months now, and finally getting to work things out with the gentleman was exciting. So, that was where they were now, Marek had one of the penthouse conference rooms in Techno Union tower on Hypori cleared out and the invitations were sent for the meeting. Catering was provided, of course, and there was a fully stocked bar. The recently relaxing Foreman had a rocks glass of bourbon and and was checking to make sure everything was in order. Basically, the ideas he and the liasons had come up with were on the datacards, as well as some concepts he was working on for the Knights and Intelligence were there as well. He was only waiting on at least [member="Sasha Santhe"] and @Irys Aris'lar, as well as any aids they were bringing.

Taking his seat at the front of the room, he resisted the urge to put his feet up on the table, but did in fact, undo the top button on his dress shirt. Informal meeting, and hopefully it would go over well. Santhe stood to make a lot of money off of this deal.

And then one of those new ships, he was so going to purchase very quickly. The only trick was who they were selling to on the open market, after all, the Techno Union could share in these profits.

Plus there was the discussion of Haor Chall, but that was something that could happen near the end of the discussion, if at all that day.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

[member="Marek Starchaser"]

[SIZE=12pt]Sasha walked into the office room on Hypori. It had been awhile since she’d last visited the planet and wondered how prudent it would be wave around the deed to the planet and remind the man she was meeting that the very building they were in right now was only leased to him. Probably not very prudent at all. Instead she greeted him with a smile that won the hearts of so many, and caused the scandalvids to chase after her. Okay maybe it wasn’t the smile that made the scandalvids chase her. The woman extended her hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said waiting for the man to take it.[/SIZE]

 

[Corey's OOC]

To say that he didn’t know what was going on on his worlds was probably true. Marek Starchaser liked to keep up to date, but sometimes, things fell through the cracks. Contracts, agreements, trade laws, planetary deeds. He knew that the Techno Union didn’t own Hypori, and that was probably why he was going to upgrade all the Santhe facilities, so long as they agreed, which they had, to work with him.

Well, him, and his military advisors.

And that was when [member="Sasha Santhe"] walked in. There was something about her. The Force, really, but that didn’t surprise Marek. Survival of the fittest meant those with the Force were going to create more Force users, or sensitives. He was actually glad she wasn’t Force blind. Made things easier. Standing up, and matching her smile, he stepped up to her and took her hand. “The pleasure is mine, miss Santhe, welcome back to Hypori.”

He indicated a seat for her. “We’ll be joined shortly, military advisors, but for the time being, my staff has compiled a list of potential designs and concepts.”

Plus the Dodge Challenger Special Agent Edition, brought to you by Dodge.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Marek Starchaser"] [member="Sasha Santhe"]

Walking in Sasha’s wake was yours truly, yet again we were in the presence of Marek and the Techno Union in spirit. Which was just as well because I liked Marek and the Confederacy had a lot of money to spent for all manners of gadgets. Besides, I hear that these days Sally is in charge, always knew that guy would go far. Didn’t disappoint me whatsoever.

“Gentlemen, my Lady.” I said, while pushing back Sasha's chair so she could sit down. Sometimes you gotta be a gentleman, after that was done I picked out a seat myself and sat down next to her. Let's see what's on the program today, besides DANGER ZONE and SPYCARS.

 

[Corey's OOC]

Looking past Sasha Santhe after he greeted her, Marek smiled at her companion, one of his favorite folk in the galaxy, [member="Jared Ovmar"]. "Seems we will be seeing a bit more of each other, brother." So, maybe sometimes Marek sounded like he came from some swampy bayou, but his diction was of coastal extreme sports communities.

"We're still waiting on the representative from military acquisitions, who should be around presently. Can I fix either of you two a drink? "

 

[Sasha Santhe]

[member="Marek Starchaser"] & [member="Jared Ovmar"]

“I’ll have a Tom Collins,” Sasha said lifting up her hand, “don’t drown it.” She looked between the two men and examined them. She didn’t like this relationship they had. Jared was her wage slave, he shouldn’t have friends. “I see the Techno Union continues to enjoy my hospitality here on Hypori. How much do I charge you for rend and lease on my planet? Perhaps we can negotiate better terms if all goes well here. This would be the first tangible benefit to Santhe as a member of the Techno Union after all.”

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys wandered out if the turbo lift and into the room. She had been dead set on turning down this invitation for a casual discussion. As far as she was concerned the techno union had a far too cozy relationship. From her perspective it would be to her advantage for the companies to be at each other's throats. It would drive competition up and prices down. And so, she was concerned that her reputation would be damaged by being seen as too close to the union. After all, it was her job to ensure the military got a fair deal.

However, the Commodore loved a free lunch. The elderly male Bothan, Commodore de'rast had insisted on coming.

She smiled to those in the room, moving first if all to shake the hands of the Santhe members.

"Once again, I congratulate you on reaching the 'preferred bidder' stage, following our competitive tender to replace the front line CIS fighters. I look forward to negotiation on some of the finer points and hopefully we can have a constructive dialogue towards signing a contract. Although I believe today will be taken up with Mr Starchaser's agenda."

 

[Corey's OOC]

Marek preferred to serve drinks as opposed to have some droid doing it. Be could mix his own spirits, thank you. Almost forgetting the ingredients here, he did remember the bitters and prepped the drink, resisting levitating it over to [member="Sasha Santhe"]. With [member="Jared Ovmar"] not having ordered, he figured the other would take care of himself.

Turning to greet the commodore and [member="Irys Arist'lar"] from military acquisitions, he smiled. "Welcome." He knew there was a bit of tension with the latter, bet right now he knew they needed fighters. And Santhe could provide.

"I'm here to ensure that the businesses are protected. I've assembled data cards with what I feel we could use for the Confederacy since the lost of Incom. The reason the military is here, is to ensure we fill the gaps you are experiencing. May I introduce you to Sasha Santhe and Jared Ovmar, representing Santhe Corp." He said to the two Bothans.

Sure, maybe Marek did select Santhe because of their Techno Union standing, but their products wee also some of the best on the market.

"Also, care for a drink before we begin?"

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

"A pleasure," Irys said, extending her hand to the two Santhe representatives. "As an aside, we may have acquired a few of your products recently and will need to discuss a support and maintenance contract and potentially some training," she said, referencing the New Order fleet that had recently arrived in CIS space.

"A very strong caff would hit the spot please, Marek. Perhaps something stronger after."

 

[Sasha Santhe]

"Of course," Sahsa said to [member="Irys Arist'lar"]. "It would be a pleasure for us to provide assistance to you in that regard at cost. As a gesture of goodwill. Further we would be more than willing to host a number of your personnel on Lianna where we can train them in maintaince of repair of said vehicles as well as offer advisers on an as needed basis." Smiling she nodded to the Bothan woman, "We are a full service corporation with an impressive catalog for all of your needs." Sasha placed a datapad with the Santhe Catalog onto the table.

Sasha had her own agenda though. In addition to the datapad with her catalog was also some paperwork for [member="Marek Starchaser"]. These documents were well prepared and then placed in front of Marek. One was the former contract with the CIS for exlusive rights to all ships under 200 meters, the other was a contract for the sale of Haor Chall to Santhe Corporation as an autonomous subsidiary. One required only Mareks signature, while the other perhaps some more negotiations...

 

[Corey's OOC]

Caff, sure. Marek could do that. He had some brewing because, well, a lot of people enjoyed it with their poison of choice. He smiled as he poured a mug of the dark liquid and handed it over to [member="Irys Arist'lar"] before looking at the Commodore in anticipation.

Then there was work to be done. "It would do us well to get some engineers from the Systems and our field mechanics out to Lianna for training." Definitely. Marek liked that idea, keep things running instead of buying more. And dumping tanks into space. "I've been shopping around, we'll talk more on the non-fleet topic after, if you wouldn't mind." He nodded to [member="Sasha Santhe"] and smiled. Maybe they could have a full Santhe military. Possibly.

And thankfully, someone knew what the frell was going on with the contracts, skimming through them, he smiled and nodded. "Under 200 meters, thats the Santhe hot spot, isn't it?" He looked up and between the two women. He had no doubt they could work on that together. Grinning, he nodded and checked the remainder of the contract. Was he going to make a personal profit for the Haor Chall sale? It seemed like it was too good to be true. Covered by Santhe, so he could help the Xi Char, yet he'd still make the earnings and have a say. Perfect.

Count that as signed.

 

[Sasha Santhe]

[member="Marek Starchaser"] & [member="Irys Arist'lar"]

"Yes under 200 meters," Sasha said. "we specialist in small ships. Not just fighters but corvettes, gunships, transports. Why on the market we have one of the best troop delivery systems current available. The S90 MAAT, capable of speedily delivering troops to the battlefield. Although this isn't the bailywick of this meeting we also produce a number of high end military ground vehicles." Sasha shrugged. "In addition we have droid fighters, and are in the process of building several more class of vessels. We can provide these vessels to you and sign a contract for parts. Because of the bulk of the order as well we are willing to cut you a significant discount as well on parts."

Sasha smiled. Bulk. Undersell competitors in bulk. Make profits. "We are a full service corporation."

 

[Arage Bao]

I kept my silence while Sasha handed the dealings with the two representatives from the CIS, honestly there wasn’t much to say, it surprised me how… competent and not tabloidy she currently was. If only this demeanor of her could extend itself to all parts of life, instead of only during negotiations. Would probably make things much more easier in the long run, but that probably wouldn’t happen.

Truthfully, her schutta ways were getting to me, might be I even liked having her around once in a while, though I would never admit to this. Never. Nope. Not in a thousand years.

A smile decorated my lips once the signing of the contract was done and Harlot Chall was back into the fold of Santhe Corporation, excellent. Things were going exactly as planned.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys ignored the Commodore as he ordered a brandy from Starchaser, taking his time to see what was on offer. Lazy ass, she thought to herself. There was business to be done. She knew it was hard work to ensure the corporations gave them a good deal, they'd all fleece the government for all they were worth if they could. She also knew the best way to keep a relationship good within a contract was to ensure both sides were happy and worked well together. There has to be give and take.

"So, we're really very interested to talk about replacement fighters. Currently our range of swarm fighters - the CS/TX series - is performing well, but our piloted fighters - the CSX series - are under-performing. We liked your bid to extend the contract, but we have some points still to negotiate. So far, as we have officially indicated by giving you preferred bidder status, we found you best placed to fulfill the contract.

"One of the key sticking points is the terms of the 'exclusive rights.' I have mandates from above to increase competition and also to improve the competing power of small to medium-sized enterprises, this is the Confederacy after all! I have several small companies working on prototype ships, and niche vessels in this area. We'd like to change the wording to 'Piloted, military front line vessels of mass production'. We can define 'mass production' in the contract, but I was going to suggest something like two thousand vessels." Irys said. Obviously this wasn't the first time the concepts had come across, members of CIS military acquisitions and Santhe had been exchanging holomails for a while now, such was the protracted nature of procurement.

"Secondly, we have fix the contract length to ten years, I won't be able to get the government to approve anything longer. They prefer to re-compete contracts to ensure we get a good deal," she added. They'd found through significant research into previous contracts that ten years got the best price out of a supplier, as it gave them the confidence on a long period to recoup costs through maintenance contracts, but didn't allow them to become too lazy and stop working for their credits.

Irys casually flicked through the catalogue, leaving the screen displaying the Monitor-class and meeting Sasha's eyes. "I will say, I'm exceedingly interested in the S90. We're keen to put in place a new range of fighter, interceptor and at least one class of bomber. I do, however, have a more urgent request. We need to get some grav trap equipped vessels in the fleet within months. The government has released significant funding to expedite this. Now, this is a very sensitive requirement, so I've got to ask that we ensure that any Santhe staff working on fulfilling such a requirement wouldn't be vulnerable to...let's just imagine an Omega Protectorate agent, for example...exploiting them for information. I know this is going to be a tight timescale with plenty of caveats, but as I said, the urgency means we have resources available."

 

[Corey's OOC]

Short of making sure a company he owned survived, business deals like this, making sure everyone got what they wanted, was how Marek preferred to work. Maybe he should go into an entertainment industry? Not right now, he had a Bothan to sell. It seemed that [member="Irys Arist'lar"] was on page now, however. Maybe it was the caf? Marek gave a look between [member="Jared Ovmar"] and [member="Sasha Santhe"] while he listened. Extending the contract was a smart move, and he really was keen to jump on having Santhe fill the length part as well.

The Bothan was quite the dealer, though, and ordering in bulk, that would fulfill a Santhe standard and save him a bit of change, he assumed. Grinning, he sat back as he swirled the drink around his glass. The next time Santhe and he met, it was hopefully going to be with army teams, to see what they wanted. It would be nice to still fill some orders with Haor Chall products as well. That was yet another meeting to be lined up.

They did need fighters, with Incom black listing the Confederacy, getting parts was exceedingly harder. "It might help, Miss Santhe, to provide us with several test fighters, unless you know what you're looking for, Irys?" Right, he had a real slack in military protocol. He himself preferred the Exalt for at least one of their fighters, for the better pilots. Still, if he could get samples, or at least start moving fighters into the new vessels, that would make him feel worlds better.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

"An excellent point Mr. Starchaser. I could get some of my senior stakeholders: members of fleet command, test pilots, instructors at the fighter academy together. Perhaps a demonstration day?

"I'm keen to know what you'd put forward as the best value starfighters to fill out the numbers. We've also heard good things about the Raptors, but we'll need convincing. It's not going to be cheap to swap out the rack mounting for a new droid model!"