Dear Firemane

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Dear Master Kerrigan,

If you or your associates from Firemane happen to visit the Tion Trade Nexus within the next couple of weeks, I'd be pleased to meet with you over a question of some urgency.

Selka Ventus
Board of Directors
Silk

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

Galactic timezones were a terribly fuzzy business but as it happened Selka's message came at a point in time when Siobhan and Tegaea were still awake. Thus avoiding the somewhat embarrassing situation of both ladies being woken up while sleeping. Or whilst pursuing...the activities happily married couples tended to do during nightime.


Rather they were on the balcony and enjoying a glass of wine because this writer is in a terribly sappy mood for some reason. Perhaps it's because they're running out of ways to maim Siobhan without making it appear redundant. "Mistress, there's a message on your private terminal," Kelly Chambers, oh, wait, Harmony, Siobhan's 'personal assistant', said. For some reason this writer imagines her looking like Samantha Traynor. Oh, and, yes, she definitely had the same sexy accent.


Anyhow, meta references aside, on with the plot. "More fanmail?" Siobhan wondered. No, she was not being self-centred at all.


Harmony shook her head.  "I'm afraid it's not another request from Ashira's Angels for a photoshooting or a morethanbarbuddies.net fan. It's marked high priority.


"Sounds important. You want to come have a look at my secret messages?" she asked Tegaea before getting up. Harmony was so kind to pass her cane over and so Siobhan limped back inside into the villa and eventually ended up in her private study, presumably with her titian-maned wife in tow. Presumably this took place after the Second Battle of Gehenna, where Siobhan had suffered the unpleasant experience of losing her remaining organic eye, having a room crash on her and her lung so badly damaged it had to be replaced. Needless to say that had not been very unpleasant and walking was a bloody pain, though she was too proud to accept any help.


Upon reading the message after doing whatever steps you must do to access this Galaxy's version email account, she frowned. "Cryptic. Selka Ventus wants to meet me on the Tion Trade Nexus. Former CEO of Silk, now on the Board. Doesn't say why, just that it's 'urgent'. Silk and Firemane had produced and designed ships for Kaeshana together and Silk had provided considerable support for the construction of the Tirathana Skyport.


As for Tion itself, Firemane had a contract with ATC, which was profitable. What was less pleasant was Siobhan's nagging suspicion that Sasha Santha had deliberately left her infected with technovirus nanites. As was well-known Siobhan did not like cryptic much and appreciated straightforward talk, though that mind set might be a bit naive in the business world. "Not in the mood for travel. I'll reply we'd like a holochat." And so by the power of technological space magic that allowed near-instant communication across space and time, Selka would soon receive a reply.


Dear Ms. Ventus,
thank you for your message. We would be interested in meeting with you travelling to the Tion Trade Nexus would be inconvenient for me due to matters of health. I suggest we communicate via holocomm. You can be assured that our channels are secure and there will be no risk of eavesdropping.
Countess Siobhan Kerrigan

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

[member="Selka Ventus"], [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Holocommunication was a wonderful thing. It meant less long and potentially perilous journeys. In this case it was the best thing considering Siobhan was still recovering from losing more organs on Gehenna.
"Excellent," she said to Siobhan.

Soon enough they'd discover what Ms Ventus wanted to know so badly.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Tegaea Alcori"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

A time was quickly arranged in the my-people-call-your-people kind of way, and the former interim CEO of Silk -- currently a minor member of the Board of Directors -- fuzzed to holographic life in whatever room Alcori and Kerrigan used for this sort of thing.

"Master Kerrigan, Miz Alcori, good to see you again. I'll come to the point; I'm told it's late evening on Kaeshana, and I'd hate to interrupt anything. A Silk affiliate - Haor Chall, part of the Tion Hegemony trade partnership, which includes our partner Arceneau Trace Company as well as Akure Executive Interstellar, which is part of the Silk Family of Companies -- has been attacked. The goal appears to have been starship theft, and we're still working on who's responsible. Here's one clue we've managed to snare."

An image appeared, footage from the raid: an Adril-class starfighter, designed by Firemane and manufactured by Silk.

"These ships are somewhat rare on the open market, I believe. It's a fairly brazen calling card, or a mistake on someone's part -- the ship appears personalized, and we're all prone to sentiment now and again. My hope is that you might be able to find some manner of clue in your sales records, for the sake of mutual security. I'll send you our data on the raid."

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

[member="Selka Ventus"], [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Tegaea decided to take the lead in this. She handled questions such as this more often than one might expect. It was a problem faced by all armament manufacturers; sometimes the losing end wanted to know who had bought the weapons which had ruined them.
It was always a tricky situation, and Firemane’s policy generally was to avoid giving such details. This time though was even more complex.

Silk had helped manufacture for Firemane before they could get their own facilities online, and they were one of the biggest players in the galaxy. However, they had deep ties with the Tion region, and Siobhan and Tegaea both had suspicions about some of those working there. What’s more, if word got out that Firemane ratted on buyers, that would bad. On the other, it was unwise to annoy Silk unduly.

And so Tegaea decided to go a different tack.
“Ms Ventus, I’m sorry to hear about this attack. Please send us the data. The Adril has been a popular product and I would not wish to unfairly incriminate anyone.”

With the galaxy being a mess of overlapping jurisdictions and authorities, the only real means of getting justice outside of friendly territory was to attack back, and Tegaea didn’t want to cause a war either.

“If you will send us that information we will look through and see if we can turn up something. Shall we reconvene in say…six standard hours?”

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

"Awfully early for you two, but if it's convenient, that would be ideal. Thank you, Miz Alcori. I understand the position you're in, but believe me when I say that our research indicates these raiders would have as little mercy for you and your wife as they do for the Tionese. The Hegemony has its flaws, but from what we've gathered, we're dealing with anarchists who love trying to stake out moral high ground. And I say that as someone who was once part of the Rebel Alliance."

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

[member="Tegaea Alcori"], [member="Selka Ventus"]


It would indeed be terribly early for our two lovebirds on Kaeshana. In the words of Chesna, irrespressible troll of trolls, it would be too early in the morning to be early in the morning. Siobhan had especially become fond of her beauty sleep, even though having a kid to look after now probably reduced the number of hours where you could just be idle and laze around! In any case they ended the holoconference and soon had received a stream of data from Silk Holdings about the attack. Likewise Siobhan made some calls to both COAS, Firemane's intelligence service, and her own, how shall we put it, unofficial contacts in the underworld. Fortunately Heli had recovered from the whole Shadow incident fine enough to send some information her way. In any case there was plenty of info they could look through in privacy. Once they had finished with that they would reconvene with Selka.


"Looked into the Silk and data and cross-referenced it with info from Heli and COAS. Seems a bunch of rebels tried to attack Haor Chall Engineering factories on Charrov IV, Republic planet. Company's affiliated with the CIS, or whatever they call themselves this week, and owned by Santhe. Not that I'd mind either of the two being given a good, hard clobberin', but attacking a Republic planet in the process and picking a fight with almost every megacorp in the Galaxy's just plain dumb. Anyhow, one Adril was used in the skirmish. Raid attempt got easily repulsed, even Mandos showed up for the party. Whole affair seems comical," Siobhan spoke, passing over the datapad to Tegaea.


"Heli did some diggin' on the attackers. Basic platform seems to be plenty of yammerin' about liberating the 'oppressed' and picking a fight with anyone who's an 'imperialist oppressor' - and they seem to have a very broad definition. Call themselves the new 'Rebel Alliance', but so far they haven't done anything relevant. AEI put a bounty on them."


As was known, Siobhan had worked with the Rebel Alliance run by Jorus and Dells back in the day, and while she had fallen out with the redhead she counted the Lord of the Hyperlanes as a friend, so having a problem with insurgents in general would be terribly hypocritical of her. Naturally the age-old problem with rebel and insurgents movements was that you could never be sure whether someday they would not decide you were a 'fascist', 'imperialist', 'tyrant', or which group of bad guys they fought. Presumably Siobhan would be happier if the plucky rebels used fighters to kill One Sith.


"Also dug up some of our transactions for the Adril-class. From before the date of the attack. Same person ordered another squadron a bit before Gehenna." Namely a certain Geneviève Lasedri. Of course, the transactions did not say anything about 'we want your fighters for our Rogue Squadron to stick it to the Man and liberate the oppressed'. Naturally an arms manufacturer did generally not ask about what their products would be used for or against whom. The Company delivered, you paid, beyond that it did not care unless you were a Sith. The situation was just more complex here because of Firemane's close ties with Silk, despite the suspicions the couple had about Tion. Likewise it had a contract with ATC, also part of the Tion trade empire.

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

[member="Selka Ventus"], [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Tegaea nodded approval of what Siobhan had gathered. She remembered the order of first four and then a second batch of fighters. This writer isn’t sure if they ‘know’ who was behind the order, but one can assume they know something.

“The question becomes, love, do we tell them? These Rebels are a pretty messy, anarchic bunch, but they are our customers. Should we give them up?”

At times like this one’s morals and beliefs came to the fore. Tegaea had no love for the Rebels and their rather random attack on 90% of the galaxy. However, she also had no love for mega-corporations, even those they’d done business with, enacting reprisals on her information.

In this situation the dilemma resolved itself to her mind quite simply. It might cause trouble down the line, but without one’s beliefs one was nothing.

“I think we should tell them that it was the Rebels. That much is clear from other sources. However, we will not tell them who placed the order, only say it was a leader in the Rebellion. Say there was strong encryption on the line or whatever. If word gets out that we give over details at the drop of a hat we’ll never be trusted again.”

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

[member="Selka Ventus"], [member="Tegaea Alcori"]


Siobhan thought over the matter briefly then nodded. In most business affairs she tended to defer to her wife and follow her lead. Partly because she plain did not like being in charge, partly because she trusted her fully and thus was comfortable with her taking the spotlight there. Even though Siobhan was a good deal less moral than her wife was.


"Agreed. Makes sense. I think we should not sell to the plucky Rebels in the future. They're too unreliable for us to be certain they won't randomly decide that Kaeshana needs 'liberating' and other corporations might try to exploit it and spin us as helping 'dangerous terrorists'. As hypocritical as that is given how cool they are with consorting with Sith."


Of course, the Rebels seemed pretty useless in her estimation and it's not like any of their corporate competitors were more moral, what with dealing with Sith and stuff, but the point seemed valid to her. Anyhow, after an indeterminate amount of time had passed they made the holocall to Selka Ventus. Once she had answered Tegaea would presumably present their findings and handle the talking part.

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

[member="Selka Ventus"], [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Once the allotted time had passed, Tegaea reconnected the call to Selka.

“Ms Ventus, I have discovered some information which may be of use to you. The ‘Rebel Alliance’, the newest incarnation anyway, bought eighteen Adril fighters over two orders. We have been unable to verify the details of the person making the order except that it was a high ranking woman. Now we have a greater idea about the frankly rather radical agenda of this group we will prevent any further sales. They had assured us that they would only be using them to fight the real tyrannical forces in the galaxy; the Sith. However, this seems not to be the case.”

“Is there anything more Firemane can do for you, Ms Ventus?” she asked in closing.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Tegaea Alcori"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

"Not at all, Miz Alcori. Thank you greatly for your time, and the Board thanks you too. Please let me know if there's anything Silk can do for you in return."

The call ended. She didn't believe the encryption line, but at this point there was no sensible option but to act as if she did. And she doubted Firemane expected her to believe it, which would be one factor behind the decision to stop sales to the Rebellion. All in all, a satisfactory outcome.