First Reply Do You Have Ambition

[Zis Azetesha]

The ambient light in the upper-tier office on Rasterous always had a corporate, orange tint, filtered through the planet's heavy, smog-choked atmosphere. Outside the reinforced transparisteel, the endless manufacturing spires hummed with a low vibration that Zis felt more in her heels than her ears. It was a view she actively ignored, keeping her eyes fixed instead on the green glow of the datapad resting on her desk.

Those glowing spreadsheets confirmed what she already knew: the Kuat Systems Consortium was moving a record number of vehicles, starships, and personal weaponry across the galaxy. It was steady, incredibly profitable work, but entirely too safe for her liking.

The major galactic players had built a system designed to keep her exactly where she was, and she knew she would never climb the ranks without leveraging some considerable, independent influence of her own.

Relying solely on these Imperial Remnant contracts meant playing by rules written by dead emperors, rules that reduced her to a mere contractor rather than an equal power. To break that cycle, she needed to diversify, which meant taking risks that the board would never approve.

As if anchoring herself against the gamble, her fingers tapped once on the polished obsidian desk, just inches above the heavy disruptor pistol magnetically clamped to the under-frame.

The safety was off. Rasterous attracted a specific breed of ambitious desperation, and Zis had no intention of being a casualty of someone else's play. The sharp, two-tone chime of the door cut through the low industrial hum, slicing the heavy silence of the room.

Zis smoothed the front of her tailored tunic, her posture shifting into something effortlessly rigid as she prepared to face her gamble. Even as the door began to slide open, she kept her eyes fixed on the datapad for two seconds longer than necessary just enough to establish exactly what kind of person she was.

"Come in," she said, her voice smooth, cool, and carrying the crisp, unmistakable cadence of high galactic society. Only then did she look up, her eyes fixing on the silhouette stepping through the threshold.

 

[Wrenna Kaine]

The soft hiss of the office door barely registered over the measured cadence of heels crossing polished durasteel. Wrenna Kaine entered without haste, every movement deliberate, every glance purposeful. The white gown she wore was impeccably tailored beneath a fitted black overcoat, the contrast drawing the eye as effectively as the polished black cybernetic hand resting comfortably at her side. Gold jewelry caught the amber light filtering through Rasterous' perpetual haze, though none of it was ostentatious enough to distract from the quiet confidence she carried.

Her escort remained outside. There was little point bringing muscle into a room where everyone important already understood the value of violence.

Golden eyes swept across the office in a practiced instant. Functional. Secure. Defensible. There was no sign of any weapons, but she would be shocked if there wasn’t one accessible to the woman on the other side of the desk. Whether by experience or instinct, Wrenna had long since learned that people who kept weapons close generally expected to need them. She approved.

Only then did she settle her attention fully upon Zis. The pause stretched just long enough to acknowledge the woman's calculated delay in looking up from the datapad. A familiar tactic. Wrenna answered it with one of her own, taking a moment to admire the smog-veiled skyline beyond the transparisteel before finally offering the executive her complete attention.

A faint smile touched her lips. "Miss Zis Azetesha." Her voice carried neither warmth nor coldness—only certainty. "I appreciate someone who understands the value of making an entrance."

Without waiting for an invitation, she crossed the remaining distance and took the offered seat with the easy confidence of someone who had spent years negotiating with crime lords, politicians, admirals, and CEOs alike. She neither sprawled nor perched; every inch of her posture projected composure.

"I'll spare us the ritual of pretending this meeting happened by chance." A slight tilt of her head accompanied the words. "You have manufacturing capacity that rivals governments. I have networks that governments pretend do not exist until they need them."

Her cybernetic fingers tapped the armrest once, a muted metallic sound punctuating the silence. "The galaxy is changing. Old empires are fragmenting, borders are becoming... flexible, and demand is increasingly dictated by those willing to move faster than bureaucracies."

Another measured smile. "I suspect you're ambitious enough to recognize opportunity when it presents itself." Wrenna folded one gloved hand over the other, studying Zis with the quiet patience of a predator perfectly content to let someone else make the first move. "So tell me. What is it you're truly looking to build?"

Wrenna Kaine

• Location: KSC offices, Rasterous
• Objective: Make a deal
• Outfit: Black Outfit, White Coat
• Company: Zis Azetesha

 

[Zis Azetesha]

A few loose strands of hair fell partially across Zis's left eye, obscuring the view of Wrenna Kaine sitting across from her. She didn't brush them away as she studied her guest from behind that slight veil with an unreadable expression. The woman was undeniably a headache in a tailored overcoat, the exact breed of underworld filth who mistook a lack of bureaucratic oversight for a semblance of power.

Dealing with the criminal underworld would be considerably profitable, but only if one maintained enough distance to avoid getting dragged down into the mud. She herself didn't care about getting dirty in gang wars on a planet or across the galaxy, but her reputation, and by extension the company's was an entirely different matter.

Once that was lost, there was no easy way to restore it without underhanded methods, leading right back into the arms of awaiting criminals like her newfound associate here. She allowed the silence to linger between them to an uncomfortable degree, the low hum of the spires outside filling the gap.

Her fingers shifted slightly, her manicured nails making a faint click against the obsidian desk as she slid the datapad a few inches to the side. It was a small, deliberate movement, signaling that they would now begin a proper conversation without any grand rhetoric.

Leaning back just enough to let her shoulders settle into the rigid lines of her chair, she kept her eyes locked on the woman through the stray hair.

"You seemed to have misread my intention, Lady..." She paused, letting the word hang in the air as she waited for the woman to provide her full name and title, before continuing.

"I have already built a successful enterprise and therefore what I'm intending to do now is expand. If you can assist in that endeavor, then we may proceed as planned by you explaining exactly what your networks do."