GR Contract: Firemane Industries

[Eugen Aker]

Old Izrul, Kiribi

From her local office on Kiribi, Suravi carried out her senatorial duties for the Republic as she advocated for Kiribian interests within the sector. With the One Sith now returning their focus to expansion as distraction from internal squabbles, she was doing everything she could to keep the region clear of their influence.

Today, she had several meetings lined up to secure new line of contracts to replenish the Republic's armories after Tenloss and several other vendors ceased dealing with government. In a case of irony, Lasedri's coup attempt had done more set back the Republic than any Sith invasion.

Up first was Firemane Industries. They had an impressive line of kinectic weapons that she thought would make a great addition to the military's pool of small arms.

Her appointment with represenatives from Firemane was set for 0800 GST (Galactic Standard Time) that day via holo-call.

[member="Mantic Dorn"] [member="Caius Flavian"] [member="Gael bar Ammon"] [member="Khyros Sunblade"] [member="Thalia Kaia"]

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

[member="Suravi Teigra"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Patiently the Firemane waited in her study on Tygara for the call which would patch her through to the Republic Senator. It was far more convenient than having to go there in person, that was for sure.
For her part, Tegaea wore a smart business suit with her red hair pulled back into a practical bun.

As the call came through she rose and pressed the button to activate the holo-cam, waiting to be greeted by the Republic delegates.

 

[Caius Flavian]

[member="Tegaea Alcori"] [member="Suravi Teigra"] [member="Gael bar Ammon"] [member="Khyros Sunblade"] [member="Thalia Kaia"]

Carida System
Carida, High Orbit
New Valor Station
0755 Galactic Standard Time


"President Flavian, a flat tax is a solid and equal means of taxation. Consider it a tithe of all citizens paying an equal share"
"Chancellor Reagos I've heard both you and Chief Justicar Bsallia go back and forth over this. Your cousin [member="Tonald Drump"] may have trumpeted such policies to attempt and build his insane 'space wall' idea but it has ruined the economy. When I preside over the Council tonight we will work on finding a middle ground"
"A middle ground? Preposterous! That fool Bsallia and her Republican ideals and selectivist heathens can go to hell"
With that, the fat man ended the holo call.

I had been on the line with him for the last half hour.
Been up since 0400 for a surprise inspection of the Herald of Retribution.
Followed by a short call with Bsallia at 0600 who talked my ear off about instituting public education...
Then Reagos had to butt in to give his two credits about how Bsallia's 'radical' tax reforms would sunder the economy apart.
Ruined my morning breakfast and tea with his incessant whining!

I seriously began to consider ordering the ISDIII sitting outside my window to unleash its proton beam cannon on the world below and set it ablaze.
Sanity of course took hold and shushed any such damning thoughts.

With the holo call now ended I could return to star gazing and gather my collective thought processes to determine a course of action.
The power sharing of executive authority over the Caridan government was tedious and exhausting.
As President I held only the powers as Head of State and Chief Legislator.
The Chancellor held Head of Government and Commander in Chief.
Chief Justicar was the leader of the newly created judicial branch.

My powers allowed me to appoint anyone to Senator for the Galactic Republic
With the confirmation made by both the Chief Justicar and Legislative Council I appointed myself.
A smile crept up as I looked upon the twinkling embers of a thousand stars.

The moment passed and was rudely interrupted by a call which came about precisely at 0800 GST.
With a raised eye brow I looked at the Senatorial holo conference call request with the utmost dread of more government work.
I sighed and spoke aloud to no one "Celestials take me, I fear I wear to many hats"
I took a calming deep breath and tapped the button and would materialize in my friendly colleague's office of Senator [member="Suravi Teigra"] in my Imperial uniform without a rank bar, but instead a simple red sash from my left shoulder down and across to my right hip. I held my grey steel travel mug in my right hand while my left held my head up. I tried very hard to put on a show of energy and readiness but that had pretty much been drained by my previous caller.

"Senator Flavian here"

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

[member="Caius Flavian"], [member="Tegaea Alcori"], [member="Suravi Teigra"]


Tegaea was not alone, for her wife had joined her for the holocall. This was not a surprise since they ran Firemane Industries jointly, having built it up together. The company had started as a small retirement project, but by now had grown into a massive megacorporation.


Going to the Senators directly in person would've been inconvenient for the Countess since she was still recovering from the injuries sustained on Dromund Kaas whilst battling an army of zombies and the malevolent Matsu Xiangu. The vicious scars in her face attested to that. As did the somewhat jerky movements of her new hand, as if she were not used to the replacement limb yet.


Regardless, the Storm Queen settled down on a comfortable leather armchair alongside her wife, giving Tegs' hand a fond squeeze. Much like her wife she was dressed in a fancy women's business suit, though she wore her firemane long and past shoulder-length. Taking a sip from a glass of water, she waited for the call to connect.

 

[Gael bar Ammon]

Temporary Government Office
Azure

He opened the leather bound folder on his desk, bearing the seal of the Galactic Republic Senate. Gael always had an appreciation for the finer things in life, and as trivial as it was, these folders were one of them. The way the gold emblem seemed to glow on the navy blue leather, the way the metallic corners remained undamaged, the weight it carried as gravity brought it down as soon as you opened it. Inside the folder was his agenda for the day. In moments time, he was due for a conference holo-call.

"Welcome, Senator bar Ammon.", the holographic voice sounded as he booted up his terminal. "Connecting..."

And with that, he was connected to the holo-call. Business seemed to have not yet started. He saw two unfamiliar faces, who he presumed to be the ones negotiating on behalf of Firemane Industries. He recognized those of Senators Flavian and Teigra. Ready to begin discussions, he sat quietly in his seat looking to the holographic figures in front of him.

[member="Suravi Teigra"] | [member="Caius Flavian"] | [member="Tegaea Alcori"] | [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]​

 

[Eugen Aker]

Right on schedule, the representatives from Firemane, and her colleagues on the Armed Services Committee connected to her server for the holo-conference. Each person would be projected at 1:1 scale in front of her desk, forming a small semi circle.

While she had no prior relations with Mrs. Alcori or Mrs. Kerrigan, she recognized them both from her research in preparing for the meeting. The heavy scarring on Kerrigan's face was a new addition. She couldn't help but linger on her for just a few extra moments as she glanced around at all in attendance. The sight of such disfigurations were an oddity on Kiribi, where the majority of the population engaged in some level of cosmetic surgery. Kiribians liked to joke among themselves that the biotech revolution during the bacta drought of the dark ages was spurred on by their collective sense of vanity as much as basic necessity.

"Mrs. Alcori and Mrs. Kerrigan, good morning to you both, and thank you for agreeing to meet with senate armed services committee. Along with myself, there is Senator Flavian of Carida , and Senator Ammon of Azure, the chairman of the committee. Senators, Mrs. Alcori and Mrs. Kerrigan are the top executives and owners of Firemane Industries."

She gave everyone a chance to exchange greetings among each other before proceeding.

"With the rise of countermeasures against directed energy weapons, the committee had identified a need for an arsenal of advanced ballistic systems capable of defeating modern conventional threats, as well as the paranormal. The Kiribian Mobile Infantry has had a positive experience in utilizing the MKI and MKII Bolter systems, and the AFU Grenades (through Archangel), so I've personally recommended that Firemane become a major supplier to the Republic as a whole."

"We're interested in establishing a long term contract with Firemane to acquire systems from your current catalog of small arms, and to have you collaborate with the armed forces and other security agencies in developing new weapon systems and munitions as needed."

[member="Tegaea Alcori"]
[member="Caius Flavian"]
[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]
[member="Gael bar Ammon"]

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

[member="Gael bar Ammon"] [member="Suravi Teigra"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] [member="Caius Flavian"]

Tegaea nodded and greeted each person in turn.

“Thank you for your consideration, Senator. I am glad to hear your experience has been positive so far. The bolter was developed based on personal observations my wife and I made on the ineffectiveness of both slugthrowers and blaster weapons against Force users. As you know, in the days where there were few Force users, the blaster made a useful weapon. However, in this age of Sith, the blaster is clearly an obsolete weapon against them. Thus, we developed the bolter to counter them.”

“My wife will now explain the technical details and give practical experience based on combat records.”

Though Tegaea obviously had used bolters before, Siobhan had used them more and more recently.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

[member="Tegaea Alcori"], [member="Caius Flavian"], [member="Suravi Teigra"], [member="Gael bar Ammon"], [member="Valiens Nantaris"]


She removed a stray lock of hair from her face. "We'd be very interested in a contract to provide arms for the Republic. Same applies to developing new weapons systems for it. We're a big company, so keeping up with demand is no problem," Siobhan spoke smoothly.


"As my wife said, bolters were designed as a counter to Forcers. They're durable and support a variety of ammunition types that can be switched in combat, including buckshot, flash and ion. Standard configuration is a semiautomatic grenade launcher firing shells that explode on impact. Any pressure exerted on the warhead will cause detonation. This makes telekinesis rather inefficient and trying to slice a bolt apart with a lightsabre will blow your hand off or at least shower you in shrapnel. Forcers with powerful defensive skills can tank it, but the gun has performed extremely well in combat scenarios. We've also designed a specialised round that pierces all but the heaviest suits of personal armour and has no minimum range, making it more practical in close quarters. While it has no AOE, trying to deflect the bullet will get you showered in molten copper."


"The Mark One Bolter's the basis for most of our small arms. We have the Mark Two, which is less powerful and supports fewer specialised ammo, but is easier to use and lighter. Likewise, we've got a heavy variant called the Mark Three. It fires high calibre explosive bolts and is capable of greater ammo capacity. We generally mount it on vehicles or barricades as a turret due to its size. Also of note are the bolt pistol, the anti-armour shatterboltgun that fires bolts and slugs at hypervelocity to penetrate medium vehicle armour and our shattergun rotary cannon. The last is what happens when you cross a shattergun with a rotary cannon using kinetic projectiles: A minigun that fires at hypervelocity. We have a portable and a mounted version. Our subsidiary Guild of Hammers produces its own line of shatter pistols, rifles etc."

 

[Caius Flavian]

My curiosity was piqued at the mention of these weapons.

I recalled, while acting as an Intelligence officer for the Imperial Remnant, a particular incident where I had illegally acquired some of these weapons and tested them on Crinan Practitioners who had rebelled against the Crinan’s Monarchy.
Brutal weapons, In fact my early infatuation with them was tempered in mild disgust as I had personally overseen what could only be best surmised as a weapons test and execution by firing squad wrapped into one single moment.
Such an event was snuffed from the records of having taken place.

I could still hear the screams as the prisoners looked on at their comrades being ripped apart by the ammunition.
My head shook at those memories and began I to sip on my tea.
A headache would begin to brew if I didn’t stay hydrated or dwell on the past while in company.
I simply played it off by seeming as though I did have a headache, nothing like a little PTSD to creep into your mind.

I pulled up the information on the particular weapon systems so far discussed by Miss Kerrigan.
I paid little attention to appearances of people. In fact unless they were completely non-human I cared little for what was physically scarred or different about anyone. For me any human or near human would be judged purely by merit. Non-humans I still looked upon in quiet disdain. Old xenophobia died hard and would likely last until my last breath before the celestials take me.

My attention was purely analytical.
I remembered the tests and the very report I had once wrote on the use of creating a non force user unit to counter force users. They would have been a sort of special operations unit to bag and tag or eliminate rogue force users within the imperial borders. A sort of hit squad.
Such a thing in the Republic was a different story.
My now abdicated Empress [member="Kista Fel"] saw the practical use of such a unit.
The Republic though would look upon the idea as simply starting a witch hunt…
Granted that was the idea, but politics...

Regardless of my own musing, whether past or present, the idea of integrating this into the Republic Military’s armory to use against the Sith and their sorceries was perhaps a fantastic move of diversifying our available weaponry.
“What are the production costs required to produce just a single one of these weapon types?” I spoke almost immediately after [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] had finished talking.
Hard numbers were something I had to crunch on to get a taste of whether the investment would sit right in my gut…
I must be hungry...

[member="Suravi Teigra"] [member="Gael bar Ammon"] [member="Tegaea Alcori"] [member="Khyros Sunblade"] [member="Thalia Kaia"]

 

[Gael bar Ammon]

As the two business executives made their pitch, Gael leaned forward resting his head on two clasped hands. He stared forward into the holograms, listening intently. To some, it would look like he was sleeping with his eyes open. To others, it would look like his gaze is piercing their very soul.

In truth, the prospect of arming the Republic military with anti-Force weaponry excited him. For too long the Sith have played their games with the Galactic Republic. For too long they've done as they please. Their boldness needed to be met with resistance, and from that, they would experience boldness from the Republic, Senate willing. Firemane's products very well could help shape the way war was waged in the future.

The explanation of it's technology didn't suffice for him though. As Senator Flavian inquired about the per unit cost, Gael thought of how to formulate his own questions.

"Tell me if I understand correctly. In simple terms, bolter rounds are explosive rounds. Because of this, traditional Force user countermeasures become unfavorable. Of course there're those who use the Force to block incoming projectiles, as well as their lightsaber. Could you highlight why these methods wouldn't work? Couldn't one just use the Force to detonate the round before it comes close to them, or even worse, as it's nearer to the firer?"

He thought further for a moment.

"What separates your bolter rounds from traditional armor-piercing or explosive slugthrower rounds?", he asked, his dark brown eyes gazing into those of the blue figures on his desk.

[member="Caius Flavian"] | [member="Suravi Teigra"] | [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] | [member="Tegaea Alcori"]​

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

[member="Gael bar Ammon"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] [member="Caius Flavian"] [member="Suravi Teigra"]

Tegaea glanced at Senator for Azure. She was convinced that her wife had just answered this point, but perhaps more emphasis was needed.

“I am no expert on using the Force, and I am sure my wife will correct me if I am wrong. However, I have a strong body of experience to call from to answer your question.”

“Yes, one versed in the Force can use it to project a wall. That will intercept and trigger the explosive payload of the shell. After that, it comes down to a simple calculation of how strong the Force user is. The explosion has a wide danger zone, and the explosion will very strongly strain even the best Force user’s defence. In best case scenario, they are too weak to withstand the shock and the blast penetrates and fills the Force user with shrapnel. In worst case the explosion is stopped by the telekinetic barrier, but as I said it will train even the most competent Force Master. And these bolters can fire one shot a second. How long can even a strong Force user withstand a barrage? Shorter than with blasters, from my experience.”

“As for what separates it? Not much, aside from the range of ammunition, the reliability of the weapon and the different tactical uses. It is essentially a portable grenade launcher made to battle rifle size. In the decade or more we have been using them we’ve found they outperform blasters in nearly every metric.”

She turned her gaze to the other Senator. “I believe my wife can answer the production costs question best as she has those figures with her.”

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

[member="Tegaea Alcori"], [member="Gael bar Ammon"], [member="Caius Flavian"], [member="Suravi Teigra"]


Siobhan had already elaborated on most of this, but nodded after Tegaea had spoken. "Speaking as someone who's used these weapons in many, many battles against Sith, including Sith Lords, I can confirm what my wife said," she said frankly.


"They're standard for Firemane troops, durable and highly versatile thanks to the variety of ammunition types a bolter supports. These allow a soldier to adapt to different combat situations. Regarding other weapons, both a shatterbolter and a shattercannon fire projectiles at hypervelocity, so due to the speed it's rather difficult for a Force-user to muster an effective defence unless they're masters at precognition. Moreover, a shattercannon fires 6,600 rounds per minute. They also have extremely high penetration power. Enough to penetrate medium vehicle armour. Our Anti-Forcer User Grenades actually have an internal mechanism that ensures a Forcer can't blow up the thrower after the grenade is tossed, because it only explodes after achieving a safe distance."


She produced a datapad to look at costs. "As for production costs, it costs us 500 credits to manufacture a Mark One Bolter and 150 for a Mark Two, 350 for a bolt pistol, approximately 1700 for a shatterboltgun or a heavy bolter and 3350 for a portable shattercannon or a box of ten Anti-Forcer Grenades."

 

[Eugen Aker]

Suravi could personally attest to the effectiveness of the weapon systems being discussed, having purchased for them her own security team of androids and Arisa. Any Force User delusional enough to think they were going to be able to tank high-tech explosives and a wall of projectiles each carrying the force of an auto-cannon was going to have a bad time.

"For the the capabilities we would be getting from these systems, I find your prices reasonable. However, would you be willing to work with us on a bulk discount? We're aiming to acquire enough to cover our entire military over the course of five to ten years."

The exact force strength of Republic military varied with the times, but there was at least a few million in rotation to cover their territory. That would probably translate into tens of thousands of Bolters and Shatterguns in a support capacity, millions of grenades, and an untold number of ammunition rounds.

"Senators, I'm satisfied with these systems from previous experiences, but do either of you require performance trials before proceeding with the contracting phase?"

Carida next door would be an excellent site for such trials if they were required. Since the days of the Old Republic, the planet had served as one giant training ground for countless soldiers over the generations. If any place had the facilities for extensive testing, it was Caius' planet.

[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] [member="Tegaea Alcori"] [member="Gael bar Ammon"] [member="Caius Flavian"]

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

[member="Suravi Teigra"], [member="Tegaea Alcori"], [member="Caius Flavian"], [member="Gael bar Ammon"]


"Thank you, Senator. I'm glad they meet your approval. To clarify, what I mentioned were production costs. We'd sell an Mark One Bolter at 1500, a Mark Two at 500, a shatterbolter and a heavy bolter at 5000 each, a portable shattercannon or a box of ten Anti-Forcer grenades at 10, 000 and a bolt pistol at 1000 credits. Those would be the standard market prices," Siobhan corrected gently.


"However, we'd offer significant discounts for bulk purchases. For a long-term contract such as the one you mentioned, we could offer a 30% discount on all Firemane weapons and munitions. Alternatively, the Republic could purchase the patents in return for a substantial fee, trademark agreements and so on so that you can manufacture the weapons and ammunition yourself."

 

[Eugen Aker]

"Apologizes, let me clarify. When I mentioned prices, I had your usual markup in mind. I was looking to use your sales price as the basis for establishing the discount."

30% wasn't bad, but she felt that they could probably push for more since they were dealing wholesale. Firemane's markup was high, so she could seek a deeper discount while they maintained some healthy profit margins on the sales. Acquiring patents outright was as an even more tempting proposal though. Since the time she had acquired the Gorgon Web Rifle for her security detail, she had been thinking about seeking licensing options on behalf of some local firms like KSA. They already had some prototypes in the works based off Firemane designs (through Archangel), with only legal considerations holding them back from proceeding to full scale manufacturing.

"So which patents would you be willing to sell, exactly? We should be able to offer an initial payout for immediate compensation, coupled with royalties for any productions involving the use of your patents."

[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] [member="Tegaea Alcori"] [member="Gael bar Ammon"] [member="Caius Flavian"]

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

[member="Suravi Teigra"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] [member="Gael bar Ammon"] [member="Caius Flavian"]

“The production rights to the Mk1 and Mk2 bolters, along with the Anti-Force-User Grenades we would be willing to offer in exchange for an initial payout and royalties thereafter. It is my thoughts that this will significantly help both of us. By allowing you to manufacture the items yourself you cut down on delays, and over time it will prove to be a net benefit for you.”

Selling the rights would not be cheap, but once one was producing tens of thousands of them they would break even in time, and even with the royalties it would prove beneficial.

“I was thinking that royalties of 10% of production costs per unit constructed would be fair, in addition to the one-time lump-sum payout for the production rights.”

This would give Firemane a constant, if small, flow of cash, but also be good value for the Republic. The initial payout would be very large though, but this writer is not able to calculate that right now, however.

 

[Caius Flavian]

I mulled the costs over.

I cringed a little at the thought of arming the entire Republic Army with these weapons. Already a diverse fighting force in terms of demographics but there would be an issue of counter measures that the opposing forces would develop or may already have in the waiting wings.
Regardless I still liked the idea of simply introducing it as part of a series of training programs for weapons specialists. Similar to how one soldier would be trained to utilize a Light assault blaster in a squad or grenade launcher the Mk1 Bolter could be another weapon that a specialist may pick up and train in.

We could even have specific platoons trained up in this as fast response on larger battlefields, moving toward the force user in the lead.
I would likely confer this with our General Staff later on as it would be up to them decide how best to equip the Armed Forces. We simply provided the funds and means of acquisition for them to maintain the best arsenal.

After listening intently to both [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] and [member="Tegaea Alcori"] go into further detail about the weapons along with Suravi well sought desire to purchase the patents so that we could produce these ourselves. I decided to add a little more to this as a matter of good will.

“If I may ladies,” I cut in after another sip of tea “Perhaps we could also offer a bit more on our part. First we can also broker a bit of deal here to hire on consultation from Firemane. For a three year period to ensure quality control and production is maintained. These personnel would be contracted out to us and in return on top of the royalties being paid we can compensate your company their salary plus an additional 5%. A little substantial but this will go a long way to allowing our personnel to eventually fully maintain the means of production in the long run”

[member="Suravi Teigra"]
[member="Gael bar Ammon"]

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

[member="Caius Flavian"], [member="Suravi Teigra"], [member="Tegaea Alcori"]


Siobhan took a sip from her glass of water, finishing it. She looked towards the holographic projection of President-Senator Flavian. The offer surprised her a bit. "That sounds agreeable to me, Senator. We'd gladly provide consultants to assist you. We'd also be able to provide specialists to train select units of the Republic army in the use of these weapons. Specifically to combat Force-users."


Firemane's roots lay in being a PMC company and its troops were very focused on anti-Forcer combat. Once the skills had been pased on to a select care of Republic weapons specialists, they could dispense with Firemane's advice. Siobhan reached out with her hand to give Tegaea's a squeeze beneath the desk.

 

[Gael bar Ammon]

Gael was content with the weapons the Firemane representatives had presented. He wanted to expand the Republic's arsenal with the products that Firemane was offering. Now all that was left was to discuss numbers. His fellow senators have already taken the liberty of throwing out terms and numbers. While he was glad others were taking the initiative and leading a well-thought out negotiations, he was upset that they hadn't thought to confer with each other to discuss terms before delivering them to the Firemane representatives. Senators Flavian and Turavi already seemed to be on the same page, but Gael was displeased with the numbers. He thought they were absurdly high, but to go and void his peers negotiations thus far would be nothing short of rude.

"Senator Flavian.", he pitched in. He paused to think. A large lump sum coupled with royalties and the salaries of quality control agents plus some was too much. He redirected his focus to the two merchants.

"Ladies, do you mind if we deliberate privately for a few moments?", he asked courteously to the Firemane representatives.

The Republic should not under any circumstances have to foot the bill for quality control, customer service, or their employee's salaries. That's one thing that he'd make clear should the Firemane sellers agree to let them speak. He wanted very much to acquire the weapons Firemane had to offer, but if the price wasn't right, it wasn't right. After their deliberations and a consensus was reached among the senators, Gael was confident a deal could be reached.

[member="Caius Flavian"] | [member="Suravi Teigra"] | [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] | [member="Tegaea Alcori"]​

 

[Tegaea Alcori]

[member="Gael bar Ammon"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] [member="Caius Flavian"] [member="Suravi Teigra"]

Tegaea nodded in agreement with her wife’s words. Discerning expressions and thoughts via the holocom was not always easy. However, she figured that two of the three Republic Senators were strongly on board. It was only Gael bar Ammon who seemed hesitant.

Convinced that they had done all they could, she nodded graciously.
“Of course, Senators. Ping us when you are ready. We look forward to your decision.”

With that she put the link on hold, but it could be reactivated when the Senators had finished their deliberation. As it was now Siobhan and Tegaea could not hear or see the Senators and vice versa.

This double checked she looked to Siobhan. “So, what do you think? Think they’ll agree?”