Moving form A to B

[Laira Darkhold]

Well, Benji was understandably upset. I was telling him to pick up and move after several years of retirement based on my recent joining of the Republic. “Can’t we just stay here and fly under the radar. It’s not like the Sith check every database looking for companies supporting their opposition. I mean come on, we’re small. We own my house and a warehouse and employ two people, and that’s just the two of us.” He pleaded. Man he really didn’t want to move.

I took a moment to gather my thoughts and put them in an order I thought wouldn’t upset him any further. “You might be right Benji, they might not notice our very small operation. Or next month that Arbiter line of armor you finished might be on the front lines giving them hell, and they might really resent us for that. Think about your life, or even your wife’s life buddy. They are in danger here. Out on Jabiim you’ll be safer.”

He muttered to himself something about not pulling punches. “Alright I’ll go and start looking at real estate out there; you stay here and close everything down. Don’t forget to clear out my data terminals, they have a lot of ideas I was planning on them.” He started gathering up his things and packing them into suitcases.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

“Alright, I need the deeds to the real estate you own here on Balmorra. We will need the spare cash to purchase proper facilities out on Jabiim.” Strapped for cash was an understatement. We were in the red, having recently spent a lot on the Arbiter Armor Line and hadn’t yet been able to sell them to the Republic like we had planned. It sounded like they were interested, just they had to go through bureaucracy to get to the finish line. Red tape covered those people; I don’t know how they do it.

“There are in the safe in the basement, Draco.” Benji called from his bedroom. Shouldn’t take too long to find somebody interested in a house, a warehouse, and a testing arena. And this was on Balmorra so maybe he could make some money off this deal, so long as he wasn’t too anxious and gave away that he needed to get off planet in a hurry. “Let me know if we need to come back to get more stuff, I know all you have is one of those classics from way back in the day, and it probably doesn’t have that much space.” I’ll be fine I thought to myself, how much crap could I possibly have to move from this place. We couldn’t take most of the equipment. I sat down at the Holo-Terminal and started working on finding someone to buy this ratsnest.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

It had been about a week since Benji and I settled on moving out to Jabiim and he had found a place outside of any major city where we could expand alittle and get some breathing room but it wasn’t up for sale, so we needed a good chunk of change to get them in the mood to part with it. “Alright, I got a meeting with Balmorran Arms about them buying this place in an hour. I guess two million will be what I go ask for the whole lot, but I doubt they will want the house.” I said to the small form of translucent light that made up Benji.

“Do your best, these folks here aren’t going to settle for less than One point Seven for their equipment and facilities. We gotta hurry if we are going to get back into production.” He said, almost like a parent advising a child. Sometimes I hated the fact he knew how smart he was. At least he was as smart as he thought.

It didn’t take long to drive over to the Balmorran Arms, but they made me sit and wait outside the branch manager’s office like some kid awaiting an oppointment with the principal of his school. These high and mighty types are all the same.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

The cute blonde secretary behind the desk across from me, perked up, listening intently on here headset. “Yes sir” she said. She stood up and walked to the door, all smiles. “Mister Taulrin will see you know sir.” She said as she pulled the wood door open. Who uses wooden doors anymore? If I wanted into this room I could do it no problems, but that was here nor there. I entered the room, which was bigger than the living room in Benji’s house to speak with this Mister Taulrin.

“Good to see you Mister Vereen, am I pronouncing that correctly?” he asked all pep and smiles. I hate this types of passive aggressive businessmen.

“Yeah, that’s it boss. I’ve come because I’m looking to sell a warehouse in Bim Prime and a Testing Site outside of the city. The Testing site is an arena style structure with reinforced sloped permacrete walls, perfect for testing artillery, advanced combat droids, and other possibly extremely destructive weapons. We found it to be a great place to do combat testing.” I started. I wasn’t intending it to sound so sales pitchy, but thems the breaks.

“Let me cut you off there. Balmorran Arms isn’t in a stage of expansion right now, and we aren’t exactly happy about Benji Idiro coming out of retirement to be your Chief of Design.” He said, at least getting to the point. Unfortunately it sounded like that point was to screw me.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

I remembered two years ago Benji had tried to return to work with Balmorran Arms, and they turned him down since he was old and out of the game. “Benji Idiro is well within his rights to return to business, as per his Non-Competition contract he is not allowed to sell licensing to other companies, not produce his own designs. That said, I think you want to consider purchasing our assets.” I could tell he was intrigued about this update. He probably hadn’t expected that I had actually researched the Non-Competition contract or had anticipated it being brought up.

“Really? I want to assist you in moving your assets elsewhere? Why in the feth would I do that?” Yep, angry, just like I needed him if I was gonna take advantage. He was angry and thought he was better than me, the prefect combination for exploiting him. He was just barely into upper management, and a screw up here would cause his career to become stagnant.

“Well ArmaTech is preparing to expand. We are just about to launch our Arbiter Combat Line exclusively to the Republic, and we have prepared a number of other technologies to be developed and produced. And while, none of these are mass produced, they are of superior quality, and more will come. Having your competition here, on Balmorra with you, will cause serious competition in a market you currently dominate. That’s not good for business.” I said calmly. I had him. I knew I did. He could approve a purchase like this without the boys upstairs even knowing about it.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

This kid may not know this because he doesn’t get a good look at the quarterly statements, but Balmorran Arms could run us into the ground with sheer money. They would lose some profits, but they would never have to worry about ArmaTech again. Heck they could hold us up in court about Benji’s Non-Competition contract. They probably wouldn’t win, but it would cost us every day they held us there, and that would be the goal. I could see he was mulling this about in his mind. “With ArmaTech out on the Outer Rim, we would be far and tucked away somewhere that would be of no threat to Balmorran Arms.”

He shifted his weight around. “Why don’t we sit down and talk about this some more. You’ve intrigued me sir, and well Balmorran Arms is looking to expand our R&D division some.” He motioned towards to large comfortable leather chairs off to the side of the room. “Balmorran Arms will have to exaimine the property of course before anything can be finalized, but I see you brought some layouts with you. Why don’t I take a look at those and base any offers, without making any concrete agreement of course, off those.” He pointed at a folder of flimsi I was carrying with me. I handed them over and let him scan those, but I hit the first key to making someone make a bad decision when he started stalling.

“I’m sorry sir, but we need to wrap this up. I have a meeting with Blastech in an hour and if I’m gonna make it there I need to leave now.” I said. Name dropping Blastech would scare him and giving him a deadline would panic him.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

His eyebrows raised when I said the word. “Blastech is interested in property on Balmorra?” he said, obviously interested. It was a bold faced, italicized, underlined three times LIE, but he didn’t know that. He could check on it, but what if I was telling the truth and Blastech did purchase facilities on Balmorra, and then he would be screwed.

“They did return the message I left, just like you did. Based off that I would assume they have at least some interest.” I worked to calm the man; he needed to be assured now, assured so that he wouldn’t feel the need to call in somebody higher up. He needed to feel like he could make a decision while still being under pressure. The last step would be making a deal within his price range that was higher than I wanted for the property. “Also, I would prefer to leave Balmorra on good standing with Balmorran Arms. I understand that your bosses might be upset with Benji and was hoping to use this opportunity to soothe things over.” There was the next bit, make him feel like I don’t think he matters. Now he will want to prove me wrong. I could see it in his eyes; he was almost visibly upset I thought his bosses were the ones I needed to speak to.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

“Well why don’t you give me an idea about what you want out of this property. Marcie can get started on paperwork while you and I go check it out. I think you’ll miss your appointment with Blastech, but they do a lot of red tape and you would be here for decades dealing with them anyway.” Alright so he was on the hook, now just to reel him in.

“I think one point eight million for the warehouse, which is one thousand square meters, includes office space, the arena, and a small house within the city. The house contains a workshop where we designed most of the tech from.” He kinda flinched at the number. Perfect. More than he wanted to pay, but not so much that he couldn’t without approval.

“I would be more comfortable with one point seven, and I don’t really want the house.” He said shifting in his chair. I could tell he thought he was short changing me. And he was, but it was more than I needed to get started on Jabiim.

“How about we go and check out the facilities real quick and then we decide on a price, huh.” I stood, up. “We can take my speeder.”

 

[Laira Darkhold]

“Sure. I’ll have Marcie get started on a sale contract while we are out.” He followed me out the door. Once in the reception area. “Marcie, hold my calls I’m going to check on a purchase. Draw up a contract for these locations for One point seven five million credits and have them on my desk when I get back,” he said. He split the difference between us. The property was worth about two million, but I was strapped for time, and Benji was working on a deal to get us up and going for a little less out on Jabiim, all I had to do here was close the deal.

He seemed pleased with the properties, but really the reason he wanted to come see them is to stall so he could mull over the deal. If he waited till we went bankrupt he could snatch it all for nothing if he wanted it, but he did think Blastech was interested. Making miss an appointment with them would hurt, but not too bad if I pasted the blame on him specifically. It took me an hour, but I finally convinced him to return to his office, where Marcie was already waiting with a contract and a bank transfer line.

He turned to me and said “I think for that equipment and facilities, one point six five is the highest I can go. I know I said one point seven five, but that was before examining the property.” Ahh, the old change the deal during the close trick.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

In the end, it was still about the amount of money I needed. “Sure, that works for me,” I replied with a begrudgingly. He needed to think he was screwing me until the paperwork was cleared. It took about an hour to close the deal and sign all the papers. We had to bring in a notary and all, but it got finished and my bank account had one million six hundred fifty thousand credits in it that it did not have before. I stood up with a smile and nodded respectfully before retreating to the reception area.

A week later I was standing on Jabiim, my ship jam packed with stuff from the Balmorra shop. “Well Benji, what do you have.” I said, hoping he had a deal on the table.

“Well, it’s not bad. They want One point five for the shop and facility on the Razor Coast. The problem, it’s on the Razor Coast, so hauling stuff out there will be awful for you. But that’s why I keep you around isn’t it, the heavy lifting. Go and talk to Emil Resselli about buying the place. I will take the ship out there and you can follow in a speeder. Remember, closed top, in rains here all the time.” The old duros said, a wicked smile appearing on his face.

Three days negotiating with Emil Resselli was why I hated business management. He haggled me up from the agreed upon one point five to one point five five, something I agreed with as soon as he suggested it, he just ignored me and tried to play hardball. He almost got himself hurt jerking me around like that. But the end result was that the facility was mine. Benji had already been there three days setting up with a few heavy lifter droids, but I neglected to mention that during negotiation.