Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Shopping for Parts

During an average day dozens, if not hundreds of reports crossed Rygel Larraq's desk. Most of which did not truly require his attention, merely his signature. Every once in a while though, a report sat in front of him with a small flag, curtsy of middle-men who knew how businesses operated. Sitting before him, demanding his attention, was one such report.

Larraq tapped a cigarette in an ashtray as he skimmed over the report. A few of his engineers had been working on an approved project and ran into a snag. The couldn't find blueprints for a component in Mandal Hypernautics databanks and couldn't find a suitable replacement on the market. A... Crystal Gravfield Trap? Larraq had to look that one up. It was rare. Very rare. And more expensive than many capital ships.

His curiosity piqued, Larraq read the document in its entirety.
 
The reports were... disheartening. The latest theory among Domino's Koensayr scientists was that the micro-fractures forming in the test armor were due to the trace impurities left over from the smelting. Anything below a blaster rifle in power and the meter wide sections were fine and the energy was dispersed perfectly when it wasn't outright reflected. Against a cannon though... the material couldn't handle the energy and began cracking. Successive hits just made it worse before it outright broke with four hits being the best before catastrophic failure so far. Domino didn't want quantum armor for her little project, but even durasteel would be better than having a ship's hull fall apart in a fight. The effect was more like fiber armor anyways, conducting the energy into a widely spread area. Problem was that those conductors couldn't handle the strain.
But what to do about it? It was near-impossible to get better superconductors on Hypori without joining the ruling council. Not something likely to happen after she'd rebuffed their advances so often as Vigo. Favors were just as unlikely. What she really needed was a new supplier, and that was going to be expensive.
@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
@[member="Domino"]

The project was a good one. Place several large, high powered sensor systems into a single frigate at the expense of weaponry. The plan wasn't to push for contracts as either top of the line warships or as cheep and mass-produceable vessels, but to carve out a niche market with a one of a kind support ship. Neither the hull not shields were anything special. The electronics were even a bit on the cheap side. But the list of sensor system required to turn this concept into a reality was extensive to say the least. The vessel would come with nearly one of every type of sensor system on the market to ensure that it would have no equal on the battlefield.

It was an innovative project and Larraq liked it. But one of the main sensor systems was continuing to be a problem. Few suppliers sold the part and the few that did were charging far too much. Even the Tenloss corporation had stopped maintaining their supply of the rare and expensive component.

With few options left to him, Larraq turned to his last hope for reliable supplies. Amazon.
 
It looked like there were two alternatives, Buckminsterfullerene and Niobium-tin. Both looked like they could handle the the conductivity strain but Fullerene was already used as an armor which could mean it was strong when he carbon atoms were rearranged into Buckminsterfullerene while the Niobium-tin was more brittle. The Fullerene composite was definitely the way to go, adding brittleness to the armor would just put them back to where they were now but for a different reason. And since the B-F was all carbon chains, it wouldn't be too hard for anyone that had the capability to synthesize. A quick search later and... a quick search showed that all of it was spoken for and the waiting list was months long. If she was going to get some then it'd have to be from a back room deal with a manufacture, not something she was adverse or even unaccustomed to, but she didn't exactly have the contacts for it and you didn't just send out e-mails asking to buy several tons of material off the books.

Slowly spinning in her chair Domino tried to figure out a way to get some. Stealing wouldn't work in the long-run and buying the necessary equipment to manufacture it herself wouldn't pay off for twenty years. Where could she legally buy that much B-F if not the manufacturer? Well the people with dedicated contracts were probably stockpiling the stuff, she could buy from them? Sounded reasonable, just had to figure out who used a lot of it and hope they were reasonable about sharing. Rolling back to her desc comp, Domino began searching for ship and other companies that used a lot of high-end computers in their products. It might take awhile but she'd find someone.
@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
@[member="Domino"]

Rygel Larraq tapped away on his datapad as he struggled through listing after listing. As yet, he was finding nothing. He had been at it for nearly an hour before he added a bottle and a glass to the papers that adorned the top of his desk. Larraq was beginning to think that he would have more luck searching through the black market when he finally stumbled upon an old listing from Koensayr Manufacturing.

Now that he thought about it, if anyone were to have advanced sensors to sell, it would by Koensayr. And while the particular part he was after wasn't listed in their product catalog... They might have something hidden away in a long-lost warehouse.

With nothing to lose, Larraq instructed his secretary to contact the company.
 
The phone rang pulling Domino away from her terminal. She stared at it, suspicious for a long moment until her secretary came on the speaker and told her it was supposedly the CEO of Mandal Hypernautics. Taking a sip of her water, she picked up the handset. "This is Natasi of Koensayr, what can I do for you Mr. Larraq?" It had been a funny turn of events in her past life. Her code name had supplanted her real name and they'd switched places at one point so that her secret identity was what everyone knew her as. When she became Vigo of the Suns she'd just carried on using it and nobody seemed to question why a pair of Twi'leks would name their daughter like that. So when she took over Koensayr she'd used her legitimate name, Prulesa Natasi. Apparently nobody had put the two of them together yet either.
@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
@[member="Domino"]

Larraq sipped away at his most recent glass of whiskey as the receptionist notified him that the CEO of Koensayr Manufacturing would be picking up soon. Moving the bottle to a descrete location, Larraq briefly straitened his uniform and hair before the call went through. Listening to the greeting of the CEO on the other end, Larraq smiled plitely before delivering his message to her. "Hello Ms Natasi. I find I am in need of a rather... hard to obtain piece of equipment. And unfortunately, I find myself needing a rather constant supply of them. Now... I know it's not a common bit of equipment to find on the market. But I need a source for Crystical Gravfield Traps for a new line of products I'm developing and I had hoped that your company would be up to the task."
 
Crystal Gravfield Traps... it was possible... "Let me see what i can dig up, I think we might have done some work with some in the old Galactic Empire days, something about a frigate..." She worked her console a bit, ran a search, shook her head, narrowed it and changed a few parameters, and ran it again. "Ah, here we go," she said browsing the results. "Remnant era, we helped convert some of the old Nebulons into Patrol Frigates that apparently needed to carry them. Someone grabbed the complete set of blueprints." if she sounded pleased it was because she was, it was nice to know 'her people' had been so forward thinking even back then. "Looks doable, complex," which meant expensive, "even for us. But we can manage. I would like something in return though. We're having trouble getting our hands on industrially pure Buckminsterfullerene and I was wondering if you'd be interested in a deal before we started talking numbers."
@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
@[member="Domino"]

Larraq was silent for a moment. Truth be told, he had to type the stuff into his datapad before he remembered what is was. A conductive metal. A variant of a mineral that was sometimes used in armor construction. It wasn't exactly hard to produce, but it required specialized equipment to get the properties just right.

Hyperion Mining could definitely aquire the raw minerals this woman was needing. It was processing the stuff that would be the hard part. But if a supply of conductive minerals was what it would take to reduce the price of the ridiculously expensive component his ships would need... "I think I might be able to do something about that." Larraq said after a moment. "Tell me what you had in mind."
 
Thinking quick, Domino offered the first deal that popped into her mind that seemed like it would work for both the long-term, the quantities of Buckminsterfullerene Koensayr would likely be needing both for her project and a select few future jobs, and the severe price difference between the needed goods. "You ship us five tons of the superconducting fullerene for every grav trap and we'll only mark them up eight percent instead of the usual thirteen over cost. We'll even handle shipping." It was a great deal for the Mandalorian, if Domino had been able to find anyone capable of supplying the material she'd needed she'd have been loosing money by offering it, but she hadn't, which meant they were all winning in the long-term if he accepted. Yay economics...
@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
@[member="Domino"]

Larraq tapped away at his datapad as he crunched the numbers. Cost of labor, fuel, wear and tear to equipment, mining permits, packaging, and taxes... Not to mention the surveyors and specialized scanners required to find deposits of the material itself. The numbers weren't looking good. Especially the taxes. And at five tons of material per unit, a mere five percent decrease in price was going to lose Mandal Hypernautics 5 credits per pound of material traded.

"Take an additional three percent off the cost of the unit and I think we can make this work." Larraq said after a few more moments of double checking his math.
 
"Please Mr. Larraq, do not mistake my attempt at generosity for desperation. This is the first time we've done business and I thought to give you a discount for it, remember, you're the one that came to us for assistance in this matter. I have shareholders and employees that expect reasonable returns on investments and security provided by profits." The credits were firm, they were the absolute lowest she could go on this without the board throwing a fit on a million plus cred part, special project or no. Though that didn't mean she couldn't yield elsewhere. "If it's such a problem I could go four point five on the Buckminsterfullerene"
@[member="Captain Larraq"]
 
Larraq ran the numbers again at 4.5 tons of material per product and still wasn't liking the numbers, but they were certainly better. "I think we could make that work @[member="Domino"]." He said to the image of the woman in the hologram. "But I'd hate to skimp you on product. I can wiggle in an extra quarter ton material if you're willing to take off an extra half percent. But it's your call. Either arrangement works for me."
 
Great, he wanted some wiggle, and Domino would have normally been happy to give it to him if she hadn't reduced already. What was worse was that Larraq was actually sounding reasonable. "I'm afraid that the fullerene is less important to my board than their bottom line. You're still making out quite nicely though, better if you manage to free up the market on quality superconductors some more. If we have a deal we can get our lawyers together to write up a formal contract."
@[member="Captain Larraq"]
((Sorry for taking forever, the notification didn't go through for some reason.))
 
"I do believe that we have a deal. I'll have my people send you the necessary paperwork within the hour." Larraq said to the woman with a smile. "It was a pleasure doing business with you." He said as he closed the frequency and began messaging his lawyers and engineers about the business arrangement. Selecting a department of miners from the numerous list of such crews, Larraq began drafting instructions for them. A twenty percent reduction in manned crew and an increase of 25% in droid labor units should reduce the logistical strain quite nicely. <Yes... I do believe that will do.> Larraq thought to himself as he sent one final message to the engineers designing the new line of frigate. He had found a supplier. Production could begin immediately.
 

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