Cortez System,
Stationary High Orbit of planet Curacao.
03:46 local time zone.
On board of a floating Geisha-class liner...
A lambent fire hologram flickering inside the classy chimney served as the only source of light in the Westphalia's salon after her Captain, Hans von Goeben, had finished the last preparations for an upcoming meeting on his yacht. It had been a while since this fine room saw guests, which left it rather dusty and unattended for months. Fortunately, a cleaning bot and the need for a suitable location had turned this place to its former glory:
Beige, gold and a palette of brown shades were the prevalent colours in here. Various oak woods served as wall panelling on which numerous paintings and curtains were presented. An ornamented globe replica of planet Earth and an ancient pendulum clock caught the attention of visitors who would enter through the double-winged teak door. In the middle, in front of the fireplace, stood a large, yet pretty low table with lavish adornments. Around it, one comfy sofa and two armchairs were placed, all of them resting on a thick carpet with tufts. Two Bookshelves holding about two hundred printed books covered a whole wall of the room. The last furniture worth mentioning was the small, but well-equipped bar. Rum from Hispania, Gallic wine and Vodka from the Omegas shared the sideboard with other drinks from all over Sirius, together with crystal glassware.
Hans grabbed one of the latter to pour himself a drink after polishing the globe.
"Ahhh...perfect.", he looked around before downing the beverage. "The guests may board now..."
The last weeks had been very stressful for Alessa, countless advertisement talks with potential investors and lightyears of travel within her personal ferry. The meeting on board of Hans' yacht was a good variety. "The first thing I will do is getting a good drink." Alessa mumbled to herself as she docked with the yacht. Hans promised to host the meeting as most comfy as possible. She had to admit that he didn't lie.
He presented Alessa a room of purest stress relaxation. Hans already waited at his seat, but politely as he is, he stood up and welcomed his guest. "Welcome Alessa, do you want something to drink?" He immedialty asked. Alessa just took a huge sigh, watching around the room till she reacted. "Hello Hans. Thank you, of course, I take a Gin? Walking towards the bar Hans signed Alessa with his hand to take a seat on the couch. "Please, give me a second. Take a seat at the couch in the meantime."
While Hans had been mixing the drink for Alessa, she watched the hologrophic fireplace.
It was just beautiful, the animation created amazing forms of several flowers and even an emulated warmth touched Alessa's face gently.
It was very surprising for Alessa, but it was like all the previous stress just vanished right in that moment. The numerous talks, the complications with several groups like the Commune or the Forlon Hope, nothing was an issue.
In fact, she couldn't await to get to the Sol hypergate construction site and already counted days till she would finally be back at her office and lab on the Antarctica in the Cayman system. "Here is your drink." Hans said and threw her out of the short relaxing paralysis. Taking the glass she just thanked Hans for the drink and both took a slug and took his seat aswell. "I know, you hate it when people are late, but the others will arive soon." Hans said as he felt to pacify his first guest, but Alessa seemed to be very relaxed and just nodded smiling. "It's fine. This meeting was scheduled quite late by me."
It had been just a few time both having a little talk, when the information about docking vessel entered the room.
It has always been Jason’s Policy to conduct business-trips in a gunboat. They were big enough to command some respect and be comfortable, small enough to not draw too much attention and, lastly, powerful enough to deal with trouble, should the situation demand it.
The Tell-City hat been a gift from Interspace Commerce, a sweetener to get out of retirement. And a sweet gift it was. A gunboat with a conference room, spacious living quarters and an actual kitchen, should one ever bother to cook. Now that very ship brought him to the place where he might quit his lucrative position in Interspace Commerce.
However, whoever this von Goeben was, he was probably not wrapped tight. A whole Geisha-class liner for personal use and/or in service of an NPO? Either someone with a lucky break in his life or some eccentric dude with the rich-by-heritage-scheme. Either way, clearly someone who – by design or accident – tried to impress people by showing how careless he could throw away his money.
The sight of double-winged teak door made Jason loose all hope that von Goeben could be responsible with money. “They definitely need someone to watch what they’re spending, a nanny perhaps” he sighted. Then straightened his tie, squared his shoulders and went in.
Volumetric projector in the room that had previously used to display a cozy fireplace switched into communication mode. Another guest attending.
Whether it was interference or other technical issues the projector image was a little distorted at first, though still recognizable. A full height figure gave a quick greeting nod to Hans. An old associate from times long gone by.
"Hola Hans. Unfortunately my schedule did not permit me to attend your party in person." - pausing for a few moments and noticing other people in the room. "I see everyone is already there. Allow me to introduce myself. Out here away from colonies I'm a patron of scientific 'arts' , an early investor into a bleeding edge research, things deem impossible and unimaginable to some. Such as this fascinating idea and the journey it'll take. Up until now I've primarily been in contact with Hans and I wasn't sure if his idea is truly insane or brilliantly mad. By now you've certainly picked on my accent and probably figured out my malteesian origin. Be assured my participation here is purely of business and scientific nature."
She looked at Alessa and Kelly, trying to pick on their reaction.
"I know first-hand certain reputation can be a hindrance and competition had led to many conflicts. To avoid any potential issues I'd also prefer to keep my involvement confidential. My role in this will mostly focus on funding certain aspects of the research, providing scientific and engineering aid through resources and assets available to me, as well as supply of high-tech and experimental equipment that normally would be inaccessible to independent researches. I'd expect the bulk of theoretical and perhaps practical research will be in hands of Hans and Alessa and their close associates."
"Senora Corino or simply Anje as my friends call me, and I'm here to help Hans and his friends and partners to make the Sol journey come true."
"Nice to meet everyone of you in person finally." Alessa smiled friendly towards Anje. “More or less in person. Thank you for your introduction, Anje. I personally don’t care about anyones origin or background or better said, I don’t rate anyone by it, but of course, others might rate us. So, we need to stay very careful with our relations. However,” She pointed a finger at Jason and turned towards him. “I have already informed you that I have directly invited Mr. Jason Kelly to join our very small round. Let me elaborate very shortly that I have read a couple articles of him and I must admit he is quite of a genius in financial and business relations, but also obviously shares our moral and interests very much. I am certain, he is a trustful and reliable person and I expect him to fill the gap in this field perfectly.” Taking down her glass, she invited the other members to take seat. “I guess, we can start now?” Expectant, she noticed anyone in the room in agreement and listening. “So, I have set up a very small list to discuss with you at first. Of course, I am pretty sure you have some points aswell or there will be more points arise in this meeting.” Alessa took out a slip of paper with a few lines written on and noticed a little smirk from Hans, but ignored that little side blow about her ancient note equipment and started to rummage in her pocket shortly. After some seconds she revealed a small holographic generator device and pressed it rather annoyed.
A hologram appeared listing a few points.
- Contracts, investments and insurances revision
- Potential cooperatives and partners
- Technological access, process and progress
- Resources and requirements
- Current situation
"These are actual the basic points I would like to discuss with you.
“Can we just hold on for a second and address the elephant in the room?” Interjected Jason. “This whole operation is financed by an outcast drug-lord? No offense Ma’am.” He nodded towards the view-screen portraying Anje. To whom he turned and spoke to directly.
“Señora Corino, while I appreciate you trying to keep your involvement confidential, nevertheless there are two very Important details being missed here:”
He halfway turned towards the other two members of this ‘gathering gone conspiracy’.
I fear that there will be questions on how and where the funds originated. This meeting being confidential, I might add that, records can be forged, of course, but there needs to be a substantial amount of – pardon the phrase – legit investors, to make it convincing.
Secondly, mixing both the anonymity of the main benefactor and open-for-all investment-opportunities, might result in, well, diplomatic awkwardness should investors of opposing factions meet at research facility or at latest before the departure to sol.
Anje seemingly ignored Kelly's 'drug lord' remark and waved off at his concerns: "Preemptive worries. Out here there are no hand-holding governments forcing audits, alphabet soup agencies requiring everything going through them and all that rubbish that only gets in the way. The reason why they can't get anything done properly, but that's another subject altogether."
"No, out here we have all the opportunities. Naturally there are always risks involved, but then I get the feeling you've got the experience. For most of the part as long as locals are busy with their small affairs and pay us no mind, or at least as little as possible, we'll be able to carry on."
Pointing out to the list of subjects Alessa had on holo display Anje continued: "That is not to say there aren't records to keep the track of, certainly there are budgets to balance and spending to account for, all the usual of internal housekeeping for ourselves, while seeing as we answer to no house or a sizable group it needn't to be transparent, just convincing enough for the curious parts of the public, and speaking of which it is Mr. Hans and Ms. Alessa are the public figures of this endeavor. As well all know the real breakthrough science needs help to carry theories into practice, and big science needs big help, so I certainly agree with you - as it'll gain traction more investors will be needed. But even then I don't think there's a luxury to be very picky about the funding sources. Besides to the rest out there they're just independent venture capital groups, we just need to keep things look good. There might be certain inconveniences for groups who are primarily headquartered in houses and having to deal with all the mind-numbing bureaucracy, but naturally they too frequently forgo records to operate beyond the boundaries of the colony space - after all that's where the gains make the risk worthwhile. Practically almost everyone does it by now."
During the conversation, Hans just nodded, or frowned, every now and then to comment on the various statements. Finally, after a personally unusual long peroid of silence, the host stood up from his seat, gesturing with a half-filled glass in his hand.
"Fellas!", he exclaimed with a big smile, "Let's not get caught up in details about the least critical topic...the funding." All three attenders received a confindent gaze. "Both of you are more or less correct. While we should indeed keep a certain healthy reputation, we are not in the position to handpick our investors. The reason for that was precisely explained by Miss Anje. On the other hand, the folks who invest in this project have all signed the treaty. And this treaty clearly states a guaranteed anonymity for every party who wishes to stay unnamed. Therefore, everyone knows how we play and accepted our conditions with their very own signature. In conclusion, I highly doubt we will get any complains about our policy. After all, this is one of, or even *the* most ambitious plan of our times which needs participants from *all* over Sirius, which is logical. Besides...", Goeben smirks wolfishly at Jason, "...you stated the practice of manipulating business-related numbers, Sir. A few hundred million...or one or two billion credits are small fishes to cover for the big corporations. And we are about to become a big player in this part of Sirius. I do not see a major problem, with an experienced business man like you on board."
A rather playful, even sarcastic tone was swinging inside Hans' voice.
"Anyway. Credits are important, no doubt, and keep the project rolling. It is more difficult to get our hands on knowledge though. The logistics and the basic construction site looks promising so far, and will still need a lot of time to finish, but then...", he paused and downed the drink,"...the more complicated, sophisticated part starts. A hypergate is a high-tech construct which requires the best of the best Sirius' labs can offer, and even beyond that. Hence, we should focus on gathering the brightest minds who are willing to participate in the development. I am thinking about Ageira, for example. If anyone has experience in jumpgate construction, it's them. Which brings us to the second and third topic."
He nodded and sat down, crossing his legs. "Any input on that?"
Watching the discussion, Alessa initially had a huge smile on her face and waited till she took a good sip from her drink before continuing her agenda. "Great, you have instantly jumped into the discussion of the first point. This is how I like to work. Disussions with very different minds combined." She stood up and went to the hologram of the points and moved her hand in writing gesture. The names Forlon Hope, Commune, Miyasu and Flora appeared, which weren't unknown to the bunch, but another yet unknown name appeared. Clarissa Fairchild. "As you can see, even we are public just for some weeks, we have already a small amount of contacts and else. Some of these still need to be finalized and some need to be reworked, but nontheless I am pretty sure that the first successes will follow more interest in us. I can talk for myself know, but I haven't yet activated or contacted personal contacts. As you mentioned Ageira, Hans, you have a good point there. Clarissa Fairchild is a very good friend of mine, and surprise surprise, six months ago, which was the last we met each other, she was the lead scientist for dark matter research at Ageira Innovations. I wouldn't be surprised, when she would be already head of the whole scientific section. In fact, she is a very good friend of mine thats also the reason I want to await her to contact us. You know? Girlstuff. Anyway, it's just about a short time she'll contact us which certainly might open us access to the root of human jumpgate technology by Ageira. Of course, I trust any of you in this. If you have private contacts, please, feel free to introduce them as well.
About the contracts and investments, I am not a lawyer, nor I am very firm in business relations. I have to admit I am not happy with these contracts, therefore I seriously hope that Mr. Kelly has some improving ideas and concepts to that. Which also gets me to the next point about future contacts." As she paused or even finished her first audition, Alessa sighed and just took another sip from her glass.
Hearing his name mentioned, he ambled towards the middle of there room.
“I have so far not been able to read up on the contracts you’re handing out to potential investors, but I could have a look at it. Since those are zoner-contracts, there needn't be too much lawyering going on to begin with, within the houses they usually just need to comply with criminal laws as opposed to contract law.”
He decided to not dwell in the differences between criminal and contract law, as people either new about it or would plainly never understand more, than dealing with one set of laws, was better than with two.
“As for sciency details, well, I’m out of the loop to begin with. But my science-adviser told me that it is flat out impossible to build a jumpgate to Sol. So if you want to attract a plethora of investors, you need to fist prove or at least convince people that it is indeed possible, and secondly that it’s only money that’s separating you from achieving your goals.”
He took a small break and focused Alessa. Who just admitted, they did not even know how to build on of these run-of-mill Jump-gates that plastered the whole Sirius-Sector.
“Sadly, that’s not even close to being the one thing your group seem to lack. And I’m sorry to rain on your parade but stealing or proliferating internals from Ageira is not something one should take lightly. Ageira has always, and for good reason, been very protective of their secrets.”
Almost threateningly he took a step towards the young lady. And directly pointed at her.
“So, and this is actual lawyer’s advice, unless you want the LSF knocking on your doors, you shouldn’t mess with Internals of Ageira.”