"Doug, I’m not drinking today,” said Guy Laliberte when offered a drink by his chief mate, Douglas Polk, at a bar. Guy, a rather successful entrepreneur in the past, has been in the Navy for quite a few years now.
The particular Overlord-class vessel under his command was one of the very few deployed in Texas, as most of them have been operating in California due to the Gallic advance. "By the way, we might need to keep the battleship here at Juneau for a while," he continued, "so that the engineers could research and prepare our primary turret slots, in case he agrees, of course.""40 minutes until we go to his office," Douglas stated.
That was the first time they visited Juneau. Guy was very disgruntled with the recent patrol operations in Texas, seeing as their wing could barely withstand the pressure from the Liberty Rogues, Unioners and Battlegroup Harmony combined. All those groups were outmanoeuvring his escorts while the Battleship itself lacked in secondary defence capability. Thus, Laliberte decided to re-classify the vessel as an anti-gunboat and anti-snubcraft battleship with the permission of the higher command. He needed a set of completely different experimental weapons to complete that plan.
Guy and Douglas went to the head engineer’s office, who couldn’t be named. The negotiations took a while. “That is a fascinating idea," the engineer said. He sounded really enthusiastic. “This will be the first vessel of it’s kind, and we could use the results of this experiment in the future."“As per our previous agreement, you will have to fund it yourself. The total amount comes out as 95 000 000 sirius credits," the engineer stated. Guy raised his eyebrow,“I thought the amount was initially supposed to be 90 000 000 SC?” The engineer didn't bat an eye. “Let us just write it off as a convenience fee of sorts."Unfortunately, corruption was not unheard of in the Republic.
“Unlike the Solaris-class weapons," continued the engineer, "the Dual Gatlings will be based on fighter-class purple goddess civilian weapons, seeing as the main refire rate is the same. However, each turret will fire two projectiles simultaneously.""What about the range?"“The range will have to be in line with Solaris-class turrets, seeing as we would want them to consume the energy as efficiently as it is possible for this kind of weapon."
The construction ended up taking slightly less time than initially expected. The Overlord stayed in docks of Juneau for the duration of construction. “These weapons are revolutionary," raved Douglas at a final meeting, which he attended alone. “Godspeed,” concluded the engineer, “and I hope mister Laliberte recovers from his illness soon."