It was usual rainy day at New London, with drops hitting windows, sounding like some military march.
"It couldn't be more appropriate" - thought Dieter Mittermeier, CEO of Daumann Heavy Construction. He's seen on own eyes all the war preparations and general militarisation in Bretonian capital, passing secretly in "freelancer" armored transport through crowded aerial routes from docking ring to typical suburb skyscraper, placed far from the strict center of New London.
"And from curious eyes and ears" - Mittermeier sipped coffee looking through the window, waiting for representative of Interspace Commerce board of directors to come for a meeting, to discuss future cooperation between two giants of Sirian economy. Gallic invasion, coup in Kusari, Interspace ban from Rheinland, loss of Leeds, withdrawal from Dresden, and now Liberty Navy assault on Freeport 4 in Magellan...War is coming to Sirius, and Daumann has to ensure its influence, assets and profits will remain untouched.
"Not an easy thing to do, if Military just kicked bank which was funding authorities. We don't construct turtles for promises of future payments..."
A man dressed up in a suit and tie enters the building, inquiring briefly at the front desk before setting to the lift to head up a few floors. He is flanked by a single man who is also dressed well, the one in front glances back. "You'll keep an eye out for anything strange, correct?" Receiving a nod in response. "Of course Mr. Wells." Jacob Wells nods in acknowledgement, arriving at the destination, knocking on the double-doors twice before stepping in.
Taking in the surroundings of the meeting room, spotting the other occupant, moving up to him and offers his hand out for a handshake. "You must be Mr. Mittermeier, I hope you were not waiting for too long. I apologize for being one-hundred and twenty seconds off, its not a habit. Believe me."
Jacob in fact has been looking forward to this meeting, having a few subjects he wished to discuss which could lead to some rather profitable business for both cooperation's the two men represent currently.
Dieter Mittermeier stood up and shaked Wells' hand.
"Good day Mr. Wells. I've hope your travel was peaceful? Feel assured that this building is absolutely safe; we've made sure our meeting will stay in secrecy and be properly guarded."
Mittermeier made inviting gesture with open hand showing comfortable desk chair in front of him, positioned next to crystal table with diamond mugs and jug full of juice from White Peaches, native to Cambridge fruits commonly known in Bretonia for harsh, bracing flavour. A tall bottle full of Gallic Wine and pair of wine glasses were on the table as well, next to juice jug.
Both corporate executives sat in their chairs.
"Mr Wells, juice, wine, maybe you prefer something stronger?" - Mittermeier asked.
"I'll have a juice, thank you very much." Reaching over, taking a mug carefully. "You claim this building is safe, so i'll take your word for it. Although I'm well known for my paranoia, lets just get down to business, eh?"
Sitting back, smiling slightly. "Rheinland. We've been watching its state of economy even though we were rather.." Pausing. "Forcibly kicked out, which as you know brings us to continue contacting yourself, we have both made some rather good business as of late. Although for both your house, and our business, the opportunities to continue our gain has started to dwindle."
Producing a folder from his coat, sliding it across the desk to Mittermeier. "Because of this, I bring to you a 'project' which we have been working on with our partners up in liberty, who i'll be mentioning in a minute. We are in need of some of your.. 'services' which you provide, raw materials to be precise. Keep in mind the information within the folder should not be said to anyone not related, i'm sure you can understand. You will recieve the rest of the information if you.. accept."
"Construction in the Alberta system, a new experimental technology. The interspace is backing this in both financial and the slight political benefits we have, and we could use your help. Of course you'll get paid.. we'll all get paid, thats what we are here for i'd assume. Survival. Cooperation survival. Please look over the contents, there are the basics of what we would be needed. Ores, all the sorts. I understand you have quite the mining fleet, something which we need badly."
Mittermeier opened notebook-sized folder with cover made from Gaian White Bison leather, which Wells handed over to him. Drinking his juice in small sips during lecture, Daumann director studied folder's contect, with his curiosity increasing with each next page.
"Alberta, experimental hypergate..." - he muttered silently. Data, entire pages of technical data, digits, formulas, predicted range, materials needed for construction, required alloys, enhanced hyperspace accelerator, miniature version of nuclear reactor for powering all of that...
It took entire mug of juice before Mittermeier finished reading dozen page long memo concerning Alberta superproject.
"Well, that certainly is innovatory project, Mister Wells. You gained my interest, but please understand I need to know answers on few questions: why? what's the purpouse of it? Where it would lead? I see there already is preliminary list of some of required materials, I need to know transportation details, as my corporation, sadly, is banned from Liberty. Going further, except natural material delivery part, is there something more required of Daumann's participation in that project?"
Small skiff flew quickly with noise behind the window.
Mittermeier looked questioningly at Wells, when datapad in his suit's pocket rang silently.
"Excuse me.."
Rheinlander pulled the datapad out of the pocket and unlocked swiftly.
"You have 1 new important message"
"Open folder"
"Select"
"Read"
"Loading ... .. ."
"News full of informations of hessian attack on IMG base in O3. Boarding party seized few transports and flew. Whole thing stinks, I'm organising more detailed intel atm.
v-Geld"
Mittermeier put the datapad again in the pocket.
"I'm sorry Mr. Wells, even here I cannot escape from fast-paced life we executives live. Returning to my questions; what can you tell me about that Alberta gate?"
Jacob sits back, retrieving another folder from the case he carried with him, opening it up and looking at the contents himself.
"I honestly cannot tell you much about the gate my friend, mostly for the cause that I do not know myself. This technology is rather.. new, as this is the first of its kind, we do not know the location of where the exit-point will emerge. Our partners perhaps would, although not myself. Although in time we can make an educated guess.
As for why, that is quite easy. This gate would act as primarily a gateway saving a good amount of time of travel across Sirius, and secondly a study of what is humanly possible to accomplish in this world. I suppose the primary use would not be available to your company to begin with, although perhaps as political things go on.. Not our decision to make, merely stating one of my thoughts.
You did bring up a good question about the transportation, and you do have a valid question of 'who' will be bringing things from place to place. I'd like to say that we would do it personally, although our fleets are not the largest as we have not started as a 'hauling' cooperation. This is open. There are a few choices, perhaps people from Bretonia would be as of an option? There are a few limitations as we need all of our partners to get along that is. Do you have any personal preferences?"
"Well..." -Mittermeier started- "naturally the best option would be if those materials were delivered by our firms Mr Wells, sadly we don't have such luxury in current situation. Deep Space logistics division has rather strict shipping restrictions in Rheinland, what's really a shame, as they delivering goods on their own straight from the source to Alberta would be the quickest and cheapest method.
In that situation we're left with Kusarian and Bretonian entities as a choice, and rather only those big ones. Bowex, Samura or Kishiro, let's say. What do you say on those names?"
"And" -Mittermeier looked questioningly at Wells again- "As you yourself admit this is new technology and it's unknown where it will lead, aren't you afraid of new Dallas Incident? Entire Rheinland system just got wrecked after some high-tech test malfunction, radiation is everywhere, we had to provide additional lead shielding armors for our ships there, mining crews cannot work in space longer than 6 hours without break, 6 hours shift, something what so far was unheard of in Daumann, productivity already took slight hit by those new conditions. At the moment people of Nuremberg require constant acces to humanitarian aid which we provide, and that isn't profitable.
How can we be sure this is safe project Mr Wells?"
Mittermeier took sip of juice from the glass and asked again:
"Besides, what have you said about primary use of the supergate and political develoments? That sounded really interesting, both parts of that sentence."
Jacob finishes his glass, sitting back in the chair, glancing at a tablet he produced in his case containing some data. "The safety of the project is rather unknown, although due to the.. 'incident' that you know so well about, I can be certain that our partners who started the project have learned, and understood what needs to be changed to make it successful. Learning from the past. Although honestly, I can give no guarantee that it is one hundred percent safe, although something of this scale can rarely be that way anyways I'd imagine."
Pulling up the public data on the corporations he has mentioned. "I can say we don't have too much history with any of those, although Bretonia does sound like our best bet, we have not done too much with Bowex, although its perhaps the most plausible with all of those available i'd have to say. What are your thoughts on Bowex? I'd have to speak with the others on the board about this keep in mind."
Shuffling his papers around, seeming to give up and merely start pulling things up on his tablet. "Economic gain by the speedy transport of materials, as well as the political.. This is the part I am rather happy of, this gate will be owned by the 'cooperations'. Singular perhaps, although they have set up a nice board of directors for this project separately in a way. I highly doubt that the ownership will change, the Millitary will not control this. This is an opportunity to put more power into the cooperations hands, as thats where it should be in the first place. I'm not saying I don't like the military's, they have done good to us, although they seem to forget who is giving them most of what they own. This is a chance to bring that to light. Not forced of course, this will happen over time though."
"Daumann -Mittermeier started- enjoyed in the last few years amicable and profitable for both sides relationship with Bowex. Ignoring ultranationalist comments from political extremists in our House, we decided to try out closer cooperation with Bretonians. While they're partnered with our *cough* cordial rivals from BMM, their directors are men of open minds, just as we in Daumann are. Putting differences aside paid off, regardless of few setbacks on the way, caused sadly by our goverment. Brief war in Omega-3 started as simple incident between Bowex convoy and Federal Police, as far as I know the Police levied unjustified fine on them, Bretonians refused to pay... That was madness, I understand some damage in relations, perhaps small customs raise, but to start war over unpaid fee, in addition in our situation.... That and now that "love Gallics the strongest you can" policy, that's also something we aren't exactly fond of."
Rheinlander paused for a while to take a sip of juice and continued
"Gallia's sudden reveal and the following rapid campaign in the Taus, and in Leeds now, changed many plans across the entire Sector, including our own. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Wells, we don't have anything in particular against Gallics, but they're entirely new, strong piece on the keyboard, revealed in the middle of game. That obviously brings questions how will they affect further events, are they and their goals different, neutral or same with ours... In the current situation rather clear picking one side, strong but unknown, by some of our politicians, is risky, unthought move for me.
Gallic market is vast, and we naturally will enter it, but the last thing we need is open war in the Omegas against Bretonia, now fully supported by Liberty Navy's power. My House has own internal problems, in no small part started by mistake which Interspace ban was; we should deal with them first, before even considering throwing ourselves into yet another full scale war. Pirates and terrorists raid our mining operations, market prices fluctuate due to uncertainty of currency, I don't need to add in such situation aggressive unpredictible policy enforced by certain extremist wing of politicians and backed by xenophobic megalomaniac military high circles doesn't benefit my corporation, and the entire House, at all. It negatively affects stock markets and threatens our very ability to conduct business.
That's one more reason why it's good to have good relations with Bowex for Daumann, I can assure you their services are excellent, we never had reason to complain about them."
Mittermeier paused again, looking at the window and sunset behind it, slowly covering part of New London they were in in darkness.
"As you see, our views on corporate-navy-goverment relations are similar, I'm glad of that. Perhaps...Perhaps we will try in a more direct way to remedy current policy direction taken by our dear extremists in Rheinland, but I cannot disclose more details now. Feel assured Interspace has good ally in Daumann, and when the situation is appropriate for that, to which we strive, horrible mistakes of Bonn assault and Interspace ban will be fixed. Naturally we would like to believe such friendship won't stay unrewarded, what, again, will only bring more benefits to both sides."
Jacob nods, finishing off his drink as he listened carefully to what Mittermeier had to say.
"You put up a good argument about Bowex, hearing the facts which you have stated does put them into a good light indeed. Whereas it is not us, although our partners who this decision is going to be made for. However, in light of this, the Bowex do seem to be a rather good choice if you put it that way. I assume if you would vouch for them in such a way, they would be a good choice for the job. At the next board meeting, i'll see about bringing the Bretonian Transit up. I'm sure it will go well."
Glancing at a few more papers he had within his folder.
"I'm glad the Interspace is not the only company with our views to the governments, I'm sure most of the other companies have the same feelings, however are probably to afraid to speak up due to possible loss in profits. Which is understandable to a degree. Now. If you would, may I please have a bottom line my friend? Will you engage in business with this project, if we agree to have the Bowex included as your transport source? Keep in mind that will take a little convincing, trust is something we are rather.. sensitive to right now. Although i'm sure I can work something out with the others."