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Maggie Shoemaker smooths out her blouse as she walks down the boarding ramp of the Shukensha-class Liner Monmouth, taking just a moment to look back and observe the scarring and blast marks where Hessian guns had punched through the shields. She turns back and marches smartly down the ramp, accompanied by a few aides and just one bodyguard, a gesture of trust aimed at the Independent Miners Guild hosting the gathering.

On the way to the conference room she looks out a window to see an ALG Golem carrying what was left of the Smyrna towards a free docking bay. A pang of fear flashes through her but is quickly dismissed. No one could know of Daumann's involvement in smuggling that ship out of Rheinland or peace talks would be quickly derailed. She shakes her head and dismisses the thought before proceeding to the conference room and taking a seat, waiting for the others to arrive.

A small security team of the IMG, led by an aide of the Guildmasters, Ms. Veronica Ryan took them safely and without any further complications to the briefing room and after only a minute Stephen Schwerdtfeger arrives, apologizing for the short delay.

"Good to see that you arrived safely, Ms. Shoemaker." he shakes her hand cordially... "The wreck of the Smyrna is being towed into dock C, as you perhaps saw when you landed. First on site damage assessment teams reported that it doesn't look as if there was much to salvage." he states in a neutral tone.

"Please, everybody take their seats. I think we are still waiting for another delegation, aren't we? So... why don't we just start with some traditional Rheinlandish, ehm, more Bavarian Weißwurstfrühstück?" he smirks, pointing towards his aide who is already preparing the dishes at a table together with 2 kitchen helpers.... "It's a alcohol-reduced beer, so don't worry too much about the time of the day..."

Veronica nods, looking at her PDA while she is serving coffee and Bavarian breakfast for everybody who is into Rheinland specialities: "... Aland mensa has Rheinland weeks at the moment... and the Guildmaster is a great fan of it." Veronica explains, while making sure everbody gets what he or she wants.

Maggie smiles at the woman and graciously accepts the plate and glass from the servers, taking a polite sip of the beer to taste it before setting the glass down on a coaster and nodding.

"Thank you for your hospitality, we are still waiting for Mr. von Kleinz from ALG Abfallentsorgung. I'm sure he's busy seeing to the recovery of the vessel they were so hoping to inspect."

Frederick Von Kleinz gathered himself before entering the briefing room flanked by a single man holding a rather large steel briefcase as well as a digital readout. Von Kleinz stepped forward and took a slight pause before he addressed the room.

"Gentlemen of the IMG, and Frau Shoemaker I presume? I apologize for my delay arriving. As I was busy personally inspecting the Smyrna along with my chief engineer, Daniel Koehler, he will be available to answer any question you might have over the inspection. As well, his tablet currently has a direct feed to the technicians and engineers working over the Smyrna's remains."

Motioning towards the engineer, Frederick paused waiting for the heavy case to be placed on the conference table. Carefully unlocking the hatches he continued, "Now the reports are still preliminary, but there has been a few... interesting pieces recovered from the Smyrna some of which are contained in this case."

Pulling out an intact slab of steel, anyone familiar with ship construction would have immediately identified it as a ship hull panel. "Now as I'm sure some of you know, this is a ship hull panel and was recovered from the Smyrna. Now here comes the interesting part." Carefully flipping the panel around a bright orange and green ALG stamp was in the interior corner with the subtext 'Wuppertal Refinery' and a serial code bar. "While this piece right here does not prove the vessel was formerly in ALG's hands. It does prove that the vessel was either constructed, or repaired, in a Rheinland shipyard fairly recently. At least recently for a space craft." Carefully placing the hull panel back into the container he continued, "So Frau Shoemaker, what do you make of that? Or would you rather I continue with the preliminary report?"

Maggie Shoemaker nods to the man in greeting and takes another sip of her beer before sitting up to inspect the piece confidently for a moment before sitting back and smiling across the table. She then nods to her assistant who moves over to the piece with a holocam, intending to take recordings of it if he is allowed.

"Recently in the life of a spacecraft is a fairly general term. This unpleasantness with Rheinland has so far lasted only a few months, whereas the Stork class train has been produced solely in Rheinland for hundreds of years, with many of them returning regularly for service. If anything it most likely proves that Daumann Construction was charging us for new parts and using recycled ones. We've used other repair yards in Liberty and Bretonia as of late, but as I said, that only covers the past half year at most, and many Storks can go years without needing to undergo serious maintenance."

Frederick grinned a decidedly unfriendly Rheinlandisch smile while speaking, "Certainly Frau Shoemaker, as I had stated prior, this hardly proves anything. However, the repair work would have to have been done by at the earliest 804 A.S. Wuppertal's completion date. If of course it was repair work to begin with. I will ignore your implication that ALG's ship hull panels are anything short of quality and continue on to the second piece." Removing a slightly charred rod of solid steel he grunted with slight exertion from its weight before happily resting it on the table, the rod having one end that was obviously damaged by weapons fire, while the other was a much more recent and clean cut.

"This is part of the Smyrna's core structure. Now as we all know the Smyrna was destroyed by weapons fire, this much is certain. However it is the core of the structure that we are interested in. Due to vacuum and the frigid temperatures of the void, steel over time becomes brittle. However the Smyrna's structural integrity is still up to code. In fact, it is almost factory fresh in terms of condition. Of course these are simply the field results and proper testing will be done at Wuppertal, and perhaps a more neutral location should you choose."

Leaning forward on the desk slightly Frederick stared down the Interspace CEO and stated blandly, "However I will admit a small curiosity as to why you keep referring to my competitor Daumann. In both first requesting their engineers and now admitting to using their yards. But I digress. Is there anything you would like to add Frau Shoemaker? Any questions perhaps?"

Maggie sits up again quickly hiding a momentary frown before addressing the others with a casual smile and looking them right in the eye.

"You'll have to forgive me I've only been the CEO a few short months, since after this affair began. I did not know that ALG was in the business of producing Stork trains, so I don't see the competition issue. Your Golem transports and their special cargoes have always received special insurance premiums from Interspace Commerce, so I'm not sure why your company would even use transports of the Train family."

She motions over to her assistant who begins photographing the rod of steel as well for Interspace records.

"I'm sure you know much more about metallurgy then I do, so I'll ask you, just how recent was this fabricated? If your labs can prove that it is under six months of age then I would be very interested to know where it came from. I did not mean to insinuate that ALG parts are inferior, if anything it seems that they would be superior if a new ship needed to have its native parts replaced with ALG ones so quickly. Again you have my apologies, my background is in interstellar finance not starship engineering. "

She sighs and sits back in her chair, taking another drink from the glass of beer and smiling.

"I do hope we can find a way to work past this and see Interspace regaining access to Rheinland in a way that could be beneficial for both our companies, as well as the IMG. If nothing else then I'd be happy just to be able to get more of this Rheinland beer our hosts are serving."

Frederick chuckled to himself shifting to a different stance before addressing the questions, "Forgive me for my bluntness. But for a corporation such as your own which wishes to further itself in the Rheinland market you certainly can't believe that all Daumann does is manufacture storks, and that all ALG does is mine waste. We each have our own goals, and some overlap in market."

Glancing back down to the steel rod and carefully examining its structure he continued, "As for metallurgy, there isn't much to be gathered from the actual manufacturing process in terms of age. But, we can determine how long it has been exposed to space. And," running his finger across the shining smooth center, "it would shock me to learn that this part has been in space for over half a year. There simply isn't enough wear."

Giving another Rheinlandish smile he concludes, "As for regaining access to Rheinland. These circumstances are certainly interesting to bring such a note up in. As the ship in question was to be investigated due to potential theft and was... unfortunately destroyed so close to its destination. And by the very group that got Interspace evicted from Rheinland in the first place. A very interesting circumstance to be in for sure."

Maggie smiles at Frederick and regards him warmly listening intently and giving him a nod.

"Well I must admit in my time as CEO I've focused on other markets more, perhaps once all this is behind us we can meet in private and discuss things more closely? It never hurts to learn from someone like you who surely knows a lot more then I could learn from a book"

She turns back to the part and frowns slightly, rubbing her chin and thinking silently for a moment before speaking.

"Dealing with the Hessians was a mistake previous administrations made and one that I will not repeat. Interspace has learned what animals they can be. As for the age, how long would it take to get it tested properly at a lab."

She turns to the Ms. Ryan, thinking for a moment.

"Would there be necessary facilities here on Aland Shipyard for such a test, and how long would it take?"

The Guildmaster was eating and just watching the ALG and the IC representatives compete with each other. Knowing the truth, it was easy for him to see what both parties actually were trying to achieve, but he kept out of it himself. The Guild only provided the stage for this conversation, and he saw his job in creating a stage that would not become a battleground because if this went the wrong way, much more might be at stake than a few millions insurance value. But it was worth it, from his point of view.

Veronica was sitting by his side and when the quesiton was asked, she quickly talked to the Guildmaster, who pulled up some information on his PDA, as if she had to inquire something and he nods as a response and Ms. Ryan answers: "Not the very best equipment available... but the..." and she looks at the PDA again... "... XP53 Series 4 scanner should get us an idea. You might want to recheck the values though... it's..." she seems to skim the text that goes with the technical description... "... not explicitly made for this purpose, the manual says at least. I am not a technician, I fear... so... this is all we can offer."