Before we take this any further:

We’ve received reports of considerable Rat Pack activity in the Bering system, obviously, this is a detail of critical importance to us. What are your interests in the system, why, and where are they based?

We are not willing to haggle for this information. Truth carries its own rewards - and business opportunities.

Certainly. I, or a subordinate, will contact Jimmy, shortly, Saulder. I will not muddy business with intelligence.

Deals are what we breathe. We trade, we exchange. It is in our souls, almost as dear to our hearts as the construction business. Your request evokes both.


We can provide you with a powerhouse unit for a vessel of essentially any size. Battleship engines are difficult to come by in any state of function - operable hardware is even rarer. Other parties will cheat you, or attempt to palm you off with a model too broken down for their own purposes. We will not insult you by having you fit steel to seam on any drive we would not trust with our own survival.

However, if our engineers are going to fabricate you a drive, we are going to need specifications. We won’t press you on the purpose of the vessel, station, or hyper gun you intend to power any more than is required, however, thermodynamics is not LEGO. Each component is unique, each is indispensable.

Provide us with the following:

Desired Fuel Type from the following:

Thorium MOX laser pellet rocket.

Antimatter-initiated Deuterium thermal fusion rocket.

Fast Fusion, uranium pile MOX fission rocket.

H-fuel fusion rocket.

And if you’re looking for a single engine, or a sequence of smaller engines.

What is the mass of the ship?

What are the thermal tolerance of the ship? Will the ship need to operate in conditions near compromising bodies, such as close to stars, or in asteroid clouds?

Finally, is the engine expected to be connected to a power grid capable of handling significant numbers of weapons, cloaking devices, tactical shields, or any other significant power drain?

Is excessive radiation a factor? Is the ship stealthy, or not?

Finally, provide a colourant mix. Cosmetics are in the eye of the beholder, but they serve as a basic substitute for IFF designation when you’re running silent. As a smuggler, I hardly need to narrate this to you.

Provide us with these details, and we can devise the terms of contract.

I am Vulkan. I am of iron and fire.

Converting a CNO-cycle drive to a H-fuel drive is futile. Not all that is Iron may bend - some, break. “Conversion” would be a fresh drive. You cannot build a sword from a Tunafish. Colourants can be preserved, the drive, will not. Even the metal from which dreams are forged are constrained by iron logic, Rat.

I will forge a drive for you - a drive that will survive as long as the liner itself, should it be so tasked. I enthral in the task, for rare do I find myself presented with a challenge strange enough to test my gloves. It matters not; you will have your drive.

Yet I will not fabricate from vacuum. I am a smith, not God - I will not build ex nihilo.

Register your vessel in Pacifica’s docklands, in the attached nerualnet directory. I will make the Cäsar gantry available to you. Usually, the refit would cost two hundred and fifty million credits - but the task is small. You will wire only twenty five million credits to the UN|Bank, to cover the expenses of our labour and lost shipyard space.


You will also ship us the materials required to build the drive. Three thousand units of engine components will suffice.

Complete these tasks, and I will bequeath you your engine, Ratte.

contract T&Cs ' Wrote:- Wire 25.000.000 SC of labour compensation to the UN|Bank.

- Deliver 3.000 SU of Engine Components to Pacifica Base, Bering System.

- Post your shipyard hire request, along with evidence of delivery and payment, to: This Directory. From this point, no surcharge will be taxed.

- Deliver the hull to Pacifica, in order for Unioner engineers to mount and fit the drive.

From dead earth, life. A rat would be aware of this truth.