To: Bounty Hunters Guild | From: IMG Research | Subj: Appleton Lab. Defense Contract

[kornon]

Greetings,

I am Dr. Ron Kosher, the Director of Research for IMG Research, a small group of researchers loosely affiliated with the IMG. We are currently conducting research in Omega-3 with the intended purpose of developing a new mining array. To help with our research, we have constructed a station, Appleton Laboratory, near Freeport 1.

We are scientists and are not well trained in combat, and as our investment in our station grows we are more concerned with losing the asset. We currently don’t have any threats against our station, but we think it is prudent to have a relationship in place with a reliable organization that can come to our defense.

Thus, we would like to propose a contract for your services, as described below.

1. Independent Miners guild Research, hereafter referred to as IMGR, will provide a 200,000,000 s.c. retainer to the Bounty Hunters Guild, hereafter referred to as the BHG or the Guild, to cover up front expenses the BHG incurs while defending Appleton Laboratory.
   
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2. Defensive actions under this contract may be initiated by:
   a) A request from any of the staff of Appleton Laboratory. The staff can be identified by the Tag IMGR|.
   b) A request from the Bretonian Authorities, BAF| or BPA), to help defend Appleton.
   c) Directly by the Guild if a legitimate threat is observed and documented. A legitimate threat is a situation which realistically threatens the station. For example, rookie pilots pose no legitimate threat to the station; however, a single hostile elite ship within weapons range of the station, and not complying with requests to leave, could be construed as a legitimate threat.
   
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3. It is neither required nor desired that the BHG take any illegal actions during the defense of Appleton Laboratory.
   
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4. At the conclusion of any defensive action protecting the station, BHG will provide a bill to IMGR for the costs associated with the defensive action along with appropriate documentation. The typical rate will be 25 million per hour per ship (including reasonable transit time to Appleton and subsequent redeployment time after the defensive action).
   a) Appropriate documentation ideally includes time stamped evidence of the deployment of vessels, of defensive action taken, and of redeployment if necessary.
   b) Time may be billed without proper documentation since prompt response to threats takes priority over record keeping. However, such claims must be reasonable and made in good faith.
   
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5. Once per calendar month a minimum of one ship from the Guild shall patrol Omega-3 for a minimum of 10 minutes to include areas near Appleton Laboratory. The Guild will send a brief report to IMGR including:
   a) Time stamped gun cam shots showing at a minimum the beginning and ending of the patrol.
   b) A brief summary of the areas patrolled.
   c) Any relevant information obtained during the patrol.
   
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6. Upon the filing of the patrol report, IMGR will pay 25 million credits to the BHG, no additional bill from the BHG is necessary. Failure to file the report within the calendar month will result in a loss of the monthly payment.
   
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7. This contract may be terminated by either party with 2 weeks notice. Upon termination of the contract, the 200,000,000 s.c. retainer is to be repaid to IMGR minus any outstanding unpaid bills.
   

Our station is legal and registered with the Bretonian government. If you would like to know more about our activities, I have included a secure uplink to our station logs that you are free to review.

We are willing to negotiate on the contract terms if there are any terms you find unacceptable or would prefer to modify. We hope that we can reach an agreement, and we look forward to working with the Bounty Hunters Guild.

Respectfully,

Dr. Ron Kosher
Independent Miners Guild Research, IMGR|
Director of Research