A brown haired man, with a thin hair, perhaps in his forties or early fifties, carrying a brown, old fashioned briefcase stood in silence and looked at the buildings, which were so weary different from those he was used. As he was observing the architecture the wind brought a salty air and harmonious sound of the waves. For a brief moment the man forgot all his worries. It only lasted for a moment, as his burden came back even heavier then before. Optronics.
::Man ran out from the facility, sharply dressed in a modern business suit, holding a small hand held communications device in his had. He was accompanied by a very young man in a laboratory coat::
"Konnichiwa, welcome to planet Honshu, district 17. The memo said a gentleman will be joining us today at 2:07. Scanners, navigational computers and optronics for your vessels? Yes?"
::As the greetings took place, it was pretty obvious that there are other customers docking their ships on landing pads as well. Some of them were equally greeted by other personnel. Perhaps everyone gets their commerce specialist and a scientist to answer all their questions..::
Franz was quite surprised by the friendly attitude. Another surprise was the way that gentleman was dressed. Weary modern. Perhaps he should pay more attention to fashion, buy a new suit, to replace his eleven years old suit, when he gets home, to Rheinland. That white coat must be a scientist, well he looks quite confident, Franz thought to himself. Of course nothing could unveil his thoughts and feelings on his face.
"Yes, actually we have only one Schiff at the time.
"Schiff", he couldn't afford another mistake. How would it look like when he would constantly mix his language in this conversation.
"Our government cut resources quite a bit, so we are trying to equip our... ship with the best equipment we can afford. And what would be a better place to go, than the birthplace of optronics."
He was quite pleased by this "speech" , he held. He prepared it while he was on his ship. He also brought a bottle of J?germaister from Rheinland.
" Just to who would it be appropriate to give it? And when?"
::the sharply dressed man took the bottle with a bow and smiled::
"Here is Oyaka Mitzushimo. He will give you the tour of the facilities and you will tell him the list of things you need. I will go find you accommodation. I am sure you will enjoy the beauty of Honshu while your ship is being worked on."
::he bows again and then he bows to the scientist, excusing himself out of there::
::Scientist just smiles and stays silent, waiting for the man to speak::
Franz didn't exactly anticipate to be left alone with that scientist. At least he doesn't have to worry about the bottle any more.
"Well, it seems, that I'll have to brake the silence," he thought to himself.
He approached the scientist and said:"Hajimema****e." Of course his Japanese language was something he quickly picked up from neural net, while he was on his ship.
"So, Herr Mitzushimo, Watashi no namae wa Maister desu, you were probably informed about my identity."
He smiled, and continued.
"Well, I don't want to waste this precious commodity we are all short on in our lives; the time, with talking too much. So shall we look round those facilities?"
::Scientist nodded and motioned him to follow him::
Honshu is the capital of optronics. Most of our factories are located here, and this is where most of optronics in entire Sirius comes from. We employ over 50 000 scientist per region and we are striving to make it all gentle on the environment.
even though Honshu is stained beyond repair, we are trying not to force any more pollution than it's necessary for our production. You will come with me and pick from desired equipment. We will continue to your room that should be ready by then. You will get my insta-number, where you can reach me 24-6. Sundays, I spend with my family.
::as they slowly tour the factories there are many levels of the security and inspection points. The visitor card makes no noises while scientist's card beeps every 50 meters or so. Everyone seems to be tracked here::
Maister, who thought, that he was used to surveillance, felt like hundreds of invisible eyes are staring at him, penetrating his clothes and leaving him exposed and vulnerable. Finally, after lengthy tour, he finally got a chance to choose the equipment. At least he didn't fell like a tourist any more.
The problem was, that he didn't exactly knew what kind of optronics and scanner would function perfectly in Omega 11.
"Well, we would need a heavily shielded quantum computer and a powerful scanner. We are planning to operate in Omega 11."
The holograph projection changed and Kishiro logotype dissipated, as the Omega 11 specifications appeared.
Planet Deidus was highlighted.
"This is the planet we are planning to excavate. As you can see its surface is covered by dust, kilometres deep."
"We want to scan the planet in search of possible ship remnants."
::The scientist coughed once, shutting down customer's map of omega 11, and bringing up his. This map resembled omega 11, but there were so many colours covering it, one could easily mistake it for some unknown system::
"The sun radiation makes mining difficult. Presence of militarist unlawful forces known as Red Hessians. Daumann base. Do you work for DHC? Or is this a private investigation of the planet?"
::he closes his map after that, and maximises customer's map again::
"It's really not important. We cannot provide you a scanner to survey such planet for wrecks from space. We can offer you AI probes we used on Miura, but I doubt your wallet is thick as GMG's is. There's only one thing left for us to do here. We can equip your ship with hull resistant to radiation. Your shields will be weaker, a lot weaker. But they will easily keep the planet's nuisances like dust and storms at distance. Provided your pilot knows how to fly."
::he turns around and drags his hand across the screen. The big OLED display shifts the picture to customer's ship::
"Enforcing the plates at critical places will ensure that your ship can fly trough the atmosphere. From there there's nothing else but to scan with the discovery scanner. It will take some time, but it is certainly cheaper than few probes. Or tracking drones. What are you looking for down there exactly?"
Maister stared at the map for a few moments, then looked at the scientist.
"I'm leading an archaeological expedition to Omega 11, in search of Von Rohes ship remnant."
He looked at the map again.
"We are from the RIG, Rheinland institut for Geschichte and finding Von Rohes ship is our main goal for many years. Now the technology is finally advanced enough to enable us to operate in such systems. At least we thought so "
" As for the radiation and hull strength, our ship was modified by Daumann, so that it will withstand the stress of operating there, including a planetary landing."
"As for the probes, they wouldn't survive the dust, so the only solution is that scanner you proposed, the ... Disco...verer. I'm not informed about what that scanner. We don't see extremely advanced scanners in Rheinland. There we see the hull strength as the most important, which is sadly not always true."
"We'll see what can we do. I suggest you move to your accommodation quarters now and we'll begin the operations sometimes tomorrow. In the meantime, take this neural net card to use visitor's discount in our mess hall.
![[Image: omgsig.png]](http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/3852/omgsig.png)
![[Image: kishirodeck.jpg]](http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/3172/kishirodeck.jpg)