Post by Lorpius Prime on Jun 8, 2009 23:05:00 GMT -5
"So how bad is it?" Eduard asked, sliding into his chair.
"Well it's pretty bad," Wilhelm Trautmann said. He didn't look as if he'd slept at all the last night. "But it's mostly the sort of stuff that we expected."
"Mostly?" Eduard rested his chin on one hand.
"Yeah, there've been a few things we didn't see coming."
"Tell him what you told me, first," Bernardo Durante said from one end of the table. Eduard looked at his Financial councilor and raised an eyebrow.
Willy shrugged, "Sally Beckham died in a car wreck this morning."
Eduard frowned, "She's the, um…"
"She's the CEO of the London Stock Exchange," Willy finished for him.
"Was it a suicide?"
"The news media thinks so," Willy said. "It wouldn't really surprise me, either. I think she was probably helping NMC keep a lot of its debt hidden. Really, though, we can't say for certain. She ran off the road and into a tree."
Eduard shook his head, "Well, let's not think about it. Nothing we can do anyway. So what else?"
The Financial Councilor spun his PDA on the table absently. "Really only one thing that we may need to worry about. The Company's filed for an injunction to stop us from seizing the ships."
"Didn't we figure they'd do that?"
"Well, we thought there was a chance that they might, but we didn't think they'd do it so quickly. We also figured they'd sue us in some place a little more likely to be sympathetic to their position, like the United States or Australia, or maybe even one of the Nordic countries. But they've gone ahead and filed in the British courts, and they've done it quick enough that there's a chance a judge will rule before we even get to Mars."
"So what do we do?"
"Ignore it," Bernardo said before Willy could respond. Eduard looked at his Foreign Councilor. "The Brits are a part of the EU, so they're a part of the OES," Bernardo said. "And that means they're bound by the Charter, just like everyone else. Even if their local courts rule against us, we aren't bound by British Law; they can't force us to do anything."
"They could try to impound OES assets in the United Kingdom," Willy pointed out.
"Which is what?" Bernardo asked. "Three or four Fleet recruiting stations?"
"Just two," Admiral Kozlov said absently from Eduard's right. "We closed Belfast a few years ago."
"There you go," the Foreign Councilor said. "All they'd be doing is inconveniencing they're own citizens. And they're not even going to try that much, because they don't want us to retaliate against them. Hmmm…" he tapped a finger on the table a few times. "BAE's got a lot of money coming from Earth Fleet right now."
"They're also one of the big shareholders in the colony, Bernardo," Willy said. "They're one of the ones suing us."
"Sure, but just listen. They're about to start building a new line of cargo shuttles for the Fleet, right? We could consider dropping the order or throwing it to someone else."
That got Kozlov's attention. "I'm not going to reopen building contracts just to spite British Aerospace," the Admiral declared.
Bernardo held up a hand, "I'm not suggesting you do, Admiral. But if we let slip that we even talked about it, we could scare the Brits into shaping up."
Willy looked horrified, and Eduard shook his head. "It'll backfire, Bernardo. Even if we spooked the government that way, we'd probably just piss off their judges for trying to pressure them that way. He'll, we'd probably get the entire British public up in arms."
He held Bernardo's gaze for a moment, and the Foreign Councilor sighed. "Yeah," he said, "I'm just angry that they're trying to knock us off course so quickly. I still don't think you need to worry about it much, regardless, but you ought to talk to general counsel, see what they say."
"I'll see them right after we're done; you ought to come too, Willy."
The Financial Councilor nodded.
"So what else about the seizure? How are the markets doing anyway?"
"London, Paris, and New York all dove pretty hard," Willy said. He picked up his PDA to glance at the screen. "The Börse's held up a little better than expected, Mumbai's done a little worse. Uh, Russia's had a little boost in the currency markets, but for the most part they're in the same place they were yesterday."
"How about the extra contributions?" Eduard asked. This was what he really needed to know, would they be able to pay any sort of compensation?
"Hmm…" Willy rubbed his chin. "Oh! The Chilean Finance Minister called yesterday to say that they were rounding up some extra cash to throw our way. Actually, so did the President of Botswana—though it'll probably be the thought that counts there."
Eduard chuckled. He'd spoken to both men the previous day before giving his speech. And, despite Willy's cynicism, every little bit did help. He'd have to remember to thank them later.
"And what about India?" Eduard asked. "Jahnavi's bill?"
Willy shook his head, "Still pending, it'll probably be another few days at least."
"I think we'll get it," Bernardo said confidently. "He wasn't stoking his own hardliners yesterday, so the communists and the opposition will probably manage to pass it through eventually." He shrugged, "Go figure."
Eduard sighed, "All right, anything else?"
Willy shook his head.
Eduard turned to his other senior advisors, "Lavrentiy? Bernardo?"
"No major developments from any of our friends," Kozlov said. "Task Force One is still on schedule, they haven't had any problems so far, which is pretty impressive considering how many ships they've got operating together."
"Didn't you say something about leaving all the broken ships behind so that you could send only the best?" Eduard teased.
"I maintain that any correlation to recent maintenance schedules is sheer coincidence," the Admiral said. "That's all the Fleet has for you, Chief, unless you want to hear the rundown of construction schedules."
"Spare me," Eduard turned away. "Bernardo?"
The Foreign Councilor shook his head, "The Bats still haven't told us who they're sending to replace Hyarahek. Khatib says that Horexker got annoyed when he asked about it again. I don't know if that means they haven't picked anyone, or if they just don't want to tell us anything yet."
"Maybe they're keeping this Horexker fellow where he is, and he's angry about that," Eduard offered.
"Maybe," Bernardo chuckled. "He's pretty straightforward about his job, which is refreshing. But… you know, I never thought I'd actually miss diplomatic niceties."
Willy turned to him, "Was Ambassador Hyarahek nice?"
"No," the Foreign Councilor said. "So maybe that's why I miss it so much."
"You know, it's good to have you back aboard the ship, Commodore," Hiram Wade said as Xi Feng devoured her noodles.
She swallowed her latest mouthful before responding, "Well thank you, Commander. I'm glad to know you weren't getting too comfortable sitting in my chair."
On the other side of the table, Commander Wade was already finished with his meal. "Well, we thought about having a mutiny for a little while," he said. "But then I found out the crew was going to put Lieutenant Cheyo in charge instead of me, so I had to stomp on it." He jerked a thumb at the Uruguay's Chief Tactical Officer, sitting a few meters away at another table in the officer's mess.
Xi Feng twirled her fork between her fingers, "Is that true, Lieutenant?"
Cheyo turned around in his chair. "Oh, yes sir. The Commander here is a little too ambitious. We were going to space him so that he couldn't get drunk with power."
"Something you would never do, of course," Xi Feng quirked an eyebrow at him.
"No sir! Mine would be a benevolent dictatorship." The Kenyan officer spread out his arms, "In return for their undying devotion, all the crew would know my love and bask in the splendor of my gifts."
"Well I commend you for putting a stop to this plan, Commander," Xi Feng said to her XO. She gathered up another helping of noodles on her fork and stuffed it into her mouth. "I'd hate to find out what constitutes 'splendor' in the Lieutenant's mind."
Wade nodded, "I had to think of the greater good, sir."
"We were just about to start making the helmets for my royal guard, too!" Cheyo was saying. He put his hands around his head to demonstrate. "Fuchs has all this spare chrome that he was going to use."
Xi Feng looked over to her Chief Engineer, Valéry Fuchs, "Why do you have a store of chrome plating, Lieutenant?"
The Chief Engineer had been sitting next to Commander Wade, drinking coffee in peace. Now he stared at Xi Feng like a deer in the headlights. "I—um…" he looked around, as if searching for an escape. His shoulders slumped, "It was from a civilian yacht that never finished building a few years ago. I thought it might be useful. I… really don't like to talk about it."
Xi Feng wondered if that meant he'd acquired the material using questionable means, or if he was just embarrassed that he hadn't found a better use for it than stamping out helmets for mutineers.
"Why not just sell it," she prodded him. Xi Feng had never had any serious complaints about her Chief Engineer, but if the man was taking up store space with a bunch of unnecessary mass…
"Yeah," Fuchs rubbed the back of his neck, "I guess I could."
"You're a damn packrat, Lieutenant," Wade shook his head at him. The XO looked to Xi Feng, "I say we grind it up and use it as target practice for the laser pods."
Fuchs winced, but Xi Feng nodded. "We do need to run some point defense drills for the combined Task Force. How does that sound, Lieutenant Cheyo?"
The Tactical Officer was still telling some fanciful story to the other officers at his table. He paused in the middle of another sweeping gesture to stare at Xi Feng with a tear in his eye.
"But… my helmets…"
Xi Feng looked back at the XO, "I hear no objections, Commander. Let's put an exercise together."
"I'll get right on it, sir," Wade saluted from his seat.
Cheyo sniffed and Fuchs sighed. Xi Feng just smiled and gripped her fork to finish off the last of her noodles.
It was good to be back.
"Well it's pretty bad," Wilhelm Trautmann said. He didn't look as if he'd slept at all the last night. "But it's mostly the sort of stuff that we expected."
"Mostly?" Eduard rested his chin on one hand.
"Yeah, there've been a few things we didn't see coming."
"Tell him what you told me, first," Bernardo Durante said from one end of the table. Eduard looked at his Financial councilor and raised an eyebrow.
Willy shrugged, "Sally Beckham died in a car wreck this morning."
Eduard frowned, "She's the, um…"
"She's the CEO of the London Stock Exchange," Willy finished for him.
"Was it a suicide?"
"The news media thinks so," Willy said. "It wouldn't really surprise me, either. I think she was probably helping NMC keep a lot of its debt hidden. Really, though, we can't say for certain. She ran off the road and into a tree."
Eduard shook his head, "Well, let's not think about it. Nothing we can do anyway. So what else?"
The Financial Councilor spun his PDA on the table absently. "Really only one thing that we may need to worry about. The Company's filed for an injunction to stop us from seizing the ships."
"Didn't we figure they'd do that?"
"Well, we thought there was a chance that they might, but we didn't think they'd do it so quickly. We also figured they'd sue us in some place a little more likely to be sympathetic to their position, like the United States or Australia, or maybe even one of the Nordic countries. But they've gone ahead and filed in the British courts, and they've done it quick enough that there's a chance a judge will rule before we even get to Mars."
"So what do we do?"
"Ignore it," Bernardo said before Willy could respond. Eduard looked at his Foreign Councilor. "The Brits are a part of the EU, so they're a part of the OES," Bernardo said. "And that means they're bound by the Charter, just like everyone else. Even if their local courts rule against us, we aren't bound by British Law; they can't force us to do anything."
"They could try to impound OES assets in the United Kingdom," Willy pointed out.
"Which is what?" Bernardo asked. "Three or four Fleet recruiting stations?"
"Just two," Admiral Kozlov said absently from Eduard's right. "We closed Belfast a few years ago."
"There you go," the Foreign Councilor said. "All they'd be doing is inconveniencing they're own citizens. And they're not even going to try that much, because they don't want us to retaliate against them. Hmmm…" he tapped a finger on the table a few times. "BAE's got a lot of money coming from Earth Fleet right now."
"They're also one of the big shareholders in the colony, Bernardo," Willy said. "They're one of the ones suing us."
"Sure, but just listen. They're about to start building a new line of cargo shuttles for the Fleet, right? We could consider dropping the order or throwing it to someone else."
That got Kozlov's attention. "I'm not going to reopen building contracts just to spite British Aerospace," the Admiral declared.
Bernardo held up a hand, "I'm not suggesting you do, Admiral. But if we let slip that we even talked about it, we could scare the Brits into shaping up."
Willy looked horrified, and Eduard shook his head. "It'll backfire, Bernardo. Even if we spooked the government that way, we'd probably just piss off their judges for trying to pressure them that way. He'll, we'd probably get the entire British public up in arms."
He held Bernardo's gaze for a moment, and the Foreign Councilor sighed. "Yeah," he said, "I'm just angry that they're trying to knock us off course so quickly. I still don't think you need to worry about it much, regardless, but you ought to talk to general counsel, see what they say."
"I'll see them right after we're done; you ought to come too, Willy."
The Financial Councilor nodded.
"So what else about the seizure? How are the markets doing anyway?"
"London, Paris, and New York all dove pretty hard," Willy said. He picked up his PDA to glance at the screen. "The Börse's held up a little better than expected, Mumbai's done a little worse. Uh, Russia's had a little boost in the currency markets, but for the most part they're in the same place they were yesterday."
"How about the extra contributions?" Eduard asked. This was what he really needed to know, would they be able to pay any sort of compensation?
"Hmm…" Willy rubbed his chin. "Oh! The Chilean Finance Minister called yesterday to say that they were rounding up some extra cash to throw our way. Actually, so did the President of Botswana—though it'll probably be the thought that counts there."
Eduard chuckled. He'd spoken to both men the previous day before giving his speech. And, despite Willy's cynicism, every little bit did help. He'd have to remember to thank them later.
"And what about India?" Eduard asked. "Jahnavi's bill?"
Willy shook his head, "Still pending, it'll probably be another few days at least."
"I think we'll get it," Bernardo said confidently. "He wasn't stoking his own hardliners yesterday, so the communists and the opposition will probably manage to pass it through eventually." He shrugged, "Go figure."
Eduard sighed, "All right, anything else?"
Willy shook his head.
Eduard turned to his other senior advisors, "Lavrentiy? Bernardo?"
"No major developments from any of our friends," Kozlov said. "Task Force One is still on schedule, they haven't had any problems so far, which is pretty impressive considering how many ships they've got operating together."
"Didn't you say something about leaving all the broken ships behind so that you could send only the best?" Eduard teased.
"I maintain that any correlation to recent maintenance schedules is sheer coincidence," the Admiral said. "That's all the Fleet has for you, Chief, unless you want to hear the rundown of construction schedules."
"Spare me," Eduard turned away. "Bernardo?"
The Foreign Councilor shook his head, "The Bats still haven't told us who they're sending to replace Hyarahek. Khatib says that Horexker got annoyed when he asked about it again. I don't know if that means they haven't picked anyone, or if they just don't want to tell us anything yet."
"Maybe they're keeping this Horexker fellow where he is, and he's angry about that," Eduard offered.
"Maybe," Bernardo chuckled. "He's pretty straightforward about his job, which is refreshing. But… you know, I never thought I'd actually miss diplomatic niceties."
Willy turned to him, "Was Ambassador Hyarahek nice?"
"No," the Foreign Councilor said. "So maybe that's why I miss it so much."
* * *
"You know, it's good to have you back aboard the ship, Commodore," Hiram Wade said as Xi Feng devoured her noodles.
She swallowed her latest mouthful before responding, "Well thank you, Commander. I'm glad to know you weren't getting too comfortable sitting in my chair."
On the other side of the table, Commander Wade was already finished with his meal. "Well, we thought about having a mutiny for a little while," he said. "But then I found out the crew was going to put Lieutenant Cheyo in charge instead of me, so I had to stomp on it." He jerked a thumb at the Uruguay's Chief Tactical Officer, sitting a few meters away at another table in the officer's mess.
Xi Feng twirled her fork between her fingers, "Is that true, Lieutenant?"
Cheyo turned around in his chair. "Oh, yes sir. The Commander here is a little too ambitious. We were going to space him so that he couldn't get drunk with power."
"Something you would never do, of course," Xi Feng quirked an eyebrow at him.
"No sir! Mine would be a benevolent dictatorship." The Kenyan officer spread out his arms, "In return for their undying devotion, all the crew would know my love and bask in the splendor of my gifts."
"Well I commend you for putting a stop to this plan, Commander," Xi Feng said to her XO. She gathered up another helping of noodles on her fork and stuffed it into her mouth. "I'd hate to find out what constitutes 'splendor' in the Lieutenant's mind."
Wade nodded, "I had to think of the greater good, sir."
"We were just about to start making the helmets for my royal guard, too!" Cheyo was saying. He put his hands around his head to demonstrate. "Fuchs has all this spare chrome that he was going to use."
Xi Feng looked over to her Chief Engineer, Valéry Fuchs, "Why do you have a store of chrome plating, Lieutenant?"
The Chief Engineer had been sitting next to Commander Wade, drinking coffee in peace. Now he stared at Xi Feng like a deer in the headlights. "I—um…" he looked around, as if searching for an escape. His shoulders slumped, "It was from a civilian yacht that never finished building a few years ago. I thought it might be useful. I… really don't like to talk about it."
Xi Feng wondered if that meant he'd acquired the material using questionable means, or if he was just embarrassed that he hadn't found a better use for it than stamping out helmets for mutineers.
"Why not just sell it," she prodded him. Xi Feng had never had any serious complaints about her Chief Engineer, but if the man was taking up store space with a bunch of unnecessary mass…
"Yeah," Fuchs rubbed the back of his neck, "I guess I could."
"You're a damn packrat, Lieutenant," Wade shook his head at him. The XO looked to Xi Feng, "I say we grind it up and use it as target practice for the laser pods."
Fuchs winced, but Xi Feng nodded. "We do need to run some point defense drills for the combined Task Force. How does that sound, Lieutenant Cheyo?"
The Tactical Officer was still telling some fanciful story to the other officers at his table. He paused in the middle of another sweeping gesture to stare at Xi Feng with a tear in his eye.
"But… my helmets…"
Xi Feng looked back at the XO, "I hear no objections, Commander. Let's put an exercise together."
"I'll get right on it, sir," Wade saluted from his seat.
Cheyo sniffed and Fuchs sighed. Xi Feng just smiled and gripped her fork to finish off the last of her noodles.
It was good to be back.