The Man with the Plan

"Mr. Fletcher?"

"Yes, are you Ms. Scolnik?"

"Please, call me Maggie."

"And feel free to call me Nathan."

"Great, shall we order then?"

The Grand Central was a small eatery located off the main arteries of the spaceport on Eshadi. Nothing too touristy, but not so deep into Startown that you felt the need to accessorize with a pistol. Still, the woman sitting across from me was really here for my pitch, not the salad she ordered. I had to make this good.

"So let me get right to the point," I said, "The Trojan Reach sector is one the main trade corridors between the Imperium and the Hierate and most of that trade moves out of the Tlaiowaha subsector, through the Borderland subsector and into the Imperium here at the Tobia subsector. Because of the lower stellar density in the Borderland subsector, most of this trade is carried out with Jump-3 liners.

These liners only make two stops in the Borderland subsector. They're not really there to trade with any of the worlds in the Borderland they're just passing through. The other worlds in the subsector have a little bit of trade between themselves and they can tap into the main trade route if they're lucky, but for the most part they are woefully underserved.

That's where I come in. My proposal is to convert a fat trader into a Jump-2 capable vessel. With that kind of range, I can easily make short, but profitable trading runs into the Borderlands from the Imperium. I can also facilitate trade between the two main starclusters of the Borderland (something else which the present trade routes don't really facilitate)."

"So you want me to buy you a starship is that it?"

"Well, not a new starship. A rather ungently used starship. It turns out that the local shipyard has a fat trader that got hit by pirates. During the ensuing battle, the jump drives were blown out (along with some other stuff). The pirates looted the ship and took off. The Tobia trade council decided to just write it off as a loss and it's been parked in the Eshadi system ever since. For my purposes, it's perfect, the ship has been heavily discounted because it's already been in service for a decade and it's been shot up. But since I'm replacing the jump drives anyway, it doesn't matter to me. The ship can be had for a song."

"But then you have install the new jump drive and repair the ship."

"I also have to install a new weapons suite. The old one is pretty much gone and I don't want to be the second captain to get jumped."

"A distinct possibility out beyond the border."

"I'll get to that in a bit. But let's talk about the raw numbers. I figure the ship itself can be purchased for 17.5 mega-credits. The repair and refit will come to 56 mega-credis for a grand total of 73.5 all told. That's over 25% less than a new trader right out of the shipyards (before you tack on any weapons) and even with the bigger fuel tanks, it still has over 3 times the cargo capacity of a far trader which are the only ships that even bother to take a chance out there.

So that's the initial investment. In one month, we figure that the expenses will run to just over 400k a month. If we're making full loads on every run and making two runs a month, we pull in about 470k. The practical numbers are all here in this data file, I'm sending it over to you now to take a look at."

Maggie glanced at her wrist display, "Very nice, but you have to be certain that you have a full cargo. There's not a whole lot of wriggle room here. You have to be 75% full at all times just to break even. That extra fuel really eats into your profit margin."

"I'm working on a variant where I use a collapsable fuel tank instead. This would allow me to make the big 2-parsec jumps to get into the Borderland (while still hauling a sizeable cargo, but gain increased cargo capacity and cut down on fuel costs when I'm operating in one of the starclusters. But for now, let's assume that we're going with my original idea and less available cargo. I still think that we can meet or beat our break-even numbers. It's true that most of the planets in the Borderland region have fairly low populations which aren't expecting a lot of traffic, but the region also contains a number of high-tech worlds and b carefully planning my routes, I can ensure that high-demand good are being shipped to eager recipients. When cargoes aren't full, it should be possible to indulge in some speculative trading that has a better than average chance of being profitable. There's almost always a high demand for medical supplies on any planet and with the SuSAG factories on Pandora, and my considerable medical expertise, I feel confident that I can always supplement my regular trading activity with some medical deliveries."

"Unless pirates wise up and hit your ship," said Maggie.

"A good deal of the funding is going towards outfitting the ship with a full weapons suite. Both hardpoints will mount double-turrets. The upper turret will sport two beam lasers for pinpoint strikes while the lower turret holds a missile rack and sandcaster for defense. Although we will be operating beyond the border where the assistance of friendly patrol craft may not always be handy, the distances involved and the generally poor pickings out in the Borderland suggest that actual pirate activity will be fairly low. Certainly we'll be ready to put up a fight and if we can make jump, our increased range makes it harder to track us to our destination."

"That may be so, but you've never actually had command of a ship, correct?"

"It's true that I've never worn the captain's hat, but I've done just about everything else on board a starship. I can act as pilot, navigator, medical officer and gunner. The only thing I can't do is fix the engines and I know just the guy to help me with that. I've spent over 25 years making the Imperial-Hierate run for the United Free Traders Association. I speak fluent Aslan and know the subsector like the back of my hand."

"Is that why UFTA let you go? You were too experienced?"

"Perhaps. UFTA has taken a beating from the Aslan concerns in the area and the recent border tensions with the Zhodani have caused them to re-evaluate the operations in the Spinward part of the Imperium. I'm not privy to all the details concerning their business operations. I just know that both UFTA and the Aslan only see the Borderland as a trade route rather than a profitable center of trade in its own right."

Maggie reviewed her wrist display one more time, "It still seems like an awfully big gamble for only average returns at best."

Looks like it was time to go for broke. "There's one other potential benefit to funding a long-haul fat trader in the Borderland," I said.

"What's that?"

"Well, those border tensions with the Zhodani are making things real hot this side of the Imperium. They might even boil over into another conflict. Even if it's just a few small border clashes, the Borderlands might form a flanking front. The Zhodani might act through one of their client states, such as the Floria League. The League has a number of long-haul merchant ships that occasionally enter the Borderland and might serve as a spy ship or the Zhodani might actually make a flanking maneuver into the Trojan Reach. Perhaps an aggressive Aslan clan will decide to take advantage of the tensions to expand their influence into the Borderland region. Certainly their trading companies have been aggressively pushing on UFTA. The Borderlands are the backdoor into the Imperium and at a time like this it'd be real smart to have a friendly pair of eyes keeping watch over things and reporting back on anything unusual."

"Mr. Fletcher, I'm just a venture capitalist, I hardly care about the foreign policy or Imperial security concerns."

"I'd certainly never suggest that you do, Ms. Scolnik. However, there are others who do and they might be willing to help, well, subsidize this subsidized trader. I'm sure a financier of your stature knows a lot of people who might take an interest in this venture. Unofficially of course."

"Of course. Well, I'll talk to a few people I don't officially know and see what they think about it."

"That's all I ask."

"Well, Nathan, it's been a very interesting lunch. Give me a few days and I'll see what we can do. In the meantime, I'd work on that collapsable fuel tank idea you mentioned earlier. Raw cargo capacity does a lot for the bottom line."

"I will. Thanks again."

"You're welcome. I'll be in touch."

As Maggie left, I let out a huge sigh. My contacts had been right. Maggie did have ties to Imperial Intelligence. Getting in bed with the government wasn't exactly my first choice, but they have deep pockets and a few extra reports home to a bureaucrat wasn't too high a price to pay for ship. I just hope they go for it.