Sign on the dotted line

*beep-beep*
*beep-beep*

Nathan glanced at the icon in the corner of his vision. It was from Ms. Scolnik. Nathan's heart skipped a beat and he gave the mental command to pick up the call.

"Good afternoon, Maggie."

"Good afternoon, Nate," said Maggie. "I've got some good news and some bad news."

"I'd prefer the bad news first."

"There will be some conditions. You may not like them."

"Then I take it the good news is that those conditions are attached to the money you and your partners will front me."

"That's right. But you'd better come down to my office and we'll discuss the particulars. Can you get down here in a couple hours?"

"No problem, Maggie."

Maggie worked from a small compound that served both as workplace and home for the members of her financial corporation. On Eshadi, she was essentially a Countess, superior to and responsible for a collection of people under her. Her particular office was a small house. Cozy, almost primitive with fixed walls and surfaces. There were actual screens instead of holo displays, but Nathan's wearables clicked into the local network and found an solid datasphere underneath. A couple boxes of the local noodle dishes were set out and the ate while they talked.

"Your proposal, both parts of it, has generated a fair amount of interest," said Maggie, "You've clearly identified a under-served market and make an interesting proposition to get at it. There's a fair amount of uncertainty regarding the actual volume of Borderland trade, but we've found that increasing the regular amount of cargo space trading in a given area, increases the demand for that cargo space. On it's own, the prospect is tempting, but you're thinking pretty big, Nathan and we weren't quite ready to risk so much on the venture. We needed someone to help us offset the risks.

So I talked to some Imperial sources and they agreed that having a friendly pair of eyes out there might be worth a few megacredits. So they're kicking in some cash. But they're also adding some conditions."

Now we're at the heart of it, thought Nick. "Well, let's hear the conditions."

"We'll start with what the Imperials want," said Maggie. First off, they've determined your trade route. You'll be in the Borderlands for a full year. You'll visit each of the major star clusters, skirt the edge of Aslan space and then cross back into Tobia and home. At various points in your trip, you'll be required to make contact with Imperial Intelligence and pass on the data you've collected. They may also give you small missions from time to time. These won't be anything major. They'll always be along the lines of delivering something. You might possibly be asked to observe something on your travels but you won't be asked to do anything extreme.

The second major condition is one that comes from both the Imperials and me. We're not giving you the keys to a major starship, sending you beyond the Imperium without a bit insurance. First, we're assigning you a representative to your crew. They will serve as a regular crew member, but their primary job is to ensure that the ship returns back to us in one year's time. They'll get a special bonus when the ship comes back and we feel that this bonus, in conjunction with their loyalty to us means that they'll do a good job. We have several candidates in mind and are narrowing it down now. If there's a particular job on the ship that you need someone for, let us know, we might have a match."

"Do I have to run my decisions past this representative?"

"No. I want to be perfectly clear on this point. You are the man in charge. Our representative's only concern is to make sure that the ship returns to Imperial space after a year. He won't be watching over your shoulder or anything. If you deviate from your given trade route, however, you'd better have a real good reason or he will make his opinion known."

"There may be good reasons to deviate from the planned route."

"And our representative will take that into account. The person we hire will be able to follow the spirit of our instruction, not just the letter. If you have a good reason, he'll let you follow your own way. We don't think you're going to do anything stupid, Nate, but we'd be the stupid ones if we didn't insist on something like this. I'm sorry if it makes you feel chastised but if you want that ship that's the way it'll have to be."

"I understand."

"There's one final condition. The jump drives will be fitted with a timer and a burn-out switch. If the timer hits zero, it'll fry your drives and that will be the end of your trip. The timer will get reset periodically throughout your trip. The amount of time we allot will have a bit of wiggle room for those unforeseen problems that crop up in space travel and every time we do a reset on the engines, that wiggle room will be increased. But the general upshot is that if you stay away too long, you're going to get stuck."

"Huh. That's a pretty steep condition," said Nate.

"Again, it's not that we don't trust you, but if this thing gets hijacked we're out a significant investment with no way to recover it. We tried to make this as uncomplicated as possible and between our agent and the drive timers we calculate that we've got the right length of leash. Come back to us in a year and we'll gladly lengthen that leash. Come back to us with a healthy profit or some good work for the Imperium and we may let it drop altogether. I said this was the bad news."

"Well, I will say that the assigned route goes a little further afield than I was planning on, but it still looks good. I'm a little concerned about that drive timer. Exactly how much "wiggle room" do I get?"

"Initially, not more than a month or two. Assuming all goes well, the last reset at Tech-World will give you an extra six months over the expected five it will take you to complete the last leg of the journey. So there should be plenty of time for you to get home, or at least back to a one of the planets on the route that can handle a reset for you."

Nathan's wearables crunches the numbers from Maggie's network. The tolerances were tight but the indicators stayed in the green. "I think that's enough wiggle room for me to work with," he said. "I'm not happy with all these conditions, but I understand where you're coming from too. So if you're willing to provide the money under these conditions I'm happy to accept both."

"We have a deal then?"

"As soon as we shake on it, Maggie."

They shook hands and a series of contractual protocols were exchanged on their personal networks putting a series of complex financial operations in motion. A series of finalizing steps still needed to be reviewed and implemented, but deep in the computer networks of the Eshadi System Control, a salvaged Subsidized Trader was scheduled to be pulled from it's orbital berth and brought into the local shipyards for repair and refit.