CIS Aquisitions

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys ran a hand through her hair before taking her seat at the table. Today was going to be…difficult. The Commodore was too busy to come himself, the FLaTPACK programme manager was busy. That left her as the senior member of the delivery team to have this battle. She hated this job, the hated this office, she hated these people. Slow-witted, all talk and posturing. Why the hell didn't they give her the Majesty back? The cramped conditions and battles would be blessed relief from the number crunching and tedious meetings.

Not that she'd escape this on a ship. There was always plenty of office work for a ship's captain to do.

Members of staff from the supplier consortium filed into the room. They nodded, exchanged pleasantries and took their seats. The table was covered with mugs of caff and datapads within minutes.

She eyes up the occupants of the room. There were technical subject matter experts, but today the supplier had brought the heavy hitters. High level executives who only came down for the difficult conversations.

“Well, I’m sure everyone knows why we’re here.” Irys started. She noted that she was twenty years junior compared to most of the assembled group, but that had never daunted her before. “We’ve finished the acceptance trials of the Scythe class. You’ve all seen the reports and are aware of the defects in progress, but lets bring up the summary.”

A holo screen emerged between the group. A series of categories appeared, flashing green and amber. One was flashing bright red.

“As you can see the acceleration is still ten percent short of acceptance levels. Not target levels, acceptance levels.”

“Let me just say now, we’ve been working on this behind the scenes. We think we can eek some more out, but we don’t think we can hit that figure,” started one of the suppliers, holding his hands out wide. His fur flattened: embarrassment or guilt. “We’d be willing to take a hit on this one and suffer a reduction in…”

“I’ve spoken to the Commodore at length,” Irys interrupted firmly. “No negotiation on this matter is possible. You signed up to our requirements, you’ve been designing this cruiser for ten years. You can either meet the requirement, or its going to legal as a failure to meet the terms of the contract.

“But, why don’t we discuss what you’ve looked at so far. I’m keen to know exactly why you can’t hit the target. Let’s have an open and frank discussion, not on how we got here, but how we – collectively – “ she encompassed the whole group, military and supplier, “ – can go about taking this forwards,”



[member="Marek Starchaser"]

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys threw her key-card into the bowl next to her front door as she walked into her small apartment. She started into her towards her kitchen, but then stopped. Seeing the view of Bothawui out of the window reminded her how late it was. She took a couple of steps backwards and picked one of the takeaway menus up from the side table.

She slung her bag into a safe that she'd had fitted. The owners of this building will all too aware that a lot of the occupants worked on the nearby military base and were only too happy to oblige with such amenities. Taking her datapad and sitting down on her sofa, she decided to order southern food. The automated reply suggested she'd be waiting for half an hour. That was just enough time for a power steam. She got back up from the chair and headed for the refresher, sliding her top over her head.

The noise was faint, but suddenly all her senses agreed. There was someone in the room with her. How had she missed it? It seemed so obvious now. She stayed perfectly still for a moment, fearing the worst. Then she tentatively turned to look behind her. A young human male was crouched at the back of the hall, his features obscured in the shadows. Fear like she had never felt before gripped her.

 

[Raziel]

"You can put that back on," Raziel said. He stood up and walked calmly around to a chair, making a show of shielding his eyes. It didn't matter, the Force allowed him to violate the privacy of the mind with such ease. The bothan's fear was powerful, he tried to tune it out, but his empathy was always so keen and worked without concious effort. As soon as he stopped concentrating on filtering it out, her thoughts and emotions would start creeping back into his mind.

She pulled her military tunic back on and fully turned around. "Have a seat," Raziel offered, waving towards a chair.

"Oh hell, you're spynet aren't you?" Irys replied.

"Sort of, I'm here to discuss some mutual benefit." Raziel said.

The bothan sighed, but her fur gave away her panic. "What do you..."

"You have a glittering career ahead of you Irys Arist'lar, but you're being held back. I need someone with influence in the CIS military, you need your ship back. I can help you achieve your goals."

"You haven't said what it is you want, what I might have to do?" Irys countered.

"Oh you are bright! You're worried I might want you to feed information to a foreign government." he stated the simple fact, knowing it to be true. "There is nothing I can say that will alleviate your fears. I work for the confederacy, but not in a manner that I can directly prove to you. So, I'll help you for free and I'll find a way to show you that I work for people within the military. There are people that want to see you succeed, but can't help directly for political reasons."

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys decided the take the chair, keeping her eyes on the intruder. She knew the protocol, she wouldn't give anything away and as soon as he left she would dial a specific number to report the incident. But maybe, just maybe what he said was true. N

No...it it's too tempting, she thought. He's saying what you want to hear. Don't ask what he had, don't let him...

"How can you help me?" she asked, her voice surprising her with its betrayal. She knew why, of course. The frustration of being stuck in her station with no allies, no one to admit her brilliance.

Slowly the man pulled a brown envelope from within his jacket and removed the folded up document within. He placed it on the table between them, facing her.

"What's this?" she asked. Looking down at the document, she saw classification markings used by the CIS. This was one of their own documents.

"This was pulled by SpyNet," he said, his voice calm and pleasant. "It's a white paper by a firm of futurists from Roon. In it, they analyse trends in technology and how they will affect the military. SpyNet considered it a little too dangerous to be in public hands. You'll find annexes A and B particularly interesting."

"I'm not going to read this," Irys lied. "I don't need your help,"

The intruder laughed briefly. "You're brilliant, Irys, every report I've seen suggests you should have your own task force by now. Yet you're here on the ground doing desk work because you upset people and don't have the political nous to get what you deserve. We want to see you where you should be. I don't mind that you don't believe me, right now furthering your goals is enough for me."

Irys kept her eyes on the man as he got to his feet. He flashed her a smile and left through the front door.

 

[Raziel]

Raziel paused after crossing the threshold and shutting the door behind him. Reaching out with the Force to check what she was doing. Exactly as he expected, pouring over the document. Manipulating a mind, especially one as complex as Irys' took time and effort. But she was desperately ambitious, when the mind was ready to accept the subtle push, it was all too easy to change someone's perceptions.

The pieces were lining up on the board now. One by one he extended his web and pulled more people into it. SpyNet hadn't tracked him down on Bothawui yet, and soon it would be time to put Norongachi's plan into action. That wasn't for him to do, of course. He was an enabler, not a battlefield commander. Then again, with such an excellent set of connections to powerful individuals, he was hardly going to let his influence wane.

No, Salem would fulfil his side of the bargain, but Raziel would keep his ear to the ground.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

The following morning Irys marched through the guided gates into the base. The white paper in her case. She knew she was breaking regulations, she knew she should have reported the incident.

But she was desperate. Desperate to get her career back on track, to be done with contracts and get back on her ship.

She reached her desk and opened her messages to find another stumbling block. The Commodore had reconsidered his position and unless she could prove the effectiveness in the simulator of the faster Scythes as per her designs they would allow the contractor to produce the slower ships for a reduced fee.

Yet again, the techno union had used it's considerable influence to change matters to their favour. She didn't know how, but she knew it had to be the case.

We'll then, one more challenge on the path to getting her way. She put a slot in her calender for the next day and booked the simulators.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys swiped her lanyard across the panel next to the entry to the simulation centre. She nodded to the guard as she passed through another weapons scanner. There were so many of the damn things since the war had ramped up, she reflected. Checking a terminal on the wall, she found that she had been assigned chamber seven for the morning's work.

As she stepped inside the chamber the lights flicked on, revealing a typical bridge of a CIS command ship.

"Schedule requested automated bridge crew, confirm?" came an automated voice.

"Confirm," Irys replied. Holo crew flickered into being at the various stations around the room. She wouldn't need them much today, she would be worrying more about fleet control and preferred to speed up the process by using her console to verbalising all commands.

"Scenario IA650b is scheduled for today's simulation. Confirm?"

"Confirm," Irys replied as she took her place in the command chair.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys settled into her chair and looked at the scenario put before her. She’d deliberately arranged a typical defensive scenario against an Omega fleet. The enemy ships started to drop out of hypserspace and she used to controls to begin repositioning her own vessels. There was always a random element added to the initial conditions of these encounters to ensure that a commander couldn’t just take advantage of prior knowledge of the scenario.

“Order Task Force D6 and D7 to warm up their engines, I need them ready to move,” she called. A holographic bridge officer acknowledged her call.

Right now a whole room full of computers would be whirring away to process this simulation. She knew every weapon and significant system of each vessel in her ship was modelled separately. Each crew would have been assigned a random set of characteristics, as the simulation unfolded they would behave slightly differently. Overall the simulation was intended to make this as realistic as possible. Problems a commander would have to face, such as failed comms, or occasional stupid mistakes by Captains would crop up.

She watched as Task Forces D6 and D7 lined up. They were what she referred to as Rapid Destroyer formations. The Scythes were the largest ships in the formation, and gave them significant close range firepower.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

There was an exchange of long range firepower. Details flashed across her holodisplay as damage counts were reported back. She ordered her fleet to hold their line, she wanted the enemy to deliberately reach the maximum approach velocity they were comfortable with.

Fighter formations from the enemy started to break away from their main battle line. Her own, mostly droid fighters moved in a less rigid complex swarm, weaving around her own fleet. She tapped a few commands and Turtle and Krell class ships moved to block off approach paths. With their laser cannons, flak cannons and concussion missiles they could cut off whole approach vectors from the enemy.

As the readout showed that the enemy fleet had ceased accelerating she gave the order. "Accelerate the whole fleet by one click per second, then maintain velocity!"

It was harder for them to push on, with the planet behind them, but with the enemy's engines behind them and gravity ahead of them, it was even harder for them to slow down. And that was the point, the relative approach velocities of the two fleets was just a touch higher than they wanted. Just enough that as they started to close...

"D6 and D7, attack pattern Leth-Three!"

She watched as the rapid destroyer formations accelerated forwards, rushing around the enemy's flanks. Only the Omega frigates, corvettes and fighters could react to the movement. The Scythes were escorted by Sev'rance, Turtles and Krell for that very purpose. She could see the signs of the simulated enemy Captains panicking, they hadn't seen the counter attack coming from the flanks, at least not from heavy cruisers. Each pair of Scythes had the firepower of a star destroyer, and far more speed.

Several of the more delicate scythes crumpled, but they brought the full power of their guns to bear before turning aside, wings of bombers in their wake. The enemy fleet started to diverge, where they should have remained focussed.

It took a whole further two hours, but the engagement had been decided already.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys slapped the white paper down on the table and sat waiting for the Hoar Chall project manager to take it. A confused glance passed between him and his assistant. He reached forward and tentatively took the paperwork.

"You'll find the annexes particularly interesting," she said, giving them a few moments to skim-read it.

"I don't really see how this is...." the PM started. Irys could already tell this was going to become heated.

"It's of interest, because it highlights ships already in development, and even already in the field with the characteristics you say you can't produce." Irys stated.

The Haor Chell manager bristled. "We're not here to be held accountable to other ships that may or may not..."

"No you'll be held accountable to your contract," Irys replied, bluntly.

"That's true, but let's try and be constructive here. Does this actually provide any practical guidance on..."

"Annex B, it shows the principles that are being used to increase the momentum imparted to individual ions, rather than ejecting more mass per second."

"But we've looked down that avenue, it was very costly and..."

"Stop right there," Irys interjected. "Your costs are not an issue. We've agreed to the price."

The two Haor Chall employees looked to each other, realising they'd spoken carelessly. One of them scratched his beard and sighed.

"Look," Irys said. "We know this is an ambitious project for you and we understand you were a little too keen to undercut your competitors to get this contract. As a gesture of good will, we're willing to raise the ongoing maintenance price by ten percent, but that's all. Why don't you go back to your office and have a discussion with your foreman [member="Marek Starchaser"]. You're going to make a loss on this contract, but you've got to decide if the reputational and cost damages of us severing this contract and re-competing with another company and greater or worse than the loss of you re-working the engine systems. It's your call gentlemen, but I need an answer by tomorrow."

 

[Corey's OOC]

Marek was waiting at his desk, it was one of those days where he was holding to office hours… of a sort. He didn’t need to, but some days it was just easier to wait it out and not go running around to do things. There really was a stack of paperwork he should have been working on, and had been really avoiding.

The joys of being a CEO and the Foreman for the Techno Union.

No bother. Most things were simple when they got to him, a yes here, a no there, but mostly it was just ‘oh, so we’re doing this now’? Sometimes he was just a figure head, and others would handle ninety percent of his job. That was when Alana contacted him saying that one of the Project Managers wanted to speak to him. After stating it was fine to send him in, Marek reached out to the PM in the Force. He seemed like he was a bit… out of sorts.

“Let me guess, [member="Irys Arist'lar"]?" Marek smirked. He looked over the piece of flimsy and nodded. "So, you didn't make the call, and while I respect your caution, you do realize we're in a war, here, right? We need these ships. And its not going to hurt your salary." He preferred to keep the Project Managers and all super intendants on the Haor Chall payroll, as opposed to union pay. He took the sheet. "Dismissed, Mr. Project Manager."

Opening up a new line, he was preparing a voice message in the affirmative for the Admiral. He wasn't sure if she was still awake, but the project was going to go on. These ships needed to be produced, and it was his company's and others, responsibilities to make sure this happened. That, along with 'stop scaring my project managers fleabag' was the gist of his message.

 

[Irys Arist'lar]

Irys forwarded the communication on the rest of her internal project team. It was important that they knew things were going to be proceeding. She'd already had a team work up another tender document to put out, she'd been planning on letting the skeleton document slip into HC hands to let them know she was being serious. But more importantly, she wanted her seniors to know that she was doing her job well.

She sent a brief reply to the foreman, thanking him for his commitment to the project, and some other statements about his company showing good intent in a new area for them. She slipped in a brief comment on the competency of the project managers assigned, and suggested that a more efficient management layer might allows Haor Chall's engineers to implement their visions.