Holding Gear

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

Grime beneath her fingernails was dug out with the tip of a blade as the assassin sat, leaned back in her chair, musing over a decision. A large one at that, but Sera took most things in stride. Her life was her own, and decisions made carefully. She had grown G.E.A.R from its' infancy, a fledgling company started with the proceeds from a former sell off. Now? This company was growing and flourishing as well.

The problem? She hadn't the time to dedicate to her ideas anymore. Vrak was demanding of her. She hadn't the means to fully commit any longer to the company she raised. She wiped the blade against the wood surface, before continuing to dig at the underside of the nail.

Her options were limited, sell her shares back to the company and allow the investors and board to scrape for control, or sell them specifically to a single entity and transfer majority ownership. That was one part of the problem. The other? Who she would actually sell those shares to.

Emerald eyes fell to the datapad in her hand, a list of investors, philanthropists, and senior advisors to corporations staring back at her. Most were self serving egomaniacs with little knowledge of how to properly run a business. She had done her homework on most. Certain others created conflicts of interest in her operations, legitimate as they may be.

Still, she couldn't rightfully keep her place with the line of work she was now involving herself in. Not without compromising the company she had worked to build as well. It was time to move on.

[member="Tai Fa"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

First and foremost Fa Holdings was an investment firm.

In itself the corporation did not do much other than analyzing the galactic market, figure out the trends of the economy and look out for certain opportunities in the Galaxy. But from it sprung many arms which had found root throughout the Galaxy - mining concerns, arms manufacturers, construction corps and other interests where heavily invested in to diversify the portfolio of the company and the name attached to it.

Lord Fa.

His public persona was the reputation of a sterling gentlebird. A being who worked hard for himself and for the people that worked for him, who deeply believed in ensuring that their practices did not do undue harm to the environment, who cared about giving back at least something of what he had earned... and to reaffirm his commitment towards diplomacy and neutrality.

Perhaps it was not a surprise, then, that Tai's name was fairly high on Seraphina's list.

After all it was a rare individual who managed to make a fortune such as his in a relatively short period of time, while only growing his network of friends and without making enemies at every turn.

A meeting was set to happen on Umbara, the site of G.E.A.R's headquarters.

In truth this worked out for Tai regardless. He had already been planning on visiting the dark world, to scope out some real-estate to invest in.

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

Meetings for the woman were generally dreadfully boring, necessary aspects of running a business that she typically left to her board of advisers. They knew her stance on things, and would forward her their directives for final approval. Though for a matter such as this it was pertinent that she be present to discuss the future of her company.

She had reached out to an investor by the name of [member="Tai Fa"], the bird with a rather large series of properties, business ventures, and a background ripe with history. Thus far he had been the only invitee to the headquarters of GEAR, despite the number of interested requests that had been forwarded to her by her assistant. Her reply included a date, time, and location to meet, as well as an access card that would take her visitor from the lobby to the eighth floor of the facility, a floor not actually marked on the elevator, but one that could be accessed by scanning the card along the panel above the series of digits.

It was there that housed the rather lavish penthouse apartment that served as her work home, whenever necessary, or to conduct private matters.

It was there that she would wait for Tai Fa.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

It was there that Tai Fa would be at the appropriate time.

If there was one thing that the small Thirriken believed in it was punctuality. Some individuals thought it made good business sense to run late... fashionably late they liked to describe it, but for Tai that seemed quite strange. After all, they all had their schedules to keep, if they kept showing up late to all of them to look 'cool', then nothing would get done and all the schedules in the world wouldn't be able to save them. No, it seemed strange behavior to him - equally interesting was the fact that the eight floor did not seem to exist as such.

Only after a moment of inquisition did Tai realize the purpose of the keycard.

A swipe to the right and the lift bleeped in confirmation. Only about two minutes later did Lord Fa step out and into [member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]'s penthouse suite, where she lived, worked and held metaphorical court.

Little head swiveled left to right to see if his host was already in attendance.

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

The doors to the lift opened, she heard it. She heard the light steps of Tai Fai enter the penthouse. From the opposite end of the large room, behind a small divider stepped a lithe, pinkish Twi'lek, tattoos covering the length of the twin head tails that draped behind her back. A large rectangular table with a marble surface sat in the center of the room. Atop it was a datapad, small holoprojector, several books, a partially disassembled piece of equipment that seemed to be in the early stages of prototype, and several schematics.

"Welcome." Called the Twi'lek, extending a diminutive hand towards the Thirriken in greeting.

Half a dozen chairs surrounded the table, though it was rather obvious where Sera typically sat, given the arrangement of items on the table closely surrounding one chair in particular. Behind her, and surrounding the northern face of the building were large, twelve foot windows that granted an incredible, picturesque view of the planet, something she found incredibly inspiring.

[member="Tai Fa"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

Tai's glance brushed past her and towards the large windows behind her.

Structural weakness, clear point-of-entry and the first place a hit would take place. Unless the windows were reinforced, of course, and capable of withstanding such exertion of force. He would have had to come in closer and study it in close to really find that out. Not something that the Thirriken was currently interested in though, so instead he simply inclined his beak in respect and lightly stepped towards the table.

There the avian pushed himself off the floor and gracefully landed on the back of the seat, where he perched in elegance.

"Miss Seraphina.​

Thank you for welcoming me.​

How are you today?"​

Her dossiers on him would have noted the peculiar speech pattern.

Not a lot of information was available on the Thirriken as they liked to stay within the Gordian Reach, more specifically the Hard Roil nebula inside of it. Difficult to traverse and more difficult to colonize, but some enterprising sentients always found their way around. His thoughts went to the company... G.E.A.R, of course Tai had read up on it prior to agreeing to this meeting.

You did not simply decide to invest in something without figuring out if it was worth the cost.

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

The woman straightened her back and raised her head some, looking towards the Thirriken with some bit of curiosity. His species was something of a rarity to her, and thus she took a small bit of interest in memorizing every facet of his features, even whilst he spoke. Her lekku shifted behind her back, curling slightly before falling back behind her shoulder blades. The tattooed twin head tails seemed to act of their own accord at times, though they were always at work.

"I'm well." If she noticed the momentary glance towards the windows she paid it no mind. A remote trigger would shield them with several inches of thick reinforced durasteel barriers, if necessary, hidden beneath the panes within the frame of the structure. "Thank you for your interest in seeing me."

Sera was by most accounts now a ghost. Where her business life ended so too did her personal life. Nothing further was known of the woman, save that she operated G.E.A.R.

Intending to keep things discreet, selling of the company was necessary.

[member="Tai Fa"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

Fa Holdings enjoyed to diversify their assets.

It was a natural instinct for an investment firm and so it wasn't anything different in this particular situation.

For the last year or so Tai had been consolidating his grasp within the industrial sector: droid manufacturing, shipwrights, weapons and armortech, there wasn't a market that he did not have at least a substantial minority stake in. But now that his name was growing and now that Humbarine was rising itself above the usual fray, it was time to turn this enterprise towards efficiency.

It would be much better if all his manufacturing interests were grouped together in a single entity. Better for growth, better for brand recognition and better for research purposes.

Presumably it would also be far cheaper if the overal umbrella group could draw resources from all the branches of industry.

"Umbara is fair.​

This meeting let me see it.​

Double benefit."​

​

"You have an offer for me?" ​

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

The Twi'lek partially turned, a single emerald eye looking back at Tai, propped up on the back of the chair while looking out beyond the transparisteel window.

Peculiar being, she thought. Do they all speak in such a way?

"This life," Sera began, gesturing around her, "No longer suits me. Though the profits of such a life can't be denied, the visibility that comes with it is burdensome." After all, how many pink Twi'lek's were in the galaxy? She was a bit of an anomaly among her people, trapped somewhere between the crimson pigment of her brothers and sisters. That made her stand out. Standing out in her line of work, outside of GEAR was dangerous.

"The company is ever growing, undeniably as can be seen in profit and stock increases. I'm only interested in the profit, not the decision making."

The woman turned back, sliding the datapad towards her guest, displaying the finances of the past three years. The past year alone displaying a one hundred fifty percent increase in profitability, due to recent expansions, overhauls, and product sales. "In exchange for the right buyout, I'm willing to release all of my holdings, save ten percent as an anonymous investor."

[member="Tai Fa"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

Tai simply nodded and then swept up the datapad with his wing.

It was a graceful gesture and only underlined certain things about his anatomy that she might find interesting. But there was patience in his attitude, whereas others might have only looked at the information briefly, the Thirriken took his time. In truth, he had did his homework on the company before coming here.

But some of the data could not be gleaned without corporate espionage and that had not been necessary, when she was already giving him all the information he would need.

Could Seraphina have inflated the numbers? Of course. But with the background investigation done, a practiced eye already saw that all the information was checking out. It seemed completely in line with the projections his analysts had made prior to this meeting, only a handful of dedicated locations, but with expansion plans in the pipelines.

Which was better anyway.

It prevented capital to leak into places that weren't all that viable for him.

"I see no issue.​

How much input can I expect?​

Or complete silence?"​

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

Seraphina watched the curious looking creature, its' posture, focus, and the way it seemed to find an abundance of confidence in itself was interesting to her. Tai appeared genuinely interested in examining the data, finance records, expenditures, acquisitions and contracts, not to mention the comparison between profits and losses. The woman had little need to inflate or exaggerate anything.

She was a highly trained assassin, not a financial fraudster.

"None, save for an occasional idea perhaps. Do as you see fit, but my name should be permanently erased from all accounts."

The less avenues to trace her the better.

[member="Tai Fa"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

It was an unusual request at the least.

But neither did Tai feel like it was his business, if she did not want to be associated with her own corporation anymore that was her business and the Thirriken had little issue with accommodating her in this regard. Of course, they couldn't actually erase her entire presence from the company.

After all, Seraphina had never made a secret of her involvement in the company.

Recent activity could be obfuscated, further dealings could be left unrecorded, but that was about as far as Tai could go without changing the tread of history itself.

​

"That seems very fair.​

We will do what we can then.​

You have contracts here?"​

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

"A number of them." She affirmed with a nod. "Mostly small, independent contracts. Nothing with major government ties."

More often than not those types of ties came back to bite one in the rear. It wasn't a prospect she had been willing to take, not to mention the money and subsidies were rarely worth their value either. Government contracts took up too much in time and resources to man and properly supply that the private ventures tended to suffer for it.

"Nothing too troubling to sort through, and nothing with clauses that prevent severance."

[member="Tai Fa"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

She was quite right, of course.

It was imperative that the contracts and subsidies were properly vetted beforehand.

Otherwise, you stood the chance of getting yourself into deals that were largely counter-productive for your interests in the long run. This wasn't always a problem - if it was a sufficiently small organization or government... it could be mitigated, but if you started to deal with the large corporations and nations of this Galaxy?

It could quickly become very complicated, if things weren't handled with care.

"Very well then now.​

I am quite satisfied.​

Where do I sign then?"​

That last portion was mostly a joke, of course.

Even with a moderately small company as GEAR, it would still take weeks at best, until the lawyers, accountants and other employees of both sides had figured out the exact details of the transfer.

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

"No signature needed. I'll just leave the keys on the table here and you hand me a nice fat credit chit."

The Twi'lek could joke as well, when she wanted to. It wasn't often. In fact, it was surprising that she spoke as candidly as she did with Tai. The woman wasn't exactly much of a talker these days, instead confining most of her time to remaining rather ambiguous among the galaxy at large.

Then again, that was the purpose of this sale to begin with. To fade further into obscurity.

Signatures were needed to close the deal, but that would be handled by the conglomerate of lawyers on both sides tasked with securing the deal and transfer of funds, including the cashout of stocks invested. With that being complete the Twi'lek would be able to rest easier, knowing that the last bit of evidence connecting her to the galaxy would be wiped away. Finding her in the future would be an endeavor.

[member="Tai Fa"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

An amused little chuckle escaped his beak at the joke, before nodding.

From there the Thirriken jumped down from the seat. There wasn't really much else to be said within this meeting, the lawyers and accountants would have to do their job and draw up a reasonable contract between the two of them, they would sign the papers and in the end Seraphina would be free.

It made Tai wonder... briefly, why or what had prompted this twi'lek to fade into the shadows again.

But again, it wasn't truly his concern or business.

So, he simply inclined his beak in respect.

"The papers drawn up.​

Then money will be exchanged.​

In the end? Freedom."​

​

With that the meeting was over in his book and unless there was more that Seraphina wished to say, he'd take his leave and let her enjoy her privacy once again.