by Jim Rudnick
“I will be assigning the role of my flagship to the BN Atlas—under Captain Lazaro—please make a note of that as well. Please also put the Atlas then at the top of the heap when it comes to base protocols too, would you please, Commander?”
Now the fun one, Tanner thought.
“I also will need some kind of office space too—and as I remember, this admin building was pretty crammed already, yes? But much of some departments have been already moved over to the new extension, right?” he asked politely.
He received a quick nod in reply but that was all. Good commander, Tanner thought, knowing when to shut up is a large part of any bureaucratic skill set.
“So what I’m thinking is a new building, here on the base. Something, say, twice the size of this one—and we can then move all the various departments into the new one when she’s complete. Might take a few months, that’s true—”
There was a knock on the door, and Tanner got up and opened the door, only beating the commander by a few steps.
“Sir,” one of the commander’s sergeants said, “we have a civilian here who says that he was told to report to this meeting?”
Tanner nodded and moved back out of the way, and the civilian walked into the commander’s office. Tall, about sixty and dressed in a matching khaki shirt and pants, he had a tablet under one hand and a hard hat in the other.
“Admiral,” he said.
Tanner pointed the chair beside his and said, “Let’s just sit, shall we?”
Once the commander had done so, Tanner introduced Superintendent Bill Chapman to the commander, and they shook hands.
“Commander, Bill will be the man in charge here for the new building construction. You will work under him but still run your base as normal. But it will be your task to help him to do the building within whatever guidelines you want. If we need special things—you’d know. If one department is too tight here—make it bigger on the new building. You are to be the source of what Bill builds for the Barony—and this is not as hard as it sounds. Comments, Commander?”
The commander stared at him for a moment, leaned back, and then a full minute later leaned forward. “Sir, we’ve had some real crowding issues in some departments. Our labs for testing, our HR wants more filing space, the Provost corps wants some detention spaces added—I could go on. Exactly how far can I go with my list of must haves to the superintendent?”
Tanner nodded and grinned. “I’m so new that I get carte blanche treatment, Commander. So you do what you have to do to get us a beautiful new admin center built. And you build in what you think needs to be there. The superintendent will build what you tell him we have to have. Got it?” he asked.
The commander grinned broadly. “Sir, this is a great chance to get all the ducks in a row here on the naval base!”
Tanner rose and clapped the superintendent on the shoulder. “Now don’t forget that the hot tub in my office has to be big enough for six, Bill,” and that got a guffaw from them all.
“You two talk. You two tour and make notes too. All I’d ask is a monthly report as to when construction is to start and when it’s due to be done. For your information, Commander, I know Bill from his work over the past year on Eons. He’s the one that built those four fifty-floor towers, and they opened up on time and on budget too. Good luck, gentlemen,” he finished off, turned, and left the base commander’s offices.
As he walked outside, he turned to his right and took the few paces that gave him line of sight of the entire landing fields so he could see what ships were on Neres. Four—no, five—frigates, one destroyer, the Atlas, and then a Duchy ship, an Alex’n sphere ship, and four Leudie ships.
That was odd, he thought, that four Leudies had come at the same time. These aliens were all individual traders—they had no real Leudi navy as such. He shrugged, looked down at his PDA, accessed his calendar, and found nothing on the schedule.
Being an admiral is okay.
He grinned to himself as he started the long walk over to the Atlas.
#####
“Let me see if I understand what all this gobbledygook is all about,” the captain of the Agora said as he waved the wad of paperwork in the Customs officer’s face.
They were standing on the landing pad tarmac on Farth, one of the RIM Confederacy planets, and were in an argument.
“What it says—and what you’re telling me—is that because our ship is from Faraway that we pay more to Customs and Duties than say a ship from Leudi. Or the Duchy or wherever else.
“Is that about the size of it?” he queried.
The Customs officer nodded and held out a hand palm up. “Captain. It’s simply that as Faraway provides subsidies to your advanced manufacturing sector—specifically to the manufacture of those huge drilling bits and accessories—that there is a new tariff on those goods. No other world here on the RIM has those subsidies; hence the tariff on Faraway goods—the goods that you’ve just delivered here on the Agora.”
The captain was upset, anyone could see that, and the Customs officer was trying to be a calm source of reason. But he raised his eyebrows and stepped back as the Faraway captain exploded.
The alien jumped, and for a Faraway alien, it meant those huge muscled legs contracted and the captain leapt a full twenty feet into the air. He came down and bounced a few more times around the tarmac near the landing ramp. His first mate, merely stepped back, waited, and watched too. The captain was cursing—if the unknown language that the Customs officer was being inundated with were curses. Eventually the jumps stopped and the captain stormed back to the Customs man and shook his head.
“Then if you’re going to charge me a tariff—then I’ll not unload the drilling cargo here. I’ll take it to, say, Juno, move it over to a ship from, say, Alex’n, and they’ll deliver it back here. Would that change the duties and get rid of that tariff?”
He was trying to find a way around the tariffs, which was obvious but not allowed.
The Customs officer shook his head, watching the Faraway alien’s big tail as it was jutting up as high as it would go. They said that one could tell what kind of mood a Faraway citizen was in by just looking at the tail. Lying down on the ground meant the alien was okay and happy—but jutting out meant watch out. And up was prepare to duck.
“Sorry, Captain, but as we’ve already scanned the manifests, these drilling items are recorded in the master RIM database as being made on Faraway—and no matter who delivers the same cargo, those tariffs will apply.”
The tail drooped greatly, and that made the Customs man a bit more secure—at least so far.
He waited on the captain who appeared to be thinking about something else.
Eventually the mate tugged at his captain’s arm, and it seemed to get a nod from the captain.
His tail now laid on the ground, the Customs officer noted.
“We will pay the new tariff. You will note that on the documents, please. We will simply adjust our pricing in future. This may however lead to a drop in our sales revenues, as our buyers will notice that this kind of product, made on Faraway, costs more than say similar parts made elsewhere. We will note that too. This is unfair as it is discriminatory to Faraway and our industries too. I will note that for our representative who will be attending the next RIM Confederacy Council meeting. This is an unconscionable attempt to hurt Faraway—we will not forget either. And we do not subsidize any of our top-notch industries, either!”
He smoothed out the crumpled documents, handed them to his mate, and then slowly turned and walked back up the landing ramp of the Agora; he was done with Customs…
#####
In the government buildings in Langstrom, the capital of Faraway, the Traders Meeting had been going on for an hour. Within the ministry of commerce department, voices had been raised since almost the start of the meeting.
The minister of commerce, once again, for the umpteenth time, slapped his gavel down on its stone base to quiet the arguments going on in the room.
With over fifty accredited traders present, each one representing their own group of investors, they didn’t much listen to a gavel.
Minister Gavin Gibson dropped the gavel and let them go on—there was no way around it.
“So, I’m telling you—and you appear to not be listening as usual,” one of them said. “If I can say it again—all we need to do is to hide the real manufacturing company. Let’s all use the same one—but let’s put in on say Olbia or Amasis. We just do the deliveries—I’m telling you that will work!”
More than a dozen of his peers, other traders, waved his argument off and said things like “no way” or “bosh” or “forget about it!”
One of them piped up and said with a half-smile, “But then we’d be issuing fraudulent manifests, wouldn’t we?”
That got a few rolled eyeballs and laughs, but overall it went right by the original arguer.
There were more and more arguments, and the minister let them slowly play out … and mostly quiet returned to the room.
He nodded and smiled. “So, we have come to no consensus on this issue at all, I note. Wait—” he said quickly as some looked like they were about to interrupt him once again.
“Here’s the facts. We—Faraway that is—has learned that we are now being saddled with tariffs on some products, across the RIM Confederacy. Those products are generally in the mining industry areas, are always made of steel and steel alloys, and all are a result of our own Technology Updates Program. Wait—” he said again and waved some of the traders down again, “a program of our government, where we have rewarded some industries with innovation funds where they have updated their manufacturing. Via new technology or new processes or new methods. We don’t care what was done, but that the industries have made those changes—applied to my ministry for recognition—and then we audit those changes. In almost every single case, the ministry has rewarded those firms with new funds. Which is not a subsidy in any way, shape, or form. That is what we will be arguing at the next RIM Confederacy Council meeting, and we foresee success in that quest too. Does anyone wish to argue that what I have just said, fact-wise only? That I will listen too …” he said forcefully.
All around the room, not a single captain rose to speak until Captain Laird Goshwin slowly rose to his feet. Minister Gibson wondered if that was because the captain was in his sixties, had been a trader for over forty years, and had made his investors a ton of money over that time.
Goshwin stroked his goatee, pure white on his tanned face, and half-smiled at the room first. “You all know me—Goshwin of the Juliette, a true Faraway trading ship. We make money for our investors, I believe you all know that too. But what you may not know is that as we’ve specialized in the mining industry—in fact we have lengthy signed contracts at fixed prices for more than a year of trading mining equipment. To many RIM worlds. And we now know that our margins will be impacted via these new tariffs.
“And we are not happy—especially as I will now have to go back to our suppliers and request new deals. We will be successful in most of same but not all, I’m sure. And I’m also sure that many, many others in this room will suffer the same shrinking margins too. And we are unhappy, Minister. Very, very unhappy …”
He slowly stooped and sat, his massive legs folding under his body, large for a Faraway native, the minister noted. Wouldn’t want to meet this one in an alley… he thought.
He nodded to the captain and smiled to the room at the same time. “What we must also note is that we have some intel on this subsidy penalty which we have recently acquired. What we have learned is that it is our trading enemies over on Leudie who are at the helm of this threat to our traders and our industries too.”
The room exploded with cries of “knew it!” and “protest … I protest!”
Minister Gibson leaned back and didn’t even bother trying to use his gavel to quiet them; he wondered if this might last more than a few minutes and then reasoned that, yes, it always would when Leudies were involved.
He made notes on his tablet and included Captain Goshwin’s comments too. That would be good to keep in mind for future reference.
#####
The light, as usual, on Leudi was flat and sharp at the same time—typical of the F-class main sequence star the system was found in. Leudi was the only planet in the system that had any sentient life, and as the fifth planet, it was out at the far edge of the Goldilocks zone. Flat blue light bathed the planet on a daily basis, and as the planet was not canted at all, Leudi had only one season—summer with temperatures that always stayed the same.
Enormous continents had over billions of years floated to fill most of the planet with only smaller seas and no large oceans were on the planet. There were plenty of industrial areas, however, as the huge landmasses held ores and rare earths that originally had been the source of the planet’s success as a trading economy. Mining was a major industry, and the Leudies prided themselves as being on top of every technological advance in mining as a whole industry. They imported some new technologies via their annual missions inward, when six Leudi trader vessels made the long voyages inward in the galaxy to search for, find, and bring back to the RIM the latest items for trade.
Each of those missions took a few years, and there were always many Leudi trading ships heading inward as well as homeward in any given year. This year was no different, and the ships that had set sail seven years ago, who’d gone inward more than fifteen hundred lights, would be home in a few months. They’d gone down the arm farther than anyone else had, and there was much talk about their newfound cargo—the Ansible talks were still encrypted, but rumor had it there was going to be something new that was Leudi-shaking.
In the capital city of Factor, with more than a million and a half inhabitants, the light was always filtered with the large towering skyscrapers and domes that covered the major downtown commercial district. Sharp shadows meant that one’s eyes were in either full sunlight or jet-blue-black shadow.
Trade Master Niels Lofton smiled at the group around him and tilted his head back, enjoying the sunshine in the early morning on the patio of the towering building beside them. His eyes were closed, and he slowly undid the clasp around his neck to a more open setting as he pulled down the cloak around his neck to let his symbiont enjoy the sun as well.
In a few moments, as the warming sun hit the blue neck snake, the coils of its body wrapped around the Leudies’ neck began to flex and unwind from the normal tight coil to a looser wrap. From underneath one of the coils, the snake’s head slid out to now sit on top of a well-muscled coil, and its tongue flicked in and out a few times.
Lofton, eyes still closed, nodded and said, “Yes, little one, it’s a warm day,” and they ,like others around them, sat and enjoyed the sunshine.
After ten more minutes of enjoying the sunshine, Lofton sighed, opened his eyes, and came back to the present day and the issues ahead of them all. His neck snake flexed its coils, all the way back to the tail area where it and the Leudi were connected via a bio-port, and then as the coils tightened back up, the head disappeared below and Lofton grunted.
“Faraway is once again the issue,” he said plainly, and around him the other traders grunted, nodded, and showed that was an understatement.
Lofton, a trade master, owned his own ship—as did all the Leudies here and everywhere else. A trader who owned his own ship could trade anywhere and with any cargo on any RIM world. Trades were also made with other worlds, but any Leudi would admit those trades were fewer in the past decade or so.
“We were able to force through those extra tariffs on the drilling items—steel industry, by default. But that will be challenged, we know, at the next RIM Confederacy Council meeting. We need something added to the list of Faraway endeavors that will escalate their tariffs but not enough to cause any kind of furor at the council meeting. Idea’s here, Masters?” he asked.
Talk went on for more than an hour, and they went through a couple of items that did have
some promise, but not a single one really was the one to go with.
Lofton nodded to the group, his chin just brushing his coiled neck snake, and as he stood to take a walk, he said, “Fine, keep on thinking, and if anyone has anything new to add, please message me.”
This being on planet duty was bad for business he thought, but still a nice break from shipboard routines.
The fact that he’d been appointed as the Trade Master to the Leudi Council that ran the planet was one thing, but it meant he spent a couple of weeks a quarter doing just what he’d been doing today so far. Sitting in the sun and talking to other traders.
He squared up the toque on his head, and a quick tap of a forefinger made sure the twin gold bars, proving he was a Leudi captain, were plainly visible at the front. He walked and re-did the clasp a notch tighter on his cloak as he went down the steps toward the street itself and then to the left to stay in the sunshine as much as possible.
Faraway needed to learn there was room on the RIM for only one trading race; all Leudies knew that.
But what to do to find a way to make sure that lesson was learned…
CHAPTER TWO
“Captain—strike that—admiral on the bridge” rang out from Lieutenant Cooper’s mouth, and the whole bridge on the Atlas froze.
Tanner had just walked onto the bridge for the first time since the Atlas had arrived the night before at Neres City, and he smiled at everyone.
Captain Lazaro—Kondo—got up out of his captain’s chair and snapped a salute, followed by the bridge crew. Returning that salute, Tanner smiled even more broadly at them and then grinned.
“At ease, all of you—as you were,” he said, and he walked over to the captain’s chair, which Kondo waved at for him to take.
He shook his head. “Captain—I’m your admiral, and that chair is reserved for the Atlas captain. When I’m on the bridge, I would take the seat to your left, the one we’ve always called the Royal seat—if there are no Royals present, that is,” he said. He clapped his captain on the arm and instead of taking that seat, he said, “Care to join me for lunch, Kondo?” which got a grin—then a bit of a frown too.
