Ace
Well-Known Member
- RP Date
- YE 42
- RP Location
- Western Space, somewhere outside of the old OSO territory
Western Space, somewhere outside of the old OSO territory
Independent Space Station, Meeting Room 10B
1:00 PM
The Apostle waited, calmly and still, waiting for the representative of PsychoPomp LLC to arrive for their proposed meeting. In all honesty, the mysterious man was a bit surprised when their agents reached out to his, a very interesting turn of events indeed. However, he was willing to hear them out at least, perhaps they would surprise him yet again for once.
His personnel ran security on this station, and it was one of the closest stations to their headquarters, so it felt appropriate. He only hoped that the long travel was worth it, his guards silent as usual, even his lieutenant Vector who waited outside the door to usher the rep in.
They would find the man in question in his usual work kit, never seen without it on. He was almost as much of an oddity of his employer, but he was loyal, and he was known for his successful work under the company's banner. Nothing would go wrong under his watch.
A simple one-man shuttle pulled up to the station and shared the code that Psychopomp had said they'd use when the rep arrived. The small ship waited to be cleared before docking and a man of smaller stature with several outdated prosthetics walked out.
"Greetings I am the representative who will be discussing the terms of the agreement with you today." He mewled. "Who is the one I am to be speaking to at this time?"
Vector said nothing as he stepped aside, opening the door as he did, the Apostle sitting inside at the end of the meeting table. "Ah, please, join me. I believe we have much to discuss. Excuse my subordinate, he is less a people person, as much more a professional.", came the masked man's voice from inside the room, the mask altering it to give no indication of who lay under, but he was well enough the public persona known as the head of the company.
The representative gave a quick bow. "A pleasure.to make your acquaintance. Mister Romanov would like to begin a trade deal with your company and is acutely aware of the past bad blood between us. He wishes to share some of the new prototypes with you to help expedite the testing process. In return, we ask for security and a portion of any funds earned from endeavors using said technology provided."
The masked man seemed to sit very still as he considered this, quiet as he mulled it over. After a few moments, he unsteepled his hands before resting them on the table. "These terms are amicable, with a few requests I'd like to make on our part. One being, that your company perhaps consider buying some of our offered products, with a discount added to any purchases you make with us. The other request, however, is...not so simple."
The Apostle lifted a pad and gave it a few taps on the screen as he pulled up some information on it, then sliding it down the table with surprising ease to the representative. Waiting till the rep had picked up the pad and given it a look, he continued, "This individual is an employee of your company, one who has shown to be rather unstable, as well as a hindrance to some of our past operations. On top of this, there is a rather substantial bounty tied to his name. I wish to have the clearance for our company to have the right to eliminate him, a sacrificial lamb of sorts to remove this bad blood, and bridge the gap between our two companies."
"To my understanding, and pardon my rudeness but this is a free agent. When it comes to free agents we can grant you permission to hunt them but cannot turn them over. Is that alright with you sir?"
"Absolutely perfect my good sir will be a good way of testing some of my more promising subordinates through a trial by fire. I appreciate that your company would be so understanding on that matter.", The Apostle said in a pleased tone, his hands animating this given his blank mask making such expressions somewhat more difficult. He returned his hands back to their steepled position from before, the tone still remaining. "That is all the requests I have as part of this deal. If your company is amicable, then I am in agreeance and ready to look through the documents of your proposal for acceptance."
"Thank you sir for being so understanding." The man then put a folder of paperwork onto the desk. I thank you for making this meeting so easy it would seem I can return home early today."
The Apostle gave them all a once over, careful to give it a thorough read before finally signing the papers and passing them back. "Results are always seen more frequently when business is conducted smoothly. A wonderful thing the world could learn from such men like us wouldn't you said, my fellow gentleman?"
"Of course good sir. Seamlessness is a good quality to practice." He picked up the paperwork. " I look forward to our future business together." He gave a final bow before starting on his way out of the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3 months later, Storage Facility 3
Paul Smith began to pace again. 'Was everything in order? Were the products good enough to meet the standards that the visitor would have for them?' He didn't know and it worried him. He was going to be dealing with a rival company within a similar field to PP and he wanted to make sure that they'd like what his company had to offer. They'd be arriving any minute and he still wasn't sure he was ready for this but the time would come anyway.
A private shuttle would arrive, bearing the logo of NPS, the unarmed craft landing where they were cleared to do so. A ramp would lower from the modified troop bay, the interior well designed and decorated for luxury travel of a few VIPs. A woman in a flowing creme colored dress, that left little to the imagination stepped down the ramp's steps in her heels, her flowing crimson hair matching her eyes of the same color as they looked about.
Being lead from the landing pad, she followed until she was brought to where Paul was waiting, before approaching and offering a hand. "Aries Jaeger, NPS commander, and representative. I understand you have some prototypes to offer to our company for use as part of a deal?", she greeted with a grin.
"Y-yes. We do. They're right this way." Paul walked Aries over to some mounted PA suits. They were thicker than most PAs Aries had seen before and had a very odd design to them being very bulky with what appeared to be shoulder-mounted rail cannons. "We call these the Silverback. they're super heavy PAs that work as mobile heavy artillery in a battle."
She gave the behemoths a once over, somewhat reminded of their autonomous heavies. However, they couldn't rely on those given the last kind of operation they were used for almost a year ago. These would fill their absence nicely and keep things on the down-low still.
"I'm surprised to see a company investing in bipedal weapon platforms when most others don't bother. It certainly would have ample use for zones where combat is heavier, or as industrial security for areas such as large ship ports and outer world refineries where the population is minimal. Can you please inform me of this particular line's range of standard equipment?", The woman asked shrewdly, finding the man no fun, but still having to remain professional.
"It's still in the prototype phase so currently, we have it set up to be able to use all of the standard armaments and its long-range rail cannon. We plan to expand from there." Paul said almost as if he was reading from a script and standing fairly Ridgely.
"What is their average operation time so far, or are they not currently that far through trial operations yet? What is their armor thickness and composition? Shields, mobility, tolerances? I wish to know all information on what we are signing up for here Mr. Smith.", The woman further inquired, wanting to know more about how this unit compared, it would be important to know how well it would stand on the battlefield in her mind. Not only that but what kind of performance she could expect in general, as well as how best she could employ its use by her forces.
"Their maximum operation time is 3 weeks of continuous use, we have run them through continual fire trials and with a 15 minute rest period every 16 hours they can maintain fire with the mounted weaponry without complication. The armor is made out of several layers of varying materials thus making it very durable but heavy with a foot and a half in thickness total. The shields are standard for heavy power armor and their speed maxes at around 2 MPH on foot 10 if you use the thrusters to assist in movement, the trade-off for this is that they are all-terrain and have even been fitted with special mechanisms in their feet to assist primarily with recoil but can also be used to climb with proper training. We have yet to test the full length of their tolerances and mobility pass what I have described to you." Paul shared everything that had been on the paperwork he had been shown the night before. He hoped that it would be enough to convince her that the suits were worth at least using for now.
Aries looked the machine over with her eyes once again, a small part hating the speed limitations, but they would have to make do with Ravens as transport in that case. "That is more than adequate for our needs then. Is that all, or is this only the first product you wanted to show us?"
"This is the only model that is currently available for field testing yes. If you would like we do have some models that are still in production if you would like to be presented with those."
"Might as well, I'm not fond of short stays, so if there are other things we can attend to here, then it would be most appreciated.", Aries said with a small suggestive grin that just peaked out from her professional demeanor. She walked over to the man's side once more to follow, gesturing for the man to lead, "Please, lead the way."
Paul straightened himself. "Of course, follow me." He then made his way deeper into the facility leading Aries to a set of windows that overlooked several chambers with varying devices and power armor frames in them.
The articles of note were a power armor frame that had melded partially through the wall almost as if it had begun to walk through it. Another frame was flickering between being what appeared to be cloaked. Finally, there was a blade that was suspended in the air by several anti-gravity generators floating almost serenely as it was surrounded by debris that was cut very cleanly to the point that it almost looked as if the very atoms had been separated.
The woman gave a raised eyebrow to what all appeared to her as haphazardly testing. The only one to catch her attention genuinely was the blade. As a warrior who preferred blades sometimes more than guns, this one particularly spoke to her in its elegant scene.
"Seems your personnel has had.....a tad of touch of trouble with testing? Can you tell me more about the blade here, seems a bit peculiar.", Aries said as she panned her hand at what they saw, before settling it in a gesture towards the floating sword.
The testing is still done by AI currently so we haven't suffered any losses as of yet other than quite a few tons of steel that have phased into walls or the sort. All of this tech works off of our recent dive into frequential vibrations. The whole concept for the blade is the opposite of what we are trying to accomplish with the phase armor. Instead of finding the matching frequency of vibration of an object we instead have it vibrate at a global constant that shakes the material apart in a localized zone so that it more shakes the atoms apart rather than force them to separate. We currently are having trouble with making the weapon able to be held as we need to offset that vibration so that it doesn't affect the user. Right now we've gotten it to the point that the weapon it won't shake itself apart but it's slow going and the balance is a very fine range." Paul rambled on as this was one of his own personal projects and he was quite proud of its success so far though he was worried about the safety of it and hoped that unlike Romanov, Aries would see this and not ask him to rush it.
She gave a thoughtful nod as she looked over again, "I believe such a weapon will be a boom for anti-armor purposes in close combat. I would like to know when such hurdles in its development have been overcome. I would be very interested in acquiring some, at the very least as a personal purchase rather than as a company purchase. But that would only be if the boss denies my request to source them for the troops."
Aries was no fool, she knew the dangers of an incomplete, or uncorrected prototype. She also was very well aware of how some of those who did not normally get completion....sometimes were merely abandoned.
"I will make sure you are informed when we manage to work out the kinks. I do not believe this device will be hitting the market at all really. It's a byproduct of the research and we may never be able to mass-produce it so I don't know if the funding for it will last." Paul pondered for a moment thinking about whether he should share some of the more conceptual pieces to see if those might be of interest to Aries. He shook his head thinking better than to share what were mere dreams at this point with such a serious woman. "There is one last piece I wish to show you before we finish today. Follow me please."
Paul brought her to a viewing room that overlooked a large antechamber with several large black pillars set an equal distance away from a device set into the middle of the room. The device was rather complex and of a fairly big size. Several warning signs littered the room and viewing chamber. Paul reached out and presses an intercom. "Could you fire up device BH-2457 for a moment please?" After a few moments, a confirmation could be heard and a hum sounded from inside the antechamber. The area just above the device became distorted for a few seconds, bending in on itself it seemed centered around an almost invisible black dot before it returned to normal.
The war goddess gave the man an inquisitive eyebrow raise, "It's a very large black hole generator producing a very small singularity. I fail to see the militant applications of such a device, unless there are more pieces to this so-called project then I am aware oh?"
"This is the latest iteration we have made we are trying to get it down to a glove form so that we can make it portable and stable enough for use in battle."
"It appears your R&D team has a long road ahead on that front. Honestly, I admire the ambition, though I will say that it seems like playing with fire to an extent. Anything generating a black hole, even if very small, is highly probable to explode in the release of plasma if it becomes unstable. Something even more dangerous to the user on a personalized scale. Why not just make bombs out of the tech in that case?", Aries commented as she looked over the massive device once more, a bit wary of such unstable technologies.
"If we can succeed in this endeavor then we can make a weapon that can be used for both offense and defense. It could even open up paths into other areas of research. There is much that we can learn from the attempt."
Her heart went out to the man and his company's seemingly lofty goals. In her eyes, they seemed a bit behind, but she was willing to help if it ushered in results. "I've heard whispers of similar research in other territories, though their goals seem to be around the study of something called Dark Energy. A polar opposite to Aether if you can believe it. I believe they've even succeeded in miniaturizing the apparatus you have here quite a bit. Perhaps you could get data from them, as long as the discussion can go amicably that is."
"We have had dealings in the past yes I believe some of the people you speak of actually work with us as a mercenary group to help us cover some areas we don't have the manpower for. From what we've seen, it does appear that we can generate energy from a black hole albeit its more unstable than Aether."
"We have yet to open a channel with them as we wish to try to accomplish this on our own at first to see how far we can get with our own prowess. If we open the choice of working together we should have something to share first."
"Sounds like them, a bunch of idealistic goody two shoes. However, they don't do mercenary work, so I'm afraid that may be of some confusion. That being said, now would be the opportune time to make amends.", Aries answered with an eye roll on the topic of the NDC. Certainly knew none of them sold the services of their troops any longer, perhaps some part-time mercs who worked both venues.
"One of their lords, the one Romanav has had the most trouble in the past with, was recently killed during a public speech. I understand his daughter inherited his throne alongside the other current lord."
"Alright, I will let Romanov know he might have missed it while dealing with everything else that's been going on." Paul then checked his watch. "It seems our time is running short now. I have to return to my lab soon so let's finish this up, shall we? Now with the prototypes we can send you we have 10 that are working now and we should be able to send 5 more by the end of the month. Is that alright with you?"
"More then enough for now, I look forward to seeing how well they do under fire. Do you mind if we handle the transport of the prototypes? I can have transport craft here within the day, ready to pick them up and take them to HQ. Also please do contact me again, my line is always open for business and matters of less formal inclusion.", the NPS commander said seeming to pull a card from some unseen pocket somewhere, handing it to Paul. It had her contact info with the company, as well as that for the company itself along with the logo, and it oddly smelled of roses.
"That will be fine thank you. I'll make sure that they are prepared to be moved when your craft gets here." He takes the card graciously. "I will make sure to give you a call if I need anything."
Aries said with a smile, "Would you be a gentleman and escort a lady back to the landing pad? I'll take my leave and let the boss know that we'll be collecting them and are satisfied with the units. I'd hate to take up any more of your valuable time, more than I already have that is." After she moved to the door, waiting for him to lead the way back, seeing how she was merely a visitor in an unfamiliar facility.
"Of course I wouldn't leave you to get lost on your own. It would be rude of me to do so." Paul opens the door for her and leads her back to the landing bays. "I hope that you have a safe flight back Ms. Aries. Feel free to stop by again if you'd like to see what we are working on."
She perked up at the use of her first name, "Oh my, so casual and friendly Paul, I think I like this better than mister business. Such a gentleman too, makes me surprised some lucky woman hasn't put a ring on you yet." As they reached the pad, she waved him a farewell as she sauntered towards her ship.
"I most certainly will, perhaps next time we can discuss matters over a drink even. Stay well and handsome Paul.", Aries called back with a tease.
"Thank you," Paul replies with a small nod. "If you are offering I'd be happy to accompany you for a drink sometime. It would make for a nice change of pace." He gave her a quick wave before turning and heading back to his lab and work.
Independent Space Station, Meeting Room 10B
1:00 PM
The Apostle waited, calmly and still, waiting for the representative of PsychoPomp LLC to arrive for their proposed meeting. In all honesty, the mysterious man was a bit surprised when their agents reached out to his, a very interesting turn of events indeed. However, he was willing to hear them out at least, perhaps they would surprise him yet again for once.
His personnel ran security on this station, and it was one of the closest stations to their headquarters, so it felt appropriate. He only hoped that the long travel was worth it, his guards silent as usual, even his lieutenant Vector who waited outside the door to usher the rep in.
They would find the man in question in his usual work kit, never seen without it on. He was almost as much of an oddity of his employer, but he was loyal, and he was known for his successful work under the company's banner. Nothing would go wrong under his watch.
A simple one-man shuttle pulled up to the station and shared the code that Psychopomp had said they'd use when the rep arrived. The small ship waited to be cleared before docking and a man of smaller stature with several outdated prosthetics walked out.
"Greetings I am the representative who will be discussing the terms of the agreement with you today." He mewled. "Who is the one I am to be speaking to at this time?"
Vector said nothing as he stepped aside, opening the door as he did, the Apostle sitting inside at the end of the meeting table. "Ah, please, join me. I believe we have much to discuss. Excuse my subordinate, he is less a people person, as much more a professional.", came the masked man's voice from inside the room, the mask altering it to give no indication of who lay under, but he was well enough the public persona known as the head of the company.
The representative gave a quick bow. "A pleasure.to make your acquaintance. Mister Romanov would like to begin a trade deal with your company and is acutely aware of the past bad blood between us. He wishes to share some of the new prototypes with you to help expedite the testing process. In return, we ask for security and a portion of any funds earned from endeavors using said technology provided."
The masked man seemed to sit very still as he considered this, quiet as he mulled it over. After a few moments, he unsteepled his hands before resting them on the table. "These terms are amicable, with a few requests I'd like to make on our part. One being, that your company perhaps consider buying some of our offered products, with a discount added to any purchases you make with us. The other request, however, is...not so simple."
The Apostle lifted a pad and gave it a few taps on the screen as he pulled up some information on it, then sliding it down the table with surprising ease to the representative. Waiting till the rep had picked up the pad and given it a look, he continued, "This individual is an employee of your company, one who has shown to be rather unstable, as well as a hindrance to some of our past operations. On top of this, there is a rather substantial bounty tied to his name. I wish to have the clearance for our company to have the right to eliminate him, a sacrificial lamb of sorts to remove this bad blood, and bridge the gap between our two companies."
"To my understanding, and pardon my rudeness but this is a free agent. When it comes to free agents we can grant you permission to hunt them but cannot turn them over. Is that alright with you sir?"
"Absolutely perfect my good sir will be a good way of testing some of my more promising subordinates through a trial by fire. I appreciate that your company would be so understanding on that matter.", The Apostle said in a pleased tone, his hands animating this given his blank mask making such expressions somewhat more difficult. He returned his hands back to their steepled position from before, the tone still remaining. "That is all the requests I have as part of this deal. If your company is amicable, then I am in agreeance and ready to look through the documents of your proposal for acceptance."
"Thank you sir for being so understanding." The man then put a folder of paperwork onto the desk. I thank you for making this meeting so easy it would seem I can return home early today."
The Apostle gave them all a once over, careful to give it a thorough read before finally signing the papers and passing them back. "Results are always seen more frequently when business is conducted smoothly. A wonderful thing the world could learn from such men like us wouldn't you said, my fellow gentleman?"
"Of course good sir. Seamlessness is a good quality to practice." He picked up the paperwork. " I look forward to our future business together." He gave a final bow before starting on his way out of the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3 months later, Storage Facility 3
Paul Smith began to pace again. 'Was everything in order? Were the products good enough to meet the standards that the visitor would have for them?' He didn't know and it worried him. He was going to be dealing with a rival company within a similar field to PP and he wanted to make sure that they'd like what his company had to offer. They'd be arriving any minute and he still wasn't sure he was ready for this but the time would come anyway.
A private shuttle would arrive, bearing the logo of NPS, the unarmed craft landing where they were cleared to do so. A ramp would lower from the modified troop bay, the interior well designed and decorated for luxury travel of a few VIPs. A woman in a flowing creme colored dress, that left little to the imagination stepped down the ramp's steps in her heels, her flowing crimson hair matching her eyes of the same color as they looked about.
Being lead from the landing pad, she followed until she was brought to where Paul was waiting, before approaching and offering a hand. "Aries Jaeger, NPS commander, and representative. I understand you have some prototypes to offer to our company for use as part of a deal?", she greeted with a grin.
"Y-yes. We do. They're right this way." Paul walked Aries over to some mounted PA suits. They were thicker than most PAs Aries had seen before and had a very odd design to them being very bulky with what appeared to be shoulder-mounted rail cannons. "We call these the Silverback. they're super heavy PAs that work as mobile heavy artillery in a battle."
She gave the behemoths a once over, somewhat reminded of their autonomous heavies. However, they couldn't rely on those given the last kind of operation they were used for almost a year ago. These would fill their absence nicely and keep things on the down-low still.
"I'm surprised to see a company investing in bipedal weapon platforms when most others don't bother. It certainly would have ample use for zones where combat is heavier, or as industrial security for areas such as large ship ports and outer world refineries where the population is minimal. Can you please inform me of this particular line's range of standard equipment?", The woman asked shrewdly, finding the man no fun, but still having to remain professional.
"It's still in the prototype phase so currently, we have it set up to be able to use all of the standard armaments and its long-range rail cannon. We plan to expand from there." Paul said almost as if he was reading from a script and standing fairly Ridgely.
"What is their average operation time so far, or are they not currently that far through trial operations yet? What is their armor thickness and composition? Shields, mobility, tolerances? I wish to know all information on what we are signing up for here Mr. Smith.", The woman further inquired, wanting to know more about how this unit compared, it would be important to know how well it would stand on the battlefield in her mind. Not only that but what kind of performance she could expect in general, as well as how best she could employ its use by her forces.
"Their maximum operation time is 3 weeks of continuous use, we have run them through continual fire trials and with a 15 minute rest period every 16 hours they can maintain fire with the mounted weaponry without complication. The armor is made out of several layers of varying materials thus making it very durable but heavy with a foot and a half in thickness total. The shields are standard for heavy power armor and their speed maxes at around 2 MPH on foot 10 if you use the thrusters to assist in movement, the trade-off for this is that they are all-terrain and have even been fitted with special mechanisms in their feet to assist primarily with recoil but can also be used to climb with proper training. We have yet to test the full length of their tolerances and mobility pass what I have described to you." Paul shared everything that had been on the paperwork he had been shown the night before. He hoped that it would be enough to convince her that the suits were worth at least using for now.
Aries looked the machine over with her eyes once again, a small part hating the speed limitations, but they would have to make do with Ravens as transport in that case. "That is more than adequate for our needs then. Is that all, or is this only the first product you wanted to show us?"
"This is the only model that is currently available for field testing yes. If you would like we do have some models that are still in production if you would like to be presented with those."
"Might as well, I'm not fond of short stays, so if there are other things we can attend to here, then it would be most appreciated.", Aries said with a small suggestive grin that just peaked out from her professional demeanor. She walked over to the man's side once more to follow, gesturing for the man to lead, "Please, lead the way."
Paul straightened himself. "Of course, follow me." He then made his way deeper into the facility leading Aries to a set of windows that overlooked several chambers with varying devices and power armor frames in them.
The articles of note were a power armor frame that had melded partially through the wall almost as if it had begun to walk through it. Another frame was flickering between being what appeared to be cloaked. Finally, there was a blade that was suspended in the air by several anti-gravity generators floating almost serenely as it was surrounded by debris that was cut very cleanly to the point that it almost looked as if the very atoms had been separated.
The woman gave a raised eyebrow to what all appeared to her as haphazardly testing. The only one to catch her attention genuinely was the blade. As a warrior who preferred blades sometimes more than guns, this one particularly spoke to her in its elegant scene.
"Seems your personnel has had.....a tad of touch of trouble with testing? Can you tell me more about the blade here, seems a bit peculiar.", Aries said as she panned her hand at what they saw, before settling it in a gesture towards the floating sword.
The testing is still done by AI currently so we haven't suffered any losses as of yet other than quite a few tons of steel that have phased into walls or the sort. All of this tech works off of our recent dive into frequential vibrations. The whole concept for the blade is the opposite of what we are trying to accomplish with the phase armor. Instead of finding the matching frequency of vibration of an object we instead have it vibrate at a global constant that shakes the material apart in a localized zone so that it more shakes the atoms apart rather than force them to separate. We currently are having trouble with making the weapon able to be held as we need to offset that vibration so that it doesn't affect the user. Right now we've gotten it to the point that the weapon it won't shake itself apart but it's slow going and the balance is a very fine range." Paul rambled on as this was one of his own personal projects and he was quite proud of its success so far though he was worried about the safety of it and hoped that unlike Romanov, Aries would see this and not ask him to rush it.
She gave a thoughtful nod as she looked over again, "I believe such a weapon will be a boom for anti-armor purposes in close combat. I would like to know when such hurdles in its development have been overcome. I would be very interested in acquiring some, at the very least as a personal purchase rather than as a company purchase. But that would only be if the boss denies my request to source them for the troops."
Aries was no fool, she knew the dangers of an incomplete, or uncorrected prototype. She also was very well aware of how some of those who did not normally get completion....sometimes were merely abandoned.
"I will make sure you are informed when we manage to work out the kinks. I do not believe this device will be hitting the market at all really. It's a byproduct of the research and we may never be able to mass-produce it so I don't know if the funding for it will last." Paul pondered for a moment thinking about whether he should share some of the more conceptual pieces to see if those might be of interest to Aries. He shook his head thinking better than to share what were mere dreams at this point with such a serious woman. "There is one last piece I wish to show you before we finish today. Follow me please."
Paul brought her to a viewing room that overlooked a large antechamber with several large black pillars set an equal distance away from a device set into the middle of the room. The device was rather complex and of a fairly big size. Several warning signs littered the room and viewing chamber. Paul reached out and presses an intercom. "Could you fire up device BH-2457 for a moment please?" After a few moments, a confirmation could be heard and a hum sounded from inside the antechamber. The area just above the device became distorted for a few seconds, bending in on itself it seemed centered around an almost invisible black dot before it returned to normal.
The war goddess gave the man an inquisitive eyebrow raise, "It's a very large black hole generator producing a very small singularity. I fail to see the militant applications of such a device, unless there are more pieces to this so-called project then I am aware oh?"
"This is the latest iteration we have made we are trying to get it down to a glove form so that we can make it portable and stable enough for use in battle."
"It appears your R&D team has a long road ahead on that front. Honestly, I admire the ambition, though I will say that it seems like playing with fire to an extent. Anything generating a black hole, even if very small, is highly probable to explode in the release of plasma if it becomes unstable. Something even more dangerous to the user on a personalized scale. Why not just make bombs out of the tech in that case?", Aries commented as she looked over the massive device once more, a bit wary of such unstable technologies.
"If we can succeed in this endeavor then we can make a weapon that can be used for both offense and defense. It could even open up paths into other areas of research. There is much that we can learn from the attempt."
Her heart went out to the man and his company's seemingly lofty goals. In her eyes, they seemed a bit behind, but she was willing to help if it ushered in results. "I've heard whispers of similar research in other territories, though their goals seem to be around the study of something called Dark Energy. A polar opposite to Aether if you can believe it. I believe they've even succeeded in miniaturizing the apparatus you have here quite a bit. Perhaps you could get data from them, as long as the discussion can go amicably that is."
"We have had dealings in the past yes I believe some of the people you speak of actually work with us as a mercenary group to help us cover some areas we don't have the manpower for. From what we've seen, it does appear that we can generate energy from a black hole albeit its more unstable than Aether."
"We have yet to open a channel with them as we wish to try to accomplish this on our own at first to see how far we can get with our own prowess. If we open the choice of working together we should have something to share first."
"Sounds like them, a bunch of idealistic goody two shoes. However, they don't do mercenary work, so I'm afraid that may be of some confusion. That being said, now would be the opportune time to make amends.", Aries answered with an eye roll on the topic of the NDC. Certainly knew none of them sold the services of their troops any longer, perhaps some part-time mercs who worked both venues.
"One of their lords, the one Romanav has had the most trouble in the past with, was recently killed during a public speech. I understand his daughter inherited his throne alongside the other current lord."
"Alright, I will let Romanov know he might have missed it while dealing with everything else that's been going on." Paul then checked his watch. "It seems our time is running short now. I have to return to my lab soon so let's finish this up, shall we? Now with the prototypes we can send you we have 10 that are working now and we should be able to send 5 more by the end of the month. Is that alright with you?"
"More then enough for now, I look forward to seeing how well they do under fire. Do you mind if we handle the transport of the prototypes? I can have transport craft here within the day, ready to pick them up and take them to HQ. Also please do contact me again, my line is always open for business and matters of less formal inclusion.", the NPS commander said seeming to pull a card from some unseen pocket somewhere, handing it to Paul. It had her contact info with the company, as well as that for the company itself along with the logo, and it oddly smelled of roses.
"That will be fine thank you. I'll make sure that they are prepared to be moved when your craft gets here." He takes the card graciously. "I will make sure to give you a call if I need anything."
Aries said with a smile, "Would you be a gentleman and escort a lady back to the landing pad? I'll take my leave and let the boss know that we'll be collecting them and are satisfied with the units. I'd hate to take up any more of your valuable time, more than I already have that is." After she moved to the door, waiting for him to lead the way back, seeing how she was merely a visitor in an unfamiliar facility.
"Of course I wouldn't leave you to get lost on your own. It would be rude of me to do so." Paul opens the door for her and leads her back to the landing bays. "I hope that you have a safe flight back Ms. Aries. Feel free to stop by again if you'd like to see what we are working on."
She perked up at the use of her first name, "Oh my, so casual and friendly Paul, I think I like this better than mister business. Such a gentleman too, makes me surprised some lucky woman hasn't put a ring on you yet." As they reached the pad, she waved him a farewell as she sauntered towards her ship.
"I most certainly will, perhaps next time we can discuss matters over a drink even. Stay well and handsome Paul.", Aries called back with a tease.
"Thank you," Paul replies with a small nod. "If you are offering I'd be happy to accompany you for a drink sometime. It would make for a nice change of pace." He gave her a quick wave before turning and heading back to his lab and work.
