Chapter 24
Trading
“Mister Bil-Tor, let’s talk,” Nellie smiled.
“Uh-oh,” Bil hung his head.
“What?” Nellie asked, surprised by the response.
“That means we need to negotiate,” Bil-Tor shrugged. “I’m not exactly good at that.”
“Well, actually,” Nellie said with a grin. “For the things you asked for, we don’t. You can have the shuttle we used back on the hub for planetary travel. Keep it as long as you need it. Also, settle as close as you like; we have no problem with that at all. If you stay in comm range, even better.”
Once Paren was done with her satellites, everything in this corner of the system would be in comm range, but no need to tell him that. Some things were better left as nasty surprises for whoever turned into an enemy at a later date.
“Oh!” Bil-Tor perked up, “That’s great. So what do we need to talk about?”
“Well, we could offer so much more than that,” Nellie said, feeling a little like a used car salesman, but opportunity was knocking, and she intended to answer. “I’m sure you will need materials, machinery, and more in order to set up a safe and stable colony. We can offer all of those services, as well as a friendly trading partner.”
“We can’t pay,” Bil-Tor said, the big man readjusting slightly as if he felt threatened.
“No, of course not,” Nellie waved the worry away, “But you do have valuable skills that many of my people lack. I’m sure you could teach us a lot of useful things. In exchange, we can offer the goods we have access to.”
“We don’t like contracts,” Bil-Tor said simply. “The Council tried that.”
“Don’t think we would need any,” Nellie said thoughtfully. “At least, not at first. Or, perhaps, you have someone on your side who could draw up ones that they feel are fair.”
“See, now I know that when someone says they will let you do it, that is dodgy.” Bil-Tor frowned.
Nellie frowned as she thought. It was irritating when you were trustworthy, not to be trusted, but she could at least respect a healthy caution. The problem was that she could genuinely see an advantage for both sides. If only she could get past the man’s distrust.
“Okay, let’s try this another way,” Nellie said with a sigh. The man was a soldier, one trained by Crush. That had to count for something. “I’ve got ships, troops, resources, and lots of guns. What have you got?”
“Uh, we have some stuff,” Bil-Tor said defensively. “We aren’t a soft target.”
“You are to me,” Nellie said honestly. “I could wipe your colony, Duke’s place, and that pirate crew off the surface of the moon in a week. At most.”
“So we have no choice?” Bil-Tor growled.
“Not really, but I’m choosing to say that you do.” Nellie dropped all of her human mannerisms. “You’re a big man, Bil. Do you think you could take me?”
“Uh, no?” Bil-Tor hurriedly dropped his hands.
“Correct,” Nellie said. “You are a trained soldier—a very well-trained, very large, very skilled soldier. But in this place, you are the weakest thing by far. Your group is strong as well, I’m sure. None of you are even remotely on the level of nanite-boosted ability, however. In short, if I wanted to take advantage of you, I could do it by force. There is no need to bother with tricking you.”
“You’re saying that you could kick our heads in and take what you want, but you would rather be friends?” Bil-Tor asked.
“Yes,” Nellie said with a smile.
“Okay,” Bil-Tor said, offering the start of a smile in return.
“Fantastic!” Nellie clapped her hands, “Then, let’s talk about how we can help each other.”
For all he seemed to enjoy the image of a lunk, Bil-Tor was clearly sharper than most people gave him credit for. Sure, he wasn’t much in terms of negotiation, but that was down to a lack of experience more than anything.
He rattled off the specialties of their group like he was reading it off a list in his head, including cross-training and even hobbies. It was nothing short of amazing—as was the group itself. Somehow, Crush had managed to attract the most eclectic group of people she had so far encountered, and they were a veritable wish list of things her people needed to know how to do.
Just for a fraction of a second, Nellie was tempted to offer them drone status in exchange for joining her crew but immediately felt guilty about it. However, she did notice a couple of notable exceptions in the list of people accompanying Crush.
“What about Leo and Vic?” Nellie asked. “I can see Leo hanging with Duke, but surely Vic came with Vicky.”
“No comment,” Bil-Tor said, face setting into a mask of stone.
So, that meant either a very large falling out, or more likely, at least one of them had stayed behind as spies for Crush and his people. Nellie resisted the urge to shake her head when the reality of it all seemed to hit her. Brother and sister divided, colonies splitting.
History certainly loved a repeat performance.
“Okay,” Nellie shrugged. “Now, about what you might need.”
“Just like that?” Bil-Tor asked.
“You have your own secrets to keep, as do I,” Nellie replied honestly.
“Fair enough,” Bil smiled for the first time. “But I have no idea what we need.”
Nellie turned her head to the side and suppressed a smile while Remy relayed everything their scanners had picked up, along with a list of supplies he would recommend. Damn, but her crew were good.
“We can handle that,” Nellie nodded. “Shall we have a drink while we wait for the shuttle?”
===<<<>>>===
“They won’t think we are working for you, with it having your colors and everything?” Bil-Tor asked as the shuttle settled onto the landing pad.
“Do you have a set of colors yet?” Nellie asked.
“No,” Bil-Tor admitted.
“Give me one second,” Nellie bit her lip, then grinned. “Got it!” She waved a hand—pure theatrics, everything was done via her implant—and the shuttle colors shifted like a heat haze. When they settled, they were burnt orange, with yellow and black stripes down the side and the words ‘Marshall Colony’ on the side.
Bil-Tor was simply staring at it, his mouth hanging open.
“Yeah, that came in handy back on the Hub when I needed to change appearance all the time.” Nellie laughed.
“Is that nanites?” Bil asked, looking impressed.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Something like that,” Nellie hedged, trying to look mysterious to hide the fact that she had no idea how it worked, only that she knew it did. It was Lucy's magic, as far as Nellie was concerned. There had been a very long explanation about light being refracted at certain angles and being able to change those angles, but she had honestly been lost about halfway through.
“Marshall Colony?” Bil-Tor grimaced. “Boss is gonna hate that.”
“Yeah,” Nellie smiled happily. “He really is.”
She led him around to the cargo bay, which lowered itself at her approach. The cargo bay was already loaded to capacity with materials. It wasn’t much at a single shuttle load, but it was more than they had expected.
“What is this?” Bil-Tor asked.
“That is a welcome gift,” Nellie said, patting the man on the back. “It’s a custom where I am from to welcome new neighbors with a gift basket.”
“Basket?” Bil-Tor gestured to the stuffed hold.
“I upscaled,” Nellie said smugly. “I can do that.”
“Any chance you have a crash course on how to pilot this thing?” Bil-Tor asked nervously. “I’d like to get back to the group and make sure they are okay.”
“They are fine,” Nellie said absently. “About three hours away at their current speed.”
Bil-Tor gave her a look.
“What?” Nellie asked with one arched eyebrow. “It’s my embassy. Of course, I have scanning tech.”
Complete lie. It was all Remy, but again, he didn’t need to know that.
“You have scanning tech but no chairs?” Bil-Tor said doubtfully.
“We never need to sit down,” Nellie lied her ass off. What was she going to say? I sent a teenager to build an embassy and forgot to send him any real furniture. There was no way…. Wait a minute.
She left Bil-Tor to inventory the goods and tracked down Banjo.
“There is no way that Salem let you come down here without furniture!” Nellie said, by way of hello. “What did you do with it?”
“I can explain!” Banjo said automatically; he had obviously been spending too much time with Paren again.
“Go on,” Nellie said, crossing her arms.
“This way,” Banjo led the way to the, as yet unused, small shuttle hanger. He rolled the door aside and revealed….
“What the hell is this?” Nellie asked, not angry so much as confused.
“Well, they didn’t have anything that was theirs,” Banjo protested. “So, I figured, why not let them have it?”
The four Mark2 Centrum units were all dressed. Their clothes looked exactly like they had been made from furniture and sheets, but there was a certain something to the look. Kind of a post-apocalyptic chique look to it. They had even used some of the seat padding to make the clothes look natural. Prim was lying on a cot that boasted a total lack of mattress, with their hands behind their head when she walked in.
It should not have been possible for four entirely robotic people to look abashed or ashamed, but they all managed it as they hurried to line up in front of her.
They exchanged looks at lightning speed and then, as one, pointed at Banjo.
“He made us!” They said in perfect unison.
“Guys!” Banjo looked horrified.
All five of them turned to look at Nellie as she doubled over laughing.
When Nellie finally managed to stop laughing, she did her best to calm the five of them down. Prim was insistent that they should get to talk first, but she cut them off with a look.
“Okay. I’m not mad,” Nellie said first, to try and get them to relax and stop kicking each other surreptitiously. “I just think that you would do a better job with actual supplies to work with instead of borrowing the furniture meant for the Embassy.”
That got a round of shame-filled sorrys.
“If you want clothes, clothes will be provided. If you want furniture, you can have it,” Nellie went on. “But no more just taking stuff.”
Another set of sorrys.
“Can we just address how quickly you four turned on me?” Benjo asked snidely as she left them to it.
“It was your idea,” Prim said.
“Agreed,” Sec said smugly.
“That is not what happened!” Banjo protested. “You know your memories are shared by all the Mark 2s, right.”
“Excuse me, need to pop to the toilet,” Tri said, sprinting past Nellie as they ran for the upload tower, closely followed by Banjo, with two other Mark2 droids hanging off him.
Nellie watched them go and headed back to Bil-Tor.
She really needed to get down here more often. It was better than a comedy show.
===<<<>>>===
When Crush and his small group approached the Embassy, he was not surprised to see the shuttle sitting on the landing pad. It was only as he got closer that he noticed the shuttle's name. Vicky noticed it first and started to laugh.
“Just what I need,” Crush sighed as he read it. “I’ll personally kill Bil-Tor for that.”
“Oh, I doubt it was him,” Vicky grinned. “I’ll be it was the Captain.”
“We should at least talk about what to name the new town before someone goes and paints a shuttle,” Crush tried.
“Yeah, I think that shuttle has flown,” Vicky nodded behind them, where the ripple of whispers was moving steadily down the line of colonists. He would only think of them as colonists, not refugees. That was not a line he wanted to cross. They might have been chucked out, but if you resign before they can fire you, it still counts. He silently crossed his fingers, hoping that someone would complain about the name, but as the minutes passed, he gave up on it.
Vicky’s suspicions were virtually confirmed when he saw Nellie leading against the shuttle, just under its bold, block-letter ‘Marshall’s Colony.’
He was about to complain about it but remembered that this was not just Nellie, a friend, anymore. They were both leaders of their people now.
“Even if she doesn’t act like it,” Crush huffed under his breath.
“Ahh, see,” Nellie called out. “Someone forgot about nanite-boosted hearing!”
Crush swore, realized she heard that too, and then couldn’t help but chuckle.
They might be leaders now, and their relationship might have been strained recently, but Nellie was still Nellie.
It was actually refreshing after all the backroom shit they had dealt with in the Colony.
“Okay, so I might have agreed to something I shouldn’t have,” Bil-Tor said immediately, saluting with every inch of his massive frame.
“What?” Vicky asked suspiciously.
“Do we need to have this conversation in private?” Crush asked, his good feelings crashing.
“Is there any point? Or anywhere we could go?” Bil-Tor asked nervously.
“No,” Crush said with a sigh. “Go on.”
So Bil-Tor laid out everything that had happened, holding nothing back as far as Crush could tell. It was confusing at first, but mostly because Bil-Tor was interpreting everything just slightly wrong. He described Nellie as giving him the hard sell on some trade idea, which was unlikely, but Crush let him go on anyway. For all Crush knew, Nellie had changed.
Then Bil mentioned the description of their power difference and how she could just take what she wanted, which was not exactly true. Sure, she could take stuff, but it sounded like she wanted people to train hers, not exactly something she could take by force.
He hoped.
It was only as the conversation went on that Crush got it, and his good mood returned.
“She was just trying to help,” Crush said. “But typically, for her, didn’t quite approach you the right way. So, she got your trust the simple way.” It was a tactic he approved of, and the directness was very much the Captain he knew. “But what did you actually agree to?”
“Nothing, yet,” Bil-Tor admitted. “But I did tell her about our people’s training. Just in case you did want to do it.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Crush said with a smile. “And, for the record, well done.”
“If you like that, you will love the ‘welcome basket.’ It’s something from where the Captain is from.” Bil-Tor grinned.
Crush did very much appreciate the Welcome Basket, as it was being called by the settlers. It was suspiciously close to exactly what they would need for the first few days, and he immediately made a note to try and come up with shielding for their colony, not to mention a small scattering field.
Good fences made good neighbors and all that.
“You don’t breathe much anymore, but I can still smell you,” Crush said as someone approached him silently.
“I do still breathe,” Nellie said as she came to lean next to him, both looking into the packed hold. “Just not as often.”
“You don’t fidget, either,” Crush noted.
“I’m not quite the same, not anymore,” Nellie said honestly. “But I am still me if you are worried.”
“If you had tried to hide it, I’d have been worried,” Crush said warmly. You are very much still you,” he grimaced. “The shuttle decoration proved that.”
“Thank you,” Nellie chuckled. “It’s nice when people notice the little details.”
“I’m in over my head here,” Crush said quietly, knowing she would hear. “I have to be honest; I wasn’t cut out to lead a colony.”
“I know,” Nellie nodded. “I was in over my head, too. Just find good people to do the job. It doesn’t have to be all on you.”
“Thanks,” Crush said, feeling a little of the weight lift. “How are you doing?”
“Me?” Nellie rolled her eyes. “Lurching from one out-of-control situation to another, as always.”
“You might want to stop doing that,” Crush chuckled.
“Yeah, I don’t think I have a choice,” Nellie admitted. “The only way to stop would be to walk away. I won’t do that.”
“So we both just lurch on?” Crush smiled.
“That’s the plan,” Nellie laughed.
“Oh, Nellie?” Crush called as she walked away. “Will you stop the surveillance on our colony?”
“Nope,” Nellie waved as she walked away. “I got trust issues.”
Crush grinned and went to go find a pilot amongst his people. It was refreshing to have someone openly admit stuff.
No wonder she ran rings around everyone. No one ever expected the truth, so they were thrown when they heard it.