I brought Kara along while I worked. Isabella and Gleas arrived two days after I did, so Isabella was along as well. I tended the food growing area and then went to the parts storage and built a ridiculous amount of black barrier devices. I did that day in and day out for the next three weeks until it was time for my appointment with the owner of the Bogorim Corporation.
Not surprisingly, it was scheduled to be held in a conference room inside their main building, which meant he knew what I was going to ask for and he wanted a lot of corporate and legal witnesses to what I had to say. That way, when he turned me down, I would have no legal recourse to try and fight his decision. Little did he know what I was actually going to say.
I brought Sheph, Peggy, and Sandy with me, since they were the ones running The Wave. Sheph knew all about the legal side of things, Sandy knew about the physical side of things, and Peggy knew about the scheduling and management side of things. The three of them combined had streamlined our company into the very efficient machine that it was.
In fact, we were still doing shipments and deliveries with the warships when the jobs were available. It wasn't for profit, since we've only been charging the bare cost and not fees. We were just passing by most times and dropped the items off. We were told countless times that we were insane for doing that and we didn't tell them that we go there to remove all of The Order members from their system.
I flew Monna down to the surface of the second planet and landed in the designated area, then the four of us left the shuttle and followed the company rep across the landing area and into the building. The armed escort followed us all the way up to the conference room and my guess had been right. The room was practically packed from wall to wall with people, both human and alien. The thoughts from their minds told me that they all knew what I wanted and they were all in agreement that I shouldn't get it.
The very end of the twenty foot long table was left for us and not surprisingly, there were no seats there, which meant we were being forced to stand at the sit-down meeting.
I walked over to the spot with my group and shook my head at the alien. “You are being an idiot for accepting the appointment and then snubbing us like this.” I waved at the end of the table. “Making me stand is fine, since I was going to be making a presentation; but, having my colleagues stand for the entire meeting is just being petty.”
“Despite the amount of credits I make every day because of you, I cannot give you what you ask for.” The alien said. “I have come to see us as friends these last few years, and even so... I cannot jeopardize my company by selling you the plans to our proprietary property or allow you to disassemble and reconfigure our established products.”
“All right.” I said. “Sheph, go ahead.”
“Hunter... are you sure...”
“Sheph. It's the only way to get his attention.” I said.
Sheph sighed and took out a datapad, then executed a command. After a few seconds, one of the people in the room had their communications device beep at them. Then another beeped. Then another and another, until nearly everyone in the room had urgent calls that they had to take.
“Go ahead. I can wait.” I said and made three chairs of Presence for Sheph, Sandy and Peggy to sit down on.
All the people looked at the little alien and he nodded. They all turned away from the table and activated their communications devices. They tried to keep their conversations at the whispering level and they couldn't.
Some very irate people yelled at them for cutting them off from their vital business transactions. However, those weren't the worst of the calls. Soon, all of the people currently paying the Bogorim Corporation a substantial fee for all of the satellite signals and shows from all over the galaxy, started to flood the communications center with calls because of the interruption in services.
After about five minutes of listening to the chaos, the man behind the alien jumped as his wrist communicator beeped at him. He answered it immediately and listened, then sighed.
“Sir, you have an urgent call from...”
The short alien held a hand up to stop him from saying the name. “How much will it cost me to have you reinstate the Bogorim Corporation's usage of your satellite network?”
I chuckled. “It took you long enough to figure that out.” I said and nodded to Sheph, who sent another command and removed the block I had installed.
The short alien gave me a measured look for several seconds, then he left the room with his aide. He was gone for several minutes and my group and I listened to the end of several rushed conversations. Everyone apologized to the people they were talking to because of the unexpected and temporary interruption in their services. Almost as one, they all hung up and did their best to not look at me, even though quite a lot of them were angry at me for what I had just done to their company.
I made them seem unreliable.
That was one of the worst things I could have ever done to their company. Hundreds of years of trust, reliability, and good will were jeopardized because all of their clients suffered through five minutes of inactivity. It wasn't just the high priority clients, either. Even the people only buying one of their satellite packages for television signals were upset over the interruption. That was the problem with providing a service to people... you needed to keep them happy or your company would suffer.
The short alien came back with his aide and sat down at the table. Nearly everyone else started to talk to him to fill him in on their clients and their woes, so he raised his hand to stop them.
“You have my attention.” The short alien said to me.
“I'm glad you understand that wasn't a threat.” I said and he squinted his eyes at me. “It wasn't. You know my policy.”
“Cheap and untraceable communications for everyone that wants it.” The short alien said.
“I didn't imagine it becoming a common living expense for everyone, though.” I said. “I thought it would only be a covert thing that criminals and underground cells would use to coordinate their movements or to stay in contact with their criminal organizations.” I chuckled. “Then you went and made it known to the public as a means to watch any shows being broadcast in any star system that had a satellite.”
“I've ordered the construction of our own satellite network. It will be initiated in...” The short alien started to say.
“Stop right there.” I interrupted him and pointed to one of the many lawyers on his side that had a touch of Presence in him. “Your boss and I are under a strict verbal agreement that he has unlimited use of my satellite network and can make as much money on it... and on my good will... as he wants, as long as he didn't try to usurp my business model.” I said. “What will happen to his company now that he has broken his word and the agreement?”
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The entire room fell silent at my question and the lawyer started sweating profusely. He knew that I hadn't lied and he looked at the short alien, who had clamped his mouth shut.
“Before you answer that, I have the specific time and date of the agreement, and the recording from both mine and your own records.” I said. “What would I be entitled to for breach of said agreement?”
The lawyer opened his mouth and closed it several times without speaking, because he knew his answer would devastate the company.
“Should I guess?” I asked as I plucked the thoughts from his mind. “Any and all monies gained since the agreement would be forfeited to me, as the proprietary owner of the satellite network in question where those monies were gained. That includes all business and personal monetary transactions that occurred by anyone within this company that used my secured network since that time.”
“NO!” Someone shouted.
“Oh, it gets better.” I said and smiled. “Any and all contracts agreed to over my solely owned network are also my property and qualify as well, so I either get all dividends from those contracts or I have the legal authority to nullify them, since both you and the clients would be in breach of those agreements and I would get it all anyway.”
“Oh, Goddess!” Someone else exclaimed. “We're ruined!”
“Not only that, I would be entitled to damages incurred over the same time period, since I wasn't offered a token sum for all of the credits your company made in just the incidentals and fees you charge everyone else for using my network.”
Some groans were heard from the participants of the meeting, because I essentially had them all cornered with nowhere to go.
“You went right for my (jugular) immediately and didn't even build up to it.” The short alien said. He had actually said something in his own language that meant lifeblood and my mind filled in the proper word automatically.
“Are you kidding? I only did this to get your attention. You're the one that decided to steal from me.”
“Even if you take my centuries old company down, you won't get those plans.” The short alien said.
I pointed at the same lawyer I had before. “When a company defaults and can't pay the monies and fees that it owes, what happens to it?”
The lawyer once again couldn't say anything, since his answers would still defy his boss.
I got the thoughts from his mind, though. “Maybe receivership? Bankruptcy? All assets would become the property of the contract holder?” I chuckled. “Wow, so... unless you pay me everything I'm due... I would own it all.”
No one spoke. A few of them didn't even breathe.
“I believe you're regretting having this many witnesses now.” I said to the short alien and chuckled. “Your stacked meeting against me, including your own pack of lawyers, are now witnesses to your own mistake and not what you thought was going to be mine.”
The short alien stared at me with anger in his eyes. “You will never be able to run my company.”
I laughed. “I wouldn't even try.” I said and that shocked everyone. I let them chew on it for a few moments then spoke. “I'd let Sheph do it.”
“WHAT?!?” A few people yelled, including Sheph.
“If I get the entire company by default, then the first thing I'd do is replace the management.” I said. “Namely, him.” I pointed to the short alien. “Everyone else pretty much does their own thing and he just guides things. It's not that hard, really.”
“Hunter, I... you can't expect me to...” Sheph let out a sigh. “I can't run a multi-system company.”
“Sure you can. Look at all the advisers and hanger-ons you'd have.” I waved at everyone around the table. “They would all be extremely grateful to keep their multi-million credit a year jobs.”
Quite a few of them nodded, despite still working for the short alien.
“Hunter.” Sheph said, sharply.
I turned towards her and put my hand on her shoulder. “I know. Even if I did do that, asking you to take over without giving you time to adjust would be highly unfair.”
Sheph nodded.
“It'll take time for them to balk at the contract breach and then there will be months of fighting it in a galactic court, even though all the evidence is solely on my side.”
Sheph let out another sigh. “Please, don't do this.”
I gave her a smile. “What if I let you play with my hair?” I asked as I flicked my braid over my shoulder and hung it in front of her.
“That's not fighting fair.” Sheph said, almost angrily, then she grabbed the end of it and ran her fingers through it.
I let her keep hold of it and turned back around. “It seems that on the advice of my company head, there's room for negotiation in the terms of the surrender of your company.”
The short alien shot to his feet and glared at me, then he froze still and didn't say anything.
“Gentlemen and ladies, I believe a systematic and slow transferring of power is in order.” I said as I held the short alien with Presence and used him like a puppet. The short alien nodded his head and everyone at the table gasped or hollered at the acceptance.
“I don't want to tear the company apart or destroy its reputation, since it's taken centuries to gain everyone's trust. If it got out that the head of the company made so much of his money and then breached a contract, the company would never recover.”
A lot of heads nodded in agreement.
“So, let's get the paperwork started and see about getting us all back to what's important, shall we?”
*
It took two days for the proper documents to be drawn up and it was ratified by the company board. The short alien's family members made up most of it and they were not happy at all over what had happened. One tiny mistake, a single decision by the short alien, had cost them the ownership of their multi-generational company.
Some of them didn't care about that, as long as they kept their token salaries for being board members. The rest were very happy when I gave my word... and a signed contract... that they would have their positions for life and would be able to pass their positions on to their children. Their family dynasty would remain within the company, the name wouldn't change, and they would be well compensated.
The only difference was that their family didn't solely own the company anymore. The short alien was allowed to keep his current portfolio and his massive fortune, less the stocks in the Bogorim Corporation that he was required to sign over to me. That gave me controlling interest by a slight margin and I was perfectly fine with that... once I made a few little alterations in the short alien's mind about trying to wrestle the company back from me.
We left the building after that and went back to the space habitat. It was going to take three months for all of the little changes to take effect and then we were going to assume control over the largest multi-star system company in existence.
“You know, I never even made my impassioned speech for the need of the plans.” I said with a laugh as I cuddled Gleas and Noma on the couch.
“I'm sure they still would have said no to letting you change the miniaturizing of their standard parts and their automated factory.” Sheph said.
“You think so?” I asked with a smile. “What if I had shown them this?” I lifted up my shield pendant.
“Oh, my!” Sheph gasped. “You made them by hand!”
I nodded. “The intricate electrical work is a pain to get right, then I have to adapt the focusing crystal, then I have to configure it to emit a proper shield in the right dimensions.” I said. “Now, imagine my week of painstaking work being done by a small automated factory that could potentially churn one of these things out every day?”
“Everyone would want one.” Sheph said.
“They wouldn't be cheap; but, people would be falling over themselves to get one.”
“Which is why you've never tried to mass produce them before.”
“I'm not going to mass produce them.” I said, to everyone's surprise. “It's just an excuse to make the technology smaller.”
“But... but...”
“I really want to make a tiny Light sword.” I said with an evil grin, then everyone laughed. “Oh, and before I forget.” I said and took out a portfolio. “Sheph, this is for you.”
Sheph almost cried when I gave her the same legacy contract and signed over the shares in the Bogorim Corporation that The Wave owned. She tried to refuse and I told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was accepting it and that was that.
“I can't be the head of two different companies, Hunter!” Sheph said.
“I'll own both pretty soon, so technically The Wave is now a subsidiary of the Bogorim Corporation.”
Sheph gasped at the implication. “No... you... can you really...”
“I've already ordered a hundred warships from myself.” I said and gave her an award winning smile. “Sandy's going to step in to steward The Wave, under your supervision of course, and Peggy's damn near ecstatic that she's pretty much running everything else.”
Both women nodded when she looked at them.
“H-Hunter... you... I...”
“There's nothing you can say about any of this that will shock me, Sheph.” I said with a laugh, then I felt her resolve as she made a firm decision.
“I want to have your child.” Sheph said.