Augustus's generals each took their seats in the velvet-cushioned chairs of the council hall; even Tychus Findlay, who was only here as a bystander, had been given a seat at the end. As for the CEOs of the great guild corporations of Moria within the Kel-Morian Combine board, less than a third were present, and the representative of the other super-corporate giant within the Kel-Morian Combine—the Morian Mining Coalition—also had not come to attend.
But this did not mean the Combine board did not take Augustus's arrival seriously. In truth, these Kel-Morian elite gathered together only rarely; more often, they conducted their real-time conversations through holographic projection.
"We will sell most of the items listed on your inventory at absolutely fair prices—construction vehicles, powered armor, heavy combat vehicles, armored assault vehicles, tanks, heavy artillery, rocket launchers, even fighters, interceptor carriers, and battlecruisers." The CEO of the Kelanis Shipping Guild followed up on Augustus's words.
This CEO of the Kelanis Shipping Guild was not some decrepit old man; like the other executives, he was in his prime, short gray-brown hair threaded with silver, a pair of deep black eyes gleaming dark and bright.
"These were originally all on the prohibited list—even the weak and frail reeds of the Umojans, or the underdeveloped primitive apes of the Terran Confederacy, could never buy the weapons and strategic materials you want." His words for Terrans and Umojans were somewhat coarse, carrying a deep loathing for the latter two, though not to the point of profanity.
Yet when it came time to do business with Umojans or Terrans, they would turn around and say that Terrans possessed refinement and noble temperament, and that Umojans had a gentlemanly grace worthy of praise.
"For this, I must express my gratitude to the board." Augustus sat face-to-face across the conference table from the CEO of the Kelanis Shipping Guild.
"But we all know that I and my Revolutionary Army did not come here from Mar Sara, dozens of light-years away, just to haggle with you over these few small orders."
Augustus put away his beguiling smile, his expression stern: "A small deal, accumulated bit by bit, is still worth tens of billions. Long-term, stable orders are not only a massive income, they can also allow the Moria manufacturing industry—nearly collapsed after the war—to gain new vitality. The terrifying tide of unemployment, and the chaos from tens of millions of unemployed weapons workers, can likewise be resolved, injecting new vigor into a financial market that has become stagnant."
"Simply put, I not only want to buy weapons, I want to buy complete production lines."
At the conference table there was no seven-mouths-eight-tongues clamor, no noisy quarrels; from the beginning it was basically Augustus and the CEO of the Kelanis Shipping Guild speaking, with their respective seconds occasionally interjecting a few words.
These board members, articulate and displaying shrewd competence, were undoubtedly the elite of their industries. To climb to their positions, both pedigree and ability were indispensable.
"In the long run, the existence of a Revolutionary Army powerful enough to fracture the Terran Confederacy yet not pose a threat to yourselves is absolutely more beneficial than harmful. In ancient Terra, if a monarch wished to rule a region with a culture utterly different from his own state, then he had to support two or even more families or factions of equal strength who were hostile to one another." Augustus continued.
"To weaken or even destroy the Terran Confederacy, the greatest beneficiary would be neither the Umojans nor ourselves, but the Kel-Morian Combine that has just been defeated and lost vast territories. In the past, what bound Moria and the other subordinate colonies together was the Kel-Morian Combine's strong sense of self-identity and national consciousness, but now all of that has been shattered by the Combine's defeat in the war."
"And I believe the Combine's internal currents are churning with instability, full of destabilizing elements, and merely dealing with the factions splitting from within will give you enough headaches. At such a time, you will need a powerful ally, even if it is only an investment in its future potential."
"Your terms are reasonable." The CEO of the Kelanis Shipping Guild looked at Augustus seriously, and before long answered.
"As long as you have the money, we can even sell you the manufacturing process for the Hephaestus battlecruiser fusion core. Of course, it will not be cheap." With a few words he made his sincerity clear.
"We can also provide the technology to produce the Ripper power armor and heavy Kel-Morian tanks; the problem is where you would build the factories. The Umojans will never agree to you constructing factories on their world—they are notoriously petty and exacting—while Korhal—"
"Korhal people are most certainly not lacking in the ability to solve problems flexibly. Outside the Koprulu sector there are so many worlds; sooner or later we will find a new home." Augustus said.
"Look at what we have to sell." The high-ranking Kel-Morian CEO slid a thick stack of documents across to Augustus; among them was a unit price for a complete production line for the Ripper power armor. The board members had long known what Augustus wanted; they spoke in riddles only because they had grown used to doing so.
"Including the particle railguns and the Mag-Mines produced at Moria's Hephaestus Forge—the former boasts firepower strong enough to punch through the hull plating of a Terran Confederacy naval leviathan-class battlecruiser in a vacuum environment." He spared no effort in touting the products under his company's name.
After defeat in the war against the Terran Confederacy, the Combine's industries were in a slump; mining and military manufacturing had suffered especially heavy blows.
The positions of guild CEOs, pushed to the fore by the capitalists behind the scenes, were not unassailable; in fact, after the defeat most guild executives had been replaced to appease internal dissatisfaction and conflicts.
"You should have heard of those Mag-Mines; they perform equally well on planetary surfaces and in space, and during the Four-Year War they made the Confederacy's marines' mine-clearing squads suffer greatly. Deploy Mag-Mines at the points where an enemy fleet will jump in, and they will bloom at the fleet's core."
"This is exactly what I want." Augustus nodded, satisfied. This was why he chose to negotiate directly with the Combine's powerbrokers—deciding the fate of a war required weapons that no single guild company could authorize alone.
Augustus's Revolutionary Army was not merely a large customer worth attention to the Kel-Morian Combine; part of the reason they were willing to help the Revolutionary Army was to irritate the Terran Confederacy.
Meeting with Augustus was meant to signal the Combine's stance, to encourage him to keep fighting—lest Augustus suddenly take the Revolutionary Army back to Mar Sara to till the soil and never come out again.
"Perhaps you can still find many capable mercenary forces in Moria's mercenary market." the CEO continued.
"They are all veterans who retired during the Guild Wars, already accustomed to holding electromagnetic rifles and operating amid a world of ceaseless fire. They cannot adapt to a tranquil life; after demobilization they cannot find suitable work within a Combine drowning in unemployment, so they can only find work through mercenary guilds."
"After the war, our populace laid the blame for defeat on those guild guards who once fought for the guilds; all of those warriors are simmering with pent-up anger."
The Kelanis Shipping Guild CEO did not state the whole truth: the reality was that the Combine's ruling class, to divert conflict and preserve their rule, had deliberately steered public opinion through the news media so that the public vented its anger and dissatisfaction toward the veterans—despite the fact that those men had once shed blood for the Combine.
Today, those retired soldiers still constituted a force not to be ignored, a potential threat to the board's ruling position; the rulers on the board were only too willing to find a suitable outlet for those men's unspent energies.
"If you need people to fight, these are the best choice, and the price will satisfy you. For an appropriate fee and money to cremate the corpses, they will risk their lives for you." he finished.
"Including having them fight aliens?" Augustus smiled.
"Marshal Augustus, you are truly a man of wit and humor; there is a reason every one of the Revolutionary Army's soldiers adores you," the CEO thought Augustus was joking.
"If it were me, I would not like a man who sends himself onto the battlefield." Augustus accepted the list slid across to him, skimmed the items, and calculated what he could afford.
It must be said, Augustus was indeed not short of money now. Augustus had first spent half a year mining crystal deposits on the mineral-rich Mar Sara; mines of all sizes dotted the wilderness, and in the previous Mar Sara campaign he had also emptied half the planet's reserves of military supplies and the minerals in government warehouses.
At the same time, multiple mining bases operated by Augustus's brother Arcturus were providing a steady stream of resources for Augustus's Revolutionary Army; the wealth accumulated in half a year was roughly equivalent to two years' total output of Korhal IV.
After the Mar Sara campaign, Augustus arrived at Moria not only to cultivate good relations with the Kel-Morian Combine's upper echelons, but primarily to buy, buy, buy—converting all those resources into combat power in a short span of time.
After a brief thought, Augustus marked the items he wanted and then filled in a string of astronomical figures—an amount roughly equivalent to several tens of millions of billions of Umojan credits in the Combine's internal circulating currency.
When he took back the list he had handed over, even the well-seasoned CEO of the Kelanis Shipping Guild glanced at it twice; he clearly had not expected Augustus to purchase so many items.
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