“The Director will see you now,” announced the reception droid, “we are sorry for the delay.”
Redrask Tite slowly rose from his chair, habitually spared a glance backward. No-one there…no-one was here when I came either…wonder what the Director’s up to. It’s not often Alliance sends anyone over here for fear of detection, and even then, we only get here when Rendili invites us here…I bet they arrange things so that the chances of even seeing us are slim to none, even with us wearing civilian clothing. I guess they’re taking no chances… The gray-man stared at the two durasteel doors in front of him, and spared a glance back; the reception droid was literally rolling away from him, back to its desk. The man shrugged. Was the droid talking to me? Ah, I forget…well, here goes nothing. The former New Republic captain rapped his fist on the door. It whisked open with a hiss, revealing a wood paneled office in which an older man stood in. The Director of Production swept his arm behind him, gesturing for the red-headed man to enter. He did, and no sooner had he when the door snapped shut behind him.
“Was there something wrong with the doorbell?” asked the businessman.
Tite slightly blushed. “Probably not. Forgive me, but I’m not use to those sort of features working…”
The other man frowned. “Not on your ship? Well, I suppose the Alliance is more concerned with keeping the main systems functioning…”
“Yes indeed, sir,” replied Redrask, “it’s getting harder to find parts for ships from Dac; especially after the Dragons attacked.”
The Director winced. “I’d imagine so. From what I hear, Mon Calamari ships are difficult enough to repair as it is…”
“Indeed sir.”
“Well, you’re probably wondering why you’re here then, yes?”
“Yes sir. Command didn’t tell me the nature of this meeting.”
“That’s because High Command doesn’t know it either,” smiled the man, “the less information that flows, the less there is to leak out. And ambiguity of who, what, when, and et cetera allows us to adapt to circumstances as they arise, particularly accusations. For right now though, you are an Outer Rim shipping company officer interested in acquiring some of older freighters, at least according to my schedule. But in sheer honesty, we are talking because the Board is somewhat displeased about the lack of the Alliance’s progress.”
Tite bit his lip. “Most of the Alliance military is busy with the liberation of Kalaan and setting up a government there. Faulkner is personally overseeing everything there, as far as I know. It’s hard to do much with what little we have…”
“I understand. You misunderstand me, Mr…who are you again?”
“Do you need to know?” questioned the Captain, “The less you know…”
“The better off I am, yes. Well then, I shall call you Mr. Blank. Mr. Blank, the Board understands the problems of the Alliance currently, at least to a degree. There is a will, there is a way, but there is not enough material to be used. At least not if the Alliance is to come about within a decade. We would like to change that, by providing some of the material needed for the liberation effort. Consider it a catalysis for change in the galaxy. Of course, this is only the first bit.”
Tite’s weathered face turned into a frown, “Has Rendili found a solution to dealing with the identification problem?”
For the past months, Rendili Stardrive had managed to funnel a minute amount of its profits to the Alliance, as well as several non-military ships sold on the open market. But what it had not been able to do was provide the Alliance with warships; a real issue when most of the Fleet was not only outdated, but also undermaintained, and gradually falling apart from a lack of spare parts. For any warship that Rendili had immediately available would be immediately recognized as being a Rendili design, and thus, would send any investigators right to Rendili’s door. And after careful and precise investigation, something that Imperial Intelligence could possibly do, could pin the ships as being sent directly from the company.
“Yes,” reported the man, “it’s taken some time to set up, but I believe we are finally there. A remote, automated production facility of ours in the Outer Rim has been set up to not only produce drone barges, but new corvettes.’
The man tapped a button, and the desk’s built-in holo-projector produced a floating image of twin-hulled ship. Redrask almost instantly recognized it: a Warrior-class Corvette. It was a reasonably effective design common within the New Republic Fleet during the height of its power. Tite had even served in one as his first command, back when he had first graduated from the Republic’s academy to fight the Yevetha. The director stared at him, and Redrask shrugged in response.
“Warrior-class Gunship, fast, reasonably well-armed…did pretty well against the Yevetha, at least.”
The man smiled. “Ah, but this is not the Warrior-class that you know. It is true, that it is based on the Warrior-class design, but it’s otherwise a remarkably different ship. We figured that a ship which seems not to be our product, but one which seems to be part of the Republic’s Navy. Modified from old Warriors, perhaps…anyways, we’ve dubbed them Warrior IIs. In any case, four of them are ready to be picked up at the plant; we can’t make any more of them until they removed from the internal drydocks. So, I would have you and some of your crew pick them up…”
The Director slid open a door in his desk, and handed out a data-disk to him.
“This,” said the Rendili officer, “will provide you the passcodes to the facility, into the ships themselves, and the location of the facility. The ship plans are also in there too, in case the Alliance has any other shipyard that we don’t know about, and so you can familiarize the ships’ crew before you board them. We do ask one thing of you: to give us a progress report of what the Alliance does with the ships within 3 months. Of course, we will call you when we expect it. Now then, you should probably go, before anyone else accidentally wanders into the area…’