“We both know it's a fair price to pay, for well, something so valuable.”
Governor Bentinck stared a the stocky individual in front of him. While shorter and slimmer than him, Bentick guessed that she had probably almost twice the muscle mass of him, the byproduct of growing up on the high-gravity world of Emmer. Her steel gray eyes stared back him expectedly, but the governor merely let out a quiet sigh and rapidly typed on his office desk's console, creating a rapidly holo between the two of them. The light finally stopped flickering to settle on a world of covered with rocky mountains and verdant valleys only interrupted by an occasional land-locked sea. Bentinck stood up and marched around to the side of the desk and gestured towards the holo.
“Do you know this world?”
She shook her head, “I can't say that I do.”
“This is one of the worlds where we get most of our foodstuffs,” replied the aging man, “it's called Till Chorios. It provides the foodstuffs that we can't get more locally from Dalos IV.”
“Dalos IV barely provides much if any foodstuffs,” scoffed the woman, “I'm not an idiot, and even with the more poor of your citizens settling there to sudden take up farming because of the crisis, I know their output isn't even close enough to make up a majority of the foodstuffs. Look at my offer this way, in exchange for a reliable, local supply of foods, you're simply investing in securing it.”
“Too risky,” replied the man, shaking his head, “all of those credits, and if you build up the defenses you want to buy to protect against the aliens that took Coruscant or the Reavers, or whatever else is plaguing us now, there's not guarantee that you'll end up paying them off. And if your world defaults, what? I am expected to send a war fleet out to fight and hopefully destroy the defenses we paid for? Certainly not.”
She stared at him, “So how do the Confederation worlds you loan to do it then?”
“They're part of the Confederation,” replied the man exasperatedly, “the federal government guarantees their loan, and typically our councilors-”
“So what if Emmer joined the Confederation,” interrupted the woman, “then could we get the loan?”
“I'm not sure if they're be a need to,” mused the man, “this is all hypothetical, of course...but that would work out well for us. Both of us, I mean. We, and by we, I mean Reaper's World, could use a stronger partner on the council besides that of Dalos IV or Talcorra.”
“What do you mean?”
“They're economically not very strong,” replied the man, “so they can't bring a lot of influence to our area, in fact, Reaper's World mostly does, especially since we don't have our own prefecture yet. But if we can get Emmer in, along with maybe a couple of other worlds, we can get enough to start our prefecture and finally get out of the Meridian's grasp.”
She snorted, “You were just bragging to me about how they supply your food...”
“We are still close, as we are with the rest of the Confederation,” admitted the Governor, settling back down in his desk chair, “but we could become a bit more independent from them. That'd let us lobby a little better to our own satisifaction...Tell you what, talk to your Governor about it, and if you can get it passed through whatever your congress, we'll be in business.”
She shook her head, “Just like that? Aside from Reaper's World being our frequent creditor, the people don't know much about the Confederation, and you just expect them to vote for it?”
Bentinck wobbled his head from side to side, “Fair enough. I'll get actions in motion to make more understandable for your people.”
“I don't like this deal,” replied the Emmerian, crossing her legs, “and I want you to know that. Don't think you can pull a fast one on us, like we're some desperate borrowers that can get overwhelmed by a glitzy advertising campaign.”
“I think you misunderstand me, miss, at least I hope you do. Because I'm talking about building a unified foundation to build our local power base for our mutual benefit in the future.”
“As long as it's mutual.”