Fleet of the Mage Read online

  Pawlik continued, “Two partnerships have been set up already. The first is with Captain Tchek and his crew of former slaves. All of them have merchant background and are bonded closely after their experiences. They are retaining control of the Corvairtee.

  “The second partnership has been established with a small core of crew members from the Peregrine Group, although this is a splinter from inside that organization rather than an alliance with the base group. They will be doing the more speculative trading and will either lose their shirts or make a huge amount of money.” Chuckles resounded around the room at this wry comment.

  “Those are the two that we have currently initiated, although others may be set up over the next few days or weeks.”

  Ruth took over at that point. “The next phase we had planned was to spend some time in the negotiation of specific offers. If a bidding group comes up with something that we find acceptable, we will attempt to work things out with them. After that, we plan on holding an open auction for the ships that remain. Any questions?”

  For a moment nobody in the audience raised a hand or stood up. Ruth couldn’t tell if they were just intimidated or if they truly didn’t have any questions, but she waited patiently.

  Finally, after a couple minutes of silence, a hand from the back of the room went up.”

  “Lord or Lady Mage, how many of the ships are you selling today?” queried an older man, the passage of time clearly written on his face.

  Pawlik responded, “Only those ships that are on the landing field today will be auctioned off. We will discuss when and where to auction off some of our other ships, but we did not want to overwhelm the market. Or at least glut this small market.”

  The questioner settled back with a satisfied grunt, his shoulders relaxing.

  Emboldened by the first questioner, another hand went up. The questioner was Master Trader Perley. He asked, “Just how many ships will you be auctioning off overall? And how many of them are military versus merchant?”

  Pawlik smiled as he responded, “Lots and the rest we are not going to tell you.”

  The room dissolved into general laughter and the tension eased up, if only for a moment. Although Pawlik and Ruth waited for a few minutes, no one else had anything they wanted to address in front of everyone.

  With no further questions being posed, the meeting was called to an end, and the general conversation of final proposal polishing began.

  <<<>>>

  “I am so incredibly bored,” murmured Ruth to the ever attentive Pawlik, “

  “While agreeing with your overall sentiment, my dear, you know this is a very important process to go through.”

  “That doesn’t really make it any better, you know.”

  “You are absolutely right, my dear.”

  Ruth made a noncommittal, non-agreement sound that would have been instantly recognized by any married couple back on her home planet. It was one of those that said, “it’s not worth arguing about but don’t fool yourself into thinking I agree” or something of that ilk.

  She might have had more to say, but she noticed that Pawlik’s face had fallen into his look of guarded receptivity. Figuring that they might be getting some activity soon, Ruth turned her head slightly to look out across the crowd. A group of a half a dozen prosperous-looking men was making their way determinedly toward the spot where she and Pawlik stood. <> the Mage thought.

  <<<>>>

  It had been intense and exhausting for the last few hours. The first group with a proposal had been followed shortly by six other groups. Many of them were attempting to leverage an expectation of ignorance on the part of the sellers. They were doomed to disappointment. Ruth had a very good idea of how much the ships were worth, both in the short-term and long-term market. If Pawlik had been by himself, he might have ended up with far less for the ships and with a reputation of naïveté when it came to value. Instead, the negotiating groups quickly found themselves beleaguered, battered with facts and projections that even their analysts had not run.

  This was very disquieting for the merchants. They were the ones normally on top of the knowledge pyramid when it came to assigned value and the ability to negotiate the financials of purchase. They were not used to being schooled at it. The traders’ understandable confusion led to a conclusion that would have amused Ruth tremendously if she had known it. They had decided that the Mage was merchant born.

  It would have further surprised them if they had known that Ruth was definitely not from a merchant family and that, in fact, she had grown up in an environment that did not include the basic concept of money, let alone its manipulation. However, this did not mean that she was willing to be cheated or taken bullied.

  After much discussion and negotiation, one of the bidding groups had come up with an acceptable price and conditions for the purchase of the largest of the ships, the Reliant class hauler. No reasonable or expected offers for the other ships had been received. Only ridiculously low ones and Ruth was not willing to let those go without reasonable recompense.

  Ruth recognized the winners only from seeing them previously talking to Pawlik. She had made a passing note that they look like ex-military people, partially from their posture and parsed really because of the way they stood around Pawlik. Looking at her mate, the Mage noticed that he was smiling broadly.

  “Pawlik, who are the people that put together the bid for the Reliant class ship?”

  “My Lady, the commander of the group is someone that I served with many years ago. He and I actually went through the military Academy on ABC together and were midshipmen on the same ship right after graduation. He served on his home world’s naval vessels for more than 25 years and recently retired.”

  “If he is retired, why does he need such a large vessel?”

  Pawlik gave a short laugh, one in which Ruth couldn’t detect much amusement. He answered her in a serious tone, “Gwillam chose to retire to a small cluster of worlds that many of the Alliance member states have endowed with land for retired military. Depending on the service and the rank at retirement, settlers can receive a land grant of variable size in addition to their pension.”

  The mage thought about this for a moment. It seemed like a very strange solution to her, one that she had not heard of before. With a puzzled look, Ruth asked, “Whose wondrous idea was this? And why on earth would they isolate their former military on a planet far away from their original systems?”

  “That is the actual crux of the matter. One of the major worlds in the Alliance, Theofold, decided that reintegrating military personnel back into their citizen base would ‘taint’ the population. There was no way of forcing someone had honorably served in their military to leave when their service was over, so they came up with a bribery scheme to tempt their retiring personnel to go elsewhere.”

  “Ah! So the countries are basically buying them off and getting potential troublemakers or forces that could resist the regime in power away from a stratified environment.”

  “Yes and other worlds adopted it. Rather than try to find many worlds to relocate different world’s military personnel and their families, the six planetary governments created basically a dumping ground. They sought to solve a problem, but I actually think that in the long-term it will be more of a problem than those settled and reactionary worlds realize.”

  “I can see that. If I understand correctly, this has taken the shape of multiple worlds in a small system where people that are used to discipline and loyalty have been concentrated. At some level, they know they have been dumped. I assume that it is a group of planets that is going to require a fair amount of effort to turn into something that is profitable and viable, but in the meantime, the politicians back on the original planets are patting themselves on the back and telling each other what it brilliant solution this is. Right?”

  “It sounds bizarre I know, but the colonists on these planets are all focused on building something. They don’t seem to have mu
ch time for typical politics, and they address problems head-on.”

  “Pawlik, that still doesn’t explain why they need such a large ship.”

  “There only defenses right now systemwide are some port defenses. Realizing their vulnerability, Gwillam says that they have been looking for while for a ship that would allow them to defend themselves at least from pirates. The ship that they bought from us was guaranteed by most of the colonists pledging their pensions. It is an impressive sign of how dedicated they are to their planet.”

  Just then, one of the men in question came striding toward Pawlik with a broad grin on his face. Greeting each other with a strong grasp of each other’s forearms, the men exchanged a brief one-armed hug and pleased smiles. The other man was the first to speak, saying, “Pawlik! That ship is perfect! It is in great condition, and we could not have asked for a fairer deal.”

  “And it goes to someone who knows how to command it. You and I both know that is always a good thing,” answered Pawlik.

  Turning to Ruth, Pawlik drew her gently forward him and said, “Gwillam, I would like to introduce you to my mage and mate, the Archmage Ruth.”

  Taking Ruth’s hand in his, the distinguished looking man bowed briefly over her hand and said, “Pawlik is a very lucky man. I understand that the ship was actually your property, Lady Mage. We are very pleased to have been able to buy it.”

  Ruth answered him saying, “It is nice to see that it has gone into capable hands, Gwillam. I trust that it will provide you with long and effective service.”

  “That is our fondest wish also, Ruth. We will have an initial sailing crew here within the next few hours. It will take us a while to offload the missiles and other armaments. Is there some specific place that you would like them to be stored?”

  Ruth looked consideringly at Gwillam, without saying a word. When she spoke, it didn’t seem to address his question. Instead, she asked him, “Is there a possibility that you could stay until after the auction has completed? I may have an interesting proposal for you that would allow you to keep all of the munitions on the ship.”

  Gwillam’s eyes widened in surprise, and his face went slack with shock. “Of course, I would be pleased to have a further discussion with you.”

  Ruth smiled and nodded to him, adding then let’s plan on talking after the action is completed.”

  “I will look forward to that, Lady Mage.”

  “I will also.”

  Bemused, Pawlik’s friend turned and started to walk away, only to halt for a brief second as Ruth added, “And Gwillam? Bring your staff.”

  Pawlik looked into the face of his mate and raised an eyebrow in query. When she responded with a huge grin, tinged with mischief, a matching smile appeared on his face. Two minds, in perfect accord.

  Chapter 14 – Bidding Time

  Planet – Borachland Hot Barrens

  Realizing that no other acceptable proposals were going to be offered, Ruth and Pawlik decided that it was time to close the open negotiation session and move on to the next, and final, part of the plan.

  It was time for the auction. There were five remaining ships to place into the action. The seneschal directed the interested buyers to move to a nearby room, where the bidding will be held. Arranged with comfortable seats and an embedded acoustic system, the auction area was extremely professional looking and impressive.

  Comments about the overall appearance of the spaceport facilities were exchanged among the groups, and many people split off to inspect aspects of the room, and it’s infrastructure as people waited for the auction to begin.

  One of the traders, a rotund short man with a long goatee and very cold blue eyes, sidled up to Pawlik and asked, “One wonders if this facility would be open for use by a merchant house that had based its headquarters at the spaceport.”

  Pawlik responded easily, “Of course, the facility would be available to one of those organizations that were based out of the spaceport. For a fee, of course.” A massive susurration of interest washed over the room. Ruth saw many heads nodding in agreement.

  The bidding started out slowly, although it heated up quite rapidly. The first ship up was one of the flexible high-priority goods merchanter, the Tarendal Wraith. A slow buildup in the bid amount escalated as it was obvious that there were six serious bidders for the ship. By the time the bidding was over, the ship had gone for a considerably higher amount than Ruth and Pawlik had been prepared to sell it for.

  Pawlik seemed pleased that the sale had gone to a group headed by Master Trader Wentworth. The other group that had merged with his to mount the bid was ecstatic and could be heard excitedly making plans for a joint venture. The master trader had a gleam in his eye that Ruth found similar to a hunting cat, prey sighted, pounce imminent!

  Hunter let his thoughts slip over Ruth’s with an image of a pack of felines, excitedly feinting at an embattled deer-like creature. The young ones were dashing in and out, narrowly avoiding the hooves and horns of the huge animal. Supervising from the side, a grizzled cat, covered in scars and immobile, watched. Suddenly, the older cat pounced, leaping up onto the back of the prey. With one massive bite, the spinal cord was severed, and the horned deer was dead. Raising its large, maned head, the old cat roared its triumph to the sky, leaving the younger cats amazed and confused.

  Hunter set an image of the master trader’s face next to the frozen view of the scarred, older cat. Ruth could feel his amusement and agreement. The mage carefully concealed a smile as she waited for the next ship to be announced and the bidding for it to start.

  Life was never boring.

  All in all, the ships were going for considerably more than Ruth had anticipated. The traders of Arkken were highly focused and very acquisitive when it came to new ships. The spacecraft that she and Pawlik had selected for this auction were all ones that fit the profile of trading activity followed by the main players operating from Arkken, and the Mage was well pleased with both the response and their selection.

  The most heated bidding had occurred over the agile cargo runner, the VX Markil. At one point, the auctioneer had paused to allow to the bidders to be separated physically by the Marine master at arms. The ship’s large capacity for cargo and its separated holds made it the perfect craft for many of the circuit traders that were based out of Arkken.

  Its final price was more than six times what Ruth had expected and that she had verified to the Auditors Guild. The mage was amazed when Master Trader Perley was the winning bidder. He appeared to be bidding alone, without a consortium or co-bidders. During the entire bidding process, he had been seated in the third row. Accompanied by the scarred woman captain, he had maintained a calm manner even when some of the other bidders began to trade insults and blows.

  During the extremely spirited bidding, Perley only occasionally made a bid. He expressed no urgency, and from the other bidders’ reactions, none of them took him seriously. It was only at the end when the bidding had slowed that he made his move. As the auctioneer exhorted the audience for additional bids, the typical countdown of, “going once… going twice…” was interrupted just before the hammer fall by Master Trader Perley standing up and raising the bid by two and half million AFU.

  His stunned competition was unable to adjust their thinking fast enough to interrupt when the auctioneer once again called for final bids. Before anyone could scrabble together a challenge, the auction was over, and the extremely desirable freighter belonged to Perley and Clan.

  The reaction of the overall group was that of people that had been totally taken off guard and left on shaky ground. Their sudden uncertainty could be seen in the frequency of sideways glances and nervous darting looks. All of the plans that they had made were thrown into confusion, so rapid and frantic reevaluation was taking place all over the audience.

  The next ship up for auction was potentially the one with the most possibility for life-altering consequences to the buyer. It was the ship with the best profile for long-haul transport.
It was the Tarendal Spectre, a large ship with extensive and luxurious accommodations.

  The current configuration was set up to handle mostly passenger load, with only 32% of the space devoted to cargo. The flexibility of the craft was one of its main strengths, including the extensive facilities for shuttles. It reminded Ruth of a luxury cruise liner from Earth, with plenty of facilities and options for passenger pampering and entertainment.

  Three groups were bidding with great determination on the ship. Straight from the Tarendal shipyards, the price tag would exceed 950M AFU for the base configuration. The chance to purchase it for substantially less was strong motivation for the buyers’ presence, but even purchased cheaply the cost would be significant. The remaining cost would be beyond most commercial groups, so the only serious bidders were those with extremely deep pockets.

  Two of the groups were obviously from governments. Each of those had sent a primary buyer with a supporting advisory staff. One group was soberly dressed and quadrupedal in form. The closest similarity that Ruth could think of from her own world was the Amish.

  The mage found herself exerting draconian control over her face every time she looked at them. It was extremely difficult to avoid showing her amusement to the bidders who reminded her of nothing more than Santa’s reindeer with square cut beards and flat brimmed hats.

  Occasionally, as they consulted with one another, their horns would click together, creating musical chiming sounds which forced Ruth to swallow her laughter with determination. It would not do to laugh outright at one of the bidders. But, oh the temptation!