Chapter 21: Olanir Krit'skar
Tawa Asteroid—Dressel System
"Imagine, for a moment, you are a gambler," Miralo Tarkin exclaimed excitedly to an entirely Bothan audience. The young human Eriaduan investment guru smirked at the nervous reactions from some of the Bothans and lowered his hands. Don't worry, sit, hear me out.
Yesterday, at the behest of Miralo Tarkin, Olanir had called an impromptu meeting to over sixty investors. They were bankers, financiers, CEOs, and rich Bothans with money to play with. Nine had actually come to attend the meeting in her home asteroid, counting Klaes Oc'skar, who lived within another asteroid a little less than a hundred million kilometres away, but in the same system.
Olanir Krit'skar pointed at Miralo Tarkin and flashed a Spacer gesture to Klaes Oc'skar running low on air. The Spacer Bothans used this gesture as a metaphor for wasting time.
Klaes Oc'skar, smirked back at her. The heterochromatic Botha'ahir investor was a migrant to the Dressel System who had married into her Clan.
Olanir Krit'skar, head of the Askar Credit Union, had black and grey fur. Like most older members of Clan Askar, she bore scars. The most visible, or perhaps invisible, was a semi-circle of missing flesh near the pointy tip of her right ear.
"Wait—" the human stammered as Zak Ja'bis started to stand. "Hear me out."
"Human," Feror Tay'ko growled in her best Basic. "You start investment meeting with this phrase 'imagine you are a gambler,' yeah? How the hell you expect Bothans to react?"
"I am sorry, but hear me out, please," the young Miralo pleaded.
This is ridiculous, Olanir thought to herself. Ever since her Clan had supported the Tarkins on Eriadu in their war against Q'anah's Marauders, the Tarkins would try to use Askar Bothans to organise meetings with various influential clans, mostly for money, but sometimes for ridiculous things like—
"—Imagine you are a gambler," Miralo said more quietly this time, and less excited. He raised his hands pleadingly.
Olanir shook her head but stayed seated.
"Imagine you enter a cantina," Miralo said cautiously. "You join a table of people playing Sabaac—"
"—Bothans or humans?" Zak Ja'bis asked sarcastically.
Olanir flashed a feral toothy grin. Her shiny white teeth contrasted with her pitch-black fur. As with most Clan Askar members, she had foregone cosmetic surgery for anything but her teeth, which she had spent tens of thousands of Zav making very white and very sharp.
"Whatever you Bothans want," Miralo said with a smirk. "Imagine you sit at a table with Sabaac players, they might be Bothans, they might be humans, who knows. There is a hand where everyone is calling, no one has folded, the pile gets higher and higher—"
"Do I have a good hand?" Olanir asked impatiently. "Or am I bluffing?"
"Ah, I see some Bothans do gamble" Miralo smirked. He raised his voice dramatically, regaining his excitement. "You tell the table: 'I raise you one million, but I bet that there will be no winning hand.'"
Olanir scoffed. Miralo is not a gambler I see.
"No winning hand! Human, have you ever actually played Sabaac before?!" Klaes snarled angrily.
"You tell the table: 'there will be no winning hand because, before the game is over, all of your cards will be unreadable.'"
"That makes no sense!"
"But how would you know that. How—"
"—Five seconds everyone accepts your bet and agree to split your money," Miralo interrupted the protests, "a tremor strikes! The whole Cantina shakes dramatically!" The human was positively gleeful, grinning with excitement. "A fissure opens beneath the settlement, a gaseous reagent leaks into the settlement dissolving all plastisheet. Everyone's cards dissolve in their hands. The hapless players stare at you in shock, their cards crumbling to dust." The dramatic human pulled out a piece of worn out plastisheet and crumpled it to dust.
Most of the Bothans in the room scoffed. What in the Galaxy could this human be getting at?
Olanir smirked. Whatever else, the entertainment value this human provided was worth wasting twenty minutes of her life.
"Are you claiming you can predict natural disasters?" Borsk Za'dro asked curiously.
Miralo looked taken aback for a moment, then smirked, regaining his confidence. "Just one future event. In less than a week, a disaster will strike the Bothan arms industry. Thrask Industries and all of its—"
"—You want us to gamble against our own people?!" Olanir snarled, completely incensed. "Why do you expect us not to warn them?"
"Warn them of what?" Miralo asked, looking around at all of the Bothans. "What we have here is an opportunity—"
"—Thrask Industries is doing fine," Zak Ja'bis said matter of factly. "Last I heard, Thot Ni'mai is running the research division just fine. They have just started a trillion Zav procurement deal with Bothawui's Navy."
"Did you miss the part where I said a disaster was going to befall them?" Miralo asked impatiently. "It hasn't happened yet. They will not be able to fulfil their purchase order."
The oldest and most greedy Bothan in attendance, Laro Ka'zal, spoke for the first time. "Are you suggesting we short-sell stock in Thrask Industries?"
"Yes!" Miralo exclaimed excitedly. "But more than that! Bothan GDP has only gone up ten percent in the last fourteen years, yet the value of the market index has doubled. It is a bubble." He looked directly at Ka'zal. "We short the entire Bothan Market. We short sell everything! The Bothan economy has had fourteen solid years of growth, the longest bull run in history. Everything is overvalued."
[Isn't it cynical to bet on the failure of the Bothan economy in our positions of power?] Thur Eyn'lar growled in Bothese to the Bothans in the room.
[Oh, not at all,] Ka'zal replied reassuringly. [We are merely taking advantage of our unique… perspective.]
The room devolved into excited chatter. These fools, Olanir thought to herself, her fur danced excitedly. She flashed a gesture to Klaes follow me!
Klaes nodded with his left hand, closing it into a fist then dropping it. He hopped up from his end of the table and followed her.
The remaining Bothans and the human were chatting excitedly, ready to invest in their own people's failure. In the failure of the Bothan economy. Ready to gamble that Thrask Industries will fail and drag other sectors with it.
They stepped out onto the street. The interior of the Tawa Asteroid was mostly empty air. Around the walls, following the shape of the interior of a cylinder, was city. Buildings sat on all walls of the cylinder, some upside down from Olanir's perspective, others sideways; the nearest buildings appeared right-side up.
On the ground, the gravplating was set to a comfortable 1/5th of Coruscant's gravity. The air towards the centre of the asteroid, where the gravplating did not project, had less than 2% Coruscant's gravity.
Forming shortcuts between the various parts of the city were more than 20,000 mechanical carts on ziplines. Some were built out of rooftops, but most connected to the sidewalk. The centre of the asteroid looked like a massive three-dimensional spider web of steel cables.
"Pomonta woks mid mo." [Come with me,] she said, stepping up the zipline ladder into the topmost cart, pulling the seat lever down. The younger Klaes sat behind her and the zipline cart began its journey across the asteroid towards the Gar'ath district where most of the best restaurants were.
[What is it? You seem… excited. What is going on?] Klaes growled curiously in Bothese.
Gravity became weaker and weaker the further from the plating they were. Eventually, she felt herself floating between the seat lever and the seat. [These traitors and these Tarkins,] she snarled, [honestly, it doesn't surprise me.]
[I can tell when you are in a greedy mood Olanir,] Klaes growled cautiously. [You see something, and you don't want to burn me when you burn everyone else. I know you like me. What is it?]
Olanir gave a feral grin. [Fine, you're right. I could use your help anyways. We'll discuss it over…]
"—Shokolatzimo?" [Chocolate frost?] Klaes suggested.
Twenty-five years ago, the idea of any business leaders from Bothawui or Kothlis even visiting the Tawa Asteroid—let alone attending a meeting—would have been laughable. The idea of any Bothan voluntarily immigrating to Tawa or marrying into the Askar Clan, even from Botha'ahir, would have been even more laughable. Hita pan lansk zakon "finding a tall spouse," was slang for the phenomenon of Askar Bothans marrying out of the system.
Even when the asteroid was not being ransacked by pirates, it was the crime capital of Bothan space. Different streets were run by different Clan Askar gangs.
Everything calmed down once the Jedi forced the Clan Askar Bothans living on the surface of Dressel off, declared Dressel a Legacy World, and pacified the system putting moderate Clan Askar Bothans in charge. Everything except the pirates.
Fortunately, Clan Askar armed the right humans to take care of them.
Klaes winced in disgust.
"Klaes," Olanir mumbled, her mouth full of shokalatzimo, savouring the sweetness.
"It's… we make much better shokalatzimo on Botha'ahir. Trust me," he growled cautiously in Basic. "This stuff tastes like cold plastic. Not real. The stuff back on the Thellus asteroid is at least edible."
Olanir scoffed. The icy treats in the domes of Botha'ahir were probably every bit as artificial as the ones here. "How are Neris and the kids?" she growled to change the topic.
"Oh, she's fine," Klaes said with a grin. "The kids have started Basic in school. They keep whining about how they don't see the point learning it. It's cute."
Olanir chucked at that and ate another bite of the chocolate frost.
"So…" Klaes said.
Olanir looked around cautiously. "So, we have seven rich idiots, likely all of the friends of those seven rich idiots, and the Tarkin family, investing in the prospect that Thrask Industry will have a tough time and take the whole Bothan economy with it."
"Khįz…" [Yes…] Klaes growled.
"We buy the stock," she growled with a feral grin.
"But if Thrask has a tough time—"
"—These idiots will have to buy back the stock after they short the market. What if we buy a lot of Thrask stock?"
Realisation dawned on Klaes. He gasped. "We create a short squeeze! They will only be able to buy back stock at a price we agree on! That's brilliant! Wait, how do I know—" Klaes stopped himself.
Olanir knew Klaes was going to ask: how do I know I can trust you? She scoffed. "Klaes, we buy it together. Combined we should be able to buy 31% of it. That'll be what? Six billion Zav? Some Bothans will still be able to sell, but when the stock fails to be completely dumped, those idiots—not just those idiots in the room but every Bothan who decides to short it—will panic-buy it back."
"Talk about a unique perspective," Klaes growled in an impressed voice. "31% though. That still means 69% could be dumped—a lot of room for things to go wrong."
"Oh, I'll advise the Credit Union to buy another six billion Zav worth—"
"—but" Klaes gasped, his eyes wide in fear. "That's… That's playing with the retirement index for the whole Clan!"
"If I'm right, we'll increase the value our Clan's retirement index substantially," Olanir growled with a feral grin.
"Kriff!" Klaes said in a shaky voice. "Risky, but you're right. We'll have… 62% of the stock locked up and some of the richest Bothans in the system, as well as the humans of Eriadu, desperate to buy it to fulfil their short."
"Exactly!" Olanir snarled excitedly.