Perun-style PPT is in the works
Oh yeah side note: I have to tell you guys the Mc wouldn't be a Tony Stark type level smart, he's just using knowledge from the past life about guns, after that you'll see more managerial skill and politics, like a boatload of politics. The closest comparison would be Mass effect Fic Interesting Times By Zarnakindo, the difference is while he is more focused on the money side of thing and inside a thriving civilization, this one will be focus, again, in politics and survival, when you're playing both side, you bet your ass will be a juicy target from any dumb idealistic or/and opportunistic officer.
…….
Imperial Intelligence Officer
Adler
"The Emperor has assured his subjects that recovery from the war five years ago will be done swiftly, via the effort of the Imperial Engineering-Corps and companies that had helped them greatly, and in the next five years, it is to be believed that all damages from five years ago will be reversed fully," He was having a good dream and the sudden noise from the Holo Tv made him flaying his hand to find the remote behind his back and shut the maker-forsaken thing.
Adler groaned, waking up from his bed and wiping out the eye gunk that made it hard for him to focus his eyes. It's a very mundane problem to have but for a Marksman like him, when the ability for his eyes to see properly is perturbed, it's very annoying, he guesses non-stop missions back-to-back-to-back without rest would sore them. The I.I., gap in human resources has strained their operational ability, and they can't find those who meet their qualifications easily with how much the ISB snatched most of them with promises of better pay. By the maker, he hates the ISB. They don't need to recruit the best from the Imperial academies, ISB officers who are the same rank as him or a captain; are just relegated to be mere pencil pushers, meanwhile, in the I.I., everyone is proficient with a minimum master level pistol handling and being average at everything.
Speaking of manpower shortage, he reviewed the planet that had brought him some of the few joys he had had since the ISB was founded, something he would say is almost better than killing some minor separatist leader with no regard for their family. 'Soon, my dearest, soon; you'll be perfected,' he dreamily smiled. He admits he is a bit exaggerating, but today, he feels like being silly once in a while… Of course, with no one seeing it.
A knock on the door made him wipe the weird face he was having currently, clearing his throat. He spoke with a formal voice: "What is it?"
"Uhm, sir, the bridge commander told me to tell you in about two hours will leave hyperspace," his junior officer told him from outside his quarters. Blinking at that, he reluctantly got up from his bed and told his junior officer: "I'll be ready in 30 minutes." the young woman replied with a yes sir. He ignores it to prepare for his morning.
Doing a quick shower, he dressed and made himself look presentable enough and didn't put too much effort into it, grabbing an energy bar beside his bed, and making instant coffee with a disposable cup, he opened the Arquintens sliding door and was greeted with his junior officer talking with her friends who were wearing an imperial army uniform. The young lieutenant noticed him and quickly said goodbye to her friend before jogging to face Adler and saluting him.
"Sir," she maintained her form, waiting for his command. Giving a quick nod to her, she relaxed her posture. He ignored the conversation she had with her friend, making his way toward the hangar with her following.
"Report," he said, almost whispering; resisting the urge to yawn as he gulped his coffee and ate the energy bar while not trying to get hit by a patrolling stormtrooper in the hallway. He experimented a little bit and committed a major sin by dipping the energy bat in the cup of coffee, his young Lieutenant gave him a look of disgust, entirely appropriate he might add.
"Before that sir, shouldn't you go to the bridge first instead of the hangar?" The junior officer reminded him with almost a sigh.
"Tell Captain Syzna that we don't have to make a briefing about potential threats on this planet. By all accounts this is just your typical imperial farming planet, over cautiousness is not needed, but I do want him to give this planet a preliminary scan on its geographical makeup, and soil testing, we need a hard base for our factory after all. " He ordered the woman she didn't say anything and conveyed what Adler had said to the captain via her datapad.
"Exiting hyperspace in 5 minutes," The comm officer announced. He ignored it as background noise while mentally checking what Imperial administration papers and what intel the local garrison had scrapped for him to read. And so far, his gut that this was just an underpopulated farming planet was right, the culture of gunsmithing had explained the quality of the rifle design, not build quality, design (the less he talks about the subpar metal working the better) but what is interesting is the intelligence Compnor has given him.
Governor: Klevens Metternich, follower of the sect of the reformed goddess.
Saying that he's worried about the Governor's choice of beliefs would be an understatement. Tolerated by the old Republic because of his effectiveness as a commander and their despair to fill in as many holes as possible, his service record is exemplary and deserves a medal. He should be an Admiral by now, not a low-level governor on an unknown farming planet. (1)
But there's no doubt in Adler's mind whatever reasoning high command has not to have him in their ranks is a wise choice. Someone of his nature being so high in the ranks of the Imperial Navy made him shudder. The empire's xenophobic and anthropocentric ideology might be better than whatever the instigator of the Pius Dea might make worse. Adler is a professional and only supports the empire because the senate voted for the Empire's creation but he will gladly die for this mess of government to prevent that kind of madness. There's also some information about Alderaan's influence on the population because of its status as one of her many sons and daughters, a piece of good news knowing Aldeeran's loyalty towards the empire to lighten the mood against what possible havoc he might have when dealing with the governor.
"The captain is displeased with this sudden change of plan, sir," the Lieutenant said with a chuckle.
"Tell him, welcome to the I.I., Captain," he smirked and the second lieutenant typed it with a bored expression.
Time passed, and after many procedures and clearance checks—they finally were able to secure a Lambda shuttle and leave for the planet's surface, he looked interested at the world even from orbit: while there is still a sizable portion of the Planet covered in desert and land that is hilly and mountainous, covered in gold that he could even see from the sky, he was in awe and simultaneously frowned, by the calculation of the local imperial trade clerk, this planet alone was providing grain for its neighboring star system and Cato Neimoidia, which mean the planet export has well passed inter sector trade (2). And he does not want to impede that kind of grain production, the clone wars have destroyed 1000 years of continuous infrastructure buildup in just a few years. The Imperial Engineering Corps is responsible for rebuilding the war-torn galaxy with the help of private companies, while their budget is large rivaling the Imperial Navy; the enormity of their task and the cost of rebuilding also have to be cheap and fast enough to meet the emperor demands, makes it impossible for it to be done, even if the Emperor sends Lord Vader to fix-it, he does not envy Imperial engineering corps. The I.I. may lament their lack of budget but truly if there is more deserving of a budget raise, it's them.
With Imperial recovery post-clone war can not be halted, because supposedly people need to eat or whatever, he needs to find a way to maximize the productivity of the new weapons production and possibly build up a local military-industrial complex and research facility to meet the expectations and needs of the I.I., and only the I.I., (you gotta poach these company while they're young), while also gaining local support so their activity here isn't being disrupted, last thing he needs is tribal militants find something to unite them and find the chosen one to lead them or something like that. So diplomatically doing things is prioritized even though he much prefers to threaten them with base delta zero. He's joking of course—nothing that extreme. One or two force labor camps would make his job much better. And seeing the population demography; one or two camps brimmed with an extorted workforce of inferior species probably won't stir controversy (3).
As he gazed out the window from the shuttle cockpit, thinking about how to maintain the grain production and still produce the weapon here so that the other imperial branch wouldn't meddle with their new toys, he was disturbed by his lieutenant, who was asking a question he very much liked to avoid answering for as long as possible.
"How do you plan to face the governor? Rumor has it he's a follower of that sect," Lieutenant Cardien asked him.
"I don't know yet and I bet you hearing me answering with my stereotypical answer of Improv wouldn't leave you satisfied," he turned to his junior lieutenant who was typing some report in her datapad at the small foldable chair bolted at the Lambda shuttle wall.
"That would be correct, sir, Leadership was quite wroth towards you when you ended that program and selected a winner. And you meeting a problem because of the local governor's belief system and failure would probably give them ammo to remove you from your position, " she said while glancing at him.
"And by extension, your career also would be in trouble," Adler smiled as the young Lieutenant typing stopped for a moment and continued like he wasn't onto something. "Don't worry, I'm not dumb enough to do this without prior research, Klevens Metternich while a potential thorne for us has a service and precedence of loyalty, I know he's probably more loyal to that religion of his than the Empire, but frankly I've met with worse, for example, career opportunist who just in it for a personal reason."
"I hope that they are not as annoying as the types of people Governor Klevens is, sir," she replied.
"Oh, don't worry, they are pleasant to work with. It's amusing to see them try their hardest even with a very annoying boss, " this time she smirked.
"I'm sure they found a boss like that tolerable rather than the ones who are self-righteous. But my question still stands, sir, what are your plans with him?" The young Lieutenant reiterated her question.
"For now, just some standard procedure for subjects that somehow manage to be on the list of interesting people the I.I. has amassed: some light reconnaissance, background check, and standard spying for low-interest individuals," he was about to smoke when the young lieutenant judging glares stopped him.
"I doubt leadership wants to send more personnel to what they believe is now your pet project; we're stretched thin as it is. You of all people, one of the Empire's greatest shots is being relegated to what some ISB agent usually does is proof enough that they won't send more personnel to this." Being compared to the ISB stung a little and the woman just types with her datapad without care. "At least we do not have to worry about funding for the next two to three years or so, with most of the funding we can be diverted to this program," without seeming suspicious to any auditor, "are what the maximum the I.I., can give to us." ah yes the true reason why they were building the military factory here and the new research facility at some remote planet that is expensive to transport high-grade stuff and building material in small batches, sometimes while working for the I.I. Adler feels like he's always playing some sort of a con with how much data manipulation they are doing in their accounts and lying to the imperial budget auditor.
"That's why we also have to pull double duty: being the empire's eye in the ground for this project and…" He looked at the duo of pilots and he smirked behind them knowing full well those two were listening. "...you know what." She let out a dissatisfied grunt knowing full well that while Adler is busy as the field officer for the project, she's the one who's going to pull the majority of the double duty.
The window behind him suddenly turned red than blue he looked back to see in the ground the gleaming skyscraper of the planet-only city, the pilot told them to brace for a light shudder from any potential problem they might face in the ground, something he guessed the pilot pick up from his experience in the reconquering of the mid-rim, he ignores the pilot warning as the Lambda shuttle system to prevent those kinds of shudder is reliable compared imperial troop transport. The light sound of gear from the landing legs was heard from inside the cockpit and the young lieutenant was already on her feet waiting for him with a stoic expression, not giving any comments Adler walks toward the door and opens it, and his young lieutenant follows him as they walk a few feet behind the cockpit door as the floor was lowered to make a ramp, a small fireteam of Imperial trooper was lining up behind them, he could hear an audible yawn behind him, he shook his head at that but choose to ignore the marvelous display of imperial discipline.
The first thing he noticed when the ramp door was opened was the smell, it was refreshing. The planet's smell was much better than the air in the core world he grew up in, with a mixture of cold dry breeze of earthy sweet smell. As he walks to meet Durosteel at the landing pad he is instead greeted with Durocrete and just some open field that holds the occasional large barge with no accommodating infrastructure and proper procedure on how to run a spaceport. And by a single glance at that place, he had already counted numerous, and he meant numerous safety protocols that were being violated. 'Why are they wearing turbans when using that forklift????!!'
"You must be the agent the empire has sent," he looked to his left to see an old man wearing a keffiyeh, his back slightly hunched, and a small, girl? No, a boy is walking beside him. The old man suddenly grabbed his hand without warning much to the young boy's surprise and horror as they shook hands. Or some sort of the local variation, he just rolls with it as training kicks in. "I'm sorry that my son-in-law, the CEO, cannot be here as he is busy as my representative in our planet council. To replace him, I was the one chosen to delegate, do you have any problem with it? " Adler has to blink for a few moments at the brazen display of confidence and no-bullshit attitude the old man just displayed. A local noble would be respectful to an imperial officer of any rank but this old man has ditched all of that formality and is just being so direct. He hasn't even been on this planet for 5 minutes and Adler could already tell he'll like the local custom.
"Does your son-in-law contribute to any of the design phases and will he have any significant input on the production?" he asked the old man.
"Contribution to the blaster designing and prototyping process, no, technical aspect like that we don't need him, same with production, the main thing that will hurdle you right now is our customary law and my son-in-law being an off worlder is not suited for such a topic, no matter how integrated he is to our society." It may look harsh but hearing that he's an off-worlder being trusted for such a high position must mean he's a competent man and a great negotiator/intermediary with the local imperial administration… He sounds like someone he needs to be friends with to succeed.
"Then it is alright. Will the lead designer and/or chief technology officer be joining us?" the child beside the old man suddenly flinches; small details like that don't escape him.
"Yes, he's currently waiting at the warehouse where we produced our weapons," the old man says while grasping the child's arm, why does he need to calm the boy? Is he that intimidating?
"Good, what is your name, good sir?" just calling him an old man in his mind would be odd after all.
"Asad of the Zuraiys, and you are?"
"Just call me Adler," he smiles, "Now, let us start this assessment, so we can negotiate the terms and details of production." Asad just nodded and escorted their contingent to their factory. While the boy was mortified, again.
The ride there was pleasant, though he much preferred that the lambda shuttle just land at the supposed warehouse (He hoped it wasn't just a warehouse) where the company is centered, he understands that this kind of formality is needed and he could discern much more information talking with a local than days of cover actions, so he started talking with the old man, masking his intel gathering as just normal conversation, occasionally he glanced at boy who was seated near his grandfather at the large speeder, seeing the boy occasionally flinches whenever the matter of the weapon itself was being discussed, especially when his grandfather said something so out of pocket for rifles at the technical aspect, he knows instantly that the boy is passionate about blaster weaponry.
Wanting to know more about the reason for this child's weird behavior, Adler asked the boy, "What's your name?"
"It's Leirra, Leirra of the Zuraiys," he said with the worst Pokerface Adler had ever seen. There is no doubt in Adler's mind now that there is something weird here.
"Say, Leirra, what do you think of this blaster your father's company had made?" He asked as non-threateningly as possible while exerting a small amount of authority in his voice.
The child's focus was shifted to the moving grainfield on his right, "It's a good rifle, better than any rifle of the same class I have used," not wanting to see Adler eye-to-eye. Nervousness? Maybe, but surface level intell digging shouldn't be taken seriously, especially on how the boy was talking, his cadence was similar to a grown man in his mid-twenties to early-thirties, the child is a genius; there's no way to hide that when his surprise question doesn't leave room from the boy to improv his acting skill.
"And you are familiar with blasters to have this judgment? I didn't know it was normal here to teach them so young to shoot." He pressed further but this time it was Asad that answered his question.
"Birren had a unique blaster culture, our world was first colonized by the more militant members of the Alderanian nobility, so some leftover since the Ruusan reformation is still holding but do not worry if you are concerned about that, our warrior culture is not as brutal as the one in Eriadu or as savage as the Mandalorian" Adler nodded at that, not truly interested in the history of the world, though he mentally wrote that the people would probably easier to talk to in a stance of as fellow warrior.
He wanted to ask more questions but the speeder suddenly stopped at some sort of a warehouse, hundreds of meters from the city center which was probably where the grains were being processed into flour. A man with a blue turban walked to him and introduced himself as Yehni Reshim, Adler was the first to get out of the speeder with the grace of a trained operator to look at the warehouse more closely, the action was stopped for a second by the man introducing himself to Adler, and after a short conversation with him, he continues to look at the warehouse closely mouth agape, Cardien was standing next beside him hand on her face looking mortified at state of the warehouse. 'How new is this company??' Budget won't be an issue, yes… But for the company's manufacturing base to be this small and run down. At least for the first few months, they wouldn't be lying to the auditor because this means they have to start from scratch.
The boy again taking his interest was… proud?? As if the warehouse was enough to fool them into believing that it could supply an organization that was on a galactic scale, this thing would just barely even manage to properly supply a small pre-space nation inhabiting a war-like planet in the size of 209,331 square kilometers. He doesn't know why he chooses that scale, specifically, it was just the appropriate idea of how screwed, whoever proposes this ruse, sense of scale is. They must be from a different galaxy this dumbass.
Looking at Cardien, she is about to cry, as a logistic officer, the only logistic officer that will be sent into this planet, mind you, to administer the, you know, logistics, will have to work a stupendous amount of work. Maybe, he should be the one doing the Intel gathering, he feels bad about the woman's future sanity.
"There, there it'll be alright, I'll let you hire some locals to help you and let you Strategic Transfer of Equipment to Alternate Locations of any (Poor) imperial personnel to help you." Alder tried to console her. The woman just nodded slightly, acknowledging his help. She probably needs to prop up a bureaucracy to prop up the bureaucracy, he'll help that for a couple of weeks then let her take over. Noticing the company representative (this includes the child) and Imperial army trooper were staring at them confused, he turned back with a smile leaving Cardien on her own. "Now let's start the tour shall we."
The tour was just a standard one, discarding the very, and he meant very unstandardized equipment, it looked more like various shops from different blaster makers that are gathered under a building rather than a facto… Oh for maker's sake!!! He wants to cry, he really wants to cry. 'Remember why you are here Alder, remember why you are here, the blaster, the prophesied blaster that will bring balance to the zeroing and destroy any uncomfortable thing. Remember.' he's hanging by the thread.
When the tour ended, thank the maker he was still smiling outwardly trying his damn hardest not to frown even slightly! Shaking hands and all that, they offered him, Cardien, and the Imperial army trooper some food but he refused much to the soldiers' dismay, he doesn't care he needs rest after this shit. The company representative was about to leave but before that happened he called for the boy saying to his grandfather that he was giving him a gift.
When the child was in front of him he knelt and whispered: "I know, Leirra," Adler gave him an energy bar from his pocket, the child jolted in surprise but because he was giving him a gift, it was veiled to make his grandfather believe it was because of the gift and not the information he just revealed. "You aren't the first genius child, I suggest you tell your parents to tell me the truth so it won't complicate things. " He isn't lying, it's a very bad idea to lie to any imperial representative, so this maybe could make him into the good graces of the locals portraying himself as a forgiving figure. "Do you understand?" The boy nodded, "Good, run along now," the boy didn't run but walked fast to be behind his grandfather. They left a few minutes later, and Adler's hand was waving at them slowly as they drove to their homes and the boy was looking back at him.
"Maker help me," he muttered.
...
Bas of The Zuraiys
Bas was sitting at his work desk looking gobsmacked at the paper his father-in-law had given him, looking at the older man, he asked: "They have enough money to build a factory this large and give it to us as an investment so generously but not enough to build a space station that probably would be cheaper and less of a hassle?" buying land and reimbursing the one who owns it will be annoying. Especially the Bolachis Plateau, a place that is rich in minerals.
"I said the same thing to them when I pointed that out; they just said it isn't feasible for their budget and they said it wasn't because the money wasn't available. It probably has to do something that is out of their hands that they can't move the funds however they like. (4)" Bas's father-in-law told him the anomaly in the way the I.I., is giving their funding.
"So the plan to use the Bolachis Plateau went without a hitch, right?" He asked hopefully. Who would've thought that turning a con into a legitimate thing would be hard?
"There are some who are protesting that we are using the land for industrial means but the Bolachis Plateau was already full of industrial destruction from the mining there even if we as a people are careful and only take as little as possible if we can't find other alternatives. It is somewhat a Grey area, building more blasters is always a good thing but for it to be made industrially that will automatically make it heresy; the fact that the land was already somewhat tainted makes it somewhat ok," Asad explained to Bas.
"Then we should start producing them right away; the faster we finish this contract the better so we don't have any more obligations with them. Thank the force it was just an order of 100.000(5), I'll start hiring the people that are needed to operate the factory right away," He'll probably have to ask Tasnime for help, his wife may be lazy when it comes to this kind of thing but by the force, she's competent when he wants to. Sometimes when he's being burdened as Asad's heir politically she'll help him draft some documents and her works are better than his by a mile.
"I'm afraid we ran into another problem…, " Bas blinked, Asad just clicked his mouth and was barely restraining his anger. "Open page 57, of the documents," Asad let out a hiss.
"Is it that bad?" he asked.
"This is the first time I am furious that a document could be so detailed," was all Bas needed to hear and he began opening the page.
The first thing he sees: Work camps
"THEY WOULDN'T FUCKING DARE!!!" Bas rose from his seat with a roar. Fist punching his desk so hard that Asad thought it would break it. "How brazen can they be! This–this is an affront to any morals the old republic may have! Do they have no shame?! This close to the core worlds and they want to transport slaves to this world?!!!
"We can negotiate with them… "
"Negotiate…NEGOTIATE!!? We should've reported this to the Senate the moment this thing was on my desk!" He wanted to rip the datapad but restrained himself to just slam it lightly at his desk. "Alderaan would support us and our brother and sister: they'll see that there are no limits to what they'll do," Bas gritted his teeth. If atrocities after atrocities in the mid to the outer rim can not convince those core worlder fools; then maybe the one right on their doorstep will. He's really starting to regret not taking Asad's offer to rebel right away.
"And if we do that we'll paint a target to ourselves; they've already figured out that Leirra is the true designer of the blaster, I imagine they have already sent spies to monitor us and that means our activities in the past, " activities that'll send them immediately on the Empire kill list. Bas and Asad had underestimated Imperial Intelligence gathering, they thought they could organize a full-scale rebellion when the time came that the empire was at their moment of weakness but them being so fast to piece together that Leirra was the one who designed the blaster had already put doubt in their mind that Asad and him can hide this conspiracy.
"We have to put our plans on hold," he tsked, "If we refuse those slaves they'll investigate us," he doesn't want to say this, he really doesn't, "We have to work with the Empire in earnest, father, they'll purge the nobility if they found out about our conspiracy. And that means we have to distance ourselves from our people to survive when the inevitable happens. "
Asad gripped his palm, "We were the ones that suggested the plan to rebel in the first place and we are the ones who will betray our people, Force, please forgive us." Force forgive us, Bas follows suit mentally. "We should warn as many as possible. "
"Only the closest and the most valuable of allies," Bas added.
"They are all important and valuable," Asad scowled.
"Yes, they are."
So many will die because of their blunder and arrogance. (6)
I love the sense of constant dread that you could be purged at a moment's notice
Just like in the real world, there are many ways to classify something that is essentially the same, Agri-World in the previous chapter means a world that just produces food but here Adler says Farming-World is narrowing the classification of the world he's heading. As Birren isn't that heavily reliant on produce like vegetables, fruits, and barn animals, the land is just that specialized in grain farming. Again, like, in Europe when it comes to meat export and vegetables, countries like the Netherlands and Spain dominate.
This does not mean Birren grain production is enough to feed an entire sector, that is ridiculous, merely saying that Birren has a chunk of the grain trade no matter how small as far as even Cato Neimoidia. But it is a small chuck being factored into a galaxy scale which means Birren is probably feeding directly or indirectly tens to hundreds of billions of people. Ukraine with their land manages to make 20% of the world's grain. Can you imagine such productivity and more being scaled into a whole world!?
Cause it feels so empty without me.
Or maybe they can't hide the funds for the project properly. But that's not possible, surely they use their budget wisely and not lie to their auditor :-D. I have to spell this out in the note because I'm afraid people won't get that detail. Equipment (especially a space station) is much harder to hide than Duro crete, and a shipment of metal, something is just more able to be hidden/meddled in a ledger (financially than others). An apt comparison is a Russian billionaire cruise ship and their property in the U.A.E. where their daughter is living with their boy toy. Construction works are the hot zone for corruption (seen it my own eyes). It's so Freaking easy to mark up concrete and wood that it's not even funny.
Yeah, Star Wars scale; that kind of order is usually massive for Earth.
I hope you guys like competent imperials because this story will be full of it.