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Going for holidays - returning mid September.

By the time I came back to New Vandenberg, the Revenants were also present.
To decide on the next course of action, I met the different heads of department of V4RU.
I talked with John Smith about creating the proper installations for the Revenants that were slowly expanding. My idea was that it would be better for them to be in their own “house” rather than to have to rely on the generosity of another, even if it was family. And I also had plans for V4RU that would make space there a luxury. At first he resisted this idea but in the end accept the extra work ; the new installations were to be build in adjacent land that was still to be bought and for that I knew I had to use my own money as the Revenants were not making any money and I had further plans for V4RU, plans which would need a lot of money.
Next I talked with Bertrand Suchet, asking him to find  designs of civilian ‘Mechs produced by companies that no longer existed. To his questions, I answered that I planed to start a production of civilian ‘Mechs as I thought there was a market for civilian ‘Mechs in the Periphery but that I didn’t want to pay licenses / royalties to existing companies, which would allow us to improve our margins.
I also talked with Gilbert Leloup to make sure that he could get the specification of as many “advanced” tech as possible so that we could later use the  advanced kit obtained in the Argo to bring some of them back into production and make money out of it.  He was very interested in that project.
Last but not least, I had a meeting with Lise Bonnel to see how the security of both companies could be improved against spies and sabotage. She already had ideas for improving it and I assured that V4RU would pay for all of it, after all, the Revenants were a sort of security unit for them. She also suggested a false raid/stealth attack to look for weak points. I pitied the poor guys that would be on patrol and surveillance duty when the raid would come.

After launching these projects, it was time again to get back to the Revenants with the recruiting and rebuilding part. Thanks to the tanks, arty and infantry gear obtained in the last mission the unit could even grow substantially. It was around that time that the Fighter pilots recruited from the Outworld Alliance also arrived. Of the six, four came with their own ASFs ; two LTN-G15 Lightnings and two older, barely operational VLC-5N Vulcans; which meant that we needed to perform a comprehensive rebuild and refit before they could be operational. Expensive and time-consuming, but two capable heavy ASFs were always a good thing to have. The last two pilots didn’t have personal fighters, so I gave them the two Hammerhead that until now were collecting dust.
Before we had contracted them, we had a sort of dilemma as they formed a unit, making it an all or nothing contract. The problem laid in that we also needed to contract the wife of the leader, a MechWarrior with a Merlin. Apparently she was former test-pilot of Mountain Wolf Battlemechs and when her contract with the firm ended she could get a ‘Mech. I wasn’t too happy with getting another untested, foreign ‘MechWarrior and so was Vasseur too but in the end we needed to strengthen our Aerospace forces and I signed the deal.
During their time on Althea, the Revenants had defeated a pirate incursion but because  of the contract, all the captured hardware was taken by the Concordat. The Revenants also ‘acquired’ a liaison officer, Subaltern Christine Marais; the Cornet I knew from the Ministry of Defense, which had earned a promotion along the way. Since she was a staff officer and not a ‘MechWarrior, we didn’t have an extra ‘Mech to carry with us.
Once that set, it was time to get back to our Star League business but this time, with the Taurians. While Marshall Tharn wanted to go to Epsilon Pegasus and target the dockyard / dry dock that should be there, the realities of logistics, costs and politics  forced us to put the raid on Castle Nautilus on top of our list. This target fitted the Taurian agenda as the Protector wanted a confirmation that the big findings in the list were real while sending a message to the Aurigan delegates in the currently stalled negotiations.
So, by the end of 3018 we departed for Artru.
I let the fourth lance, the 2 Wasp, the Phoenix Hawk (that sometimes replaced me) and the Merlin home to ‘defend the V4RU facilities’ along with the Vulcans, that still needed a comprehensive refit,  and one of the Hammerheads, taking with me 4 ASFs.
My Revenants were very happy, not only was a raid more prestigious than garrison / anti-pirate duty, but they were going to fight along one of the most prestigious Taurian units in what was for sure the most significant foreign operation executed by the Concordat in several years.
Three weeks later we arrived around Artru. I had taken with me all our JumpShips and DropShips (this was a big operation after all), while the Concordat had sent two Invader JumpShips loaded with two Jumbos, three Mules and the Iberia, a Fortress class DropShip, the pride of the Concordat Navy (another similarity with the game I had played at home), commanded by Space Master (not yet Commodore) Samuel Ostergaard.
In orbit, we had a last video conference.
‘Our plan is to land as near as the cache as possible and crush it… You seem to disagree, Mister Bassot. Care to explain why?’ said Subaltern Samamha McGrtnn (the leader of the Taurian ground forces)

‘I know that you have plenty of experience in conducting raids but we are talking about a Star League Castle with defenses that might be active and that we might not be able to deactivate from afar. I want to land at a safe distance of the Castle, allowing to deploy in force without having to disembark under fire or losing strength before we head towards the target. If something went wrong with the codes, we will need to buy time for the EW specialists to do their job and since we don’t know what we will be facing, I think it is better to play on the safer side. If there is no threat for them, the DropShips and the ASFs can always come to give us a hand
Everybody agreed with my plan and the DropShips headed towards a location some kilometers away from the Castle.

After raiding local cities, to both hide our true target and impress the Aurigans, we returned home, without problems.
The mission had been a complete success from several angles.
The Concordat had shown to the Aurigan Coalition that if the Concordat decided to invade or even simply raid them, they were defenseless  putting a lot more pressure in the negotiations.
It also had validated the quality of my list of potential targets in the Concordat minds.
Even if I didn’t get access to one of the mainframes or to a copy of the files inside, we had received a lot of valuable loots,  including ‘Mechs, ASFs and vehicles, lots of ammo and spares that would let the Revenants operate the advanced models for a while.
Heck, they had even paid us a nice bonus, a first one for the Exchequer.
This was also the first time that people had died because of me and that hit me hard. I wanted to write letters to the families of the fallen but Vasseur said as the operational commander, it was his job and I let him do it.
After war, it was time again to focus on business. I sold both K-1 DropShuttles to a transport company as they were useless to me and I got a nice price for them. When I was sure that Lise had finished improving our security and that it could deal with anything except a raid by a Steiner Recon Company (‘MechWarriors and their jokes), I contacted several companies, like VMI, Sterope Defense Industries and O-P Electronics and for a nice amount of cash, I provided them access to the Royal toys (‘Mechs, ASFs, vehicles and spare parts/ammo) for exhaustive analysis but on my terms: in our installations, accompanied by our techs and under a very close surveillance by Lise people. I also sold them some samples of our loot.
From the first analysis made by V4RU, and as I had suspected, the Artemis IV FCS equipped launchers could use normal ammo. That’s good, because everybody said that producing new ammo with these kinds of seekers was going to be very difficult in the next years. Gauss ammo was no problem and cluster ammo was also not complicated to manufacture, only expensive. As could be expected, the Double Heat Sinks were one of the most sought after items to study and I sold some for a lot of cash to each company for research. Unfortunately the Streak launchers only worked with Streak ammo, so until I could secure a reliable source of supply, we needed to replace then with normal ones.
In the end, I got more than 25 million C-bills from these operations, including the sell of the K-1s. And valuable contacts and favors from big companies, which was nice.
While I wasn’t exactly the owner of the rediscovered techs-, after several reunions from both sides legal teams we agreed that I was also entitled to a small fee for the use by others of these pieces of technology, not exactly royalties, but close. . The Taurian Government, that had access to same items didn’t for some reason seem to do anything with it. At least, nothing that I or my associates knew about.
Leloup and his people were in heaven poking every inch of the advanced Royal equipment we had acquired in this mission.  But, at same time they were furious with me because we had sold our “toys” and they were being destroyed by strangers or at least it was what they said. I am sure that deep in himself, he agreed with my ideas.
The extensive research done by Suchet and Leloup gave us access to several designs that had been produced by now defunct companies. With a bit of cosmetic changes maybe some could be produced in the Concordat if I was able to negotiate a deal with some companies that I had good relations with now...
While at first I wanted to simply start production of these civilian ’Mechs inside V4RU, the reality was that the company was not capable of that, lacking the industrial might necessary, so I needed to make agreements. In cooperation with other companies, I spent a lot of money and VMI opened some production lines for  civilian ‘Mechs  (industrial, agro, cargo and security), which also turned me into one of the main shareholders of the company. V4RU got several contracts  with special conditions with VMI and the Revenants even got a piece of the security contracts. Thank God, the unit had expanded because I still needed a substantial force for the expedition missions. Even after detaching forces for securing V4RU and VMI, I still had about a combined arms battalion to use for whatever I wanted with about a company of ’Mechs at its core.
After our success, the Navy was preparing for the long range mission  and some of my forces would go with them. However, I wasn’t going to spend two years or more in space, so I decided that for the time being I would stay on Vandenberg, letting Vasseur lead our part in this long raid. After having recovering from his wounds, he was more than happy to go and do something. .

The exploring team missed the two years return mark. I knew that we couldn’t  communicate with each other because of the secrecy needed around the mission. The only option was to wait and hope for the best. While there could be a margin of error, after three months of delay I really started to worry.
Meanwhile, the business was doing good. V4RU was only growing a little but at least it was in comfortable economic conditions while VMI had considerable success in the civilian market. They were selling all the ‘Mechs they were able to produce on that specific market. Already some new lines were in different phases of construction.
Because of that, my proposal to add lines to produce all types of exoskeletons was well accepted by the board of directors. While the civilian applications and market were for now the objective, I had the idea that as soon as the program went in smooth progress I could start the development of Battle Armor. The pure research part had already started in V4RU.
The part of the Revenants that stayed back was also doing ok. We had used these two years to train together, and we were now a well cohesive group. Since we had about two dozen ’Mech simulators for only a company of ’Mechs on our side, we had the luxury to be able to train others with us or against us. The specifications of the advanced ’Mechs had also been introduced in the simulators, which proved a difficult job for my programmers, but had already been done by early 3021. One thing that I had trained myself to now was leading a ’Mech company, putting to good use the amazing capabilities of my ’Mech in that area. I had also improved significantly my marksmanship. Thanks to the help of and training with Georgina Martins, the Merlin Mechwarrior and former test pilot at Mountain Wolf, I had learned a lot about how to pilot a ’Mech. This woman was a mobile encyclopedia on ’Mechs and knew a lot about how you could execute several combinations of movements that I had never dreamed about.
After ensuring that all the lines producing industrial ’Mechs and exoskeletons were in full activity, I started to look to the  Vandenberg Shipyards ruins in orbit around Lompoc (New Vandenberg IX). The opinion of the techs that made the survey  (lead by Dr. Murad herself) was that while right after its destruction, many came here to extract salvage, the core of the shipyards was not in such a bad shape and could be repaired. However, it was going to cost a lot and take at least a decade. The principal problem was obtaining the funds since the technology and trained technicians already existed in the Concordat. I started trying to create a consortium of companies to take on the job, but without the support from the government, very few were interested and my contacts ended in nothing.

Finally, two and a half years after their departure, the team returned to New Vandenberg with no loot but very happy.
While reading Vasseur’s report,  I discovered  that the mission had gone even better than my wildest projections.
Not only had they found the hidden dockyard but also a Congress class Frigate inside almost ready to be launched, with an advanced but empty Lee DropShip attached to it. Apparently, the K-Boom had fused. On the ground, while much of the base was empty, they had found enough spare parts to repair everything. The highlight of the operation was the discovery of an operational HPG. A lot of human remains told the story of a fight between several elements and the holes in the walls meant it had been severe, perhaps explaining why the WarShip was never repaired.
The repairs and learning how to do them were the reason for the 6 months delay. But after doing that, they managed to load everything (and by everything I meant every single piece of equipment of the dockyard) they could in the massive cargo bay of the SLS Admiral Perry (the given name of the Frigate) and loading to the max all the DropShips they returned home.
As usual, I had to go to Taurus for the negotiations regarding our part of the share. This time Christine Marais, our liaison, came with me.
‘So mister Bassot, you deliver again.’ where Marshall Tharn’s welcome words. 
‘Well, Marshall, I like to satisfy my customers and partners. I understand that we might have some problems with my part of the share ?’ I said, knowing full well that that there was no possible way the Concordat could provide me with any of the recovered items.
‘I’m afraid so,’ said the Marshall ‘by the Lord Protector orders, the Congress, the dockyard the Lee DropShips and the HPG are considered strategic items for the Concordat, and their existence also falls under the Protect Secrets Act.‘
‘Oh, rest assured I don’t want to contest that’ I said with a calm face, to the surprise of the other party ‘I just want to negotiate the way the Concordat fulfill its side of the contract. I don’t want nothing of these ‘hot’ items, I don’t have a desire to paint such a big target in my back. But, the value must be in the billions, even for my small part. I have thought about the problem during my trip to here and I might have a solution. You could provide me with this from the Navy Reserve, let’s say one Invader and three DropShips. Since many of the ships in the reserve are only destined to move the Guards in case of open war, right now, they are collecting dust. I can even agree to let them return to the Navy if and only if a state of open war with the Fed Rats occurs. As the operation in Artru showed us, I need transportation for my forces.’
At first the Marshall was in shock, but after a few moments collected herself.
‘That kind of decision can only be taken by the Lord Protector  Mister Bassot. But with this clause, I think it could be possible.’
‘Great. Next, I want the Exchequer to provide me and my associates with fiscal incentives while we try to rebuild the Vandenberg Shipyards.  With that, the Concordat will not only get a  shipyard since you should easily be able to convert that dockyard in a fully functional shipyard but also a second one , in New Vandenberg. Our nation needs it. Oh, and by the way, Lady Sartre, some money from your side could also be of some help. I also want one of these nice Nirasaki mainframes since my people are doing some research that could benefit a lot of more computer power.’
Lady Sartre got an interesting red color, but before she could open her mouth, a voice came from the Marshall’s communicator on the desk.
‘You think big, boy. But I agree. Make it so.’
The way both Tharn and Sartre reacted I was more than ready to bet good money that it was Thomas Calderon, the Lord Protector himself.
Nice, I think while trying to contain a smile, apparently Calderon likes me. Good to know.
‘And what is your next adventure, Mister Bassot ? Another forgotten treasure ?’ asked Sartre with a smirk.
‘Marshall, Lady Sartre, I think that is time for you to provide my people with a contract to clean the Pirates’ Haven Cluster. That area is old Concordat territory and I am sure that the Navy still has detailed cartographic charts of the area. On top of that, the pirates that we captured in the Althea’s contract were from there, so you or TMI got an updated chart for sure.’
‘And why would you want to go there ?’ asked Tharn with an interested look on her face. I also noted that miss Marais was also paying more attention.
‘To be frank, for two reasons – first I despise pirates. And second, my people need a combat contract, they are getting rusty with only long range exploration and security missions.’
‘I think we can do that. For the rest, well, you heard lord Calderon agree, so we just have to wait for the legal departments to finish the details.’
‘Oh Marshall? If I were you, I would take good care of these toys. Don’t let an incident like the one of the Tripitz ruin your day.’
‘Any particular reason for that advice, Mister Bassot ?’
‘Well I like to study history, and one of the interesting things I noticed is that every time a discovery of  a big relic of the past, some unknown forces raid and destroy everything, only never to be seen again. The logic behind these different raids is that someone with unlimited access to intelligence and resources must be playing some kind of game. I don’t see many powers in the Inner Sphere or the Periphery that would be able to do that.’
‘Are you accusing Comstar of that ? They are a civilian neutral company for God’s sake.’
‘Neutral… remember they read all the communications in all human space. That provides then with a lot of power and temptation..’
‘Interesting idea. But without any proof...’
‘Oh, for sure. But someone very well-equipped has done it. Someone never seen again. Just take that in consideration and adapt your security measures. I don’t think that Comstar will be pleased to know that the Concordat has a functional SLDF class A HPG to play. Don’t let them know about it.’
In the end, I received ‘my’ Ships, which thanks to the combo of one Invader, one Union, one Triumph and one Leopard, increased our mobility. The only drawbacks were that they were all staffed with Concordat Navy crews, call this an insurance measure,  and can only use then in TDF / TMI approved missions. I also got the mainframe and the Exchequer even provided me with  bonus of 25 million C-Bill (again in Bulls, but that was okay for me).
By mid 3022 I was starting the planning to go against the Pirates’ Haven right after receiving the ships.

February 23, 3023
A few seconds after jumping in Pirate’s Haven  Badlands Zenith jump-point, a collision alarm could be heard.
‘Proximity sensors report two objects near!’
‘Sensors, identify them now! Prepare to launch ASFs.’
‘Aye, Aye, sir. Identification coming… wait, they are both Leviathans.’
Leviathans ? I thought that they were all retired long ago. Nice, if I remember right, they had eight Docking Collars each. I started to think what I could do with so much capability.
‘ASFs and Assault crafts launched! No reaction from the bogies.’
With luck, we could capture both with little damage…. Stop dreaming, when did things go so easily?
Two hours later, the news weren’t  good. Yes, we had captured both JumpShips without opposition. But that was only because they were both derelict, none in working condition. Members of Dr. Murad’s team that were with us on this mission are busy inspecting then to see if they could be repaired or not.
Let’s hope that the team that inserted through the Nadir jump-point will be more lucky.

Four days later after landing in Badlands
Two pirate locations had been detected from orbit, one much bigger than the other. Vasseur took our more experienced force (with all the Royal ’Mechs except mine) against the big one, with full ASF support and I took one lance with vehicle support against the small one.
My warning system informed me that a pirate Rifleman was targeting me. Without giving it a thought, I sidestepped to the left, making the pirate miss me while at the same time turning the torso to put a Gauss round and an ERPPC shot right in the torso of the pirate ‘Mech. It seems the last years of training had paid, finally. Not designed to survive that kind of punishment, and already in bad condition, the pirate ’Mech collapsed with its center torso destroyed. Two of the other pirate ’Mechs, a Commando and a Vindicator had already been neutralized, but the last one, a fast Locust was running away. I couldn’t let it escape. I carefully targeted it and with the extended range of my weapons placed a solid Gauss round on is right leg, making it splash on the ground and letting it unable to move. The pilot must have been knocked-off.
Just like on a training ground, I directed our long range support (four Hunters) a bit behind, to drop fire on a group of enemy vehicles, mostly technical ones according to my battle computer that were the only forces left in front of us. After softening them, we advanced and quickly destroyed the last remains of the pirates.

Meanwhile, the other group provided the bigger pirate force with what could be expected from a SLDF, Royal equipped veteran force: a lot of pain. We took no losses, just a few soldiers of our infantry forces were injured. I do hope that we will be so lucky in the next missions.
Some hours later I got the final report of the Badlands operation.
The other team had indeed luck, capturing a lightly damaged but still operational Merchant. Unfortunately for us, it was  a Concordat ship, so we had to return it to its real owners, ‘only’ getting a rescue bonus. We also captured two DropShips, one Danais and one Mule. But again they were both sailing under Concordat flag. On top of that we also freed several civilians, including the crews of the JumpShips and DropShips.
Not a bad result, even more when taking into consideration that Dr. Murad said that maybe, with a lot of effort and extra spares,  many of them we might have to build specifically as nobody had them anymore,  her team could perhaps repair one of the Leviathans. The other one had its K-F drive cracked and was only good for scrap. Even if said drive had so much refined germanium in it that extracted it could alone pay for the full mission. Since both were of unknown origin, it was worth a try.

This mission also proved that Badlands was still viable as a colony, so the Concordat could settle the system if it wanted.
I had high hopes that we could get our hands on more loot on Lorkdal

Two weeks later, Lorkdal Zenith jump-point.
‘Sensors ?’
‘Nothing near captain.’
‘Understood, detach the DropShips.’
Three days later in orbit around the planet
‘We detect a small settlement near the Equator. Energy readings show that at least a lance of ’Mechs is present. No DropShips detected and because no JumpShips were found in the system, our analysis is that their main force is out there raiding.’
‘Understood. I propose that the ASFs do a strafing  run while we land near. We have more than enough forces to deal with such a small group.’ Said Vasseur during the planning meeting.

Following Vasseur‘s plan, our forces easily captured the pirate base. I didn’t even fire a shot this time. One of the disadvantages of the Nightstar was his speed and before I could come into range, the others had already secured the pirate base and dispatched the five ‘Mechs protecting it, no fun.
Interrogation of the few captured pirates reported that they had an Invader JumpShip but that is was already late from its estimated time of return from a raid in Estuan in the Federated Suns. We waited one more month, but the pirate JumpShip never returned. Years later, we got the information that they had been captured by FedRat forces during that raid.
Apart from the Leviathan (if we could repair it), we got our hands on one Shadow Hawk, one Commando (made with parts of two) and the Locust whose leg I had destroyed. The rest was only good for scrap, except for the Rifleman that could be repaired if we could get a new gyro as my shots had completely destroyed it and nobody in the Concordat made them.
The conclusions of the university team on both planets were that both were still viable to support colonies and that they were perhaps even better than before as with hundreds of years with almost no human on these planets, the biosphere had developed in a way that was favorable to the human beings.

Later that night at the party in the Beaudouin’s mansion in the New Vandenberg capital.
God, I really hate this kind of social events. I never liked them in my past life and I still don’t in the new one.
Years of experience, mostly in my past life gave me enough abilities to be able to fake sufficiently and not make a faux-pas. Circulating around and doing my damned best to escape the usual social butterflies that are attracted to this kind of events. I even had a glass of Glengarry Reserve in the hand while doing so and if I may so, this is really a good whiskey.
Josselin Beaudouin, barely 1.60m with high heels, with raven hair, large but not fat, her bone structure didn’t give her any gifts and anyone would hardly call her a beautiful young woman. However the determined look in her face said that she was soon going to be an asset for her family.

After exchanging the usual platitudes with her, I was free to pursue my own agenda and start looking for  Edward Calderon, to speak to him and convince him to support me and my agenda.
It took me some time to find him, as he was also trying to dodge the socialites and the kiss-ass people, attracted to people like him. This time, thank God, I wasn’t the top dog in this competition.
‘Lord Calderon? Funny, I never thought I would see such a high personage play the hide-and-seek game to escape the socialites. I’m Jean-Luc Bassot, at your service.’
‘Please to meet you Mr. Bassot. ’ He replied with a harm smile.
‘Would you mind us looking for a quiet place outside of this circus?’
Having been here several times, I was now familiar with the mansion and I easily found my way to a quieter room.

Upon entering the room, Edward Calderon placed a white noise generator on the small table between the chairs and turned it on, signaling that this conversation was going to be ‘off the record’.

‘So, Jean-Luc’ started Edward Calderon, after sitting down in a comfortable chair, ‘would you care to explain to me the enigma of your actions?’

‘What enigma?’
‘On the one hand, you provided the Concordat with WarShips, Royal ‘Mechs and top-of the line equipment that benefit our nation greatly on the military side’, started Edward Calderon with a very serious look on his face ‘but on the other hand, all you created on your own was in the civilian side. Do you care to explain?’
‘There is no enigma at all. I provided the Concordat with the items that I found but what I really want is to improve our economy. If you enlarge the military first, you cripple the economy, but if you do it the other way around, you can easily enlarge the military at a later time while first making the civilians richer.’
‘And you think that we have time to do it that way?’ asked Edward with an interested look on is face.
‘Sure. It is a simple multiplayer game. House Davion principal enemy is Kurita, followed by Liao. The principal enemy of House Liao is Davion and the secondary is Marik. House Marik is preoccupied with Steiner first and Liao second and House Kurita with Davion and Steiner. House Davion, because of his nascent alliance with Steiner also has to deal with Marik. In other words, all the House Lords of the Inner Sphere are too much preoccupied with each other to look towards the Periphery.
It is no coincidence that in the past hundred years nothing bigger than small raids and counter-raids has been done here.’ I said with a reasonable voice.
‘And the worlds that Davion took from us?’ asked Edward Calderon looking at me intensely.
‘After two hundred years? Let us be real. With so much time of Davion indoctrination and with much migration from other Davion worlds these are now Davion worlds, not ours under occupation. No revolts, no manifestations, no heavy troops presence. Should I go on? I don’t like it, you don’t like it and I'm sure your father hates it, but is the cold reality. Even if was the other way around, even if we could triplicate the power of the TDF, we still wouldn’t have enough forces to take them back. House Liao, the weakest of the Inner Sphere realms is still way more powerful than us, so I’m afraid that we don’ stand a chance in that area.’
‘In some circles, that could be considered traitorous...’ said Edward Calderon.
‘If said circles don’t like reality, it is their problem not mine.’ I coldly answer. ‘But if you want to improve our military with a small investment, just open some aerospace academies. The TDF is weak in that arm, even if VMI and Pinard produce ASFs.’
‘And where would we find the instructors for said academies?’ asked Edward Calderon.
‘In the same place I found most of my pilots, just contract them in the Outworlds Alliance. They are not hostile to us and have a very good aerospace force.’ I said.
And the look in Edward face showed me that they hadn’t thought about it.
‘On another topic, what are your plans for the future Jean-Luc? I don’t believe you are happy with what you already got.’ said Edward Calderon, conceding the point, more or less.
‘Glad that you asked that. You see I have this idea...’
Several hours later heading home, I was reasonably convinced that Edward Calderon could be now counted as an ally, and maybe, with a bit of luck, he could convince his father to finance / support my space program.