A/N : Yoda : Much time it took, but back we are
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Grib was furious, but forced a smile to his lips. "Yeah, I'll talk to him, alright." He stood up, looking out towards the balcony, where Reyhon was just finishing his death stick, his shaking hand at last seeming to have calmed.
...
Once again adopting an air of cool confidence, even as his glands were all but boiling over with the sour scent of outrage, Grib made his way to the Board Secretary. Reyhon heard someone approaching from behind, and turned to regard Grib, his scrawny face so pale that it was nearly white.
"Andhlo! So glad you could make it." Grib smiled. "I hope customs didn't give you too much trouble for your extracurriculars."
Andhlo blinked at him, his large eyes taking a moment to focus as he grasped the implication of Grib's joke. "No." He answered, plainly
Grib waited for a moment for Andhlo to continue, and barely stopped himself from hitting the fool when he realised that was it. "Neeg mentioned a brilliant idea you had, anything you care to share?"
"...It's still in the preliminary phases of development." Andhlo said at last, shooting a betrayed glare towards Neeg, who flinched away from his friend's gaze. "I need to workshop it."
So it was that kind of plan, huh? This skinny fool thought he could force Grib's hands once he had all his kcudrays lined up? Not while Grib was still standing here.
"Well that's what this get together is for! Why wait when we can workshop it right here?" Grib announced, cloaking his fury with a razor thin coat of magnanimity. He threw his arm around Andhlo's shoulder, pulling him forcefully towards the table at the centre of the pavilion, and the skinny addict wasn't able to resist his more powerful brawn. "Everyone! Gather round, gather round! Andhlo has a plan to propose to us all!"
Andhlo stumbled, and opened his mouth to object, but soon seemed to realise that it was too late for that. Slowly, all fifteen members of the board of directors gathered, looking much the same as they had a moment ago, tired and stressed.
"Go on, Andhlo. We all want to hear." Grib said, looking around at the rest that were gathered and forcefully adding, "Right?"
There were scattered nods, Neeg's the most enthusiastic of all. Pathetic.
Andhlo hesitated for a moment, before breathing out through his nose, and beginning. "Look. We're caught between a rock and a hard place. We've got two bad choices in front of us. If we don't crush the Alliance soon, then it won't be more than a decade until their navy is as big as ours, and they'll be coming for us.
Not to mention every sector we lose to them is another sector not paying into our security services, and the ancestors know our overheads are just…" He sighed, knuckling his neck glands, nervously. "Well, let's just say I try not to think about them."
That brought out some nervous chuckles from the rest of the board.
"But look, our situation is… not ideal, but it's stable. Not being able to move our security fleet down the Hydian is a big problem, but there are ways around it. They haven't targeted our regular cargo ships yet, or our clients, and that gives us some wiggle room." He waved his hand in a line, like a fish swimming upstream.
"We can open negotiations with them, pay them to provide security for our civilian fleet while they pass through Alliance territory. Then, we can have our own security fleet continue to patrol the routes on the other side.
We can pay other worlds to allow us to dock and do maintenance for our security fleet in the Mid Rim. It will be expensive, it will push up our operating costs even higher, but at this point, does that even really matter? The point is if we do all this, we buy ourselves time. Time to re-arm, and prepare a proper warfleet. Not a security fleet, but a proper military arm with real battleships and solid, reliable crews."
"We have a huge fleet, already." Grib pointed out, offering him a bit more rope.
"Yeah, but I've read the reviews, Grib." Andhlo replied. "All of them."
"What reviews?"
"The crew performance reviews!" Andhlo snapped, already so stressed out that he was fumbling for another death stick to light up, but gave up when he couldn't find it, instead waving his hands about desperately. "All of them! It took me and my team months, but we went through every single performance review of every ship crew and every client for the last decade, and it's not looking good, Grib."
"Andhlo, captains fake their crew performance reviews, because they're all trying to get promoted. Everyone knows you can't trust them."
"That's the problem, Grib!" Andhlo hissed, eyes darting to all the gathered Nemoidians, as if begging them to see what he was seeing.
"Almost all of them were falsified in some way! We didn't find a single good or reliable officer or crew in our entire fleet! We don't know what their actual combat readiness is, we don't know if their ships are being properly maintained, and we don't know if morale is high, because they're all blasted liars! We're flying blind here!" He swallowed thickly.
"Right now we could amass the single biggest fleet the Galaxy has seen in a thousand years, which sounds great. But what if we lose, Grib? What if we get wiped off the board? What if it's like Naboo, but at an even bigger scale? Five to one odds, but with a thousand ships lost this time?"
"I see." Grib replied, considering carefully. "So what makes you think your new war fleet proposal will be better?"
Andhlo looked relieved, like he felt as though someone was finally hearing him, and a spot of hope had bloomed behind his eyes. "Because I didn't just review the fleet, I reviewed our ground commanders as well.
They can't falsify their reports the way the fleet can, because they actually see combat on a semi-regular basis, we can just look at things like their droid replacement rate, or their mission accomplishment rate, and other statistics they can't falsify.
We can rate them mathematically, the same way you would a smash ball team. Our best performing officer is from the debt recovery department, a primitive named General Grievous." His speech was picking up speed, excitement entering his voice.
"He's the real deal, Grib. A genuine, unparalleled military talent. His recovery rate is one hundred percent, and his military record before he joined us? Incredible. He already observed all the problems I had, and already had this whole plan laid out and ready to go."
Grib stroked his chin, pretending to seriously consider the notion. "So this is his plan, then?"
Andhlo nodded. "I've spoken with him. I'm telling you Grib, this is the man we want in charge of our warfleet. With six months, and the chance to hand pick his own officers, recruit new crews, and get us ready, we'll roll those Alliance bastards. They won't stand a chance, and our monopoly over the Hydian will be guaranteed."
"Six months?" Grib repeated. "That's all?"
"Yes! That's all." Andhlo promised, looking at everyone who seemed to be just about nodding along with him.
"Only six months…" Grib murmured. "That's a lot of time to ask for these days…"
"You're right." Andhlo agreed. "But if we just give ourselves a little time, we can have a certain victory then, instead of gambling everything now."
"Alright, well, what if we could achieve a certain victory now, instead of in six months?" Grib suggested. "Wouldn't that be better?"
"Well, of course, but the fleet-"
"What if I was able to double its size, overnight?" Grib added. "You don't think a five to one advantage is a good enough margin of error? How about a ten to one advantage?"
Andhlo blinked once, then twice. "That would take our entire patrol fleet. All our assets, already committed-"
"That's right, but thanks to a legal loophole that Neeg has discovered, I'll be able to recall our entire fleet at once." He looked to the older Neimoidian. "Isn't that right, Neeg? We'll have legal cover for the next year, right?"
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