Aboard of The Ring

[Yannis]

Rupert was startled for a second, but did not let it show to Christian.

A Bismark-class battleship? One of the many Rheinwehr assets lost during the 80 Years War? 'A mere fantasy' was the first though of Rupert. But what if it was true?

On the one hand, it could be a formidable way to put to use the billions of credits allocated to the Research and Development Department of Daumann, and the study of the panels may have answers to improve the hull integrity of Daumann-manufactured ships. On the other hand, it may as well be as suicidal as flying up to a Red Hessian squad in the Dresde system: the Government would never allow the company to restore the ship's integrity and systems, to be used by a foreign force, be they as useful, understanding, and necessary as the Zoners.

Rupert had to make a split-second decision. He decided to elude the question.

"Well, if that was a joke, that was a great one!", he said, bursting into a laughter that no one could expect to be fake. "If it was not, though, I mean no disrespect, but I cannot believe your crew found a semi-functional Bismark-class battleship, lost in the 80 Years War. Rheinwehr Search and Rescue parties retrieved most of the re-usable ships, especially the higer classes. When it comes to the most damaged ships, it was ALG that won the salvaging market in the Sigmas, thus rendering the probability of salvaging such a ship almost completely null.

As for the slim probability that you indeed retrieved the battleship, I think you perfectly understand that the Rheinland government would not appreciate that a foreign party would use one of their ship without consent of the Rheinland Military.

But I am more inclined to my first guess, and I do not believe you could have gotten your hands on a Bismark-class ship."

Christian paused for a second. He knew Christian would not appreciate such an answer. But while he was giving his answer, he thought of another way to access to Christian's demand.

"I can offer you an alternative. Let's say that you want our expertise to... "build a Rheinland-themed resort", where exactly would you... "build it"? We could agree on a contract to help you build it for you, send a crew of engineers to help you with the panels, and talk about the financing and the possible long-term contract with you on the iridium supply? What say you?"

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