Kaufmann Interstellar Freight - The History of a Rheinland Family

[Sabas]

Kaufmann Family history - Kaufmann Interstellar Freight

-KiF-

Critcism is welcomed and appreciated, I will continue to write small stories on each family member detailing their history in the shipping firm. I will be working on this story improving the grammar issues that I know are there as I continue to expand upon the Kaufmann family as well.

The Kaufmann's were part of the initial rush of explorers to settle the planet of Nuremberg. During the initial rush Aldric Kaufmann (Alaric's great great great great great grandfather) used his small retail chain originally from Stuttgart to purchase a third hand Humpback and a Libertonian Rhino. He opened shop as a small planetary and inner solar shipping firm with nothing more than a table under an awning to shield his body from the sun.

As the planet began to develope, research had yielded that the planet could not grow crops nor be used as a commercial fishery. As people left Aldric Kaufmann began to purchase land as fast as the small shipping firm would allow. From time to time a newer vessel could be purchased due to the owner disappearing on a sport fishing trip for the renowned Pirasharq or any other derivitive of hostile animals in the oceans. In time Aldric was able to amass the land and vehicles needed to become a small time player in the system of Munich, with short term contracts keeping the business alive, Aldric himself retired to the sea side of Nuremberg, always mindfull of what the ocean harbored. The company itself was left to his son and his family Frantz Kaufmann around 584 A.S.

Frantz performed his best, he shifted the short term contracts his father designed around long term ones, yeilding a higher fee and company security. His greatest achillies heel was his love for something new, it carried with the family lineage ever since. He shifted the work to hired stock brokers and a small time CEO. Giving him the revenue, and time to pursue his interests of using the company assets as he wished. While the company held itself together Frantz would take his fledling family on small excursions beyond Munich and its simple but bustling system using a cozy second generation Humpback that nearly toppled the firm itself.

Using the bustling firm's cash flow Frantz taught his children the stars of Rheinland and where to go and how to do it. Showing them there is life beyond their little system of Munich and its minerals. The lesson stuck, and the lifestyle in one form or another propsered through to the Frantz's children as they took over the company in a joint effort in 635 A.S, by Frantz's daughters as they joined togethor to operate the business.

Senta and Katrina both wielded different attitudes towards the company, and both shook its development in their own ways. Senta favored remaining on Nuremberg and the saftey of its poisonis soil, meeting clients and creating contracts; Katrina was the more adventerous of the two that prefered to fly a transport with crew, extending the families contacts and meeting old family relatives.

The company nearly went bankrupt with the purchase of several first generation Hawk light fighters being developed. But they quickly met their value and exceeded them as the convoy Kaptain's reported safe passage due to the mear presence with their heavy class 5 guns they mounted. The company recovered and flourished under the guidance of new contacts and even better freight into New Berlin. With the arms race of 682 A.S and the government in shambles the Kaufmann's were a small force on Nuremberg by the time sisters Senta and Katrina retired not far from where their grandfather retired to on the coast. Of course both girls had begun families themselves; with the husbands assuming the Kaufmann name as was proper for Nuremberg families to carry out the lineage.

In an odd change of events Senta had beared a young son named Willard and Katrina had beared a daughter named Rae, as was the forming custom the two children split the work of the company in half; Willard was book smart and had a nack for learning, while Rae was firey and quick to anger. They shared the effort as Willard was tasked at holding the company aloft while Rae lead the fighters in convoys in the slowly aging Hawk's. Even deep into their forties only Willard had married happily to a bubbling wife he adored, Rae remained single with her closet companion the weights she brought along or the flying yoke of her Hawk.

Tragedy had struck as Willard knew it would, his cousin Rae had stayed in her Hawk far to long and lost control as it was incenrated by newer versions of the very same vessel she flew. Willard had a closed and empty casket funeral on the open sea, burying her spirit in the same ocean his own mother had died watching every day. With the company secured in the hands of a single owner again Willard instituted a new policy in fighter craft purchasing for defense, a program designed to phase in new craft as they became available and keep a small select stock for training future convoy pilots. It burdened the small company but they managed as their fleet slowly evolved into purely Rheinland manufactured Humpbacks and newer generation Hawks.

Willard is ear marked in the family lineage for his cold interest in making hard profit. His two sons though barely reflect this change as both adopted the policy of their Great grandfather Frantz in his life of exploration when they assumed ownership of this small historical firm in 744 A.S.

They hired a CEO and broker to manage their company as they gave the man grey hair as he fought to balance the books. Untill he understood their madness in working, both brothers shared a single concept, run big and fast. Their cargo's reflected this as they brought in Diamonds and shipped them all the way through the Sigma's and later the Tau's themselves. Both were known for running the high risk high reward cargo's and some people of Nuremberg suspected the brothers played as Smugglers as their skills developed with them. This did not go unnoticed amongst the Rheinland government and several inspections were made upon the company and vessels themselves till the CEO broke down and told them the brothers ran cargo where ever high profit was made in any territory. His life had been drained and he looked like an old man when he finaly quiet the company in a huff with a balding head.

This gave the brothers a cold wake up they needed and they returned to Nuremberg rich men with fledgling families of their own as they began to raise their children in proper homes and schools. Both men retired, Berne and Berrine, with their wives. Berne had remarried by this time to Olga a girl that loved to sport fish for excitement on Nuremberg. Only Berrine bore a son named Gere, he leaned heavily on his father's experience and took after his grandfather Willard, a man interested in the bottom line during the year of 786 A.S. Gere followed Willard's style of running the corporation to the T, remaining to the books and leaving the convoy's to his crews. His son Alaric Kaufmann, homage to Aldric Kaufmann that started the buisness itself, was issued a Griffin as part of the standard program of keeping up-to-date Light Fighters to guard the transports at all times when he turned 20 in 806 A.S mere years after the large war amongst the colonies.

Alaric spent much of his free time studying the art of warefare and comprehending the effects of fighting in unlimited planes and angles. Using his knowledge gained from his studies and use in fighter application his father purchased the first train class transport bestowing it upon his son, the move was considered shakey at best. Some believed it was a high risk venture or some glimmer of Frantz himself showing Gere, his motives were far more simplistic, bringing the company untold wealth by keeping his son out of a fighter. The trick worked and his son took to the new role within weeks, sitting aboard his train class vessel, reviewing trading logs while keeping the convoy in constant motion.

Gere himself is in his last decade of leading the Kaufmann Firm and is looking towards bestowing it on his only son Alaric, though Alaric himself bears little interest in the large folds of how the Interstellar Freight firm works beyond his personnel convoy team. Alaric bears a striking resemblence to his fore father Willard and shares his cold outward nature interests while on the job. He may be loath to admit it but his resemblences go beyond a likeness.

Alaric maintains his momenteum using the largest asset inside the Kaufmann's swelling pockets, this new found glory for Alaric has allowed him to broaden his horizons by looking towards the Military for answers with his rather deep pockets. Alaric's chief imprint upon Kaufmann Interspace Freight is the trademark of never spilling his bay or paying a fine to pirates. He has yet to run a trade route in the negative, his cold determination instilled in him from Gere Kaufmann is felt through his convoys as a man who will go the distance to finish the job.

Crew members that have seen Alaric's personnel neural net journal commonly see collections of combat footage and foot notes at intervals of small notes breaking down the fight. Some crew members speak of seeing large ship schematics with jumbled notes littering the pages, no one is sure what this points at, but a Kaufmann always dreams big.

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