Gari
Hilter Afdol's Office

Norman Evirtly dropped a large datapad on Hilter's desk. Hilter's eyes remained focused on the accountant, who met his gaze with bright blue, intelligent eyes. After a moment Hilter picked up the datapad and scanned over it quickly. Setting it back down, he looked back up at Evirtly.

"I assume this means it's all done."

Evirtly nodded.

Hilter smiled at that gesture, wondering if Evirtly realized he was acknowledging the takeover of an entire world's agricultural industry with a simple nod of the head. How a man could consign the transfer of billions of credits to an inaudible gesture was amazing.

"Any troubles?"

Evirtly shook his head a few times. He was totally non-pulsed.

"And you're sure this was untraceable."

Finally the accountant spoke.

"If your relationship with the Sestrians is as good as you say it is, then I would be shocked if this could be traced back to you."

Hilter nodded. With Belgardi controlling all the Sestrian banking operations, he could be assured of secrecy. The planet had become a huge storehouse for Union assets and provided the group an extremely easy and discreet method to launder its money. So he could move forward with relative impunity.

"How much did it set me back?"

"You don't even want to know. Though, I'm sure you'll to make it all back. Quickly too."

That bit of commentary surprised Hilter and it showed in his voice when he responded.

"How do you figure?"

"The Ukian Farming Bureau will award contracts to Ukian companies for the Annoo business. The windfall profits will be tremendous."

Which was exactly what Hilter had planned. He had been unable to figure out how to beat the Ukians in the Annoo Licensed Foodstuffs bidding, so he had decided that it would make more sense to join them, in a roundabout way. He would simply have them join him.

Norman Evirtly was no fool. When it came to accounting he was a verifiable genius. Still, Hilter had figured on him seeing the connection between the Annoo situation and the Ukian takeover. Then again, things had conveniently worked out for Evirtly to see the link. The Ukians had been announced as winners of the contract the night before.
Hilter decided not to comment on Evirtly’s astuteness.

“Thank you Norman.”

The accountant took that as his cue to leave, and turned. Hilter however, called out to him.

“Norman, I have one more request.”

Evirtly stopped and turned. Hilter had retrieved a datapad from one of his desk drawers.

“Study this please. See if it’s feasible. And, if you think it is, call Rico Belgardi and discuss it with him.”

Evirtly nodded, took the datapad, and left the office. When the door closed, Hilter picked up the datapad Evirtly had left him, perusing its contents. He smiled as he realized what the numbers and words that scrolled across the screen actually meant. Agro Inc owned anything remotely involved with agriculture on Ukio. In numerous cases, the companies didn’t even know that Hilter had a majority share, as Evirtly had been forced to bypass company restrictions on stock purchases by creating multiple dummy personas to gobble a controlling stake in a company. That would be a rude awakening.

Hilter set the datapad down. Not even Norman Evirtly could possibly know that this mass takeover strategy was just the beginning of something much larger.

"You're sure, Hilter?"

"Absolutely."

Rico Belgardi couldn't seem to shake the idea that Hilter had gone temporarily insane. He sounded incredulous, and had peppered the conversation with phrases like "You're kidding right?" and "You really want to do this?" It was starting to get pretty annoying, but Hilter really couldn't blame him.

It wasn't everyday that the CEO of one company called the CEO of another, offering to allow his company to be absorbed.

Rico decided to take another angle.

"Have you approved your idea with the Chairman?"

"The Chairman doesn't have to sign off on every action of every committee member. I have convinced Brutus it's in his best interest, and that’s all I care about anyway."

Not that Hilter would have said anything of the sort on the Midas or to any other Union official. He was respectful, and he knew that the Union was a great asset to his machinations. But he could function outside of the Union just as well. The Union had come along and made things easier, but they were not indispensable. Hilter would succeed with them or without.

The answer didn't placate Rico. A confident corporate executive, his backbone shriveled at the first mention of the Union, and didn't grow back until the subject was changed.

"Hilter. I'm not going to do something that is against the wishes of the Chairman. He could ruin my company if he revealed the connection between us!"

Which is one reason I'm switching careers.

The Union's relationship with its corporate fronts was unique. It could prove very beneficial, (Belgardi had gained the most of any when the Union secured control of Sestria for them) but it came with several serious drawbacks. In some ways, the risks outweighed the rewards, which had helped fuel Hilter's decision. He would let Rico worry about having his connections to the Union exposed. Hilter planned on utilizing the Union in a totally different way.

"Fine Rico. I'll run it by the Chairman. I don't think he'll care one way or the other."

"If he approves, then you have yourself a deal."

Hilter smiled. He said goodbye to Belgardi, and cut the connection. Speaking completely in business terms, Hilter had just been swindled. He had never negotiated such a poor business transaction in his life. He chuckled at the thought.

He was getting ready for bigger and better things.



Next Day
Ukian Parliament

"..and we must remember that the compound interest on the stock holdings of the.."

Yaher Dowec pressed a small button in his senatorial booth, blocking out the extremely irritating voice of the Ukian who was currently trying to convince the assembled representatives of the Ukian Parliament that his candidate should be selected the new Overleige. Frankly, in Dowec's opinion, he was doing a piss poor job of pushing his candidate, and probably doing more to hurt the candidate's (a somewhat major player in the Ukian finance world) chances in the upcoming decision. Either he was a good friend of the candidate, or being paid a lot of money to stand up in front of the parliament, because he didn't have anything dynamic to work with and the claims he were making reflected that.

Granted, at least he was pushing someone who could legitimately vie for the position. The parliament had spent about a week listening to the usual wackos who thought that starting a few homeless shelters, or organizing the UFB’s back-up payroll database was the Force’s gift to Ukio. Under Ukian law, they were allowed to have their chance to push there case, but a regulation pushed through Parliament decades ago had limited the amount of time any singular candidate could spend talking. The regulation was used to keep the election process from dragging on forever, and a simple majority vote could suspend the rule to allow serious candidates to present their case for a more reasonable amount of time.

Even with the regulation however, the process took forever. The sheer number of publicity seeking attention hounds, misguided idealists and good old fashioned buffoons meant the process could drag on for weeks. Everything was compounded when a large crop of serious candidates came forward, who prompted extended debate and lots of back and forth arguments. The longest election process on record had taken a little over five months, and the shortest had lasted four days. The only saving grace about the process was that it took place only every ten years.

Looking up Yaher saw that the dull financial expert had sat down, and thankfully, the speaker of the Parliament appeared to be signaling that the debate time for this candidate was over. Hoping and praying that he was not alone, Yaher cast a “No” vote on a motion to extend debate, and let out a sigh of relief when the motion narrowly failed. Yaher had just turned off the mute setting on his senatorial booth when he looked up to see the form of Jorlep Ferrier stepping up to the speakers podium. Groaning, Yaher started to reach for the silencer, but didn’t mute Jorlep. Yaher had been a primary target of Ferrier’s lobbying effort, to little effect. There was no denying that Ferrier was a competent, intelligent Ukian (though that didn’t mean he would necessarily be an effective Overliege) but his claim to the position was based largely on the result of agricultural testing, conducted by his research think-tank, of his experimental droid-like agricultural automatons. Yaher wasn’t sure that changing out Ukian laborers for droids was the best policy in any case… and there had been no independent verification that Ferries’s machines were even as effective as he claimed. Despite that fact, Ferrier and his cadre of well-paid lobbyists had managed to cultivate quite a following among the Ukian parliament. Yaher wasn’t certain Ferrier had enough support to win the position, but he had the largest support base as far as Yaher could tell. Yaher didn’t count himself among that group, for several reasons. Ferrier’s policies were suspect, and his tendency to spend large amounts of money on self-promotion was not the quality Yaher liked in his Overliege. However, more importantly than either of them, involved a conversation he had right after one of Ferrier’s hired windbags had finished buying him an expensive dinner. Yaher had mostly sat and listened, and with good reason. He had been rather skeptical at what he heard, but some investigating had proven every last word he had been told.

And that meant that something extraordinary was going to happen today in parliament, something that would change the race for Overliege.

Ferrier started into a long prepared speech, and the minutes began to crawl by. Though he left the sound in his booth on, Yaher had tuned out Ferrier after about the first thirty seconds. The inventor was building to a crescendo, detailing a Ukian society in which his robots made Ukian farms one hundred times more efficient than they currently were, when something very unexpected happened.

A man, yes a human, rose up from a senatorial booth and said something in a loud clear voice. Ferrier paused, and there was a murmur across the chambers. The man, spoke again, and this time Yaher heard what he had said.

“Mr. Ferrier I think that you would do everyone here a favor if you simply sat down and allowed this agonizing process to continue.”

The man smiled, a dashing, large smile, and his voice was laced with a sugary sweetness that masked overt rudeness in a pleasant tone. Much to Yaher’s surprise, Ferrier actually responded to the man (what the Hell was he doing here anyway) rather than wait for security to remove him from the chambers.

“And why would interrupting the most important part of the Ukian political process be a favor to the esteemed members of the Ukain parliament?”

Ferrier had adopted a tone of indigence, possibly trying to portray himself as a selfless man devoted only to the good of the Ukian government. The man chuckled.

“Well Mr. Ferrier, I didn’t say anything about stopping the election process. Quite the contrary, I was hoping to expedite the process.”

He paused, slowly turning around his booth. All eyes were now totally focused on the scene. Sensing that he had everyone’s attention he spoke, quite matter-of-factly,

“I already know who is going to be the next Overleige of Ukio. And I am happy to report that the traditions of this great planet will not be marred by someone as radical as yourself, Jorlep, for you are certainly not that man.”

An explosion of conversation lit up the chambers at the statement, as the Senators began talking amongst themselves. A pair of Ukian security forces had rushed into the room, but the senatorial booth containing the human was located in such a manner that was nigh impossible for them to reach him with any sort of speed. Jorlep Ferrier’s face contorted with rage and his voice boomed over the din.

“How dare you insult this great body…”

The man snapped back, shocking Jorlep into silence.

“No! It is you who insults this great body. Suggested that Ukio change what makes it unique, what makes it special, what is its greatest asset. You say you want to use technology to change things for the better… but you are more interested in your own finances and power struggles than to really care about this world.”

The hall fell silent. The man went on unabated.

“You’ve faked test results and spent grant money on lobbyists to make yourself look good. You’re trying to convince a race that they aren’t good enough to do what they have been and are destined to do well. It is you, not I, Jorlep, who is an insult to this great body.”

Another senator stood up, an incredulous look on his face.

“Mr. Ferrier doesn’t have the arrogance to pretend to know how this body will act? What are you, some kind of Jedi?”

The man turned to face the senator.

“You don’t have to be a Jedi to know the answer to that one, Senator. This is more a matter of facts and logic. The Ukian constitution says that the Parliament shall select the Ukian citizen who is, in their best judgment, the most productive member of society, to serve the next ten year term as Overliege. Since I know who the citizen is, I know for whom you will vote.”

Suddenly, a though hit Yaher Dowec’s brain like a shockboxer’s uppercut. He stood up and called out.

“Sir, who is this most productive citizen.”

The man turned toward Yaher and smiled wryly.

“Me.”

There was a sudden explosion of activity and another roar as the parliament became an ocean of individual conversations, screams, taunts and queries. After a few moments of turmoil, one of the Senators stood up, and used his booth’s amplifier system to drown out the rabble.

“I mean no offense sir but that suggestion is preposterous.”

Another senator stood up.

“I mean you’re not even a Ukian.”

The man smiled. And suddenly, everything made sense to Yaher Dowec. It was unfair, as he had inside information, but it all checked out. He mumbled to himself, then muted the booth. As Hilter Afdol spent the next half-an-hour explaining how he was a Ukian citizen, and how he owned every major Ukian agricultural company on the planet, Yaher was sending message to his fellow senators, pooling support and helping them understand exactly what was going on.

The Parliament set a new record later that day, settling on a new Overliege on the first ballot. Yaher knew it was a fluke, as their really wasn’t any choice, but it was still a surprise, considering Ferriers’s remaining bloc of staunch supporters and those he simply didn’t understand that Hilter Afdol had them cornered.

Ukio had a new Overliege.