The arm of the Imperial Navy under her command wasn't really hers, and any attempts to make its loyalties switch from the Empire first and before all were viewed very dimly by that same Empire. So, since whatever she spent on the local arm of the navy could be taken away, reassigned, or even turned against her, she spent very modest amounts to upkeep it, and very little to expand it.
She did not short them as some Moffs did. Nabiki did not want their ire, but she didn't want them to feel coddled, either. If they began to have any affection for her at all that could be viewed as dangerous. Moffs had died for less.
What she did was insidious and awful. She let her planets have slightly less limited access to exceptions in imperial regulations about self defense, small scale stuff only, of course. Now normally only very rich planets could purchase these exceptions and have their own navies, or more commonly an average world would purchase permission to have non-hyperspace ships to use as patrol craft, keeping lanes clear and enforcing customs and so on.
Well, any actual navy could be taken and impressed into Imperial service on no notice and on any sector commander's whim. But even while you could do that to non-hyperspace craft, they weren't much good if you did, because they couldn't move anywhere but where they'd been serving already, and it was just less of a headache to let the local forces keep them at their normal duties.
So Moff Tendo relaxed those regulations just slightly, and made it generally known among her planets that such static fleets were permissible in her territory for a very low fee. They began to acquire them, and all that fit into her plans.
The Imperial Navy could still draw force from her sector when or if they needed the extra firepower elsewhere. But it would be their own ships they'd pull out. So long as she stayed a pacified sector that did most of its own policing, had something to deter an attack, and the Imperial Navy didn't have to pay for it, they would gladly leave her alone to do her own business.
They'd leave a skeleton force: A few ships to wave the flag, some stormtroopers where they would be most needed, some TIEs to fly about and be seen. But it would be a show, nothing more. So long as the taxes kept flowing and no visible sign of discontent showed its ugly face the main power of army, fleet and spies would be elsewhere, allowing her to get away with anything she pleased.
And she pleased to help the Jedi, which meant behind the scenes she had to build up sufficient force to crush Imperial presence in her sector instantly, and then stand against all comers as she held it against future reprisals.
Which meant she'd have to fortify the entire sector in secret, adding planetary shields and anti-orbital artillery to all vital worlds, building starfighter legions and bases for them, put in place a powerful, hyperspace-equipped response fleet to come to the aid of any local defense force put under attack, add an army, supply depots, and do it all in such a way so as not to tip off any spies or inspire her rivals to accusations of warlordism against her.
Amazingly, she felt up to that challenge.
The easiest way to get planetary shields and anti-orbital artillery in secret was to make them. No faster means existed to getting ability to make them than offer to do so for the Empire, and sweeten the deal by fronting the cost of setting up facilities if they'd buy the product.
Since she was a Moff in good standing, two of her industrial worlds were converted to the construction of the required machinery overnight. She had orbital yards semi-active inside a month, and was producing full scale, final ordinance in two.
Quality was low, though. Most often the shields and weapons were sub-par, and frequently she had flaws develop during assembly that rendered the equipment entirely useless.
Shucks. I wonder how that happened?
No sooner had this trend developed than the Empire stopped ordering her products. The plants closed and the entire project was declared a failure and written off as a loss. Then the orbital yards were taken away to be scrapped.
That is, taken away by Nabiki's mechanics to places of Nabiki's choosing and declared to have been scrapped. The faults she had introduced to assembly were corrected and the production of first-rate equipment commenced in secret for her own secret uses, all under a careful veil of concealment, disguised as one of dozens of other failures at the armament business.
She even got a message of condolence from one of the Imperial Advisers, congratulating her on her efforts and expressing a wish this wouldn't prevent her from further efforts to better serve the Empire in the future. Adding weight to that encouragement was a tax write-off equal to the entire sum she'd spent on setup.
So she got everything free and the Empire paid for them out of taxes she would normally have had to pass on to them.
Of course you don't pass up on that kind of gesture. It would be rude. Since she'd just had the entire cost refunded she could afford to be generous herself and offer to set up a TIE assembly plant; just putting together components created on other worlds, other sectors. But Seinar was already stretched to its limits trying to manage the glut of those fighters the Empire demanded.
You might as well print money as assemble TIEs. The Emperor wanted so many they'd been sold before they were built. And even after paying for components and a slice of the profit to Seinar for licensing there was still a tidy, reliable income in generous round figures.
It was tempting to expand this business, but that could escalate risk more than she wanted to handle. It was a ruse to protect other things and it provided income. It should be nothing more. Too much development and all sorts of Imperial attention would come to focus on it to protect it, and that could be a disaster for her other plans.
Don't ever be too important to your enemies.
Since quality from her native engineers was in question, the Imperial Engineers arrived to build the factory installation themselves. Nabiki had nicely offered one of her undeveloped worlds 'for added security', then put half her naval sector force to patrolling it. This was nicely viewed as being in the right 'Imperial Spirit'. But what it really meant was they couldn't be running accidentally into any other projects she was performing elsewhere.
The new TIE assembly world was right on a hyperlane, formerly used as a stop to reset ship air by independent transports who could no longer go there. But the fact also meant that this lovely gesture of Imperial loyalty was nicely received without drawing any actual attention to the depths of her sector, just the hyperlane running alongside. Better still, as a mere assembly plant her nod toward imperial favor was low on the threat list. It could not make components itself, so a simple blockade could shut it down if she or it got out of hand.
More important was now she had a tripwire. If ever the Empire started to get suspicious of her they would move control of that assembly plant to someone else. That would warn her to get prepared to defend her life and sector in deadly earnest.
Meanwhile, on a peaceful front that had little to do with this vast, seething, hidden conflict, Kasumi had more and more assumed complete control of her sister's farming interests, and they were blooming under her hand as flowers under the care of an expert gardener. The farms she was running were booming, expanding their production daily and making better and more varied produce, meat, fowl and fish to meet a galactic market.
It wasn't high end luxury product, and it wasn't low end either. It was solid middle quality for very attractive prices, and it sold like air at a life-support failure.
Nabiki had to wryly admit to herself that Kasumi was making her more money as a quiet, unassuming farm manager than she herself was making as an Imperial Moff and crime lord put together.
Kasumi had added waste management to her duties and was importing huge tankers of raw sewage from the overpopulated worlds nearby in the Core. Spraying this from orbit, she'd already taken four desert planets and turned them into lush farms with topsoil ten feet deep, and getting paid to do it by companies bidding for the privilege to ship their waste to her. The sterilization of that waste was flawless, and cheap, and already Kasumi'd hired scientists to be researching ways to use the same methods to convert more difficult worlds, those with toxic atmospheres or unmanageably high or low temperatures.
They were paying off, too.
In a short while she'd double the number of agriculture worlds in this 'humble farming sector' and more than double the output of those Nabiki already had. The shipping companies her sister had taken over building would have enough to do just exporting her own products.
Kasumi was also dropping hints of how her sister ought to start a mining company, using the various dead systems for raw ore. There were plenty of gas giants and asteroids just lying around for Nabiki to use without depleting her own planets. She was looking into it, but with the military build up going on it had driven up the price of ore, and naturally there'd been a response to that. Mining droids and machinery right now was selling at 70% above market price. Wait a few years and about half those start-ups would be folding and she could get new machines at bargain basement prices.
Kasumi even enthusiastically agreed with her. She liked to save money and was patient in her setting up of garden worlds.
But then, when it came to war betwixt the Jedi and the Emperor, it was Nabiki's secret fleets and shields and defenses that would stand between all this and fiery, radioactive destruction burning all these worlds to cinders and ash.
After discrete inquiries, Nabiki'd discovered Kuat Engineering Corporation was champing at the bit to move from Kuat before the Kuat Drive Yards tried to swallow then whole. KEC manufactured the Cloakshape fighter and carrier, along with the Delta-9 Jedi Starfighter. But KDY made the Imperial class Star Destroyers, was much larger and poised to consume the smaller company to take over their resources.
Nabiki could buy KEC for a song since KDY was using dirty tricks and espionage to make then lose money. She had this nice pocket system hard to navigate to and not listed on any of the charts (she'd seen to that). Rename the company Tendo Technology Corporation (she was not yet stripped of pride), and go on doing business in secret.
Next problem was what to do with the flood of immigration to her new 'boom sector'?
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(Posted Sat, 08 May 2004 21:35)
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