Though Winter was just along as her daughter's friend, she was playing too.
In the face of this joyful scene Ranma was whispering his thoughts to his sister in search of both feedback and comfort. "Our operations are increasing, and with it our chances of getting discovered. That will jump again when our present stores run out and we have to return to piracy. Though, thanks to Shampoo stealing that depot station, that's not a pressing need at the moment. I'm just worried about our getting discovered when we do, because we'll need to use the Flamberge ships, and they're a bit too distinctive to hide. Even a glance of one can reveal it's not a standard ship type and inspire questions. So I want to put that phase off as long as possible."
Ranko muzzily disagreed. "We're bleeding money in a gushing wound, bro. You know that. The sooner you plug the leak the safer I'll feel." Suddenly going from a fugitive on the run to protected by a secret navy run by her brother, the size of that navy never seemed quite enough to avoid the fate of going back to a short life as a fugitive.
"Two ways to stop the bank accounts shrinking." He lazily replied. "Either are stop spending or start earning. We've already passed all my initial estimates for capacity and we just keep expanding because we just keep needing more. That doesn't look like it'll end soon. We'll do better the more we have to counter Palpatine's armed force, and the more we make the more we'll have."
"That leaves an income, bro."
His smile turned humorous. "Somehow I don't think I'd earn enough as a short order cook to keep us in turbolasers."
His sister's smile was coy as she snuggled closer, whispering, "No, but you said something once about designing a freighter fleet."
Ranma blinked. "I thought our reclaimed Trade Fed ships covered our needs. Heck, there's hardly enough work to keep them busy!"
"Nooo," she snuggled closer, steaming the room up slightly. "I wasn't talking about our own cargo. What about shipping lines out there, in the galaxy? We could sell the ships to them and make big money, bro. Not ever have to worry as much about a gushing money wound again."
He double-blinked, recalling an idea that solved two main problems at once. "You know, sis, sometimes old tricks work best. You recall how the Trade Fed converted its commercial freighters into battleships secretly? They put on shields, turrets and military communication arrays, then these disguised warships hid their deadly battle machines among the freighters until they were right on top of their enemies. You never knew if you were looking at a cargo ship or a war wagon, and the freighters were more common. We could do the same with our Flamberges."
She sat up to blink at him. "You built them out of Dreadnoughts, and now they look like big Marauders. Neither is very peaceful."
Ranma shrugged. "The Federation built freighters into identical seeming warships. I have built warships, and shall design an identical seeming freighter. I'll let Nabiki's sector produce some and sell it to any shipping company that will buy. That'll get them widespread enough to provide some concealment value for when we have to move our Flamberges out in the galaxy on piracy raids again. Besides, I design good ships, we can run some in our own shipping companies. They'll be worth it."
Ranko shrugged. "So long as she was building freighters, I guess it couldn't hurt. But it won't hide the weapon turrets we've got on our Flamberges."
"An armed freighter is a great deal less suspicious than a strange cruiser, sis. Besides, we can conceal some of the weapons. A few bulges in the right place can be designed right on from the start. Besides, that's all close range scans. We hope never to be spotted at all. A fleeting glimpse of a Flamberge at long range right now is a disaster, with copycat freighters out in the space lanes it'll be ignorable. Even getting caught in the act is an armed freighter going pirate in those observers' minds, not someone building a fleet of strange cruisers."
She nodded, mollified and extending her arms for a hug. "It'll help."
Seeing her mollified, he could have ceased thinking on this, but something gnawed him.
The prefab garrison bases were performing better than any of them dared dream, not only as spaceports, but those things came outfitted to control a planet's trade, perform research and even some diplomacy. Computers designed to conduct searches for dissidents were mapping terrain and determining usefulness of native life forms.
They were serving in every way as colonial capitols and doing a great job of it. But even with the garrison bases as spaceports he wasn't using all of his container ships to their best use. The normal ones were practically sitting idle, as the former Trade Fed ships just suited the needs of his underdeveloped worlds so much better. Better still, unmodified Trade Fed container ships could be running their private cargo while they awaited their refits, and serve some useful function during that time.
He had eight dozen or so bulk freighters with nothing to do. No cargo worth their while to haul the various incarnations of his former Trade Fed equipment weren't handling better. And over four hundred commercial standard container ships in the same situation.
There had to be some use for them, right?
Ranko spoke up, echoing his thoughts.
"Since our outward expenses aren't going to go away, we've got a steady need for cash. It only makes sense that we'd arrange some steady means of income to support this. Right?"
She was correct.
How to resolve this major dilemma?
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Lionheart
(Posted Thu, 27 May 2004 01:50)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.