ALJ Chpt 85

frameless|right|300px|link=A Long Journey
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==Chapter 85 - A Long Journey==
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23August 2787
Mackolla (Federated Suns)
Walter Ovilla, CEO TechniCorp Panpour Factory Complex, got the news from the local bank almost at the same time as the HPG message was delivered. Which he opened and read before setting it on his desk. He looked at his assembled VPs and managers. 
"We have a new owner, Mackolla Enterprises. Normally someone in my position would take that money and run for the hills, but I cannot do that. To keep fending off Jalastar, I had to raid the pension fund for a hair over one billion, this money goes to replace those funds, the workers earned it. Ever since I got the offer, I have been doing my research on them, they have been buying up companies from the Terran Hegemony since they formed. No clue where the money is coming from, but our new boss sure has some deep pockets it seems. Within the last year they have moved everything they bought up to Mackolla and I assume rebuilding. Will we be moving, I doubt it, we are too established here, and we still have orders to fill. But you never know, so best guess what would it take to pack up and move?"
"About a hundred Jumpships, six hundred Mammoths, and three years of no production to break this place down for a move. Then to rebuild at least five years. We would have to reestablish our supply chains, which are currently real close. It would be a complete disaster. When filling the SLDF and AFFS orders during the Big War, we ran twenty-four seven and built two hundred Manticore a day and that was crazy. Now we are back to a more manageable fifty a day and five-day work week. Remember the layoffs of all the extra staff we hired to expand to hit that number? I damn sure do and I pray we never have to activate the extra lines because I do not want to lay folks off again."
"I remember all too well, but that is also not up to us any longer. The overtime ripped thru our cash reserves too, not to mention all the severance pay. But we all know the Federated Suns is in a major shooting war against the Combine, so we all know the AFFS is going to place one hell of an order very soon. It might rival the Big War numbers. If it does head that way, I hope it is an open-ended order where the AFFS buys all that we can manufacture and not some short-term contract, sort of like how the SLDF did it. We will just have to wait and see what the new boss has to think." Walter Ovilla said
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On the other side of Mestin, at the Jalastar Corporate Headquarters, Reginald Hawkins did not take the news lightly. On getting the news he had thrown his computer thru his office window. "Who the hell is this, Gerald Mitchell? He came out of nowhere and has spent billions like there is no tomorrow. Mackolla Enterprises, barely three years old and on the way to being a powerhouse. I thought he was just a corporate raider; lord know he has barely bought anything with serious assets except for Newhart Industries and then he up and moves them to Mackolla from Thorin cutting off any revenue stream for a few years while they rebuild. 
Now he has gone and snatched TechniCorp right out of my hands and my sources say it was at least three times what we were offering. Like it was nothing, just dropped over a billion barely two weeks after even making an offer. Came out of left field and I never saw it coming. Hell, I never even had a chance to counteroffer, Ovilla jumped on it like a dying man. What the hell did we miss in our assessment? Outside of Newhart's Trident factory that he uprooted off Thorin and moved to Mackolla, nothing else he has bought is providing a revenue stream that I know of. Damn sure no exports off of Mackolla, we would have heard, news like that travels fast. The Trident is not much competition for our Sparrowhawk or even our Centurion, but it is competition and be damned if I am going to lose any market share for the AFFS's light fighter market."
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