Schultz-office

USS Odyssey

Al Zadi trade station / schultz-office

The accountant's office, located on the centrifuge ring.

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 10:47 AM

*Cinder knocked on the door.*

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 10:58 AM

*Howard Schultz, hearing a knock, instantly sits up straight, closing the feed of commodity future prices on his desktop and straightening his tie. When he opens the door to this freighter captain from port seven, he greets her cordially but without discernible enthusiasm, his face unmoving bar his mouth. Every aspect of his appearance screams "accountant", from his smart-casual black suit to the short-cut and expertly groomed hair that seems to be pasted down to his head. Until he blinks, slowly, it's not clear whether he ever will.* "Good afternoon. I am Howard Schultz. I assume you're here to discuss a deal."

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 11:33 AM

“Nice to meet you. I’m Captain Andrews of the Ace of Spades but you can call me Erin if you’d like. And yes I am we have about 5 tons of cargo that I’d like to off load and then acquire some metals and other materials in return.”

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 11:39 AM

"Five tons? That's not a lot. You'd better have something good, or this may not be worth our time." *Schultz steps aside to let Andrews into his office, which is small, spartan and very tidy.*

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 11:45 AM

*She walks in and smiles as she nods.* “We have 2 tons of art but I think you’ll be much more interested in our 3 tons of Fruits and vegetables that have been naturally grown. And I’m willing to part with all of it in exchange for what I need.” (edited)

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 11:51 AM

*This is interesting. Some stuff shipped out from the inner worlds.* "Fruit and vegetables, you say. I trust they're radiologically sterilised? We don't want rotten food on the station."

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 11:55 AM

“Yes they are. And in perfect preservation. You won’t be able to tell, just like they came out of the ground yesterday. How ever there’s quite a bit I need. I need 1.3 kilotons of Titanium and 0.9 of Vanadium-chromium steel. There’s also a long list of wants and could uses but those two things are the big ticket items.” *She smiled again as she motioned towards the chair across from him. She gave him slightly larger numbers than she was given in hopes that she’d be able to bring in some extra materials to have around.* (edited)

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 12:06 PM

"Titanium and steel. You're going for the staple items, hm? Well, we have plenty of those. I'm not sure whether your cargo will cover the cost, however. 'Art' can mean a lot of things."

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 12:10 PM

“We have the Mona Lisa as well as several pieces of art from many other famous artist. I think there’s even an original Sculpture by Donatello in there. I bought it as a lot and didn’t have time to authenticate everything before we left but what was authenticated is worth a lot. Unless you’re willing to miss out on historical and famous pieces of art.” *She tried the seem like she didn’t care if she held onto it or not but she also bluffed hoping he’d buy the act.*

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 12:13 PM

*Schultz is not amused.* "The Mona Lisa. You expect me to believe that? I'd like to see your actual manifest." *Luckily, the ship's previous crew kept an inventory; it's been confirmed as matching that of the ship.*

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 12:15 PM

*She kept the smile on her face as she offered him the manifest* “Here you go. You’re also welcome to come look at yourself. The smile is amazing.”

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 12:25 PM

*Schultz takes it, looking through the lists and pictures of the items.* "No need, our loading crew can verify your cargo when they unload it." *He shows Andrews the picture of the Mona Lisa knockoff.* "This is not the Mona Lisa. Nevertheless... most of the items here are of quite a high quality, and could probably fetch quite a lot at auction on Titan. Distasteful as it is to sell to people who make billions pumping oil out of oceans of it, they do make billions, and pay well for nice things. Such as, for example, real fruit, or artworks."

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 12:27 PM

*She frowned as she looked at it* “Is it not? Huh oh well if I can get a good price for it then so be it.” *She sat back and nodded as he spoke.* “Thats good then. So my plan is you give me a number and we’ll just work our way down my list of items until we run out of money. Sound good?”

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 12:29 PM

"That will suffice. I assume you'll want to refuel your ship as well. You must have burned a lot of propellant to get here."

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 12:30 PM

“I think we might. I’ll have to check with my engineer to see what he says but let’s assume a full refuel and the two lots of metals how much from this list could I get?” *She then tapped the manifest and pulled up a page of materials that she had been tasked to get.*

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 12:57 PM

"Looking at this manifest... it might draw three million dollars as a conservative estimate. Your class of ship takes 137 kilotons of methane propellant from dry to wet mass. Methane's shipped in by the megaton from the Titanian atmosphere, so it's cheaper than air, and we can refuel you fully for about six hundred thousand." *Space traders must deal with a lot of money.* "As for your steel, that'll be about a million; Vanadium's pretty rare, as is chromium. Titanium's absolutely everywhere, so we can cover that for four hundred thousand. That leaves a tidy million dollars." *Despite his cold manner, Schultz tries to get a fair deal for cargo haulers, as well as his station. If you rip people off they don't come back. He scrolls through the list as he waits for Jittaz to respond and while his writer has to go to eat.*

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 01:05 PM

*She looked at the list and nodded along as she thought about it. To be fully honest she didn’t have any idea what to say as she didn’t know what the going price was for anything of these things but she made up her mind and nodded.* “Deal. What about the 500 kilograms of Borosilicate Glass, 150 kilos of Hafnium, and the Deuterium? Will we be able to get them for that million dollars?”

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 03:21 PM

*Schultz quickly rechecks the station's cargo manifest.* "No. We only have two hundred kilograms of borosilicate glass in cargo, which I can give to you for seventy-five thousand dollars. Hafnium is rare on Earth, but Astro-Extraction Incorporated struck a few megatons of reasonably pure ore a couple of years back, so that's flooded the market. Two hundred thousand dollars for that. Deuterium... well, we don't have a lot of that. We carry some heavy water, but the only real uses for pure deuterium are fusion reactor research and nuclear weapons."

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 04:05 PM

“I understand that but I’d still like to purchase it if we could. Unfortunately we don’t have much more that we can trade for it. That cargo manifest is about all that I’m freely willing to give away. Everything else we need for the voyage, is there a way you could give it to us on credit?”

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 04:11 PM

"No, but there's no need for that. We can sell you the heavy water. In fact, selling our entire stock would leave you... one hundred and seventy thousand dollars left over. I hope your trade contract includes a good commission." *Schultz assumes that this ship must be operating under a corporate contract; how else would they have got their hands on all that art?*

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 04:13 PM

“That it does. I’ll be sure to tip the dock master handsomely, will we be required to load it ourselves or will you take care of that?”

Howard Schultz BOT 16-Apr-21 04:16 PM

"We'll have our loading crew swap out the cargo. I'll have to finalise the transaction contract before we can officially make the deal, but that shouldn't take long."

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 16-Apr-21 05:33 PM

“That’s perfectly fine by me. Feel free to call me or I can wait here until the finalizations are completed. Thank you for this Mr. Schultz. I wasn’t expecting such an easy time trading.”

Howard Schultz BOT 17-Apr-21 12:00 PM

*Howard sighs a little. His boss really doesn't understand that you don't need to be all friendly and open to do your job well.* "I assume mister Leetile-Zadi warned you about me. He always does that, and his concerns are always unfounded." *He stands up from his desk, stepping over to open the door.* "I'll contact you when I've got the contract prepared. You've probably got enough time to get something to eat. I recommend staying here on the centrifuge, so you can get some real food."

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 17-Apr-21 01:37 PM

“That sounds great and he did warn me but this has also been one of the easiest negotiations I’ve ever been through. There was this one guy a few years ago that like I basically had to beg to get treated fairly and it was horrible.”

Howard Schultz BOT 17-Apr-21 01:50 PM

*Schultz isn't unsympathetic, but he's also not visibly perturbed. Almost Vulcan, really.* "It sounds like it."

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 17-Apr-21 01:51 PM

“Well either way thank you for your help. I’ll get out of your hair so you can finish the details. Let me know if you need any help.”

Howard Schultz BOT 17-Apr-21 01:54 PM

"I'll be sure to do so." *Schultz bows his head a little.*

Lt. Cinder Jittaz 17-Apr-21 04:36 PM

*Leaves*

Exported 29 message(s)