Welcome Aboard

A knock on the door pulls Selina from her concentration. The paperwork massing on her desk had begun to overflow and she was finally just now sitting down to sort through it. This endeavor into the production side of life was quite mind boggling at times, but slowly she felt she was getting a handle on it. Lately, she’d been doing a lot of research and had come up with quite a few answers to her remaining questions about production, research, and everything else involved with ‘that side of life’. Soon, she should be ready to begin her own production and hopefully, soon after, start to see the results of her work flashing the wallet. It was, of course, going to take some time, effort and organization to track everything but it was something she was sort of looking forward to. It was a goal that she could focus on and create perhaps a steadier source of income and be far less dependant on the time consuming task of killing bounty clad pirates in the local belts.

However, after having done all the research, she realized it wasn’t something she was going to be able to do on her own. She needed an associate, a business and financial handler. She needed someone who could focus entirely on the company’s production and sales and eventually be able to transport the tons of resources and finished products from one place to another. To do this herself would take far too much time….time that could instead be spent on training her combat skills. She’d already spent perhaps too much time training to run some of the production….but to be truly efficient, she needed someone that could be more focused than she could allow herself to be. Thus, she’d put in a call to the various academies in Empire. She didn’t have the funds at present to hire an already trained pilot, so instead she resorted to hiring a fresh academy recruit. Besides, at least this way she would be able to train and focus the person entirely the way she wanted.

“Enter,” she called out.

The door slid open with a soft hiss and in walked a large Amarrian man. He was tall and stocky, a man well into his 50s with dark, neatly trimmed, through slightly receding, hair. Across his brow was implanted a standard Amarrian steel tattoo and his garb consisted of a tight necked, militant style uniform, common amongst the aristocratic, industrial executives of Amarrian society. The site of him, though, made her cringe a bit. Not because of his garb or attire but rather due to her all too familiar knowledge of their slave practices. Being Gallante, having been raised as a Gallante woman, her distaste for their practices were almost ingrained in her DNA…but at the same time, she definitely knew their ability to get things done….efficiently…

“Greetings m’am,” he started as soon as he entered the room. “My name is..”

“I don’t care what your name is. I already have all of your information here. Besides, too many ears in this place and frankly, I’d rather nobody knew of our association for the time being. Is that understood?”

“Yes M’am. Quite understood,” the man stated, his back straight, his eyes glaring just slightly.

“Look, it’s nothing personal. And I understand and have received notice of your reservations about working for me. This is your first time out of Amarr space, is it not?”

The man nodded slowly, his eyes turning curious.

“The fact is, from this point forward, it doesn’t matter whether you are Amarr, Galante, Caldari, or Minmatar. You are a pod pilot and possibly the soon to be executive officer of my industrial affairs…and that’s it. Both your income and mine will be intertwined. You will be responsible for running all empire based business affairs while I deal with things out in nullsec. All monetary transactions will be shared between our accounts. You pull from the pot as needed, just as I will. I can return to Empire whenever need be, but I can’t be in two places at once, so I would prefer to keep my presence there to a minimum. Is that clear?”

Again the man nodded, the glare having left his face. “Yes M’am. Very clear.”

“Good. Now please, though you will be working for me, understand as well that you are not what I would consider my employee. You are my business associate. Plain and simple. However, until you are at a point of being self sufficient, basically when production is in full swing, I will be supplying you with all the isk needed to get things going. What skills do you have training at present?”

“Currently all the base learning skills, M’am.”

“Please, stop calling me that. You’re more than welcome to call me Selina. And as for skills, that’s perfect. I will look into purchasing the advanced skills for you as soon as I get a chance. By my calculations, we should have those pretty much done before the medical staff’s timers expire, stating its no longer safe to train you at the increased neural speed. From there, we’ll get you into a Hauler for doing the basic stuff and then work on getting your production skills to an advanced level, followed by your trade skills. After that, we will stay focused on your training for jump freighters with an emphasis on the freighter piloting abilities first, and finally, look into training you to fly an Orca. Beyond the Orca...….well…we’ll look into that when the time comes. The production, trade and jump freighter is your main objectives. That alone will probably take you the better part of a year.”

“Sounds good to me,” he states, his demeanor seeming to finally relax.

Selina sits for a moment, looking at him in contemplation. “Understand, you’re still on trial. Concord has given me the right to train you for 21 days before I’m required to get you a full pilot’s license. I already know there are some skills I will not be able to supply to you while you’re on trial, based on Concord regulations, but I will see how far I can go and we’ll work from there. When your trial period expires, I’m sure I’ll have a more concrete decision as to whether I want to take you on fully. Basically, I just want time to decide if you are the right decision for me.”

The man slowly nods. “I quite understand and am very appreciative of this chance you’re giving me. I will do my best not to let you down.”

Selina smiles and finally stands, extending her hand to the man. “Well then,” she says as he takes her hand. “Welcome aboard. Oh, and from here on out, your code name, a sort of call sign I will always refer to you as, shall be Wolf.”

The man grins, obviously pleased by the nickname. “Sounds good to me.”

“Well good, again, welcome aboard Wolf. Be sure to speak with my hauler pilot, Ailiana, on your way out. She’ll get you set up with whatever you need as well as the location and access to our industrial storage hanger. Otherwise, you’re dismissed.”

“Yes M’am,” he says before turning and slipping quietly out the door.

Once the door closed, Selina plopped back into her seat, rubbing her temples. She sure as hell hoped she was making a wise decision. But either way, it was certainly worth a shot.