Malechta's Treatise upon the Line of Saro.

Fifty Third Volume, Chapter Twenty Six continued

The officers of the Treasurer prepared themselves to meet with Chemyst Hulang the somewhat oleaginous leader of the Fuellers faction. Already they had met with the representative of the Megiddo, a serious man with a great belief in his factions system of government. They had also met self-styled Magos Bosphorus the leader of the Tick Tock Men, who they had told of the upcoming impact with the Spacehulk and who in turn asked that his techpriesthood be taken off the vessel and he be included in the resultant priesthood, indeed he requested that he be granted the Sensorium as his domain. The last person they had met was Von Hells the lowerhold barbarian who had designs on the lighter bay market.

When he had arrived Hulang had greeted Macharius effusively, something which had shown the Officers that he was free with his praise with the intent of disarming his opponents. Obviously this would not work against negotiators of the Officers calibre. However wanting to deal with Captain Jalasas of the Greenshots last they invited the Chemyst to enter their lander. He wasted no time in doing so, and immediately launched into his disarming act.

“I see you have all the mod cons on your ship, sadly our lighters are badly looked after and in a terrible state. Is there somewhere you prefer me to sit?”

Of course he was still followed by his two flame-thrower wielding guards giving the lie to his friendly words. However the officers were in no doubt that they would most likely need him or at least his faction. So having seated themselves they asked him to explain his faction to the,

“Well we were mostly made up of minor Techpriests and Enginseers when the ship crashed through the Tempest of Graves. Mostly we deal with the production of Organic fuels and the use of these organic fuels to charge the batteries you see powering the pieces of technology around the ship, using our generatorium. The Main engines are as you may understand are offline so we have had to use a secondary method. The batteries are powering pretty much everything on the ship, and we are the faction that produces the fuel that charges those batteries.”

Interested to work out the full extent of the Fall of Dorn's damage Macharius pressed him on the nature of the engine malfunction.

“They were very badly damaged by the passage through the warp. Without gellar fields as you can imagine it is very dangerous. Travel unprotected through the warp does not only effect organic material.”

“So you say this fuel is organic” continued Macharius, “What exactly are you using?”

“Well it's a combined fermentation and bacteriological function, obviously I cannot let too many of my factions secrets out, but it is effecively a complicated distillation process, it is rather...innovative.”

This obviously caused some consternation for both Luna and Macharius some discomfort, as they were both true followers of the Omnissiah, through whose grace the Emperors Will with regards to technology is passed down. To use a method not described within the knowledge of the Priesthood is anathema to all true followers of the machine god. However with no power on the ship no doubt the crew had been forced to look to unusual means to remain alive. Hulang however had obviously become so used to these necessary measures that he thought nothing of it and instead continued undeterred.

“Obviously if you are intending to do anything with your ship you will likely need fuel yourselves. I don't know the layout of your ship, but I am sure that your power generation facilities would have been damaged by the collision.”

“It has certainly proved difficult” was Macharius' only response not wishing to give too much information away.

“Well obviously we should be able to provide you with batteries should you require them as easily as we can supply anyone else. Although obviously it will require us to gain passage to your ship. Unless of course we were going to do the transfers through the lighter bays. The issue of this of course would be that the Greenshots would want their share.”

“Where do your faction reside?”

“We are on the upper, sunward side of the ship.”

“If we were to trade what sort of things would you like for the batteries?” asked Macharius steering the conversation back to trade.

“Well here we hit a problem” replied Hulang, “Without knowing exactly what you are after, what you want, what you are intending to do, and how you see the interaction between the two vessels continuing then it is difficult to pitch to you. Especially given the amount of damage your ship has suffered. I mean, will you be intending to separate the two ships? I suspect not as the damage to your vessel would be Catastrophic. Or perhaps you are intending to take over both vessels and rule them? Basically I need an idea of what you are gunning for before I can give you an idea of what we can do for you.”

Seeing the ploy in Hulangs words Macharius responded with a non-committal response that they had no intention of taking over both vessels.

“Well, you have to understand that the fact of the two ships are now together and the fact that your ship is a merchant vessel it is going to entice yet more people to raid it over the months. Did you experience any raids?”

Interested to see where Hulang was going with this Luna asked him to clarify, “You mean attacks from here?” the High Enginseer asked.

“Yes with a collision of this type I would expect the almost immediately people would have been driven to attack.”

“Indeed”, responded Macharius, “A few people from your ship made such an attempt.”

“The important thing to remember is that they would have been the weaker factions. The Prow is not a particularly useful place in the ship. There is a lot of armour and so you cannot get to space easily and they are a long way from the lighter bays so they are weak. Now that however there is a potential source of income at the prow I am sure some more militant groups will start migrating. It is not as if the factions there will be able to hold their ground.”

“What are you offering” asked Macharius once more.

Well obviously we are not a militant group, we have no need to be, we are powerful on this ship already due to the fact that everyone needs to deal with us to use their technology. Everyone has to use our batteries, even in the lighter bays our batteries keep the void shields up. So we have no intentions of attacking your ship in any way shape or form. It would be pointless after all in a bluntly trade point of view, is if someone raids your ship they are either going to come to us and trade for batteries or to the market and trade with the Greenshots.”

Uncomfortable with this line of reasoning Macharius moved swiftly to negate such speculation. “They are Welcome to try”, he said, “But they are unlikely to succeed”

“Well eventually someone will be, either that or your own crew will fracture into factions.”

Again Hulang showed his lack of knowledge about the troops of the Line of Saro, otherwise he would not have suggested such a ridiculous thing as them turning on their rightful leaders. Such thing had never happened in all the annals of the Line and will never.

“I doubt that” was Macharius' only word on the subject.

Hulang in his ignorance however continued, “Well our crew was highly motivated and a naval crew, and yet within two years they had fractured into factions. The likelihood, no offence, of a trading crew succumbing to such pressures is fairly high. Even if not, every attack from our ship will weaken you and frees up another spot in the prow. So any faction on our ship that weakens will either be destroyed or more likely absorbed into a larger faction making them stronger. While you might be expecting to face progressively weaker forces you will in fact face forces that are stronger. Add to that the possibility that the Hullrats might decide to go on the offensive against you and move to the Prow. If they did so that is pretty much it for you I am afraid. I mean how much crew do you have over there?”

Not to be so easily trapped into revealing such information Macharius declined to answer, Hulang however was not dissuaded.

“As a trading crew you would most likely have begun at probably 15 to 25% of our original crew. Assuming you took similar losses to us as you travelled through the Tempest of Graves this would mean you were most likely still about the same level. The Hullrats make up 10 to 15% of our population. Add to this the rumours that they are trading with the Megiddo for weapons, if they were to attack you they would pose quite a threat to your ship. These are only my logical conclusions of course it may be that you have tricks up your sleeve that I do not know. But this all leads back to the first question what is your intentions?”

Realising that Hulang was actually a quite skilled negotiator Macharius dismissed him while the officers discussed what they intended to say to him. However in his position as a person who dealt with every faction on the ship it was determined that to tell him about the upcoming impact with the spacehulk would be too much of a risk. They also determined that it might be possible to trade alcohol to them as they had previously seemed interested in this commodity. Their discussions over they called Hulang back in.

Macharius began, “Our eventual aim is to get out of the Graveswarm, to this aim we might need the sorts of power that you can provide.”

“I see,” answered Hulang, “We can provide you with batteries but it would depend on how many and how large you would need them. Obviously they are less effective that a fusion reactor as they are lower yield. I assume you have trade good on your vessel?”

“Indeed, what sort of goods would interest you?”

“Well obviously volatile chemicals, basically anything that contains a high amount of alkaloid. But yes I think we should be able to do business on that basis. How exactly are you intending to escape from the Graveswarm however as if it were possible with our known resources it would have been tried already.”

Macharius allowed himself to feel a slight amount of his superiority here. “this assumes that the feat would be easy. With your ship's factionalism, in particular the fact that your techpriests are split between your faction and the tick tock men, it would likely be beyond you.”

Hulang looked aggrieved at this accusation, “That is not my fault, unfortunately 'High Magos Grand Architect Bosphorus' has somewhat overstepped his mark. Technically speaking he's only one rank of the priesthood higher than myself. I was an Enginseer which is the rank just below Techpriest, although I would have been a techpriest within a few years. Hence my lack of any major augmentations. Whereas Bosphorus has instead claimed that he is the High Magos of the ship and gone ahead and jury rigged prosthetics to help his claim. It is rather sad really, however a large number of the techpriests went with him as he was in charge of the areas where the majority of the technology was being used. Whereas we however were forced to cut our way through a large amount of wreckage to reconnect with the rest of the ship. This meant we had a large amount of delay before we could rejoin the populace at large.”

Macharius looked interested in this, “Do you mean you have access to space?”

“Technically” Hulang nodded, “when our ship passed through the tempest a large part of the vessel near our holdings was transformed into flesh. We have managed to extend solid metal walkways through this section to rejoin the rest of the ship”

The officers of the treasurer had by now learned all they wished to know about the Fuellers and the ship from Hulang they brought the meeting to a close. Hulang left after giving them the information they needed should they decide to contact him.

This left the Greenshots leader Jalasas, a man with whom they hoped they would be able to do business with. However he was understandably worried about what their inclusion into the balance of power on the ship would have.

“So” he said, “have you been stirring up trouble for us?”

“We have certainly been given an insight into the workings and goings on in your vessel” was Macharius only reply.

“Well I expect that you have been told a number of lies. For example that the Hullrats will soon take the markets because the Megiddo are their firm allies. However of course the Megiddo do not actually care either way. The Fuellers hate the techpriests because the Techpriests do not give them enough credit, and the Techpriests themselves do not really care.”

Macharius agreed with Jalasas' summing up of the situation, and then went on,”Let us begin with the worst news. Your vessel and our vessel have a collision coming up.”

“With?” asked Jalasas

“The Space hulk up ahead.”

This obviously surprised Jalasas, “The impact has altered the trajectory that much? Our calculations had us that we would pass close to it in a month or so.”

“It seems that the faction of your ship known as the Lighteyes will reveal this fact to the rest of your ship in three days.” stated Ichigo.

“That is when they do the next scan certainly, so my question is how are you getting us off this ship?”

As might be imagined this somewhat nonplussed the officers of the Treasurer, such a bold request was not the normal way such negotiations usually went.

“Well we were looking to extricate from our current vessel and those members of your crew who were interested in joining us.”

Here however Jalasas interrupted, “Lets put it this way the only way anyone from our ship is going to get to help you is through these lighter bays. The Lighter bays I currently control. So effectively I get to control who gets to leave and what I say to you is Everyone gets to Leave, or no-one gets to leave.”

This was even more surprising to Macharius, “Are you sure about that? Isn't there anyone you would not rather leave behind?”

“Well I would quite happily leave Von Hells behind, but his people do not deserve that. I'm assuming that the impact is going to laminate the ships across the entire front of the Hulk.”

“Actually it is our belief that the impact of the vessel will likely result in the entire Hulk being jolted into the warp. Without a Gellar field.”

Jalasas waited for a moment before responding, “So as I say, either everyone gets off this ship, or no one does. Including you. You probably have realised that you cannot do this without us. I'm not an idiot you wouldn't be talking to us otherwise, you certainly wouldn't be offering to trade with us. That is with a broken down ship that has been here for ten years, if you though you could achieve this yourselves would you? You certainly wouldn't be telling me this if you thought you could buy what you needed, sort a few things out, maybe take the lighter bays for yourselves. Obviously you do not think you could achieve that, and you obviously need allies on the ship, otherwise I do not think you would be telling me this.”

Hearing the accusations in Jalasas' voice Ichigo was unable to restrain himself.

“What our telling you means is we have honour” he said.

Macharius however realised that such forceful questioning would not be effective against Jalasas so intervened.

“Alternatively you might not be best pleased to find out in three days time, when everyone else gets to find out.”

Ichigo also pointed out that at this point Von Hells might also decide he had run out of time, and make a move on the markets.

“When the rest of this vessel find out that hey only have three and a half weeks, what would they do? Like for example, get off your ship?” asked Macharius.

“They would probably want to get off the vessel. However I can see two other ways they could solve the problem. Our warp engines no longer work because they have no power. As such the problem is almost certainlu your warp drives. If they were no longer operational that might make life a little easier. The other problem is that we have a ship on the end of our ship, if that ship was not there, then the trajectory might be altered enough to avoid the hulk.”

“That would be a bit of a risk” said Macharius.

“Yes” responded Jalasas, “but people will think of it no doubt.”

“Would Von Hells think of it?” asked Ichigo aware of a potential security issue.

“Probably not Von Hells, in fact it would be best if he did not think of it. However someone who did think of it might talk to him.” was Jalasas' answer

Ichigo once more pressed him, “Before he has overrun your lighter bays?”

The Captain regarded him coldly, “He talks big and he's got a lot of men, but the Megiddo are not going to trade with him. They are really not because they know that when Von Hells takes over they will become completely beholden to him. Let me explain a little of how his mind works. I want something, So I take it. Now I have got it. Someone else wants it, they can get stuffed as I have got it. If he takes the Lighter bays all he will do is go out get stuff, bring it back and roll around in a big pit of the stuff. He thinks he has been kept down and kept back, but the factions are poor because he's an idiot and they live in the Bilges. There is little to trade down there, and even if there was they don't understand how trade works anyway. That is what is holding them back, he has a huge number of men he could hire them out as mercenaries or guards, but he isn't intelligent enough for that. Did you notice the way that he spoke to you?”

Obviously the officers of the Treasurer had heard it, however there is much to be gained from hearing the view of someone else.

“A case in point, what he should have been doing was kissing your ass, however he wasn't was he? It's much the same with the Megiddo, they are not going to trade with him so most likely he will just come at us with all that he has. Which will make for an interesting fight but not one that he can easily win. It will cost him a lot, and of course you have a vested interest in him not winning.”

“Which is why we are talking to you” responded Ichigo.

“Exactly” continued Macharius, “So by the sounds of it if we were to locate another vessel you would be willing to join us”

“Yes, providing that everyone else on the ship gets the same offer. Because if you find a ship and say the Tick Tock Men or the fuellers go with you everyone left behind is dead whether they end up in the warp or not. I am not going to leave thousands of people behind to choke on foul air because you only needed some of the crew.”

Ichigo realising that this left them open to a few minor issues said, “Providing they are amenable to our terms”

“Indeed,” returned Jalasas, “That is an issue as we do not know what these terms will be.”

Here Macharius stepped in, “If we find a ship and get it up and running we will restructure the crews to do away with these factions and function as a ships crew. One and Whole”

Such a laudable aim no doubt swayed Jalasas as it would have any true follower of the Emperor. However for a man so used to command Jalasas did have more issues to address.

“I see and what of people who are currently faction leaders?”

Macharius had expected this question and smoothly responded that they would continue in their current fields of expertise, providing of course that they proved qualified enough.

Jalasas however continued “You realise that Von Hells will not accept those terms which means you'd lose 10% of the crew.”

“I think you misunderstand. Individuals would get to make their own decisions” Macharius said.

“Unfortunately that is not how the Hullrats work, they operate more like an Ork tribe. Von Hells is the biggest and the baddest, and surrounds himself with the slightly less big and the slightly less bad. The rest of his people are somewhat along for the ride.”

Macharius nodded to himself, “I once saw a magos sever the head from a cockroach and by installing some mechanism in it's place was able to control it. Possibly we can use a similar method to control the Hullrats.”

“I see, well I am not sure that turning Von Hells into a servitor would help. However basically I am happy to offer the support of the Freenshots providing you give me two things. One, that everyone will get the chance to leave the ship and Two, your help to ensure that these markets do not change hands in the meantime. After all if such was to happen you would need to renegotiate this deal with Von Hells. He most likel would not take that deal anyway. You might also want to consider telling everyone about the impact before the Lighteyes do.”

At this Macharius and the other officers realised that they needed to discuss their plans for the future and asked Jalasas to give them a few moments, and he stepped out to allow them to confer. They considered that it might indeed help their cause if they were the ones to reveal the information of the upcoming impact. The conversation then turned to the problem of Von Hells as it seemed likely that he might well make a move on the markets if he felt he was running out of time. Not wishing to leave any stone unturned they considered the possible option of dealing with Von Hells in a direct manner.

Jalasas was able to give them some additional information on this point when they once again returned to speaking with him. He was able to provide them with detailed information on the location of Von Hells main stronghold. With that the meeting was finally concluded, and the officers ot the Treasurer returned to their vessel.

As can no doubt be seen from the way the meeting was undertaken the officers of the Seleucaemi Treasurer were greatly skilled in such negotiations. However this was without the skills of their Lord and master to call upon. Plans however were laid in hand, and soon they resolved to visit the Lighteyes. If no vessel could be located by them, some other plan would need to be found.