>>5854781“Emp’rah, SUH! Let me just say, I am-ah HONAH’d to make-ah your acquaintance. You are one MEAN ‘xample of the human genome, and I-ah do mean that in the best-ah ways. Back in the rebellion-ah yours, ya whooped them Vindaloos, n’ ya did it without-ah hestitatin’! No suh, you could’ve sat in the frontier, snooping around, pickin’ off the Impy fleets one by one, but nah, you burned STRAIGHT for the core!”
“Ya beat everyone-ah who came for ya. They joined or they died! Now I-ah, personally, respect that. You’s a man-ah ACTION, none-ah dem empty words. But the kicker here is you did a lotta that with Hookware hardware. Ya did business with my old man, Big Hoss 452nd, ‘fore his heart gave out, bless ‘im, and now, yer here to do business with me. Difference ‘tween now n’ then, though, is that nowadays, you got all the cards. You’re the Emp’rah. What you say goes.”
“Ya’s in control. Problem is, suh, I don’t know-ah what kinda dynasty Heinrich’s is gonna be. It has me worried. You see, we at Hookware Corp are firm-ah believers in the sacred right of every man, merchant, n’ void trawler to own and operate their own reliable space weapons for a reasonable price. Our folks sell-ah to everybody in or out of Eternal Empire space, bless it, now, don’t have to be surprised I’m sayin’ it out loud, we both know tha’s the truth, but we don’t discriminate. Anyone with creds, we’s-ah willin’ to do business. In fact, I’ve already done business with that daughter-ah yours, Freyja, she was a real peach n’ her husband, that Theo fellah, great guy, even greater contract records, but I do digress.”
“Dem Vindaloos? Hated ‘em, they wasn’t shit-ah, but they was easy ta work with. We had ourselves an arrangement-ah. We gave the crown an exclusive discount, n’ in exchange… they didn’t dig too deep into our business-ah. I won’t beat ‘round the bush, Emp'rah. None of that shit, no suh. Tell ya what. We keep that deal, ya stay out of our work long as yer still kickin’ the can, n’ we give you HALF OFF on ALL our ships for the next quarter century. If ya want to swing the big stick, put us in-line, then that’s fine. We’ll budge n’ pay our dues, yes suh, but da ships’ll be full price. Those’re the same terms we gave ol’ Jukka, yessuhree, n’ they’s the same-ah we’ll give you. We at Hookware Corp are nothin’ if we’s not fair.”
“How ‘bout it?”
>Accept the offer. The ships are already cheap, with this you could bring the navy back up to speed in a hurry. So what if he’s selling to scum? You’ve shattered them before, you’ll do it again.>Reject. This up-jumped yokel won’t be arming and abetting pirates under your watch. You’re glad to pay the Corp’s full pittance of a price and use House Nightshayd to hold them to their word. 