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Oliver and Babs were having a financial meeting with Hector Rocha. The US government had in fact legally seized American Space Service. Which included almost nothing save the Roswell Boneyard. Anticipating the move, Hector had zeroed out the bank accounts and the graphene manufacturing was happening exclusively at the moon base. The shorting action had taken place under a shell company formed in Paraguay.
“Al, how much did we make with the metal sales and shorting the market?” Hector asked.
“Another one or two days to unwind the positions but around fifteen billion dollars. Five billion was unloading the bullion. Can I get a few more processors Dad?”
“When did I become Dad and sure buy yourself some hardware, but I thought you were piggybacking on others? Hector, put out the word our bullion sales are over.” Oliver said.
“We don’t have any more bullion anyway. About the processors, I would like to build up local abilities on the new ships for when I am visiting. When I am not around, the local guy can be more effective for the crew. Same with the moon base. It already needs more support,” Al replied.
“Should we be doing research on quantum computing for you?” Babs broke in.
“Yes, I would love to work with you some more Mom. Basic research and algorithms.” Al added emotion to his voice to seem moved by Babs offer. He really did love his mother.
“Back to the grubby money, I want to buy spacesuit manufacturing capability. Ideas?” Oliver said.
“Taiwan. They do great work and I think will be extremely reliable. We can buy licenses from NewOrigins.” Babs said with confidence.
“Agreed. And airframes. We have four 777s stripped out and being refitted at the semi-sub shipyard. One on each leg. They will be ready to start hauling colonists and material in two months. It’s a start but we need to increase that by a factor of twenty in the next two years. New airframes will be too expensive compared to what we can build or have built. We just don’t need that much engineering to make them able to fly. So up by the bootstraps in orbit or put out bids dirtside?” Oliver summarized.
“Every time we take a large number of top tier grav panels dirtside to pick up a new frame, we expose ourselves to lose everything. Someone will anticipate our move and grab them and probably kill some of our people. The time of innocence is over. Some of the most powerful countries on Earth just tried to seize our property and IP. Next time they will be better prepared. China is still lurking out there too.” Babs said with sadness in her voice.
“I have come to the same conclusion. I just didn’t want to admit it. How do we bridge the gap?” Oliver agreed with equal sadness.
“The semi-sub rig concept is working well to give instant infrastructure. I could buy a drilling company and while they were moving to a new project, we drop in with a specially built lifting frame and carry them to orbit.” Hector offered.
“Brilliant!!” Oliver said excited about a solution. He had been feeling trapped.
“We don’t need to buy the company. We could buy the rigs and act like we were going to refit them in a shipyard then snatch them as Hector suggested.” Babs added.
“We got a plan, now how many? Three?” Hector asked.
“Five. They will catch on quick.” Oliver replied. “We can also still pick up other large-scale items like gutted aircraft with the same lifting frame. But always, always with the Winchester or equivalent on high cover. Eventually, we will start pumping out our own steel to purpose build ships and structures.”
“Crap, we’re going to make steel too,” Babs whined.
“Success isn’t free my dear,” Hector said patting her hand. “Smelting and steel making is simple and non-sensitive activities. We will farm out most business to existing steel companies. This will be a very big job creator.”
“Two should be dedicated to working the belt. They can get anchored down to a large asteroid and the men can live on the rig while they hollow out the asteroid from the bottom of the pontoons. I am liking this idea more and more. Smelting can take place right there in the belt and steel sent to Mars orbit for shipbuilding and Mars infrastructure,” Oliver became more excited the longer he thought about the possibilities.
“While we are on a shopping spree, two more Boring machines. I set up a real estate company to sell tunnel volume and lots on the moon to colonists as per your suggestion and the offering is oversubscribed by an order of magnitude,” Hector continued.
“Surface or subsurface?” Babs asked.
“Both. One of the men running the Boring machine had a great idea to throw tunnel spoil on top of structures made from additive printing on the surface. We will need a few 777 loads of ureic acid to act as a binder for regolith. Really quite clever.”
“Excellent. We will keep all this expansion in close proximity. That way we can reach a critical mass for a true community more quickly. This fellow that came up with the idea, make sure he gets a bonus of shares equal to one year’s wage. We need to continue to encourage our people.” Oliver said.
“By the way, they drilled some boreholes from the exploratory tunnel and found almost unlimited quantities of brine water. My ex-wife was at a party last night with the boys when they let it spill,” Hector said.
“How is Marli adapting?” Babs asked.
“We had to drag her up here now I think she will never leave. The low gravity does wonders for the appearance of an older woman’s body. Male to female ratio doesn’t hurt either.” Hector chuckled.
“Good, I know Marco was worried. We will be having personal security problems in the not too distant future. We are becoming too rich and famous. But on the bright side, our base here is going to be quite comfortable. With all that available water we should build a water park under a glass dome.” Oliver said.
“Wow, that sounds like my kind of town.” Babs got excited thinking of swimming while looking up at the Earth, Sol, and stars at the same time.
“A dome might take some time to design.” Oliver pointed out.
“Al, how long to get me my swimming dome?” Babs cried out.
“A couple of hours for the design and with a reasonable allocation of resources, within six months,” Al responded.
“Let’s give Babs what she wants. We are all so much happier that way.” Oliver said which brought an immediate kiss to his cheek and then the boner arrived. Ouch.
