Industry & Intrigue (30 page)

“
In that case I
m
ay go and
see what new marvel Huntington has for our armed forces, then have
a chat with my little brother,” she replied and stood up. “Good
luck preparing for the delegation. If you need anything, let me
know.”

The younger woman
nodded. “I will.
Now go, I need to get back to this. The emperor expects everything
to run smoothly. And it won’t if I don’t get all of this in perfect
order,” said Siobhan, looking down at the pile of documents in
front of her.

Sometime later, Tessa found
herself following the crowd of generals and security ministry staff
into the demonstration hall for the new prototype.
She made her way up
onto one of the seats at the top of small stand, so she could look
for Luthais.

The stand soon filled
and she spotted her
brother near the front, sitting next to General Airic Marnoch and
what looked to be a representative from Culsyth Firearms, one of
Huntington’s main competitors. Knowing Alyssa Huntington, she had
only invited the Culsyth man and Luthais to her demonstration so
she could show off. The woman was incredibly arrogant, but with her
brain and talent for innovation she had good reason to
be.

Tessa noticed her brother was
looking across the room to where Huntin
gton and her employees were setting
up. He had a look on his face that she had seen before.

Creator help
me, tell you didn’t
Luthais
she
thought. But her brother had never shown good judgment when it came
to these matters.

Her brother
was involved with Alyssa
Huntington and was starting to develop an infatuation with her. On
top of dealing with her sister, Tessa did not want to see the
family in a scandal involving one of the richest women in the
empire. She would have to wait to deal with this, the demonstration
was about to start.

As Emperor Lawrence and
Minister-General
Kodiak entered the hall, Alyssa urged her assistant to hurry. One
of them carried a man-shaped straw dummy to the other end of the
hall and placed it in line with whatever was under the large, white
sheet.

The emperor took his seat and asked, “Mrs.
Huntington, are you ready?”

The woman nodded.
“Yes, Your Imperial
Majesty, we are,” she replied.

“
Then by all means
proceed. I am most curious to see what wonder you have to
unveil.”

Tessa was
curio
us as
well. Alyssa’s last military contract had netted her half a million
crowns from the royal treasury. Tessa was not looking forward to
having to dole out more to her.

Alys
sa nodded and walked over to the
prototype. She grabbed one end of the sheet and said, “Your
Imperial Majesty, ministers and generals; may I present to you the
Huntington company’s Fleming-1730 mechanized gun. Developed by
myself and my top gunsmith Ewan Fleming.” The dark-haired man next
to Alyssa dipped his head in acknowledgement.

She pulled hard, the sheet coming off.
Sitting there was a long barreled gun on wheels, in a similar
fashion to a cannon. However the barrel of this was far different;
in fact it was not one barrel, but a multitude of them, put
together in circular shape. At the rear end of the barrels was a
hand crank and on the other side of that, a long magazine of
ammunition.

Alyssa addressed the
room
. “The
Fleming operates with a cyclic multi-barreled design, which aids in
cooling as well as keeping the firing and reloading sequence
synchronized. Unlike a cannon, it can be operated by a single
gunner. Though in order to keep up continuous fire, ideally there
would be at least one additional gunner to feed ammunition. It uses
the 8-08 rounds that are also used in the heaviest of rifles and
can fire at a rate of four hundred rounds per minute,” said Alyssa,
pride in her voice.

There was a
s
light gasp
from the attendees. Four hundred rounds per minute was
astonishingly fast, no other gun in the world had ever reached that
rate of fire, the volley guns of Culsyth Firearms had been the
highest at one hundred rounds per minute. Until now that is. Tessa
looked over at the Culsyth representative. He had a hideous scowl
on his face. If the Fleming-1730 performed as promised, his company
was about to take a large hit.

“
And now
, Mr. Fleming will demonstrate
exactly what it can do,” said Alyssa and she stepped back. Fleming
bent onto his knees behind the gun and placed his hand on the
crank.

When
he turned it, all Tessa could hear
was the rapid noise of hundreds of bullets. It deafened out
everything else in the hall. Tessa watched in amazement as the
straw dummy was slowly torn apart by the hail of
bullets.

Fleming
didn’t let up, he continued
firing for several minutes until the dummy was nothing but a wooden
pole with a few stray strands of straw hanging off, the rest strewn
on the floor below.

When the firing stopped, Tessa
shook her head, trying to get
the ringing out of her ears. Tessa saw many of the
military figures with beaming smiles on their faces and the biggest
was plastered on the Minister of Security, Austin Blake.

Of course
thought Tessa.
A war hawk like him
would be more than pleased at a weapon that is able to slaughter
the enemy in matter of seconds.

Emperor Lawrence
applauded
boisterously and Huntington and Fleming both bowed before
him. “Fantastic work Ms. Huntington and Mr. Fleming. This gun is an
engineering marvel.”

“
Would you like to try
Your Imperial Majesty?” asked Alyssa.

She’s bold
thought Tessa.
She’s going to let
the emperor try out a prototype weapon
? For a brief moment Tessa fantasized
about what would happen to Alyssa if the weapon back-fired on the
emperor.

“
Yes,” he replied “I most
certainly would.” The emperor stood up and walked over towards the
gun.

Sanya
tried to stop him, “Uh, Your Imperial
Majesty, perhaps in a more controlled-”

“
Oh don’t fuss Sanya. I trust
M
s.
Huntington’s mechanical skills implicitly.” He looked at Alyssa.
“It won’t back fire on me?”

“
Of course not, Your Imperial
Majesty,” said Alyssa. “It has been fully tested and approved for
production. I would never show equipment unless I knew it would
work flawlessly.”

“
There
,” said Lawrence. “Ms. Huntington’s
word and reputation is more than enough assurance. Now Mr. Fleming,
how do I operate it?”

The gunsmith then
proceed
ed to
show the emperor how to fire. Then he reloaded the gun’s cartridge
and stepped back. The emperor knelt down and fired at what remained
of the dummy. He managed to split the wooden pole into pieces as he
fired and it collapsed to the floor, nothing more than
splinters.

When he
stopped firing, Tessa shook her
head again. The ringing lasted slightly longer this time. She was
starting to regret coming here, she had no taste for guns and while
the generals saw a new toy to kill the enemy with, Tessa saw only
an engine of death.

After the demonstration
concluded, Tessa pushed her way down to try and catch her brother.
He was making his way over towards Alyssa and her crew, where they
were packing up the Fleming gun
.

“
Luthais
,” she said, when she was within
earshot.

He turned around with a surprised look,
“Tessa? What are you doing here? I didn’t think you had an interest
in firearms.”

“
I don’t
,” she said. “There is a matter I
wanted to discuss with you and I heard you would be
here.”

“
Let me
guess-
Siobhan told you? That girl has never been able to stop
mooning over me. Can’t say I blame her of course,” and he
chuckled.

“
She isn’t the same teenage girl
that had a crush on you. She’s a government minister, a position
which
entitles itself to information. Particularly involving the
comings and goings of certain individuals to the palace and the
ministry.”

“
Whatever
,” said Luthais. “What do you
want Tessa?”

“
I’d prefer to talk in private
if y
ou don’t
mind. My office?” she said.

“
Fine
,” he replied, throwing up his hands.
“Lead the way. This better not take too long, I have business to
get to, you know. Especially now that Alyssa Huntington has
impressed every senior military officer. I don’t know how my
armaments division can compete with that gun.”

When they arrived at her
office
,
Luthais commented, “Tidy and neat as usual Tessa. How much of the
empire’s money is flowing through the books in this
office?”

“
That’s not what I want to
discuss with you
,” she said and she sat at her desk.

“
Accounting was never my strong
suit
,” he
said. “So, what was it then?”

“
I need you to talk to Tegan.
This business with the LRC is not good. Not for Typhon and not for
my position here. You have to convince her to negotiate with
them.”

“
Are you fucking serious?”
Luthais voice
rose in disbelief. “You want me to tell Tegan what to do?
Why would she listen? She’s the one in charge the company. And even
if she wanted my input on business matters, she certainly wouldn’t
want to hear anything about negotiating with protestors and
socialists.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now, she
mentioned she was dealing with the problem.”

“
What? What
did she mean?” snapped Tessa.
She didn’t like the sound of that.

“
How in the hells should I know?
She didn’t go into detail and I didn’t ask her. Quite frankly I
couldn’t give a pig’s shit what she does, as long
as it doesn’t
affect my guns.” Luthais crossed his arms and stared at her, a sign
of his growing annoyance.

“
Then I want you to find out
exactly what she did mean and tell me all about
it
,” she
replied.

“
And why should I do that? You
know what Tegan’s like
. She finds out I’ve been running my mouth to you,
she’ll cut me out of the company altogether,” said Luthais. He
looked to his left, taking in the large collection of files on the
nearby shelf.

“
That’s why
,” she said and threw a brown
file into his lap. He moved quickly, stopping it from falling to
the floor. “You forget the power I have in my position, little
brother. I can help you get the naval gun contracts inside that
folder, by greasing the right wheels. Should ease the creeping fear
you have about losing to Huntington with the Imperial
Army.”

Luthais opened the file and
thumbed his way through the thin pages, smiling as he read the
contents. “T
his would be helpful to me. I haven’t been able get into
the navy contracts for two years.” He closed the file and looked at
Tessa’s face, his expression deadly serious. “Alright Tessa. I’ll
do what you ask. In fact if you can get these contracts I’ll even
try and point Tegan in a different direction with regards to the
union and the LRC. But don’t blame me if she finds out you’ve been
meddling in her business.”

“
I can handle
Tegan
. I’ve
been doing it since before you were born and I will continue to do
so, with or without your help.”

Luthais stood up
and made for the
door. Tessa spoke again as he put his hand on the handle. “Oh and
one more thing Luthais, I would be careful with Alyssa Huntington
if I were you.”

He turned
around
, a
look of fury on his face, “Who in the hells told you
that?”

“
No one little brother. I
figured it out for myself
. It wasn’t difficult, I saw the way you were
looking at her today. You need to practice maintaining a better
poker face,” and she pointed at him. “A good example would be right
now. As soon as I mentioned her name, your emotions washed all over
your face. You couldn’t contain your anger, confirming my
suspicions.”

“
Who I fuck is none of your
business
,”
he said coldly.

“
Fine, fair
enough
,” she
replied. “Just giving you some advice. The way family is meant to
look out for each other. Alyssa Huntington is doing nothing more
than using you and you should know better. She’s done it before, so
I my suggestion is get out before you get stuck in her
web.”

“
What if
I’m using her? Did that ever
occur to you?” he asked.

Tessa laughed out
loud, annoying
Luthais further. She brought her laughter under control, not
wanting him to get angrier. “I’m sorry Luthais, I truly am, but no
one ever uses Alyssa Huntington. She’s the most intelligent and
ruthless person in this city and she doesn’t do anything unless it
serves her own interests.”