"So this would be a small outpost or two, or...something greater?" the older woman asks. It's obvious from her tone and predatory look in her eyes that she's very excited about the latter possibility.

The opening is obvious, and Angel smiles back. "At present, it is a small outpost or two. But, in that regard, the United States, the largest economy on Narsai, started as a few small outposts. UNHAO effectively controls who and what comes and goes in the only gateways that lead to...places with peaceable inclinations to Narsai. There are plans in the worlds to build a proper industrial-scale Gateport, which would also be under their control. The infrastructure for those ports is supplied from Kesh Industries. That itself is a substantial market, given the needs for expanding infrastructure, security, etc. But it also, in effect, gives Faxom-Io a monopoly on the import of goods to a market of eight billion people."

He pauses for a moment, to let the potential of that sink in. "So long as the profits from said imports are at a level that doesn't cause the member states of the UN to reconsider the arrangement. A gentle hand here carries the potential for immense gain."

"You mean if we follow your lead on supporting Narsai and this rebellion," the younger man grouses.

"Yes." Angel says simply.

"Nothing is ever free."

Angel Talk (Sincerity) + Tycoon vs. 2d8: 6,1,2 vs 1,4)

"Hmph." The younger man is silent, but Angel's flat rejection and reasoning behind it immediately resonates with the group. Angel can tell there's some people here that fought their way up to the top - in the case of the obviously former Turai and Hasaeph, quite possibly literally - and a good chunk of the rest have been in their own version of the trenches their whole adult lives. There's an immediately obvious divide among the group - the older woman, the former Turai, and an otherwise silent man nod in agreement, the older woman smirking while the former Turai has that hard glint of someone who's spilled blood to defend their beliefs recognizing a fellow warrior. The older man and a middle-aged woman just give a respectful nod, while the younger man and another young man next to him look pissed off but know that they're beat. That's 3 supporters, 2 maybes, 2 opponents - with 9 members counting Gorlan and Angel, that's a solid majority of the board.

"Well, this is a good preview of what's to come," the older man says. "We'll reconvene in two weeks."

Angel wasn't thrilled that factions were forming - he was perceptive enough to see there was a clear division, the younger of the men at the table clearly skeptical of the concept, and a couple people on the fence as well. These were very dangerous people, who by the very nature of their position were good at what they did.

He was in an arena where he was, to be frank, a novice, and very few of his problems could be solved with something as straightforward as a carefully aimed shot.

"Two weeks it is. I look forward to it." Once the call cut out, Angel leaned back a little in his seat. "I suppose that could have gone worse."

"The opening volley," Gorlan says, his lips tense. "From what my allies have told me, now that you haven't proven to be a liability, an idiot, or simply vanished, everyone on the board has suddenly taken a keen interest in what our presence on the Faxom-Io board will do to the political power dynamics." He sighs, leans back, and slides open a panel to reveal a well-stocked bar. "Brandy." It wasn't a question.
"Absolutely," Erika says. She looks both utterly at ease and...annoyed, is probably the best way Angel can put it, by the re-emergence of corporate politicking this soon after touchdown.

The mood lightens considerably once the skimmer arrives back at the Kesh estate. The cargo skimmer with Angel's worldly possessions has already arrived and been unpacked by the house porters, and after the staff meets and greets Angel as a now-permanent member of the household, the Kesh family butler Iyim and Kesh family housekeeper Onmai take him on a walking tour of the freshly remodeled third of the manor that belongs to him.

When Angel was told by Tangesa that the floor space was about 1,400 square meters, that already seemed like a lot - basically an entire barracks floor all to himself - but what he forgot to take into account is how tall everything is. Everything is at least 5 to 8 meters high, which just makes the already huge amount of floor space seem absolutely obscene. He knew it on an intellectual level from his already apportioned bedroom, but even before getting to the doors to his wing Angel could feel a bit of vertigo from the scale of everything that is his now.

The same black marble/dark wood/cold iron look seems to have extended throughout his wing, including the main doors - two huge wooden doors, a simple geometric pattern carved into them, with large square pulls where they meet. They look like they must weigh a couple hundred pounds each, yet they open with a push and gently close themselves. The main hall’s black marble is broken up with dark blue and burnt orange accents and furniture - the Kesh family colors - the seating covered with furs for comfort. Streaks of quartz run through the marble slabs, with just a hint of gold deposits shining throughout.

To the immediate right of the main doors to the wing lie the frosted glass doors to the offices for Angel and his Kesh Holdings main staff. The decor inside is subdued in cost and ostentatiousness, with just accents of black marble in the walls and the furniture for most of the office staff having dark wood veneers rather than being hewn from wood entirely. There’s a half-dozen offices, a couple of small conference rooms and a break room along the walls, and a dozen cubicles in the middle of the office floor. If it wasn’t for the holodisplays on the desks instead of monitors and that slightly SpaceFuture! vibe everyday Imperial things still slightly have to Angel, the office could have been transplanted from a CEO’s office on Narsai wholesale. One of the doors on the wall is frosted glass, and when Angel pushes it open, it reveals a waiting room with a private elevator that goes down to the skimmer parking built into the pourcrete pad the manor sits on - the entry for his employees and any visitors here on Kesh Holdings business.

At the back of the office is a large wooden door with a frosted glass center that leads to Erika’s office. Her desk is hewn from solid pieces of wood, with the decor ramped up a few notches to match, and there’s a few conspicuously empty spots obviously intended for Erika to personalize the space to her liking. From there another similar door leads into Angel’s official office. It’s not too insane, a conference table, sofa, drinks cabinet and small bar, a door to a small private washroom with shower cubicle, and a truly impressive desk with two massive holodisplays, one on the desk and one on the wall, but it definitely communicates that whoever sits behind this desk is the big cheese of this outfit. That’s Angel, by the way, he reminds himself.

Out of the private entrance at the back of the office, the tour starts to turn into a blur of different rooms with different purposes - there was a home theater, a “small” kitchen that’s still half again as big as any kitchen Angel had ever used, a couple of guest rooms, an elevator to the private skimmer garage below and pad above for Angel’s personal vehicles, and finally the only remaining new thing, at least in his official wing of the manor, Angel’s private study.

There’s two ways this room could have gone with Angel’s preferred materials - black marble and glass, or wood everywhere. Tangesa knew which Angel would prefer, and as such the study is a tribute to the deepest, richest textured hardwoods the Imperium has to offer. Thick black carpet lines the floor, and the backside of every cabinet and bookshelf is still covered by black marble, but the furniture is all wood. There’s a sofa, a few large chairs in front of the desk and a small table against the wall, but mostly this is a more cozy and focused space. The large desk, hewn out of a solid log, has Angel’s personal cogitator built into its structure, with the holodisplay mounted in its surface. The shelves are a bit bare, but it’s obvious where things are meant to be stored and where Tangesa left space for Angel’s personal choice of collections and mementos. Still, the place seems somewhat sterile and generic - Angel simply didn’t have a lot of inspiration or instructions for Tangesa for his wing of the house, and it shows the most in here. Even the one flourish - a large fish tank running in the wall above the conference table - Angel only requested because it seemed to him like something rich people had in their offices. That doesn’t mean it’s not lovely - a collection of cold freshwater fish and plants that are completely out of place on the desert planet of Hedion that one particular member of the groundskeeping staff was very excited to get a chance to curate and care for - but as Angel stands in the office, Iyim showing him the features of the room, he still feels like all of this, the whole wing of the house, belongs to someone else.

The tour of the house proper concluded, Onmai takes her leave to go back to her job, while Iyim guides him around the common third of the manor. Staff quarters, the grand dining and entertaining areas, and the shared recreation areas - mostly the gym, pool, gardens, and the running track within the gardens. There’s service areas that Angel emphasizes he wants to understand at some point, the guts of the building built into the huge slab that spans across the top of three buildings that holds the manor up and contains most of the actual parking and support structures for the manor itself, and it’s through one of the elevators that leads down to the maintenance areas that Iyim notes the brand new retinal and handprint scanner.

Once activated (Iyim tells Angel that only himself, Angel, Gorlan, and two of his most trusted members of staff have access at the moment), one of the buttons on the elevator lights up and it glides down a few floors before opening into what used to be a spare storage area. It still is, of a sort - bare pourcrete walls, floor, and ceilings, with metal weapons racks and lockers lining the walls, a bench bolted to the floor by the lockers, and floorspace for crates and more storage by the racks. Past that lies the most secretive new addition to the Kesh manor - a five-lane shooting range. It’s only 25 meters long not counting the angled steel backstop, but that’s enough for rifle qualifications. The station barriers are suspended from the ceiling on rails to be moved for turning the range into a small killhouse, and Iyim assures him that the noise is sufficiently baffled and hidden in the manor’s industrial plant exhaust as to be undetectable from the outside.

The elevator dings open back in the armory, and Iyim and Angel turn around to see Gorlan step out.
“If I may, Sir?” Iyim asks with a slight bow, indicating he’d like to get back to the rest of his duties.