“How many will it be able to carry?” Samantha asked.
“If you’re asking how many will the Victory be able to carry, then the answer is twenty thousand, give or take,” Blake said. “The Galileo will handle a similar number, but they’ll probably need more cargo space.”
“Thank you.”
“That brings up another issue,” Marc said. “We need space for at least six thousand colonists. Can we accommodate that many on Delphi Station?”
“If they’re willing to camp,” Fred said. “We have the room, but we don’t have that many finished cabins.”
“I think camping will be fine. We need to set up a cafeteria to feed them. That’s what we’ll be doing on Artemis, so getting them used to it will be good. But eventually, we’ll need to be able to handle twenty or thirty thousand,” Marc said.
“Then we’re going to need to light a fire under the construction team. You can get about two thousand in a condo building, so if they finish up the eight we have going up in the new city section, that’s sixteen thousand. They’re going to have to camp out there too. No way we can finish out the individual units that fast. Between that and Delphi Station, we have just enough room,” Fred said. “Once ring six on Delphi Station is ready, you can put all you want up there. But we’re months away from having the infrastructure put in, much less cabins.”
“Okay, you have my permission to light the fire,” Marc said. “Anything we can do to accelerate the infrastructure on ring six, do it.”
“I’m on it,” Fred said, rubbing his hands together like he was really going to enjoy lighting the fires.
“And finally, we have two hundred Russians that need vetting for Delphi Station. I’m sure they’ll sneak a few spies in the mix, but we’d like to avoid any commandos and such,” Blake said. “Kal, Sasha’s not on the list, but I can make a special request.”
“Please don’t help me,” Kal said. “I get into enough trouble on my own.” A chuckle went around the room as everyone else was glad that Blake wasn’t trying to help them.
“Sam?” Marc prompted.
“I think I’ve found us a VP of Marketing. Sharon Bodiker from GE is looking to move up, and the person holding the VP position at GE doesn’t look like they’ll be retiring anytime soon.”
“Do you know her?” Fred asked.
“I’ve been in negotiations across from her. She’s smart, professional, and a tough negotiator. I have some contacts who know her personally; they say she’s a good fit for us.”
“Is she interested?” Marc asked.
“Yes. But she is a bit pricey.”
“How much?” Fred asked.
“Two million and a twenty million dollar signing bonus.”
“I’m okay with the salary, I’m not happy about a signing bonus,” Marc said. “Work with Jonas to come up with a bonus package that will reward solid performance. If she stands firm on the signing bonus, we’ll look for someone else.”
“It does cost to move,” Samantha said. “She loses her stock options, has to sell her house.”
“Five million to move, factor the stock options into the bonus,” Marc said.
“I can work with that. So, moving on. Margaret says that our new ambassador to the U.N. is still getting signals from countries that they’d like to form a bloc.”
“That sounds like good news,” Admiral Michaels said.
“I agree,” Marc said. “Let’s see what happens when it’s big enough to sway the results.” He nodded at Samantha, asking her to continue.
“And on the Russians, they will start delivering converted ships next month, new ships after the first of the year. Converted locomotives are already being delivered with new ones scheduled for October.” The Russian president had negotiated a deal to get small fusion reactors to install in ships and locomotives. It was Marc’s way of moving them from a colonial-like power back into the mainstream of the world economy.
“How are they doing it so fast?”
Samantha looked at Fred for some help. “The difference between the designs isn’t that big, so they were able to modify their production lines and slip the change into the production process. So, they just had a few weeks of downtime for the changeover,” Fred said.
“Good for them,” Marc said. “Kal?”
“The Academy cadets are finishing up in Guatemala this week. They’ll start coming home on Saturday, Last group shows up on Tuesday. Commandant Lewis says they’ve done pretty well. So far, none of them who made it to Guatemala has dropped out,” Kal said.
“Too easy?” Blake asked.
“No way!” Catie messaged Blake and her father. “These guys are sadists!”
“I was there last week; they’re not going easy on them,” Kal said. “And as usual, when the cadets are in charge, it’s actually tougher.”
“That’s always bothered me,” Blake said. “I worry that immature cadets are risking the safety of the others as they try to prove how tough a leader they are.”
“Don’t worry, they’re always under supervision, and we have ANDI tracking all surveillance,” Kal said.
“ANDI?” Nickola asked.
“Yes, he’s the new DI we made for the Sakira. He does a good job of data management. He’s not as good as ADI, but we can’t have her do everything,” Kal said.
“Why, thank you, Cer Kal,” ADI said.
“But maybe ADI isn’t busy enough,” Kal said.
ADI gave out a laugh.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh,” Samantha said.
“Oh, she’s laughed before,” Catie messaged. “But usually it sounds wicked; that was a nice laugh.”
“Moving on,” Marc prompted.
“Liz and I have worked out that we should allocate two hundred Marines for Artemis; that’ll let you move them between the Victory and the ground as needed. Some of them will want to bring families along and make it a semi-permanent station, others will do a six-month deployment. We’ll give you the numbers when we’ve identified them. For the Paraxeans, we’ll allocate fifty Marines for the Galileo. We can adjust that number as we learn. Since you’ll be starting out in the Sakira, we want to ship thirty Foxes in flight bay
