As if talking about him had summoned him, the owner of the shop came out of the back room and immediately spotted Sill sitting and sipping coffee when he knew she should have been at work. A relieved sigh escaped his lips when he knew that she was safely out of the shop before it was raided, and he gathered his wits to see what sort of wealthy man she had brought here so early in the day.
"Good morning, Uncle, I have brought someone here that I think you should meet. It's quite important, if you have a minute to talk." Sill greeted him.
"Of course, if you say it's important, then I believe you. How do you do, sir? I am Marco, the proprietor of this establishment." Her uncle replied.
"Good day, Marco. I am Commander Keres Max, head of the Terminus Trading Company, and I had wanted to congratulate you on having your intermediary find our finest coffee beans for your shop." Max replied, and Nala laughed as the man frozen in spot.
Sill stood and offered her uncle her seat, then picked one off to the side, beside Max instead of in front of him.
"Yeah, that was our reaction as well. But he's offered to verify that all of our stock is genuine, and offer us a certificate of origin for them so that we can prove to anyone who asks that our Coffee is the real thing."
"At what cost?" The shrewd man asked.
"Your niece did us a favour and got us out of the market without causing any trouble. We will call it even." Max suggested.
The man beamed at Sill with a familial pride that was unmistakable. She was still young, and working the most basic of jobs, though a good paying one in the black market, but not only had she managed to escape her first raid unnoticed, but she had brought him a very valuable connection.
"Then I will gladly accept. But perhaps we could also speak a bit of business while you are here. You see, the supply lines tend to get a bit strained after an event like today's due to the government oversight, and my supplies are limited." He asked hopefully.
Max nodded. "In this case, you're in luck. We are authorized to offer you a single unit license to produce our blend of coffee here in your shop, assuming you have a capable replicator, or we can sell you a unit that is capable of making it for yourself."
The units that they had dropped off for the Resort were a newer generation of units, but they were somewhat limited in their programmed selections to only items that had no copyright or license attached to them, mostly basic foodstuffs that would be resold all over this portion of the planet. It was expected that they would eventually figure out how to add more items on their own, but no instructions or consoles for the purpose were included in the order.
It was the Reavers way. If you weren't capable of hacking into it and programming it yourself, they weren't going to make it foolproof for every random customer to duplicate anything that they could get their hands on. Especially when that meant they would be able to use the replicator to start making weapons.
That sort of versatility would be a nightmare for local governments, and they would never have gotten approval for distribution if that was the case.
"What would it cost for a unit that could handle the coffee for the shop? Perhaps the baked goods too, it's a nightmare trying to keep a baker for a small shop like this." Marco asked.
"Well, we have a set price for them, including royalty rates to produce the Reaver blended coffee. But we can also offer you a discount on the unit itself, if you have an item of interest to trade. Reavers love new things, especially ancient relics." Max explained.
Marco smiled. "In that case, I think I might have just the sort of thing that you are looking for. You see, I've never found anything else like it and nobody who has been through my shops can identify it, so I can say for certain that it should be ancient, and it's certainly rare."
He got up out of his chair and headed back to his office, leaving them all sitting in the coffee shop.
It only took him a few minutes to return, holding a small object wrapped in a protective cloth.
"This is it. Depending on how you look at it, it's either priceless or worthless, since nobody can tell what it should be, but it's not natural." He explained.
Nico took the object from him and began to examine it, turning it over in her hands and even bringing out a portable microscope to help enhance her vision and implanted scanners. She wasn't sure what it was either, but it was technological.
Finally, she found a circuit that had some readable data on it, and her expression brightened.
"You are correct about it being ancient, but I know that there should be someone who recognizes it." She chuckled.
"Really? Nobody I asked could identify it." He replied.
"That's because it's part of an antique data storage device. The date of manufacture is roughly eighty thousand years ago, but I'm not sure if any of the other circuits have survived the years. This should have been mounted on a Colony Ship or an exploration vessel of the time.
It is valuable to me, though, mostly because now that I have it, I want to know what was on it. Can you tell me where it was found?"
"It was discovered by one of the outer exploration teams, about a hundred years ago. That area is now part of the Alliance, but there wasn't any sign of habitation there when they arrived. So either the colony failed, or the ship was destroyed before making landfall." Marco shrugged.
Nico nodded. "Good enough for me to start looking for its origins. I will trade you the unit for your coffee shop for this item. One of my ship's crew will have it here within fifteen minutes, and we will help you get it installed before we go.
I'm sure there will be paperwork involved on this one, but I've instructed them to limit the replicator's output, so it looks like it had been designed as a proprietary machine for your business."
Marco smiled at Nico's consideration. A single spec proprietary unit was much easier to get through customs than a general replicator, which would have to individually register with the patent office for every item it could theoretically make.
It would limit his ability to change the menu, but if it could still make the raw materials, he would just have to find a baker again if he wanted to add new items. Meanwhile, the ability to make his own Coffee would pay for itself just in the import fees saved to have it smuggled.
"Your species really should be known for their business acumen more than their military capability." He praised Nico, who waved off his good intentions.
"No, our military might definitely trumps our business acumen. It's just that not everyone gets to experience that firsthand."
