"Governor Fan Ke and the others succeeded? But why didn't this news come from their headquarters on Ord Mantell?" Rush Clovis frowned deeply.
After thinking for a moment, he still came up with an explanation for himself. "All right... perhaps the fighting on Makito is too intense, and communications can't get through... That thing..."
Rush Clovis took a deep breath, unable to suppress the excitement in his heart.
Yes, that thing!
For Makito, "that thing" meant three kinds of cargo: first, all customer accounts and databases related to Makito. These could not be transmitted over the network, because that was far too insecure. Every client's data was stored separately in an extremely sturdy, highly confidential storage device, sealed in materials that could not be destroyed even by a direct hit from a turbolaser. Naturally, clients using such a service dealt in sums easily reaching hundreds of millions.
Second, Makito's most valuable gemstones. Makito was a gemstone-producing planet, and after ten thousand years of mining, some of its gems had become virtually priceless. Any one of them, put up for auction, could fetch an astronomical sum! Take the famous Beauty's Shadow, for example. When illuminated by different spectrums of light, it reflected within itself the figures of graceful, slender beauties in varying poses. A family from the Core Worlds had once offered 4 billion credits for it, but the InterGalactic Banking Clan had flatly refused the purchase.
Third, people!
If you went to any planet outside the Inner Rim and asked people on the street where the InterGalactic Banking Clan's headquarters was, eight out of ten would tell you Aargau. That was hardly surprising, because Aargau truly was the InterGalactic Banking Clan's administrative headquarters, where its senior officials worked.
But if you asked in the Core Worlds within the Inner Rim,