Orion Mashel, the founder of the Outer Ring Excavations company, is known for his secluded nature. He never travels outside his fortress-like home in the Heart constellation and very rarely invites visitors. Thus, whenever he meets with someone it is always a point of considerable interest for the press and it is now chewing over what Mashel’s meeting with Muryia Mordu, leader of Mordu’s Legion mercenary corps means. Especially in the light the Legion guards ORE property in the Outer Region.
The two met yesterday at Mashel’s sprawling complex, the meeting lasted more than two hours and when Mordu left he was visibly upset. But he declined to comment to the media waiting outside and left in a hurry. Calls to Mashel himself were not returned.
Orion Mashel founded ORE several decades ago when the private corporations were taking their first tentative steps outside empire space. His company grew rich trading in Nocxium, which back then was in heavy demand. ORE established itself in the Outer Ring region and surrounding areas, scouting out the systems better than anyone before or since. The company is thought to know the locations of fabulously wealthy asteroid fields deep in space, which they mine slowly so as to not flood the market.
Mashel withdrew from the public eye some half a century ago and has since lived almost as a hermit in the midst of the Outer Region. But he still manages to be well informed about goings on in the outside world and the few times he has stuck his neck out it has always turned out to be transitional periods for his company; either to save it from looming threats or to expand its already great fortune to even greater heights. Now we are left wondering what the meeting between Mashel and Mordu portrays, is there some impending doom waiting to fall on ORE, or are we witnessing another chapter in its extraordinary success story?