Ni-Kishi Aerospace Corporation
The Ni-Kishi Aerospace Corporation, formerly known as Coastline Aerospace Industries, is a former Alliance air-and-spacecraft producer located on Piyapon outside of Soran Nast. Their primary product is light to heavy classes of spacecraft ranging from personal pleasure craft and other small craft to large bulk freighters designed to transport freight from system to system. They also manage a internal private corporate defense company under the name of Ni-Kishi Aerospace Security and maintain several non-manufacturing sites on both Piyapon and Arizona.
History
Formed as Coastline Aerospace Industries in 2990 by James Price and Richard Smith on Planet Eden. They specialized in manufacturing light to medium, FTL-Capable freighters and starliners for numerous transport companies in the Central Alliance region. Five years later, they began making smaller yachts and other small pleasure craft under the franchise of Coastline Comets. In 3000, Coastline was approached by the Alliance military to design the next lightweight, carrier capable starfighter in a five-year competition after the commercial success of their Comet light craft drew in attention. Ni-Kishi agreed and was placed up against Alliance Shipbuilding, Fairchild and Wulf, and Hawking Fleetyards in competition for production rights.
The competition got the factory churning out prototypes, and eventually the XFA-100 was birthed as a folding wing attempt. It was eventually scrapped, with the XFA-100 turning into a systems and equipment testing rig. The next prototype nixed the folding wings for a number of classified technology leased with the XFA-100 and came together as the XFA-101. The XFA-101 came as two prototypes, both a single and twin seat model, and both were accepted into running after closed-doors testing by active Alliance pilots caused a profitable stir. With the race heating up, Coastline's stock rose quickly in anticipation, a feat CEO James Price called “a make or break” for the company. A statement that ended up becoming true.
This all came to a head in 3005 after the five year competition came to a close and all prototypes were ordered to make a final head-to-head test. Both the XFA-101-A and XFA-101-B went under rigorous testing, dogfight drills, and even a pilot exchange on an active Alliance planetside airbase to choose the victor. The XFA-101 was popular with pilots and mechanics, but did not shine up with the price in mind by the military itself and the company found itself crippled when the XFA-101 lost. Coastline's stock dropped to an unhealthy low but held steady on the knife-edge of bankruptcy. Price was forced to close the newer, second factory to keep above the red line but finally crashed after the explosive loss of Alliance Freight 68 due to hull microfractures and the subsequent grounding of all of Coastline's freighters for hull inspections. Alliance military officials ordered Coastline to destroy the prototypes or hand them over for deconstruction. Price and Smith signed for asset destruction and the officials were both handed proof in image of the XFA-101 being deconstructed as well as the majority of the XFA-100.
Devastated, Smith stepped down and left Price as the sole owner of the entire group and the sole inheritor of all of its debts. A further loss of money caused a final shift in development to halt and the closing of Coastline's primary factory. Smith declared bankruptcy and shut down the company's production line, leaving Coastline only able to act as a customer service item. Price and his closest shareholders quietly began damage control procedures to keep the destroyed company afloat economically for a prospective restart. In 3008, after a long two-year process of repairing ships and trading stocks, Coastline purchased Eagle Heavy Freight and also announced an international effort to bring Coastline to a close. Coastline Aerospace Industries' stock closed at 35 dollars a share on the last day, and the majority of the shares belonged to Price and his own shareholding chairmen. Coastline was gone, but Price was not finished with his fallen empire.
Price purchased a factory on the planet of Piyapon and bought the adjacent Kowloon Heavy Transport Group for a majority of his funds, and signed a deal with the fledgling Wangdaio Colonies to maintain its fleet of fleet tenders, freighters, and light craft in exchange for a hefty opening payment and oddly low payments. The defense minister approved the deal and thus, Ni-Kishi Aerospace Corporation was born. Another surprise that appeared was the XFA-101s, whose prototypes were rebuilt with now-stolen equipment and licensed with the Wangdaio Shouwei Forces and Heise for full production once weapons could be designed and fitted.
Now backed by the Wangdiao Colonies, Price had a backstop in the case that the Alliance ever found out that the XFA-101s prototypes were still in existence. To further protect himself, once the first XFA-101s rolled off the factory floor with their reengineering Alliance equipment he had the prototypes destroyed and their parts destroyed as well. Still paranoid, Price assembled a corporate security division made up of mercenaries and other private military personnel trained by the Wangdiao Heise. Ni-Kishi became a strong corporate asset to the colonies over the next two years, even going as far as building shipyards to manufacture clones of their own freighters and starliners to rising Wangdiao transport groups, but this all halted once the colonies went black.
When the Wangdaio Colony Blackout separated the Kowloon and Kotoku systems from the primary colonies, the Shouwei 1st Fleet ordered Ni-Kishi Aerospace's Factory to be held at all costs, and further asked for Price's defense group help defend Piyapon against a coup. Given weapons and authority, Ni-Kishi Aerospace Security along with loyalist Shouwei quickly gained air and space superiority over the two systems as well as public praise for coming to the defense of the colonies. This didn't come without its troubles, the factory was sabotaged numerous times by rebel Heise strike groups as well as garnering a rumor of malevolent corporate practices. Taken by sickness in late 3009, James Price gave up the company to his immediate second, Caroline Windsor.
Windsor led the company out of the Blackout and into the retaken Taianese worlds and then the Special Political District. When the Solarity of Kowloon began to rise from the Colonies' ashes, Windsor quickly secured a deal with the Solarity to continue to maintain its fleets and manufacture small craft. Now faced with an image of mercenaries flying their craft, the XFA-101 quickly became popular with the Solarity's mercenaries, knights, and the individual sub-kingdoms. Ni-Kishi quickly monopolized on this, turning their production into a highly automated system, expanding their factory to take the rise in orders.
The new 'James Price Memorial Factory' now stands tall outside of Soran Nast, producing both small XFA-101s and other small craft to the large, bulk freighters at a large rate. Ni-Kishi Aerospace Security became more professional, gaining a more standardized recruiting process and doctrine, but still seems to have an odd air about them. The previous military-only XFA-101s are now an entire product line of publicly available starfighter, seen next to the lighter-armed pleasure craft at dealerships across the Solarity. Ni-Kishi has expanded since its reformation, now managing two other factories on Piyapon and a top-secret blacksite on Arizona, known only to Windsor and her top section chairmen and developers.