Chapter 591 591 Test Flight
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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Max shook his head in disbelief at the message he had received, requesting clearance to take the Innu Envoy out on a test flight in their newest stealth shuttle.
The patents hadn't been finalized for that one yet, so they were supposed to be keeping it under wraps and out of the notice of potential corporate spies. Not that the envoy was a suspect, but not everyone on the Alliance ship would be as trustworthy.
Max spent a second focusing on their thoughts to see what they were up to and found them already inside the shuttle and ready to depart, so he gave the clearance along with a reminder that they needed to come to his office for a long talk about project security once they returned.
As soon as he gave them all clear to depart, Nico sent him the patent paperwork, verified and authorized by the envoy herself, using her authority as a government official.
There was also a note that the current stealth technology didn't appear to violate any hidden patents but that the legal teams were going to be closely examining it now that the human version's patent was approved.
Max determined that they were going to have to find something to stab soon. Nico was clearly getting bored and looking for entertainment. And a bored Nico was a headache no man could truly handle.
"I suggest you all let me do the talking when we get back. We've got clearance, but the Commander is not happy with us for showing off the new technology early." Nico reminded the crew before maneuvering to the barrier at the bay door and gliding out with minimal power output.
The hangar was on the far side of Terminus from the Alliance vessel, so she brought up the cloaking field right away and tried to sneak out of the system without being noticed.
They would have to check sensor logs when they returned to see if it was a failure or if it worked, but the field was active, and the engine's power output was a fraction of what a standard shuttle emitted.
"Tell me, what made you want to put all of this technology into such a small vessel? Is it for the evacuation of dignitaries?" The envoy asked while Nico prepared to activate the warp drive.
"Mostly, it was efficient prototype sizing. This is the minimum viable size for the design, according to our calculations. If it didn't work as intended, we wouldn't have wasted as many resources as if we had built the initial prototype at cutter or Cruiser size.
We can always upscale if there is enough demand for this niche design. So far, it has performed flawlessly for us, and our transit speed power consumption is less than five percent of that of the previous generation of shuttles in use aboard Terminus.
If we're all ready, I will engage the warp drive, and we can begin the data collection."
Those were the magical words, and every Innu was immediately in research mode.
The hull of the ship gave off a musical humming as the warp drive came to life, and the Innu all cheered.
The envoy filled Nico in on the reason for their merriment while the others celebrated. " It's a good sign. If the ship is perfectly in tune with the drive, it will sing to you. The Fae ships sing the most beautiful songs, but their bodies are very sensitive, and they can't handle the energy fluctuations of any other species' ships. They don't even use warp drives on their own vessels for safety reasons.
Maybe humans will be the first to make one that they can actually travel on without using portals to go everywhere."
"That is a stable warp fifteen. We are officially aboard the fastest human vessel in existence." The lead technician informed them while Nico tweaked the warp field to change the song it played.
"Energy consumption is down another four percent. We are at eighty percent of Alliance standards. Drive output holding steady at thirty percent of total capacity."
The three guests stared at the technicians in shock. Twenty percent more efficient than standard was a huge benefit, but warp fifteen at thirty percent output was pure overkill on the engineering front.
Only a human would integrate a shuttle with a warp drive so far beyond requirements, and the envoy was rather curious as to what they planned to use the extra capacity for.
Her curious look was enough to tell everyone what was on her mind, even if you ignored the way that she bounced on the balls of her feet when she was excited, so Nico chose to elaborate before the Envoy got herself too worked up.
"We use shuttles for almost everything that doesn't need a Mecha. The excess warp capacity can be used to move asteroids, maneuver disabled vessels, or even form a defensive shield. When they link shields, human shuttles make a very durable barricade."
That made sense, but the envoy was well aware of the species' violent tendencies.
"And what level of offensive capacity does it have? I know there is a weapon mounted somewhere in this ship."
Nico activated the disruptor so that the Innu could examine its design. It was a simple setup, a single adjustable beam with half the output of an orbital lance.
"Why don't we find something to test this on? We're currently travelling through the Klem expansion zone. There should be a stream of pods around here somewhere." A technician suggested.
"Excellent idea. We can test the ship systems and keep planets in the region safe at the same time." Nico agreed.
"I've found one. Headed for an uninhabited planet with no life signs. Even if it landed, this wave would be wasted. They will never miss it."
Nico altered course to make a strafing run past the pods, with the disruptor set to maximum dispersion. It should eliminate the whole wave at once unless some of the larger pods survived the first attack.
Nico turned to the envoy with a smile. "Don't worry. They're a non-sentient invasive pest species that kill entire planets after they land on them. Keeping their numbers under control is a public service in this galaxy.
Once we clean them up, we will investigate their target and see what might have drawn them there, unless it was a random attack based only on the presence of a planet in the habitable zone around that star."
Chapter 592 592 Skeet Shooting
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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The head of the development team turned to Nico with a huge smile on her face. "Stealth technology operating at one hundred percent. Weapons are online. We are good to go, leader."
Nico set the course and began the strafing run past the pods. Approaching from the rear would make it easier to match their speed after they dropped out of warp, and a distance of fifty kilometres should be enough to get the maximum dispersion pattern of the Disruptor to hit them all.
The drives hummed a happy tune through the hull as they were auto-adjusted to slower-than-light speed travel, accompanied by a low whistle of the capacitors charging for the Disruptor.
"I like it. No matter what we're doing, it sings to us. I am not sure how that will go over with the rest of the Reavers. Some humans are quite sensitive to certain frequencies, and the humming might give them headaches. I might need to introduce some sound dampening to silence the interior of the ship." Nico muttered, half to herself, as the shuttle moved into position.
"Noise cancelling at this level shouldn't be an issue. it's only fifteen decibels, barely more than a whisper to most species, so even the low-tech noise cancelling from cheap headphones would do the job." The Envoy chuckled.
"Good point. I have my audio sensitivity cranked right now, so I can hear if there are any issues with the ship, so it seemed much louder to me." Nico agreed.
"Ready to fire in ten seconds." The lead researcher informed the crew, bringing everyone's attention back to their course.
As the Disruptor began its attack, warning lights began to flash all over the monitoring devices of the developers.
"It looks like the Stealth Technology can't handle the Disruptor fire. The interference is too much, and it has been deactivated while we are firing." Nico explained to the others with a sigh.
"That's not unexpected. Even our stealth technology can't be active during a high-energy burst. What sort of modulation did you try to get around the issue?" The envoy asked.
"Our plan was to exclude the nose of the ship from the cloaking field so that the Disruptor could fire past it, leaving only a small portion of the ship visible, but the residual radiation in the area of the projector was too much, and it collapsed the field entirely.
If we move the barrier further back, we might get away with keeping the cloaking field up, but the Disruptor energy disperses all over the hull, so it might not be possible at all with this particular weapon."
The envoy nodded, then tapped some more data into her tablet before taking the time to watch the disruptor eliminate the Klem pods on the screen.
"Though we aren't hidden during the attack, I must say, it is surprisingly effective. With such wide dispersion, I had expected that the lethality of the weapon would drop exponentially, but it seems that it is still quite effective, even at this distance."
"We have had a lot of practice fine-tuning the projectors to make the Disruptors behave exactly as we want them to. They were originally only lethal to roughly one hundred meters and had a very limited application, but now that we have gotten through a few generations of improvements, they are one of the most versatile weapons in our arsenal.
Not necessarily the most lethal, but being able to use them in almost any situation, with very few known targets who can resist them, has made them the go-to weapon for new ships." Nico agreed.
While they finished off the Klem pods, Max was back in his office, with the ship's sensors at maximum sensitivity, searching for the Shuttle so that he could provide data on the effectiveness of the Cloaking Field.
When it was very close to the ship, Max had no problems finding it with the sensors. It showed as a spatial anomaly, and from there, he could extrapolate what it was. Once it got to ten thousand kilometres away, he couldn't find any trace of it anymore until it went to warp. The activation of the field was enough to give it away again for over half a second, and he could even calculate their likely trajectory from the data.
They would have to work on that, as it was a rather obvious vulnerability.
Then it appeared again, a few star systems away, and destroyed a wave of Klem Pods for a weapons test before disappearing. At that distance, the sensor aboard Terminus didn't detect it going to warp, but logically they should be returning to the ship.
He had to say, it was a rather impressive showing, at least to their technology. The next person to ask was Huntress Khan, whose ship should be able to detect much more than Terminus could since they had optimized it for hunting, and that would include tracking targets that tried to hide and flee.
[Huntress Khan, what did you think of our first trial of human cloaking technology?] He sent to her ship without any explanation.
[It's not bad. I don't think that the Alliance ship even saw them leave until they went to warp. But there is a flaw in thermal imaging. When it is in front of another object, from the point of view of our sensors, it shows as void cold, which makes a visible blip in the heat signature. It's minuscule, and I wouldn't call it a full-out failure since it's better than most cloaking fields that we have come across, but it still needs some improvements.
I will send your research team the data from our sensor logs, and then they can modify the field the best that they can.
If my calculations are right, they should be back here in twenty seconds.
Ah, yes, there they are. They just entered the system. Look for the cold spot in front of the outlying asteroid belt.]
Max searched but didn't find anything at all. In fact, he didn't pick them up until the same spot as he lost them the first time, ten thousand kilometres from the hull of Terminus.
[Thanks, Huntress. It seems our sensors are a bit lacking, but I will have them get right on the improvements.]
[I look forward to it. Hide and Seek is only fun if everyone knows how to hide.]
Chapter 593 593 Minor Oversight
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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As the envoy had neglected to inform her coworkers that she was taking a trip on the experimental shuttle, her return and request for docking clearance caused more than a little chaos among the alliance negotiation team.
There were rules and protocols, safety measures, and security checks to be done before an envoy boarded any vessel, much less an experimental one that had almost completely escaped their sensors.
It had done such a good job that their first thought was that it was one of the Hunter's vessels. The unique warp signature informed them otherwise, but they didn't know until it returned that an envoy was on board.
Max had the dubious honour of hearing about the protocols in great detail from the Alliance security team, who were less than impressed with everyone involved.
"I think this is a cultural miscommunication. Among the Reavers, an envoy is usually a company Commander or their second in command, and they have the authority to decide almost everything on their own.
If they want to take a research trip or spend time bonding with their allies, there is no reason they would need to ask permission." He tried to explain to the Giants crowding his office.
"You would let your leaders depart without oversight?" One of the lawyers asked.
"My second in command is on that shuttle with the envoy. Not only would I let it happen, I already did."
That seemed to calm them down, and only the Illithid knew just how annoyed Max was with this new headache.
"We will leave you with a copy of the resolutions on interspecies envoy interactions to read at your leisure. I would recommend using a learning device, though, as they are upward of thirty thousand pages." The lawyer finally agreed, withdrawing his complaints.
The Valkia envoy looked at Max for a moment, then at the Illithid, who was trying not to laugh. "I would like to note for the record that the chances of humans actually learning the regulations and complying with them are roughly zero.
I suggest that a notation is made in the species logs informing future envoys to self-govern if they are not going to abide by human customs during their interactions with the Reavers."
Now the Illithid was clearly laughing and poking Max in the side.
"If they had just started with that, we could have saved a whole fifteen-minute lecture on rules and regulations."
The Valkia gave him a curious look, then asked the question that all of the Alliance members were wondering.
"Has interacting with the humans perhaps altered your ethical indoctrination?"
The Illithid shook his head. "No, it's all still there, but while I am in the employ of the Terminus Trading Company, it is only right that I abide by their rules and culture. I must say, it is really quite refreshing, and my kinsmen felt the same as when they came to visit."
"So, an Illithid has modified their behaviour to fit in with a human crew? That itself is a remarkable feat of political maneuvering. I have never known an Illithid to be concerned about what others thought of them before." The Vakia Envoy reminded him.
"It's not that I am concerned that they might be offended or otherwise disconcerted by my standard behaviour. They were quite accepting of the entire group that I arrived with. It is just that the human behaviour model is quite compatible with Illithid logic. They are spurious but not insensible. They take action the moment that they determine the most desirable course of action, the same as the Illithid, but without our immense amounts of data to base their actions on.
It is an interesting model, and the fashion isn't bad either."
That was enough to make the Giants smile. The Illithid loved fashion for their environmental suits, though they didn't wear clothing on their natural bodies.
"Fine, I will accept that for now, but be aware that I will be questioning our ship's Illithid Advisor about this matter so that I can get greater detail on the interactions between Illithid and Human cultures in the name of preventing cultural incidents." The Giant agreed.
"Feel free to bring them here as well. There is a sanitary hot spring reserved exclusively for Illithid on the top floor of the cruise ship, so we can exit our suits in public and relax in the waters. They're nearly a perfect replica of the pressurized volcanic hot springs on our homeworld." The Illithid suggested.
[He can hear you right now, can't he?] Max asked his advisor as he went on about the hot springs.
[Of course. We can communicate with each other from across the planet. Hearing each other from one ship to another in orbit is no big deal.]
[Then I will make arrangements in preparation for another guest. That line about pressurized volcanic hot springs made even me want to go on vacation.]
There was a rising buzz in the back of Max's mind, the telltale sign of excited Innu, whose thoughts always reminded him of toddlers after downing an energy drink. Even when they looked calm on the outside, their thoughts were moving in a dozen different directions at once, and when they were excited, it was even worse.
"I think we should wait around for our dear Innu ambassador. They have exited the shuttle already, and they are on their way here to my office. I can't tell what they want, Innu's thoughts are a jumble to me, but they are clearly excited to talk to me about something." Max informed the rest of the negotiation team.
"She just finished a flight in an experimental stealth shuttle. What else could she have to discuss that would be so urgent that she would come straight to the Commander of the ship?" The Valkia pondered out loud.
"Knowing her? It could be almost anything, but if the flight went well, there is a good chance that she will want something completely random that she happened to see while she was with the research team." The Giant replied with a sigh.
Chapter 594 594 Excitable Envoy
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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"Good morning Commander. Or is it evening now? That flight was amazing. You wouldn't believe how well-tuned they have made the new ship. They even managed to make the hull sing for us as we went to warp fifteen.
And then the disruptor to eliminate that Klem Pod wave, that was incredible. But that's not what I came here to talk to you about. Do you suppose that I could maybe, pretty please, keep this suit?
I have more than a few EVA suits, but this one is the best I've ever worn. The augmentics are extremely smooth, not like the cheap government ones made by the lowest bidder, and the helmet, oh my, the helmet. It is simply divine.
How we never thought of doing something like this ourselves astounds me. Or maybe we did, and it just wasn't a major company, so it never caught on, but the individual tentacle wrapping is like a temperature controlled hug for the head.
Oh, everyone is here. Hi guys, you'll never guess what we were up to." The envoy rambled at high speed as she came into the room, followed by a group of laughing Technicians and Nico.
The look that the Valkia gave Max seemed to say, "Look what we have to put up with," even more clearly than his thoughts did, but Max decided to break down her commentary into manageable chunks so he could analyze the information he was given.
"What's this about the hull singing? Is it some sort of structural overload?" He asked.
"On the contrary, it only occurs when there is very little stress on the hull. The energy of the warp field resonates with the hull and creates a low musical melody when the two are perfectly in tune with each other. It means that you have reached near-perfect efficiency.
But about the suit?"
"There was a Klem Pod wave? Where was it headed?" Max continued.
"Some lifeless M Class planet. I'll pull it up on the screen so you can see which one I mean. The Sub Commander said that it was a mistaken wave since there was nothing there for them to eat. But we wiped them out anyhow so that we could test the defensive weapons on the new shuttle. It went very smoothly. One shot on maximum dispersion was enough. There weren't any power fluctuations either, despite the extended use of the Disruptor.
Now, about the suit? Do you think that I could keep it?"
Max relented with a smile now that he had gotten his answers. "I don't see why not. Call it a gift of goodwill. You can keep the accessories that go with it as well since I'm assuming that there is an emergency kit in the flat space, as is the standard deployment."
"Oh, yes, I saw that there was stuff in there when I put my clothes away. What is it? Is it as good as the suit?" She asked.
"It's just some rations, a water maker, a fire starter and other survival gear that would be essential to a user trapped in a disabled ship or uninhabited planet after a crash landing," Max explained.
"Oh, you really did think of everything. Nice fire starter too." She replied with a giggle.
The so-called fire starter was actually a Plasma Pistol, but it could be set to a spark setting for igniting campfires and stove elements.
"I think you might actually be better at dealing with her when she goes full tech nerd than we are. Normally she just bowls us over with enthusiasm." The Giant Envoy informed Max with a dry, unamused tone.
"Dealing with excited Innu is nothing. You should see what it's like trying to deal with human soldiers when they get excited. At least an excited Innu isn't looking to kill anything." Max informed him, making the Envoy blink slowly as he tried to process the information.
"I think we will have to refer to the Hunters to fully understand that answer. Thank you for your input."
It was clearly a prepared response, indicating that he had no idea what to say, but felt the need to say something in response, and the Valkia shook his head.
"I have never seen my crew like this. For one, a speechless Giant is a rarity. They come prepared for almost anything, but apparently not for casual references to bloodthirsty soldiers, and a certain someone, who is in a lot of trouble right now, is acting a few hundred years younger than her real age."
The Innu envoy looked up at him as she adjusted the helmet that she had just put back on, shaking her tentacles so that they would individually wrap inside the covering.
"You just forgot what it was like to be excited. Do you remember when we showed up to that tax dispute and found that the reason for non-payment was civil unrest? I swear I've never seen you so happy to get to plan a riot control action before." She reminded her winged counterpart.
"That was different. I spent most of my life in law enforcement. You were never a ship engineer, and you haven't been on a spacewalk in years, but you're all giddy about a new helmet."
"No need to fight. We all get excited about something. Accepting each other with all their idiosyncracies is part of what makes a friendship work." The Illithid reminded them.
"Our apologies. I might have gotten too excited after finding out that I could still use my abilities properly with the helmet on. The suit is not just for spacewalks. It is fully armoured, with a functional forcefield that exceeds the minimum standards for envoy safety, so I can wear it to potentially hostile meetings as well. They even put my name on it and the markings of an Envoy. It's very classy."
The professional voice was back in full force, but the phrasing still let slip just how excited she was to get a new outfit.
[Nico, prepare more of those suits for the other Envoys before they go. We can do something so that the Valkia can still use his wings, right?] Max silently questioned her.
Nico replied with a thumbs up and then sent one of the technicians running out of the room, presumably to fill the order.
[You're still in trouble.] He added with a smirk.
Chapter 595 595 Technically An Uproar
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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As Max lay in bed the next morning with Nico's sleeping head on his chest, he carefully analyzed his mistakes, shortcomings, and every possible deficiency in his training, then determined that it was simply, mathematically impossible for her to be that good at diverting conversations and getting herself out of trouble.
She would be taking over all of the Terraforming paperwork for the next two weeks, and the excess paperwork that her little joy ride with the Envoy had generated was also tasked to her, but Max knew full well that she could complete both as a background process in her augmented mind without actually putting any conscious focus on it.
He had briefly mentioned the fact to the Valkia envoy last night when he informed them that Nico would be taking over the paperwork duties for the next few weeks, and the Alliance Legal team had seemed utterly horrified that the humans would let sensitive legal matters by handled by Artificial Intelligence as a background process, with only rudimentary oversight by an actual living person, if that's how Nico was still classified.
There was some dispute among their ranks about that. Cyborgs in the Alliance were usually partial conversions, and Nico's self-modification had already changed the genetic and organic composition of her final organic components, namely her brain and some nerves from the spinal cord, so much that the Alliance didn't officially classify her as human at all, so the thought that she might have self-evolved into a biomechanical android was one that had occurred to the legal team, and the fact that someone mentioned that brought with it a host of difficulties, as Alliance Law didn't consider Androids to be individual persons, but the property of their creators.
But if she was the property of her creator, and she turned herself from a human Cyborg into a recognized Android without outside assistance, would she be the property of herself? Would they have to recognize the System, as the Artificial Intelligence that drove the nanobots was known, as a legal life form since it assisted in her endeavour and could be considered a co-creator?
It was unprecedented in their legal history, and it had all come to a head because of an idle comment by a legal assistant when Max punished Nico by making her do the paperwork.
The Hunters thought it was absolutely hilarious. They didn't recognize post-conception genetic alterations as changes to one's species. They simply gave it an addendum, such as born human, now biomechanical.
That way, if there were a question about the difficulty or validity of a hunt, they would have a full and complete picture of what had happened since not all changes would necessarily increase or decrease difficulty ratings, and some could be deliberately misleading if you didn't know what the Hunter in question had started life as.
Making a full-grown Huntress look like a small Innu child was within their capabilities with organic engineering, but that didn't make her future hunts as difficult as they would be for an actual Innu child since she would retain Huntress's instincts and training.
The various trains of thought on the matter were already giving Max a migraine, and he was still in bed. There was an easy cure for that, though. He focused intensely on Nico's dreams and tuned out the rest of the brainwaves around him, an Illithid trick usually used to help them fall asleep in crowded spaces.
This morning she was dreaming of a battle from her past life on a planet nicknamed Venom, after its intensely toxic atmosphere, filled with naturally occurring organic toxins that closely resembled the venom of a viper.
One after another, she took joy in using the blade of her Mecha to slice open the faceplates of her enemies, a species of giant six-armed centaurs, and letting the toxic air fill their lungs before they could react and bring up a secondary forcefield.
It was gruesome, but the simple joy in her mind and the little smile on her face as she dreamed were enough to relax his mind and help the headache recede.
He couldn't put the chaos off forever, though. The lawyers needed answers.
Eventually, he mustered the energy to draft up a summary, with an attached copy of the compiled Reaver's treaties and regulations on the rights of living beings, that clearly stated that while you could lose the right to represent your species due to poor character or criminality, you never lost your status as a person, so Nico would always be considered a Reaver by Reaver law, and a Human by birth.
Then he attached the documents he had gotten from the Hunters that said basically the same thing and forwarded them to the Giants so that they could pore over it with a hundred different sets of eyes until they made their own determination and sent something back that would decide if it was a violation of Alliance law to have Nico take care of the workload, and if she would be allowed to use the AI to process it for her in the background.
How they intended to stop her if the finding was that she had to consciously process the paperwork, Max had no idea, short of having an Illithid watch over her every second of the day, but he already knew from experience that it would be a futile cause.
It was impossible to tell her conscious thoughts from her subconscious thoughts when she was actively using her System Functions. They were both just streams of thought in her head to the Illithid and to Max, though he had gotten better at telling which was which by the context.
If it was interesting, it was likely conscious, and if it randomly changed directions, it was definitely conscious. If it involved him naked, it meant that she knew he was listening in.
Max checked in on the Envoys aboard Terminus and found them in no better shape. They, too, had been harassed all day for an answer that there was no possible precedent for, and the lawyers were driving them quickly insane. Enough so that the Giant Envoy had ordered an entire gallon of Mimosa and a quiche for breakfast.
It was a good experience for them, Max thought. They wanted to come to see the humans and discover new things, well here it was, the chance to discover something totally new and write an entire section of the Alliance Legal Framework for Biomechanical Living Organisms, as the Legal Team had officially decided to declare Nico, after reviewing the Human and Hunter laws relevant to the matter.
Chapter 596 596 Shrine World
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While the status of a living biomechanical organism was causing an increasingly widespread clamour among legal experts across the Alliance, something much more mundane and unexpected had caused a much bigger sensation on the planet below them.
The first city had just been completed, marking the total terraforming of the continent it was on and the completion of the atmospheric restructuring of the planet itself.
Some of the other continents still had a long way to go in terms of mineral deposits, plant life and biodiversity, but the areas where the Terraforming devices had identified modified objects consistent with ruins had all been marked and isolated from terraforming efforts, other than to remove obvious toxins from the soil and air.
What caught the entire Alliance's attention was a small thing that the Humans present, including General Tennant, who had just arrived on the planet to christen the new city, now officially the City of Santa Maria.
Once the final spires of the city were complete, and humans were transported from the Abraham Kepler, which was now in a docking bay near ground level inside the city of spires, an odd atmospheric phenomenon was created. Max recognized it from his past life. The movement of the citizens in the city would cause the spires to move ever so slightly, and resonance would form in the reflections of the crystals that made up the structures, creating images in the open air above the central park during certain times of the day.
He had seen what appeared to be flocks of birds and occasional other images, but he had never been there during the city's heyday when it was said that the images were truly magical, almost beyond what science could explain.
Science did explain it, though. The crystals of the city created a natural holographic emissions array, and the temperature imbalance between the outside and inside of the spires allowed them to give off enough energy to create the images using natural light when positioned exactly correctly by wind and the movement of the residents inside.
Today, what he saw was on that legendary scale, the image of a hundred-meter-long golden phoenix dipped and soared around the park for over a minute as the new Planetary Governor gave his speech welcoming the first residents to the planet.
It was all live streamed to the entire Alliance through no fewer than ten different social media channels in addition to the ship's own, each with its own measuring equipment, two of which had gone to the surface to record the speech up close, instead of dubbing that as an overlay of their orbital feed and saving the wear and tear of taking their vessels through the atmosphere.
Max was certain that General Tennant had given a rousing and touching speech to his shipload of settlers, but he hadn't been able to listen to it, as he was inundated by a flood of requests to stay aboard Terminus, and questions about the status of the planet as a Shrine World, blessed by energy beings from the ancient past, whose remnants might still linger there.
Trying to explain to everyone that it was an optical effect caused by the city itself required that he explain how he knew about the effects of the city and how he could have possibly calculated it since the original documentation of the theory had run to over a million gigabytes of mathematical calculations and the city had only been completed half a day ago.
The science-minded Alliance would not accept that he had seen that exact phenomenon in his past life, so Max had to propose it as a theory and try to lead them in the right direction so that they could prove it the same way that it had been proven before, but for now, superstition was winning the battle, and millions of wealthy Alliance citizens wanted the chance to vacation on a potentially blessed world.
The chances that it was really blessed and that the blessing would help them somehow might be one in a billion or lower, but if a billion came to see the Shrine World, who was to say that it wouldn't be your life that was suddenly changed for the better, right?
Plus, the city itself was an engineering masterpiece at the peak of human culture when he had first seen it, and here, among desolate stars and hostile aliens, it seemed even more majestic than he had thought possible when he had seen Nico's intention to make it a reality.
"Nico, get up and get dressed. Your dream city is making the entire Alliance believe in the supernatural." Max ordered, looking through the open door to where she was sprawled out in bed, clearly enjoying her additional sleep after he had been forced to work.
"That's why I rebuilt it. Don't you remember? We were there when the ghosts marched, and the world burned." She mumbled, still deep asleep.
Ghosts marched, and the world burned? Max dug deep through his memories until he finally found the incident that Nico was talking about. It was not the first battle for that planet or even the last. It had come exactly a year after the final battle for the planet on the summer solstice.
A ship carrying refugees off the world had a hidden structural flaw and exploded in flight, spreading nuclear fire through the upper atmosphere and clearing the clouds over the world for the first time in a year. The shattered remains of the city's crystals had lit up with images, looking like fleeing and panicking humans, which then faded as the last life left the world, and the city was forgotten among the rubble of war.
But Nico hadn't been there. He was certain of it. Her army had fled the world before the end of the final battle. Even Max had only come back that day because he had been en route to another location and had gotten a request to help transfer refugees.
Was this a sign that Nico's subconscious was remembering more of herself? She had completely forgotten who she was in that life, so things like saying that they had watched an event together simply didn't happen.
But if she did remember who she was in her past life and why she did the things she remembered doing, it might not be a good thing for the mental health of the current Nico.
It was too stressful of a day for deep philosophical thought about reincarnation.
"Nico, get your cute butt out of bed and help me out here. The social media feed and booking requests are overloading the communications systems." Max shouted, finally rousing her from her slumber.
Chapter 597 597 Popular Already
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
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"Alright, let's see what little thing is making you panic so much." Nico sighed, pulling a pair of uniform pants and a tank top on before padding barefoot out of the bedroom to see what was going on.
Max was sitting at the dining room table with a copy of the footage from the speech pulled up, and Nico took her seat across from him with a big smile on her face.
"Very pretty. Did we set this up, or is it a natural phenomenon from the city itself?" She asked.
"It appears to be a natural phenomenon. The entire thing was live streamed by multiple groups and analyzed by billions of viewers, and they all think this is a mystical Shrine World, formerly populated by powerful energy beings, who left behind some small remnants of themselves." Max explained.
"So, should I put out a press release thanking them for so graciously welcoming the human population to their planet and add it to the travel brochures advertising vacations in the city?" Nico asked.
pαпdα-ňᴏνê|·сóМ "You don't see the problem with causing an uprising of superstition among the militantly scientific Alliance planets?" Max reminded her.
"You're missing the natural genius here. It's brilliant marketing. Not only do we get the tourists who want to come to see the illusions, for whatever they believe them to be, we will also get to host the ones looking to disprove them as a scientific phenomenon, and they are all paying customers."
"So what you're saying is. . ." Max asked, encouraging her to finish that train of thought.
"I have no idea how it works, only that this is the perfect environmental situation where it will. But inviting a million alien nerds here will almost certainly give us enough data to not only replicate it but modify it to make even more beautiful cities in the future." Nico finished.
"You think you can do better than this?" He asked, gesturing to the crystal spires shimmering in the sunlight, which were making small images of flying creatures dance above the surface of the buildings at that moment.
"Almost certainly. I mean, I'm not sure how yet, because that city is pretty awesome if I do say so myself, but now that it's there to serve as a reference, why shouldn't I be able to improve on it?"
That was valid logic, so Max went to the replicator in the kitchen to get some breakfast while he thought about it.
During his walk back, a private message from his Illithid Advisor appeared on his wrist device, a rare occurrence since they preferred to communicate directly.
[Did you get it? I haven't sent an official message in a while] The Illithid asked.
[I did, but I haven't read it yet. What's up?]
[The Illithid Council has a theory about what the unknown substance that isn't made up of individual atoms and the City of Spirits have in common. They suspect that the crystal array might be psychoactive, meaning that it resonates on the same frequency as brain waves, and the city is projecting the collective mood of the residents.
If that is the case, then they believe that they also know how the strange material was formed, and it's an old Illithid superstition. Supposedly millions of years ago, there was a species that could create matter with their minds. They built great cities that couldn't be destroyed by the weapons of the time, and then one day, they just vanished as if they had never existed, not even leaving behind a clue about their existence, save for some ruins.
The preliminary findings are that the relics from those ruins kept in the Illithid and Hunter's species museums are the same material that was identified on this planet.
That makes two independent species who have verified that there is something off about the ruins here. They don't match the known timeline of this section of the universe, and the Illithid is one of the oldest species, which makes them very, very interested in being here.]
[So you used all those words to tell me that there will be Illithid among the guests?] Max asked.
[Royal Illithid among the guests, to be precise. They request clearance to open a portal in our area since their entire home solar system is off-limits to outside travellers. Oh, and more Hunters. There will be more Hunters.] The advisor informed him.
Max wasn't sure how to prepare for a Royal Illithid arrival, but it seemed like the Advisor had things well in hand. They didn't like big ceremonies, so he would only have to assemble a small group to meet them at the hangar when they arrived. Their ship would require the closest hangar to their sleeping area, which also wasn't a problem, as he had arranged that the last time an Illithid vessel was here.
As long as the ship fit in that smaller cargo bay, it could stay there as long as they liked.
"I got the rest of the bookings sorted out. We have rearranged the schedules for the staff of the Cutters to serve as a ferry service to bring people to and from the surface until replacement ships are made to remain here.
I have entered plans for a permanent portal location to be built and informed all the incoming guests that we are not completely open for visitors yet, but that they can get very limited early access for a premium rate.
That cut down the requests to about a third of the original, with the rest asking for a deferral until such time as all amenities were online.
I have placed an order for an orbital station to be built and delivered, charged to the planet's account, and prepaid by our Alliance visitors already.
What else was there? Oh yes, the Portal location rotation will need your approval, and there is a list of questionable guests identified either by myself or the computers who want to stay on Terminus. Most are just shock journalists known for their hit pieces, but I checked the regulation, and deciding what guests get denied simply for being who they are is firmly within the realm of your problem, not mine." Nico informed him with a huge smile on her face.
Chapter 598 598 City Amenities
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"Add a few things to that list. Quarantine the space around the planet, as there is still a terraforming effort going on—no visitors without authorization. Sort out which guests will be bringing their own ships, and send our smaller vessels to pick larger groups up from various space stations to save on parking space.
Then, get started on ships for the planet to use as shuttles from the new space station. I recommend using our luxury yacht line since this planet is a popular and exclusive sort of vacation spot.
Also, have you talked to General Tennant? He brought a group of colonists with him, not service staff, and I'm not sure they are in any way, shape or form ready to serve as a glorified resort community for aliens."
Max's frustrations were not going down easily this time. Putting everything they did on display for the Alliance was a great idea when they were doing boring stuff, but every time something even moderately interesting happened, he got flooded with guests, and this time it even engulfed an entire city mere hours after the settlers arrived on the planet.
There hadn't been time to set anything up yet, even if the city had been fully formed with everything that they needed, as the design schematics insisted that it had been.
The major issue would be the accommodations. It was meant to be a city where residents could walk or use the built-in transport amenities to get anywhere easily, so that wasn't a problem, but there were very few hotels compared to the number of people that wanted to visit.
"Let me guess. Traffic control? Fear not. I have already solved that problem. Seven seconds ago, I found a used orbital station for sale, and the tugs will be bringing it here within the hour." Nico said proudly.
"Close, but not quite. Where are all the people going to stay? I don't see a lot of hotels in the design schematics." Max corrected her, though he was actually impressed that she had found a used space station in such a limited time frame, even with the help of the Reavers data network.
"The entire city was made up of villas originally. Nearly identical three-bedroom units. They're all luxurious well beyond most standards, and they have the finest of built-in self-cleaning and self-repair functions, so I am currently linking every door lock on the planet to the Governor's Computer network.
Whoever General Tennant assigns to the task can check the guests in and directly link their biometrics to the locks on their villa. That also means that they can be automatically locked out when their stay is over, reducing problems with attempted squatters, and it looks like they're already on top of the public works department.
The General did an excellent job of planning how to run a city using his available people, and the only changes that needed to be made were that they would have to keep order among a lot of extra people, and their shops would be much busier than expected since they will have ten times the customers.
His data says that it will be suitable, though, as it still reaches the product density of most Alliance resorts. It would feel slim for long-term living for so many people, and I'm sure they will adapt their own spaces and shops for the human locals, but he insists that the settlers are enthusiastic about it.
pαпdα-ňᴏνê|·сóМ In his words, [We're all going to be bloody rich off those alien bastards coming to stare at shiny crystals.]" Nico explained.
He had a point. According to the information in front of Max, a villa was ten thousand credits a night and included everything you could make in the villa, including food and a limited selection of local clothing. Much like a private bed and breakfast, the villas were equipped with a robotic butler, a small hover drone with four arms who could fulfill most basic tasks, including getting humanoid species dressed and styling hair if they requested.
There were no guided tours of the city, nor were there many designated hot spots yet, as the city had just been built and nobody had a chance to explore what Nico had designed into it, but a few of the best locations were already highlighted by the staff General Tennant had appointed, and Nico had added a few more herself from the designs.
The five hundred floors of mineral springs were going to be a big hit, Max was certain. They were a feature of the original city, taking up most of a spire to themselves, and with the Innu being so fond of all things human, there was no way that a five-hundred-story waterpark would be overlooked.
Max was even more correct than he could have ever guessed. General Tennant had gotten over a million requests for early access to the towers closest to the mineral springs, despite the fact that it was only made public today. He had set aside two-thirds of the villas for guests, giving the locals room to grow without having to take over former guest houses and leaving a few emergency spaces open for very important guests.
Keeping the city in a slightly less than fully occupied state was a deliberate act. It kept the city feeling less crowded if one house on every other block was empty. There were no cars in the city. They weren't needed with the advanced walkways and the drone taxis, where you could simply step on and off of a floating silver disc and be carried to the destination you specified.
Directions for use were explained during the flight to the surface, and copied inside every villa, so everyone should be able to understand how to call and use them. They were multi-species friendly, and as a flat disc, they were even wheelchair accessible for those species who couldn't use rapid healing methods or temporarily weakened persons.
In reality, of course, it would be mostly loved by drunks on their way home since they could tell it to take them home, then sit down and wait to arrive. Even if they fell asleep, it would remain outside their residence and lift them up out of the way of other traffic until they woke up and asked to be let down or stepped from it onto their second-floor balcony.
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Chapter 599 599 So Many Ships
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Max watched through the external cameras as the Space Station that Nico had ordered for the planet arrived through the most massive interstellar portal he had ever seen. The cost for the transfer had been incredible, as it took twelve ships of the newest generation hull design, all Cruiser Class, to generate enough power to move that massive structure through.
It was a decommissioned cargo transfer terminal from an agriculture-focused star system with six habitable planets and could accommodate two hundred bulk freighters around the outside of its torus-shaped outer ring, with another hundred on the inside of the torus, and it had a large bulk storage sphere in the center, which had since been repurposed to a trade market and staff quarters.
It was nearly perfect for their needs, even if it was an ancient and somewhat low-quality design, to begin with.
They weren't going to get a new spaceport anytime soon. There were too many orders for even Nico's influence on her mother to get them to the head of that particular queue. But what they could do was send over a spare Terraforming pod and give it a fresh coat of paint, fix the cracks, refurbish the atmospheric systems, and give the interior a quick renovation to synthetic luxury, making it look much more like a first-class planet's spaceport than an old grain bin in space.
Every square meter would be needed in the near future to lock Alliance yachts to while their guests were on Vacation on the planet, a concierge service offered by gravity beam and magnetic locks that were being added all over the station's hull.
Once they had disembarked, they could select to have their pilot leave or to check into a spot for their stay if the ship was unattended, but it would not be free. The city held millions of people, and there was only so much space on even this large of a space port's hull.
A Moon Base would have been best and might still be if they decide to renovate this planet's moon in the future, but that was General Tennant's problem, not Max's. He had only signed on to get things up and running and to make sure that the Hunters had their chances to search and examine every bit of the surface so that they could look for the truth behind the relics.
At first, Max had feared that they would be annoyed that so many more people were now coming to look for the same thing, but the Hunters didn't mind at all. They viewed the other scientists as somewhere between useful idiots and extra hands for their search and knew that the Alliance wouldn't hold back the data they found. There was no reason for them to do it since they had no idea what the Hunters were trying to find from the research.
The belief that the relics might belong to an ancient Galaxy destroying dominant species from the far side of the universe was a joke to the Alliance but not to the Hunters, who took their ancient records very seriously.
The station had come with a crew and, surprisingly, a rather large supply of goods. When they had purchased it, the station had been mothballed for over a millennium, but it still had thousands of tonnes of forgotten crops frozen in its inactive holds. So, the newly hired crew got to work with an industrial replicator and started making tourist trap collectibles and other random items that alien visitors might like.
pαпdα Йᴏνê|,сòМ Once it was remade into a luxury spaceport, all they had to do was change the prices. No longer were they a sketchy stopover on the way to vacation. Now they were a respectable stopover, with sketchy businesses and inflated prices suitable to its grandeur, as you would expect of any spaceport.
The only thing they didn't mark up was the food and drink. As the replicators had spread, and food shortages mostly became a thing of the past, the machines had developed a unique reputation among humans for being art school food. Exquisite to look at, flawless in execution, but lifeless, without any local flavour, because the recipes were the exact same everywhere you went.
For picky eaters, that was perfect. They would always get what they wanted. But for foodies who didn't have the technical skills to program the machines, which made up 99 percent of users, a new pattern had formed. They would use the machine to generate all the ingredients separately, then cook the meal themselves to give it a personalized flavour.
So, on the station, all of the food and drinks were reasonably priced, with only one high-end steakhouse that cooked in front of the guests being priced well above the average.
The real money was made on the trinkets, keepsakes and miscellaneous items.
They took most of the day to get prepared after the station was hastily renovated, getting the lay of the station again and moving everything they needed into position to ferry guests between their docking bays and the Cutter that would be doing transit service every hour.
There was a new pair of ships on order, much smaller seventy meter luxury yachts instead of the cavernous expanse of the Cutter's hold, but with so much going on aboard Terminus and the ship taking in its own massive influx of guests, there simply hadn't been the resources or manpower to get them built yet.
Finally, just after midnight, the first ships with guests bound for the planet were allowed to portal in and start staging for their trip to the surface. Too much atmospheric turbulence caused by multiple ships landing would mess up the effects of the illusion, so none of them could land. The shuttle was the only permitted transport, but from what Max could tell, not a single guest minded at all.
They were so happy to be the first to see a new attraction that they hadn't even complained when General Tennant had put all guests on a thirty-day visitors visa, not allowing any extended stays without certification from a prestigious Academy or the Central Government that they were there for business purposes to research the planet's phenomenon and relics.
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Chapter 600 600 No Other Like It
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Three hundred ships, all docking with the station at the same time as the first wave came in to drop off their guests, was quite the spectacle.
The Alliance planets had been informed that there was very limited space here, so most of the guests had come on chartered vessels instead of paying an exorbitant storage fee, but that only made the size of the ships at the station larger, and the crowds inside more impressive as they all disembarked with their luggage and prepared to do some shopping before they boarded the cutter to the surface.
For many, this would be their first taste of a true culture shock. The staff were Reavers who hadn't been taken in by any particular company, so they had tried their hand as settlers, taking their first job in this settlement aboard the Space Station with the promise of being able to move to the surface after they had repaid the fees to get them there.
For the ones who were on the surface, they simply owed General Tennant, their new Planetary Governor and Commander of the vessel that they arrived on, for the price of their passage. Unlike most new colonies, this one had been done as an advertisement, so there was no huge terraforming debt incurred, a real weight off of the first generation, though the amount of money they were bringing in as a tourist stop would have easily made up for it.
The General knew just how to draw in the guests too. Almost too well. He had waived the Portal Fees and Docking Fees for any vacation company vessel bringing them more than one hundred guests for a ten-day or longer stay.
That was a quarter of most vacation expenses, so it was insanely cheap to stay here, even renting an entire villa for ten thousand credits, compared to other similar vacation destinations.
The central area of the station, closest to the surface shuttle, had the largest number of shops and was set up as an open-air bazaar, a design that was very familiar to some guests but confusing and chaotic to others. The signage was clear, though, so nobody could get truly lost in the maze of booths selling nearly anything that you could want.
Max was watching the security cameras, partially to make sure that General Tennant was going to be able to deal with this level of chaos during his first days on the job, but mostly for his own entertainment. Because who was he kidding? The General had safely wrangled multiple Mecha Regiments back to their ships while under hostile fire, fighting on the losing side of a rout. A station full of tourists in a shopping market was nothing to him.
"Dryads, Fae and other esteemed connoisseurs, I have for you the finest of marinaded live beetles. Get them here while they're nice and crunchy." A voice was calling out in the section of the market that Max was observing, drawing the attention of some Myceloid visitors, as well as what appeared to be a carnivorous plant species, much like the Shin, but with sharp fangs on large snapping flowers.
"Are they truly edible? Humans don't eat such things, right?" The Myceloid asked.
"We don't eat such things often. But some of our planets consider them a delicacy, including the one that I came from. The first one is on the house. Let me know if you like the flavour. The Alliance food scanner has already been by to give us our safety certificate." The vendor announced, pointing to the Grade A food service letter on the wall.
The Myceloid was the braver of the pair and popped the insect into its "Mouth" with a happy crunching noise. Being a fungus-based species, they could absorb it through any point of their body, but the fake mouth they had created was best and didn't leave them with messy hands for an extended period of time while they digested the unusual treat instead of their usual nutrient water diet.
"How can it be spicy? I don't have tastebuds?" The Myceloid mumbled as they mushed the beetle into an easily digested paste.
"They're good, right? What about you? Care to try?" The vendor asked the sentient plant.
It extended a flower his way, and he dropped the live beetle inside, where the closing flower trapped it, and the plant's branches began to shake.
That panicked the vendor for a moment, as he couldn't interpret it and thought he might have accidentally poisoned the customer, but the shaking branches were a show of joy among the Shin and others who used the same body language.
"He's happy. Check your communicator pad. The plant species usually connect through text." The Myceloid explained since that human was clearly unaware of how to deal with the species in general.
"Thanks. It's my first day, and there wasn't enough time to get through more than the half dozen most populous species in the book." He laughed, then filled the Myceloid's order for a box full of sticky, honey garlic beetles.
"Before you go, I need help again. I don't think it translated right." The shopkeeper called out as the Myceloid was leaving.
[Give Your Shop To ME] was what his display read, making the myceloid laugh.
"It's slang. It means he wants everything you've got. Give him a second, and there will be a number underneath showing how much product he's actually wanting to buy."
The plant shook its branches again and repeated the message.
pαпdα-ňᴏνê|·сóМ "I think I get it. Do you really like them and want the whole stock for the day? I've got four thousand credits worth of beetles prepared, and they will live for up to one more week. Is that fine?" The vendor asked.
Four thousand Alliance Credits were transferred to the stall, and one very happy tree left with two large crates full of sauce-soaked beetles.
"Who would have thought that the live beetles would be the first stall to sell out and have to go to the back warehouses to make himself more product? I totally thought it would be the nail clippers guy. Look at how they enrapture the bird species." Nico whispered from over Max's shoulder.
That wasn't a joyous look. They were horrified by the concept of a combined tool to brutally clip and a coarse rasp to file their beloved talons. It was like the humans had put a medieval torture device on display right in front of them, next to the actual grooming tools, like the laser shaper which they would normally use to groom their talons.
They were buying a lot of them, though, to take home as souveniers and threaten their children with.