Chapter 621 621 Alliance Gossip
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
Once the news started to spread among the trading vessels and the various companies that had pending orders from the Volga, the entire Alliance data network was flooded with speculation and gossip about humans.
They had only recently been recognized as an advanced species and were fast-tracked to a deal with the Alliance, but just yesterday, without any sort of warning, they had taken offence to something that the Volga had done and, in a single day, crushed the entire species.
It was unthinkable. Not even the Hunters were known to crush nations in a day. The Reavers knew full well that the Hunters were even more capable of doing it than they were, but they had learned long ago that it was more trouble than it was worth.
They didn't want to hold and govern other species' planets. They didn't even want to govern their own planets, but they hadn't found anyone worthy of doing it for them. They just wanted to go hunting.
And then, there was the video feed of the event. On some planets, thousands of landing craft were launched at once, dispersing hundreds of thousands of Mecha onto the surface, all with coordinated orders to take the cities and industrial areas first. On other planets, destructive ship-mounted weapons or a wave of bombings that turned an entire planet into rubble were chosen.
There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to what planets got what treatment, and the predominant speculation among the Alliance netizens was that it was not strategic but personal. They believed that certain members of the Volga leadership had so offended the humans that their entire homeworlds were wiped out while others were almost completely spared.
One world, best known for its music editing and beat production, had fallen without a single casualty. The humans had landed on the planet and simply demanded control, and for some reason, the Volga had given it to them. They gave the humans an entire planet without even trying to fight back.
If the attacks hadn't happened all at once, it would have been believable that they had heard of the events on other Volga worlds, but the timeline didn't work out, and it was causing speculation that the Music Moguls had been in on it from the start, and had been unwilling to go along with whatever had so angered the humans.
Max was watching the chaos from his office with Nico, who thought it was all hilarious, but he couldn't properly enjoy the situation because of one simple message.
[As interspecies Liaison to the Alliance, the Reaver Trade Group requests that the Terminus Trading Company begins immediate damage control to the reputation of the human species within Alliance Media.]
"What should we do to clear the situation up? You know the orders as well as I do, and you've got a better grasp on the social media situation, thanks to your daily streams with the Tech Nomads." Max demanded of his cyborg partner.
"I say we let them stew for a few more days, then put out a cryptic message about the benefits of civilized behaviour and leave it at that for another week. It will give everyone the impression that it's not good to mess with humanity, and in a way, that fulfils our directive." She suggested.
"Vetoed. No letting the reputation as warmongers set into the public consciousness."
Nico actually thought about it for a while this time, then shrugged her shoulders.
"I'm not sure that they would actually believe anything we say at this point. The victory over the Volga was simply too one-sided. We look like the universe's biggest bullies right now, and having the Alliance take over their entire nation on our behalf doesn't really do anything to help that impression, even if it was necessary after the Volga leadership Caste collapsed."
Max sighed and rubbed his temples to stave off an impending headache. That was the conclusion that he had come to as well, but there had to be something he could do. Maybe if he broadcasted the trials, it would help. The Alliance judged them as part of the determination of reparations to be made, so there was a layer of officiality to them.
"Make up an edited clip of the trials, showing the juiciest bits of the Corporate Espionage and unprovoked military action charges. Keep it under two minutes, and let me see it before we attach it to an official statement letting the Alliance civilians know what was going on.
If you do it tactfully, you can even use your idea for a slightly cryptic message about the benefits of civilized behaviour. Make it look like we taught them a long overdue lesson about not provoking other nations using military force." Max decided.
That was better than doing nothing and letting the data net make up whatever it wanted.
It only took Nico a few minutes to create a polished and professional press release, with clips of the Volga attacks on various human worlds, quotes from the Alliance observers at the trials, and a slick speech stating that the human species would not become victims of warmongers, no matter how distant their home worlds were.
It was much better than he had expected, so he had her put it up right away through the Terminus Trading Company page.
In the course of an hour, it got billions of views, and the whole direction of the conversation changed. No longer did the public view the humans as the aggressors but as a highly militant species that the Volga had made a terrible mistake in attacking.
The fact that they had lost control of their Empire was only natural, given this new evidence. They had attacked a species that they had no hope of winning against, and it was just a shame that they had fallen so fast that negotiations to limit the extent of the war were futile.
The Volga became the punchline to a huge number of bad jokes about biting off more than you could chew and became the unofficial spokesperson for being humiliated in a fight.
"They got beat like the Volga." Even made its way into an official sports broadcast after the Dishkal National team got beat 396 to 4 in a hoops tournament match.
Max actually felt bad for them. They used to be a somewhat respected trading partner, but now they were a bad joke, respected only for the quality of the products that they turned out and their efficiency. It had gotten so bad in many companies that they had to promote non-Volga staff members to deal with clients because the Volga were getting bullied and talked over by their customers.
Losing a war didn't make them any worse as businesspeople, and Max was certain that they would get their revenge sooner or later, but for now, the Volga were laying low and letting the worst of the bad publicity blow over before they started showing up in public again.
Chapter 622 622 Expansion Is Imminent
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
The news of the war between the Humans and the Volga didn't only attract the attention of the Alliance and the Hunters. It also brought the humans to the attention of many other species in more distant regions of the universe, who were more than a little intrigued by what sort of unconventional warfare the humans had thought of to overcome a civilized enemy in such a short timeframe.
They had the general details, and the humans had enough military forces that they could invade a hundred planets at a time, but the rest of the details were sketchy due to the varied tactics.
The one thing that every species was sure of was that they used a combat suit as the Hunters did, in varying sizes based on their target, and that made them a very scary opponent.
Attacking a planet normally meant sending a fleet to fight their fleet, and whoever won would take the planet. But invading the surface meant that your enemy had to choose between completely destroying their own planet to dig you out or fighting a land war.
By the standards of most species, it was barbaric, inefficient, and completely beyond rational thought. Attacking the surface meant that you might harm or kill the civilians instead of claiming them as a prize. Worse, you might destroy valuable factories and inventories of goods. But, like the Hunters, they didn't seem to care about that at all. They were more interested in teaching the enemy a lesson in prudence.
That was the primary reason nobody would attack the Hunters. Not because they didn't think that they might have a chance to win a fleet battle, the Hunter fleets were relatively small, and they could be overwhelmed individually by many small nations without issue.
But if you did that, the Hunters would show up on your planet, and once that happened, all bets were off.
An enemy was an enemy, and there were no non-combatants when the Hunters went to war, only game and prey, and the distinction meant very little to the species who had been designated as either one.
Curiosity did send a lot of those species looking through the Alliance records on the humans and reviewing the footage that was available of the battle against the Volga so that the other species could form a proper opinion of how they should interact with this new species in the future.
There was a surprising amount of data about the species and the Galaxy that they were in, given the recent date of contact. But everything that the aliens read was more and more disturbing. Killer insects, genocidal giants, killer robots, vampiric humanoids with mind control abilities. The entire Galaxy was a Class A Hazardous nightmare, and these humans still considered their home galaxy safe and interesting enough to be worthy of holding guided tours.
The Alliance Envoys were closely monitoring the situation as the last of the human forces retreated back home with a collection of new toys to modify and experiment on, as well as thousands of new Alliance Observers sent to ensure that the humans weren't emulating the Volga and just plagiarizing Alliance copyrights.
At first, the humans were deeply insulted by the implications. A Reaver does not steal. They might murder you and take what you left behind, but they do not steal. But once the Observers explained that it was more of an oversight board, like the Reavers' own Rights Council, they were much more agreeable to the notion.
The fact that most of the observers were volunteers from the Innu species who wanted to learn more about the obsolete and antiquated human technologies that didn't make it into the live streams from Terminus also helped things move smoothly.
Humans and Innu had a natural affinity for each other, especially the scientists. Once they got to talking about tech developments, everything turned theoretical, and they all but forgot that they were of different species.
Nico, for one, thought that it was hilarious. She had her own crew of Tech Nomads, and now nearly every Reaver Company had at least one such Innu with their crew. Sure, the Innu was working for the Alliance, but that only meant that she wouldn't help them violate Alliance laws. It didn't mean that she wouldn't help give them ideas on how to NOT violate Alliance law and turn the experiment that they were running into something completely new.
The rapid assimilation of Innu into human military vessels, as most alien species considered every single human ship, was a concerning development. The most tech-adept species was teaming up with one of the most violent and innovative upstarts in the last few millennia, and there was nothing that could really be done to stop them.
So, after finding out that Terminus Trading Company was the designated Envoys of the species to the Alliance, the independent species beyond the Alliance borders started making plans to get someone to that ship and start learning more.
Those that found out that there was an actual Alliance Accredited multi-species Academy on the ship were overjoyed. Sending children to Alliance schools was an important step in building relationships between the political leadership of the next generations. Being able to do it on a third-party location, without the intense oversight of Alliance officials, meant that they could send students whose families wished to avoid such intense scrutiny of their dealings and businesses.
What it meant for Max was a huge increase in demand for space aboard Terminus. Space that they were quickly running out of, despite having doubled the size of the Cruise Ship area in recent months and gaining so many more ships for their fleet. It was a strange feeling, being out of room aboard Terminus, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers and guests under his authority, but that was the state that they were in.
He needed a plan. One that would expand the space aboard Terminus to accommodate all of the demands that were placed upon the official envoys of the Human Species to the Alliance, and one that wouldn't leave him locked in his office doing paperwork all day.
In short, he was working on a plan to make himself a figurehead while he designated bureaucrats underneath himself to do all of the actual work. If he did it right, he might even get to spend more time in his Mecha for a change.
Chapter 623 623 Brainstorming
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
Once he knew what he wanted to do, Max sent a message to Nico and the Ship Commanders, as well as Major Miller, instructing them to meet him in his office for a brainstorming session on the future direction of the Terminus Trading Company.
Other than Major Miller, who handled most of their logistics, as well as the First Battalion, they were all in charge of ships, and by Reaver standards, that gave them a say in all major decisions. It wasn't enough to override an order by the Commander, but if you wanted to keep your Company organized and cohesive, it was best to listen to what your Sub Commanders had to say.
It wouldn't take long to gather, with all the ships in the same Star System, recovering supplies and repairing Mecha after the battle, so Max hurried to put together some suggestions in case his subordinates drew a blank on what they really wanted from the future.
Max knew that most of them would be happy floating around and trading a few goods here and there to keep their pockets lined, but he had to think on a bit grander scale than that.
He had just jotted down a few notes when the buzzer to his door rang for the first time, and Commander Klinger walked in, accompanied by a small brunette woman, who Max assumed was either his assistant or second in Command. He didn't recognize her, so she must have come to them with the new ship, and it would be the perfect opportunity for her to meet the leadership of the Terminus Trading Company.
"Commander, meet Kira. Battalion Commander of my Mecha forces and my interim Second in Command. I have decided to hold a competition for it in one week to give the other officers who wanted the position a chance to prove themselves and establish a proper hierarchy among the crew." Klinger explained.
"Not a bad idea. Good to meet you, Kira, and I wish you the best of luck in the competition." Max greeted her.
"Thank you, Commander, but I won't need it. There isn't any category that they can defeat me in." She quipped back with a smile.
"I like her already. But it looks like most of the others are here, so let me send Nico a message to see where she has gotten to." Max informed the room.
There were a few snorts of amusement at the fact that Nico was missing again, though everyone knew where she would be: somewhere in the development labs, ignoring her messages.
She arrived only a few minutes later, accompanied by a teenage Innu girl that none of the officers recognized.
"Get yourself an assistant? Or just got sick of being the short one and gene-modified one of the Tech Nomads to be smaller?" Klinger asked.
"This is Nicole, chosen because I could remember her name. She is the youngest sister of one of our researchers and was available to carry data slates for me today." Nico explained as if that made any sense at all.
The little girl looked to be in awe of the proceedings, so Max searched through her thoughts, only to find that she had met Nico half a dozen times already, and she really was the only one of her siblings whose name Nico could remember.
The rest were named after obscure Innu researchers, but as her name was Nicole, she was easy for the Cyborg to remember.
It had made them somewhat good friends, as Nico was willing to indulge the girl's interest in human technology, as well as show her where to get the good sweets and ice cream on board Terminus.
"Sorry that I am late, but I needed some time to make a proper presentation. I have the most wonderful plan, and I think that you all could appreciate it." Nico explained, then took one of the data slates from her assistant and placed it on the holographic projector in the middle of the table.
"You know, those things hold multiple files." Max pointed out after noticing that the girl was still holding a half dozen tablets in her arms.
"But then I would have to transfer data between them, and that's just a hassle. My assistant works for snacks, which is a much better proposition than spending the time to transfer all of my files to one tablet." She explained.
If Max's calculations were right, it would take her roughly two and a half seconds to transfer all the data from those tablets to the one she was carrying due to the processor limitations, but it wasn't worth arguing over. Everyone else had brought an assistant with them, so he might as well allow hers, even if the little Innu wasn't security vetted.
Nico cleared her throat, gathering everyone's attention back to professional matters. "Alright, I will start with my idea, the expansion of the Terminus Trading Company through a central hub. We have the technology and vessels to run errands all over the Galaxy and beyond, and soon enough, we will be spread out on various missions while the core group from Terminus attends to the official functions of trade and diplomacy.
But that is no longer viable on Terminus herself. The ship has taken on a life of its own, and making it a target for hostile forces is an unacceptable risk. So, I propose to keep Terminus as an observer, following the main force around, with occasional side trips for the tourists and students, while the business side of our operation is moved to a secondary vessel.
To that end, I present to you the initial design plans for our own mobile operations station, tentatively named the Absolution. Would you like a moment to admire her beauty, or should I start right in on the details?"
She was definitely going to have to give them a moment. Nico's idea of a mobile operations center was possibly the most insane space-faring vessel that Max had ever seen. While it wasn't as immense as the thousand-kilometre sphere of the Alliance World Ships, it was no less impressive simply due to its design.
It was like nothing that he would have ever expected to see from Nico, an elegant hull with the flowing line of an exterior docking ring all down her main body's length, serving the secondary purpose of exterior armour to protect docked ships, with large oval pods seemingly inflated out of the ship, some made of transparent materials and filled with forests, and others opaque, in the same gold as the ship's hull.
If it weren't for the pods, it would have looked a lot like the Cathedral ships, with a beaked ram prow and long body, ending in a pair of rear wings that would never be used in an atmosphere, but with the domes added, and some smooth spires extending from the center of the main hull, just in front of the point where it expanded at the back, gaining dozens of kilometres of extra height, it had a completely alien and organic look to it.
Honestly, it looked like she had taken one of the demonic designs that she usually came up with and put in the effort to make it smooth and pretty, but somehow it really worked.
"As you can see, there are two hundred docking points, each large enough for a standard Cruiser, plus another ten large enough for Battleships, and a special place in the center of the lower hull for Terminus.
Absolution is nine hundred kilometres long, with an intended population of ten million, and a military force set to comprise one hundred standard Mecha Regiments, plus a significant drone force of interceptors and, of course, the four hundred Cutters to deploy the Mecha." She declared proudly, then began to go into details of the design.
Chapter 624 624 Some Things Are Not Possible
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
"That is all well and good, but where would you ever get ten million residents from, and where will you find a hundred Mecha Regiments? In case you had forgotten, a hundred thousand trained pilots are more than most nations could boast, and you plan to put them all on one ship. One very large ship.
Not to mention the cost and complexity of actually building such a thing and the four hundred Cutters you will need to staff to deploy the ship's defensive force. Or the millions of support staff to keep the whole thing running. Are you going to depopulate a colony somewhere?" Major Miller's rant predictably focused on the logistics of the matter, but he had a point.
You couldn't just make millions of people appear and join your Company. There simply weren't enough Reavers for the purpose, and most of them had already been claimed.
The fact that Mary Tarith had found enough workers and Pilots for the four ships that they had just received was amazing enough, but this was too far.
"That's the genius part. We don't have to. The Volga nation was kind enough to send me a unique pilot. An android powered by rudimentary artificial intelligence and capable enough not to embarrass himself in a Titan Class Mecha.
After completing the analysis of his design, I have determined that we can create an entirely synthetic fighting force and use the Commander's ability to provide targeted firing solutions to his allies to improve their skills. Then we only need to staff the ship, but we don't have to get it anywhere near full. If we recruit a skeleton crew from across the human nations and the Alliance to keep the place up and to run basic functions, we will attract the rest of the occupants on our own.
Everyone wants to know where we are going, what we are up to, and how we are doing it. So, if we drop this bombshell on them, they will be busy for years trying to decipher what we did, and by then, we will have our residents settled in and happy in their new homes.
We can establish research and development companies right there on the operations base, along with any other production companies that we want. They will make money, producing unique human products, and that will draw workers to us to fill the ship.
It might be a bit empty at first, but I know that if I send out a message that we are recruiting, I will get a lot of responses for everything from maintenance to product testing and legal work."
Max thought about her proposal for a while and then shook his head.
"We need more humans on the ship. It's the Terminus Trading Company, representative of the Reavers and, through them, humanity. We can't fill the entire ship with random Alliance workers to exploit for their unique ideas. We need to keep the vessel mostly human to give the proper impression to visitors that humanity is an independent and powerful species, not a subordinate of the Alliance that is being used to do their dirty work." Max reminded her.
"I agree with the Commander. We need to keep the ship mostly human for the sake of appearances. They don't need to be Reavers, and if you're using Android Pilots for the mecha, they don't need to have a system, but we need to remind everyone that we meet that we are the representatives of humanity." DiFranco announced.
Everyone else in the room seemed to agree with the sentiment, even the little Innu girl, so Nico began to formulate a new idea.
Klinger was the first to suggest a solution. "Once it is built, we can go to various human planets. I am thinking of hive worlds and holding job fairs. If we grab a hundred thousand from ten different worlds, we can create a nice varied crew and not deplete any planet's population too much.
You know how it is on the Hive Worlds. They've usually got populations upward of eighty billion. They won't even notice that we were there. In fact, we could go to some of the old Kepler core worlds and pull a million without anyone really noticing, except a government benefits worker, who just might trade you everything from exorbitant amounts of cash to sexual favours to take their unemployed away."
The other Commanders reluctantly nodded in agreement. In a major hive world, you would be very popular if you offered to provide a million off-world jobs for their chronically unemployed. The problem would be the quality of the workers you would get.
"Enough with the staffing solutions. How and where would we even build that thing? It's too large for any dry dock that I know of to work on it. Plus, what would you make it of? Or can the new generation replicators create a sophisticated enough alloy to build that without a forge or secondary processing stage?" Lucci, their only female Commander and former leader of the Second Battalion asked.
"That is the easy part. The terraforming here is almost complete, it will finish up tomorrow, and I can portal the entire array into an uninhabited system to build the new ship without anyone noticing. With that many machines and a large enough asteroid, I can have the ship built in a matter of days. They can even provide it with a breathable atmosphere since they were designed to terraform a planet.
I have a special idea for the hull as well, and if it works the way I am hoping, I think that the unaligned species will think twice before attacking us." Nico informed them with a smile of anticipation.
"You are totally hoping that they attack us to try to steal that space station in the form of a world ship. I can see it in your eyes." DiFranco replied.
"Yeah, he's right. You didn't mean a single word of that bit about other species not attacking us. This thing is like a huge floating fuck you to every military in the region." Klinger added.
"Oh, ye of little faith. Do you really think that I didn't prepare for that? I have come up with improvements to the current Mecha lineup to allow them to fight more effectively in space. From what I can tell, nobody else fights on the surface anymore. They just go all out in space above the planet. We are behind the curve with our tactics, but not for much longer.
Once the refinements are complete, I will send the data to all of your vessels so that the existing Mecha hulls can be upgraded with the new technology."
She really did think of everything. If Max didn't know better, he would think that she had been planning this for much longer than just the morning.
Chapter 625 625 Space Combat Upgrade
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
It was very early the next morning when Max got the official message from the Research and Development team that the upgrade for the Mecha was ready to be put into production. The existing vent nacelles for the crystal-based energy cores would be upgraded to vectored thrusters, mostly unsuitable to use on the surface but capable of extremely agile maneuvering in space when coupled with a shield modification to reduce the inertial mass of the Mecha itself, similar to the effect of a warp field, but on a much less extreme level.
The existing repair hangars could produce the thruster units, and the whole upgrade process would take less than a man-hour per Mecha. Overall, it was an upgrade without any downside that Max could see other than the power usage of the thrusters themselves.
Nico had also sent along the details for two forms of upgraded munitions to be used during space combat, one for Super Heavy Mecha and a handheld weapon for the standard pattern Crusader Class Chassis.
Both fired solid projectiles at hypersonic velocities that used an antimatter fusion reaction both as additional thrust and as their primary damage output.
The shells designed for the Thunder Guns were truly terrifying, containing over a kilogram of antimatter, with an output yield of over sixty megatons, by standard human measurement. Not that any planet Max knew of had used TNT in millennia, but it was still the standard by which explosions were measured.
The Thunder Gun projectiles could achieve one-quarter of the speed of light, fast enough to catch most fleeing ships and enough that even if the antimatter explosion somehow failed to trigger, such as in instances where an enemy defensive measure disabled or contained it, the shell itself would do devastating damage to whatever it collided with.
The Alliance was sure to be horrified at this increase in firepower, but for space-based combat, such weapons were essential to actually managing to damage battleships with their immensely powerful shielding and defensive weapons.
She hadn't neglected the new ship itself, and an eyes-only note attached to his copy of the data included sixteen Antimatter Torpedo tubes which would fire Warp Capable projectiles, with outputs ten times that of the Thunder Guns.
If that sort of firepower were turned on a planet, Orbital Lances would be rendered obsolete. The fact that she intended to turn Orbital Lances into a secondary weapon on her new mothership was enough to send Max to the Replicator for something stronger than juice to go with his breakfast.
For a ship that size, it only made sense that the weapons would be scaled up, but to go to this extent was way more than he had expected. With some quick calculations, a single Super Heavy Mecha equipped with antimatter munitions would be capable of taking out a Cruiser Class vessel in a straight fight, assuming that it was using current shield technology and weapons.
She had also attached an addendum to the addendum like she was writing it as she went and didn't prepare her thoughts at all.
[I also made one for Cleansing Light. A handheld replacement for the Orbital Lance Cannon. Three times the yield of the Thunder guns, with a ten-round per second maximum fire rate and hundred-round capacity. Who knows, you might have the urge to shoot someone eventually.]
That was incredibly Nico of her, so Max searched her thoughts to see what she was up to right now and found her in his Mecha bay, working on Cleansing Light. The new thruster system was more mobile than the existing thrusters that it used, and Cleansing Light was Warp Capable, so the drives could be used much more effectively than a standard shield to offset the Mecha's mass and increase mobility.
She had also added an anti-missile defence system, a new setting for the Disruptors that should destabilize incoming antimatter shells and missiles, causing them to detonate early or vaporize in instances where the lasers were insufficient for the task. It hadn't been fully tested yet, since she only came up with the idea on her way to the hangar, but she was fairly sure it would work.
Fairly sure wasn't really a statement that he wanted in the development process of safety equipment, but they couldn't exactly test it outside of a simulator, so he would have to find out the hard way if he really could stop the incoming attacks.
Their new world ship should be capable of the same thing, stopping solid projectiles with disintegrator pulses, giving it a defensive military capability on par with the Alliance Envoys' vessel, which Max assumed was good enough to be considered state of the art.
[Commander, did you see that Thruster upgrade that Research just sent out? Are we expecting to be attacked by a new enemy force in the near future?] Lucci asked from her new office aboard the Cruiser that she had taken over.
The identifier line only had her name on it, and Max wondered when she would officially name her vessel, but that was less important than the upgrade work that needed to be done before the next time the Mecha needed to be used.
[You never know what we will come across. As Klinger pointed out, our new mothership will be a huge floating act of aggression in the eyes of a lot of species, so we should be prepared to have it attacked at any point, including during construction.
I don't have a timeline on completion yet, Nico is still busy with other matters, and the Innu are so full of Caffeine that I'm not willingly looking into their minds right now.]
The holographic image of Lucci burst into laughter, and she muted her microphone for a few seconds while she got herself under control.
[You have it hard, don't you? I don't even want to contemplate ninety percent of what people are thinking about, but you must have heard it all by now. We will get the Mecha upgraded as soon as possible, and we've already made a stock of the new munitions because I couldn't resist getting my hands on some of them.
We will have to take a good look into both human and Alliance Wartime laws before we deploy them, though. In space, I'm pretty sure there isn't an issue, but in orbit or in a planet's atmosphere, that level of antimatter reaction is most likely a war crime of some sort. There are a number of restrictions on the types of weapons that can be deployed against a planetary population.
It's not like we never had more destructive weapons after all. The legends of the pre-founding era were full of horrific weapons, and now it seems increasingly likely that they were actually built back in a time when humans weren't constantly focused on the most efficient military production that they could manage.]
She had a very good point. Too much of human history was lost and forgotten long before he was born, so it was possible that all of their developments had been achieved before but either abandoned or had their production methods lost to time due to various factors over the millennia.
Even among the Kepler equipment, much of the older gear was better than the standard issue units, like Stalwart's shields. Sitting in orbit over a Relic world, with ruins of a species that he had never heard of, that lived right there in the same Galaxy that Humanity currently occupied, was giving him a sense that he was a frog in a well, feeling much more powerful and important than he really was.
Chapter 626 626 Coming Along Nicely
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
Max finished sending messages to all of the ships of the Terminus Trading Company Fleet, ensuring that they were all up on the new weapons and thrusters and that their Mecha would be ready to deploy in the event of a space battle.
The terraforming was just completing, and General Tennant, now Governor Tennant, was preparing a huge celebration to mark the final regions of the formerly toxic world being cleansed.
That was when Nico planned to portal the Terraforming Array away. From that moment on, Max needed to be on high alert for alien species detecting their new project and the possibility that they would attack to try to stop it from happening.
Of course, he hoped that she was right and that she could get it completed before anyone noticed, but there were a lot of eyes looking in their direction, and Max wasn't sure how well they could track the destination of a portal or if anyone who did detect it would act to try to follow them.
They were supposed to take a multi-stop route to her chosen destination, an uninhabited star system within Klem territory. Still, there were no guarantees that they wouldn't be followed or detected.
Not knowing was the most annoying part of dealing with new species. If they were near, Max could read their thoughts, most of the time, but if they didn't know their military capabilities or used units of measurement that he didn't understand, then he couldn't gather any useful information at all from them.
Down on the surface, Governor Tennant had begun his speech, informing all of the city's residents and guests of the momentous occasion that they had all been waiting for.
[Thank you all for coming to celebrate our first day as a fully terraformed colony. As of ten minutes ago, the last of the Terraforming Array units completed their work, and we have verified through our satellite network that there are no more remaining toxic areas on the surface or in the oceans.
That isn't to say that the whole planet is safe, there are still many dangerous areas, but they are natural dangers. Many of them are beautiful landmarks of this world, like the mineral springs of the Samantha Mountains, which vent scalding hot waters into the air around the pools every few minutes thanks to the Geothermal heating boiling the underground reservoir.
The link to view them is available in the tourist highlights, and a fly-over tour is available every day, leaving at nine in the morning.
With the completion of the Terraforming, it is traditional to rename a planet after its new occupants, so let me present to you Luminos, the Planet of Ghost Lights.
Now, I have spoken enough, everyone. Please enjoy the party.]
Max switched his main feed from the cameras in the city to the data feed from the Terraforming Array, which had just made its final jump, using a Tarith Family ship's Portal Generator so that the signature wouldn't be the same as the last jump that they made.
They had jumped from orbit around a populated planet with dozens of manufacturing facilities, so there were many portal signatures in the area, and a number of warehouses where they could have been stored, if they weren't still in use. The plan was to use that as a distraction and to send industrial spies searching through millions of units of textiles, looking for them if they had followed the Array that far.
Now that they were in place, Max began looking over the design of the ship, which was more and more incredible the deeper he dug into it. It was designed so that the interior would look more like a misty planet, with huge amounts of open space for giant trees to be grown or for projects to be moved through the air to distant regions of the ship.
It wasn't hugely space efficient, but with the size of the vessel, it didn't have to be. From the interior, it would feel like an actual world to the residents and would also help alleviate some of the stress that was known to be suffered by residents of more cramped vessels, who never got to see the outside world.
Agoraphobia was common among those who were raised on such cramped vessels, and this design, with kilometre-high ceilings through most of the main body, should alleviate almost all of that.
The actual construction of the ship seemed to be going extremely quickly, much more than Max had anticipated and faster than it had on the planet, so he took a good look at what the Array was up to, according to its data feed.
The hull was made of the monomolecular material that they had identified on the planet he was currently circling, and the strange bond that turned it into a logic-defying single unit seemed to be incredibly compatible with the Array, which could extrude it like a liquid instead of having to create individual molecules over and over.
As fast as the units could power the constructors, the hull could be formed. The process was fascinating to watch, as it all needed to be surrounded by an energy barrier, separating it from all other matter and antimatter. If it touched either, it would solidify, and the form would be set, so every hull section was made as one piece and would self-repair to maintain its shape once it came into contact with anything else.
That made the whole ship ablative in one sense, but Max knew that they had the technology to inject more of the strange matter into the hull pieces until they regained their original form.
The Hunters had done it to restore relics that they had found once they discovered some of the secrets of the material, thanks to the discovery that it had a vulnerability to the Disruptors. Knowing how to break it down showed them how to rebuild it, and that was when they learned that rebuilding an existing piece always took the original shape and that any exposure to other matter would stop the process.
There was still a lot that nobody knew about it, but if they could build ships out of it, that was as much knowledge as most engineers had about the materials that they used in their designs, so it was good enough for Nico, who was more focused on having the coolest toy in the Universe than the practical matters of actual ship repair while it was in service.
That was hard logic to argue with. It was definitely going to be a cool toy, with the very latest of technologies adapted by the Research Department, as well as their unique new combat technologies and an experimental Warp Drive that would propel this monstrosity through space without using portals all the time.
Nico's directed thoughts caught his attention as he was admiring the biome designed specifically to keep the Shin and Dryads happy, an immense forest which was intended to have a World Tree at its core. Oddly, the strange plant couldn't be replicated alive, it came out lacking something, but the Shin had assured Nico that they were capable of growing her a new one for the new ship.
[I know you've given in and snuck a peek by now. What do you think? Is it cool enough? The inner hull layer is finished now, and I will start building the outer shells over it. In total, there are three layers of containment in the outer regions, as well as the more decorative plates to protect docked ships from debris.
As far as atmospheric stability goes, it should be better than anything else that we have, and the bubble-type structures can be both isolated and jettisoned in an emergency, like a major infection or catastrophic damage.
There was something else. What was it? Oh yeah, I finished the new weapons. Did you get the notification? What time is it? If they haven't arrived yet, they should come soon.]
Nico was clearly so focused on her work that she had forgotten about everything else, including the messages that she had scheduled to go out this morning, but that wasn't surprising. As far as she could tell, this thing was the single biggest weapon in the known Universe, and Max could tell that Nico was confident that someone would want to fight them for it.
Max was a bit afraid that she was right, but there was no denying that even the Alliance would be forced to respect their level of development once this thing was in action.
Chapter 627 627 They're What?
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
To distract from the construction of their new base of operations, Max prepared to declare a holiday aboard Terminus, which should distract all the visitors who were here to actually work for various Alliance companies and not just on vacation.
It was also a day off for the Academy, the one day every week when they had no classes, and Headmistress Medusa was willing to give the students a pass to go to the Cruise Ship section and unwind for the first time since they had arrived at the Academy.
That should be a day that nobody would forget anytime soon. Most of the students had gone straight from the hangars to the Academy, so they hadn't seen any of the other amenities that the ship had to offer, and things like the World Tree and the Gravity slides they had only seen on video.
Being their day off, many of the students were still waking up for the day when the notification was made through the Academy, and chaos took over the quiet atmosphere of the compound.
A single hallway was locked down for the students, so nobody could get lost on the way or access off-limits areas by accident, so Max wasn't too worried about their safety, at least not until they reached the end of the hall and met with the vacationers and the attractions of the ship.
While the students were running around like madmen, Headmistress Medusa had a more practical request for Max.
[Commander. Now that the Terraforming is complete, I am assuming that you are planning to leave orbit and make for the next bit of official business within the next week. If possible, I would like to send some of our students to the surface before that point. Geology is part of our mandatory training, and the senior students would typically take a field trip every semester to gain hands-on experience.
I believe that this world, freshly terraformed and without hostile fauna, would be ideal for the first-term trip.]
[Would you be amenable to springing it on them as a surprise? The next two days would be ideal for a planet-side excursion, and after that, we will have an increased likelihood of needing to move the vessel to another planetary system.] Max replied, knowing that making it look like everything was normal would deter any suspicions that Terminus Trading Company was up to something.
There was no hiding it from the Illithid, but Max was deliberately not thinking about the actual specs of Absolution, and the observer aboard the Alliance Envoy's vessel wouldn't be likely to recognize the technical jargon that the design team was using.
Even Max only understood a fraction of it, and he lived within range of their minds.
It only took the Headmistress a few minutes to answer before she came back with a list of requirements, including chaperones from the defence forces and the total number of students that would be in each group, as well as the regions of the planet that would be ideal for their studies.
The different classes and grades were studying different regions at the moment, so the Headmistress determined that sending them to the one they were currently working on would be the best course of action.
Finding enough people to escort them wouldn't be a problem, and they could easily produce enough civilian-grade augmentic suits for them, which was one of the requests from the Headmistress so that they didn't contaminate the research zone or contract any foreign illnesses. There was a minor concern about bringing back foreign objects that could be used as weapons, but the school security team thought that they could catch any of them that made it past basic screening.
She was incredibly strict with the list, especially since the tourists were taking trips on foot around the surface, but according to Medusa, it was a scientific best practice not to have direct contact with the area, only interacting with it from inside a sealed suit.
It didn't need to be augmentic, just sealed, but some of the environments were hostile, like the desert and the volcano research teams, so it would be best to give them climate control and some measure of resistance to hot or sharp objects.
[Max to research team. We need civilian protective suits in the sizes and species listed in the attached file. No armour, no flat space technology, and minimal augments are to be included. Please inform me of when you will be able to provide those in the Academy Uniform colours. Tonight or tomorrow would be preferable, as our timeline is limited to allow them to properly explore the planet before we leave.]
[We are sending them on a school field trip? That is awesome. I wish I got to go on good field trips back when I was in school. We went to the crappy local aquarium for biology, then a Mecha production facility for science, and that was it. We have a design for the repair staff that will be perfect for the occasion.
We made it for the aftermath of Klem battles since some of them smell really bad inside, and the Mecha specialize in making insides into outsides. We just need to adapt them to the species and recolor them. Give me an hour, and I will be able to deliver them to the Headmistress.] One of the human researchers answered, and Max considered whether allowing the perpetually upbeat Innu around humans on such a casual basis might actually be a bad influence on the humans.
That researcher was entirely too happy about being at work.
With all of the important plans put in place, Max leaned back to relax and started to look through some of the random cultural articles that the Envoys had marked as low priority. They were good reading, but not really about anything important enough that he would want to have the data in a learning device.
At least not until he got to the fifth one, on the unique nature of the "Curious Species," as the author called it.
According to the attached data, less than one-tenth of one percent of all species possessed the mental pathways that led to an inquisitive nature. All other species were adaptive and only developed new technologies and behaviours in response to a need or danger, but the curious species would develop new things just because they didn't exist and actively look for new things.
That made up most of the species that Max had come across from the Alliance, but it made perfect sense. They were the only ones who would be interested in coming to see him. The others had no interaction with humans, so their existence was a simple fact that had no bearing on the lives of the members of that species.
How they had made it to the status of advanced cultures without an inquisitive nature was a mystery to Max, so he put the topic at the top of his leisure reading list, intending to find out if they relied on others to develop new things for them, or if they actively deprived some portion of their population in order to trigger developments, based on past experiences and the statistical probabilities.
The possibilities were endless, and Max laughed as the author described their tense relations with species like the Valkia and Giants, who loved new information and cultural customs, and the Innu, which was widely regarded as the most annoying species in the Universe.
Max's experience with the Alliance data net had been heavily influenced by the Innu, thanks to their tech nomad streams, so he had never noticed that the actual number of species which followed them was only a few hundred of the million or more sentient species that the Alliance should contain.
Chapter 628 628 Exciting Days
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
The next morning, the students of the Academy were escorted through the ship to board a Cutter, which would take them to the surface for their field trip, scheduled to last for two days.
The Academy had procured Giant-made mobile buildings for the overnight stay, equipped with tiny dorm rooms and basic sanitation facilities, as well as an Alliance model replicator for the accompanying staff member to prepare meals.
To the students, this was considered camping, though the building was far fancier than any army tent that Max had ever seen. They were still excited and talking about their first off-campus day when the news that they needed to assemble in the gymnasium for an important announcement was made, informing them that they would be headed to the planet for a field trip that very day.
It was the best week most of them had ever had, given the stuffy nature of most high-society Academies. A few had complaints about the accommodations on the surface, but the chance to be in the wilderness outside of the confines of the school was too good to pass up.
Especially for the Valkia, who had realized as soon as they were presented with their uniforms for the trip, which would allow them a full range of motion with their wings, and even allowed them to fly around the room once the suit was properly fitted.
Being able to fly on the planet would be great. They mostly came from crowded cities or even a monolithic megalopolis where they were always somewhat indoors, limited by the ceilings of the levels. Their first chance to see just how high they could fly was enough to have their hearts pounding in their ears and adrenaline rushing through their veins, and they hadn't even left the Academy yet.
They weren't the only ones. One particular student from a living metal species realized that the suit wasn't designed for full alteration, but it would give them structure, which their species naturally lacked. They could experience the world as if they were one of the bipedal species for the next two days, grabbing things in their hands without having to concentrate on not letting the fingers meld together into one surface.
Wearing the suit was a strange experience, but it gave them great insights into the potential of their innate abilities since it forced them to move in ways that weren't natural for their species but which would help them mimic other species more precisely.
A normal uniform was cloth and flowed more smoothly, as well as being more morphable since they preferred skirts to pants, but this suit would stand up on its own since it had an internal structure.
Before coming to the Academy, they had limited experience with other species in any way, and their arrival had been a culture shock, but with the desire to fit in, they had been working hard, and this might be the final step that they needed to accomplish their goals.
The other students noticed the awkward gait as the student tried to walk like a biped, but after seeing the happy look in their eyes, a silent agreement was made to let them do what they wanted and not ask the Headmistress for a different design, possibly something with a long, segmented body as another student was using. It was closer to the living metal student's usual form, but the design team hadn't been given that information, and the only picture they had for the species was in an Alliance government uniform with legs.
The Escort team showed up in full battle gear since they were a protective detail, but with their weapons put away because there weren't actually any hostile species on the planet.
It was an impressive show, and the Headmistress was broadcasting it throughout Terminus, as well as live streaming it for the parents of the students, for the sake of informed consent, as well as entertainment as they watched their children going on an overnight field trip for what might be the first time.
The Reavers were going all out to impress the students, and they had even assigned a Corvette Class Mecha to accompany each of the four groups on the surface. Ostensibly it was there as a guard in case something happened, but the pilots knew that they were more likely to be used to move heavy objects for study and for the kids to stare at when they were bored with the lessons.
It seemed to be doing a great job of distracting everyone, and the data flow rates off of Terminus were well above average, with all of the streaming videos being sent back to the Alliance.
The entire day passed without incident, and when the first night fell on the students, the influx of parents worried about their sheltered darlings began to arrive, ready to spirit them away home for a leave of absence if their delicate constitutions couldn't handle the stress of sleeping in a hab tent or being outside in the wilderness for days at a time.
Max didn't think there was anything to worry about, the suits all had biometric data feeds that were monitored by the Academy's medical staff, just like their usual uniforms did, and they hadn't detected anything out of the usual other than one Harpia student who had a mid-air collision with a tree in the middle of the afternoon.
The suits had a basic shock-absorbing function but no heavy shielding, so she had been a bit stunned by the collision but hadn't suffered any detectable physical damage, not even bruising, according to the medic that was accompanying her team.
It was the second day when things began to get crazy. The first day had shown them that they really were alone on an alien world, but waking up in one, and not under intense supervision, at least not by anyone who could do anything to stop them, had encouraged them to run and fly all over the area, exploring everything, and very nearly driving their teachers insane, while the chaperones from the security team worked to keep them from trying the most dangerous activities, like dipping their hands in lava, or flying over scalding geothermal vents.
Max knew that their communicators would be flooded with messages from their parents by the end of the day, but they were mostly ignoring the messages, content to put notifications on mute while they explored the limits of their day of freedom and did their best to complete the assigned tasks as quickly as possible.
Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.
Chapter 629 629 Application Influx
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
It was late that night when the students were all safely back aboard Terminus, and the enraged messages from the parents demanding an audience with the Headmistress had all been declined. The staff had sent out various explanations about how despite the appearances, the trip was completely safe and not a single injury had been noted. It wasn't completely successful, but as per the contract, the field trip was deemed to be a totally safe activity and not grounds for the more overprotective parents to withdraw their children.
None of the students asked to go home after the trip, and those who weren't in the classes that got to go were incredibly envious of their trip, so the Academy viewed it as a win on their part.
Building rivalries between classes helped student performance, and only the students taking the most advanced related classes of their years had gotten to go. Those who had slacked off and applied for the easier classes realized that they had made a grave tactical error. The Academy rewarded success, and slacking off didn't impress them.
Max finally found time to check on Absolution just after dark and found that the entire hull was complete, and the interior was well underway, with each pod zone having a unique architectural style appropriate to species native to the region that its vegetation was derived from.
All of them were suitable for humans, as well as species up to the size of Giants, but most of the ship was in the same style as the most advanced Kepler Core cities, where the wealthiest of citizens and Royalty lived.
It was brilliant marketing. Every Kepler citizen and most of the citizens of the surrounding nations would recognize the architecture of the Royal Planets, and living there had been a dream for many generations of humans. Just the appearance evoked a feeling of inferiority in those who gazed upon them, reminding them that they would never be good enough to live somewhere as grand as that.
But now, they were going to pick some of the most densely packed planets in the human territories and fill the ship with commoners, based exclusively on their job skills and qualifications, at no cost to them. They could even bring their immediate family with them if they wished.
[Have we sent a notification to the planet that we intend to recruit from first?] Max asked the logistics staff, who were frantically working to prepare for the biggest recruitment that Terminus Trading Company, and perhaps any Reaver Company, had ever attempted.
[We have, Sir. We have chosen Kepler 207, near the Inner Rim, with a population of 26 Billion and suffering from a severe shortage of supplies in the aftermath of the war. It is being supplied from outside agricultural worlds again, but it is no longer a major bureaucratic hub, and the unemployment rate has skyrocketed to over thirty percent. Even with the planetwide deployment of Replicators by the former Imperial Princess, who now governs the region, they are suffering a decline in quality of life.
In short, half the population of the planet should really leave for other worlds, but the logistics of that undertaking are mind-boggling, and the planetary government has instead opted for strict reproduction quotas to reduce the population over the course of a generation while they work to rebuild their place in the Galaxy.]
Ah, a bureaucratic world. A wretched hive of crime and villainy like no other, at least to those in the slums where Max grew up. They were the ones who determined who was and was not eligible for benefits from the Central Government, while the local government only distributed planetary benefits. Therefore, the bureaucratic planets weren't very popular with the unemployed.
[It sounds like a winner to me. They should have a surplus of everything that we need. Are we set up to receive and vet digital applications in advance?] Max asked.
[We are. But there are so many. We have received nearly a thousand applications for every position that we have open, and there are more still coming in. Should we expand the planned quarter million workers?] The logistics officer asked.
[No, once you factor in family members, that will be a large portion of the initial population of the ship, all from one planet. We want a more diverse representation of Humanity, not a refugee ship from one planet. Limit immediate family accompaniment to spouses who were official thirty days ago and biological children or those officially adopted before the same time frame. It will somewhat limit those willing to go, but it will prevent scams from getting children and dependents off the planet.
Then vet out those who would abandon their family to go anyhow.
I know it's a bit heartless, but we're in the position to be picky here, and I want to at least stop at one Cygnus planet and two others as well.]
Max could sense the frustration in the logistics worker's mind but also a bit of relief that they now had a clear guideline to work with.
As Max listened to the recruitment team's thoughts, he found that the limitation on spouses and children eliminated over three-quarters of the applicants and drastically limited the incoming flow. As expected, a large portion of them were skilled workers paid to get the children of upper brass off the planet.
It took two full days to sort out the first batch of recruits, but in the end, the team was certain that their usage of System Skills, and the advanced filtering functions of the Kepler Citizen Database, had found them the most qualified possible workers, with solid backgrounds, and verifiable job skills.
It also gave Absolution time to be completed, and the Terraforming Array was sent back to Rae 5 without incident.
That meant that it was time to become the biggest bit of news that the Alliance had seen in a while. The Terminus Trading Company was upgrading from a Colony Ship to a World Ship.
Chapter 630 630 Big Reveal
Name:Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System Author:
+ - Turn on Reset
Nico was sitting in the dining room, naked except for the seventh coat that she had tried on that morning.
"So, are we going to go to Absolution, or should I precision portal myself over there and pilot it to the recruitment planet in sync with your arrival? I think the other way would be much more fun and dramatic since we will watch in real-time as the Alliance and the rest of humanity discovers what we were up to." She suggested.
"First, put on pants. Second, I think you are right. Having the ship appear through a portal would make a great impression. On that topic, does it even have the power to open a portal that size?" Max asked.
"Of course. It's long, and only the rear wings are particularly wide, so I can make a very efficient oval portal and bring it through. It will be less than half the required power for the Alliance sphere thing to follow us.
I'm sure they will follow us, they are still assigned as our observers and have been notified that we need to move to complete our next order of business, but they didn't ask for the Envoys back.
No way will they let them be half a Galaxy away from their ship, so they're definitely coming with us. But once they see what we have to show them, they will likely send more than just one Envoy ship to observe us.
I suspect that we will have a whole armada of Alliance Government ships following us around by the time we have Absolution fully staffed, and even after that, it will take some effort to make them go home.
The ship is a marvel of design and technology, if I do say so myself, and it's way cooler than those boring spheres that the Alliance uses. I mean, it's space, and the spheres aren't a high warp vessel, so they could have used any shape that they wanted, but they went with the blandest possible option."
That made sense, so Max nodded to Nico and prepared to meet with the Envoys after Terminus arrived in their destination system.
"Give us ten minutes before you open the portal. That will give me time to gather the Envoys and get settled into position in orbit around the planet. Arrive further out, directly out from the planet, in relation to its star. That should give us the best view." Max informed Nico, who was now sorting through a pile of pleated skirts to go with her chosen jacket.
"Aren't you doing that backward? Start with the inner layer and work outward." He suggested.
"That's what I usually do, but then I never get to wear the coat that I really wanted to since it doesn't quite go with the outfit, so instead, I'm starting with the coat today. What do you think about the blue and gold trench coat? Is it best with the plaid skirt or the uniform cargo pants?" She replied.
"The black leather pants tucked in the knee-high boots with the trench coat. Then the long-sleeved cream-coloured blouse, that black leather corset thing, the gold sash for your waist over the pistol belt, and then a nice tricorne hat with a feather. Very Nico the Pirate." Max recommended.
"Oh, that's a good combo. There aren't many good times to wear a tricorne, but I think that recruiting for a new ship is the perfect opportunity to play up the Reaver Aesthetic to the maximum." Nico laughed.
She quickly dug out the requested items, all of which were part of her usual apparel other than the trench coat and the hat, and then went to the Materials Printer and made herself a new sword to go with the outfit, with a Plasma Pistol on the other hip.
"It's not right without a sword. Plus, you can't dramatically kill someone with a Plasma Pistol. They just die." She explained.
"You do you. Now, get over there, and I will get this show on the road." Max laughed, nearly overwhelmed by her joy and enthusiasm.
Nico linked with the Ship's computer and opened the small portal in mid-air in front of her, then jumped through to Absolution, closing it behind her while Max made his way out of the room to gather the Envoys.
Their Illithid advisor had warned them that something big was happening today, so they were all gathered at their favourite coffee shop, trying to convince the Innu Envoy that decaf wasn't a human rights violation, when he arrived.
"I'm not sure that it makes that standard, but I get where she's coming from. Decaf should never have been invented. It is a lesson on the dangers of unfettered development for the sake of development." Max agreed.
"Is decaf what they mean by the phrase manmade horrors beyond our comprehension? It is clearly metaphorical, but I haven't determined its proper use yet." The Innu Envoy asked.
"Something like that. At least to someone who loves coffee as much as you do. I heard that the Council is considering putting it on the restricted alien items list in the near future, prohibiting it to minors without clearance of their species' representatives." Max teased her.
"They wouldn't dare. This is the nectar of the gods, and I have moderated my intake. There is only one additional shot of espresso in this one, and extra raspberry and cinnamon. It's like ninety percent milk and still delicious. Did you know they use real raspberry juice for the flavour? That's why this place is the best."
She was clearly pouting, but it was almost time for the announcement that they would be opening a portal.
The Admiral's voice came over the intercom as the lighting changed to add some extra red into the spectrum, the usual warning that there would be a ship-wide message.
[All hands prepare for motion. Terminus will be moving on to her next stop in one minute, using a Portal to save travel time and the danger of crossing Klem territory on our way to one of the core worlds of the old Kepler Empire.
Kepler 207 has a population of over 26 billion people and had been one of the most notable bureaucratic planets in the Empire before the last civil war.
Our reason for this stop will be obvious after we arrive, so we do ask that you are patient with our staff while we prepare the surprise for you.]
The Envoys all gave Max suspicious looks, wondering what was going on, and Max realized that their observer hadn't warned them about the new ship, so they really had no clue what was going on right now. That was incredibly kind of him, and Max would have to remember to thank the man later.
The portal opened, and Terminus moved from the far North to the South Central region of the Galaxy in an instant, then moved to take orbit around the lone inhabited planet around this star, not going for the space station nearby, but waiting on the dark side of the planet.
"Such suspense. The design team must have come up with something great if you, of all people, are acting so enigmatic." The Valkia Envoy laughed.
Max checked his watch and smiled. Ten seconds left. He tapped his wrist device to switch all the public viewscreens to the same camera, facing out from the planet, and then opened a public broadcast.
[May I present to you the newest ship in the Terminus Trading Company Fleet? Please welcome the World Ship Class Operation Center known as Absolution.]
Just as Max finished speaking, an oval portal five hundred kilometres wide opened in the empty space in front of the camera, and a shining golden craft passed through, broadside to Terminus, showing off the full side and top view of the new vessel for everyone to see.
"Sweet Mother of Technology, what is that?" The Innu Envoy gasped while the Valkia flared his wings in shock, instinctively preparing to move as his brain struggled to respond to what he was seeing.
"Oh, that is a good response. I don't think I've ever seen you that off guard, and the Giant is completely speechless.
The Giant Envoy was staring at the screen on the coffee shop's wall with his mouth wide open and the remains of his Danish in his lap, forgotten in the aftermath of the ship reveal. Even his thoughts seemed to have stopped for a moment before he recovered and pointed at the screen.
"That. How did you make that? Where did you see it before?" He finally demanded without taking his eyes off the screen.