The next morning saw Max and Nico sitting in a board meeting with the full assortment of Department Heads, Business Leaders and the Envoys in addition to the Board of Directors and Felicity's Android avatar. She had integrated herself with the ship's computer at some point, so Max couldn't really say that the body was her anymore, as the World Ship had significantly more processing power, and the two shared the workload of the artificial intelligence's plans.
The body was still the core, but no longer the entirety of Felicity.
The man in front of Max had taken over for Admiral Penner as the head of the Absolution Police Force, and although he had been on the job for over a year now, he still seemed to wilt under the attention of all these important people.
That wasn't a good sign for his ability to assert his authority, but he seemed to be a competent bureaucrat on paper, and the department was running smoothly, according to the reports he had filed.
Max decided to have Admiral Penner look into it and see if it was just the present company, or if he was generally spineless and making things look good on paper.
"In conclusion, fraud and theft type crimes have risen by two percent this quarter, but violent crime and harmful substance reports are down." He finished his speech, and quickly returned to his chair.
"Thank you, Police Chief. Who do we have next?" Nico asked.
"Jenkins of Maintenance." Admiral Penner replied with a smile.
The olive skinned maintenance supervisor stood and straightened his poorly fit suit, which made Max chuckle.
"You know, you can recycle them and get another at a discounted price if they stop fitting, right?" Max asked the supervisor.
"This is my lucky suit, though. I wore it for my job application, my promotion hearing and my wedding." Jenkins replied with a smile.
"In that case, I can refer you to some of the military sorts, and they can adjust you so that you fit the suit better again. A few months at the gym and you'll be fit as the day you graduated." Max offered.
"Thank you, I'll keep it in mind." Jenkins replied, but in his mind he added [please don't tell my wife you offered me that, she'd make me do it.]
Jenkins cleared his throat and began. "With the modern materials, there have been no signs of corrosion or rust so far. We have had some blown out valves, but the majority of our issues have been clogged pipes.
There are some that we're working with the police on, as a body was dumped in one of the storm drains this month, and contraband was found clogging a sewer pipe, but mostly it's the sort of mundane that you expect on a ship this large.
The flush vessels clear almost all the clogs before anyone notices, and we've got the response to repair time down to under an hour on average. The rest of the minor details are in my report."
One after another, the Department heads gave their presentations, finishing just before lunch, and then there was a set of board meetings that would follow to review all the information that had been presented.
Max sent his concerns about the police chief to Admiral Penner, and got ready to leave, as he wasn't needed for the rest of the meetings. He wouldn't be here to help enact the solutions anyhow.
Max and Nico excused themselves from the meetings when they broke up for lunch, and headed back to the Cutter to get ready to transfer back to Terminus.
Nico was already ordering the Androids to start transferring goods to the ship for her. There were plenty of things that Terminus didn't have after it was made a secondary research facility, namely the developments that she had made after they left, so she was planning to bring one of everything with her, including the new Replicator to make the Dyson Spheres.
Their unnamed pair of new Titan Class Mecha that had been made for the last battle were already on board the Cutter, but Nico had plans to tweak them a bit if she got bored while in transit to their various search locations.
Some of them were too far for a single Portal jump in between them, so the plan was to take a bit of time to sight see along the way so that the tourists didn't get disoriented by the rapid changes of location.
It was important as the premiere luxury adventure cruise ship in the region that they provide a quality experience for the guests, and that meant not leaving them confused about where in the universe they were.
The route was very well planned, with a number of scenic stops along the way, including resort planets in the Alliance that they had worked out trade deals with. Terminus would provide them with Reaver produced goods at a wholesale discount, in exchange for docking and resort fees for their guests, allowing Terminus to provide all-inclusive pricing to guests, with ultra-exclusive destinations.
That had caused more than a few complaints from other cruise liners, but so far, none of them had managed to make a case that could stand up against the Reavers legal documentation. Every contingency was covered in the paperwork, and it was perfectly legal for a corporation like the Terminus Trading Company to arrange a trade of goods for goods, even if it bypassed the usual year or more waiting times and massive dockage fees for tourists.
By the time that Nico was finished with her organization and picking out all the new toys that she wanted to bring with her to the lab on Terminus, the cargo hold of the Cutter was almost completely filled with random items that couldn't yet be produced on the Colony Ship.
"Did you forget anything? Perhaps the kitchen sink?" Max teased as he looked at the heavily loaded cargo hold.
"Nope, The Cutter comes equipped with over thirty-four of those if you want to be particular. But I've got all the specialty tools that I think we might have problems replicating, or that aren't needed here on Absolution. They've got extras of everything, so there is no point in wasting materials to make them all over again.
It's faster to just set up the lab to my personal preference with these materials instead of building a whole new one."
"Alright. Let's get out of here before they find a reason for us to stay behind even longer doing paperwork or something." Max instructed, while Nico skipped toward the open ramp to the cargo bay.
[Departure scheduled in three minutes. Enjoy your trip, Commanders. I will take good care of Absolution in your absence.] Felicity informed them as they closed the hangar bay doors.
[Thank you, Felicity. Hopefully, next time we return we will have more time to hang out and socialize, we heard that you have done some wonderful things for visitor comfort lately.] Max replied to the sentient AI.
[Thank you for your praise, it means a lot to me. All doors to the hangar are now locked down in preparation for departure, no life signs are detected outside the vessel. The Bay Area is confirmed free of foreign object debris. You are clear to depart as soon as the doors are open.]
The bay door began to slowly slide open, leaving only the energy barrier holding the atmosphere in the cargo bay.
The cutter glided out of the bay and rotated to face the Colony Ship with a gentle pulse of its engines.
As they approached, Terminus set off a small cluster of energy flares in front of the passenger viewing ports, the equivalent of fireworks to welcome them back for the benefit of the passengers and residents on board. Nico and Max shared a smile.
"We have been gone from here for too long, but it still feels like we're coming home." Nico informed him as they got ready to enter the large hangar bay at the back of the ship.
Max nodded. "It really does. We should find out what they think of their life as tour guides. I hear that they have been to some fascinating places lately."
"And again soon. We have a nice stopover at a Paradise Springs Resort, a science camp retreat for the students at the Academy, but it's also got some beautiful mountain views for the adults, and they've got flying lizards." Nico added.
"How large might these ones be?" Max asked, curious about what flying carnivore had caught Nico's attention this time.
"They're actually herbivores and about a metre long with the tails, but look at them, they're tiny dragons." Nico laughed, guessing what was on Max's mind by the expression on his face.
"I can see the appeal. Alright, we will take some time off on the tiny dragon planet and maybe play in the springs for a while. Do we have any data about the first possible ancient planet yet?"
Nico shook her head. "All we have is a location. The planet is there, it's on the Alliance charts, but it's listed as uninhabited and uninhabitable. It's outside their territory by a lot, but they've sent probes there to explore it in the past."
"Well, that might not be the worst thing. It would be nearly impossible to find relics if there was a thriving administrative core world built on top of them."
Trying to get anything done in a whole world full of bureaucrats was a nightmare, but trying to dig for ancient relics of their ancestors would be a nightmare of red tape and permits that no species lived long enough to navigate.
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