[Commander, the negotiations are finished, and we have a new member for the Trade Group. They will need a fair bit of technology since they've been isolated so long that they don't even know what a Materials Printer is anymore, but I think we can work it out well enough.
They create the most incredible handmade household goods here, and I believe that the patterns and unique local composition will be a big hit among the nobility in the Trade Group's member systems.
I will send out a message with full details in the next few minutes if we can stick around until the first orders are placed, so we can judge the market sentiment and see just how much capital the locals have to work with.
The deal promised them ten factories, each worth of Materials Printers and Industrial Scale Replicators, so they could at least rebuild their capital city to the highest modern living standards after the battle.]
[So, they're planning to do the Capital first and encourage the rest of the planet to upgrade through envy? Not a bad plan. How much trouble did you run into with the local nobility?] Max asked.
[Not much. After the tragic accident at the Governor's family bunker, we found that the next in line was a very polite and reasonable young lady with the full support of the other Nobles, as well as the Mayor of the Captial, who she will soon be marrying.]
That was enough information for Max, so he dropped the subject and decided to move on to more important matters.
[Are there any reports of remaining Narsians on the planet? The Hunters have all withdrawn, but we still have the full Regiment on the surface. If things are stable there, we can return to Terminus.]
[There have been some sporadic battles still, but they seem to be under control without our assistance. I would say that it is safe for the Regiment to return to orbit, as long as we remain here a little longer to make sure the Narsians are really gone and fulfill the first orders.] Nico agreed.
Max enjoyed his dinner with the Hunters and the Canis technicians, who were just as bad at hiding their emotions as their seniors, a trait that greatly endeared them to the Hunters. They were big fans of taking what you want, so a species that immediately gave away their desires was a positive thing in their opinions.
[In that case, send the signal. All units are to return to Terminus when their current mission is complete. Don't leave the locals hanging, but there is no need to do their work for them if they can safely handle it.]
Max waited while Nico sent out the message for the Cutters to go pick up their passengers, as well as the product listings on the Reaver trading sites, so the locals could try to sell their goods on the open market.
Their current client base was huge and in desperate need of luxuries in many regions, so it wouldn't take long before someone would be messaging him for a portal opening. With Terminus on site, they could be absolutely sure that the destination was secure, and Terminus opened portals for the first round of traders without charging any fees or asking any favors for it.
Unlike the Rae 5 Moon Base, which charged a small sum to recoup the power station creation as well as worker wages for every ship that passed through the portals they opened.
It was a practice they had adopted from the Alliance, charging Portal fees by distance and size. It made sure that when the base was running at an average capacity, they were at least covering the wages for the workers as well as anticipated repair costs.
But they were a trade group, so they didn't mark the price up like the Alliance did in order to make specific destinations more exclusive.
As usual, his prediction didn't need long to come true. The first requests for a portal to pick up a shipload of orders came early the next morning while the last of the Cutters were still returning to the ship.
This portal would have to be kept open for a while since the destination was so far away from the core of their customer base, but Terminus was in no hurry to go anywhere.
Nico was still on the planet, finishing up the formalities and helping organize the cleanup of the damage to the Capital City, much of which was caused by her and Hunter Khan anyhow.
It gave them a perfect excuse to rebuild factories and some government buildings that were formerly exclusive high-rise condos for individual Governing Family Members.
The elitism seemed to Max to have gotten out of hand at some point, and half of the buildings in the Captial only housed a handful of people when they could have held an entire medium-sized business or thousands of comfortable apartments.
The new buildings would have the Replicator Technology, as well as the self-cleaning systems and a few other small luxuries that Kepler and most modern nations took for granted. They were all produced by the Materials Printers default programming as essentials, but to the local population, it was a huge improvement.
The level of exclusivity might not go down by much, but they would at least have a higher population, making the Capital feel more lively, as well as increasing the demand for nightlife and other businesses to start business again.
Max was about to open the first portal when Nico sent him an architectural diagram with a rather unique label at the top.
[Maison Commandant Keres] was a two hundred-story condo building, full of three hundred square meter ultra-luxury suites, with every amenity known to the humans of this region, and as of that moment, it was already eighty percent sold out with only the foundations built by the First Battalion and their Cutter.
It was futuristic and very artful, with plant life and water features all through the building, but also a built-in Shield Generator so that the residents could rest assured that they were living within the single safest location on the planet.
Max chuckled a bit when he saw the Shield Generators since they were only two layers of the shielding used by the Crusader Class Mecha and would only take a handful of direct Plasma Cannon hits, but that was a lot more than most civilian buildings would endure and very effective against little things like riots and other civil unrest.
[You really like putting our names on things, don't you?] Max asked.
[It was this or the firstborn boy of the Governor's family. But I can't guarantee that they won't do that anyhow.]
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