"Ruins? Do you have any data on them?" Max asked.
"We didn't bother to analyze them, but our sensors detected that they were not natural formations. Going by the level of destruction, it was either deliberate or in excess of ten thousand years ago. It could be either, and some of the ruins might even be salvageable as local attractions.
We don't spend all our time hunting. Maybe ninety percent of it, but a nice relaxing stay on a relic world while we plan our next mission is always welcome." Khan suggested.
"The Reavers want to move some of the refugees who are looking for a long-term home outside of the usual nations into a freshly settled planet. If there are relic ruins here, there is no reason that we can't encourage them to set them up as a tourist attraction and build some sort of infrastructure nearby."
"So, they want to add another wave of colonization to the records, with no alien species exterminated in the process. It's an ambitious goal to have a Reaver Expansion, but I approve. Perhaps your people can bring a bit of proper civilization to this Galaxy and not that stuffy self-righteousness that the Alliance preaches." Khan agreed.
"Are the Hunters and the Alliance actually on bad terms?" Max asked, sensing the animosity in her thoughts.
"Not at all. Our alliance is the strongest it has ever been. It's just that many Hunters, myself included, are easily annoyed by hypocrisy. They tell us, "Interplanetary battles are wrong, and the Alliance forbids them," and then call our hunts barbaric.
But how did they become the only sentient species in their Galaxies before the Alliance was founded? By eliminating any other intelligent species that they found. Even the peace-loving Shin developed potent toxins as a form of chemical warfare that is lethal to the native species of their Galaxy.
You might be surprised to know that you aren't the first species to develop entire fleets of Drone Fighters. If you look through the Innu history books, they sent fully autonomous compliance fleets around their galaxy to prepare it for themselves to colonize roughly three hundred thousand years ago."
Max smiled at Khan's rant, and she shrugged her shoulders.
"It's a bit of a sore point, but if you look at it another way, even if you followed your Bride to be into every battle she wished to fight, they would still make Humans members eventually. They don't care how the fighting stops, only that it does. Give it a century after humans are the last ones left and unite as one, and they can likely get a full membership if you don't want to do as we did and continue your traditional ways."
"And here I thought they had claimed some moral high ground, but what they're really after are stability and good optics, isn't it?"
Khan nodded. "It has to look good on camera. They are coming up on the Epoch anniversary of the founding of the Alliance, one million standard years since the first species banded together to try to calm the intergalactic fighting before it destroyed everything.
This Galaxy is relatively isolated and underdeveloped, but on the far side of the Alliance, there are a number of species that are looking for entry, and having them think that nothing has really changed in a million years would not bode well for the chance to bring them into the Alliance and their trade agreements.
I am quite certain you understand that sort of politics since it is exactly what you are doing but on a Galactic scale."
"See, we're not that different after all. Every species wants to make a deal." Max chuckled.
"Except the Abyssals. If your long-range scans happen to detect a life form the size of an L-class planet, your best call is to pretend that region of space doesn't even exist. Don't come within a Galaxy of them, and they aren't too temperamental." Khan added.
As the banter faded, the two of them returned to analyzing both the data that the Hunters had collected and the data that Terminus and her fleet had collected on their way past.
The planet she had suggested was a masterpiece, other than the toxins in the air, though the other planets in the system were in the worst shape of anything he had seen from the scans. Totally stripped bare, with even the majority of their atmosphere taken away, they had lost so much mass that their orbits had begun to destabilize.
They would have to fix that if they wanted to colonize the main planet so that the collapse of the solar system didn't throw it into chaos whenever that happened, but all of those problems could be solved with the terraforming technology that they had.
"You know, we could do this much more easily if you could spare us the pattern for a simple cloaking technology," Max suggested.
"That would definitely break our agreement with the Alliance. Instead, we will wait for your technician team to reverse engineer something out of the data that they have already gathered." Khan refused his request in the most polite way possible.
"Well, it was worth a shot. Knowing them, they won't take long to create one that doesn't match anything in the records once they see the need for it. Would you like to accompany us to this Shrine World in the making?" Max asked.
"I think we will. If we are there, we can make requests for facilities, and we can watch you make your Terraforming Array."
Max saw in her thoughts that the Hunters were planning to do the same thing that Terminus did, find a technology and alter it enough that they could make it on their own without having to pay royalties.
"You know, I have the authority to license you a full array if you want to have one for your fleet. I have checked carefully, and there is no rule against discounts, so we can let you build your own from our pattern without violating Alliance laws now that it is properly patented and available for retail purchase." He informed her in response to her thoughts.
"I forget that you are like the Illithid. Sneaking around in the brain to find out what someone really wants. It's an unfair advantage in negotiations, but I bet it's an even larger one in the bedroom." She laughed, making a swinging hip gesture to emphasize her point.
"I will decline to answer that. But she already told you, didn't she?"
Max didn't even have to wait for the amused smirk on Huntress Khan's face to know that Nico had given up all the juicy details during their rampage in the Captial.
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