Mary Tarith smiled at Max, while Nico took the opportunity to move behind him to surprise her mother. With what she was wearing, her thought was that her mother wouldn't know until she revealed herself.
That was never actually a possibility, as Mary Tarith had a System Function that located her family members when they were nearby, so instead of hiding, Nico's movement only made Mary take an extra step to pick the little Cyborg up in what would be a bone-crushing hug to others.
"My baby girl is back. I've missed you, and you're so adorable. See, pairing you with Max was exactly what you needed. It took some time, but now you're the cutest daughter that any Tarith could ask for." Mary gushed as Nico gave Max a resigned look and let her mother swing her around in the air.
"It's good to see you again, Mom. Max even took me out shopping, especially for today, so that I could look good for our outing, but he kept it a secret until we were on our way here. How have things been while we were away playing politician, which I am fairly sure is actually your job, by the way." Nico asked.
"Nonsense, you're Subcommander of the largest ship in the Reaver Fleet. It's definitely not my job when they specifically ask to speak with you two. But things are becoming a bit more stable, other than the influx of complaints about how the Reavers do business." Mary laughed, which set off a few dozen other Family members in the area.
It was common knowledge at this point that the Alliance members were afraid to step on the Oligarchs' toes, but humans, and especially Reavers, had a much more 'feth around and found out' attitude to the situation. If anyone took offence to their legitimate business practices, which included a very healthy markup for their trouble, they were free to take it up with the business end of an Orbital Lance.
It usually didn't come to that since, by Alliance standards, the humans were unreasonably violent, and most of the products that they were moving around Alliance territory actually came from Alliance providers who simply hadn't had the reach to affordably deliver to this region of space before.
The humans' massive power supply that put Portal Generation devices on basically every major ship of the Reaver Fleet was just one annoyance among their many oddities, according to most of the Alliance. How were you supposed to factor in affordable shipping to a species that didn't value energy usage when it came to travel? Sure, they rationed energy usage on the ship, but their shipboard rates were a quarter of what the Alliance charged, so everyone just had more of everything for the same number of Alliance Credits.
It affected their pricing on everything from food to services and goods, and even more distant systems were beginning to look at shopping with the Reavers, much to the annoyance of businesses who had considered their business as a given for many generations.
Mary set Nico down after a few seconds and grabbed Max around the middle to give him the same hug, minus the lifting and spinning since Max was near twice the small woman's size.
"It's good to see you again as well. You're looking more mature now. How is Command treating you?" She asked.
"I'm learning to delegate. Things expanded so quickly that I wasn't able to take care of everything alone, even on Absolution, so I'm going to be forming a Council, chosen of Reavers who can be trusted to be loyal, to run the day-to-day operations, while I go about all of the other business that I have to take care of.
There really isn't anyone else who can do it, but as long as they're in contact with me, I'm certain that a Board of Directors will be able to see Absolution move into the future smoothly." Max replied, a bit louder than necessary, because he was hoping to recruit some of these experienced veterans with too much spare time to take over as Directors.
Many of them had passed down the Companies to the next generation when they were under sixty years old and had high System Compatibility, so they had centuries left to live while the successive generations took care of their personal branch of the Family Business.
There were a few that looked interested. A world ship was way cooler than taking a position as part of the governing council of an actual planet. For one, there weren't nearly as many of them. For two, they went to all sorts of fun places and did interesting things. Not so long ago, even a Colony ship was a valuable find, and they would have happily taken control of one, so they weren't resistant to the idea of joining a group of like-minded Reavers to run Absolution.
"You're starting to sound like my husband. He's always on about having important things to do that take him away from home. Look at this, I'm running out of children at home, and he's already trying to escape again." Mary complained.
"I'm quite certain that it's not the actual practice that he has concerns about. But you know, you don't have to populate the entire planet on your own. There are other Tarith women who can have children, and you can go visit them or even bring one into your home to cuddle her infants if she's down on her luck." Max suggested, in an attempt to help out Nico's dad as much as he could.
"You know, if I had more grandchildren around the house, I wouldn't have to keep having more kids to keep up the number of little ones at home." She replied suggestively as if Nico wasn't a full conversion Cyborg.
"Mary's always behind the curve." A short but stout woman laughed with an infant in her arms.
She was clearly too old to be having more kids, so this was likely her grandchild.
"My dearest Aunt, I don't think it counts if your child drops them off with you to go shack up with a Flect dealer on Ryza," Mary told her, with full snark in effect.
The men in the area winced and backed away, as they were far too old and wise to get in the middle of this conversation, and they had all heard it before. But this time, the older woman simply snorted and walked away.
Mary had scored a critical hit, and the daughter in question had overdosed to death only weeks after dropping all seventeen of her children, most of whom were home from a break at the Academy, off with her mother and then heading out 'to get some supplies for dinner.'
"Low blow, Mary." Max reminded her as the hurt older woman walked away. The hate they had for each other was very clear, but still, the incident was only a few months old and still a fresh wound on the older woman's heart.
"I won't apologize. Well, not in public." Mary amended.
"See what you're teaching our sweet young Nico? You wouldn't want her to turn out to be a ruthless woman with a caustic tongue, would you?" Nico's dad joked as he made his way over now that her mind had been sidetracked from the topic of having more children of her own a little.
"Our gentle young Nico? Do you recall the time that she suggested teaching the guard dogs to aim their restraint bites up intruders' shorts? She's lovely and adorable, but Nico has never been gentle." One of the Butlers laughed, with tears of amusement in his gray eyes and laugh lines wrinkling his face.
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