The research teams back aboard Absolution must have informed the new team of their usual schedule because when Max and Nico got up at six in the morning for breakfast, the entire team was ready to go.
They weren't the only ones aboard the vessel, though. Max could sense that there were four people on duty on the bridge and eight more who were asleep, making three shifts of bridge crew for a full rotation.
None of the bridge crew were Innu, but most of them were not humans either. The Captain of the Watch who was on duty right now was a Giant, as were the other two, while each shift had a Valkia on duty as a weapons officer, which amused Max. The Valkia were always drawn to law enforcement and other combat-related positions, though they had sworn off interplanetary conflicts centuries ago.
The other crew members were a mix of humans and other species, which Max was startled to see included a Dryad. He hadn't expected to see one of them volunteer to come out here to the middle of nowhere aboard a ship without a forest of any sort. But this one was the ship's medical officer, specializing in treatments that were beyond the capabilities of the Alliance-developed medical bays and handheld healing devices that the ship was stocked with.
They were also a doctoral student, and working on a thesis involving convergent evolution, the theory that all intelligent life gravitated toward a certain set of common denominators, which would always be the best possible option for an aspect of every species' evolution.
It was a fascinating theory, and it might actually have some basis in reality, from what Max had seen. It also explained why they had come out here. There were brand new, never seen before species and a wealth of new knowledge to be had on this side of the anomaly.
If there were anywhere in the Universe which could verify their theory, it would be here.
The Dryad's ambition didn't stop there, though. They wanted to not only prove the theory but identify at least one of the aspects that all species were evolving toward. If they could manage that, they would be legends in the field of genetic medicine for millennia to come.
It was ambitious, but that was a good thing out here in the far reaches of space.
The entire research team was waiting for them in the dining room when they arrived. They were all in their lab coats and eager to get going, though some of them had clearly spent almost all night working on the perfect presentation for Nico.
"I guess I should have clarified that you didn't have to get the presentation done before the start of your shift. Any time today would have been fine." Max greeted them, earning some long-suffering groans from the students.
"He's like that. Imprecise with time schedules. He does it to motivate the lazier crew members." Nico added.
The researchers laughed, and Max could sense that they were convinced that the moniker of 'lazy' could never apply to an Innu in a research team. It was literally the best job they could possibly imagine, and just the thought of going to work energized their minds.
"I have picked a special first meal for us all." One of the students informed Max, then brought over two covered plates to set in front of him and Nico.
"It's a tradition of our University." One of the others explained.
They uncovered the plates of raspberry-stuffed waffles, covered in more fruits and whipped cream with chocolate sprinkles.
"If that's a tradition, it's a new one." Max laughed. Both Raspberries and Chocolate had come to them from the humans, so they had only known about them for a year or so.
"Well, we might have changed the flavours a bit since raspberry and chocolate are so much better than the Pit Berries that we used to use. But the first day, stuffed waffles with whipped cream is the traditional first meal of students and teachers at the university. It's supposed to be good luck." The girl who set the plates down giggled.
She was telling the truth, and her hair tentacles were wriggling in excitement as she sat down at her own meal and poured another cup of coffee from the carafe on the table.
"If you're going to do raspberry waffles, you'll have to go easy on the coffee, or you'll end up drunk for your first day at work." Max reminded them.
"Oh, shoot. We forgot about that. Well, one cup won't hurt. But we should go get some juice." One of the Innu girls, an especially tall one with skin in such a light pink that it was almost white, announced before running to the replicator.
Breakfast got lively very quickly as they all started to talk to Nico about the projects that they hoped to work on in the near future. They were all somewhat relevant to the work at hand, with some of them wanting to create sensory technology and a few others wanting to work on Warp Drive theories.
They all had a different portion of the functions that they were interested in, but most of their theories could be either verified or disproven by the operation of a specifically designed advanced Warp Drive.
Since it was all theoretical, there wouldn't be any patent issues. Nobody else had made them work in the real world, after all.
Even finding out that they would be putting the finishing touches on a nearly finished Line Mecha design to start out their work here wasn't enough to dampen the enthusiasm they held for this new position.
They had all sorts of ideas for how to perfect the final issues with the Mecha, and they had even been studying the humans who didn't have the System Nanobots, so that they could account for their differences when they were doing the design work. It was an impressive level of preparation for working with the Terminus Trading Company, more than Max had expected new employees to put in.
"Alright. Let's get to it. I think that we can have everything set up before lunch, and then we've got half the day to work on the existing design." Nico announced as she got to her feet.
[They're loaded up with raspberries and coffee. You might want to take the morning to greet the rest of the crew.] Nico though, looking directly at Max before she left with the researchers.
She was right, their excitement was already becoming a constant buzz in his head as their thoughts went crazy.
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