After a short inspection for alien species and signals on the human-controlled side of the Anomaly, followed by a few drinks with the Ship's Admiral, a Portal was opened to the last reported location of Absolution, and they were finally on their way home for Nico's birthday.
But when they reached the coordinates, there was a surprise waiting for them. Hundreds of Reaver ships had gathered for the party, and as soon as the Portal closed, they set off a magnificent orbital fireworks display.
[Happy Birthday Commanders] The explosions read, surrounded by hundreds of sparkling lights.
Max picked up the intercom and addressed the gathered Reavers.
[Thank you all for the warm welcome. It is an honour to have you all here to celebrate another year, and I welcome you all to Absolution, the home base of the Terminus Trading Company.] Max laughed, triggering another round of fireworks from the ships and thunderous applause from inside the world ship that Max could sense even from where they were, tens of thousands of kilometres away.
Nico gave the order for the Cutter to return to their personal hangar, the secure area where their own Mecha were usually stored, safely out of sight of anyone who might want to study them. Then she turned to Max with a smile.
"It looks like everyone has a surprise for us. Felicity has decided that our birthday is a Company Holiday, and the whole World ship is decorated with birthday party themed events."
Max could only imagine what the AI had gotten up to while it was deciding on the scale for a birthday party for the pair of them, but it looked like she had managed to convince the board of Governors that it should be a grand event.
That shouldn't be as surprising as it was, though. The Commander's birthday and the Company's founding day were often holidays on a Reaver vessel. But the scale of it, when applied inside a world ship, was on a whole other level.
[Everyone, please gather at the rear cargo bay doors once the ship is secure inside the hangar. We will exit from there as a group, as this is a secure area.] Max informed the crew.
The hangar wasn't empty, though. The Governing Council, Felicity and Mary Tarith were all waiting there for them to disembark, eager to see the Commanders again after months away and after seeing multiple reports of new technological developments sent by them.
Mary stepped forward with a smile on her face to greet the group.
"Welcome back. We had hoped to have everyone here to greet you, but Uncle Lu is still on his way. He made a last-minute breakthrough on a side development project and couldn't tear himself away."
Max had expected something like that to happen. Lu wasn't the most social of people unless it was about research, and he would certainly come to track them down eventually, but not at the expense of breaking his daily workflow.
ραndαsnοvεl.cοm "Oh, what did he discover?" Nico asked curiously.
They had sent him all sorts of things lately, but none of them with obvious alternate usages.
"It was an odd experiment on the armour plating that you sent to him. I don't know the details yet, but he found that the new technology, where it was energized to stabilize it, could be used on water pipes to both break free deposits and instantly heat the water more efficiently than the current water heater technology.
Apparently, it's over 99 percent efficient at heating water, with the remaining one percent being heat loss into the pipe itself. They found a way to install it into a faucet so that only cold water could be fed through the lines, and the temperature could be set at the point of exit."
Instant water heaters already existed, but they had a fairly significant power usage to rapidly heat the water. Max didn't concern himself about it, but on most planets, power was still billed by usage, unlike on the Reaver's ships, where the basics were just the basics. Everyone got them no matter what.
"While we wait for the other Commanders to get here, let's go greet the people. I have a broadcast station prepared for you on the main level, over top of the city center. It will be broadcast all over the ship, and the people are eagerly awaiting a word of greetings from their leaders." Mary added.
The Innu all got excited at the prospect of getting to take a tour of the city before going to the gravity slides, and the level of energy in their thoughts was beginning to buzz inside Max's head when it combined with the millions of other mental voices on the ship.
It had been a while since he was somewhere this crowded, and it felt like his mind was more sensitive than usual to the noise, making it harder to block things out. But at the same time, it was easier to sort them into categories so that he could focus on groups when he needed an answer to something.
That was a pleasant change and one that he hadn't expected. Maybe all he really needed was a bit of time to let his mind relax.
Max sent that thought over to Illithid, who was currently in the security office covering for the senior staff who were off for the day. One Illithid could do the work of fifty standard security officers, so though it wasn't his job, he had agreed to give them the holiday afternoon shift off, and the other shifts would be lighter on staff to give more people the extended holiday weekend.
[The silence of the minds is a blessing, but watch out for complete silence. It lets the mind wander too far, and it can attract strange thoughts.] The Illithid warned him in return.
It was a folk tale of theirs that if you went out too far and cast your mind into the void seeking silence, you would find that the void cast its thoughts back at you. There was a similar saying among humans about staring into the void, and it was a very real possibility to Max, who had experienced that strange attention on himself multiple times now.
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