The Pilot maneuvered the shuttle into the docking bay without hesitation, but Max noted that there was a lot more traffic than he had been expecting all around the ship. They had only been gone for a few days, so not too much should have changed, but it looked like there was some sort of festival going on, judging by the number of ships coming and going.
Max led Nico and Felicity to his office, where he could tell that Major Miller was more than a little eager to be relieved of his duty and where the Envoys were waiting with overwhelming thoughts of annoyance that they had learned of the situation from a blockade force, while Max had repeatedly missed his daily briefings, both before and afterward.
He would have to apologize for that once he made it there, but he had a number of very viable excuses prepared for his lack of communication, and he had a lot of data to distract them with.
"Major, Envoys, it is good to see you again. It looks like we are having a party here on the ship. Did something good happen?" Max greeted the room.
Nico and Felicity walked in behind him, and everyone gave the android dressed as a researcher a strange look. Outsiders were never allowed in this office, and Nico's research team was all Innu and human. They didn't need an android. In fact, they made the androids.
"This is Felicity, the Artificial Intelligence of the Research Facility that we recently cleared out. They have taken on an android body for mobility while they search for a suitable purpose for their existence, now that the guiding principles that they were imbued with have been accomplished to a satisfactory state and the managers of the Facility have ordered them to be discontinued." Max explained.
That got the Innu researcher excited, and Max could actually hear her heart rate accelerate as happy thoughts of conversations with a nascent AI filled her mind. It was a rare opportunity, as usually there would be many more people around to influence it and fill it with data and directives. Felicity was practically an unattended child for her to feed candy to, in the Innu's mind.
"I am glad you're back, Commander. It has been a logistical nightmare here, but we have cleared two planets since you left, and the ships you see are the celebratory delegations from the planets who have come to either pay their respects or celebrate their survival before returning home.
There are also a number of merchant's vessels coming in and out, and the commercial area of the city has expanded considerably under the guidance of the development documents that Subcommander Nico left behind.
An additional seventy thousand businesses have been registered aboard the ship in the last two days, and the volume of human-patented goods that we are producing is simply staggering. It is well beyond anticipated numbers, and while the factories are keeping up, shipping is becoming an issue." Major Miller explained.
"What could possibly be selling so well that it is overwhelming the logistics staff of a World Ship?" The Giant Envoy asked as they hadn't been made aware of the internal workings of the ship lately.
"The strangest things seem to have caught on. We have shipped seven hundred thousand tonnes of incense as well as over a hundred thousand civilian pattern Mobile Suits this week. We are also doing above average business in Virtual Reality pods, as well as software sales." Major Miller replied, then handed over a data tablet for the Envoy to examine.
The Giant frowned as it read the document. All of the items that were being sold were perfectly legal and even encouraged as trade items to the Alliance from the humans, but the demand for them was strangely fast in its increase.
They hadn't done any networking that he was aware of, but suddenly they had thousands of new customers from all ends of the Alliance, and there didn't seem to be any sort of connection.
Then a familiar business name caught his eye, and he put it all together. These were all Black Market affiliated businesses. Max and Nico had impressed the underworld bosses, and they had started to bring human products into their distribution network.
"It looks like you made a good friend. I take it your mission for them was successful?" The Valkia Envoy asked.
"Very much so. It turns out that the Facility had delivery logs for the Rain Shield Company, detailing rare species transfers all over the place, and they lined up well enough to satisfy the Station Boss about where the cases of infestation in his jurisdiction had come from. That was his primary request for us." Max agreed.
"That and ship refurbishment parts. It's not enough to make a blip on the production levels, but I do notice that Absolution has sent out hundreds of premade Warp Crystal arrays. Did you perhaps corner the market for ship refurbishments while you were out?" The Valkia asked with a smirk.
They both knew that it was the Black Market refurbishing possibly stolen vessels or ones associated with criminal activity, but that wasn't really any of the Envoys' business. They weren't in charge of ship refurbishment and registration, and the transactions were lawful, as they didn't specify any vessel for the crystals to be used on.
"Oh, we also sold two more Terraforming Arrays today. Payment in full has been made, and the products are ready to be picked up by the holding companies that bought them. It looks like a Galaxy without any sentient species has been slated for expansion, and there will be a negotiation team here eventually to try to work a financing deal for over a hundred more units." Major Miller added in a deadpan voice as if he hadn't just mentioned the terraforming and settling of a huge region of space for an astronomical price.
"We should get them to name it after us. Maybe build a resonating city on each planet as a homage to the Terminus Trading Company." Nico suggested with a smirk.
That would be quite the selling point. But the sheer scale of the project was likely to be met with regulatory pushback. The Alliance's longstanding Corporate Oligarchs wouldn't let that many trillions of credits be absorbed by an outside force without any attempt to let them bid on the project.
"Thank you, Major. I can tell that you are not looking forward to that headache, so you can return to the festivities on the main level. But first, tell me how the expansion of the island level is coming along."
"It is already complete and stocked with natural life awaiting your return to approve the work and make the official designation of the initial inhabitation points. The oceans are up to a kilometre deep in places, with sixty percent submersion of the surface, and mostly shallow waters.
Seventeen points for underwater cities have been identified, another twelve for surface cities, as well as fourteen hundred possible resort sites, where the beach size and quality match the minimum requirements for a seven-star resort."
"Excellent. I will get on that tomorrow so that we can start moving people over and building the cities."