The group of VIP travellers that had come down to the surface with Max and Nico all gathered at breakfast the next morning, ready to get onto the next experience on their itinerary, while the staff of the Resort helped their butlers load the luggage.
By his count, Max wasn't the only one that was gaining staff members here on the planet, though it was possible that some of them were actually Mistresses, or "Company" for the trip and not new employees.
It was far from uncommon for those with money to pick up attractive young followers when they were on vacation, so Max wouldn't say anything about it as long as there were no nefarious plans going on.
The android Pilot of the yacht came over three hours after breakfast with his report.
"Commander, all the guests are on board, along with five additions. All documents are checked and there are no wanted felons or fugitives on board. We are ready to depart when you are. Commander Nico is already on board, giving fashion tips to the dryad girl in your suite." The android informed him.
"Thank you. Let's get back up to the ship. The shuttles from the other resorts should start arriving soon, and the staff will want us there to deal with any issues they have." Max agreed, and followed him back to the Santa Maria.
They got clearance to leave the surface the instant that they requested it, and air traffic control even rerouted other vessels so that they would have a clear path up to Terminus. It might only have been because they wanted him gone before there could be any more incidents involving the humans and the possible takeover of their planet, but Max knew that the damage was already done, and the scandal was only a very minor part of it.
Once they heard that the cruise ship would be coming here as a regular attraction, both Reaver operated resort groups and Innu operated ones had moved quickly to buy up some of the resorts on this world. The requests to change venue for their next visit were already waiting on Max's desk, and the ink on the sale documents was likely still drying.
Even if they could only secure a small portion of the ship's guests, just being on the list would guarantee them full occupancy for a few weeks out of the year, and that was the sort of major client that resorts thrived on.
Between big guests like Terminus and the major holidays, the resorts covered their base expenses, with the slower times making up the profit and renovations.
But that was a concern for the logistics staff who organized all the off ship excursions. Max was more concerned about making sure that all the students who had used their time off to go to the surface made it back on board.
A regular paying guest missing the ship would be an inconvenience, but one of the underage students being left behind would a hit to their reputation, and so far, the Terminus Academy had an impeccable record, and a long string of academic victories since their inception.
It was a bit unfair, as they had cherry-picked so many top students from around the Alliance to attend, but even then, the quality of the teachers and teaching methods mattered when they were competing against other elite academies.
The number of challenges that they had faced in academic contests was a bit shocking, but when you considered that the challenging team, or at least its senior staff, would be staying in the cruise ship section for the week that the events were going on, it wasn't quite as surprising that other wealthy Academies were more than happy to have a contest with the students of Terminus Academy.
[How is the loading going?] Max asked the staff in charge of recording arrivals when the last shuttle for the day was scheduled to have been unloaded.
[We still have seventeen unaccounted for, including a group of four students that, we think, might have snuck into a speakeasy with falsified identification. We have sent one of our own shuttles to the surface to gather the last stragglers and make sure they make it home.
Their luggage and any Terminus issued electronic devices are trackable, so we have confidence that we will have them back on board tonight.]
[Thank you. Please let me know if we have to send security staff to recover anyone. Kidnappings on resort worlds aren't unheard of.] Max agreed.
The security team would love that. They had practised for the situation many times in the past, but Max didn't recall a time when anyone had actually kidnapped a guest from the ship.
To the security team's great disappointment, over the course of the next hour, all the lagging guests were picked up. Most of them were at the shuttle ports, and had just pushed their luck a bit too far when trying to make it there for the last shuttle.
Possibly more than a bit, as the last shuttle had left thirty minutes after its scheduled time due to traffic congestion, so those who were left behind had missed it by more than that.
As expected, the missing students had gone to an underground casino and speakeasy and had lost track of time in the windowless environment. The Academy had auto-dimming artificial lighting outside the buildings, so it looked like there was an actual sunrise and sunset, but the lower levels didn't have that advantage, and they had no problem letting a bunch of rich kids empty their pockets onto the gambling tables.
[Commander, the last of our guests are on their way back. Should we make a complaint about underage gambling?] The shuttle pilot asked once they had all the guests secured.
[Don't worry about it. No harm, no foul. They'll learn well enough by the money they lost. I'm assuming that they all lost?] Max replied.
[Except one Reaver girl. She's up by nearly seven hundred thousand credits.] The pilot confirmed.
Max couldn't help but laugh out loud. Either she had a system function that helped with gambling, or she had the devil's own luck to have won that much money from one of the many rigged casinos.
Well, it was possible that they were using her as bait and setting her up to win to give the others hope, but since they were off world now, the way she won didn't matter as much. The group of truants would likely be denied a shore leave the next time the ship stopped here, and have to take their vacation days aboard the ship.
Max went to the cargo bay where the shuttle was landing to chastise those who had held up the departure, and take a look at their lucky winner. When he arrived, Headmistress Medusa was already there, along with the school's dean of discipline, a large Valkia man who looked like he might have one Giant as a parent.
As far as the intimidation factor went, he had it.
The students did their best to blend into the thoroughly chastised crowd leaving the shuttle, but there were only a little over a dozen people, and they were four of them. The crowd was far from enough to hide from the wrath of their teachers.
"What do you have to say for yourselves?" The Dean of Discipline asked the returning students.
"We're very sorry, sir. We didn't intend to miss the shuttle and inconvenience everyone." They apologized in unison.
"Not bad, well rehearsed, good tenor, even cadence. But completely disingenuous. You'll have to do better than that if you want me to lighten your penalty for truancy." He informed them.
"Truancy? Sir, we're back on time, even if it was an inconvenience. We can reimburse for the fees. I can't have another truancy count on my record." One of the students pleaded.
"It is now four minutes past midnight, Academy time. You are two hours past lights out. That is a truant return to the Academy." The Dean informed them.
Now they knew that they were in trouble. Out after lights out was seldom forgiven by the strict administrator.
When he saw that they had no more excuses, he nodded happily. He hated lies and prevarication. It was best to just apologize and accept punishment with him.
"Alright, each of you will serve a discharged punishment. Dorm hallway cleaning duty for two weeks, and then the truancy count will be removed from your record. If you fail, it will be a month, and you will keep the count." He informed them.
"Thank you, Dean. We will do our best."
