"Just for the sake of curiosity, how long will it take the algae that we used today to regrow?" Max asked.
"About a week?" The technician shrugged, unsure of the exact number since that was the domain of the botanists, not the technicians.
Roughly two thousand people in the Regiment, and the current algae growth rate supported a banquet meal for ten thousand at a time? That should be one meal at this level per day for the entire crew. That wasn't as ridiculous as Max had thought, and he began to relax.
"I know the numbers you're doing, and they're wrong. If the stockpile wasn't so heavily depleted it would take much less time to regrow. They currently have enough that at full supply it could nearly cover all three meals a day for the entire crew.
That's why we're working so hard to get enough recipes in order that we can bring the rest of the units online.
If we can get the big ones in the kitchens going this week before the stockpile regrows, we should be able to sustain the kitchens indefinitely, as long as the waste recycling system holds out and we have a small supply of fertilizer to keep growth rates up." Nico explained.
"How did you?" Max began, but the technicians laughing interrupted him.
"I will give you one piece of advice Commander, if I may. If anyone ever asks you to play poker, send Nico. Every thought you have is clear as day on your face once we learned what to look for, that's how she always seems to know what you're thinking." One of the technicians replied.
Max hadn't considered that. Being Commander came with a lot of interactions, but he had always been wearing his mask so far, so it didn't become an issue. He might have to start working on his poker face though, just in case there came a time when he needed to lie to the crew to keep them from panicking.
"Noted, no poker games for me. Keep up the good work, and make sure you're on time for the ceremony. I'm sure the General would appreciate it if the entire Regiment was there to send him off, and we have a number of new allies to impress." Max reminded them.
The only people who would be left behind to guard the ship were a single Company from the First Battalion, who would make sure that nobody broke in or tampered with the ship while it was empty.
Once the wedding party left for the city, the Regiment would be the only ones left there, and that meant that they would only have to guard against threats from the outside again. Not that they had any trouble with either the Tarith family or the refugees, but it was always better to be over-cautious.
The wedding was scheduled to start with a parade of light Mecha carrying banners, accompanied by midday fireworks that would mark the official start of the wedding ceremony. As he was a retiring General, and he was marrying a Reaver's daughter, there would be two Super Heavy Mecha on guard, Enduring Rage, piloted by Nico, and one from the Tarith Family, which Max hadn't seen yet, as it had arrived with the Reavers from Gwen's side of the family.
By any normal standard, this would be a spectacular wedding, and if it wasn't for the limits of the venue that they had chosen, many more people would have chosen to attend.
That was why the wedding company would begin with a parade so that the whole city could join in on the celebration if they wanted.
Most of these people were either fresh from battle, or forced to flee their homeworlds, so a big fancy wedding might help things feel a bit more normal for them.
There would be free rounds at the city's newly established Taverns in the evening, a crash course in serving drinks for the freshly hired staff, who hadn't had a chance to prove themselves yet.
The ceremony would be officiated by General Ming, as agreed by both parties, making things easy on everyone else who was worried about differing customs between the two cultures.
Max dozed off to a short nap, mentally preparing for the day ahead, and was woken up by Nico sending him a message.
[One hour to get to the wedding hall. Just in case you were still napping. The parade is about to begin, and I've got Enduring Rage, as well as the wedding banner.]
Nico accompanied it with a photo that was clearly taken by a drone, of a large banner hung between the Mecha's outstretched Ion Bombard Arrays, declaring that this was a wedding between Duke Abraham Yaakov of Terminus Trading Company and Lady Gwen Tarith of the Tarith Reavers.
Max looked over the picture and noted that there were flower petals everywhere along the parade route in front of them.
[Where did you find that many flowers?] He sent back to her.
[We didn't find them, we made them. ten tonnes of them, to spread through the route and the venue. They calm the mind and increase dopamine output, so it should put the whole city in a happy wedding party sort of mood.
Don't worry, we're paying overtime for the city roads department to come to sweep them up tonight.]
Max thought that they might have gone a bit overboard, but he put on his best Reaver-appropriate suit and jogged out of the ship to head to the open field where the wedding would be held, surrounded by walls of flowers.
If he was right, this venue was actually a combat arena, but now that it was covered in flowers, with all the seating decorated, it made an excellent wedding venue.
As he reached the gates, all of Max's previous concerns about going overboard were nullified by the sight above him. The Tarith family had jettisoned thousands of tonnes of metallic scraps from their ships in low orbit, to make an incredible mid-day fireworks show that lit up the skies overhead with bright streaks of colored fire.
Then a pair of drones began deploying flare countermeasures in a heart-shaped pattern overhead, and Max saw the two Mecha, one of them Enduring Rage, the other an ancient pattern of Phalanx Class super heavy that made even the venerable Shining Darkness that General Tennant used to pilot seem shiny and new.
