"I must say, Miss Tarith, you have a rather unique appearance." The Duke smiled, giving Nico's tight and stretchy piloting suit and winged exoskeleton an appreciative look.
"The particular joys of being a full conversion Cyborg, your Grace. It frees me to modify my body to be capable of many feats a normal human is not, even with the vaunted System of the Kepler Empire." Nico replied.
There was no way that the Duke could know that she still had an Alpha Ranked system active, so he just nodded in agreement and looked over the documents as Max had prepared them.
"Most of this is agreeable to us, but the terms of return to Kepler must be removed. Until matters are settled, we will be remaining in neutral space." He said, tapping the document, then striking out the relevant portions with red ink.
"In that case, the full payment for damages and Ransom must be paid before you leave the planet. Do you prefer internment by the local forces, or can you pay with your remaining assets?" Nico asked.
The Duke turned to his assistant, who was quickly calculating something on a data tablet. "If they will take the precious metals and remaining Mecha in exchange, we should have enough for the ransom of the men, but not enough for all the reparations."
[Demand legal title to the ships we are taking.] Max ordered, listening in through an open link with Nico.
"Your allied reinforcements didn't fare as well as you did, but they left behind two Transport ships. Give the Terminus Trading Company legal title to them and we will consider the Ransom to Terminus Trading Company paid." Nico suggested.
She could see the man's brow crunch in confusion, not quite understanding for a few seconds before he smiled and nodded. He hadn't realized that the Reavers would want the other ships, they usually only demanded a percentage of their value as ransom, since a Reaver force already had a ship large enough for their needs.
If they claimed every ship that they attacked, they would become a public nuisance that the nations would wipe out, but a ransom fee was commonly paid in situations like this where they were hired as mercenaries and spared valuable assets for their opponents to keep.
The ships were from his planet's defense fleet, not the Kepler Fleet, so he could sell them if he needed to, though the action was highly frowned upon. Not that Kepler's regulations really concerned a Rebel commander, but the sense of tradition was strong among the Nobles.
Dar Mar sat down and handed a document to the assistant, with the estimated damages as well as the standardized reparations fees for him to work out. That would pretty much wipe out the remaining Rebel assets, but they would be able to keep a few of their luxuries, which would help placate them.
With everyone in rebreathers or armored suits, thanks to the poisonous natural atmosphere that filled the facility with the Shield down, the meeting wasn't as formal as normal, with the two sides simply waiting across the table while the numbers were done and a list of assets for transfer was made up.
The Facility didn't seem all that picky about what they were paid with, Dar Mar didn't even declare any of the items to be worthless to them, he simply checked the numbers and nodded.
"That is acceptable to the facility. If the Terminus Trading Company is happy with their payment we don't require anything else." He suggested, trying to weasel out of actually paying for the services since the ships that they confiscated were worth hundreds of times their standard fees.
They had only lost thirty Mecha, all of which had been recovered, and three Pilots, all from the new design Light Mecha. It was unfortunate, but an outstanding battle result in the circumstances, and Max could hear the Reaver forces watching from orbit already beginning to send celebratory messages back to Rae 5 about the Samurai Pattern Line Mecha's capabilities.
The tactic that the Light Mecha wings had been using was to cycle out their forward units, letting them take hits until their shield began to fail, then letting them fall back to recover while others took their place. Doing things that way led to a front line that never seemed to lose anything to attrition, as the shields only needed a minute at the most to recover if they weren't damaged.
[Accept the deal. We will use the ships for Rae 5 security patrol, so it's worth it to us.] Max ordered Nico, who smiled across at the Duke and filled in the payment details on the agreement.
His assistant had a printer with him, set up on the table where Nico had left her Plasma Rifle, and he scanned the paperwork and then printed two new copies for the two sides to sign.
Dar Mar was about to sign the moment it reached the table, but Nico thumped him on the head. "At least read it and check for errors first. It isn't a crew rotation document."
As expected, there were a number of items left out of the payment details that were included in the original calculations, which Nico politely pointed out and had the assistant print out a new copy.
"Very sorry about that, you know how those scanners are." Duke Millicent simpered, while Nico fought to avoid rolling her eyes at the man.
"Of course, I have signed a number of these documents over my career, so I have learned to be cautious of mistakes where the document scanners are involved.
This time everything was correct on the document, and there were no visible errors or changes made. Nico snapped a copy of it to send to Max, who double-checked her work and declared it correct.
[It's good to sign. Everyone, remain on your stations until the payment is made, and then we can head back to orbit and arrange to return the new ships back to Rae 5.]
