With the plans that Nico brought him the next morning, on behalf of Uncle Lu, Max now knew that he would need nearly two thousand staff to keep everything running with full uptime, after accounting for standard absences, vacation days, and such.
Unlike the soldiers, who lived on call, the staff for the factory bay and the Cruise Ship area would be working 5-day weeks, shift work, because a cruise ship never really slept.
Nico would take care of the recruitment from the Moon Base, and send the data back to Max, while he took a team to deal with the much larger group down on the surface. Max suspected that he had been duped into taking the lousy side of the job, but everyone who was in space at the moment was likely a Reaver, to begin with, so letting them deal with Nico wasn't going to scare them away.
Many had already sent their credentials, hoping for a headstart on the hiring, but there were at least five thousand people waiting for him when he arrived.
[Did I post something strange?] Max asked on the Regiment's common channel when he saw the crowd.
[I wouldn't call it strange, but cruise ship work is good work. We pay well, and it is expected that we will be stopping off at a load of desirable locations, right? Even if the staff doesn't get to see them all because of their work schedule, they're bound to have days off on one of them eventually. It's a pretty good perk for the sort of people who want their life to be a working vacation.]
That bit of wisdom came from Inquisitor General Ming and was quickly seconded by a dozen other voices thinking the same thing.
Many of the Kepler Citizens who had only seen warzones and third-rate space stations for shore leave still felt the need to travel, and many more who had the opportunity to see a few of the vacation planets desperately wanted to see more of them.
They were going to be doing a lot of diplomatic work in the near future, once their last Mecha was ready, so they would certainly get to see a few more civilized planets. But still, this was a lot of people, with a lot of combat experience between them.
"I'm sorry Miss, but even Reavers have labor standards." Max heard one of his entourage telling someone in the crowd, so he went to investigate. It was a young couple, possibly brother and sister, and too young to have been at the academy when things got messy on their homeworld.
"Come on man, I can push a broom and make a bed as well as anyone, and I can prove it if you want." The girl insisted again, holding out her application.
"Put her in the system. As she says, she can do the job. But we're not a daycare center, so you had better be prepared to work your full shifts or we will drop you at the next port with a travel debt." Max warned the pair of youngsters who looked offended.
"Just give us the chance and we will prove ourselves." They declared in unison, before clearing the front of the line for the next applicant.
"As long as they're close to age, take the applications. They'll grow into the job eventually, and it's easier to train kids than combat veterans." Max whispered, making the two Pilots taking applications at that table chuckle.
"Got it, Commander. I see what you're going for."
There were a lot like that in this crowd. Not well suited to most jobs, but they could do simple tasks well enough, and there were a lot of simple tasks to be done. Most had been passed over because of their low System Compatibility since most planets didn't send nearly as much of their population to the war effort as Kepler Terminus did.
They couldn't be pilots, their planet didn't need more infantry, so they were stuck at home, flunked out of school and out of work even now that they were on a new planet, thanks to their lack of qualifications.
Fortunately, there were also enough qualified people from maintenance and Logistics departments in the military who could be hired as supervisors to train all the new workers and keep things running smoothly.
"Is there a particular look you're going for Commander?" A woman in her mid-twenties, with visibly muscular arms covered in tattoos, asked as Max was checking the crowd for issues.
"That depends on the job. It's a cruise ship, so we're going to put a bunch of the cute ones on day-shift public relations, but other than that, it doesn't matter. What was your specialty?" Max replied.
"Mecha Repair Technician. I might have made sergeant if I could actually get along with my Commanders. Instead, I retired at the first opportunity." She shrugged.
"Excellent. Take this pass and catch the shuttle up to the moon base sometime in the next 48 hours. If you know any other technicians, we're short on them. Not for our combat Mecha, but for all the excursion equipment and the security Mecha for the Cruise Ship areas. If you know any more, send them our way." Max explained.
Many of them would end up working to produce and quality control test brand new units, but that wasn't something that Max was going to advertise in public.
"Nice, a few others from my unit are in the crowd somewhere. I will send them to you personally if they can skip the line." She told Max with a smile.
"Do that. Technicians are welcome anytime. Plus, I think you'll get along well with the ones we already have. You'll understand when you meet Rage. Our techs aren't as uptight as the unit you came from." Max laughed.
The Techs on Terminus held oil wrestling matches with Tech Adept Harnesses on, claiming that it helped with their fine control skills. Max couldn't imagine many other Commanders overlooking that. Even General Yaakov had been hard-pressed to pretend that it wasn't happening so that he didn't have to reprimand them.
