Over the course of the next week, thousands of new arrivals came to Terminus, bringing with them lively attitudes, and bright colors that even in their Reaver garb weren't usually associated with the sensible Pilots of the Terminus Trading Company.
They had somehow managed to fill every vacancy that they had advertised, as well as most of the ones that they hadn't spoken of openly, filling out the shift managers and quality control positions for their onboard Mecha Manufacturing plant.
It wouldn't turn out all that many Mecha, at best twenty a day, but the stockpile of rare materials that were needed was also limited, so it worked out well in the end. They would take the time to visit a few asteroid fields along the way and build up their stockpiles again, but for now, they could rest assured that they had the capacity to fulfill all but the most extreme of orders.
Despite the rate that the Kepler Empire went through them, a Mecha wasn't cheap to produce, so most private security forces who wanted a brand new unit only ordered a handful at a time, to show off their wealth and power to their clients, cycling out the oldest units in their fleet to a less fortunate company looking for a bargain on somewhat serviceable Mecha.
At Uncle Lu's suggestion, they included a sample of the Tapani Mecha that they had captured during the battle for the system into the design parameters of their bays. Just a little slap in the face from the Reavers to the nation that had dared to attack them.
Max thought it was actually rather fitting. They had lost the battle and left their equipment behind, even agreeing to the Reavers' terms that it was all forfeit. That meant that they weren't actually doing anything wrong by reproducing the technology they reverse-engineered, though it was all a few generations out of date anyhow, and not top of the line even when it was new.
Tapani wasn't that sort of powerhouse, to begin with.
Max was taking a tour of the crew quarters where the staff who would be working the cruise ship section was staying when he came across a familiar young face. The clearly underage girl from the recruitment fair had made the cut as a housekeeper.
"Good Morning Commander Keres. It is an honor to be working with you." She greeted him, catching the attention of the other staff nearby.
"It's good to see you again. Are you getting properly settled in and used to your new job? Max asked politely.
"I am. They even gave me the good one. I'm on hallway duty in the crew areas." She informed him.
Right now, that was one of the harder jobs, since most of the construction work in the residential areas was done and there were no occupants in the rest of the ship. But it also kept her safely tucked away from the passengers, where she could be monitored by the older employees. That probably wasn't a coincidence, though Max hadn't checked to see who the shift manager who set their schedules and duty roster was.
Tomorrow was the test opening of a number of the bars and food venues, a rolling event that would see everything test run at maximum capacity for four hours over the course of the next week, to make sure that everything was operating as it should.
The Regiment had no idea what most of the drinks were, or what was on any of the menus, and they wouldn't be informed in advance, so they could show up and pack the venue, with a line outside to properly stress test the staff, while behaving as much like clueless tourists as possible.
After a few days aboard, it would be expected that people would start checking the cruise data so they could find out about all of the entertainment and food options.
Live entertainment had proven to be an issue for them. Good entertainment wanted to be known, not doing a years-long bit on an unknown cruise ship going who knows where to nations who had never heard of them. That left them with a lot of holographic shows, but they did find a few others, street performers who were currently playing to scrounge enough change for rent and were happy to take the offer to play in the streets for tourists while getting a guaranteed salary.
"Is it true that you have thousands of Mecha Pilots aboard the ship?" The young staffer asked Max hopefully.
"It is, we have a very strong defense force, so even if we stop off somewhere dangerous to take on a mission, you don't have anything to worry about," Max informed her.
"I heard that every woman loves a Mecha Pilot from the other cleaners, so I think I will go meet them when the restaurants open tomorrow and see what they're so excited about." The girl told Max innocently, before taking a soft swat to the head.
"What have I told you about listening to those harpies go on about men?" The shift supervisor admonished her.
"Not to." The girl sighed, then picked up her tools.
"It was good to see you again Commander."
Max turned to the supervisor, whose nametag only stated her position with the name left blank.
"Is she fitting in well enough? I know everyone was worried about her and her brother's age." Max asked.
"It wasn't his age we had to worry about. He was sent back to the surface for smuggling contraband drugs aboard. Some get rich quick scheme he worked out with a few of the others. I checked, and she wasn't in on the deal, so we let her stay, but he's been blacklisted." The Supervisor informed Max.
If they were contraband by Reaver standards, they were some nasty sorts of drugs, so Max wouldn't try to intervene on the boy's behalf, even if it would be very hard for him to find decent work in the future. Him and his partners had basically thrown away any chance at a decent career in the future when they got caught, which was quite the accomplishment on Rae 5 and not in a good way.
