Their guests seemed to be easily entertained, and the hourly reports that Max was getting showed that the most frequented area of the entire vessel was the gravity slides. The Innu weren't even stopping to see the attractions until they were tired or hungry, they simply spent hours at a time racing around the ship on the waterslides, while the visitors from the Illithid Empire preferred to relax in the hot tubs and only moved when they wanted to remove their exoskeletons to eat.
They could bring the food inside their robotic bodies, but it was preferable to release themselves and eat in the luxury of their room. They deemed it too high of a risk to remove their robotic assistance bodies even in the dining halls, so all their orders were for room service, to be left outside the room and brought in by the one person who "got dressed" as they referred to equipping the suits.
[Sir, we have new arrivals. More Innu, as well as the warranty repair team for the damaged yacht.] Admiral Drake informed Max, who was already swamped with messages about the incoming shipments.
[Send the repair team to the same bay as the yacht, and bring the others to the far side, near the main entrance so that the welcoming team can do their thing. How many more are in this batch?] Max asked.
[Roughly one thousand going by the preliminary bookings. Scheduled to be here for a month, with a request to see human-populated planets.] Admiral Drake replied, with a note of amusement in his voice.
They would definitely be seeing that. In fact, they might even get to meet some 'wild humans' from Cygnus, assuming that there weren't any major security concerns with bringing them aboard the ship.
Both ships arrived right on time, between the cargo barge and the code Vermillion shipment, and docked without incident, but these Innu were much different than the students.
Not in appearance, but in personality. This wasn't a bunch of College kids and their social media followers, this vessel had been full of Innu xenomechanists. Scientists specialized in alien technologies and wanted to know absolutely everything about humans, human technology, and their history.
They were much more serious than the first batch, but just as thoroughly taken with the gravity slides the moment that they were explained to them.
At least some things were universal.
They didn't play around on them all day though. Once they took a trip through them to get close to their rooms they went in and started unpacking their equipment to make a proper entry for their records.
The ship they arrived on requested departure clearance barely an hour later, after verifying that nothing had been left behind by accident, and the scientists began to make plans for their extended stay as if Terminus was an unexplored planet in the far reaches of space and not a luxury cruise ship. The sight amused all of the human crew members that saw them, but they were well aware of the unique personality of the Innu as a whole, so they didn't think anything of it.
The repair team turned out to be incredibly efficient, verifying the remote diagnostics the moment that they landed in the bay, and managing to get the warp drive torn apart within two hours so they could do their physical verification for the Warranty Claim.
The technicians on duty could only watch in envy as they finished up within another hour and had the job cleaned up and the yacht back in pristine condition within four hours of their arrival. They could really use a few technicians like that on their crew, and everyone wondered what it would take to get a group of fully trained Innu Warp Drive Technicians to sign on to work aboard Terminus.
That was something that hadn't come up so far. It was clear that they still used some sort of monetary system, given the disparity in resource distribution, but whether the Reavers could offer something of equivalent value was questionable, as they didn't know what the Innu valued as a precious resource.
Max was sitting in his office when the door slid open with a gentle hiss, revealing the High Chancellor and his bodyguards.
"Welcome High Chancellor. What can I do for you today?" Max asked politely, ignoring the fact that he was certain that door was locked a moment ago.
"The boatyard staff has confirmed that my Yacht has been repaired, and as much as I would love to stay and enjoy the adventures of the good ship Terminus, I must return to work and leave these lovely gravity slides behind.
The children will be staying behind here for the duration of their break from school, though I have put them all on punishment, with three hours of mandatory studying to be done daily through the virtual reality headsets provided by your concierge.
If you could verify that they are keeping up with their duty, I would appreciate it, but I will verify when they return either way, and the punishment will be tripled and restarted if they have failed."
The odd dichotomy of allowing them to remain on vacation even when they were in trouble amused Max, but he managed to keep a straight face and respond to the strict official.
"Of course. I will have the staff remind them twice daily. You can set the times for the alerts if you prefer." Max agreed.
"As long as they actually keep up with the studies that they slacked on and learn their lesson, it doesn't matter what time they get it done. I will leave it in your capable hands, and request a departure window to exit the hangar beside the repair vessel." The High Chancellor asked.
"Would you like a portal back to your home system? I believe that we have the appropriate technology to stabilize a long-distance portal, though we haven't tested it outside our own Galaxy so far." Max offered.
"I am sure the repair crew would appreciate it, seeing that you don't charge for the energy usage, but I will return under my own power. Safety protocol says that I can't follow a predetermined course back to the home system, to prevent my vessel from being intercepted. It's quite annoying, and highly unlikely that I would encounter any difficulties, but rules are rules, and these ones were coded in our mainframe by my own ancestors, so it wouldn't be acceptable for me to alter them." The High Chancellor replied politely.
"We will assist you in setting the portal coordinates. There is a predetermined set of coordinates, based on origin, to avoid traffic jams." The bodyguard informed Max and then began uploading data to Max's console screen with the facing and precise destination for the portal, as well as the alterations to the field generation that would optimize long-distance stability and power usage.
[Repair Vessel Ready for Portal formation.] The maintenance crew reported, and Max brought the portal generators online, watching the power consumption of the ship spike to levels higher than what was necessary to bring Terminus to maximum warp.
No wonder they charged for this, if they had small vessels regularly moving between galaxies, they would need hundreds of dedicated facilities to open the portals, and going by this, even the mighty Crystalline Warp Drives on Terminus didn't have the power to open a portal large enough to move the Colony Ship through.
They would need the assistance of the Cutters to bring it online and stabilize a portal that large.
But now they knew where the Innu lived, or at the very least, where they had their private yachts commissioned.
