After their deal with the vampires was finished, Terminus made its way toward the border through the newly quarantined sector, making a point to note and not respond to any messages that were the least bit suspicious or that came from a planet whose data traffic didn't seem to match the situation on the surface.
Calculating this way and sending the vaccine probes to every inhabited planet that they passed slowed them by a significant amount, and it took them almost a week to get clear of the region where the virus could possibly have spread to.
The sector that they were passing through now hadn't suffered any unrest of either the Zombie or the Rebel sort.
"So, how are the data feeds on the planets that we vaccinated?" An Illithid doctor asked Max as they passed a Binary star system, whose mismatched stars made the most amazing cat-eye effect when viewed from a certain angle.
"There are no reports of mass side effects, but there have been some uprisings as the vaccinated regained their mental faculties. That was within our expectations, and it has done an impressive job of disrupting the attempts to mind control the sector." Max replied, passing him a tablet with the ship's collected data on the subject.
"Good, good. I am always glad to see a plan come to fruition. How much longer until our next stop? The passing planets are interesting, but the human settlements in this region are very similar, with all of them focusing on basic self-sufficiency and not a unique contribution to the collective."
That described the majority of Kepler's planets. They just kind of got by and sent a Regiment every few years as a tribute. It was rare that you came across one that specialized in something that wasn't abundant in the region, thanks to the uniformity of the Kepler Expedition's terraforming efforts.
"Tomorrow, we will reach the border region where we have some business to take care of, and then we can pass into Cygnus space. They have a slightly different culture than we do, and they were settled by an entirely different wave of human expansion, so there should be enough differences to keep things interesting for a few days.
We have also identified another stop for a week after we leave this location. They produce unique crystal structures through sonic manipulation. The technology is exclusive to their planet, so it shouldn't be anything that the passengers have seen before." Max explained.
That cheered the doctor up. New things and new knowledge were what the Illithid lived for.
The Innu mostly only had two weeks left on the ship before they were scheduled to return home from their month-long voyage, so it would make for a pleasant endcap to their trip after weeks of viewing planets and playing in the gravity slides.
With all his visitors taken care of, Max went down to the Hangars, where Nico was supposed to be working on a new shuttle design to carry passengers on their away missions.
They had been at it for a week, tweaking and modifying the design to be safe enough for orbital entry at combat velocities while having suitable viewing angles for passengers to look out and enjoy their trip. A single-purpose vessel was far from up to Nico's standards, so she was putting a lot of effort into this design, making sure that it was suitable for defense if they should meet a hostile indigenous species and maneuverable enough to evade capture by any known human vessel.
The ship seemed to be ready when he arrived, painted bone white, with red markings identifying it as belonging to the Terminus Trading Company.
Max could pick out six Laser Projectors mounted in the wings, as well as a retractable top turret that seemed to be an Ion Cannon. Not heavily armed for a Mecha conflict, but enough to deal with large flying predators in a feral world.
"Good timing. It's all ready. Climb in and tell me what you think. The seats are adjustable, and we can remove one row and shift the others if there isn't enough legroom. In the current design, it carries twenty-four passengers and two crew members, but with the seats shifted, that would be twenty. Plus, the crew.
As you can see, the visibility is a little over two hundred degrees, with only the centers of the floor and ceiling being opaque. The structural beams shouldn't interfere much with the views on the side, so I think we've fulfilled the design requirements." Nico informed him.
Max entered and realized right away that not everyone would be cool with this design. The windows extended below the outer seats, letting you look straight down as if your seat was suspended in midair. There was an adjustment to block the views out of the window, though, turning them black and opaque, so that would help a little with vertigo that Max assumed most people would suffer in this vessel.
"It's not bad, but those outer seats are going to freak a lot of people out," Max called to her as he took a seat, looking out the windows at the hangar bay.
"That's part of the appeal. Humans are already known as extreme and barbaric, so having a tour of the planet that feels like you are floating in your chair is exactly the sort of extreme but completely safe adventure that we can market to the Alliance tourists." She disagreed.
That wasn't completely incorrect, but Max's attention was drawn by a storage rack in the back of the ship, along with a secondary door that appeared to exit straight out the back. Completely impractical except as an emergency exit was his first thought, but then he realized that Nico had designed this, so there was certainly a reason.
A quick inspection of the rack showed that it held two dozen Archangel Exoskeletons, modified so that the wings were smaller and only contained cameras, not an array of weapons. Which meant that the rear door was for para-dropping. In the suits, with their force fields and gravity control, you could jump out of the ship while it was in motion to explore an arena, then fly back to the departure point or an arranged meeting location.
It would also be incredible for dropping special forces teams into nasty situations since the drone used the same Crystalline drives as their warp engines and didn't give off a huge energy or radar signature for enemies to track like a traditional Kepler dropship or Lander would.
"You know what, I think I like this thing. Make a few more of them tonight, but be sure that you are ready to go when we arrive in the morning. I don't know what idiocy we will be facing, but it is likely to include pompous Cygnus Nobles constantly preening, so we need to show them our very best." Max instructed her, then climbed out of their new shuttle to head back to his room.
