The shuttle holding Lord General Kirkland and his entourage followed right behind Max's shuttle as they entered Terminus, thinking that they would be waiting for the hulls to adjust together.
Being grabbed by the gravity beam and slowly fed through the field as the ship's barrier prepared them for immediate departure from their shuttle was an incredible shock to their pilot, despite being warned by the automated warning that it was about to happen.
"This ship has all sorts of surprises waiting for us, doesn't it?" The general asked as he departed the shuttle, tipping his hat to the staffers who came to collect his luggage but stopping them from collecting his bags from the shuttle.
"Let them take your bags, and you can stay the night in one of the luxury suites in our guest area," Nico suggested, motioning for the staff to continue.
"You even have a guest area set up? You really have put some work in if you think this relic of a ship is ready to host dignitaries." General Kirkland chuckled.
"You have no idea. But here we are at the entrance to the public areas. Welcome to Terminus, the finest adventure cruise ship in the Galaxy." Nico replied with a smile, motioning at the vast expanse of the central gardens and slides that made up the cruise ship areas.
They had private VIP quarters, appointed to the finest of Noble standards, but it was much more amusing to let the Cygnus officers loose in the Cruise Ship section, where they could be interrogated by the Innu, who were already clamoring for details about the new pattern of shuttle that had arrived aboard Terminus.
The documentary crew had discretely set up on a balcony, using telescopic lenses to get the footage that they wanted, and Max waved for them to send someone forward, then sent a thought to the Illithid that they could come to greet the foreign Noble if they wanted.
[That sounds entertaining. They are much like you but somehow very different. Not only in technology but in mind and body as well. Oh, that's it. They don't have any nanotechnology enhancing them. How curious.] The thoughts of the Illithid came all at once and not in a string as humans would put them, but Max was getting used to their concurrent streams of conversation already and didn't have any issues understanding their burst of thought.
"Greetings, I am Jorda of the Innu people. Our home Galaxy is a founding member of the Galactic Alliance, located four point nine seven standard units from here." The first of the Innu to arrive greeted General Kirkland with a polite bow.
"Lord General Kirkland, of Cygnus Prime, homeworld of the Cygnus Nation, seventeen hundred light years from our current location." The General replied politely while Max shook hands with the new arrival.
"The Innu, and in fact their entire multi-galaxy alliance, is a peaceful culture who have moved past planetary scale battles. They have joined us for a tour of the Galaxy and to document human culture in its natural state at this moment in time. We also have representatives of the Illithid people aboard at the moment, though they are a few moments from arrival, as we neglected to warn them of our arrival in advance." Nico explained.
"By Alliance, do you mean THE Alliance, the source of the invincible world ships?" General Kirkland asked.
The newly arrived Illithid gave a snort of amusement but answered on behalf of the guests. "You wouldn't know that they were invincible to your technology if you hadn't shot at them. But yes, that Alliance encompasses both of our species' homeworlds."
General Kirkland blushed a little in embarrassment. "Yes, about that. We are very sorry for the misunderstanding."
The Illithid waved off his concern. "It is no more than we expected. Most primitive cultures shoot at strangers in their territory. The exploration fleet's interactions with you would have been very minimal anyhow, as you haven't made the minimum benchmark for technological advancement that activates our welcoming protocols for newly evolved species."
Max was certain that he had his emotions in check, but Nico's red mechanical eyes were flickering as she failed to contain her amusement.
"You get used to them after a while. The Illithid don't lie, and they rarely sugarcoat anything, so don't take it to heart. The standard that they mean is the ability to travel at Warp 10, which is enough to allow comfortable transit between Galaxies without using Portals or wormholes." Nico explained.
General Kirkland gave her a calculating look, then spoke slowly. "Which means that you have reached Warp 10, and you didn't shoot at them when they arrived. What else have you been hiding from the Galaxy?"
Nico shrugged, but the smirk never left her face. "What if I told you that there are actual flying angels with organic metal bones or that the Reavers have the ability to manufacture Super Heavy Mecha?"
"I think I would find it easier to believe that the angels with metal bones could fly." General Kirkland scoffed in amusement, then went quiet as he realized that she wasn't joking.
"It seems that I have missed a lot of very important developments. No wonder you abandoned the Kepler Empire after they declared you a war criminal."
Max frowned. "Are they still on about that?"
Kirkland's assistant nodded with a sad smile. "Not only are they on about it, enough of Central Command believes it that the status is official and not just an accusation by the Rebels."
That was something that Max didn't know. The question was what particular incident was the one that made them label him and Nico as official criminals.
Kirkland didn't say anything, but he tapped his temple to get Max's attention and thought of the intelligence briefing that Cygnus had held on the topic.
Transport Vessel Abraham Kepler, assumed to have them and General Tennant aboard, had deployed planet killer bombs against a highly populated world, turning the air to acid and then setting the entire atmosphere on fire in a self-perpetuating chemical reaction until the world was barren.
Cygnus couldn't determine the truth of the matter, but it was considered official by Central Command, and the General had been stripped of his rank and position. He would have been stripped of his Mecha as well, but Shining Darkness was already a museum piece sitting on Comor.
"It seems that we really do have a lot to talk about. Please, join us all for dinner. I can assure you it will be worth your time." Max sighed.
If Central Command bought that line of nonsense, then it had already fallen to the Rebels, or at least a segment of it had. Their orders had come from Central Command, to begin with, so they should have known at the very least that he and Nico were no longer aboard Abraham Kepler.
The fact that they had been forgotten meant that there was a good chance someone had scrubbed the Central Command mainframe of their actions, and whoever took over from that person didn't know anything about what had happened.
[Inquisitor General Ming, please join Lord General Kirkland and us for dinner. I think you need to hear what he has to say.] Max requested sending the coordinates for the steakhouse in the Cruise Ship section and making them a reservation at the same time.
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