Max stepped up to the microphone with a smile on his face as the crowd settled to a low murmur, mostly about what they could expect of working for the Terminus Trading Company with a woman like her in the upper ranks of the ship's command.
[I see you have all t Admiral Penner already. She will be in charge of ship operations and navigation. Those of you in her departnt, be sure to co to say hello and get to know her later.
If you haven't already guessed, I am Commander Keres Max, head of the Terminus Trading Company and Pilot of the Titan Class cha, Cleansing Light. It is an honour to have you all co to join our most recent expansion and make your ho here aboard Absolution, the first World Ship Class Operations Center in the entire Reaver fleet.
She certainly won't be the last, now that we have the basic template, as well as the technological advancents to propel such a glorious vessel through space at a reasonable speed.
It will be a lot of work to get a community of millions in order, but I have faith that we have found the most competent applicants in three worlds to take on the job. That is what you are now, not just neighbours but fellow mbers of the Terminus Trading Company.
It is good to see that many of you have changed into Company uniforms already. Loyalty is more important than anything else aboard a Reaver ship, and proudly displaying the Terminus colours will never go wrong. It is not a requirent other than for certain jobs, so don't worry about updating your wardrobes already.
We will be having a large number of guests arriving soon, an in-service party for Absolution, but I won't expect you all to be at work today. Instead, you can enjoy yourselves today and clean it up tomorrow once you have t your departnt leaders and gotten settled into your new roles.]
Max paused as the staff laughed for a while and told jokes to their future coworkers about the fallout of previous parties.
[We have arranged a separate party in the residential areas for the minors to avoid any incidents tonight, so please take note of the restrictions. Barriers should prevent anyone without authorization from entering the residential area, but if you do see one, let our law enforcent division know.
They are all veteran infantryn of the Kepler and Cygnus militaries and more than capable of escorting a few drunks out of areas that they weren't ant to be.]
There was a good chance that at least one spy or another type of infiltrator would be spotted tonight, and they would take care of that too, but there was no need to ntion that to the crew during the opening speech.
[Absolution will be travelling the Galaxy for a while, sorting out existing issues, and then it will set course for other nearby Galaxies, at least one of which is officially listed as fully developed, according to the Alliance.
No other human has gone and properly greeted our neighbours, we will be the first, and I expect that you will make a great impression on them.]
"And if we don't, our cha will." Soone in the crowd yelled, making those standing near him facepalm at his lack of tact in front of the Commander.
[No, he has a point. Not everyone that we et is going to be friendly, but Absolution has a significant military presence on board, and we will react with the necessary force if anyone threatens us. Terminus Trading Company spends much more ti on trade negotiations than actual trading most days, but with this expansion to our fleet, we can start sending out the main vessels to engage in the primary duties of a Reaver Company.
Trading Goods.
On that note, should any of you have a product made here aboard Absolution that you wish to have marketed off the ship, let the division leaders know. I haven't had a chance to et them all myself, but we have four hours before the rest of the guests begin to arrive, so make the best of it and make so new acquaintances.]
That was enough speech to welco new employees, especially when there were nearly a million of them gathered here in the Central Park area. They were already socializing, and Max noticed more and more badges being pinned to coats and shirts that designated which departnt people worked in so that they could find their coworkers more easily and not have to deal with complete strangers tomorrow.
Nico had done a wonderful job getting everyone ready for his arrival, and the crowd was already splitting into divisions, where everyone sought out those with similar jobs or interests.
The entertainnt division sorts were crowded with interested workers, all wondering what sort of places they were working at and the types of entertainnt that they could expect from the first day of full operations.
The recruiters had picked staff to do everything that they thought the city might need, and a lot of it was based on their experience staffing the Cruise Ship aboard Terminus, so there was no shortage of entertainnt workers in the crowd.
So of them were even heading to their workplaces early, and Max could see Nico sending out a ssage to all the managent staff, informing them that if their shop was nearby, now was a great ti to et their staff by the doors or even open it up, if they thought they could handle the influx of people passing through to see what they had to offer.
The bar staff was right on top of that. There was a strip of clubs only a block away, and Max could sense the anticipation as the staff made their way over. Tipping wasn't standard practice in Reaver culture, but it was still common in nightclubs and taverns as a way to ingratiate yourself to the staff or show off for a date.
Generosity was always near the top of desirable personality traits, after all.
Max and the Admiral made their way down from the podium once the speech was finished and started greeting the managers who had gathered near the front and shaking hands.
Most of the staff didn't really stand out, but there were a few interesting and impressive characters in the crowd.
One of the hires from Rae 5 was a forr researcher for Uncle Lu, who couldn't take the stressful work environnt, but she had found herself the perfect ho, running a virtual reality arcade in the residential areas. Another was an eighteen-year-old son of a bureaucrat from their first stop who had skipped multiple grades in school and finished his Business Accounting degree only weeks before the hiring notice went out.
He would be in charge of payroll for the sanitation departnt, and Max wondered how many people had dropped out of the running for him to end up at the top of the list without any job experience.
He was suprely boring, ntally calculating the overti hours that he would have to add to the payroll to clean up after the party was finished, even before it started. Maybe that was what you wanted in an Accounting Departnt manager, though. The rest of the accountants didn't seem that much more interesting.
There were big egos, shut-ins who only showed up because they assud it was mandatory, and working parents who had already decided just how long they had to stay to be polite before they could head ho again and relax on the couch with their kids.
At the mont, there were no two-inco families on the ship, not that they were actually needed, but Max knew that before long, most of the older kids and spouses would be looking for sothing to do, and Absolution City, as he was ntally calling the first residential area of the vessel, would start to reorganize itself naturally.
As the ship's population grew, there would be many more such areas, and an entire nation would form within the ship, given its imnse size. Each floor was large enough to be a small country on a nine-hundred-kilotre-long vessel, and even with kilotre-tall ceilings, there were twenty floors that weren't designated for industrial or ship docking purposes.
Max had been mingling for two hours and was about to start looking through the nearby shops when he noticed a few very unique appearances in the crowd that were drawing the attention of everyone around them. The botany experts from the Shin and Dryads had shown up to the party to mingle, and the sight of new species entranced the humans.
Very few of the crew had seen soone who wasn't human before, other than those who had fought the Narsians or who had co from other Reaver vessels, so the sight of a tree floating on a gravity pad and talking through a handheld device was a top highlight of their lives so far.
The Dryads seed to be running interference for the Shin, who was quickly overwheld by the questions of the curious humans, and Max noticed that they did an incredible job of blending in with the crowd. They were clearly not human, but once they started talking to the crowd, it looked like everyone had forgotten that and began treating them like new friends.
It wasn't so super secret skill or anything, only an application of their innate attunent to the atmosphere of the crowd that let them know just the thing to say, but it was refreshing to see, and Max wondered if he should bring in more non-human ntal health professionals, assuming there were other species that good at setting people at ease.
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