Once all of the tourists were safely back aboard the ship, Max contacted the Mercenaries to make the payment for their work getting the Moon Base ready for the tour. It was a huge hit with everyone who went. Even the Shin enjoyed the tour of the exotic underground minerals, and they generally weren’t fond of underground spaces.

[Thank you for your prompt payment, Terminus. Would you like to dock with our vessel or send a runabout to us with the product?] The Mercenary leader asked.

Normally Mercenaries would be much less accommodating about getting their payment, especially in payment after services rendered situations, but with the reputation of the Reavers, it was not a big concern. They knew that they would get paid sooner or later.

[Please proceed to Bay E7, and we will transfer your goods.] Max confirmed, leading them to the storage bay where the product was prepared for pickup.

The great advantage of a Colony Ship was that they could easily dock with other vessels, thanks to their immense bulk, keeping them stable enough that a small misjudgment wouldn’t knock them off course and prevent successful latching of the docking rings.

The Mercenary vessel was an ancient and decrepit cruiser, barely serviceable anymore, with centuries of battle and debris damage left unrepaired. It wasn’t hard to guess that the Stardusters were not a well off Mercenary Group and had only formed to bring in some sort of income when it was no longer viable to remain a self-contained colony due to the harsh conditions of the poorly terraformed planets in the Death Wind Territory.

Not for lack of trying, of course. The planets in the region were simply missing too many elements for the very limited terraforming technology of the time to successfully remake them to the preprogrammed standards.

That gave Max another great idea. They were working on more advanced Materials Printers technology, more in line with the state-of-the-art machines that research labs had available than the Military units that they had been basing all of their products on so far.

Nico had, predictably, pilfered the schematics when they went to the Alliance Museum, so they had something to work with. They just needed to find a way around the Alliance copyright laws or integrate the human technologies, including atom reorganization, which were far too unstable for general-purpose usage.

The advanced technology had existed for thousands of years already, but with little advancement, as perpetual war and the abundant supply of raw materials from asteroid fields made them more of a niche technology than a mainstream necessity.

It reminded Max of a story from ancient humanity’s history in his past life. A great Empire had fallen back when humans were only on a single planet, and with it, the schools that had taught its technology to the world.

For the first generation, all was fine as those with the knowledge taught their apprentices. But as time passed, the knowledge became more precious, and those who had it hoarded it. One by one, they died out, still holding their secrets, in whole or part, and by the time the fourth generation was born, almost all of the advancements had been lost, throwing the species over a thousand years back in development until a more enlightened time came and the old ways were slowly rediscovered.

[Nico, what do you think about hanging out here for a while? I have an idea that I want to try.] Max asked.

[Sure, what’s up, boss?]

[I want you and the design team to develop a whole new generation of Terraforming technology based on the atom-altering materials printers technologies. Find a way to make it pass Alliance standards, but I want a new toy before we leave here.

[Oh, that sounds fun. Are we going to start offering terraforming technology? I’m almost totally certain that that is going to be out of everyone’s budget.] Nico replied.

[No, once it is ready, we are going to downscale it and start using it off-brand as a Materials Printer. I’ve been studying the various technologies that we have come across, and I think that starting from the most advanced forms of terraforming is going to be the key to making a breakthrough in Materials technology.

Well, either that or we will develop a new planet-killing weapon, but that’s not the goal.]

Max could sense Nico’s amusement even from halfway across the ship. [Yeah, not the goal. But if we happen to recombine their biomass into grass for the renovated world, that’s totally cool, right?]

Max wasn’t sure where Nico was going with this, since she was out of range of his ability to clearly sense her thoughts, but he was certain that it was nowhere good and involved inhabited worlds.

[Is this about the Klem again?] Max asked, just to be sure.

[Totally. If we build Replicator Technology into the device and then modify it to also recombine inorganic elements, I think we can do wonderful things for the Klem worlds.]

[And who might you think would be willing to live in a renovated Klem world?] Max asked.

[The Hunters? Probably some military outposts or something. I just want to recombine the Klem into something less bitey.]

[Fine. But only since your plan to expand the replicator technology is the best one that we have come across so far.]

With that, Max let Nico get to work, and started to focus on a new task, optimizing Cleansing Light. His skill was getting better with use, and Max could sense that a breakthrough was on the way if he could just find the inspiration to guide the System toward a new way to use the skill that it had given him.

That was one of the peculiarities of the System, it improved your strengths, so if he worked on trying to optimize Cleansing Light for long enough, it might decide that he was on to something and improve his own capabilities instead of simply referring him to Nico to make mechanical modifications like she was an extension of his own body or a tool in his kit.