The recruitment efforts on the planet began as smoothly as anyone had dared to hope for. It had taken a full two hours for the planet’s residents to get over the shock of seeing such an immense object in orbit above them, visible by the naked eye in the night sky, and a number of applications were withdrawn once the applicants realized that Operations Center Absolution was a World Ship and not a planetary station.

But that was within the calculations of the Logistics team that was in charge of the recruitment, and by the time the planet had recovered, they were ready and waiting with dozens of Cutters ready to take passengers back from the planet to their new home.

Being a planet used to political envoys and high-level meetings, there was more than enough room at the spaceport to dock them all, and tickets were arranged to get all of the guests and their families loaded within 12 hours, starting six hours from their arrival.

It perfectly matched the published itinerary, but Max had hoped that they could simply send their Cutters to the surface to pick up their applicants instead of having them stop over at a space station with all of their belongings.

It was going to be tight for them to pack unless the planet had an abundance of moving cubes since each family unit was allotted a two-meter by three-meter container to move their belongings with.

There was no need to bring furniture. The units inside the ship were furnished, but family heirlooms and sentimental items, plus kids’ toys and clothing, took some time to pack.

The Planetary Governor assured him that they had everything covered, but in Max’s experience, that was rarely the case, and he was certain that he would hear all about the shortages leading to delays soon enough.

[Hey Nico, how much staff do you need to get everyone settled in? I’ve got you scheduled for one battalion. Will that do?] Max asked as the deadline for the first arrivals drew closer.

[Never fear, for Nico is here. I have come prepared to deal with all eventualities, including the mass movement of personal belongings and personnel onto the ship.]

Max sighed at her response and messaged her again. [Please clarify. How do you plan to get everything squared away when you are alone on the ship?]

[That’s easy. I just made a hundred thousand androids to pilot the Mecha. They’ve got sufficient processing power to deal with basic things like escorting staff to their new homes and driving hover transports to drop off their belongings.

They can even shoot the annoying ones if you want. I’ve programmed summary execution into the termination of employment options in their programming.]

He knew he should have sent someone with her. Maybe someone reasonably sane, like Major Miller, but he was busy with the recruitment paperwork. He would have sent one of the researchers with her, but they would still be tinkering with the Androids if there were two of them there to bounce ideas off each other.

[No killing the new staff. It will scare the others. Just make sure everyone is settled in safely and efficiently, and I will join you with Terminus by the end of the day. I assume that the hangar is ready for us?] Max asked.

[Ready, cleaned and equipped with a low-density atmosphere so that it will compress to standard pressure when you enter. Come by anytime. The weather is nice over here.]

[As soon as the new employees are loaded. I don’t want any confusion during the process, so I will keep Terminus right where it is. The Alliance vessel is hanging around outside the system so that it doesn’t alarm the locals.]

If it needed to, it could get here in a matter of minutes, so the distance was negligible, but this portion of the former Kepler Empire wasn’t used to seeing Alliance vessels, and the presence of Absolution had already alarmed them enough.

[Honorable Lord Commander Keres of the Terminus Trading Company, this is planetary control. The first of your new hires are now loading into the Cutters that your, um, operations center sent to us. Please be advised that the schedule has the last of the families boarding in twelve hours, but we have a cargo barge on the surface that can bring the majority of their belongings all at once.]

The nervousness in the man’s voice made the Envoys laugh. He clearly wasn’t sure how to properly address Max and didn’t think that the moniker given to Absolution fit its status. But he was likely the junior officer on duty, so he had no choice after everyone else declined to be the one making the call.

[Thank you, Planetary Control. Please advise your superiors that the wire transfer of Reaver Credits for their shuttle, moving and recruitment services is on the way.]

That was usually the part that the politicians were the most worried about. The fee for taking a citizen off the planet wasn’t large, but it was enough that they could clean out the former resident’s unit and clear up any outstanding paperwork that they might have left behind in their hurry to get off the world.

This time they also had to pay for the shuttles to the space station and the moving containers, but that was to be expected when taking in so many families. It would also help reassure their next stops that they weren’t doing anything shady and that the planets wouldn’t lose a load of money just to save the credits that they were spending on the benefits for the formerly unemployed residents.

There were a surprising number of large families coming aboard, and Max could see that they were all verified by the scanners on the Cutters as being biologically related, though most families were comprised of one son and a lot of daughters, all genetically tweaked for optimal appearance and other physical qualities.

It was one of the things that he had forgotten about the core worlds of the Kepler Empire. There were billions of ultra-wealthy residents, and they all wanted a harem of trophy wives or husbands. Even the common construction workers would blow their life savings in order to have beautiful children, as the more children they had, the greater the odds that one would be chosen and elevate the whole family into the ranks of the wealthy.

He was definitely going to have to warn the other crew members about that. The Reavers would mistake it as an offer of prostitution when really they were looking for a wedding ring, and the aftermath of that was not an argument he wanted to have to mediate.

In fact, he would have Nico add it to the documentation for new arrivals.

[Nico, I forgot what the core planets are like. Add something to the paperwork to explain that there are no billionaires on the ship and that harems are strictly optional.]

Nico’s reply was swift. [Got it, boss. I have a flow chart already created of Reaver income distribution, explaining that none of us individually actually have much money and that we try to get promoted for the non-monetary benefits. That should sort out most of them, but I have added a nice short and succinct note to the effect that attempting to steal a Reaver woman’s man may result in sudden and violent death.]

[Thanks, I knew I could count on you.]