“How much will it cost to get this product added to my personal replicator aboard the Envoy ship?” She sighed, looking at the raspberry latte that had become the new favourite beverage of the entire Innu contingent aboard the ship.

“One second, I can access that data. A single unit, non-transferable license for non-commercial purposes is two hundred credits by the Alliance standard pricing scheme for custom food products. I would hold off, though, because I think that the Envoy will be obtaining a vessel-wide version before she returns. I can’t see her allowing herself to be light years away from her new favourite beverage.

The assistant smirked when Max finished this sentence. “It will be an uphill battle. The others are working to prevent her from doing just exactly that, using the misappropriation of public funds rules. But she is incredibly wealthy in her own right, so they’re not going to delay her for long once she decides to do it with her own money.”

The assistant’s amusement was apparent, but she was holding back something.

“Go ahead and say it. Unlike the Innu, I have a hard time picking out the background thoughts.” He requested.

“We determined what caused the reaction, where she becomes insufferably hyperactive. It is a result of the raspberry juice combined with the coffee beans. The combination has medicinal properties, at least for Innu, and she is particularly susceptible to it. The two combined in her System to form a powerful stimulant, as opposed to the normal level of stimulation that other Innu experience.”

The rest of the Innu were bad enough with coffee alone, but so far, Max had only noticed the one extreme reaction, though it was hard to tell since most of them drank coffee not because they were tired but because they liked coffee, so the extra energy was utterly unnecessary.

Chasing the activists away only bought Max a few minutes of peace before the corporate sorts were brave enough to come forward with presentations that they thought the humans would be interested in.

These weren’t the “You should be grateful for our offer” exploitative sorts that others had presented in the past, they were legitimate corporate collaboration offers, so Max thought he should at least consider them when the representatives came forward.

For once, being able to read minds became less of a hassle, and more of a time saver, since he could sort out the ones whose proposals were interesting sounding without having to listen to them all or even know who the person was.

“You, you and you four. Would you like to join us for a coffee?” He asked a group of corporate reps who were all working on space vessel development.

“Certainly, Commander. Thank you for this opportunity.” They all replied, out of sync with each other.

When they stepped forward under the envious gazes of the other reps, they instantly realized what he had done. He had picked everyone who had a similar proposal to come to see him at the same time. They couldn’t present their offers in isolation and make themselves look good. The others at the table were their direct competition and would surely try to drag them down.

The assistant realized that as well and made a gesture to the shopkeeper to bring another round of drinks and some snacks, with absolute certainty in her mind that this was going to be entertaining.

Not only were they competitors, but they were all designing new World Ship technology, which meant that the Terminus Trading Company was also their direct competitor and the human group had a head start on developing whatever production method Absolution had been created with.

It wasn’t common knowledge yet of how it was made, and everyone was having issues trying to understand what it was even made out of. The frustration was palpable in the background of their thoughts, and they were all after the same thing, a deal that would give them production rights for vessels using this new technology.

They had been observing Terminus for over a month, posing as vacationers, and there had been no warning that a new ship was coming to them. It just suddenly appeared, which gave them the impression that it had actually been made in an incredible hurry somewhere with some unknown technology.

Max split his attention so that most of his thoughts could go to analyzing battle data, and sensor inputs, to give targeting data to the Mecha on the ground, while the smaller part would deal with the negotiations over ship technology.

They weren’t going to share the details with anyone, much less offer it up for a production deal that would inevitably lead to a trade war somewhere in the Alliance and a drawn-out legal battle as the technology was used beyond the parameters of the agreement or by unauthorized parties.

The Klem had lost over half of the world already, and the Mecha Regiments were beginning to link up in the less densely infested areas to push the Klem back into pockets where they could be thoroughly purged, so Cleansing Light wasn’t needed on the battlefield right now, but Max did briefly consider recalling Nico to make her take care of this.

“So, gentlemen. What would you like to present to me today? If I’m not wrong, you should all be shipbuilders who are looking to revitalize your product offerings, correct?” Max asked.

The Innu assistant hid a giggle as they all panicked at being seen through so quickly. It wasn’t common knowledge in the corporate world that Max could read minds, only among the government, and none of them had expected him to know so much about them and their companies at this point.

Only one of them recovered quickly, a slender man with a scarred face and a third eye on his forehead. His thoughts were mostly incomprehensible, being in his own language, and he spoke in broken Alliance Common, but the System was quickly adapting and providing Max with basic translations.

“I am Farseer Ernie of the Farsight Yacht Company. It is foretold that our Alliance would be beneficial to the company, as we are attempting to enter the small private yacht niche that Terminus Trading Company currently develops conventional vessels for.” The man introduced himself.

He wasn’t joking, either. His species believed that they could see flashes of the future, and Max wasn’t willing to call it impossible since they had a rather high accuracy rate when they did have a vision.

Max brought up the basic brochure for their conventional private yachts. “This line of affordable warp-capable vessels, in the sub-seventy-five-meter category, featuring luxury interiors and the option for a private portal generator?”

The man’s third eye flashed with bright golden light as he nodded happily. “Exactly those ones. My superiors analyzed the data and determined that if they could procure your development tools, we could produce and market your designs at a sixty-five percent discount over our current rates, which would put us in contention within the budget solar yacht market.

As you no doubt already know, the market is quite scarce in that niche since most companies deemed it unaffordable to market to, but I believe that the demand is there, just not at the rates that last generation’s vessels commanded.”

He had to dig through his bag to find the proposal since this was the fourth item on their request list should everything else fall through, but at the moment, it seemed like the most likely offer to be accepted, and his foresight told him that he would be politely rejected if he made any of the other proposals.

Maybe he really could see the future. That was exactly Max’s plan when he called this group to sit with him.