The Family dinners were important to the Tarith Family women as a competition between each other, and one person missing was one vote that could have swayed the outcomes, so they wanted everyone who liked their food to be present.

Plus, Mary had a real soft spot for both her husband and Nico.

The whole flight was under ten minutes long, though, and with a bit of time to reunite with Nico, there was no time for business. In fact, there wasn’t even time for proper greetings, with the number of exciting events that had occurred since they had seen each other in person.

The shuttle dropped them in the Tarith Family Compound’s landing pad, and Max could see the crowd gathered in the garden, as well as a lot of tables set out today. From the looks of it, there were representatives from every single branch of the Family here today, and the dinner was no longer such an intimate event as it used to be.

Or maybe not.

Before the door had even fully opened, people were waving and yelling hello to the newly arrived group, and one of the Reavers was headed their way with a bucket full of bottled drinks and ice.

A lot of the men were carrying one around, presumably so they didn’t have to go looking for their next beer, and the ice in the metal buckets kept four of them cold for as long as dinner would last.

“Welcome to the surface, Uncle Lu. Oh, you’ve brought a special surprise for us. What special occasion brings the favoured son-in-law to the surface to see the Tarith Family?” One of the older Reaver Commanders laughed.

“I brought her favourite daughter back with me for lunch. We’re on a mission to find out how Mary Tarith’s special cake is made.” Max explained.

“Wait, that is Nico? That doesn’t look like Nico. Hey, altering your face is not fair. Is that a morphable shell? Damn, I need to talk to your cybernetics department. One of my Subcommanders is full conversion, and he would love that ability for infiltration.”

The experienced Commander was so startled when the face turned back to Nico’s usual one that he began to ramble, but he meant what he said about his Subcommander wanting that for infiltration missions.

“Indeed, I am Nico Tarith. It’s a pleasure to see you, Uncle. I get the feeling that I will be saying that a lot today since so many of those who came to dinner are a generation older than I am.” Nico laughed.

“It’s the nature of the beast. Only the old and the young have time to be gathering for family dinners. The rest of the Clan is much too busy to be bothered showing up to get to know the older generations.” The retired Commander complained.

“I’m sure you remember the drive. Especially if your father did as well leading the Company as you did, you must have started out with that need to prove he was right to assign you as the next leader and improve upon what he built. That’s what it means to be young, so they work away the years when they could have had the most fun.” Nico teased the man, who was presumably a distant relative of hers, somehow.

Max was not about to start trying to figure out the Tarith Family lineage. There were hundreds of people here, and each of them represented thousands more who were off at other ends of the Galaxy or in other Galaxies now that they were doing deliveries for the Black Market, and they couldn’t possibly all fit in one spot, no matter how much you tried.

Their arrival brought Mary Tarith over in a hurry before her husband could escape into the crowd, and Max could tell that he was thinking about it. Mary had been thinking that she could use more kids again now that the oldest ones who were still at home were starting to grow up too much to be cuddled.

That meant that soon they would be off to one of the many Academies to begin their skills training since they had both expressed both the talent and interest in becoming Mecha Pilots. Then she would only have two at home, and they were rapidly getting to be of the same age, which would leave her with none at all, and that was not an acceptable state for Mary Tarith.

Max resisted the urge to chuckle at the man’s plight. It wasn’t exactly a horrible fate to have a woman who wanted you a bit too much, and Max could tell that part of his concern was what would happen when they retired, and it came time to begin the replacement process for Mary as Family Head.

Every branch was grooming at least a few possible candidates to take over the Family’s leadership, and they all had a chance if they could prove themselves, but the one child that might have been the clear winner currently wanted nothing to do with being groomed for Family Leadership.

Of course, leaving Nico with Max was accomplishing the same thing. She had plenty of practical experience with basically everything except Family life, just by working with him, and it was her association with Max and his people that brought her so much fame.

When that thought went through her father’s mind, Max did chuckle a little. Little did he know that half of the insane antics and gear they had come up with were Nico’s direct ideas and actions. No matter where she had been sent, she would have become infamous at the very least. Max just kept her off the war crimes hit list.

It might not sound like much of an accomplishment, but this was Nico they were talking about. She had centuries worth of really, really good, really horrific ideas in her brain to work with. Mary had a pretty good idea of just what Nico was like, but he was likely the only one that knew just how deeply disturbing her inner voice was. The fact that Nico was considered to be nominally sane was a minor miracle of some sort, even if Max had never seen a being that could be considered a deity in this universe.

He had in his past life though. He’d fought it as well, right up until it opened a wormhole and tossed him halfway across the universe in annoyance. He never did learn what that species had done to annoy it, but after that day, he was the only one in the universe that even seemed to remember that they had existed.