Max moved Creeping Darkness into position for its new mission. Felicity and Sylvie had worked out the details between them and had ended up with Felicity getting the personnel transfers and smaller shipments, as that would allow the merchants to travel the cities for a while before they left, while Sylvie was to receive all the large bulk shipments, where the crew would only be a handful of people.
She had enough of the ship renovated to keep that many entertained and housed, but most of the bulk freighters didn't want to stick around in the first place. They just wanted to get unloaded and on to their next target.
There were tens of thousands of bulk deliveries, mostly ore and biomass for the Replicators on the space stations and orbital defence platforms that had survived the attacks all over the Galaxy. The more of them that they could take on, the better their reputation would be when it came time to look for regular shipments later.
Nobody forgot the crew that had shown up with their goods in their most desperate hour, even if it wasn't anything heroic. It was just a shared trauma bond, but it could be counted on to put them at the top of the Station Commander's mind the next time he called for a freighter.
While it sounded a bit unethical, business was business, and it wouldn't do any harm to the other relationships that the station had. Everyone was overloaded with work, and even with portals and much higher warp travel speeds, it still took time to get goods moved. That was especially true in war zones, as they couldn't open portals too close to the planets, as it would trigger the defence systems of the orbital stations, and plenty of systems now had lingering debris and energy clouds that made randomly opening a portal a very risky proposition.
It would take decades to get all of that cleaned up, if it ever was.
Max prepared to welcome their first round of deliveries with an order for Sylvie to deliver each crew a case of Reaver Rum, made from the newest generation Replicators, which did an even better job of capturing the nuances of a small batch brewed liquor. Instead of the generically excellent rum, the replicators could now output a collection of small imperfections that were found in specific batches that gave them their distinct flavour.
The difference was subtle, but noticeable, like changing up the recipe in a meal just a little with a different spice or a slightly altered quantity.
The docks of the station would just be used as a holding bay until the orbital barge could be sent to pick them up, or another crew came to gather them for further delivery, but a little something nice for the Reavers was never the wrong choice.
So, it was much to his shock when the first Captain that he greeted was not a human at all. At least not by Alliance standards.
"Greetings Commander Max, I am Tweela, the new Captain of the freighter Ormond, under the command of the Orma Mining Group." The Innu man greeted him.
"Welcome Captain. I must say that I am both pleased and shocked how well your people have integrated into Reaver culture, and congratulations on your new Command." Max replied.
The Innu's head tentacles wiggled in happiness, and the man smiled at him. "Well, if you ask the Darklings and the Arisen, we're all humans to begin with. Piloting a bulk freighter might not be the most glamorous job in the world, but I can say that I am truly a Reaver Captain at this point, and I have the podcast to prove it."
Max chuckled at that. "You too? I thought that the podcasts were reserved for the Tech Nomads?"
Captain Tweela shrugged. "That's what I was until four months ago. Now, I'm a freighter Captain. There is still time for research while we travel. We've got a portal array, but the targeting system is budget brand trash, the power generation is dismal, and with a full cargo bay, the inertia is brutal, it takes forever to get moving."
"But you can portal yourself, so that's got to count for something." Max joked.
"You'd better believe it. We were just in the Alliance zone, picking up these mechanical parts for delivery to a local wholesaler. They're waiting to pick them up, but their fleet of shuttles isn't compatible with a bulker like this, so they needed a bay to work in." The Captain explained.
"Great, now I'm a cross dock and sorting facility. Did you want to bring your crew to the entertainment areas while the unload is finished?"
The Innu shook his head, making his tentacles bounce. "Everyone is working on ship upgrades now. We will stop in and play the next time that we're nearby, though. We had a chance to visit Absolution earlier this year, and we're dying to go again."
"That's understandable. But in that case, I should be off to greet the next group. The drones will do a lot of the greeting work, but sometimes it's just good to see a friendly face."
"If they're bringing rum, they're likely the friendliest face anyone has seen in a while. It was a pleasure to meet you, Commander."
With that, Max was off to greet more of the Reavers, while Sylvie arranged for a hundred bulk freighters an hour to arrive, unload and depart. That was cutting the schedule tight for the wholesalers who wanted to spend all day on the dock sorting goods and preparing for their delivery routes, but Sylvie knew their tricks.
When they tried to delay, she planned to send drones to help organize the freight and eliminate the reasons they had for wasting her dock space. They couldn't even accuse them of being a security risk, as they were just drones, and completely incapable of telling anyone about whatever super secret delivery system or pricing markup the wholesalers had come up with.
Not that any of them would dare to gouge. Price gouging on relief supplies was strictly forbidden by the Reavers, and it would end with them blacklisted or worse.
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