Max changed from his Pilot suit into more flamboyant garb that Nico had prepared for him and led the way into the Shuttle. Most of the time, this was the most nerve-wracking part of the deal, where the leaders of your team were exposed, in a light vehicle, on their way to talk to a business partner that you could never fully trust.

They had a lot of faith in the goodwill of the Cygnus forces, at least at this point when the Reavers were helping them take a large number of other planets as well, but that wouldn't last forever. Once they were no longer vital to the plan, there was always the chance that they would be double-crossed or the terms of the payments would suddenly change.

That was the primary reason that the second in Command was usually the one sent to these meetings. They were trusted to do the job, but the Company wouldn't crumble without them, and they were rewarded accordingly.

But Cygnus was one of the great powers among the human species. It would be an insult to them not to show up himself to hand over control of a planet that they had pacified.

The shuttle landed in the Cygnus Cruiser's bay and waited for the hull temperature to adjust while Nico stared at her watch and sighed.historical

"We really do need to start teaching them how to do essential things. I don't know how we ever survived without the bay door barriers fully functional, and it's only been a month since they were fixed.

Maybe we should mass produce a simple replicator and sell it to them like a microwave oven, where they can put ingredients in and get real food back. Bribe the soldiers through their stomachs." Nico suggested.

"At least teach them to fix the door. That is such an amazing bit of tech that everyone should have it. I was talking to some friends back on Rae 5, and they are already retrofitting all Reaver vessels with it, and it has been incorporated into the new vessels they are making." One of the guards added.

"I will send it to Lord General Kirkland, and he can distribute it. If I deal directly with him, they will take it as an agreement between Nobles, and appropriate payment for the use of the royalties won't become an international incident like it would if we tried to move the technology through the military procurement channels." Max replied.

Once it was safe to exit the vessel, Max led the team out of the shuttle, feeling a bit like a peacock in the black leather pants and flashy gold silk shirt with a long red coat that Nico had put him in. She was, of course, dressed to match and looked amazing, but it was a bit much for Max, even without the hat that she had tried to add.

"Commander Keres, Imperial Lady Tarith, it is a pleasure to meet you both. I am Archduke Von, Cousin to the Imperial Princes." The leader of the deployment greeted them.

"A man of your stature leading the compliance effort on such a backwater planet? I am surprised that you agreed to be so far from the influence of the court." Nico responded after a polite curtsey.

"Trust me. It is far less stressful to be away from Court, even on a calm day. My older brothers all run the planets of our home system, and I was a bit slighted on the inheritance, but Governor of Grax doesn't sound too bad on the resume, and it looks like I will have carte blanche to establish things in a way that I would never get to on a more civilized planet.

I have grand plans for this small system. The asteroid belt alone is a treasure trove, and a small allocation of mining rights would lift the quality of life on the surface to new heights. It is already sparsely populated and mostly wild, so it is the perfect platform for a retirement system." The Archduke informed them.

"A retirement planet?" Max asked, unfamiliar with the concept and not understanding what the man was thinking.

"When they grow older, it is customary to turn their positions over to their children. The aging Nobles of Cygnus are often targets for positions as advisors, business leaders, and other such annoying nonsense. So, I plan to keep the system on a restricted access basis so that they can come here to retire and relax.

It will take some serious upgrading of the city's amenities, but we are prepared for that, and everyone will benefit from it. The domestic staff of a Cygnus Noble lives better than ninety percent of the human race, and I plan to make a whole planet full of them."

"Don't try to set yourself up as separate and above the locals. It will clash with the propaganda that we have been feeding them, that humans are equal and worthy," Max replied.

"As long as I can still set up a hierarchy of employers based on wealth, it should be fine. I take it there was no local hereditary leadership other than the aliens?" Von asked.

"Only the military positions which were put in charge of overseeing the others. There is a whole report ready for your reading." Max told him.

"Ah, marvelous. I will take some time going over everything. For now, the forces on the ground are not nobles, so they will serve as work supervisors and middle management, which every society needed to begin with. They know that they are not the boss, so they should be relatable to the locals, I hope.

Cygnus used the biometric data we could obtain to send workers who looked somewhat like the locals. The facial features will be different, but we didn't want to separate the new arrivals by having them all look wildly different than the ones they were supervising."

Max nodded in agreement. "Good call. They are good about following orders, and they took the initiative in most cities to get things working normally even before we started our efforts to prepare for your arrival, so their job should be an easy one. Now, should we get to this formal paperwork?"

"Of course. We have already verified it, and it is ready for signature. The Reaver Command on Rae 5 has already begun arranging pickup times for the payments to the Companies that are doing the leg work to help Cygnus expand its territory. The amounts were simply too large for most of the vessels to be able to carry, though I suppose your Colony Ship could have managed it." Archduke Von agreed.

The two copies of the agreement were compared and read over one last time, then signed by all parties present before the formal handshake and shot of Rum to seal the deal.

On the way back to Terminus, Max calculated the actual payment for their work, and it was more than enough to build another Terminus and rebuild every Mecha in their fleet. They had lost nearly fifty units but no Pilots, thanks to the new shield technologies that helped defend the cockpit from attacks, even after main power was down.

If Rae 5 was using the payments for this scheme to build the new Mecha they were planning to sell, they had just won the proverbial lottery. Every hard-to-manufacture part and rare resource they would have trouble mining for themselves was included on the list for just this single planet. From what Max knew, there were dozens of others that Companies were working together to prepare for a transition to Cygnus rule as well.

Rae 5 would be busy just trying to unload this all to the dozens of stations in the system, much less process it all into new vehicles and Mecha.