Max stepped up to the microphone with a smile on his face as the crowd settled to a low murmur, mostly about what they could expect of working for the Terminus Trading Company with a woman like her in the upper ranks of the ship's command.

[I see you have all met Admiral Penner already. She will be in charge of ship operations and navigation. Those of you in her department, be sure to come to say hello and get to know her later.

If you haven't already guessed, I am Commander Keres Max, head of the Terminus Trading Company and Pilot of the Titan Class Mecha, Cleansing Light. It is an honour to have you all come to join our most recent expansion and make your home here aboard Absolution, the first World Ship Class Operations Center in the entire Reaver fleet.

She certainly won't be the last, now that we have the basic template, as well as the technological advancements to propel such a glorious vessel through space at a reasonable speed.

It will be a lot of work to get a community of millions in order, but I have faith that we have found the most competent applicants in three worlds to take on the job. That is what you are now, not just neighbours but fellow members of the Terminus Trading Company.

It is good to see that many of you have changed into Company uniforms already. Loyalty is more important than anything else aboard a Reaver ship, and proudly displaying the Terminus colours will never go wrong. It is not a requirement other than for certain jobs, so don't worry about updating your wardrobes already.

We will be having a large number of guests arriving soon, an in-service party for Absolution, but I won't expect you all to be at work today. Instead, you can enjoy yourselves today and clean it up tomorrow once you have met your department leaders and gotten settled into your new roles.]

Max paused as the staff laughed for a while and told jokes to their future coworkers about the fallout of previous parties.

[We have arranged a separate party in the residential areas for the minors to avoid any incidents tonight, so please take note of the restrictions. Barriers should prevent anyone without authorization from entering the residential area, but if you do see one, let our law enforcement division know.

They are all veteran infantrymen of the Kepler and Cygnus militaries and more than capable of escorting a few drunks out of areas that they weren't meant to be.]

There was a good chance that at least one spy or another type of infiltrator would be spotted tonight, and they would take care of that too, but there was no need to mention that to the crew during the opening speech.

[Absolution will be travelling the Galaxy for a while, sorting out existing issues, and then it will set course for other nearby Galaxies, at least one of which is officially listed as fully developed, according to the Alliance.

No other human has gone and properly greeted our neighbours, we will be the first, and I expect that you will make a great impression on them.]

"And if we don't, our Mecha will." Someone in the crowd yelled, making those standing near him facepalm at his lack of tact in front of the Commander.

[No, he has a point. Not everyone that we meet is going to be friendly, but Absolution has a significant military presence on board, and we will react with the necessary force if anyone threatens us. Terminus Trading Company spends much more time on trade negotiations than actual trading most days, but with this expansion to our fleet, we can start sending out the main vessels to engage in the primary duties of a Reaver Company.

Trading Goods.

On that note, should any of you have a product made here aboard Absolution that you wish to have marketed off the ship, let the division leaders know. I haven't had a chance to meet them all myself, but we have four hours before the rest of the guests begin to arrive, so make the best of it and make some new acquaintances.]

That was enough speech to welcome new employees, especially when there were nearly a million of them gathered here in the Central Park area. They were already socializing, and Max noticed more and more badges being pinned to coats and shirts that designated which department people worked in so that they could find their coworkers more easily and not have to deal with complete strangers tomorrow.historical

Nico had done a wonderful job getting everyone ready for his arrival, and the crowd was already splitting into divisions, where everyone sought out those with similar jobs or interests.

The entertainment division sorts were crowded with interested workers, all wondering what sort of places they were working at and the types of entertainment that they could expect from the first day of full operations.

The recruiters had picked staff to do everything that they thought the city might need, and a lot of it was based on their experience staffing the Cruise Ship aboard Terminus, so there was no shortage of entertainment workers in the crowd.

Some of them were even heading to their workplaces early, and Max could see Nico sending out a message to all the management staff, informing them that if their shop was nearby, now was a great time to meet their staff by the doors or even open it up, if they thought they could handle the influx of people passing through to see what they had to offer.

The bar staff was right on top of that. There was a strip of clubs only a block away, and Max could sense the anticipation as the staff made their way over. Tipping wasn't standard practice in Reaver culture, but it was still common in nightclubs and taverns as a way to ingratiate yourself to the staff or show off for a date.

Generosity was always near the top of desirable personality traits, after all.

Max and the Admiral made their way down from the podium once the speech was finished and started greeting the managers who had gathered near the front and shaking hands.

Most of the staff didn't really stand out, but there were a few interesting and impressive characters in the crowd.

One of the hires from Rae 5 was a former researcher for Uncle Lu, who couldn't take the stressful work environment, but she had found herself the perfect home, running a virtual reality arcade in the residential areas. Another was an eighteen-year-old son of a bureaucrat from their first stop who had skipped multiple grades in school and finished his Business Accounting degree only weeks before the hiring notice went out.

He would be in charge of payroll for the sanitation department, and Max wondered how many people had dropped out of the running for him to end up at the top of the list without any job experience.

He was supremely boring, mentally calculating the overtime hours that he would have to add to the payroll to clean up after the party was finished, even before it started. Maybe that was what you wanted in an Accounting Department manager, though. The rest of the accountants didn't seem that much more interesting.

There were big egos, shut-ins who only showed up because they assumed it was mandatory, and working parents who had already decided just how long they had to stay to be polite before they could head home again and relax on the couch with their kids.

At the moment, there were no two-income families on the ship, not that they were actually needed, but Max knew that before long, most of the older kids and spouses would be looking for something to do, and Absolution City, as he was mentally calling the first residential area of the vessel, would start to reorganize itself naturally.

As the ship's population grew, there would be many more such areas, and an entire nation would form within the ship, given its immense size. Each floor was large enough to be a small country on a nine-hundred-kilometre-long vessel, and even with kilometre-tall ceilings, there were twenty floors that weren't designated for industrial or ship docking purposes.

Max had been mingling for two hours and was about to start looking through the nearby shops when he noticed a few very unique appearances in the crowd that were drawing the attention of everyone around them. The botany experts from the Shin and Dryads had shown up to the party to mingle, and the sight of new species entranced the humans.

Very few of the crew had seen someone who wasn't human before, other than those who had fought the Narsians or who had come from other Reaver vessels, so the sight of a tree floating on a gravity pad and talking through a handheld device was a top highlight of their lives so far.

The Dryads seemed to be running interference for the Shin, who was quickly overwhelmed by the questions of the curious humans, and Max noticed that they did an incredible job of blending in with the crowd. They were clearly not human, but once they started talking to the crowd, it looked like everyone had forgotten that and began treating them like new friends.

It wasn't some super secret skill or anything, only an application of their innate attunement to the atmosphere of the crowd that let them know just the thing to say, but it was refreshing to see, and Max wondered if he should bring in more non-human mental health professionals, assuming there were other species that good at setting people at ease.