[Please come to the rear cargo bay. We will receive you there.] The Co-Operative ship informed them once the shuttle was on its way toward the convoy.

It was somewhat unconventional for the Koleska but far from the strangest reception that they had ever received. Max was reserving judgment on these people until he got close enough to read their minds so that he could tell if they knew that they were working with the Arisen or if it was a matter of unwitting assistance.

If they really didn't know that their ships were compromised, then it would be a very different negotiation than if he realized that they were either possessed or willing double agents.

Nico maneuvered the shuttle smoothly into the bay, and Max watched as a series of lights on the screen beside him blinked and lines of code flashed by.

"We have a definite intrusion," Max informed her.

"Already caught and isolated. It has been stabilized, and I am analyzing it now. The code is complex and sneaky, but it looks like the cyber warfare of this region is somewhat primitive by our standards.

They are somewhere near the level of the Alliance, but most of the larger Reaver Companies should not have an issue detecting and at least preventing this sort of attack." Nico confirmed as she worked.

She waited about thirty seconds inside the bay before she nodded and opened the door, marking the successful neutralization of the digital threat.

"Greetings, Envoys of the Koleska, and umm, I am not certain that we have ever seen your species before." The Co-Operative Commander welcomed them.

"We are known as Humans, and our Faction is the Reaver Trade Group. It is a pleasure to meet you. The Anomaly in this region leads near our territory, so we have come to help defend this side from foreign threats alongside the Koleska." Max replied politely.

The Co-Operative group was just as varied as Max had been informed, and few of the fifty people in the area were of the same species. All of their minds were clear and easy for Max to read, and none of them were showing any signs of hostility at the moment, so Max gestured for Nico to close the door to the shuttle and follow him to the meeting area.

He could see it through an open door at the far side of the bay, and the Co-Operative leader seemed to be eager to get the talks started.

"Is there an issue with the station? Many of us had dealings with the Koleska in the past, and they have always preferred to host all meetings on their own territory." The group leader asked.

Max saw the memories of various meetings in the past, showing that this man was a politician before his people had been attacked and had brokered many trade agreements.

"I am not sure if you are aware, but many vessels have been infected with a computer virus from the Arisen Army, so at our request, the Koleska have put their station under quarantine," Max replied so that he could hear the mental responses.

"Computer Viruses? Like Scrap Code that causes it to malfunction? One of the members of the Co-Operative group asked.

"Similar to that. It causes the infected computer to record and transmit data to the Arisen Army for processing. There is a suspicion that is why so many planets have been attacked soon after receiving visitors." Max agreed with a nod.

All of the minds in the group seemed shocked and somewhat horrified at the prospect.

"If that is true, could we really be cursed? How would we even know?" One of the members asked himself quietly.

"You can scan your computer's data for anything that is out of the ordinary, but you will have to use an outside device with a read-only memory chip, or it too will be infected and unable to find anything," Nico suggested.

They considered that for a second, and then one of them had an idea.

"I have a tablet in my items which we obtained from the Noosa. It's still brand new, never opened. If we set it for read-only and then search for code that is not written in Noblex, as the ship's computer is supposed to be, I think it might work." He suggested.

The leader nodded. "Go get the device and make very sure that it is unable to have its memory altered. I will reimburse you."

Then he turned to Max and the negotiation team. "You said that you have a proposal for us. Please do come to sit with us. It is always a welcome change not to be run off at gunpoint."

He led the way to the meeting room, where refreshments and a selection of small snacks were prepared for them. historical

Nico happily sampled a little bit of each, then nodded to Max that they were all safe for human consumption.

"Do you often have your subordinate test food for poison?" The Co-Operative's cook, who had prepared the dishes, asked in shock when she noticed that they didn't use a handheld device to check it.

"She is immune to basically all poisons and a simple toxicity check doesn't tell us if it will be palatable to our taste buds. If there was a risk of poisoning, she has a cybernetic augmentation that would allow her to isolate it, and this meeting would have gotten very violent, very quickly." Max told her with a smile.

Max sensed their wariness at his confidence. The fact that he didn't have any issue with the prospect of shooting his way out of a foreign vessel was enough to show them that the Humans were not a species to be trifled with, even if they were naturally aggressive species and not the nonviolent remnants of fallen civilizations.

Max took a bite of the nearest square, which looked like a layered dessert, and found it was creamy and vaguely coffee flavoured.

[Nico, record this food. I can guarantee that the Innu will go insane for it when they try it.] He mentally informed the happy Cyborg, who was busily reprogramming the virus that she had captured in the shuttle.

[I'm on it. I will add everything that was good to our replicators before we leave and possibly steal a lot more of their food programs once I crack the coding language that they are using. Their replicators suck, though. Seriously, they're only six percent efficient. They use over ten times the energy that ours do.]