When the ship's constructor had finished with the upgrades to the Mobile Suit, it was still very similar in appearance to before the process started, if you ignored the fact that it was actually difficult to see at this point due to the improvement in the adaptive camouflage.
But internally, it was nearly a completely different piece of equipment.
All of the weapons had different internals, the power systems had been modified, the thrusters were completely different in function, and the mechanical structure was modified to be able to keep up with Max's enhanced physique.
Khan whistled in approval. "That's a sweet paint job. Do you suppose that you can do the rest of them like that? I knew that the System of the Kepler variety humans is an impressive thing, but I honestly didn't expect it to be able to improve on a new technology like that."
"The paint job is the least of the changes. Check out the specs when yours is finished, and let me know what you think." Max laughed, then activated the skill again to upgrade her suit, which was now sitting in the hangar waiting for their next deployment.
The constructor fired up right away and began the work that Max had to move to finish on his own just as Nico walked in.
"Oh, did you get a new toy? That is nice. Let me see, too." She laughed while clinging to his arm with the cutest pleading expression on her face.
"I will get to all the gear once we're in orbit and out of danger. How is our newest addition doing?" Max replied.
"She's getting changed. She seemed shy and said that she was too embarrassed to have me help her get into the unfamiliar clothing." Nico shrugged.
Max checked her thoughts and found that the Envoy was still trying to decipher where the silk sash that was intended to be a belt went, but other than that, she seemed to have figured it all out on her own based on the shape.
[It gets tied around the waist.] He sent it to her as a mental suggestion, and her thoughts brightened as she wrapped it and then tied it so the ends hung down one leg.
It looked good enough to her, and she could pretend that it was a unique custom of her people if anyone asked about it.
Max admired her optimism, and she was recovering fast from the initial shock of her arrival. Hopefully, that would last because the ship was about to leave the surface, and the Envoy was going on a very long road trip that she hadn't previously been warned about.
The Envoy came out a few minutes later and smiled at the room, looking very much like a child cosplaying a Reaver. The oversized, wide oval head and the hairless gray flesh were an odd combination with the outfit that everyone associated with humans, but it wasn't a terrible look, and she was close to matching with Nico, which seemed to give her confidence that she was dressed appropriately.
Max changed out of his armour and stored it in his flat space, just in case he needed it later. Then he smiled at the last of them to be ready and gave the order to lift off.
"We wanted to wait for you to be ready. The first time you go to space is a special one." He explained with a gesture to the window so that she could see outside with her own eyes.
"It's incredible. I have never seen anything like it. The world looks so peaceful from up here." She sighed.
"Yeah, everything looks calm from space. Even the explosions of an ongoing conflict look like flashing lights from up here. We only have to worry about enemy ships, but it looks like none of them have returned yet after the battle earlier." Max agreed.
Once they were in orbit, the cloaking field was re-engaged, and the ship faded from sight, silently gliding along toward the edge of the system to begin their scans of the other nearby stars.
"So, what do you guys do between fights? I mean, there has to be something since you can just leave like this, right?" The Envoy asked.
"We mostly do research, look for intelligent life, friendly and hostile alien species, try to develop new equipment, and keep our people at home safe. What did you do at home between battles?" Nico asked.
The girl shrugged. "My mom used to say to me [Dahlia, it's a safe day today; you can go play in the yard.] But we never actually had safe days, the attacks never stopped all my life, and the yard was a spot of artificial turf on top of the hab block where the kids would play."
Khan smiled and patted her bald head. "My mother was like that as well. She would pretend that things were different so that she didn't have to worry. Back when I was a youngster, our ship had been nearly destroyed in an accident, and we spent many years rebuilding. There were no luxuries and not much to do since we barely had enough air and power to survive."
Max looked through her memories of the incident and saw the moment of terror when a miscommunication between traffic controllers had led to someone opening a portal right beside their ship and coming through at full cruising speed while the Hunter vessel's shields were down for maintenance at a space station repair bay.
The traffic controllers had been forced to pay, but that was not a fast process, with all the appeals and bureaucracy of the Alliance, and it had been nearly fifteen years before their ship was at more than subsistence levels of inhibitability.
Only after she was grown and had taken over the ship did they truly regain their past glory.
"What about you? Did you ever play outside?" Dahlia asked Max.
"Indeed I did. I had a friend named Dave who used to take me for walks around town. He is an old soldier who had lost the use of his legs due to injury, so he was in a wheelchair if you know what those are. When I was young, we would do everything together." Max told her with a smile.
"Oh, we have those as well. I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere that you could just go outside?" She asked.
"Well, I can't say that it was all that great. We lived in a dangerous neighbourhood, but now I have a Company that has a ship over nine hundred kilometres long, so going out around the ship feels a lot like really being outside on a planet."
Dahlia did not believe that such a thing could exist, but both Nico and Khan were backing him up.
"Can we see that one day? I want to see a ship so big that you can put a whole city in it." She pleaded.
"Of course. As soon as we are done here, we will go and visit my new home. But I will tell you, it's much bigger than just a city. Nico, show this lovely young lady the interior walk-through of Absolution on the VR goggles."
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