With everyone settled into their chairs, Max got to business.


    "So, what is our first topic of conversation? Will it be how to deal with the Klem, where we all know the answer already and only need to develop a politically ptable version to give to the masses? Or should it be about the new developments in human spacecraft?


    That seemed to be a popr topic among the gathered corporate suits who had requested your presence.


    Or perhaps, we should start with the critical matters?" Max asked.


    The Innu envoy took out a data tablet and ced it on the table. "Let''s get the important stuff out of the way first so that I can focus. I have a proposal to add a variety of roasted coffee beans and coffee-based beverages to all Alliance Central Government vessels'' replicator systems."


    The rest of the team groaned at her diversion, but Max noted that they were all drinking coffee right now, so it would probably be the most important part of their dealings today.


    He looked over the deal and then input the standard rates that the Innu Tech Nomads had exined to him ages ago and found that they were asking for a price equal to ten thousand units to gain the right to replicate coffee throughout the entire government for the next decade.


    He wasn''t nning to say no. They had added so many alien foods to their own system just by scanning dishes that visitors had brought that he really didn''t have a legal or moral standing to deny the Alliance their coffee fix. But they loved their paperwork, so he signed the document as soon as he finished verifying the contents for anything that didn''t belong in a coffee deal.


    The document was verified by the automated systems aboard Absolution, which quickly interpreted every paragraph and use for relevance and summarized it all nicely to ensure that what he understood was the same as what was written in the document.


    "See, now I can rx. So, let''s get to work. Do you have a listing of the minimally environmentally damaging methods of eliminating the Klem?" The Innu Envoy asked.


    "Indeed, I do. Starting with the most obvious matter of not allowing them tond on a at all, which seemed to have some opponents among the animal rights crowd, we can move on to containment measures using three-dimensional shielding barriers."


    That idea was a joke that one of the Cygnus officers hade up with centuries ago, and it had be a running gag among their officers when a bad idea was presented. "Just put it in a barrier and forget about it until it goes away." They would say.


    But to the Alliance, it was a somewhat serious proposal. They were seriously considering the logistics and moral implications on survivors trapped inside the barrier without relief forces, should a barrier that trapped them both from moving above and below ground be deployed.


    Once they had read it through and made some notes, Max moved on. "After that, we move into elimination methods. I looked into it and found that most of yours don''t have a standing army, so it would have to be a police cordon until the actual military arrived from the nearest star base.<novelsnext></novelsnext>


    Given ag time for a response to be scrambled after a request is made of twelve hours, I estimate that a force of fifty thousand Valkia police, using the technology that I have seen your security officers wearing, should suffer between twenty-five and forty percent casualties in that amount of time."


    The Valkia looked like he was going to vomit, so Max held off on using the holographic projector to rey the simtions that they had run or disy the exact numbers. The Giant wasn''t going to be that easy to satisfy, though.


    "Do we have more data on this technique? Mosts will have some vehicles and mobile barriers for riot control avable. Did you factor that into your estimates?" He asked.


    "I will pull them up on the holographic disy, and you can pick any of the hundred simtions that we ran on the topic for more detailed viewing," Max informed him and reluctantly brought the results up on the table''s projector.


    The Giant happily scrolled through them and then picked two to disy at the same time. The highest and lowest casualty rate scenarios. The lowest had the Klem podsnd in a desert, and a police force flew in to contain them in an isted area, with minimal spawning ofrger Klem species before the reinforcements arrived twelve hourster.


    The highest had the podsnd half in an oceanfront megalopolis, and half in the ocean, with amphibious Behemoths arriving before the military and over fifty million dead.


    "Well, that was a bit horrific. I hadn''t considered that they could survive whennding in the water, but your estimate is correct. We do not have the resources on most terrestrials to deal with that. If it was an Innu world, it wouldn''t be as bad since they are also amphibious and have a lot of capabilities for underwater peacekeeping and hostile species containment." The Giant responded in a monotone as he made notes.


    His mind said that he wasn''t really affected by the results and viewed them as hypothetical, while the Valkia Envoy took the sight very personally since it was designed to have the peacekeepers all be of his species.


    "So, since that method clearly won''t go over well with the general poption, what is your next proposal." The Valkia asked.


    "The first is an innovative measure. I suggest militarizing a terraforming array to be portal transferred to the site of an infestation. Once there, it would convert all Klem biomass in the area back to natural elements, rebuilding the area back to its previous pristine state using sampled local nts. As you can see, the upfront cost would be astronomical, but it would only affect the Klem, so it would be safe to use anywhere."


    The data went up on the projector for them to scroll through, and they looked intrigued, but their thoughts clearly said that the animal rights activists would not go for this. It could be forced through, but unless it was ast resort, terraforming an inhabited, even a small portion of it, would require a huge amount of government paperwork and oversight, making the practical deployment of the array nearly impossible.


    "Still too many issues. What else do you have?" The Giant sighed.