34 Chapter 34: Deal on Xandar

When the Infinity returned to Xandar, Corpsman Dey greeted them warmly, "I just wanted to say thank you, not just from myself, but from my family too, my wife is Krylorian, her sister and niece had gone missing several days ago, thanks to you she got her family back." Dey thanked the group sincerely as they made their way to meet with Nova Prime.

When they entered the same hall as before, a very different scene was in front of them than the last time, now the large table had men and women all around the table, Nova Prime at the head of the table, she looked regal and confident as she sat in her chair as she listened to the discussions going on around the table.

As soon as Adam, Frank and Yelena walked in, all discussion at the table stopped, all eyes were on the three SPARTAN's, studying them intently, their eyes showing different emotions, some curious, others frightened.

Prior to their arrival, this council of Nova Corps leadership was discussing the battle data that was submitted by the UNSC to receive the bounty and mission rewards. After learning what was offered and the terms, then seeing the amount of credit owed was far beyond what they wanted to pay.

The bounties weren't the issue, it was the civilians that they had wanted to reduce the amount per civilian and didn't want to pay for the soldiers that were rescued. After all, the reward for rescues was higher than the one billion for Grok and 400 million for the 80 pirates. What Nova Prime didn't account for was the pirates hadn't been leaving after each raid. Seeing the data recovered by Adam from the ships logs, they were highly embarrassed.

The pirate group had used a small initial attack force onto the planet, they did so openly, this allowed the real attack force to set up undetected, while also gauging their defenses and response time.

From there they coordinated with their ships out in space with ground force attacks. Even if the Nova forces were made aware of the raids, they would've remained in the sky and wait for any ships leaving the surface.

Due to the pirates not ever leaving with the abducted people, and rescuing a whole military base, the number of rescued amounted to just over 18 thousand. At the promised two million per head it was just over 36 billion credits. Nova Prime had a headache, it wasn't that they couldn't pay it, but this was still a lot of money, especially since they were still in a war.

Adam knew the predicament she now found herself in, it was why after he saw the scans from the probes, he made sure to rescue the base. He knew they only expected him to rescue a few hundred people and eliminate the pirates. Adam knew they wouldn't want to pay out so much, so to ensure that good relations are maintained, while also making out like a bandit so to speak, he had already come up with a very good compromise.

Adam stepped up to the table, his demeanor was polite, but his every move exuded confidence, his voice was deep and powerful as he spoke, "I understand your situation well, Madam Nova Prime, ladies and gentlemen, although the terms were offered by yourself, it was both an extremely lucky while also costly surprise, so the UNSC has put forth an alternative to the pay-out." Adam explained, this had made sure he had their attention.

"Yes, I would very much like to hear this alternative. Mind you it is not the issue of the amount, it's just timing, we are at war with the Kree after all and such a large amount could affect war efforts if not done correctly." Nova Prime answered with a nod, she was interested in what his proposal would be.

"I understand, so the UNSC is willing to take 15 billion credits, along with a corporate business license, we would like 4 plots of land as well as somewhere in your capital we can arrange an embassy here on Xandar. We also ask for a place within Xandar's planetary system to build a refit station. Lastly we wish for technology; non-military fields are fine, like energy, genetics, physics, medicine, communication and such. If you agree to this, we are willing to amend the contract as such." Adam listed out, what he really needed was a foothold to launch from and Xandar would be a good start.

Hearing Adam's suggestion many around the table looked to Irani Rael and gave a nod. After a moment of thinking Nova Prime asked, "Just a refit station? We have a refit station here above Xandar, if you need resupply we can provide it to your ships." She didn't like the idea of allowing a base within her territory, also refit stations were a means to make money, repairs and supplies cost credits.

"True, but your refit stations wouldn't be able to do anything besides resupply, they are unable to repair our ships, we would still use your stations for resupply, but we need to be able to repair my fleet in case of emergencies, the refit platform we will build is fully automated, no crew on board, it will be used to repair any UNSC ships within the system." Adam explained, what he didn't say is that it would be fully loaded with advanced next gen sensor arrays, and electronic warfare as well as being able to stockpile ordinance.

"I see," Nova Prime looked around the room as she thought on the terms, gauging the others reactions to the terms, "those terms are acceptable, I shall have Corpsman Dey provide a list of non-military patents available, you can choose up to a value of 10 billion credits on the technology, I can only promise two plots of land within the capital itself, one will be in our delegation region, this is where all embassies are on Xandar, only one plot within the capital, you can choose one in our residential area or commercial district within the capital, the other three, you can choose from the land outside the city, we will provide you the information on what we have available to choose from." Nova Prime agreed with the new terms quickly, this was highly favorable to them, although they didn't like the refit station, it was understandable they needed somewhere to repair a ship that was either attacked, or in need of repair.

What Adam asked for would save her greatly, these terms were within her normal scope of authority, rather than before, she would've had to get approval from the Nova Empire. Now, she would no longer be outside of her authority, she only had permission to set up to 20 billion in rewards for missions, without prior approval beforehand. She had inadvertently granted a mission that yielded far above that, she had been stressing about this issue since first receiving the battle report.

Many of the men and women of the Nova Corps in the room didn't want to offend Adam's group, they witnessed the ease at which the UNSC had taken out the Pirates. Not only did they locate the pirates quickly, but even resolved it just as fast as they would've, had they had the manpower to spare.

Currently most of their forces, or at least their forces so deep within their own territory, far from the war, were older ships, their sensors older and not really equipped with modernized systems.

The ships and crews of the Nova Corps that weren't on the front lines of the war weren't equipped for anything above frontal assault. They were more like police officers than the actual military. The war had made it difficult to update older ships and equipment since they received more benefits from concentrating on building new ships.

Ships and equipment were lost or destroyed constantly, so they focused solely on resupply and keeping their available number of ships as high as possible. This was a war of attrition after all, a war really only about dominance for the Kree, and self defense for the Nova Empire.

All the older model ships that even survived had been pulled back and transferred from the military side to the police side. They mainly dealt with civilian organizations and civilians directly, not military forces, so they didn't have a direct need to install the new and improved systems.

Once the peace treaty was signed, and the Nova Corps main forces were able to enjoy a respite from the constant war, the advanced systems would then be able to trickle down, old military equipment was given to the policing side as new ships were built.

Adam gained a large amount of galactic credits, as well as gaining access to different technology, although his technology was superior, it was only in certain fields, bio-engineering, medical, energy and just about all of the military fields, the UNSC reigned supreme.

That didn't mean that they still couldn't gain anything from them, every branch of technology is like a forest of trees, you can clear deep into it by choosing a direction, each advancement leads to new ones, the potential new discoveries are limited to the ingenuity and innovative thinking on the part of the civilization to expand and improve.

If you gave two civilizations, one at war while the other was in a peaceful time, give them both the same initial knowledge over, say the atom, both civilizations would produce similar products but differ in many ways. The one at war would obviously specialize in weapons while the other would specialize in energy.

There could be many things they may have missed themselves in their own path in advancement, like the given example before, the UNSC was founded and built for war, during a war. The Nova Empire was very large, it ruled over various species, various different views could expand into new fields of study.

Imagination drives innovation, it's why on Earth, many things that were, at first only writers or story tellers ideas, eventually those ideas were made to reality.

Battle armor was a perfect example, it started during the medieval times, knights wore full metal plate armor, effectively turning themselves into human tanks.

Thru time and changes in warfare, full plate armors adapted and by the 20th century became kevlar armor giving protection and mobility, but the dream for the Mjolnir armor continued, it spurred research in that direction. Failure after failure, but the human imagination and desire for such a creation continued its research and eventually gained it.

After the meeting concluded, the UEG and UNSC became a force to be reckoned with, not just militarily, but economically as well. Earth had an abundance of something the rest of the galaxy didn't, in fact very few even knew about it across the marvel universe. Vibranium.

It is unknown why Vibranium was so abundant in and around Earth alone, it was found nowhere else in the galaxy, the Dwarves had very little knowledge themselves about the metal, the Kree were the most knowledgeable about its existence along with the Skrull, it was one of the deciding factors in their attempts at invading the Earth.

With all his gains from Xandar, Adam was able to make a giant leap forward on bringing Earth and the UEG onto the galactic stage.

The Earth would now have access to galactic and planetary commerce, new technologies could be easily assimilated into the Earth progressively.

Now the UNSC had access to the galactic version of the internet, given access after the registration as a mercenary organization as well as being granted a business permit, after working out taxes and such on business done within the Nova Empire, they received the access codes to the galactic network.

This would allow them to locate and accept mercenary jobs that were posted on the galactic mercenary network, as well as being able to participate in the galactic economy by being able to virtually shop for products and services from across the universe.

Adam planned a joint embassy on Xandar, it would house both the UEG and UNSC, he would then put a office building and shopping center in the capital where they could sell products and services from Earth on Xandar, outside the city he would have warehouses and storage facilities, military and non-military supplies.

Once he had a firm grip and well established within the Nova Empire, which would line up perfectly with the peace treaty that would be signed to finally end the war between the Kree and Nova Empires, this would allow the chance to move into the Kree territory.

He would create an embassy to establish diplomatic relations with all sides, more connections would equal more access to missions, to not be limited with whom you work except by your own choice. Adam would be able to choose what jobs to do for each side, wars were costly, but they were also extremely profitable as well.

The Covenant-Human war cost the UNSC untold amounts of wealth and resources to fight, but the amount of wealth they recovered after battles was worth even more. Reverse engineering new technology, new knowledge and ideas, new materials, a wealth of data that improved human civilization.

Adam spent the next few months coordinating the projects on Xandar, he had also begun to set up mercenary teams, that way they could begin taking contracts on escort and security missions.

Frank was put in charge, he chose the missions and led the UNSC soldiers across the galaxy on bounties, each successful mission brought Adam's goals closer and closer, the UNSC was slowly becoming the number one mercenary group.

Gaining a reputation for being professional and effective no matter the mission, never failing a mission that they had accepted. Escort, Search and Rescue, Defensive, Search and Destroy no matter the job the UNSC got it done.

Soon, Adam and the Infinity had to return to Earth, the Reality Stone would soon arrive, the arrival of the Convergence, when an ancient race of Dark Elves would awaken, their goal was only the Aether and plunging the universe into eternal darkness.