Greetings my friends. I trust you all had a good time over Christmas and for those of you who do not celebrate Christmas, I hope you all had a relaxing time too.
To our non-human friends, I hope whatever celebrations you have either went or will go with much fun and happiness.
I send this message from my home, rather than the base as all our family are here, staying with us for the week.
I just want to let you all know that the last of the freed prisoners were safely delivered to their people and were able to spend this time with their loved ones as I had hoped.
There were some delays as I underestimated the distances between the various drop-off planets but it is now done.
As you know, the Felini were the first to be delivered. After that, my ship made her way to a Hexamon base where the reverted Hive were welcomed.
As they were transferred the Hexamon representative said something which translated as, "We are the Hexamon. We send greetings to the honourable individual known as Gaijin. We thank you for delivering these young to us and we shall see that they are looked after and are given a place in our collective. That is all."
Not much for speeches, the Hexamon, but nice folk nevertheless.

After that, the final drop-off was with the Falconians.
They were transferred safely back to their own people and were warmly welcomed as they stepped onto the Hiport elevator.
The Falconian representative thanked us for delivering their people safely back to them and then my ship came back home so that her crew could take their leave to be with THEIR families over Christmas and the holidays.

Here at home, things have been hectic but fun. Mashita wanted to cook the Christmas lunch, but in her condition I was having none of it. I hired a catering firm to cook a splendid Christmas lunch for us all the day before and my father and I served on the day.
Gifts were exchanged, silly party hats were worn and crackers were pulled.
After a fantastic feast, washed down with double helpings of Christmas Pudding and plenty of port, we all relaxed.
Mashita wasn't drinking anything because of her pregnancy, but she enjoyed the fruit punch that we had served up for the kids. (My brother's and sister's little ones.)

I'll be home until next week to celebrate the New Year. It is an old Earth custom that dates back many centuries. After which I shall be returning to the base to make sure everything is back up and running again.

I never did mention. When I first took over the base, I had a chat with the employees of the base. There were LOADS of them. I didn't realise I had taken on such a responsibility. Anyway, a makeshift stage was set-up with a microphone so that everyone could see and hear me.
I told them that only some minor changes would be made for now. The factories would be mostly shut down temporarily. The research lab's would be unaffected and would be allowed to continue uninterrupted.
I authorised construction of a couple of new facilities that I had been considering and then I asked them if there were any questions or complaints.
There was a hovering microphone which was able to travel to anyone who I chose to speak with. One man asked if the market would still be open.
I told him that - temporarily - the market was closed. I would be shipping some products to sell at other bases using my own fleet, but other than that, nothing would be coming in or going out.
Than a Hive employee raised his/her hand. The mic' translated for me. It asked if I was going to hire any new staff. It said that it enjoyed working at the base, but that everyone was overworked because there simply weren't enough personnel to COPE.
That started a few people shouting. When I finally called for silence, one man spoke up. He said there were more SECURITY personnel than there were EMPLOYEES.
I told him that that was the situation as I inherited it and that you could never be too careful when thinking about security. I told them that I would be looking to rectify the situation however by buying some Employees from different markets so that soon they would be fully staffed once more.
Other than that, it was just basic worker's gripes.

Well my friends, I've just been told that a movie is about to begin and so I bid you all adieu and wish you all a very happy New Year.
Here's to even greater profits in the year to come. This is Gaijin signing off.