Dark Fate, Chapter 78

Chapter 78 – Design Plans

Stepping on to the little manufacturing station I’d picked up was a surreal experience. Looking through the schematics, I saw that gravity was adjustable, allowing for ‘living’ areas to be at a comfortable 1G, while the ‘working’ areas could be adjusted all the way down to microgravity, depending on what kind of work was being done. Which was definitely useful, for some production methods.

At any rate, I wasn’t here to get caught up on the wonders of manufacturing in space. I was here to talk to my design team, and get them working. The miners were already heading out into the rest of the asteroid belt, finding suitable rocks to start processing, and the Necrozians were settling into their shipyard, and getting it ready to start work. So, I needed the manufacturing center to get up and running, which brought me to why I was currently sitting in this small conference room, with four catpeople sitting across the table from me.

Guse Shumis

Fimaazro   Female

Level   30 Overseer / Bureaucrat

Titles:   Efficient, Slave

Highest   Attribute: INT

Market   Value: 45000 gp

Taji Kakuz

Fimaazro   Male

Level   25 Artificer / Industrial Designer

Titles:   Slave

Highest   Attribute: INT

Market   Value: 25000 gp

Ran Samiess

Fimaazro   Female

Level   10 Magitech Engineer / Starship Designer

Titles:   Genius, Prodigy, Slave

Highest   Attribute: INT

Market   Value: 32500 gp

Junko Cote

Fimaazro   Female

Level   10 Bard / Architect

Titles:   Slave

Highest   Attribute: CHA

Market   Value: 12000 gp

Guse I’d already spoken with, but this was my first time seeing any of the other Fimaazro up close. Not that I’d seen many of them before. Only a few of their kind made it to Earth before I reset my timeline, and Lilith had been very close-lipped about events in her timeline, as she wanted to minimize how much she might distort the plans she’d made when she got herself sent back in time. So, I didn’t really know what their race’s situation was, in the wider galaxy. Not that it mattered, right now.

“Well, ladies and gentleman, I know you all know who I am, by this point, and I’m sure Ms. Shumis has taken the time to inform you of why you were purchased. I intend to build up the infrastructure and defenses of this world, enough that the pirates will think twice about coming here. To do this, I’m going to need to build stuff, obviously. You are all intelligent enough to figure out your part in this, and I won’t insult you by telling you otherwise.”

That bit of frank talk got their attention, and I didn’t want to waste the momentum I’d gained, so I kept going. “Now, Ms. Shumis will be the overall coordinator, working to manage manufacturing times and all that stuff. As an Overseer and Bureaucrat, that should be well within her capabilities. She will ensure that the material gets to the manufacturing plant, and the finished goods go where they are needed.”

I looked at the three designers. “What I need from you three, however, is your design skill. Mr. Kakuz, you will be designing the machines to make the machines we need. I know that this manufacturing plant is impressive, but it is only one facility, and there is a definite bottleneck in how much it can produce. I purchased some templates so you need not reinvent the wheel, but I don’t doubt you’ll figure out your own way of putting those pieces together. So, you will have the job of designing a system’s orbital infrastructure from scratch.”

I was fairly certain that the catman creamed himself, given the way that his eyes rolled back and his mouth went wide in pleasure. And I understood. He was a designer, after all, and here I had just given him the ability to design an entire system’s worth of industry. That wasn’t something that people just got to do every day.

Judging by the looks the other two were giving me, they knew that their roles were going to be no less engaging. I turned to look at the next one. “Ms. Samiess. You are a starship designer. I currently have all of one manned starship to my name, based off System templates, plus a few mining pods and shuttles. This will simply not do.

“I need designs from you for ships, both military and civilian. As you might have guessed, I have ship templates, and more. But I want something distinctly my own. Your first task will be to build an armed freighter, something that can carry goods but also put up enough of a fight to make pirates think twice, a fighter capable of space to ground operations, and a carrier capable of holding at least a squadron of those fighters. There’s going to be commerce, eventually, once the pirates learn not to fuck around, here, and I want to be ready to take advantage of it, while also protecting my investments.”

The woman nodded eagerly, clearly already at work thinking up design concepts, but I figured that I would add a bit more fuel to her fire. “And, if you come up with any weapons or systems that will allow our ships to punch above their weight class, I’m all for it. If you can create for me a corvette that can cripple a superdreadnought, I will be certain to reward you appropriately.” Her eyes gleamed, and I knew she was hooked.

Turning to look at the final Fimaazro, I said, “And Ms. Cote. You will be happy to know that I have a challenge appropriate to your talents, as well. Among my purchases, I acquired an Automated Asteroid Colony Construction Machine.” I chuckled. “I can see by your face you know of what I speak. Well, there is an asteroid named Ceres nearby that is just over five hundred and eighty miles wide. You are going to design the city, or network of cities, that will be built there. The city must be self-contained and self-sustaining, so that it could be cut off from the outside and maintain its population indefinitely, if necessary. There will be residential, industrial, commercial, and military functions to consider, as well.”

Finally, the supervisor managed to break out of the collective shock the four had been put in by the scale of what I was planning. “So, Master, what kind of time scale are you wanting for these projects? We need to know, so we can prioritize manufacturing time on the machines.”

I nodded. “Good question. Well, the AACCM on Ceres is ready and waiting, so it can be activated at any time, once there’s a design in place. Send me an initial concept design first, and we’ll work from there. That asteroid is going to be my headquarters, once it is up and running, and I want something that isn’t going to look like a hole in the ground.”

Shumis nodded. “Then, if you do not mind revisions being made in the course of building, I will ensure that Ms. Cote has a preliminary design to you by the end of the month. The initial areas will likely be docking areas, yes? That is how it is on most asteroid bases, according to past experience. Those can be standardized, to save time in the design process.”

“Yes, that will be fine with me.” I looked over to the other Fimaazro. “Do you have any objections?”

Cote shook her head. “No, Master. If I go with a standard civilian dock, I can get the initial stages designed fairly quickly, once I have detailed scans of the asteroid in question. Do you want surface construction, or just subterranean?”

“Your opinion?”

“Surface construction is flashy, and shows that you have wealth and power. However, depending on how flashy it is, then it could become vulnerable to attack. Certainly, anything that looks like an energy dome or whatever, holding an atmosphere in, will be an immediate target. Not something that I would recommend, except in core systems, or if the facility in question has ‘protection’.”

“You mean that either the owner is so feared that no one wants to fuck with them, or the area is recognized as ‘neutral ground’, and anyone who causes problems will have multiple groups coming down on them at once?”

“Yes, Master. There are resorts for the rich and the powerful that have things like that, as well as some casinos or other, less reputable, facilities. All of them are protected, either explicitly or implicitly, to such a degree that no one would consider destroying the dome unless they were tired of living, and wished their entire organization to go down, with them.”

“Oh, yeah!” Samiess piped up. “I heard about something like that, before I got collared. The Uthor Yiven complex on Toralus Prime got attacked by pirates a few years back, and the dome burst. By the end of the month, all the pirates responsible were found, very dead, in front of a law office. Word is that other pirates turned on them, and took them out, to keep the collateral damage down, because the group involved was about to start a big pirate-hunting effort, hoping to wipe out all the pirates in the area.”

I chuckled. “And that is the kind of reaction I want people to have when they start thinking about Earth. So, the sooner the better on the new ship designs.”

“Actually, I already had a thought about that, Master. The priorities you put out are fine, and all, but if you want something to protect the system, right now, then you probably want to go with something light and quick, that doesn’t require all the training that a fighter pilot would need.”

“What do you suggest, then?”

“Well, back before I was enslaved, I came up with the idea of using small craft, built around a really big gun. They’d only be the size of shuttles, but you could pump them out a lot quicker than actual warships, because they’re so simple. One might not be able to stand up to a true warship in a slugging match, but if you have groups of them, then they can take on bigger ships.”

I nodded slowly. “So, some kind of gunboat design, then. Yes, I could see that working. What kind of weapon did you have in mind?”

“Well, I haven’t really looked at weapon design that much, you have to understand, but I did the math on this way to contain antimatter in temporary magnetic bottles. You then fire them at the enemy, and, when it hits, you have matter and antimatter meeting, and all the fun that entails. Very nasty to be on the other side of, if it works.”

I was many, many things, but I was not (usually) an idiot. And only idiots didn’t feel their butthole tighten at the idea of antimatter weapons getting thrown around. That shit was scary as fuck.

“Right, I have to ask. How did you get enslaved?”

The catgirl didn’t seem phased by the question. “Oh, I was working with a commercial concern on a new colony. But, because I was young, the smoothbrains in charge didn’t listen to me. Kept going on and on about how it was a waste of corporate money, and that I was insane. They enslaved me the day after I proposed arming the defense platforms with my new weapons.”

“Right. So, what are the pros and cons of this system, over one that is significantly less insane?”

“Well, cons are the charge time, because even I don’t want to figure out how to store antimatter. That’s real crazy talk! If I use the reactor technology I designed, then on something the size of a shuttle, I can get two shots every thirty minutes? About that. Larger ship, you have room for bigger reactors, maybe even a dedicated reactor just for the weapons, which means quicker recharge times.

“Another con is that you’re going to be wasting a lot of the energy because of the nature of the explosion. Just no way to make a controlled or shaped explosion out of it, unless you send a physical object out with the bottle. But that means you have to open up the charging chamber and put matter inside to support the spellwork. While filling it with antimatter. That’s just asking for additional problems, in my opinion.

“For the pros, well, energy weapons shouldn’t do anything against the bottle. Shields will be effective, but not as much as with normal kinetics or energy weapons, since the antimatter will actually spread over a larger area of the shields, reacting to space dust and the like. Against an unshielded hull? Bad news for anyone on board.

“One unshielded hit should be enough to take out an unshielded corvette or frigate, for sure. Even with standard shields, a corvette or frigate would be in bad shape after a single hit. Extent of damage depends on where the ship it hit, and how close it was to critical systems.”

I took a breath. This was the kind of weapon that could give us the edge we needed, and hold off the pirates long enough for the politicians to get their butts in gear. “Right. I want a ship design for this gunboat ready by the end of the week. Also, try to make the gunboats stealthy. That should help their survivability, somewhat. Use existing templates if you need to. And create an ‘upgrade pack’ so that existing ships, like the Hellspawn, can be retrofitted with this system.”

“As you wish, Master.”

I finally turned to look at Kakuz. “Obviously, I don’t expect you to design all the orbital infrastructure, overnight. But you’ve heard the initial plans. So, start with those ideas in mind when you consider build plans.”

“Yes, Master. I should have a basic idea once I examine the system more closely, as well as what technology is already available. If you please, I can have a plan for you next week?”

I nodded, once. “Get it done.”