Alexander felt the vibrations in the floor as the shuttles took off outside. He had never noticed those in his previous body, and wondered just what else he had missed as he walked into the defunct GS facility.

  Most of the massive warehouse had been emptied out at some point, but he did see a few racks along the outer wall still filled with crates of gravity plates.

  The room was filled with engineers and workers, all going over the plans for the new manufacturing line. Lucas was hunched over a table with Mingyu’s brother, Yi Na.

  Neither man looked up at his approach until he cleared his throat.

  Yi Na was the first to address him. “This is a restricted area. Can I help you with something?”

  Lucas just laughed. “Yi, it’s Alex.”

  The man blinked in surprise, then took a harder look, his eyes going wide. “I’m sorry, sir. I heard the rumors, but I had no idea what you would actually look like.”

  “It’s fine,” Alexander replied, waving away the man’s concern. “How are the preliminary plans going?”

  Yi smoothed his hand down a thin beard that hadn’t been there the last time he had seen him. “We’re almost done laying everything out. From the looks of it, it’s going to be tight. I think removing the rest of the storage racks will be required to fit everything in.”

  “I meant to ask about that. Where did the other racks go?”

  “We shipped most of them off to Katalynn and the other Jarls,” Lucas added. “What you see here is all we have left. Once I knew you were going to commandeer this facility for the new production center, I sent as many people over as I could to clear away the empty shelving units. Not sure where we’re going to store it all.”

  “Is space really that tight?” Alexander thought they had plenty of room to grow, but that was eight months ago.

  Lucas shook his head slowly. “It’s more about the effort to get it there. The facility has some smaller storage rooms, but those are now packed full of disassembled storage racks. Everything else is just stacked up outside, so we didn’t have to try to use the tram to cart it back to the main facility. Most of it will be deconstructed by the bots to make the machines, but that still leaves a lot of scrap just lying around waiting for the acid rain to eat away at it.”

  “And that doesn’t even include what’s left in here,” Alexander added as he pondered the problem. “How many ships are in production and will be completed before the new production facility is online?” Alexander could have pulled up the data, but that would have taken time. Why waste that when he had someone present who was keenly aware of the current production schedule?

  “Well, we have two heavy battle cruisers, based on Katalynn’s design. Those aren’t ours, but they should be done within the allotted time. Four Orcas should be completed by then, or shortly after, then there are also the Six Seahorse carriers, but those are automated and don’t need grav plating. I think that’s it.”

  “That’s less than I hoped,” Alexander admitted.

  Lucas glanced over at Yi and was about to say something, but Yi spoke up first. “With the loss of my brother and the other miners, it’s been much harder to procure materials. Even down on the surface.”

  “We’re still not back to our previous mining capabilities,” Lucas added. “With your abduction and the attack, fleet ships took precedence. We also got help from the Asgardians to close the gap as some independent miners showed up, but those were small ships compared to Destiny.”

  He gave a solemn nod to Yi. The sting of his friend’s death had faded slightly, but Alexander hadn’t forgotten. The best thing he could do for the Na family was to make the Shican suffer.

  Alexander turned his focus back to what Lucas had said. That would have to change. Fighting the Shican was a numbers game, and they were starting from behind the curve. “Can we delay the carriers to produce six more control vessels and accompanying Fishbone transports?”

  “I believe so,” Lucas hedged. “Krieger wanted them as additional forces to harass the enemy’s main formation, but that was before he returned. I heard the fleet is already heading out, so those ships won’t be much use in the short term.”

  “Good, do it, and dump in another hundred multipurpose bots to boot. We need to scale up fast. I expect losses are going to start increasing soon.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Lucas nodded and tapped out some commands on his tablet.

  While he did that, Alexander continued. “That isn’t going to put much of a dent in the remaining gravity plates, so move the ones we need into orbit, and dump the rest outside. We need the room more than the plates, and I suspect quite a few of them will be non-functional by the time we get around to using them anyway. As for the ones we are keeping, I’ll ask Rush to gather the frequencies so we can at least reactivate them when the time comes.”

  Yi looked mildly lost by the change in conversation, but Lucas just nodded.

  “Yi, I have faith in your skills and your people. I also know you aren’t going to be building the machines that go in here, just the platforms they rely on, but please drive home the importance that the construction must be as flawless as possible. Any mistakes or adjustments we have to make will delay setting up the production line.”

  “You need not worry, Alex. My people all know what’s at stake. I will ensure everything is good to go.”

  Alexander nodded his thanks towards the man and motioned for Lucas to follow him.

  “I’ll be honest,” Lucas said, “It’s nice not having to jog to keep up with you.”

  Alexander turned to his friend with a smirk. “I could fix that.”

  “Please don’t,” the man groaned. “I get enough exercise as it is. Why couldn’t someone have told me I would be sore all the time?”

  “As I recall, working out was your choice.”

  “It was,” Lucas chuckled. “The things we do for love—don’t tell Katalynn I said that.”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “So, what’s up?”

  “It’s time to take a look at the upgrades I have planned for the gateway.”

  “It’s about damn time. I can’t wait to see what you cooked up. I had a few ideas for improvements myself, but nothing worth holding off on deploying our current gates.”

  Instead of going to Alexander’s workshop, they headed to the one that Lucas and the other engineers used regularly. With most of the engineers assisting with the production center layout, the room was quiet.

  The room was also far different from what Alexander remembered. He turned to Lucas, who looked a bit sheepish.

  “We’ve been a bit too busy to worry about clutter.”

  “I wasn’t going to comment on the mess, but perhaps you should hire some people to clean this up.” To make his point, he picked up an empty meal pack from a desk and dropped it into a nearby bin.

  They moved over to Lucas’ office, which was cleaner, but not by much. Alexander helped his friend clear off the workstation. Once that was done, the man plopped himself into the well-worn seat and quickly ran through the security features to unlock the device. Then, once again, to unlock the folder containing the ring schematics.

  “So, what did you think of my early design?” Lucas asked as he flicked the image onto the holo above his desk.

  “It was impressive.”

  “So you’re not annoyed that I decided to change your whole design?”

  “A design that was only theoretical?” Alexander asked. “No, I’m not annoyed. Why would you even think that?”

  “Whew,” Lucas said, wiping the sleeve of his arm across his forehead in an exaggerated fashion. “That’s a relief. I had some bosses who were nice in the beginning, but turned into real pricks later on when you changed things without their approval. Anyway, what do you have for me?” he smiled.

  Lucas put the issue behind him as if it didn’t matter, and maybe for him it didn’t, but it did hurt a bit that his friend would even think that, even if it was only some surface-level doubt. Alexander would work to make sure that doubt never cropped up again, but for now, he took his friend’s example and put that issue behind him to focus on what truly mattered.

  Alexander transferred his designs to Lucas’s terminal. “We discussed the issue with the gravity plates and ensuring they had a similar gravitational pull as the old models. That discussion and the solutions are pertinent to the gates, too, all except the constant acceleration idea. We would never be able to generate enough gravity to mimic orbiting close to a star using that method.”

  “I thought we agreed that that method wasn’t really feasible. You know the whole ship melting issue and all?”

  “It’s probably not,” Alexander agreed, “but if my other idea doesn’t work, we will have to come up with some way to fix that problem.”

  “Okay, so we stick them around a gas giant, like we are planning on doing with the traditional grav plates. Those calculations showed the plates had to be dangerously close to the planet to make that happen. I don’t see how you are going to get the desired gravitational advantage without losing the vessel carrying the plates.”

  “We’ll need to test a ship around both the star and the gas giant to see if we can make it work. If it doesn’t, I have another idea that might,” Alexander admitted.

  “Do tell,” Lucas said.

  “You already know that the plates act as transmitters and receivers, but we already know that they aren’t constrained to just gravity. They can transmit data as well. So why not power?”

  Lucas went quiet for a moment. “That would be a game changer. Not just for the gates, but for ships as a whole.”

  While Lucas was correct, Alexander thought his friend was thinking a little too small, but maybe baby steps were the right approach.

  “Precisely. If I can figure out how to modify the plates to accept power, which is going to require a second plate attached to the first, then all we need to do is ensure the plates are made from the strongest, densest materials possible, and then just drop them into a gas giant. A single pair of plates will be more than enough to help offset the power requirements to use the gates.”

  “Do you think you can do it?” Lucas asked.

  “With the help of Rush and the others, definitely, but it’s probably going to require us to reconfigure the production line, so don’t expect that any time soon. I’m not stopping there, either.”

  Alexander flicked his hand across the holo, and the third design popped up. “Why require a gate at all? With my reactor upgrades, what we plan to do with the plates, and the existing legwork you and your team did, I believe we finally have everything we need to make the Nova drive a reality.”

  As always, thanks for reading! And thanks for the support! If you enjoy the story, please rate it and comment below!

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