“The message was diplomatic,” Mentor replied neutrally.

“So, as soon as bloody possible, no pressure?” I asked, having an understanding of what polite diplomacy actually meant.

“I believe that is the general intent, yes,” Mentor agreed.

“All the shit happens at once,” I sighed, juggling the crap mentally. Seriously, I had a coronation I had to attend, too. “Mentor, how long do you need to train Rich on ship operations? Not battle tactics or fleet operations, I know that’s much more involved.”

“A week?” the AI answered after a moment.

Rich winced. “Whoa. That’s pretty intense, then.” They had good dream training on Xandar, but still...

“If you think being captain of a starship is a small obligation, you’re out of your gourd, buckethead,” I warned him, and got a sheepish smile in return. “Jessica, go tell Peggy what is going on, recruit her, and get some real intense training in personnel management. It’s paperwork-oriented, but you can run it out of your Visual File. If you have the title, you need to do the job, and sooner or later there’s going to be a SHIELD ship or something out there with a crew of non-Powered doing the same things we are.

“Peggy’s basically going to be training everyone on running a ship while we do this. She’s got the experience and all the training to do so, so be ready for a happy mother hen having fun.”

“Yeah, Peggy could do every job on the ship, ‘cept maybe the science stuff, and then she’d just look stuff up and defer to Mentor,” Ben grunted. “We need to board the ship, sweep it, bring it out of mothballs, get familiar with her, take her for a test run at least, modify her to what we need, and only then take her outsystem. It’s not gonna happen overnight, despite whatever Xandar wants,” he said to the red starburst pointedly.

“Understood, Master Grimm,” the AI acknowledged.

“We’re definitely gonna wanna borrow Wrench to look the thing over and, uh, make some constructive suggestions,” Ben told me.

“I’m sure he’ll consider working on a totally new model of alien starship which has been sitting out there mystifying him for several years to be a total imposition on his time and a great hassle,” I murmured back, and Grimm grinned despite himself.

“Two six-packs?” he wondered aloud.

“Best make it three. I’ll raid Dealer’s stock, really up the ante...”

----------

“Hey, you two chuckleheads, c’mere a minute.”

Jenkins and Ebersol, once they worked out their respective differences in intellect and competencies, actually got along pretty well. Ebersol definitely won in the brains department, there was no question, but Jenkins had a cool competency in electromechanical devices and interfaces, a good feel for the construction of them, and especially for practical operations.

They actually made a pretty good team, and their combined ridiculing of science fiction films and series, and the ridiculous physics of a LOT of things that happened on the doom tube, actually bonded them more.

Of course, maybe trying to replicate some of the zany shit they’d seen in their down time happened, just to prove how totally impractical it was...

I put down two Dealer’s Engineers Specials, and their eyes lit up. Stuff was shut down hurriedly if it needed to be, but there was one eye being kept on operations as they slid over for their high-energy beers.

“Special project?” the Fixer asked with a grin. The ElectroFix Compound was getting new stuff added every day, and the two had carefully brought in some guys to help out who wouldn’t steal shit... especially after meeting The Mountain, and getting a bone-shaking reverb experience of how important he considered money.

The Fixer didn’t usually have a crew, nor Jenkins, but sifting in some from crews of other tech villains who couldn’t pay them decently was just something that was done. Egghead’s whole support network had collapsed with his recent death at the hands of Hank Pym, and the Vizard, well, he was getting kind of erratic with his stuff. Doc Ock was trying to play the mastermind behind the scenes now... and one of his lab assistants had put on a suit and was using the name now in homage to the great man of science that he was. No, no, she wasn’t mentally unstable either, lasers in her tentacles and all...

“Projects,” I said calmly. “How fast can you get your crew up to speed on overseeing normal operations?” I asked them both.

=============

Speaking of special projects...

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Jenkins answered, “A week to keep things steady, a month if corrections are needed, a year to understand what’s happening and make adjustments on the fly,” he replied sharply.

“I can put in some programs to help if there’s emergencies, but yeah,” Ebersol agreed. “They’re smarter than most people, but this is cutting edge stuff!” For now, anyway.

“Interested in a trip to another planet in an alien starship, and a big fight against interstellar pirates in hyperspace on the way?” I asked them with a neutral face.

Both of them stopped with the beers halfway to their faces. “Uh, seriously?” Jenkins asked, a little wide-eyed.

“Dead. Need an engineering team for the ship.”

They looked at one another, the Fixer’s eyes huge. “Do I know the tech?” he asked quickly.

“No. Xandaran. Six sigma human compatible, but way ahead of us on the tech curve. Big enemies of the Skrulls.”

The Fixer was almost salivating. “I’m in!” he declared without any further thought. Jenkins only hesitated a moment before nodding, too.

“Start prepping. You need a fully operational combat suit, hopefully with engineering-suitable attachments, for both of you. We’re getting stuff ready. Jenkins, go.” He nodded, taking his beer with him and heading for his work table, where he could keep an eye on operations while working on other stuff.

“Ebersol, I’m going to be straining your brain.” I pulled out four bottles of Dealer’s Energy Drink, and his eyes almost popped. “More coming.”

“Crap!” he muttered, staring at them. Dealer had given him one when the first delivery of stuff came in, and he had run around like a madman for twenty hours installing stuff, overseeing stuff, modifying stuff, designing stuff. He’d felt like his brain was exploding, and he had to get it all out as fast as possible... and he almost could!

Looking at four of them, his mind boggled.

“I’m telling you this, and your mouth is sealed. Reed Richards and his wife are on sabbatical, and they dropped everything, and I mean everything.” His eyes narrowed in consideration. “There’s stuff that the rest of us at the Baxter Building can handle, by which I mean everything, and then there’s stuff that you could handle.”

He licked his lips. “This isn’t just scraps from the table, is it?” he asked carefully.

“No, this is mainline bleeding-edge monomol razor shit.” I pulled out an inch-thick sheaf of papers, and then a much thinner bound report. “Scan this, then scan this.”

He reached for the papers, snatching them up, and started to read with great energy.

He could work his brain at double human speed, and naturally speed-read, had enhanced memory, the works. I saw him forcibly pause and stop himself at several points, whispering stuff under his breath, his face gradually getting redder as he had to stop for longer periods of time to actually understand what was going on.

When he put it down, he had a half-dazed, half-transcendent look in his eyes, maybe for the first time in his life. “That was wonderful!” he mumbled.

“Yeah, that’s the mind of Reed Richards. Now read the fine-tuned version, without all the extraneous crap.” I gestured at the professional presentation version he and Sue had put together for that particular project.

He opened it up, and flipped through it slowly. His expression slowly changed as he did, as all that crazy Weird Science cleaned up and became this elegant thing sitting in front of him. When he got to the last page and stared at the last element of the prototype, he just looked kind of dazed.

He looked at me, down at the page again. “How much was this contract?” he asked, despite himself.

“Fifty million.”

“How long did it take him?”

“From the time he actually focused on it to final product? Uh, a week. Thirteen hours of true focus, I believe. The hardest part is naturally condensing that, to that.” I pointed from the pile of wild written stuff to the final product. “Making the prototype came after, but that was nothing special. He does that stuff while thinking about other stuff, or sends it out to Stark or Pym or a couple other high-enders he trusts.”

“And you understand all this?” he asked me, tapping the papers.

“Pretty much. Read it through a couple times, and you can probably pick out where I did the math for him.”

He promptly starting going through the paperwork, grabbed up a pen, and checkmarked there, there, there, and there, just based on style and notation differences.

He then marked the date. “This is, like, six months old...” he murmured. Meaning it was all completed, done, and delivered.

“I gave it to you as an example of what Reed Richards does, and what he delivers. So...”

I pulled out a smaller sheaf of papers with one hand, and collected the other sets with the other.

He took a deep breath, preparing himself, and began to go through the new sheaf, not speed reading this time.

There were only ten pages. It only took him a few minutes.

“This isn’t done...” he trailed off, as he looked at the last page. A mélange of emotions swept over his face, everything from dread at being confronted with work at this level to unabashed excitement for same.

“That’s the subcontract.”

He set it down and stared at it really hard, just really thinking in a way he never had before. Never HAD TO before.

He looked up at me. “Can I rely on you for the math?” he asked.

It was a huge admission for him. But then, Reed Richards gave me the math to finagle, why couldn’t he?

Actually, there was no way he could solve it without fifteen Ranks in the stuff, so admitting it meant he had realized he would need help. “Of course!”

He took a big breath and looked at it. “I can do this!” he nodded, confidence returning. “The final prototype...” he took a deep breath, but there was only determination in his eyes. “Yeah... yeah, I’ll figure it out, and it will totally look sweet, Dynamo!”

“Great! You’ll be working on it while we’re in space!” I informed him without the slightest shred of guilt.

He eyed the four bottles. “Oh, nothing serious happening...”

“Not a damn thing,” I nodded, and my phone beeped with the ‘Read Me’ tone the others used when sending over clips and news.