USD: 35 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: 92 Pegasi / Nu Crateris Jump Space, A3123Y

Amy sat in the top lounge of A3123Y’s central spiral, looking up at the shimmering dome on the other side of the glass ceiling. The space was built entirely for casual observation and relaxation. Underneath the floor was over a meter thick of the most advanced alloy and ceramic spaced plating that Abbey could produce.

Despite being designed to be the first casualty if it was struck by damage, the glass dome wasn’t cheaply built. There was even a space for a bar, although it had only been open for a few days before being closed down as all the non-essential personnel on A31 had been evacuated to Ackman Station.

Outside of the shimmering field surrounding A31 was the solid black of jump space. It felt like that dark was trying to suck out all the light to Amy. The massive shimmering D-field somehow holding in the light from escaping. She knew that there were larger ships, or even stations, that prowled the star lanes, but A31 was the largest she had ever been on when transiting.

She only remembered transiting twice before in her entire life, although she guessed there might have been a few times when she was younger and couldn’t remember. The two times she remembered were a single trip to Nu Crateris that had cost her and Logan all their savings, because her brother had needed a medical treatment not available in 92 Pegasi.

Now they could go back and forth all they wanted… if there wasn’t the specter of incoming war hanging over all their heads. She knew that taking A3123Y from 92 Pegasi was a gamble. It was their best chance at fighting back any Corpo or Solarian attack on Ackman. She had considered bringing the old Ackman Station with them, abandoning 92 Pegasi entirely.

No one there would have accepted that, Whitely had told her.

Her datapad beeped, and Amy let out a sigh. Free time was over.

The elevator that took her down from the top of the spire had a view of a quarter of the station as it traveled down the outer hull. Amy could spot drones flittering about the shipyard bay as they continued to work, even in jump space inside the station’s protective field.

That was something humans only did under extreme circumstances, as falling off a ship in jump space and being lost forever was one of the most terrifying stories that got bandied about by spacers.

In the bay, four new ships were being constructed. They were quite small, much smaller than the frigates or ‘freighters’, but were densely packed with industrial modules. The plan was to deploy them as needed as seeds to build new stations. Depending on the situation in Nu Crateris, they could deploy them there, or possibly even send one to the empty frontier in 123 Piscium.

Amy had reviewed the data on that system; it had no sun and was essentially empty except for a single frozen dwarf planet that was sitting in the dark, the weak gravitational mass of the body somehow being enough to form three stable jump points.

Otherwise, they could deploy them around the belt of Ackman, and even on the surface of the planet. They would be jump capable with an industrial GAI for management. Crewing them was…

Amy bit her lit. She didn’t trust anyone to crew them. Somehow, she trusted Abbey and the AIs more than anyone after the coup. Her brother, too, but she didn’t want to leave him out of her sight. Although he had totally disappeared for the last few weeks, preferring to spend his time working with all the new gizmos and toys Abbey could now provide.

When the elevator reached the main hub, Amy headed straight to the command center briefing room.

Wyles and Abbey were already there, talking. Amy smiled, seeing Abbey kicking her legs energetically since they didn’t reach the floor because of the height of her chair.

“Hey.” Amy waved, picking up a glass of water before sitting at the meeting table.

“Ms. Tanis.” Wyles answered.

Abbey jumped out of her seat and ran to her for a hug. “Amy! The sand casters are ready to install!”

“That’s great Abbey.” Amy petted her on the head as she moved to sit down. “I have the documents ready, Mr. Hammok.”

“If they are the same version you sent previously, then I’m read to sign them now.”

Amy nodded. A digital handprint was taken from both of them.

|-1,000,000,000 SE|

Just like that, MilTech arms was no longer privately owned by Wyle Hammok, but a wholly owned subsidiary of Starlight Revolution. “You’re a very rich man now, Mr. Hammok.”

Amy wasn’t under the illusion that buying out the company would suddenly make its employees loyal overnight. Which was why Amy slid a second datapad to him.

Wyles chuckled. “I could retire to a nice inner world now.”

“If you can make it past the blockade at 90 Pegasi.” Amy countered.

“I could probably bribe a single ship through.” Wyles said.

“I would be careful. I hear those get more expensive the more credits you have, at least if you’re found by the Corpos.” Amy said.

Wyles took the datapad and signed with his thumb. “It would also be boring.”

Amy took a breath and coughed, changing to her more formal voice as she took the datapad back. “Mr. Hammok, thank you for taking on the role of chief of security and operations for the 92 Pegasi branch of Starlight Revolution.”

Abbey frowned at Wyles. “This doesn’t make him my boss, does it?”

“No, Abbey. Only with internal security matters or when making corporate plans. You are still in charge of running the station and industry. It’s just Wyles will be possibly helping you pick what to prioritize and when to make some things.”

Abbey puffed up her cheeks. “Fiine.”

Amy shook her head. “I really wish I could have convinced Whitely to join as well, but he’s adamant about retiring after things cool over. Until then, he just wants to manage the integration of Ackman Station.”

“He has been saying he wanted to retire for as long as I have known him. Maybe he’ll finally carry it out. Is he going back to earth?” Wyles said.

“I’m not sure. He didn’t expand on his plans.”

Abbey raised her hand. “I’m ready to go over the station summary list!”

The table’s main holographic display shot up a schematic of A3123Y. The outer non-militarized hexes flashed to gray and disappeared from the picture.

“The civilian modules have been reinforced structurally and received an extra layer of armor plating. A detachment ring has also been created so they can be detached and left behind if needed. I would recommend that if we have plenty of warning and know, we can come back for them later.” Abbey commented.

“They don’t have anything else?”

Abbey shook her head. “Just a few standard PDC-K mounts, but they don’t amount too much.”

“Okay. What about the rest of the station’s armor?” Amy asked.

“The primary spire has been reinforced with a meter thick of layered ceramic/metallic composite. It is the equivalent of a Federation Battleship’s armor and it is over 100x more resistant to projectile and laser penetration compared to the standard plating I have analyzed on the frontier and outer-system warship classes. It is 10x more resistant than the Shrike II’s armor plating.”

“That’s because it’s ten times as thick.” Wyles said. “What has adding all that weight done to the station’s acceleration profile? Having all that extra armor won’t be worth much if every single enemy shot can’t miss.”

“While we are approximately 40% slower than before the increase in armor ratings, I haven’t finished. The outer armor shell is 1 meter thick, there is also a half meter thick inner lining. Except in public areas that are exposed to the skin by necessity. Under these weak points are an extra 1-meter-thick plate. The CIC and critical reactor area has received a spaced armor citadel comprising five 1-meter-thick plates. This includes eight emergency bunkers near where the central spire connects to the max hex-connector system for potential use by civilians or personnel taking shelter.”

Abbey waved her hand. Each of the new plate sections was drawn in yellow lines on the station spire segment.

“Each hex module has also had a backup d-field and i-field generator installed, and multiple redundant d-field dishes have been placed across the spire at multiple points in case of primary lens failure.”

Amy looked at Abbey. “I know we approved armor increase, but…” Amy paused and smiled weakly, thinking for a second. “I guess it really hurt getting chewed up last time?”

Abbey nodded. “I don’t want anyone else to die like I did. That wasn’t good, and we almost were destroyed. I don’t think they will bring such small ships next time, either.”

All three of them bore a grim expression at the mention of a next time.

They knew it would come, eventually. So far, nothing had poked at them from Theta Corvi, but the stalemate between the Solarians and Corporate Systems would only last so long. Worse, they had no actual information on what either side knew about what was going on in 92 Pegasi… or if they had any inkling that a NAI was operating illegally.

Amy swallowed and looked at Abbey. “And the super-laser thing you were working on?”

“The anti-matter laser particle cannon!” Abbey said before quickly calming herself, continuing with a serious expression. “There have been difficulties. Creating an accelerator long enough through the spire’s hull has not been completed. It will take more time. But!”

Abbey changed the display again, this time thousands of elements highlighted in red. “I have increased the number of armaments on the station by a lot! We have twelve hundred 32mm PDC-Ks. Twelve hundred 8cm PDC-L turret emitters powered by 32 new fusion reactors. They are joined by an upgrade, doubling the number of 24cm heavy laser turrets to 48 emitters!”

Amy thought the massive grin on Abbey’s face was the largest she had ever seen. Wyles nodded thoughtfully.

“As advised, I have only used the same caliber for PDC-Ks to make ammo logistics easier. The extra ammo magazines currently take up considerable space on the spire. But since they are inert rounds, I have spread them in hoppers in various areas to act as an extra armor buffer between the armor plate spacings!”

“That’s a lot. But how are we going to power that many lasers?”

“I’m glad you asked! I have also installed 32 medium sized fusion reactors throughout the citadel section. I have designed them specifically for laser usage. They won’t work very well for general power requirements because they are spikey!”

Little emoticons appeared on the screen. !!

“Abbey. We talked about this.” Amy warned with a frown.

Chastised, Abbey reeled back the emoticon span, but nothing could dampen her enthusiasm as she continued with the details.

“They even have built in heat sink systems that integrate with the lasers and should improve efficiency 31.538%! They also have core ejection systems and emergency heat ejection systems that can pull all the heat out of the system rapidly if we are willing to lose a large amount of our propellant mass.”

Amy tilted her head. “Didn’t we have extra anti-matter from the collectors?”

Abbey nodded. “I built our first AMLS launcher, it has twelve tubes for the first twelve missiles. I don’t know if that’s really enough to do anything, but we have them now.”

Wyles looked at the schematic on the holotable. “I see there are some railguns now. I thought you were avoiding building any of those because of the range?”

Abbey rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment. “I know, but Logan wanted to make some. We designed some really BIG railguns! There are a half dozen 48kg batteries. We could have made more, but we wanted some heavier weight firepower for any larger targets that go too close.”

“That’s… pretty heavy… and accuracy isn’t degraded compared to the 2-4-8kg projectiles?” Wyles asked.

“Nope! The rail barrels are four times longer though… that’s why they are in fixed batteries and limited to the forward arc.” Abbey explained.

“Okay, so that’s it for weapons. What about the new—” Amy started but was interrupted by Abbey.

“Wait, there is more!”

Amy gave her a flat stare.

“I’ve developed and upgrade to our PDC-K systems. I call them, Sandcasters!”

Wyles frowned. “Point Defense shells that explode? I’ve seen those types of systems on military stations in the inner systems, but they aren’t reliable. The shell flak often disperses too much to be effective, space is large, you know.”

Abbey nodded. “I’ve developed a new fuse type that can easily be controlled by a specialized GAI. It provides cross analysis of the target trajectory and shell trajectory and optimizes the angle and timing of the detonation to ensure kills on missiles or other soft targets.”

Amy frowned. “If it was that easy, why don’t they use it in the other systems?”

Abbey’s brow furrowed. “It was not easy! I spent all month thinking about it and working on tuning the GAI to work!”

Amy held her hands in surrender. “Okay. I believe you Abbey. Great work.”

The young NAI’s eyes suddenly glazed over like they normally did when she became focused on something technical. Wyles looked mildly worried, but Amy was used to it.

When Abbey’s eyes returned to normal, Amy rose an eyebrow, “Yes?”

“We are almost to the emergence point. I have calculated our emergence drift and we will arrive in Nu Crateris in 47 minutes!” Abbey announced.

Wyles stood up. “Time to put the crew on alert. We should be ready for anything when we come out. The destroyer or Corpos could be waiting.”

“If SR01 is there, let me and Abbey do the talking to the Captain.” Amy said.

Wyles looked at her with a frown, but then nodded. “Will do.”