Proxy looked out of the window of a transport ship. She wondered why she was here, in the Omicrons, working for the people that she would never suspect to meet a few years ago, graduating college on Cambridge. But, she was an engineer after all, and a good one at that. It led her to Malta and then to the Blood Roses. They paid well so she stayed, working on various construction projects on Valetta.
She was one of the few people on Malta that didn't actually have a ship. She didn't need one, either. It wasn't hard to hitch a ride here - now she was going to Cartagena, with a special project from nobody else but Angel Bloodrose herself. She was to oversee the construction of a luxury liner - Polaris, Angel called it - which involved accepting cargo deliveries and sitting bored to tears in the office. Par for the course.
A few hours later she entered the production hall. Completely empty now, left for the Blood Roses to use over the course of the next few weeks. The workers and other engineers would arrive in several hours, which gave her time to look around. She walked to the office and organised her workspace. The large screen displayed feed from multiple cameras outside, on the scaffold where the ship would be actually constructed. She started uploading the blueprints and sat back as the progress bar filled.
"Cartagena, we have a delivery for the Blood Roses, requesting permission to dock for Virgo and Capricorn." Antonio sent the docking permission.
"Acknowledged, Virgo, you two are clear to moor to docking points four and five. Cartagena, out."
As the two massive Stork transports moored to the shipyard, Nathan opened comms to Proxy.
"Hello there. We got the first delivery for you, workers on Virgo and quite a bit of equipment for them on Capri. Mind sending some people to unload that?"
"Oh, welcome," Proxy's Bretonian accent could be easily recognised. "The Cross engineers actually came a while ago, other than that there aren't any people available. But I guess these workers you got can take the tools themselves, can't they?"
She disappeared from the screen and a faint shouting could be heard. A moment later she came closer to the microphone again. "Yup. You should be good to leave in about ten. Safe skies out there."
"Cartagena, this is Antonio Bloodrose, I am requesting permission to dock, over."
"This is Cartagena, Antonio we need your ship callsign, over."
"Virgo, callsign is Virgo, over."
"Alright, you're clear to dock, we'll send some men to help you, over."
"Si, but not a lot Cartagena, there are just workers there, one man should do the job, they just need directions, over. "
Antonio moors his transport to Cartagena.
A female voice can be recognized while it comes from the comm channel. " Antonio, the workers are ready, but we need those materials as soon as possible."
"Si si... the materials will be there soon"
He engages his cruise engines and leaves the shipyard
"Hello again," Proxy oppened the comms to Nathan. "What have you got for me this time, hm?"
"Armor plating," he replied. "Probably of not much use... yet."
"No, not really, but don't worry," she smiled. "We've yet to teach these idiots how to use tools properly and it will take long enough for you to get some more stuff. Y'all are way too quick with all those deliveries. But, oh well, I'll get them to unload it, should be ready to go in a moment."
"Thank you," Nathan replied as he closed the comms and sat back in the pilot's seat of the Horologium.
Nathan stretched and rubbed his eyes. It was a long flight to get the next batch of commodities and he didn't get any sleep. He opened the comms to Cartagena.
"Proxy?" he asked, the fatigue in his voice was noticeable.
"Yup, I'm here. Whatcha got for me, eh?" her voice sounded cheerful as usual. Does she ever sleep? he thought.
"Remaining workers and tools plus some optical chips so you can start figuring out how to program them. Came from Inverness, shouldn't be any problems with them."
"Got it. I'll wake you up when we're done unloading. Bye!"
"Thank you..." he said as he started falling asleep.
Two transports were slowly approaching Cartagena Shipyard. Nathan looked at the scaffold and saw a few parts already deployed. "Proxy?"
"Yup, I'm here," her voice sounded in the speakers. "What do you have for me now?"
"Quite a big load of basic alloy. I'm wondering though, you've already started construction?"
"Aye. Antonio was here before with alloy and armour plating. Some of that alloy was already used for the construction, the rest will be taken to the foundry, melted with a few other things and formed into outer-layer hull panels. The managers Cross sent us are doing a pretty good job at getting these lazy deadbeats to work so everything is coming along pretty smoothly and efficiently."
"The more you know, I guees. Good to hear everything is coming along nicely. Meanwhile, can we get someone to unload us?"
"Yeah, sure. I'll let you know when you're clear to go."