Freeport 44

[Soul Reaper]

Things are looking pretty good around here.

Marcus stepped back as Isaac jumped down from the control seat of the gravity crane which was deployed right in the middle of the massive hangar. Isaac, as always, was in his engineering exo-suit, in fact, Marcus couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen his friend and colleague in normal attire. Isaac un-polarized his helmet’s visor but didn’t care to take it off.

Damn right. Been working our asses off in here you know.

Indeed, although I thought you said the hull was complete.

Marcus gestured to the large armored plate of metal hanging in the air, the gravity crane the only thing holding it up and preventing the tons of armored metal from crashing down on people and equipment below.

No, I said most of it was complete.

But that was 3 days ago.

Marcus, need I remind you, this is a Juggernought class vessel? It’s not really a small thing you know. Plus, the inner hangar walls are the only places left to complete, in fact, that plate you see there is the last armor plating to weld. And with just a few small touches more, the hull of the entire ship will be complete, and that will probably be today, then we can really start on everything else.

Hmm, alright, fair enough. I’ve read the reports, but I’d like to know what we need from you directly.

Well, the wiring, we have that, miles over miles of it is stacked in storage, ready to be implemented, the main servers and computing units you brought, are in storage as well. Vital systems…living quarters and the commodities to make them happen are mostly in storage, we’ll need more though. And hundreds of other small things we’ll need, but that’s mainly in the reports, and I can’t be assed to tell you right now.

Right.

But, what’s really missing, are the bio domes.

Well, you have the plating for it.

Of course we do, those are ready, and the ceiling glass as well, in fact, it’ll all merged together. But we don’t have the equipment and systems to start running them, once that’s done, I’ll have the implemented on the ship.

I see, well, I’ll put that on my first priority list then.

Do that.

What about the defense wing?

Talk to Valeria for that, although the last time I heard she had found some able pilots. Also, what about that destroyer you were talking about?

Not sure about that, putting in some hundred millions of credits to have a destroyer built, I don’t know.

It would be a good addition to the defense force.

Much more expensive than fighters to maintain though, well, lets think about it another time, bastards only gave us permission for one vessel at a time, and 44 still has to get up and running before we start anything else.

Good point, anyway, I’ve got stuff to do, be seeing you later Marcus.

With that Isaac just climbed up back to the seat, the workers around saw this, and stopped talking with each other and turned their attention back to the plate that had started moving again. Marcus turned back and headed for one of the hatches and a route back to the shipyard, along the way many of the workers he was passing stopped and greeted him with a wave , nod or simply a smile. In his time around 44, he always spared some time to get to know the workers. Mainly because they were some of the best workers Livadia had to offer, or any that he had employed before. But what was more important, is that he’d hire almost half of the current workers again as crew to maintain 44 once it was ready, he even had a quite detailed list on the people he’d be hiring. And he had to be a people’s person to make sure they’d work with him, and, effectively, quit their jobs on Livadia. It was all in his plans, had to collect everything before 44 was even ready to fly.

About 10 minutes later, he had made it to a control platform, which was used to supervise flight training, or pretty much anything else he had wanted it to be. He saw Donald sitting at one of the consoles with a comm. Set around his head, giving info to the pilots in space.

Donald.

Donald held up a finger and turned to the console.

Valeria, try and use the pulse weaponry to just overload the drones’ systems, I want to see how effective those pulses are, after that continue your chain firing method on them, I’m dispatching another 20 drones for your wing.

Donald turned to Marcus.

What’s up…sir.

I’m guessing the weaponry is already loaded onto the fighters?

Yes, Valeria is testing them now, along with the other pilots.

So, she found some capable pilots?

Yeah, she’s also testing them out as well, she found 2, just a day ago, been training with them ever since.

And how are the weapons performing?

Pretty well, nothing wrong with them yet, you’ve picked the best ones I’d say, although, there were the others that you just gave away, they could’ve been repaired.

Better to use the ones that were a hundred percent.

Marcus moved over to a console, in the display he could see the video footage of the training and simulations, the fighters were training 12 clicks away from the station, observation drones had been set up to view and give information on the pilots’ skill levels. There were also training drones launched from the station to the area, these were used as dummies to fire at. He patched into Valeria’s comm. System.

Valeria, this is Forge.

Yes sir?

So what do you think about the new weapons?

They’re running smoothly sir, pretty damn efficient and lethal I must say.

Alright, what about those two pilots?

Yeah, I’m working with them right now, they seem to be good guys, at least decent in their fighting, I’ll be sending you a full report about them tomorrow, then you can decide if they’ll stay or not, I also have two other pilots that I might test as well.

Right, good job then Valeria, keep it up, we need those pilots before 44 is up and running.

Yes sir, also, sir, if I might ask about ships, will we be sticking to these Eagles?

Not sure, what do you think?

Well, Eagles are pretty good, but I think we might try out some Sabres as well, easy enough to get, and are beasts at fighting, if not those, then maybe some from the Miner’s Guild, Raven’s Talon perhaps…

Then just send me a list of what you need, I’ll probably have some Sabres up and running, you’ll figure out the equipment and all, although, I’ve heard about these new Osprey vessels, still in testing, might get a few of those if they ever come out.

Aye sir, I’ve heard of them as well.

Well, you’re busy, better not keep you waiting, continue your simulations.

Yes sir.

Marcus closed the comm. Link and turned back to Donald, he was checking the consoles and running some tests on the data he got from the observation drones.

Looks like everything is running smoothly, good job Donald.

Thanks.

Marcus walked out of a hatch, and got off the platform, a few minutes later he was at the docking bays, Charles was waiting for him by the hatch to his Conference, he nodded as Marcus passed by into the ship.

Looks like it's running pretty damn smooth around here.

Wouldn’t expect any less, sir.

The pilot waited until both were in the ship, closed the hatch and locked down the ship, a few seconds later they were in space headed for the jump hole. Marcus was watching space 'fly by' from one of the windows as they accelerated further.

Good thing we moved the office to Freeport 9, much closer.

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