Novel Full 448 448 Repair Plans
“We used species of flora that are foodstuffs or visually pleasing to the Humans, which you can relocate if you don’t like them. We can also bring more if you like. There are gardens like this, with the same plants and soil in the common areas in the center of the ship.
The other species enjoy the scent and sight of flowers, so we put a large number of them aboard the ship.”
One of the Shin darted forward and snuggled its roots deep into the soil, finding that it was only half a meter thick, then reached a root up to tap the hanging hose, making it spray water over the area.
[Look, water sprinklers. Do you think we can raise them, so I can make it rain on my canopy? That would be amazing.] They asked.
“Just control the panel at the door. It is in Alliance Common at the moment. You can adjust the height of all the hoses as you prefer.” Max informed the happy plants.
One after another, they settled into the soil, and Max could have sworn he heard a sigh from their branches, though the noise might have been mental.
“We will explore later. For now, resting here is perfect. We will take good care of your plants.” The Captian informed Max, then stretched out a branch to tap the controls and lift the sprinklers to make a gentle rainfall in the room.
The drains would take care of the moisture. It wasn’t hard for the staff to remodel Terminus on short order, as long as it was only a few rooms, so the water shouldn’t be an issue, even in the long term.
“What do you need for nutrition? I can create whatever you require.” Max asked.
[We are a slow-growing species. The nutrients in this soil are enough for us to stay here for a decade. I don’t think we will need that long to repair our vessel, though it might take that long to convince the crew to leave this room.] The joke was clear in the Captain’s tone, so Max gave a polite bow and left them to their own devices.
He had heard before that humans and similar species were uncommon and much more active than most species, so he wouldn’t rush their guests around at a human pace.
Max walked back to the hangar where they docked so he could talk to the engineer and see what they needed for their repairs. Nico and the Innu were already there, discussing the incident with the Engineer, whose thoughts seemed rather star-struck.
It seemed that he watched the live streams from their particular group of Tech Nomads long before they landed here on Terminus. He hadn’t expected to ever see them in person since they were only passing by the region on their way between Alliance galaxies. When the accident occurred, they had no choice but to divert here, as it was the closest star system.
The Tech Nomad video channels were very popular in the Alliance, even if this particular group only got tens of millions of views per video out of trillions of watchers. Thinking about the potential of increasing market share on a scale as large as the Alliance was a mind-boggling concept to Max. If even a single percent of the viewers were fans of your channels, you could earn enough to straight purchase and terraform your own planet after only a year or two of streams.
Of course, here in this Galaxy, there were so many undeveloped regions that they could simply claim and terraform one with the technology and resources at their current disposal, but it was much different when it was one in an already inhabited system or close to one.
“How bad is it?” Max asked as he approached the damaged Exploration Vessel.
“A few damaged main spars, some hull sections are scrap, and the Warp Drive is totally destroyed. At best guess, it will take us at least a month just to do the work, and I’m not sure if Terminus has the materials we will need.” One of the Innu replied absently as she examined the forward sections of the main structure, which seemed to be intact to Max.
“Let me know what you need, and we will get it if we don’t already have it. We have a pretty good selection of shipbuilding materials, at least for our own vessels.”
That got the Innu excited. “You mean we could use your military-grade materials to rebuild the Exploration Vessel? Don’t you guard those really closely?”
“We can always stop and get more ore from any random system, and our technology is good enough to make it into usable alloys. It might not be the peak of Alliance technology, but it is enough that we can repair anything that we own.” Nico explained.
“This is going to get so many views. I mean, it will expose your alloys to the Alliance members, if that’s alright but other than that, it shouldn’t be an issue.” The Innu Technician cheered.
“The Alloys are nothing special since the Exploration Vessel doesn’t need armor, just structural components and hull plating. Every ship in the Alliance has equivalent materials, so it shouldn’t be a big shock even if ours are a different composition.” Nico dismissed her concerns.
The alloys for ship frames were quite basic since the Kepler design philosophy used ablative armor plating that could be replaced when it was damaged without compromising the hull. The structural material for Warp 10 capable vessels was a new alloy for humanity, just developed for their new generation of high-speed vessels, but it was still no better than what they were working with on the Shin Exploration Vessel, which was a state of the art Civilian exploration vessel and only recently completed.
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“We will use a new hybrid drive. Compiling what we know of human Warp Technology and the new designs that we have been working on, we can make one custom fit to this hull.” The Innu told Max, so excited that she was practically vibrating.
“Well then, have fun with that. I will try not to distract you too much since this is paid work, as well as material for your video stream. I will only need to pull you away if a new trade partner requires something custom made.” Max told them and then retreated from the onslaught of hyper-excited thoughts.