chapter 211

POV: Third Overseer

My innate ability and skill combination allowed me to sense the station unlike anyone else. Forward Horizon felt like an intruder—an itch that I simply couldn’t scratch.

Numbers once again ran through my vision. The disruption Remi Graves has caused by being here was the greatest I had recorded during my term as overseer. Not all of it was bad, most of it wasn’t, but productivity was falling day after day.

Right now, all I wished for was a window through which I could overlook where Forward Horizon was currently docked. That ship held secrets, that was certain. The amount of heat they were transferring into the station should not have been possible.

The materials they had been taking in day after day since that quest posting were too extensive to make any sense. They were bringing out a large portion of it as compressed waste and even paying to get rid of it.

The number of credits they had kept falling at a prodigious rate. They would soon have chewed through their entire fortune. That should have been concerning, but I got the feeling that they weren’t planning to stay.

There had been others like them. Stronger adventurers who thought their ships were powerful enough to survive getting out of here. None of them, however, had acquired all the readings we had of this cursed system, nor had they spent a fortune on what I assumed were upgrades to the ship.

My manufacturing head told me that the materials they were seeking would make an extremely strong alloy, stronger than some of the best armour we had been able to salvage from wrecks. There were armours that were stronger, but finding those was extremely rare.

Why an adventurer ship—and traders, as they described themselves—would have what seemed to be an entire factory set up on board was beyond me.

My musings were interrupted when I was contacted by Remi Graves. This was either going to be good or bad.

“Greetings, Overseer. If you have time, I would like to discuss something with you.” He didn’t seem worried, but there was something in his voice I had never sensed from him before. Perhaps anxiety, but why?

“I currently have time, although you have made my days quite busy. It is difficult to keep the economy from collapsing with how much you’ve been spending, but you are keeping within the limits set by us, so I have no one else to blame but myself.”

“I apologize for that, but speed is important. I am guessing you have already deduced what my plan is. We will be trying to get out of here as fast as possible. For that, we need to use what we have designated as Entrance Seven.” He sent me a packet of data after saying that.

What he called Entrance Seven, we knew as the Ghost Grave. Where that name came from, I had no idea. It had been called that well before this station was established. A curious coincidence of a name for a person wanting to escape through that place.

“The name of that entrance is Ghost Grave, and it is controlled by the campers. If you try to leave, they will attack you. There is nothing I can do to stop that.”

There was silence for longer than he usually paused for. “And I’m guessing an escort is out of the question?”

“It is. We do not have the fleet to contest the campers. This station is the only thing that gives us an advantage, and there is nothing you can offer that would make me commit our forces. Doing so would most likely mean that we lose control of the only entrance we currently control.”

“Have you run those calculations while taking my ship into account? With this station being as strong as it is, would the possibility of a proper engagement with the campers be feasible? From what we’re seeing, they’re getting stronger and stronger. Eventually, they will have the strength to rival the station itself.”

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The data he had been able to gather was impressive. The campers, however, would need a couple more centuries before they could pose a true threat, at least to the station. Though if they were to push us, we might lose access to our entrance.

“We will get back to you.”

“Understandable, but know you don’t have much time.” With those last words from him, the connection between us shut down.

While that connection was through the regular communication channels. Most of the important data between us was shared over what we technomancers called a bonded line. This, however, didn’t have the usual protocols. My counsellor had agreed that he was a technomancer, but now I wasn’t entirely sure.

The council was called, and it was time to discuss war once again. The last time was four months ago, when the campers raided one of our convoys. They, of course, didn’t actually call themselves the campers, but the derogatory word was so widely used that Remi actually believed that was what they called themselves. That was actually pretty funny.

A red alert popped up before any of the council members reached my office. Looking at it made me realise what Remi actually was. He was a Drone Lord. Hundreds upon hundreds of drones left Forward Horizon. The security forces, of course, went on high alert, but Remi sent me another data package.

While there were some combat units currently patrolling their area, almost all of those were construction drones that were currently assembling buildings. Apparently, they didn’t have enough room aboard the ship to continue their manufacturing. What they were doing was not stated, but I ordered the security forces to stand down and observe.

It was not a coincidence that those drones left at this moment. That was a demonstration of power. The needle now pointed more towards Remi being able to cause real damage to the station and even possibly take it over if he had more of those drones and could manufacture them at a high enough capacity.

“It is definitely better to get you out of here faster. Otherwise, you’ll become a power unto yourself, wouldn’t you, Captain Remi Graves?”

POV: Lola

As I walked into my workshop to continue working on the tech seed, to my surprise, Remi was currently using my workstation. He seemed wholly consumed with what he was doing, so much so that he hadn’t even realised I was in the room.

Just yesterday, I had a breakthrough, and already he was doing something. The only thing currently missing from finishing this project was the fact that whatever grew from those tech seeds didn’t have enough intelligence to be classified as a mother tree.

For a moment, I wanted to call out to Remi, but I was afraid that might break his concentration. The tools he was using required extreme precision. Ninety percent of the time when I used them, even with my new skills and my precision affinity, I messed up the assembly.

He seemed to be fully in the zone. From the progress on the screens, I could see that the tech seed was finished. He had successfully assembled my latest design, but right now he was modifying it in ways I didn’t understand.

What are you doing?

It seemed that my schedule for today could be thrown into the garbage can. Instead of staying there, I walked out and sealed the door behind me, so if anyone wanted entrance, they would need to ask me. When Captain was like that, either we were going to see some brilliant creation or something that was beyond dangerous. Usually, it was a mix of both.

Now came the question of what to do. Bob was busy handling the construction outside and the assembly of the shell pieces. Captain was holding off on starting to put them on the ship, as we might need to go to war, and he wanted full use of the ship’s offensive capability if that was the case.

Sam and Dean were busy managing the recon units that were spying on the whole station and keeping the patrols up so no one came snooping around. They also handled the constant influx of materials we were buying from scavengers. The quest was currently showing 85% completed. It wouldn’t be too long before we had the materials we needed.

FH also seemed incredibly busy. There was no one to play cards with, I couldn’t work in my workshop, and there were no other tasks to do either. Like this, I simply wandered around, and for the first time in my life, I felt bored.

Huh. Well, that’s quite novel. I didn’t even know that I could feel bored. Was this something biologicals had to deal with? No wonder they did all those crazy things. Somehow, this feeling was helping me understand biologicals better than anything else I’d come across before.

I immediately marked it in my alerts to tell Bob later. I was sure he would be fascinated. Hours went by with me doing increasingly mind-numbing things. I even played cards by myself, which seemed incredibly wasteful.

Then, finally, an alert from my workshop made me focus. It was the captain who, through our bond, felt confused. I unlocked the door for him while rushing towards my workshop. The captain was still staring at the door, while a softly glowing seed rested in his hand. Why was it glowing yellow? Those shouldn’t glow at all.

“Captain, you’ve finished. You should really ask before using my workshop like that. You can’t believe how bored I felt the entire time.” He was about to answer me before understanding what I had really said.

“You felt bored? Have you felt like that before?” he asked, sounding a bit concerned. I waved it off and sent him the same report I had sent to Bob.

He seemed to read it over in a couple of seconds and then smiled. “Well, that’s an interesting development. From now on, I will send you an alert and ask if the workshop is available.”

“That’s not really that important. What did you do to the seed?”

He looked at the seed and then made it disappear. “Inspiration struck, but I’m not entirely sure what I managed to do or if it will work. I guess time will tell, though I have a good feeling about it.”

I waited for more, but he didn’t say anything and just continued to stand in the doorway. He seemed out of it. “Are you okay?” That seemed to snap him out of it.

“Yes, it’s just been a while since my Truth has been so overwhelming. There are also definitely improvements to be made to the tech seeds, but brilliant work. The base is finished, and that is an accomplishment I do not think you understand the importance of. I would call for a celebration right now if we weren’t so constrained by time.”

“Constrained by time? I thought we easily had months before anything inside the current shifted too much.”

“It’s the sun. It seems to be starting a cycle of increased activity. While FH and I aren’t certain, we believe that would mean the currents will get stronger and more unpredictable. If we miss our current window, we might be stuck here for a long while.”

I did not like the sound of that. The captain’s eyes, however, didn’t seem worried. They seemed hungry. He was prepared to fight his way out of here. I was certain of that.