Chapter 507 Realisation, Extremely Overworked Lucy
Chapter 507 Realisation, Extremely Overworked Lucy
After posting the Logistics and Safety Protocols announcement and sending the notice to the designated twenty-four airports, Liam could now move on to the next phase of the Nova Medical Nanites clinical trial setup.
The application portal for volunteer selection and staff recruitment were seeing increasing numbers by the second, but he wouldn’t be touching them anytime soon. That was Lucy’s domain. And there was still time, as the deadline for both applications was ten days out.
Now it was time to focus on the next part. And he would need to visit Lucy at Base Sanctuary to discuss it.
Without delay, Liam activated his exosuit and vanished from his room, appearing on the moon. He looked up and saw that close to the Voyager orbiting the moon, another spacecraft—one that looked even bigger and longer—was being constructed.
He immediately recognized it as the Emperor Class-II Starship.
He smiled and flew toward it, curious to see what it looked like up close.
As he got closer, the Starship continued to expand in his vision until it completely filled his line of sight no matter where he looked. It was still in its skeleton stage, so there wasn’t much to see. But watching the drones work on something that would reset humanity’s understanding of what Nova Technologies could achieve brought a proud smile to his face.
He had no idea how long construction would take, but estimated a minimum of two months given the scale and complexity. Which meant that when the volunteers, observers, and staff arrived in a month, they would see the Voyager orbiting the moon and drones actively working on something even larger beside it.
He was sure a few of them would take pictures and post them.
Liam chuckled mischievously, thinking about the headache that would give government officials.
He turned and flew down toward Base Sanctuary, following the paths of drones moving in and out of the base.
A few minutes later he was inside in the assembly area—the section of the base permanently connected to the Dimensional Space.
Everything built or created in the industrial base came through here. Because the drones worked around the clock in this area, it was kept in full vacuum with no atmosphere.
Liam flew to the hatch door connecting the assembly area to the rest of the base. It opened automatically as he approached, and he stepped through. It sealed behind him with a hiss. He found himself in a small white airlock, and through the interior door he could see a hallway, and Lucy walking down it toward him.
He smiled when he saw her.
A hissing sound filled the airlock as it vented the vacuum and replaced it with oxygen. The red light around the interior door shifted to green. The door opened.
Liam stepped out, deactivated his exosuit, and hugged her. He held her for a moment, caressing her head, and asked how she was doing.
“Fine,” Lucy said. “You?”
“Good.”
They started walking down the hallway toward the base’s control center. After a moment, Liam asked how everything had been going and where she was with her current workload.
“Construction on the Emperor Class-II has started,” she said. “And I replaced the experimental FTL Drive in the Voyager with the perfected version. Made some adjustments to a few other systems on the Starship as well.” She paused. “I also plan to install an FTL Drive in Matt’s shuttle. Are you fine with that?”
Liam smiled. He thought about how Matt would react when he found out. Every other shuttle in the fleet ran on fusion drives only. Adding an FTL Drive meant the shuttle would be larger than standard and draw significantly more power. But it was being built for one of his friends, and that changed the calculation.
“Do it,” he said.
“Actually, that connects to something I wanted to discuss with you,” Liam said. “I want to build a line of luxury space shuttles. Vanguard Class. Matt’s will be the first, with his modifications, but the line itself is intended for something larger down the line.”
Lucy glanced at him. “You want to sell them to civilians?”
“That was one idea I considered, yes.”
“It won’t work,” she said simply. “There’s no viable market. Even the wealthiest individuals on Earth couldn’t absorb the cost of a single unit. A base configuration would floor at around ten billion. Probably more. The number of people on the planet who could pay that without it being a significant event for them is essentially zero. And even the ones who could afford it would face immediate seizure attempts from their governments the moment a purchase cleared.”
Liam smiled. She’d arrived at the same conclusions he had, and faster. “I know. That’s not the direction I’m going.”
“Then what?”
“Space tourism. Not selling the shuttles, but selling the experience. Let people purchase a trip to a specific part of the solar system. The Vanguards handle transport. The experience is the product. Lunar surface, Mars, the asteroid belt, outer planets. Priced by destination.”
Lucy was quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly. “That works. The commercial logic is sound and the asset stays yours.” She looked at him. “But not yet. Wait until I’ve completed the defense and surveillance outposts across the solar system. You can’t run civilian tourism routes through unmonitored space.”
“Agreed.”
“There’s something else I’ve been planning,” she said. They turned a corner in the hallway and she continued without breaking stride. “A command base on Ganymede. Significantly larger than Lunar Base Sanctuary. It would serve as the solar system’s primary defense infrastructure.”
She outlined methodically what it would have, as they walked. Fleet Command Center. Early Warning System. Deep Space Logistics Hub. Ship Construction and Repair Yard. And an FTL Deployment Point — a designated safe zone from which FTL drives could be initialized without risk to nearby spacecraft or solar bodies. Three layers in total. Detection, response, and command.
Liam listened and said nothing for a moment after she finished.
He has actually come to a realisation that Lucy was being extremely overworked. A base larger than Lunar Base Sanctuary, with that scope of function, would need orbiting stations, extended construction timelines, and continuous oversight.
Construction on Lunar Base Sanctuary was still ongoing in certain sections. The Ganymede base would dwarf it entirely. Combined with the Emperor Class-II, the Vanguard line, the FTL outposts, the exosuit, and everything else she was already managing, it means that Lucy would have no free time for years. Possibly longer.
She had always been overworked. That had been true from early on and he had allowed it because she was capable of absorbing the load. But capability wasn’t the same as sustainability. And the system couldn’t keep running on a single intelligence indefinitely.
The scope had expanded far beyond what he’d originally designed her for. Lucy had been created to be his personal assistant. That had been the intent. Somewhere along the way the role had grown into something that encompassed nearly every critical function Nova Technologies operated.
It was time to build others. AGIs designed for specific sectors. Infrastructure. Defense. Logistics. And other roles. Roles that could be handed off cleanly, freeing Lucy to operate closer to how she was meant to and closer to him.
He smiled at her as they walked.
“The Ganymede base is a good idea,” he said. “But we need to talk about something first.”
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