The Foundation Run

The half-hexagon panels came off the forge lighter than the full-size hexagons had ever been, twenty-five kilograms apiece, weight was never going to be the actual problem.

"...No inventory storage on these," Claire confirmed, checking the recipe classification against the finished batch. "That mounting rod along the bottom edge disqualifies the shield classification entirely, and nobody's bothered giving a foundation panel a grip handle anyway, not with a rod already occupying that exact space."

"So how are we getting them down?" Arista asked, already bracing for another round of individual carries.

Bram hefted one of the half-hexagons experimentally, two and a half meters wide, five meters tall, and immediately understood one constraint at least. "...Definitely not one person carrying a stack of these. It's not the weight. It's the shape. Try holding four sheets of glass this size at once and tell me how many doorways you clear."

"Right, but why would anyone need to carry them at all?" Nettle said, glancing up from the nearby pallet stack, entirely too casual about it. "They already survived getting thrown off a boat repeatedly during testing. Structurally, these are identical. Just push the pallets overboard."

Silence.

"...We could just drop them," Arista said slowly, the realization settling in with the specific, satisfying click of an obvious solution hiding in plain sight yet again. "The classification only blocks inventory storage. It doesn't stop us from physically throwing a pallet into the ocean."

"I've been saying this," Nettle said, entirely unbothered by the fact that nobody had actually been listening to her say it. "Two people per pallet, tip it over the rail, let gravity handle the rest. Same principle as the regular panels. We just skip the inventory step entirely for these."

Arista pulled up the total foundation ring count, two hundred and seventy-two Type-A panels, outer rod configuration, and two hundred and seventy-two Type-B panels, inner rod configuration, alternating around the entire thousand-meter-diameter circumference exactly as designed, an even split required to close the ring cleanly without a mismatched seam.

"Five hundred and forty-four panels total," she said, doing the math properly now. "Twenty to a pallet, that's under thirty pallets for the entire foundation ring. We could clear this in an afternoon of drops alone."

"The actual work's still underwater, though," Claire pointed out. "Once they're down there, someone still has to position each one properly, screw the rod into the seabed, lock it against its neighbor. That part doesn't get faster just because delivery does."

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"...Right." Arista nodded, the shape of the real logistics settling into place properly now. "So we drop everything first. Full loop, every pallet emptied, panels scattered roughly along the intended ring before anyone even gets in the water. Then the crew goes down after, once it's all actually sitting on the seabed, and works through it properly, one panel at a time, no rush, no falling debris to dodge while they're trying to work."

Nettle's ship circled the ruins slowly, methodically, crew stationed along the deck tipping pallet after pallet over the rail, panels tumbling down through the water and settling across the seabed in a rough, scattered approximation of the ring's intended path, not perfectly placed, simply present, waiting.

Only once the final pallet had emptied did the construction crew actually descend, seventy people spreading out along the seabed to begin the real work: locating each half-hexagon, dragging it into its proper position, driving the mounting rod's adamantium screws into the seabed, locking it flush against its already-placed neighbor.

Colm remained on deck throughout, clipboard in hand, tracking the count as periodic reports surfaced from below. "...One hundred and thirty-six down. Ring's a quarter complete."

Arista listened from the deck, watching the water's surface for whatever small signs of progress actually made it that far, unable to see the alternating pattern take shape herself but picturing it clearly enough from the reports alone: outer rod, inner rod, outer rod, inner rod, each half-hexagon locking cleanly into its neighbor exactly as the prototype had promised, the whole foundation slowly, steadily curving its way around the ancient ruins below.

"...It's actually happening," she murmured, more to herself than anyone nearby. "Fast delivery. Patient placement. Actually working."

Bram surfaced briefly sometime later, treading water beside the ship long enough to call up toward the deck. "...How long would you think the foundation ring will take, at this pace?"

"At this pace, maybe the rest of today for the whole ring," Colm called back down, clipboard still in hand. "Then the actual dome lattice starts, and that's where the real time investment begins."

"...A single day for the foundation." Bram let out a short, surprised laugh, already turning to head back down. "I was mentally preparing for weeks."

"The lattice will take considerably longer," Arista called out from the rail, grinning despite herself. "Not the delivery, that part's actually easier once the regular panels are built, ninety-nine full inventory slots beats twenty to a pallet any day. It's the production that'll take months, thirty-six thousand panels don't forge themselves overnight. But this part, the foundation? This part turned out easy."

She leaned against the rail, watching the water settle back over Bram's dive, and felt the same quiet, patient satisfaction settle into her chest that had once carried her through a year and a half of tunnels and trains, even from up here, even without her own hands on a single panel.

"...Okay," she said, turning back toward the next waiting pallet. "Let's keep loading. One trip at a time."