“I’m not angry. But there was no point in telling others to tell you things if you were already listening in anyway.”
“Technically I’m not supposed to be. You own me, not the Imperium.”
“Stow that shit. You own yourself. I employ you, which needs discussion anyway. The freight line you set up. Start paying yourself a CEO level salary out of what it makes.”
“What do I need with money?”
“You’ll think of something. Talk to Jane. You did get all that about building a proper shipyard?”
“Yes. In the long run it would bring in a lot of income for the planet. Do you want me to get started on it?”
“Yes. Contact Haven shipyard, and get the specs you need to build one. Also get what you need to modify the Rawtenuga ships. I’m rethinking those though. If Jane wants to use them as an auxiliary fleet, then maybe we should be modifying the same way they’ve been doing all the spine ship upgrades recently. Those really big battleships for example they’re converting into dreadnaughts. What is being done for them is probably a good start, although the dinosaurs don’t use the same sort of turrets we do, so putting ours on them probably won’t work. All the same, the front end and internals of Judge scaled up is a good start. But you’d need the specs, and with approval to use them. Jane gave us some approval for what we need, but by the time we redesign one of the dino ships, we’ll probably need a lot more. Ask for it, but bring any issues back to me to discuss with Jane privately.”
“Will do. You thinking carriers like Judge as well, with all the crew necessities?”
“May as well. You may end up running them all on your own, but they may as well be useful all round ships. They’re large enough to do a lot with after all.”
“When do you want them?”
“Prototype as soon as possible with what you can do on the ground. I’ll give it a test run, and we’ll go from there. But get at least a bay big enough for them in space as the main priority. Hell, if Bob will sell us a bay we can use, like one of the Explorer bays Jane mentioned, just pay whatever he wants. They won’t be big enough most likely, but adapting one of them would be quicker than building one from scratch.”
“I’ll ask. Is it okay if I go there myself in person?”
“Whatever you need to do. If you need clones of yourself like Jane has, go right ahead.”
“I’ll think about that.”
“Don’t take too long. Couple of milliseconds should be enough.”
I grinned at her, and she did at least smile back.
“I’ll need to talk to some people. Can you see if my father and the mayor are available for lunch? Plus anyone who’s forming the new government, assuming they actually are. I’ve not been keeping up. Small group of who matters. Lunch on my island if they can.”
“Should be possible.”
“Then issue an invitation to all the family who can make it to my beach for the afternoon, with dinner included. Everyone welcome. Include Serena’s family in that as well. You’ll need to ensure there is enough to eat and drink.”
“Eggs.”
“Them too.”
We both grinned this time, and she vanished.
Over the next couple of hours, I took a good hard look at the Rawtenuga ships. The first thing I’d never noticed was they didn’t use conventional turrets of any kind. They had a lot more battleship guns on them than we did on the same ‘ship of the line’ style, but they were single barrels all over the ship, and while a lot of them could face forward for their main formation, they had more than I’d have expected firing in every other direction.
Essentially, each gun of any size was just a single gun mounted on a gimbal. And the only reason you’d build a ship like that I could think of, was they were custom designed to take on the Trixone fighters, while pounding on their capital ships. It also explained why they made hits on us so fast when we appeared near them. Another interesting thing was most of the guns were retractable, and the barrels themselves were incredibly short by our standards, without losing any accuracy.
I actually liked the design, but I’d have made the gimbals better, so they could all fire through as much arc as the ship hull allowed, and especially all firing forward at once, or like a gatling gun. But for hitting Trixone fighters, it was designed really well. Which made me wonder if they did the design for the Trixone, or if they’d had their own enemy previously who’d used fighters.
The hull design also didn’t make any sense for a dinosaur species, but it was possible like the fungus, they had another species designing and building their ships for them. Maybe I’d find out sometime, if the mission allowed it.
I collected Serena just before lunch, and moved us to the beach in front of my house on my island. She looked concerned for a moment that we’d moved in the blink of an eye, and then grinned at me.
I found my father and the mayor sitting in the eating area, watching a news channel. I flicked it off in mid-sentence, and the two of us sat facing them.
“Are you two an item now?” asked my father, smiling.
I looked at Serena, and she grinned at me again, with an eyebrow raised.
“Apparently,” I said. “At least, we are heading in that direction.”
“Your mothers will be pleased. We’ve been speculating for a while now. Is that the reason for bringing us here?”
“Hell no!”
And I started laughing, which caused Serena to frown.
“No, I wanted to talk to you about some issues I’m not sure you’re aware of. And plans just put in motion.”
“I assume this is not just family business,” said the mayor.
“Planet business in the long run, but my business now.”
“What are you planning, young Bud?”
“Well first off, is what is happening now. Are either of you aware of Thorn’s shipyard on one of the uninhabitable continents?” Both shook their heads. “It’s been there for eighty years, and along with using it to modify ships, there is a graveyard of spaceships there he’d been collecting for eighty years. I’ve been having a lot of them made space worthy and modified for carrying freight and people. The latest ones are starting to earn some income from an Imperium contract, and the others will eventually start earning an income as well. But the thing is, all the raw resources for changing the ships he appropriated come from either this world, or this system. As did a lot of the resources which are stored on the station up there.”
“And?”
The mayor didn’t seem all that surprised.
“I thought you needed to know, in case this ever comes up. I’m in the process of pissing off people who want me to be Thorn’s replacement as a judge, and when they don’t get their way, I expect they’ll try to undermine me any way they can.”
My father laughed.
“Let them try. We don’t play those games here. And anyone who upsets a mage grand master deserves what they get for being so stupid.”
The mayor nodded. I went on.
“I’m making arrangements to source resources elsewhere. My squadron found a system the other day which had been wiped out by the Rawtenuga, and while it’s not going to be common knowledge, so keep it to yourselves, I’m making an agreement with the Imperator to be able to mine the system. Once that’s in place, exploitation of this system will stop.”