The Lightning docked to an airlock in a section of the shipyard I hadn’t even known existed. Although I should have. It was the storage area for all the raw resources the shipyard used to feed the fabricators. It was an interesting process. The storage bins were open to space, and when I say bin, I mean huge warehouse. Salvage droids were bringing asteroids of small to medium size right above each bin, applying enough gravity to them to make them shatter, and releasing the dirt into the bin, where more gravity generators kept it in place.
Each bin was primarily for a different type of dirt, or containing specific concentrations of needed elements. More salvage droids would hover over the bin, gravity would pull an amount to the sled, and it would take it off to be fed to an extractor, a group of which fed a fabricator.
We found Bob waiting in an office nearby, with a wall of buttons, each of which was numbered, and labeled with a name. One had ‘gold’ on the label. What little I knew of electronics included the snippet that gold was still used in computers. Not the refined gold used for jewellery, but still gold, which needed to be removed from the dirt it was hiding in. That was one area I could do something to make it easier.
“Let me understand this,” said Bob. “Each button will be linked to the storage bin where we keep that element now, and when we press it, the magic will fill the space with only that element, sourced from an asteroid field on the other side of the galaxy?”
“That’s the theory,” I said, giving him a smile. “Do you have a plan of where connects to which button?”
“I do.”
He popped up a screen showing the locations of each bin, with a number on it. They were scattered around the shipyard somewhat, depending on where the fabricators were located.
I concentrated on the magic to join up the buttons, which were a size for a full palm press to activate, and far enough apart not to hit another one by mistake, to the bins, and with a firm press, to fill the bin with what was wanted from the War system asteroids, through the rift specifically to that system. I felt the local sun kick in, and executed the magic.
Nothing of course happened to indicate I’d done anything. I looked at Bob.
“When are you going to do it?”
“Just did. If you care to try filling an empty bay, let’s see what happens.”
He went up to the wall of buttons, popped up a screen of a small but definitely empty bin, and put his hand against the one labelled ‘gold’. Nothing happened.
“Firm press. It needs to be deliberate to activate the magic.”
He pressed firmly, and suddenly the bin was full. He pulled up another screen, checked on what the sensors said the concentrations were, and looked at me with disbelief.
“Pure gold dust?” he exclaimed. “That’s impossible.”
“May I remind you about the Imperium viewpoint on that matter, Bob?” laughed Jane.
“No, don’t bother. But now I have another problem.”
“What?” I asked.
“Now I need security to make sure no-one raids the bins!”
Both of us laughed, and after a moment, he did too. He checked a few more, and they all worked, and all had what was wanted in almost pure form.
Jane led us back to the Lightning, and took us over to another much smaller shipyard. It too had an area of bins, with just as many of them, but much smaller. I repeated the magic for the rift to my own system, we filled up all the bins, and left. Once clear, I opened a rift into high orbit above my ground based shipyard, and gently pushed the yard through. Almost immediately, a freighter left the surface on its way to the shipyard, and one of the Rawtenuga battleships started moving towards the single bay large enough to take it. Interestingly, a salvage droid started pulling one of the truncated hulks towards the cruiser sized bay.
Jane took Bob back to his station, me back to nearby my base, and then took herself off on whatever else she had to do. I hadn't jumped myself to the bridge of Judge, but to the Rawtenuga titan I’d appropriated. I repeated the whole process there, after I’d created the bins and the buttons, and a third rift into War, which came out half way around the system, where I thought it would never be found if anyone went there again.
I was back in time for lunch, where Aisha showed everyone the hardcopy images of the asteroid field I’d taken, before putting them in my living room for me to decide where to put them on walls. But I knew damned well it would be Serena who decided what went where, including the option of the recycler.
Oddly though, she loved them.
Forty Five
We took that walk on the station.
What had been on Diplomat was now many times larger, and only half the retail and office space was ours. The rest had businesses representing what we’d seen on the Trixone station. The docks had been divided into three sections. Military, Imperium civilian, and locals. The station having originally been a Trixone one, had all the right docking for their ships, which was why our docking was separate. Since the docking clamps didn’t match, there was very little risk of ships going to the wrong docks.
Tamsin filled me in on the currency situation. Apparently Jane had bought a significant amount of the local station’s currency using an exchange rate worked out by one of the diplomatic teams. Everyone on the station was using the Imperium credit for transactions, with the local merchants able to withdraw local currency when they wanted it.
Serena had found a number of items she wanted to purchase, but had held off until I’d been able to see them. She must have been thinking of decorating quarters as well, since they were all forms of artwork or decoration. We agreed on about half of her choices, and bought all of them anyway.
We were just moving off towards another store Serena wanted me to see, when Tamsin stopped us, and we moved to a relatively quiet spot just up the hallway.
“Just a heads up. There’s a rescue mission in progress, with the Claymore Task Force jumping to save a pre-space flight civilization. A comnavsat picked up their distress call a few minutes ago, immediately after being positioned. Shouldn’t be a problem for them, as it’s just a Trixone recon fleet. Eagle Wing went with them, without their carriers, as the extra firepower wasn’t considered needed.”
She broke off as Serena grabbed my arm suddenly. We all turned to her.
“It’s a trap!”
She swayed as if about to fall over, and I grabbed her.
“You have to go now. Jump to a Lightning, and GO! We’ll follow you.”
I took her at her word. In a blink I was on one of Judge’s Lightnings. I rushed to the cockpit, yelling commands to Aisha. Leanne had the navmap up showing where I needed to go. I felt the line of suns light up in my mind, and jumped the ship.
I was a second too late.
Ships had debris spraying away from them, where hits had gone right through the hulls.
My staff appeared in my hand, and time stopped with the need to know what was going on. It happened without me even thinking about it.
Shade was missing the entire bridge section of her upper hull. Bludgeon was in even worse shape, with most of her engines just gone. Both carriers had fared better, but neither of them were going to be landing fighters any time soon. Theirs had launched, but dozens of them had been destroyed at the same time the capital ships had been hit. All the other capital ships were in a similar state. There was a pattern to the damage, which I’d figure out when I had time.