Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Meallan sighed, thinking on his options. Finally the project was resuming its traction, and the project schedule was getting tighter by the hour. And as usual, problems kept on coming. If only he could hide from everything.. And then he slowly rose his head to meet Levy's eyes as an idea formulated in his head. He finished the beer and placed the empty can on top of the table. Nodding to himself he started talking.
"No worries Levy, I'll do it. I'll cover for the welder for next hours. And afterwards, I'm stopping by Khan."
Grabbing two more cold beers from the fridge, he gave one to Levy who's eyes were positively glowing in the sight of a cold beer. Grabbing his old leather jacket, stained from countless hours in workshops, he opened his beer and sip it before heading towards the door, as Levy opened his.
"Do you know how much amperage a cloak battery has?"
And as Levy started to talk, both men left the room, the lights dimming to darkness once again.
Back again in Leniex, he was recalled by the Legion due to the Harmony situation that was quickly escalating. Soon, a taskforce would be sent, battlegroups would have to be in stand-by and the veritable array of weaponry, spyglass grid sensors and ships would need the maintenance teams at their top shape. That meant Meallan's eyes and mind would have to be fully focused on the task of coordinating all repair and maintenance efforts.
To add to that, a gaul incursion happened while he was reviewing all the main assets in the Legion. After a five minute discussion with Locklear, Samuel left with a wing of fighters to hit the Gauls, leaving Meallan with the task to finish all reviews and maintenance plans of the capital assets within two days. Something he finally finished, ahead of schedule.
As he entered his workshop, the lights turned on automatically. The Ven'Gyr core was the latest of the problems that were swimming through his head. The aging Ranseur was feeling its age after three years without a proper refit, and some electrical issues were starting to show in the non-essential systems. The first symptom that the core was in need of an RMO.
As he sat in the couch, his personal wrist-pad beeped. He opened up to find that Levy was hard at work and that they had already received the Narcrahtite. Two thousand tons of it. More than enough to cover a battleship, let alone a small fighter. The tests were already being run, and Levy asked for more men and beer to keep up with the timetable. But he did left quite the spectacle in the attachments.
The Narcra reacted in a way Meallan could not imagine. It pulsed when the radiation frequency threshold was slowly changed. You could actually work it not only to the shape you wanted, but to alter it to what you would want. Harder. Reactive. Stable. Chaotic. Maleable. Emitting energy. It was unlike everything he had ever seen.
"Well.. I'll be damned."
The readings and tests were conclusive. You could build 90% of a ship out of this. It could imitate and even out-perform several alloys. The applications were practically limitless.
"No wonder the egg-heads in Corinth are paying top credits for this."
He chuckled somewhat, thinking what his sister had to do and pay to get her hands on two thousand tons of one, if not the single most rare element out there. And his smile died when he remembered who taught him how to work with Narcra. That man died not long ago due to his failing health. Meallan breathed in soundly, focusing in what he could do with the opportunity in his hands.
He opened an encrypted channel to Levy and delivered his orders. Three tons for manufacturing the outer layer of the ablative armor panels and the rest into storage. Meallan had his own prima-dona to finish while fighting a war that was coming. Opening up the blueprints for the Last Sunrise, he pulled the real-time diagnostics.
"o zjol x-", Levy wrote on the comms device before he rubbed his eyes. There was an empty can of beer laying overturned next to him, and a two more next to it. It was difficult for his thick fingers to hit the right keys, which were obviously not designed to be used by drunk mechanics. "i think you", he started again, "dhould take a look at the shcematics again ,when ur sober. there is a big hoile in the nose".
While finishing cleaning up the workshop to close it once again, Meallan's wrist-pad beeped. Opening up, he managed, with some cost, to decipher what Levy was trying to say. And when the meaning was evident, Meallan smiled, typing a short answer back that it was to be like this since day one. And no more beer. Closing it up, he sighed.
"I should get started with that. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And she's one pissed off dame."
He thought to himself, as he threw a tarp over the holo-table. He knew he now had the possibility to create something truly terrifying, a game changer. But that would only be possible if he faced a demon of his past, probably the only woman he actually had feelings for. And she was probably still wanting to strangle him up with his entrails until now.
"How you doing, cupcake?"
He whispered to himself trying to roleplay how their meeting would be. He tried to smirk in his usual smug attitude to the empty room, like she was there.
"Hi there, beautiful."
After hearing himself, he shook his head and sighed again. He activated his holo-console and triggered a copy sub-routine in the mainframe systems, plus the old SAD archives to his private server. A server that he hasn't visited in quite a while. His workshop in the Barrier was always close but yet far. Apart from a couple of times in the last four years, little reasons appeared for him to return there. Shutting down the holo-console, the sub-routine kept going on until it finished, a couple of hours later. Grabbing his leather bag and looking back to give a last review on the status of the workshop, he started walking to the door and killed the lights. Going back and forth to and from the Nemesis project was becoming usual to him but still the only thing in his mind was that woman's face and the inevitable storm that would follow if they met.
The Sunburst sat in space, latched onto an ice asteroid from the Veracruz Field, one of many there. Passive sensor buoys danced around the asteroid, in a twenty five k radius, placed there by Meallan himself before parking his ship. Typing a couple of commands, the buoys went live, effectively increasing the sensor range in thirty seven clicks. The buoys role was simple, just an early warning mechanism if something came up. They wouldn't be able to tell who, what and where due to their passive nature but they wouldn't be detected by any scanners in Sirius. He finally finished the routine that would turn on the cloaking device of the Sunburst upon said trigger and executed it. The Sunburst would be able to cloak for some good twenty minutes, giving Meallan ample time to decide on a course of action. A smuggler trick he learned with the Bretonians while he was in Southampton. Whistling, he leaned back in the comfy chair and turned onto the supporting console desk.
"Let's get some work done, shall we?"
Accessing his remote server, several projects appeared onto his holo-screen. Nemesis. Hellbound. Judicator. Judgement. Verdict. Hailstorm. Burningfist. He looked for the most recent one. Backbreaker.
"How you doing, killer?"
The project details came up onto the holo, with the blueprints in full view. Having the project notes of the ESRD 'Star-Rail', generously given by DeGrange, increased the pace of inception and development ten-fold. The idea of using Narcrahtite to generate and control the topology of the magnetic fields needed to make plasma focusing a reality, his idea, was bashing against mathematics. A guy named Busch detailed that eons ago, and was a wall many broke themselves against, but giving up wasn't in Meallan's agenda. Looking for a couple of seconds through the cockpit armored glass, he saw the Veracruz field and wondered about the Warspite. The Judicator first designs were the basis of his thoughts for the Nemesis. A ship built for a weapon. With a smile creeping up on his lips, he pulled up his notes and started to type yet another variable test to see if he theoretically could manipulate the narcra in real-time to create a field strong enough to enter a copper plated tungsten 30 kilo round without the discharge exploding the conductors.
Happy that the day went well, he decided to wrap it up and head back to his quarters. By now, he was a common sight in that bay, and the locals kept thinking he was a gaian Bretonian engineer brought in by the Cohort. Closing the door, he did a quick sweep for electronic devices that shouldn't be there, in any case, and once it was done, he laid on his bed, falling like a log. Yet, few minutes in, his wrist-pad beeped with an incoming message. He groaned, and activated it to see who was it. After the first lines were comprehended by his brain, he jumped from the bed, with the merry prospect of a good night of sleep being pushed back in his list of priorities.
"What the *****?"
He mumbled as he finished reading the comm. A contact of his sister relayed the news that Avery released the Revenant to the LSF. Avery pulled that stunt without a word. Luckily, his sister wasn't a fool and as soon it was known, her agents managed to retrieve all the project materials, onsite data and to purge the related data-banks, thanks to the 404 protocols. Even so, his jaw tensed. This was a heavy setback. The materials and prototypes were secured in a temporary depot, but the manufacturing plants would have to be rebuilt once again. Thanking the gods, every and any project data was always worked in his off-site server. Meaning that his fabrication methods and blueprints were safe. Opening his main console on his table, he opened a secure link and accessed his files. The last batch of stress diagnostics filed by Levy were there and looking good.
"Just another bump in the road.."
He thought. At least he wasn't in the Rev, but the status quo wasn't that much better. He decided to send word to his sister of what was happening, and to start thinking on a new site. If all went well, the 'Spite would be out and about in less than a month, and with that, he would be able to resume his main project. But for it, he would need a new team. A new workshop. With the same old dream.
To make chariots of steel and fire, born to wage war.
The robotic arms carefully placed the cargo container in the center of the ship-bay. Meallan deftly handled the controls moving the arms with precision, an action he learned and perfected over the years. First the top of the container was removed, then another part and another, until it was in sight. A half finished very heavy fighter covered in a transparent polymer, a membrane to insulate and protect what it contained. After shutting down the robotic helping 'hands', he grabbed a hand-held plasma torch and quickly went to work, peeling away the protective cover, bit by bit. After thirty minutes of hard toiling work, a very sweaty Meallan kicked the last cut bit of the polymer to the side so it could be taken to the disposal unit. Walking backwards, eyes trailing the ship, he took note of what was still in need to be done. Finally turning around, he arrived at the holo-table. State of the art, with flexible 'dium' emitters. Cleaning his face and hands with a rag, he threw it to the corner of the table and turned the holographic system on. Initiating a closed network connection, it fetched his projects. As the system finally halted, waiting for commands, Meallan quickly introduced a slew of them, opening the Nemesis project, data tunnels, renders, material listings, manufacturing guides and protocols. And last but not least, he turned on the scanner array inside the bay. The ship slightly rose, resting on top of a platform and several lasers started to canvas every corner of the ship. Looking back at the light spectacle, Meallan knew it would take some minutes for it to be completed and went to take a quick shower. Upon his return, the 3D analysis awaited for him and he could only whistle.
"Helloooo nurse."
Diving in without finishing drying his hair, he quickly started to handle the model in an exploded view and started to take note of uncompleted sections. This ship was in cold storage for a year and now he had the time, location and money to complete it at last. Opening a production list to the side, he couldn't help to show off a small grin.