It had taken a bit longer than I liked, but finally, my new shop was finished.

Not the lab portion of the new building and the bots were still moving the various server racks from the fortress to the new floor for them.

But my shop was ready. That was what had taken up that much time, in reality. I was smart and had the Constructor build in not just the technicals, like the four fusactors or the water purifiers, but also the essential workshop machinery.

Like the tractor beams instead of cranes, hoists, and whatever else was used to lift things.

I also had it include an oversized industrial fabber as well. All based on Enki’s state-of-the-art technology. And a plethora of semi-hand tools, some of them completely new, like the cable-fed small disruptor to cut down on some workpieces.

Oh, and another 25x25x25m NADA, along with a few 15x15x3m ones.

But the important thing was that my workshop was finally ready. And I could, at last, begin tinkering again.

Again, it had taken a bit of time, and James was at once happy that his Constructor was ready, and unhappy that its first task was to build a construction hall for Constructors. Seriously though, that was a matter of a couple of days.

The technicals were already there, and the Constructor only needed to build the actual building. Well that and the tractor beams, but those were quick to build.

Alena and Marcel had also firmed up what we would take for a Constructor. In fact, they asked me to design another, smaller Constructor without the 100x30x15m NADA, because the NADA was what made the big Constructor expensive.

Not for us to build, but… well, we sold the 3x3x3m NADA for ITB 2.3 million. The biggest we sold, the 15x15x3m one, we sold for ITB 75 million.

The basic Constructor, with just one fusactor and without the NADA was going for ITB 38 million.

Alena and Marcel figured that the 100x30x15m NADA alone would be worth ITB 530 million. Add in the second fusactor, a few more bots, a significantly bigger ship, with the accordingly more numerous grav coils… the final price of the big Constructor was ITB 610 million.

In my opinion, that was honestly too much for the usefulness the big Constructor provided. Unless somebody wanted to stamp a whole city out of the ground that is, but we still had orders for four of them.

Along with more than a dozen for the smaller ones.

The perverse thing about that was that it did cost me roughly $3.6 million to build the first Constructor.

And much of that was in the startup costs of setting up the fusactor, the NADA, and the water dome. The second one was just $1.3 million.

With the new construction hall, the big one would cost us $1.1 million, or ITB 275,000. This gave us a ludicrous profit margin of 221,718%.

For the small one, the margin was a tad lower, at a production cost of $960,000 or ITB 240,000.

But that still translated into a profit margin of only 15,733%. And you know the really perverse thing? It was justified. The big one was still an order of magnitude cheaper than the factory for the prefabricated parts, the fleet of transport vehicles, and the armada of construction machines that a single Constructor replaced.

Not to mention the time, and the cost of the workforce. But unless you had dozens of buildings to put up, it was still not a winning proposition. Though from what I understand, Burgmeister actually planned to rent out the two they had ordered.

During that time, I was, naturally, not sitting on my hands, or twiddling my thumbs. Instead, I worked with Captain Murdock, Abou, and Victor, along with their staff, to design our corvettes.

Yes, several. We worked out, together with Naveen, that the core of our corvette flotilla would be a missile corvette.

To that extent, I designed a 20-cell container that could be switched out in bulk, with fewer at this time theoretical bigger missiles, or just new ones when the old cells were shot dry.

The corvette was a rather wide affair, allowing it to mostly point its two containers, or 40 missiles, forward. In case it was embroiled in combat when its cells were empty, it was armed with eight proton lances, and protected by 12 PDGGs, or point defense grav guns.

It was ‘only’ 72m long, but was fully 68m wide and 32m high, making it a rather odd duck among all corvette, or warship classes in general. Most of those were designed to offer the smallest frontal silhouette possible. In general, it had the form of a flattened octagonal cone.

Abou insisted that we call it the Griffin class, after some odd figurine in the ancient tabletop strategy game he played. This one was not quite as insane as the one Gordon and Owen were playing, though I was not so sure if giant mechas were so much better.

The thing here was that the Griffin was not designed to get into close combat with anybody else. It was there to lob its missile load at the enemy and then chose to fight another day.

Its wide profile provided another benefit. Instead of a single set of primary grav coils and supplementing secondary coils, the Griffin had two sets of equally strong primary coils and oversized secondaries.

The simulations Travis and his people had done with it promised it to have an unprecedented agility in all six degrees of freedom, additionally enhancing its ability to get out of dodge when its missile cells were empty.

Now for each four Griffins, there would be two close combat corvettes, also known as Hunchback. For simplicity's sake, we had, after Abou managed to make us call the missile corvette the Griffin, kept the naming scheme of this strange mecha game.

Our Hunchback had two spinal heavy grav guns. Those were new. We had increased the diameter to 40cm and made the barrel longer, and with that the projectile faster.

That meant that this gun accelerated an 11-ton projectile to 14877m/s. The equivalent of 300 tons of TNT.

Additionally, it had a ventral and a dorsal turret, each with two ‘medium’ grav guns. Giving this ship a punch far above its weight class.

It was also way more slender than the Griffin, more like a typical warship, reducing its frontal cross-section as much as possible.

It too had a generally octagonal profile, though the Hunchback had an octagonal cylinder as the core, with a height and width of 32m. The cylinder was 98m long and was capped on both ends with a 12m long cone.

While it had the same eight proton lances, it carried 20 PDGGs, simply because it was expected to be in the thick of it. Additionally, we had doubled the SUC thickness on the nosecone, making it a tough SoB.

Then each formation would have a recon corvette, called a Locust. It had a similar overall design to the Griffin, just that it had sensors all over the front, and was also expected to not get too close to the enemy. It also had a similar weapons loadout, minus the missile launchers naturally.

Completing the formation of eight corvettes was the Raven, the EW Corvette. Its profile was closer to the Hunchback, and it carried the same amount of proton lances and PDGGs, as well as a but load of jammers, blinders, and whatever else could be used to make the enemy's sensors go haywire.

We did design a point defense corvette, in the Jaeger… some of these names are strange, honestly, but decided that for the time being we did not need them in the corvette forces. They would appear when we had bigger ships, as escorts for them.

Travis was provisionally happy with how the simulations worked out, but until the first eight left the yard, everything was still up in the air. That would take another five weeks.

But all that was not important. Because my shop was ready. I could finally work.

To be fair, I did indeed use the NADA for some of it. Simply because some of the components were four-dimensional.

What, you didn’t think I would build something without grav coils, would you? 

Still, I did most of the rest by hand, with the help of the tractor beams and a few bots.

The basic frame was made from carbon composite pipes, some straight, some bent. It took me a couple of hours to extrude all of them, and then a couple of days to nano-weld the frame. If it was steel or any other metal, I might have used some other welding technique, if I felt particularly masochistic that day. As carbon composite, nano-welding was the only way to join the individual pipes into a frame.

Sure, I could glue it together, but I valued my workmanship too high for that. Instead, I watched as the nanobots broke up the edge of the composite and wove the individual parts into one seamless structure.

And during all that, I already felt myself relax a bit. I missed that. Simply tinkering, building something with my own two hands.

I could not, unfortunately, build everything by hand, even if we excluded the four-dimensional parts. Some control elements, displays, and such… even I lacked the necessary dexterity to make that happen.

Still, I invested a whole week in soldering several control boards together by hand, even though the various components came straight out of the indy-fab.

At one point during that week, when Ben visited me, I was made aware of his presence by him chuckling softly.

At that point, I put the soldering iron back into its holder, raised the magnifying glasses in front of my eyes, and looked at him.

He was smiling softly. “You know, you are awfully cute with that smudge on your cheek.”

Smudge? How could I get a smudge on my cheek?

“For real? How can there be a smudge? I’m not working with anything that could produce a smudge right now.”

Almost out of reflex, I wiped with my hand over my cheek, only for Ben to chuckle again.

“The other cheek. And I just got here, so no clue what it could be. But it looks suspiciously like the stain on your left wrist.”

“Huh?” When I looked at my left arm, there was indeed a blotch of something on the wrist of my overalls.

“Strange… oh, that is coolant for the electronics-fabber. But how did this get on my overalls? This thing is brand new, it can’t have a leak yet.”

“Honestly, I don’t know, I just know that it makes you look adorable.”

Then his face got serious.

“But… is this whole exercise not a bit of a waste of time?”

I blew out some air before I answered:

“Yes and no. Yes in that the NADA over there could make a few dozen of these things in a few hours.”

I pointed at the hatch in the ground that covered the 15625m³ NADA.

Ben furrowed his forehead when he looked at it.

“That is a NADA?”

“Yes, I build in a 25mx25mx25m-NADA into the ground. Not the only NADA in this building, but the biggest one.”

“And it would build what you are making in a few hours instead of a couple of weeks?”

“And would make it better. As good as my manual dexterity is, I can’t work on the nano-scale. But…”

He nodded, smiling softly again.

“But you are having fun. What exactly are you building?”

“You will see. I bet you want one anyway.”

“And you don’t want to spoil the surprise? Fine then. Just don’t neglect Nibbles, OK?”

Now it was my turn to chuckle.

“As if I could. That spoiled creature already has figured out how to come in here and demand attention.”

I did indeed spend at least an hour each day, and most days double or triple that just playing with my cat. And as if ordered, we both heard an impatient “Meaow!” from the door, and an orange streak, followed by a much slower android came at us.

“And there she is. Hello Nibbles.” And suddenly I had a lap full of purring cat, demanding pets.

I managed to switch the soldering iron off, accompanied by another impatient “Meow!”

“Yes, I know I need to use both hands, but the iron needs to be switched off first.”

Ben let out a soft chuckle and stood up.

“Well, I let you do your duty then…”

Only for him to gain a disapproving “Meow!” as well.

“Uhm, I don’t think she wants you to go away.”

“Fine.” Ben pulled his chair closer to me and sat back down before he began petting Nibbles as well.

You could clearly see how the little beast reveled in the attention from us both by the way she stretched and contorted to give us both access to the best scritching places.

It was quite obvious who was wearing the pants in this household. And that one was not walking upright.

Still, after two and a half weeks, I was finally finishing up the last steps of my newest creation.

I had, briefly, considered patterning it after the rather famous movie example. Thankfully at an age of more than 260 years, it had long moved into the public domain. Still, from any practical point of view, it was a stupid design.

No baffles, no protection, no way to move it around without power… and the way it was balanced on its struts… simply stupid.

Instead, I worked on an original design. It had taken me a virtual month to get a design that I thought of pleasing.

Now it was just a matter of putting the last essential part in and connecting it before it was time to test it.

The shoebox-sized box was the heart of the whole thing, the part that made it all possible. It was also something that I had Warden work on.

Not a new deep dive into Seeberger, thankfully. Just applying the already discovered principles in a new way.

After it was finally all put together, I started a self-test routine, and it looked as if everything was running perfectly.

Then it was time. I quickly got into the locker room I had included at the side of the workshop and changed into the new clothes I had created for just this moment.

It was a skintight black single piece of… well light armor was probably the best description. It had a zipper at the front and was made from several layers of nano-weave, protected by shear-thickening fluid pouches on the inside, followed by another few layers of nano-weave. The accompanying boots and gloves were a tiny bit stiff, but that was necessary, as well as the helmet.

When I walked out of the locker room, the helmet under my arm, and the gloves wedged into the belt, I ordered the bots to shove my new toy out of the main gates. I immediately realized that I had made a tiny mistake in not adding a smaller gate or door, as the eight-story tall, 20m wide gates were a… bit on the oversized side for this little thing.

Whatever, what’s done is done.

So here I was, walking towards my new invention, fully expecting an exhilarating round of fun, only to be stopped by a pair of hands grabbing my shoulders from behind.

“You don’t seriously expect me to let you actually on that thing, do you?”

Svenja spoke softly but determined.

It turned around and tried to answer:

“But… but…”

She continued:

“Yes, you have a cute but, and it won’t come even close to that saddle today.”

“But… that’s mine. I build it. I have to test it.”

“Then use an Incarnate or something. Or get a test pilot. Whatever you do though, you won’t try this thing yourself. At least not today.”

“But I want to.”

“I have already informed Lt. Thomson, Sgt. Reynolds, and both Mr. Walkers. If it is necessary, I will get a few troopers to sit on you. But regardless of what happens, you won’t climb on that thing.”

I closed my eyes and slowly counted to ten… trying to calm down. Not that it helped much.

“Fine!” I huffed and ordered the bots to shove it back into the shop, walking back in myself.

On the way, I called Michael.

“Oh, hey Viv. I just got a message from Svenja that your new project is finished. What can I do for you?”

I growled.

“Svenja won’t let me test it. She probably thinks it’s too dangerous or something. Whaterver, I need an Incarnate here. Yesterday, if not sooner!”

Yes, I was a bit… sulky. But seriously, I had looked forward to testing this thing for more than two weeks.

Only to be blocked by Svenja. Who, at this precise moment, was not my favorite person in the world, let me tell you.

Michael fortunately seemed to take it in stride.

“Ouch, that has to smart. Well, I bring one over directly.”

“Bring one over? Why not just send one?”

“And miss seeing whatever you created? Think again.”

I rolled my eyes, and sighed:

“Fine. But leave the others at HQ please.”

“Yeah, ok.”

It took him 10 minutes to arrive with an Incarnate. And of course, Ben arrived almost at the same time.

I had by then switched back to the more comfortable clothes I had worn before. No need for the armor if I could not test my invention anyway.

When Michael entered the room, he stopped short, and then walked towards my invention, walking around it.

“Is that… why did you make a motorcycle?”

“It’s not.”

“It sure looks like one.”

“Looks can be deceiving. If you look closer, you see that the wheels are not powered.”

“It is a bit bulky to be a bicycle, you know.”

“It isn’t that either.”

I had the bots shove the device out again, and then, pulling a chair with me, walked after them, ordering the Incarnate to climb on it.

After I sat down and connected to the Incarnate, I activated the device. If I were there in person, I would have felt the pull of the tractor that anchored the Incarnate to the saddle. Unfortunately, I had not included such things in the Incarnate design. A clear oversight.

I then ran the test suite, before I activated the coils, and the whole thing rose up a meter, the wheels getting covered by coiling.

I heard Michael’s voice, a bit distorted, first with my own ears, and a fraction of a second later with the Incarnate audio-receptors.

“Wait, you build a hover-bike? A fucking hover bike? How long can it stay in… I bet you have used the LXNS batteries again, didn’t you?”

I sighed.

“Yes and no. Yes, it has LXNS. But they are just small and to keep the electronics supplied when it is off. No, it runs off a cold fusion reactor.”

“A… cold fusion reactor?!?”

“Why don’t you announce it on the web? And yes, a cold fusion reactor.”

“I thought those were impossible.”

“Think about it for a moment. The thing preventing it is electrostatic repulsion. We can cancel that. The next problem is radiation. We can convert that into electricity. If I had to guess, the ones who claimed to get it to work, only to not be able to replicate it all used electrodes mostly out of palladium.

What do we know that is mostly out of palladium?”

“Kobashigawa alloy? They accidentally created a zone of electrostatic cancelation?”

“Yup. And because it was so random, it was virtually impossible to do again.”

“But we can now?”

“Yup? This bike uses a liter of water every 5.7 hours. It has a three-liter tank. The reactor is orders of magnitude less effective than a fusactor, only producing 73kw. If we could make a fusactor that small it would produce 115 megawatts. But for something like this, it’s enough.”

By now I had finished the initial tests and began to accelerate the bike. It shot away as if on fire. Yes, it only had 200 Keppler coils. But as small as it was, that was more than enough.

And sadly, again the Incarnate would not give me the thrill of this acceleration. Nore the feeling of being buffeted by the wind.

“How… how fast can it go?”

“I capped it at 500kph, and it can’t go higher than 50m above ground.”