"Titanyana." Donovan was still fiddling with some things on a table when he noticed Titanyana looking around the room aimlessly.

"Hm!"

"Take a seat, you'll be getting in the way if you stand like that." He plugged in the wire to the proper slot. "Arc, are you getting a signal?"

"I am. Would you like me to start projecting now?"

"Give me a second or two, I've got to get the room darker." Donovan moved to pull the blinds over to snuff out the remaining light from outside. "Are your sensors good to go?"

"I believe they will be able to track motion to a satisfactory level, even if they won't be able to provide the same level of precision as when they were aboard the Noah."

"Great, light it up." Donovan moved to his own seat, watching the lump of technology on the table with some trepidation. "Titanyana, promise me you will stay calm."

"W-why?"

"I've been working to get this projector working all morning, and I don't want you to kick a wire. This stuff is delicate." Don could barely see her, but he still felt the need to gesture. "And it is going to get a little bright here."

"Might I inquire what we will be starting with?"

"The Trawler, Titanyana is here so we can finally get started with the minutiae." 

"Understood, linking design space to three dimensional projector."

A flash of light took over the room, not too terribly bright but enough to startle the unprepared. This light very quickly turned into a bunch of light gray lines, which in turn formed themselves into a three dimensional grid. Titanyana wanted to jump out of her seat, but she held herself back.

"Alright Arc, the grid looks good. Bring up the Trawler."

"Opening file 'Trawler'." A translucent gray-blue block suddenly appeared in the air above the table. Calling it a block was probably a bit unfair to its design, blocky certainly described it but it wasn't nearly as dense as it's shape suggested.

"So, Titanyana, what do you think? That's what we are planning to use to get your guys to safety. Ugly, right?"

Titanyana stared at it, heart still wildly racing as she pieced together what was going on here. Was this magic? Sorcery? But Donovan couldn't use split! "What is it?"

"It's a space ship, the one we plan to mass produce." Donovan swiped his hand midair, and the blocky ship began to rotate. "Mass produce is relative here. It's a pretty big ship for what we are working with, about the size of an escort cruiser, so Arc and I are going to need to set up some serious resource refining operations if we are going to get the steel and aluminum we need to pump them out."

"It doesn't . . . look like a ship?" Titanyana's head tilted, noticing a weird outcropping on the otherwise uniform shape.

"Maybe to you, but this is the result of a whole host of production/performance efficiency ratios. The build processes are a hell of a lot cheaper than I would have liked, but speed and scale are priorities here, not quality. Fortunately, I do not foresee these things running into something capable of getting through the armor, how thick was it again?"

"The primary plating thickness for this iteration of the Trawler is 50 millimeters. The anticipated material is steel."

"Can you put up a to scale segment of the armor, a one by one section will do." A square, measuring a meter in two dimensions and five centimeters in the third, replaced the spinning ship. "I think we came to about six million kilograms of steel, maybe six and a half thousand tons imperial?"

"That is only the amount of steel we are using on the armor, current structural requirements add nearly another half of that amount, and we have yet to determine the mass and volumetric requirements of the support systems."

"Yeah yeah, whatever. Point is that I am confident this chunk of shit is more than capable of grabbing a few towns worth of people and moving them somewhere else. The question of how many towns can only be answered if I know what they are willing to put up with." Donovan sank back in his seat, looking over to a mightily confused Titanyana. Perhaps she wasn't convinced. "Arc, bring up the Trawler again, put a scale model of a person next to the loading bay."

The ship once again took center stage, this time around a small man walked out of a panel that lowered on one of the small angled surfaces on the bottom of the ship. It was clearly a man, even more life-like than those puppets the palace jester used during his shows, but it was so. . . small. The little man's height could increase by ten times and he still wouldn't be as tall as this 'Trawler'.

Titanyana felt a shiver run down her neck. The fact that Donovan seemed disappointed when he mentioned 'escort cruiser' probably meant that this wasn't the biggest he could make a ship, not even close. This thing dwarfed even the most magnificent and massive ships she had seen at the pier, it was made of metal, and it was considered to be on the smaller end?

"Arc, what are our current projections for carrying capacity?"

"Assuming we provide every person the bare minimum of an average one square meter including their seat, then the current design can fit around three thousand four hundred adult Terrans of an average build and metabolism."

"Around?" Titanyana's head tilted once more, surprised with how they could be so confident of such a high number.

"Real capacity is going to be heavily dependent on the life support systems required and how much space we are going to need to devote to food and water." Donovan tapped a few buttons on the keyboard suspended in front of him (not that she knew what it was or what it did) which stripped away the armor and highlighted a certain section of the top part of the ship. "The caloric requirements of most adult Terrans fell between 1800 to 2700 a day depending on their age, gender, metabolism, and level of physical activity, but if you keep them relatively sedentary for a time you can drop that by half. Now, I don't know what that is like for the Nekh, but all of the food is going to have to be processed before boarding and compacted as much as possible."

"What is a calorie?"

"Energy you get from food, its just a way to measure intake." Donovan continued. "If we are to maximize the occupants of the Trawler, we should minimize the amount of space required for everything else. This is going to sound awful, Titanyana, but you need to make the decision over how much they should suffer on the way there. I've been told it's going to be a twelve day trip if we can get permission from the rulers along the most direct path, that's going to be twelve days of suffering if they want to survive."

"Huh?" That was on her?

"I am going to ask you a few questions, questions I need you to answer honestly. You can be a little more generous than you think is strictly necessary if you aren't sure, but understand that lives are at stake here." Donovan leaned forward, banking on the light from the projector to illuminate his face. "Do you think you can do that for me?"

Titanyana looked into his eyes, her embarrassment had completely vanished. "I'll try."

"Good. Okay first question, how tall is the average Nekh? You can use me as your baseline if need be?" Donovan stood up, and a series of lines with symbols, numbers, next to them. This was a dimensional measurement tool Arc had access to.

"Hm, average. . . shorter." The line atop his head dropped down, projecting onto his neck, and Donovan sat back down. A figure, a gray, faceless, humanoid figure, took his place. It's proportions were similar to Donovan's but it was noticeably shorter. "Mmm, thinner." 

Donovan repeated her orders and the shoulder base shrank a little.

"Does that look like the average male?" Titanyana nodded. "It there any race that has a noticeably larger body type?" Titanyana nodded again. "Alright, Arc bump up the size by ten percent." The model increased in size.

"Too big." Donovan started scaling down a slider in response. "Stop."

"Would I be correct in assuming there is a clan that is this size?"

"Mhm."

"Good. Arc, make a note to make one or two ships with seating arrangements conforming to the bell curve standard of this body size, otherwise the rest are to conform to the other recorded type."

"Understood."

"Alright Titanyana, next question. How much do your people eat?" Titanyana didn't understand the question. "Um, in a day, how much will the average Nekh eat? Will you eat a loaf of bread, some meat, fruits, whatever. . ?"

"I don't know. . ." Titanyana didn't know how the average person ate. Of course she wasn't some hifalutin snob who detested interaction with the common folk, she just had more important things to do.

"Well, that's fine. We'll just estimate based on your consumption for a week or two." Donovan typed a few notes down on the ethereal keyboard. "Oh, that reminds me, I don't want you practicing until I give you permission, okay? The Great Csillacra made some changes to you, as I am certain you have noticed by now, and I won't risk you getting hurt because of that. Take it slow, take it easy, and relax."

Titanyana's ears fell. "Yes sir."

"I'm sure Diana would rip me apart if I let you. Anyways moving on. Do you know how many children a couple can take care of without issue?"

That didn't feel like it fit the current conversation. "Why is that relevant?"

"Children, as I am certain you are aware, are smaller than adults. They will also live longer, which is also a given, but they will also be able to have more children. They learn faster, they are more impressionable, and they don't have as much of an attachment to your home planet as adults do. 

Thus, if we load these ships up with a disproportionate numbed of children, we can save more people who will live for longer and have more children. They will minimize the time it takes for English to spread as a language, won't be as likely to radicalize, and won't have the same level of desire to return home. It's the most efficient way to accomplish both of our objectives."

Titanyana looked down, disturbed by this thought. "But . . . the families?"

"Unfortunately, some of them are going to have to be broken up. I don't like it, believe me, but I think a lot of those parents would rather their children survive. This is the time to make really hard decisions, Titanyana, we can't save everyone." Donovan wanted to walk over and put a hand on her shoulder, just to comfort her. "It just isn't possible."

". . . I understand."

"Good. If it makes you feel any better, Diana and I have decided to make the ratio of adult to child one to one. We aren't going to accept anybody over thirty, just because the young people have the most potential in our eyes, but we aren't going to leave all of your talent behind. The reason I need to know how many children an adult Nekh woman can take care of is so I can plan around my expected free manpower."

- - - - -

Titanyana left the room with her mood absolutely crushed. She wasn't a mathematician, but she understood that what was going on in there was beyond anybody's ability to comprehend. Well, maybe they could understand, they just wouldn't be able to do calculations like that. That wasn't enough to crush her though, what demolished her spirits was what came of those calculations. In fact, it was the same equation he had used to demonstrate how difficult a task it would be in the first place.

R=C/T

If the capacity was almost three and a half thousand, and a round trip was expected to be around 25 days under ideal circumstances, then R, the rate of evacuation, was 140 people per day. For one of those craft, given a full five years, the total number of Nekh it could save was a little over 250 thousand.

This was by no means a small number, in fact it was massive, but it still paled in comparison to the billion that were her responsibility. More of those Trawlers could be built, however they would exhibit diminishing returns. The strange voice, Arc, said that if production kept up full time for a single production line, one of those Trawlers could be built roughly every 25 days. 

According to its calculations, the total number of saved Nekh would skyrocket to . . . 9.5 million. It didn't even reach a full percent of the one billion. Of course there were other ships that would be involved, those could definitely pull some of the slack, but there was one problem. These calculations were performed under the assumption they would have a full five years.

They didn't have a full five years.

The clock was very much ticking, and they hadn't even gotten started. Every day that passed, in Titanyana's eyes at least, was 140 dead Nekh. The twelve or so hours she was asleep? 70 Nekh. The ten minutes it was going to take to eat her meal? A potentially saved Nekh was doomed to death in that time.

- - - - -

"That was an incredibly generous estimate, Arc." Donovan himself was a little saddened. True, he had warned her that the upper limit of their capabilities was in the millions, but he had hoped he was wrong. "You know as well as I do that you aren't gathering enough iron and carbon in a zero gravity environment for one of these things in that short a time."

"I am aware, however I believe that informing that girl she wasn't going to get even that would have been too cruel at this juncture." If Donovan had to say, he was probably the least 'humane' of the three intelligent beings from Terra. "I am not entirely certain that Diana has truly understood the number of lives lost at this point in time either, the billion she has to worry about is bad enough."

"What about me? Don't you worry about me?"

"I do, just for different reasons." Arc could not lie to Donovan, which was comforting. "My biggest concern when it comes to you is how long I will have to goad you on in order for Diana to be properly impregnated."

"Don't worry about that, Arc. Diana and I will get on it when we are out of school."

"I have no guarantee that you will push that end goal farther away." Donovan smiled wryly at this comment. He had been thinking about that. "Furthermore, I lack a method with which to force you."

"Oh trust me buddy, you won't need to force me." Donovan remembered their time in bed. "I'll be on it once she gives me the word."

"You make it sound like you have already had intercourse."

Donovan scratched his head, didn't Arc know that already? It didn't. Donovan hadn't mentioned it, and it was abundantly clear that Diana wasn't going to tell Arc about it, so Arc didn't know about it. At least it didn't.

"I feel as if I have been betrayed for some reason."

"Hey! I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it before, it was just . . . embarrassing. I'm sure Diana feels the same about the subject."

"Did something go wrong?"

"No! Oh no! No, if I had to say, everything went right." Donovan's line of sight drifted up towards the ceiling, dreamily thinking about that night. "So right."

"Hmm. Well, whatever the case it would appear I no longer have to worry about making you attracted to one another, though I have to admit this has ruined a large number of my plans."

"Hey, what did we say about our romance?"

"I recall you mentioned something about a wingman at some point . . ."

"Don't you!" Donovan pointed angrily at the speaking tablet, slowly realizing how ridiculous he looked arguing with it. "Fine, whatever. What's the news on Pegasus?"

"We are further ahead of schedule. This design has no need for any of the rubber or oil, I much prefer precision machining and Atmospheric Isolation fields due to their reduced maintenance, however the rubber can probably be used to make the interior a bit softer."

"Making the surfaces rubber is just asking for skin to be ripped off."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a rubber layer under the plastic plates."

cakeonfrosting

The Trawler is incoming to the glossary shortly. UPDATE: THE TRAWLER IS IN!!! I REPEAT, THE TRAWLER IS IN!!!