Dark Fate, Chapter 72 (Patreon)

Chapter 72 – Concerns

Legal got involved, as I knew they would, and the contracts and financing people did, as well. In the end, the flat 2% of everything that ever came from the tech they pulled out of the pirate ship was completely unrealistic. I knew it going in, but it was a solid starting point for the negotiations.

In the end, I still got a really good deal. First, I got 1% of the initial contract for any government contracts won from the government based on the tech in the next ten years. And second, I got stock that would essentially make me a 1% owner of Boeing. Sure, it was less money in the short run, but in the long run, it would even out, and I also got that most important thing of all: access.

See, corporations were more than money-making machines. They were also storehouses of information, with their Research & Development programs churning out new tech or refining existing technology. They were part of a network in an industry, and people talked shop and swapped stories in that network. They had contacts outside the industry, in government or in related industries. And having an ownership stake in the company meant I had access to all that.

That kind of access, and the contacts I could make through it, if I tried, was worth more than the money I would lose out on in the short run. I could use those people to build up my position, and eventually get an army together, if I needed it. Last time, corporations and governments had fallen in the chaos of the first pirate attacks and invasions from the stars. This time, well, there was a chance we could change things. And if that was the case, then I’d need the connections to make my position unassailable.

I had not been idle while waiting for my first prey to enter the trap. Sure, I’d been dungeon diving and working on getting stronger, but that was only part of it. My real work was in talking with Lilith, my future child from another timeline.

With her help, I compared how things had gone in this timeline, as well as hers and my original timeline. There was definitely chaos in the world, as there had been in my original timeline, but it was not as all-encompassing as it had been then. Locally, in the Atlanta area, that made sense. I had changed things, and helped stabilize them. Presumably, that traitorous bitch Jessica had done the same, wherever she was hiding.

But two islands of stability would not explain what was happening now. Fortunately, I had Lilith here, and she was only too happy to explain the level of meddling she’d engaged in, guided by her oracular powers. Just like she had planted ‘time seeds’ to help guide Jessica away from me, and make me focus more on my own affairs than revenge, she had planted other seeds, around the world.

Most of these seeds were simple enough. They just pushed nascent dungeons away, creating areas where they would not get crushed underfoot. I hadn’t had time to think about it, but it was odd that there weren’t more dungeon breaks, like the ones in Orlando and Boca Raton. World-wide, there’d only been twelve, including those two. From my memories, there had been at least six times that number in my original timeline, which had sped up the process of total governmental collapse. By the time the aliens had come, that was just the final nail in the coffin.

This time around, however, with only twelve breaks, the powers-that-be were able to respond and contain the chaos more. Some of the breaks in my old timeline had happened in the very centers of power, after all. Rome, for instance, had been wiped off the map by minotaurs dressed as gladiators that had burst forth from the Colosseum. And that was just one tale out of many.

Some of the breaks even helped things, like the outbreak of demonkin on the border of Syria and Israel, which forced those two enemies to actually work together for the first time in memory, with the rival groups finding common ground in fighting actual demons. Or the outbreak of cockatrices on the border of China and North Korea. The scaly birds might have been dangerous if they pecked you, but they were almost like chicken when cooked. For the first time in decades, much of North Korea’s population actually had full bellies on a regular basis!

Indeed, the only two dungeon breaks that were actually harmful, in the long run, were the Orlando and Boca Raton ones. According to Lilith, she hadn’t been able to shift those because if she had, those seeds would have interfered with the ones relating to me and my rivals. That made sense, since time, like any force of nature, didn’t like getting twisted around, and the more complex the twists, the more likely you were going to break something important.

Most of her seeds were simple enough. And they had to be, since she was planting them back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. Continents weren’t the only things that drifted when you considered the length of time she was dealing with. Thankfully, she had planned well, and the more complex seeds were all in well-established areas.

Other than the two planted to affect both myself and Jessica, there were six of the complex time seeds. Each one was connected to a person, pushing them in the direction that would lead to a better outcome for the world. She wouldn’t tell me who these seeds were pushing, or what they were pushing them to do, of course. Knowing those things, before they’d fully resolved themselves, could change how the seeds bloomed.

But that was neither here nor there. From this point forward we were wholly diverging from the timeline I remembered. I wouldn’t be able to anticipate the next pirates to try and make a play, like I did this one.

We were lucky that the kovalds were stupid enough to fall for the bait ship and trap themselves. Well, they weren’t exactly stupid, but they were desperate, and looking for whatever score they could get. The next group might be the orcad, or the dar-knelfi, or one of the even worse groups.

Those groups were not likely to fall for the trap that practically screamed its existence to the heavens. Especially not once ships began getting built, and things progressed to the point where people would expect that the bait ship’s message would be heard. At best, the trap would work two, maybe three more times.

Launching the ship wasn’t a sure way to succeed, either. A single corvette wasn’t going to make a difference if a dreadnought showed up. Not that any dreadnoughts were likely, anytime soon. But groups of smaller ships? Actual warships? That was definitely possible.

I needed to prepare. I needed to get more going on. More importantly, I needed other people stepping up, so that it wasn’t all on me. Because, frankly, I did the whole ‘everything on my shoulders’ thing before, and it had ended up badly for me. This time, I wanted to share the load.

Of course, I wasn’t going to just sit back and hope someone stepped up. It was tempting, sure, but that just wasn’t something that I could bring myself to do. Not because I cared overmuch about the whole ‘saving society’ thing, but because this planet was where I kept my stuff, and I wanted it to stay in one piece.

In a way, it was just like how Boeing was going about stripping down the pirate ship I’d brought them, and splitting up work to different companies. Northrup was already on board, as were a few of the other defense contractors, who would be working on different facets of the ship, with the goal of building something that could stand up to the enemy.

But, even with everything going on, and the way the System sped production through the use of skills, it would still be at least a few years before they would be ready to start building something like my Hellspawn. Even if they had the plans, and skipped much of the review process, they’d need to build the machines to build the machines to build the parts they’d need to make the ship, all while testing to make sure that Earth’s magic didn’t do anything freaky to the production lines. That was before ‘sea trials’ got going.

The only hope for something that could be fielded quickly would be reconditioned fighters. To make a current jet fighter suitable for trans-atmospheric combat, you would need to replace the jet engines with gravitics, which didn’t rely on airflow, inertial dampeners, and shields, at the bare minimum. Weapons were another issue, especially since normal guns wouldn’t do squat to a ship’s shields or hull, and the missiles would have to be redesigned so that they would be effective in combat.

All of that took power, power that a gas engine wasn’t equipped to provide. Really, at that point you were basically making a brand-new plane, but the learning curve for new pilots was going to be steep enough already, and having something outwardly familiar would help ease the transition. Plus, it would save time and money if they could reuse parts and hulls that already existed.

Of course, I could have been just talking out of my ass. I was not an aerospace engineer. Nor did I have one on my ‘payroll’. However, that didn’t actually matter as much as it ought to have. See, Boeing had plenty of people who WERE engineers, before the Apocalypse. And many of those had gotten ‘magitech’ or ‘artificer’ type classes or professions, which meant that they had the System-given skills.

What they needed, to start, was someone to give them ideas, and get them moving in the right direction. So, using my newfound access, and the fact that the VP of R&D was absolutely my new biggest fan, I was able to put together a list of ‘suggestions’, and get it to the designers. Nothing major, just the systems that would be required to refit and arm fighter craft to deal with orbital threats.

Well, I said it was nothing major, but I knew that it would spark all kinds of ideas, now that they had an actual ship and actual tech to work with, as well as access to people who actually knew how the tech worked. The biggest problem in starting an R&D project, getting people who could do the work, was already done for me. Now that they had samples and knowledge to call on, as well as the System and its skills, I didn’t doubt that there would be a prototype design ready within a year.

Of course, even with a design in hand, machines capable of making the product, and pilots trained to fly, there was still the question of resources. Namely, the actual raw materials that would be needed to build all this stuff. There was a limit to how much raw material could be put towards a project, especially now, when the Apocalypse had disrupted mining operations and transport systems.

Solving that problem meant one thing: space-based industry. Unfortunately, space-based industry does not just appear on a whim. Especially when your current methods of getting to orbit involved multi-million dollar launches from disposable rockets. If Earth was going to have a chance to defend itself, then it needed a new industrial boom.

The number of people who both knew what needed to be done, who wasn’t already in my camp, and had the resources to accomplish it was so small that it could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The only other person I knew for sure that fit that description would be my former comrade, Jessica, whatever she was doing at this point. Probably trying to continue on with the plan to control things from the aftermath of the destruction, when the pirates show up in force.

I’d had time to think, since I rewound time, and, now that I wasn’t reliant on her to get laid, I was starting to see the truth about my old flame. She was a manipulator, who wanted to run things without being the one that got the blame if anything went sideways. She didn’t actually care about the people, any more than I did.

That first time through, I’d been too obsessed with the idea of being an anime protagonist. Sure, I’d been a ‘hero’ who saved people from the Demon Lord, but, if I was being honest, I did that more to be a hero, to get the accolades, than for any ‘good’ or ‘righteous’ reason. I did the right thing, or what I thought was the right thing, but for shitty reasons, same as her.

This time, I at least had my head on straight, without her influence. I knew what I needed to do. I would have to jump-start a new space race, and get people looking up to the stars, and I’d need to do it in a hurry.

I needed to talk to Shadraus again.