Dark Fate, Chapter 73 (Patreon)

Chapter 73 – Startup

“Ah, my friend! It is so good to see you again!” Shadraus smiled his skeletal smile as I stepped into the System Shop by the mall. Leading me towards a back room, where we could talk in private, he continued, “I saw when the kovald ship made landfall, but I did not hear anything about it on the news. I take it, then, that your trap worked?”

I smiled back at the lich, and nodded. “Yeah, worked like a treat, Shadraus. Probably bought us two to four months before the next group comes through. Unfortunately, I can’t rely on it working the next time, or the time after that. Eventually, one of these pirate captains is going to get smart enough to see through the obvious trap.”

“So, what are you planning to do about it?”

“I’m going to start up Earth’s space-based industry, so that we aren’t relying on just a single trap. But if I’m going to do that, then I’m going to need people, and I’m going to need ships.”

Shadraus whistled softly. “I see. You will need a crew of at least fifty for the ship you already have, to bring it up to military specs. Fifty people trained for working on warships. Then, you’re going to need asteroid miners, a refinery, a manufacturing center, a shipyard, residential facilities for anyone living in space, and people to run it all. That isn’t a light investment.”

“I know. But I don’t see any other choice. Not if I want to keep control, and prevent the project from getting bogged down in political bullshit as different countries try to get into dick measuring contests.”

Shadraus nodded slowly. “Yes, I can see that. However, you can probably cut the costs on minions slightly if you go with purchased skill packages. That way, you can buy general purpose minions in bulk, rather than going for specialty models.”

“Can you show me the packages that you’d recommend?”

“Of course. Now, there are two levels to these packages. Level one gives the skills immediately, but the minion will have to pay back the cost from their skill points as they level up.”

“So, if the package has ten points of skills, then they’ll need to jump five levels before they start gaining skill points again, huh? Sounds like a loan. At least they aren’t needing to pay interest.”

“Right. Now, level two gives the skills outright, like when a Slave Master imbues skills on their slaves. No payback required, but it does cost five times as much for the packages.”

Now, that gave me an idea. If I learned the packages, then I could gift the skills to whoever I wanted. All it cost was mana. I had enough mana to import six skills before I needed to rest and recover, normally. But I was a Greater Incubus, and I regained mana through sex as well. If I wanted to, I could totally cheese the system!

“All right, give me packages for space mining, refining, shipbuilding, and the various roles on a warship. Level two.”

Skill Packages

Name

Price

Description

Ship   Captain Package

400000   gp

Basic   package for naval captains. Includes: Naval Strategy, Naval Tactics,   Leadership, Ship’s Weapon Proficiency, Situational Awareness, Combat   Composure

Ship’s   Officer Package

200000   gp

Basic package   for a naval ship’s officers. Includes: Naval Tactics, Leadership, Ship’s   Weapon Proficiency, Combat Composure

Pilot   Package

100000   gp

Basic   package for naval pilots. Includes: Navigation, Fighter Pilot, Shuttle Pilot,   Small Craft Pilot, Ship Pilot

Science   Officer Package

200000   gp

Basic   package for a Science Officer aboard a naval vessel. Includes: Stellar   Cartography, Scientific Analysis, General Scientific Knowledge, Advanced   Sensor Training. Can be supplemented by specialized skills for specific disciplines.

Ship’s   Doctor Package

250000   gp

Basic   package for a Ship’s Doctor. Includes: Anatomy, Medicine, Basic Surgery,   First Aid, Botany, Virology, Sanitization.

Ship’s   Engineer Package

250000   gp

Basic   package for a Ship’s Engineer. Includes: FTL Engineering, Systems Engineering,   Reactor Engineering, Damage Control, Advanced Maintenance, Mechanic, Fabrication,   Jury-rigging

Ship   Security Package

30000 gp

Basic package   for a Ship’s Security Officer. Includes: Choice of proficiency in (2) weapons   based on organization and culture, Police Procedures, Combat Composure

Ship’s   Crew Package

25000 gp

Basic   package for crew aboard starships. Includes: Basic Maintenance, EVA Familiarization,   Emergency Training, Sensor Training.

Space   Mining Package

15000   gp

Basic   package for crew on space mining vessels. Includes: Advanced Sensor Training,   Mining Tools, Remote Operation

Refinery   Worker Package

15000   gp

Basic package   for crew on refining platforms. Includes: Metallurgy, Heavy Machinery   Training, Safety Training

Shipbuilding   Package

20000   gp

Basic   package for shipyard workers: Construction, Salvaging, Cutting Tools Proficiency,   Welding

That… was quite the list. However, I quickly noticed that there were a lot of overlaps and synergies. For instance, it was obviously expected that someone would have the Ship’s Crew package in addition to any of the more specialized packages they picked up later. Ship’s Officer overlapped with Ship’s Captain almost completely. The Security Officer package overlapped with Captain as well on the one skill I didn’t already have.

The prices were high, to be sure. But I was already expecting that. These prices were intended to be paid by organizations, as part of an onboarding process for new employees, and their contracts would typically cover the cost and then some. Of course, most companies would probably go with Level 1 if they needed someone trained, fast. Best results would always be training to go along with a class and profession that fit the role, but that wasn’t always possible in the real world.

If I purchased all the packages except the Ship’s Officer and Ship Security packages, then I could pick up all the necessary skills, and be ready to give them to people as needed. Of course, that wasn’t cheap, at 1.275 million gold! And I still needed to acquire the minions and other equipment, too!

But needs must when the Devil holds the reins. It would cost more to get fifty trained military spacers off the minion market (those didn’t pop up just every day). Miners and the other types I could probably find more easily, but having the skills would make it easier for me to cover any gaps in training, and, thinking towards the future, it would give me a lot more options down the road. So, I made the purchase.

Next up was the ships. No point in buying minions yet, until I knew what kind of crew size I was looking for. And I wouldn’t know that until I had my ships picked out.

Industrial Ships

Name

Price

Description

Sada Mining   Pod

500000   gp

A   basic mining vessel, designed for mining and harvesting asteroids.

AACCM

1.25 million   gp

Automated   Asteroid Colony Construction Machine. Deigned to be placed on an uninhabited   asteroid. AACCM will harvest materials while creating space and structures   according to automated plan.

Mavarn   Automated Manufactory

2.75   million gp

An   automated orbital refinery and manufacturing plant capable of creating processed   materials or finished goods as needed, with minimal support staff.

Stage   1 Necrozian Shipyard

4   million gp

A dedicated   orbital ship construction, repair, and salvage yard, run by a Necrozian Master   and Necrozian workers, with Necrozian warriors as security. Capable of working   on two ships at a time. May be upgraded later. Necrozians not included.

There were a lot of mining, manufacturing, and shipyard choices to go through, obviously. However, given my need to cover crew costs as well, I decided to look at smaller options, with more automation. Those ships wouldn’t necessarily work in the long term, but that was fine. I could build the solutions I needed once I had industry to build with. It would take longer than buying from the System, but it would also be cheaper and more fitted to my needs.

The Sada was a two-person mining ship, but could be run solo without issue. It only had debris shields, but was ‘armed’ with heavy mining lasers and tools, which also meant that it could rip into a ship easily enough, if needed. According to the information I had, it had a dimensional storage hold, capable of holding up to twenty-five thousand tons, or roughly the equivalent of a fully-loaded container ship. I bought three, so one could be out mining, one could be resting, and the last would be getting maintenance, in rotation.

The AACCM would allow me to basically take over an asteroid, and make it my base of operations. I could basically program up a layout, and the machine would go to work, mining the asteroid to carve out pre-programmed passages, and using the available material to make it work. According to the specs, it could even include plumbing and electrical systems, though the actual power and water supply would have to be put in separately. Basically, it was like putting the wiring in a new house, but not hooking it up to the power grid until later.

That was fine, because I could use the System to purchase the necessary components, once the space was built. I already knew where I’d be taking over. Ceres was a dwarf planet that made up roughly a third of the mass of the asteroid belt, all on its own. I’d make that my base, complete with hidden docks for my ship, and any others I built. And it would make it harder for anyone on Earth to attack me if I was no longer on Earth. Eventually, I could even have defenses set up, turning Ceres into a fortress that a pirate fleet would break upon.

But those facilities would take time to build up. In the meantime, I would rely on the Mavarn factory to process the materials the Sadas brought in, and turn them into something useful. Anything I didn’t use in my own projects could be sold on Earth for a profit. I’d just have to avoid dumping the metals on the market, or prices would crash.

Fortunately, the Mavarn came with living quarters for its ten support staff. Four of those were engineers, obviously, keeping the physical machines functioning. Three were designers, basically in charge of creating the 3D templates that the factory would build off of. Two were basically IT, in charge of keeping all the computers and automated systems online. And the last was a manager, who was basically there to take care of the stuff that didn’t fall into the other three categories, as well as ensuring that the team stayed on task.

Nine people and a manager sounded like a bunch (it was basically a full baseball team, after all), but it wasn’t, really. A steel mill could easily employ a few hundred people. Back in the day, before automation, that could easily be a few thousand. And the Mavarn was a refinery, steel mill, and factory all rolled into one. A crew of ten people was insanely small. I’d have to make sure that the people I got were all introverts, or they’d go mad.

Which, finally, brought me to the shipyard. The Stage 1 Necrozian Shipyard reminded me of nothing so much as a resource hub in an RTS game. It could apparently be upgraded, to take on different production paths, such as increasing production, or making larger ships, etc. That much was all fine.

The interesting bit was that it was designed to be run by Necrozians. The Necrozians were best described as a race of beings that were half-undead, with a quasi-hivemind. Workers were not quite mindless, since they were capable of reacting to situations as they happened, but they were dominated by the will of a Master. A Necrozian Master was basically the overseer for a group of up to five hundred workers. A Necrozian Overmaster could control up to one hundred Masters, and so on.

Looking at the shipyard, it needed one Master and two hundred workers to run at peak efficiency, and also included room for a security force of ten Necrozian warriors to provide security for the facility. Other races could try and use the shipyard, but then you’d need to install life support systems, since the Necrozians did not need to breathe, and so their shipyards were open to vacuum, typically. Along with not needing to breath, Necrozians also never experienced fatigue or needed sleep, meaning that their workers could continue working on something 24/7, until it was done, dramatically increasing production from such a small crew. Getting that many Necrozians might be a challenge, since they were always in demand, but it would be worth it.

With that settled, I turned back to the Minion Market to find what I would need.