Norrington hummed thoughtfully as he stared at the short video. Although not a paper report, he still enjoyed seeing the enormous ship moving out from behind the moon.

  Malcolm stood beside him, grinning like a madman. "She's something, isn't she? Able to house a hundred and forty thousand cryopods and over forty thousand waking crewmembers."

  "She's magnificent," Norrington said as he looked at The Diaspora.

  Only a few months after he had ordered the final steps to prepare her, she was close to leaving Igniz Commonwealth space.

  "You are still sure you will remain here?" he asked, glancing at Malcolm.

  "I am sure. Her sister will require my help for the final steps, and I'll be leaving on her," the ancient-looking scientist said, his eyes locked on the screen hovering in the center of the room.

  "Very well, I'll send Mallory and his sisters," he said.

  Malcolm snorted. "Aye, those three brats should be more than capable of keeping my beauty in one piece before they reach their goal."

  Their goal, Norrington thought.

  That was assuming there was actually something on the other end of their biggest secret—a shipslinger they had found on the fringes of the Wolf 359 system seventy years ago. Not even Elizabeth and her Astra Concord intelligence had managed to find out about it, or they would have long since tried to capture it or destroy it.

  "Boy, I know none of our probes ever returned, but that's because they haven't arrived. The Tsundihr Anomaly is different."

  Calling me boy, are we? Norrington thought as he rolled his eyes at the older man. He was old enough to be a great-grandfather himself, even though he looked only in his late sixties. Still, it had been decades since Malcolm had called him that. The last was when his wife and also Malcolm's niece, had died.

  He let himself wallow in his memories for a few minutes before turning to Malcolm for the bad news.

  "The council wants you to prepare the prototype just in case."

  The old man's eyes snapped to his, narrowing dangerously.

  "That thing was never meant to fly such distances, and you know-"

  "I told them. They didn't care. Their exact words were: any chance is better than none."

  Norrington expected Malcolm to resist, but to his surprise, the old man just snorted and walked to the door.

  "Fine. I was afraid it would come to that, so I've been working on some plans for a few months. I'll let you know in half a year."

  Then he walked out of the door without as much as a greeting, just like he always did.

  Which means I'll be left dealing with the questions for another half a year, Norrington thought, adding another set of weekly and hour-long meetings to his overfilled schedule.

  I hope you're doing better, Garrick.

  ---

  Garrick let out a weary grin as he stared at the can-like construction taking shape on top of the space station's skeleton.

  Three weeks had gone by since they had moved it here, and nearly all of that time was filled with moving plate materials with the shuttles.

  "So, are we going to try and recover more shuttles?"

  Garrick glanced at Hilbert, who was hovering beside him.

  "No sign of shuttle three?"

  Hilbert shook his head, looking at the distant debris field. It seemed like a ring of gleaming chunks circling a spot with a tiny red ember.

  "Not a single sign of the shuttle or of that system AI. If it's hiding in the wreckage, it's gone to one of the furthest and most damaged ships," Hilbert said. "So unless you want to join me in some exploration…?"

  "No. How is Project Cleanup coming along?"

  Hilbert's grin widened, and he rubbed his gloved hands. "Very good. I'm pretty sure we will be able to start the assignment as soon as we can start using one of the shuttles. "

  "Good," Garrick said, his gaze moving over the distant debris field.

  It might take years, but we need to clear out all of it as fast as possible, he thought.

  A few minutes later, one of the engineers called him, requesting some help, ending his short period of reflection.

  The rest of the day flashed by, and Garrick was happy when he was finally lying in the pilot's seat. He had almost closed his eyes when a soft ping of an incoming message jolted him.

  Of course…

  He opened his eyes and glanced at the blinking icon.

  "Crux, what's it about?"

  "Nurse Yuri has finally finished a framework for which physical changes could be made," Crux replied calmly. "Do you want me to give you the synopsis?"

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "For now, yes. I'll read the entire thing tomorrow morning," Garrick said.

  "Very well, Captain. The short of it is that Nurse Yuri suggests not allowing any brain augments besides the things already available. She also wants to limit anything that changes the biochemistry of the human body. The only things she really thinks are viable are bone-strengthening, muscle-strengthening, and anything that will increase healing and physical recovery."

  Garrick nodded slowly.

  "What type of strengthening?"

  "Mostly options that will keep the shape of human bodies as they are and make use of the new Brain Implant's ability to change the cellular structure to improve bone density and thickness. The same goes for tendons and muscles. It would make someone who has been able to do all of it at least four times as fast and strong as any normal human, though there is a big downside."

  "Food consumption," Garrick said.

  "Exactly, Captain. It will also take a lot of time for every step."

  "Alright, I'll read the entire file tomorrow. For now, I need rest."

  "Sleep well, Captain."

  --

  The next day went by as fast as the previous, and Garrick let Crux narrate the document to him a few times before making his decision. He added a few minor things, allowing the engineers to augment their bodies with minor mechanical tooling as they had requested. But nothing too invasive or disturbing.

  An hour after he'd agreed and told Yuri to share it when she was ready, Macdewil called him.

  "Finally," the lead engineer shouted. "I was wondering if you had forgotten!"

  "So, I take you agree?" Garrick asked as he pushed himself away from the bulkhead he'd been insulating.

  "Definitely. Even with all the limits, it will take years to modify my entire body as I want it to," Macdewil snapped. "Did you get a chance to check my suggestions?"

  "Not yet," Garrick thought, grimacing as he recalled the dense file Macdewil had sent him a few days earlier.

  "Get to it!" Macdewil exclaimed. "As the captain, you can't be left behind. Besides, who knows what that system AI is going to do?"

  Garrick hesitated, then nodded to himself.

  "I'll go over it after this-"

  Macdewil shouted a 'goodbye captain' and left the conversation before he could finish his sentence.

  Garrick rubbed his head. Macdewil had slowly become far too easygoing, not just to him but also to the other engineers.

  "I need to go and talk to him about this," he grumbled as he returned to insulating the plating, making it ready for the cabling and, later, the inner plating.

  "Why, Captain?" Crux asked.

  "Because we need to keep the hierarchy. If we let things go, people might stop putting in as much effort or act on their own volition. Until we have at least the entire space station ready, this is far too dangerous."

  "I see," Crux said. "Do you want me to narrate Macdewil's ideas?"

  "Let me guess… it will turn me into some kind of supersoldier?" Garrick asked, his hand pausing.

  "In essence, yes. Also, due to your much more evolved brain implant, you will be making far faster progress than the rest."

  "Nothing… odd?"

  "A thin layer of layered graphene to wrap around your bones, thicker on the shins, knuckles, and elbows," Crux said calmly. "Besides that, a more thorough integration of the tendrils to improve healing and regeneration speed."

  Garrick sighed, staring at his hand, before shaking his head.

  "Fine. Show me a timeline on these changes, then begin."

  For the next hour, he quietly watched how Crux showed him what he'd do with his body, including a representation of his strength, agility, constitution, and other physical attributes before and after the change.

  "In essence, we are being turned into game characters," Garrick finally said, feeling a mix of sadness and curiosity.

  "Macdewil used these," Crux said. "If you don't like them, can I change them into something else?"

  "No, it's fine," Garrick said as he watched the initial step. It would involve an even more thorough infestation of the brain implant's tendrils through his body, coming with another slight neck-thickness increase.

  I hope I can even recognize myself in ten years… if we survive that long, Garrick thought with a weary grin.

  --

  Finally, five weeks after they had begun, the first outer shell of Module One was done, a hexagon-shaped ring two hundred yards long from point to point. Each flat area was a closed entrance to which the other modules would be connected.

  Seven broken-down shuttles were attached to the surroundings, a much larger skeleton. Four on one side to keep it constantly propelled away from the gas giant, while the other three were to keep it from drifting away.

  Garrick hovered near the side of the module, surrounded by most of the engineers who were all looking at their weeks of work with anxious worry. Those not here were watching from the Sibilis, likely as nervous as those here.

  "Ready?" Garrick asked.

  "We are ready to commence, Captain," Macdewil said, humming happily. "I can't wait to feel some gravity again."

  Garrick nodded, holding back from asking the engineer if his idea would really work with their jerry-rigged situation. Macdewil must have picked up on it as he grinned.

  "Don't worry, Captain. It will work for now," he said before humming. "Though we really need to get some proper thrusters. Using gravity gradient thrust to get us a small amount of gravity is nice, but what we really want is linear acceleration-based gravity."

  "I'll take anything we can get right now," Garrick said. "We need gravity to speed up a lot of the developments. Besides, even with these implants keeping our muscles from atrophying too much, I want to feel some weight."

  "Then let's see the fruits of our labor," Macdewil said.

  "Crux, connect us to everyone," Garrick ordered.

  There was a beep. Then he heard the soft chatter of the surrounding engineers.

  "Alright. Engineer Macdewil, you may commence," Garrick said, his voice calm and steady.

  A deadly quiet hung over the group, and Garrick couldn't blame the worried, anxious looks and hisses. They had been working on this for close to two months, and the best, easiest-to-find materials they had were used in it. If this failed…

  Garrick forced himself to keep his hands calm, and his shoulders relaxed as he hung beside the others. Next to him, Macdewil began counting down.

  "Three, two, one."

  The single thruster on the moon side of the skeleton ignited, and a blue, almost electric thruster flame shot out of it. The metallic skeleton of the space station began floating away from the moon toward Majriti, the enormous gas giant.

  Ten seconds later, the thruster cut off.

  "Ten seconds till Majriti's gravity will start pulling it down," Crux said softly.

  Garrick nodded as he watched the image on his HUD, which showed the gravity well of the gas giant and the tiny dot of the space station as it approached it.

  "Four, three, two, one," Macdewil said as they watched the spacestation-to-be start accelerating slowly.

  Garrick didn't react to the oddity of starting at four but watched as the four thrusters burst alight, and the metallic skeletal frame with the single central module stopped falling towards the gas giant. It seemed to move away, but before it could, the thrusters weakened slightly, then again, until the frame hung in midair, the thrusters constantly burning.

  "We have gravity, Captain," Macdewil said, his joy audible to all. "Permission to go to normal mode?"

  "Permission granted," Garrick said, hearing the soft laughter and joy begin to bubble up across the large group chat.

  Two of the thrusters stopped, and the other two began burning twice as bright, keeping the frame in place.

  Two would be enough, Garrick knew. The other two were back up, and Macdewil had three more, which would be ready in another few weeks. It was one of the hundreds of projects that would need to be fixed, together with security measures, creating a stockpile of as much raw materials as they could before they started shooting the debris toward the sun.

  But that can wait for tomorrow, he decided, as a cheer burst out across the chat as his crew let loose their exuberant joy.

  "Alright! Everyone, let's head in and see if all systems are working as intended," Garrick said. "I don't know about you, but I can do with some walking around!"