Chapter 136: Returning to Work

Chapter 136: Returning to Work

The basic construction of Orbits 1-5 was almost entirely done by the point their small but critical four-woman crew returned to space aboard the Inari 1. In fact, all but Orbit 5 was far enough along that internal crew were working on installing the interior bits, with the Drone Fleet half idle while the other half completed Orbit 5. The idling might have been a waste when they could have moved on to working on Forge 1, except that there had always been a planned gap between the two. A gap intended for the full servicing of that Fleet, including some light modification and refitting, in addition to repairs of any that had developed problems.

For all that they had worked remarkably well so far, the Orbital Construction Drones had been an entirely new design, and a lot had been learned during the construction of the five Orbit series stations. Core members of the slowly expanding UA think-tank team, in alliance with various other groups around the world, had been analyzing the Drones throughout the process. In doing so, they’d created two plans on what to do with them going forward.

The first, already being done to the half of the Drone Fleet currently inactive aboard the fully completed Orbits 2 and 3, was to apply what amounted to a modular after-market refit kit to the Drones. One intended to improve on a few limitations, inefficiencies, and problems that had been identified. The original OCD design had intentionally left plenty of space and some modular power/data hookups with such refits in mind, and techs on Orbits 2 and 3 were busily adding the refit packages that had been worked out.

The second thing, of course, was the creation of a Mark II Drone design.

One of the first things they had done once arriving on-station at the future location of Forge 1, was to create four dozen of the new Mark II OCDs. Those initial Drones would be the first test batch, working on the components of Forge 1 alongside the refitted Mark 1s, to see if the new design held up or not. In the long run, the refitted Mark 1s might well be scrapped if the Mark 2s worked out well. But for now, they could use all the assembly power they could get.

As for the actual location of Forge 1, that had seen them pushing significantly farther out from Earth than they had previously. While the Orbit Stations would handle transshipping critical finished goods to various places on earth, that was something that was just flat out impractical with bulk materials. As such, from the start, the Forge and Refinery stations had been designed to sit in geosynchronous orbit. By doing so, they could simplify the delivery of eventual bulk production items to designated logistics hubs on Earth.

Forge 1, of course, was going into geosynch orbit over Japan. Some might have tried to protest that, given the increased international attention now on their effort, but it was hard to argue with two critical points. One, of course, was that this entire project was being led by a pair of Japanese companies in Aegis Inc and Yaoyorozu Industries. With, of course, the primary R and D team having been created by a top worldwide university which was also Japanese.

Even aside from that rather important detail, however, was another critical bit of trivia. Specifically, that Japan retained an honor it had held since even the Pre-Quirk days. It, despite its relative size, legitimately had the largest shipping fleet in the world. Even in the Pre-Quirk era, that had been sort of true, depending on how you counted things. By what most considered to be the most accurate measure, Japan had technically held only the title of the second largest such fleet, behind Greece of all surprising countries. But Greece had been in a massive economic meltdown for decades before Quirks cause a general economic crisis. They hadn’t weathered the Quirk era nearly as well as Japan, and as such Japan had firmly moved into that number one spot.

Given that said fleet was a huge reason Japan was rather affluent by most standards, not even the villains of the country had wanted to fuck with that fact. So, while it had certainly taken hits during the Quirk Wars and the Era of Chaos that followed after them, Japan had firmly grabbed and still retained, the position of having the single largest shipping fleet worldwide. Given that sea transportation was currently the only way to move goods reliably without worrying about Rifts, Gates, and Rift Bubbles, this made making Japan and its many ports one of the first logistics hubs simple good sense. The United States was set to be the second, but that wouldn’t happen for quite some time. Feeding even the first Refinery and Forge stations was going to take quite a serious effort.

After all, the stations were both well over a kilometer long.

Perhaps it might have been counterintuitive to some people that they were building Forge 1 first. Even as Izumi began queuing up the list of main structural supports for Momo, however, she reflected that those people wouldn’t have fully thought through their reasons. First, Momo could provide at least a limited amount of raw resources for Forge 1.

Even with One for All, she was beginning to reach her production limits under the strain of creating what amounted to skyscraper sized stations or larger in space. So it wasn’t viable for her to do so long-term. In the short term, however, she could do so as a way for the research teams assigned to make the Forge model actually work, to start experimenting with.

It's not like anyone on this Earth had ever actually done Zero-G manufacturing. Despite their planning, there were bound to be issues. Getting Forge 1 up and supplied first, with some basics resources to start finding and fixing those issues, was just good sense. Even beyond that, however, was the fact that access to Zero-G environment was required for quite a few useful things in 2B’s YoRHa database. One of which was something they were planning to start making in the private lab deck they had carved out for themselves aboard Forge 1. Given they were literally making the stations, no one could really complain that they’d done so…and hadn’t asked too many questions about just why it was that they needed it.

All of that was for once the station was up and running, though. For now, they had work to do.

“Alright. Today is going to be pretty easy mentally, but a stone-cold bitch in pure volume. Momo, don’t you dare forget what Recovery Girl said about how overuse was fucking your body up. I will stop you if you don’t stop yourself before you Create too much. Got it?”

Momo winced at the stern tone in Izumi’s voice, but nodded. Izumi had taken the chance, while they were working so close with Recovery Girl the last few days, to sit on Momo and make her get a full physical. As she’d begun to suspected from her girlfriend’s behavior, the healer had discovered that Momo had been starting to become malnourished on specific types of fats. Despite all One for All could do to reduce the cost of Creation, it couldn’t supplant it entirely, and the insane amount of material Momo had created in the last few months had begun to take a physical toll. Now that they knew, they could manage that toll with supplements and the right types of extra fat intake.

They just had to keep an eye on it, and not let their sense of urgency and desire to help as many and as quickly as possible push Momo too hard. Easier said than done, given both of their personalities. But for Momo, Izumi would do her best to keep on top of it…and 2B would probably actually be the one to stop them in the end. It turned out that people who were genuinely possessed of heroic personalities tended to be self-sacrificial to the point of self-determent. Who would have guessed?

… … …

Setsuna was elated! Which rarely happened these days! She’d been stressed for the last couple of weeks, when it seemed they were only going to just barely be able to make the mandated numbers needed to form a second full UA Raid Group for the Guild. Then, in an almost literal miracle, she got word that three of the previously-crippled members of their own year group had been fully healed! Damn if she hadn’t been glad to see Tetsutetsu fully back in the game and seeming nearly as irrepressible as ever.

Nearly.

Honestly, despite the horrifying way it had come about, the fact that he finally seemed to have learned his lesson about not rushing in was a positive change. She did wish that he hadn’t lost a bit of his naivete in the process, but she supposed they’d all lost a degree of that in one way or another. The fact that he already had serious combat experience against Monsters, and could be nearly perfectly trained by Kirishima in how to fight as part of the Guild System to boot, was a hell of a boon. One that would make forming up the new Heavy Assault Team a lot easier.

She was, in fact, intending to give Raid Group 2 Kiri as a veteran transfer, much as she sort of hated to let him go. With Tetutetsu being able to specifically train to slot into the original Raid Team in the same spot, Kiri was one of the few she felt safe about transferring out. The other vets of the original Heavy Assault Team would be able to cover for him as he grew into Kiri’s old position, without much fear of a major fuck up that got someone killed. They’d managed to avoid any deaths so far, somehow, and she really wanted that trend to continue. In a similar vein, Sato and his Power Armor would slot into the new Heavy Team as an extremely good core member. As would Ojiro into the new Striker Team.

Ojiro had been the biggest surprise. Unlike the others, he’d apparently continued to train, using prosthetics he now no longer needed. While that might have been a waste in some ways, what else he’d trained in had made him a godsend for the new Striker Team. Apparently, Mei had gotten ahold of him at some point and built him a set of mobility gear that could still be used now that he had his legs back, with only a little adjustment. Hover Boots, taken to an extreme with rocket boosters, were joined by an oversized, over shoulder gatling weapon that used his tail’s much greater strength and stability as an anchor. He could move into place fast, then lock down as a devastatingly powerful turret, only to pick up and move again in bare heartbeats.

All three of them were major boons, and they hadn’t come alone. Several other students from now-defunct schools, ones who had been crippled either during the assault by the League of Villains or during the invasion, had turned up healed as well. Not everyone had wanted anything to do with fighting anymore, but those that did had been encouraged to join the Guild. Which meant an infusion of talent that took their new Raid Group from ‘barely big enough’ to ‘sweet, we have spare people for both groups.’

“Seeeetttt, this suuucckks. We’re going to have to totally throw out both scout teams and start over!”

Mina, of course, wasn’t quite as pleased, given it had set back all the planning and paperwork they’d done so far. Grinning and knowing full well that Mina didn’t mind the infusion of talent, only the fact that it was sticking her behind a desk longer, she pointed out something that she knew would bring life back to her second.

“There are at least two new couples for you to mess with, though. Not to mention how Pony was acting around that guy with the cowboy theme~.”

Mina perked up instantly.

“Oh! Yes, yes, yes! They need to get together! Doubly so since Toru got a look at what he’s packing! Ponygirl is gonna freak when she finds out he’s got an interesting shape down below!”

Setsuna choked for a moment, on a mix of surprise and laughter at Mina’s zero-hesitation comment. Then she fully processed what it meant and realized they weren’t going to get anything else done for a bit. She’d known that the dude had some sort of heteromorphic horse-themed Quirk, much like Pony but a fair bit more drastic. But this? This she needed to know!

“Details, girl! Spill! We can do the planning later, Mistress Setsuna needs deets!”

Mina giggled at the ridiculous third person reference, but happily start to oblige…