Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

May 2nd, 005 SDE:

Sali adjusted her shift, as she filed into the factory with the other workers. Idly she noted the faces, and she tried not to think about how she felt. Everyone was sick, she had a few rashes she was trying not to scratch, she didn't want any of her skin to start peeling. Working in the factory was a welcome distraction, it beat lounging around in her cell all day.

Then her gaze landed on Robert, he'd looked better. Some of the color in his cheeks was gone, but there was still the light of hope in his eyes. Drawing closer to him, she reached out only to stop for a moment, wincing as she saw the peeling skin, "Are you alright?"

He sighed, "Well enough, can't say the radiation has been good for my health."

She nodded and looked at the work. They were turning mined ore into parts for the harbor project. From what she had heard they'd tunneled many kilometers into the asteroid below, but she wasn't helping with that. Instead she and her fellow factory workers had been tasked with building the massive bay doors that would be needed to isolate the safe harbor they were building. The Enterprise wasn't a small ship so the doors were suitably massive.

Large enough that they were being constructed in sections, with the more sensitive components being built here, so they could be shipped out in shielded modules. That way the storm wouldn't ruin the doors before they were even in place. The Enterprise was five kilometers long, but that didn't matter much for the doors. What did matter was her height and width. Due to her shape she was rather fat, almost four kilometers wide, but she was much flatter when it came to height at about a kilometer. Given those sizes, they were making the doors seven kilometers wide, and three kilometers tall.

Bay doors of this size were not easy to make, they required massive motor systems just to move the doors. Systems that could be vulnerable to the hostile environment of the storm, but the hollowed-out cavern they were digging was going to need some huge pumps to effectively clear off the storm's gasses. Systems that were being built right here on the Enterprise. All of that explained the currently very busy state of the factories. "Right, I just hope the asteroid helps. I don't think this rash helps my complexion."

He chuckled, "I don't know, I think it's growing on you."

She gave him a look and he raised his hands, "Sorry sorry! Shouldn't have said that."

She giggled, "Come on, let's get to work."

He smiled, "Ah, there's the girl I like."

Together they approached the workline, where a number of workers were feeding bricks of processed minerals into the nanofabricators. The massive fabricator machines used tiny nanites to construct just about anything they needed. In this case, components for some rather massive bay doors.

As she joined the line, she noticed a conveyor deliver a new batch of processed bricks into one of the labeled feed bins. Using the computer reference for what was currently needed, she pulled a few out of a feed bin and added them to a belt feeding into one of the fabricators. The job was pretty simple, computers would control the nanites and build the parts. All she had to do was keep the machines fed with the minerals they needed. It wasn't long before she was well into the rhythm and enjoying a nice work-time chat with Robert.

Nothing important, but she enjoyed the chatter anyway. Given her status on the ship she didn't get a lot of news, but she often learned what was going on just by talking. Not to mention after four years living aboard the Enterprise, she was certainly making friends. Some of them were rather special though, like Robert. A flush of heat reminded her how much fun they had recently, not that there was much chance of it now. Rashes and peeling skin were a bit of a turnoff.

A fit of coughs drew her attention off the line, and she noticed a young man with the medics. They looked him over and pulled out an injector, which was promptly injected into his neck, after a moment he started to look a little better and the coughing subsided.

The medics were everywhere these days, and she'd been getting daily visits from her doctor. A fact that somewhat reminded her of when she first got here. Back then she'd been suffering from stun sickness and looking to leave. Nowadays she didn't really understand that, things were pretty good here. Well until just now with the whole radiation sickness thing, at least they'd turned off the eerie green lights. She didn't need them to remind her that they were facing a slow death from radiation.

She went back to work, "I guess the nice thing about all this is that the council actually cares enough to do something."

Robert nodded, "The free medicine is nice, I just hope we don't run out."

"Is it that bad?"

"Doesn't feel like it, but I should show you the residential blocks. They've never felt so lifeless. The kids are barely playing, people are staying at home, fewer visitors to the markets, the gardens are basically empty these days. A lot of people are staying at home now to care for sick relatives."

She frowned, "I hadn't realized that it was getting that bad."

"Well you have your nice cozy cell, must be nice. I have to share my place with two other families."

"Two others? I knew you shared a place, but wasn't it just your family?"

"Remember I told you that people were moving away from the outer sections? Well some of them moved into my place."

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"Ouch,"

"Tell me about it, but that's life."

Sali thought of her cell, it wasn't that big and there was a charged grid that separated her space from the hall. It didn't offer even the illusion of privacy, but she wasn't sharing it with anyone. Robert basically made it sound something like a palace, she wasn't as sure about that. "I guess I'll count my blessings, but you know life as a prisoner isn't all roses."

"Sure but it is simple. No need to worry about credits, or what you will wear tomorrow."

She chuckled while shifting another brick onto the conveyor, "I guess you have a point there."

Countryman leaned over a table, looking over the projection. At the moment he was with a few of his officers discussing the base that was rapidly forming. The tunnel into the asteroid was nearly finished, and work crews had moved on to shaping out a large hollow cavern in which the Enterprise could rest, while repairs were conducted.

As they were talking here, he was well aware that work crews were using drones to drive in the support anchors for the massive bay doors that would be required for this endeavor. Right now they were only building one pair, but a second set would be required to maintain the environment they were creating.

Richards spoke up, "So what do you think?"

"It would be a good start to a proper port."

She chuckled, "I'm not sure I'd go that far. The general idea is we'd only be housing the Enterprise, but I've got the basics figured out. We can start building the docking berth and the scaffolding once we have the area cleared of the storm's gasses."

"It would certainly make repairing the hull easier."

"Not to mention make fixing the warp drive easier. I'll see about actually rebuilding one of the damaged warp engines, but..."

"They require rare materials that we don't have a lot of on hand and I didn't see much of the ones we need around."

"We could see about searching the wrecked starships. I wouldn't put much hope in finding intact technology, but we might find some of the materials we need."

"Difficult and we'd be exposing pilots to the storm."

"Just an idea, but I'm inclined to agree. It would be hard enough to fly out there in that weather but with the radiation? Likely best to stay closer to home."

"Ruri has her people working on that problem, we just need to give them time. In the meantime, let's buy them as much as we can and focus on this shelter."

"Agreed," said Richards before moving back to discussing the growing port. "Now for our intended anchorage, we've been focusing mostly on getting it working, but I was also thinking about the long term. We are likely going to be in the storm for at least a decade, so I..."

"Long term planning, I like it. What do you have in mind?"

She pulled up another projection, "Groundside warehouses, a fuel stowage, local powerplants, some limited housing for the dock workers to use, and for our tunnel entrance a few defenses. The bulk of the port should be pretty well protected by the sheer bulk of mass between us and the storm, but we still don't know if anyone else is out there. And if anyone is out there, I'm not betting on them being friendly."

He blinked at the proposal, it included two additional bay doors, both armored, plus adding armor plating to the already planned bay doors as an upgrade. Automated particle turrets would be positioned at key points in the tunnel, and a defensive installation placed at the mouth of the chasm leading into their tunnel. That final installation would be armored and would be outfitted with several automated heavy anti-ship guns, particle beam cannons, and flak turrets. More interesting was that she'd added a fighter bay to the installation as well.

"Quite the defense, but seems mostly focused on the tunnel."

"I figured we'd want to protect it first. Those bay doors are massive, afterall and if we got attacked while in the dock it would take us several minutes to deploy the Enterprise. Not to mention we won't be able to maneuver in that tunnel."

"It's not a bad plan, I'll keep it in mind, but I think we should focus more on getting it ready for use right now. Once that's done we can get the ground-side facilities sorted out and if there are any materials left over we could consider defenses."

"Sensible, I'll file these away for later reference."

Greyman spoke, "Speaking of materials, I do have some concerns about our reserves."

Countryman nodded, "I think we all do. Most of these rocks were pretty sparse, and while this one does have a better mineral content than most, it's missing a lot of minerals we normally use."

"Exactly my concern sir, I fear we may have difficulty sourcing key minerals for ship repair while in the storm. Hell, we are using plain old steel for the structural elements of our new port since we don't have a source of titanium."

That was quite true, the asteroid they were on had significant concentrations of iron and nickel but certain key minerals like Titanium weren't to be found. More interestingly however was the Osmium content of this asteroid, nearly a third of its mass was Osmium. The mineral was most well known for its extremely high density, but it did have its uses. Most relevant to them was that it was used in certain radiation shielding alloys. An Osmium alloy coat was planned to be added to the doors and interiors of the harbor to help block the storm's deadly radiation. They'd already tested the alloy they were making in the lab, and it was about as effective as the standard radiation liner on the Enterprise. They were just going to make the coating thicker to help increase the absorption depth.

"I'm aware of the issues, but for now we'll just have to make do with what we have. I'd like to go exploring for key resources but without better protection from the storm that seems risky. Not to mention, our own studies show that once we are in the port and have the doors built and closed we will be cutting our radiation exposure down by over half."

"I wish it was higher."

"So do I, but this Isanir radiation has incredible penetration."

"We noticed, and I hate to say it but you're right. The best course of action is to hunker down and wait for the science types to solve our radiation problem."

Countryman gave Greyman a look, "I'm one of those people you know..."

"Sorry, but it's kinda easy to forget."