Vivid Stars Online

After the investor meeting, I was left with little to do for some time. There was a week until Elana and I were due to visit another spaceship looking for blueprints, and a week and a half until I needed to start spending part of my time working in the real world.

I found it to be an awkward amount of time. Too short to go on a longer expedition, but too long to just keep wandering about the spaceship looking for minor damage to fix. In the end, I filled the time with more training.

Captain Hendricks was continuing to train my soldiers to prepare for taking over the defense of my lands, and I was able to slip Linnea and myself into that training without too much trouble.

While this was in part motivated by a desire to continue increasing my combat ability for exploring, I’d also been thinking about Elana being held hostage on Earth. I had already determined I would help rescue her if it came to a fight, but I had to face the idea that it would be harder than I was used to.

As much as my powers were still very useful on Earth, they were far weaker than when I was in VSO. Back on Earth, I couldn't necessarily count on Skin Hardening, or even my new shield ability, to block bullets and I wouldn’t have a plasma gun to empower with Technokinesis.

Even my agility, strength, and resistance to damage would be lower than I was used to. In a small fight that might not matter, but in a larger engagement, I would have to be far more careful than I usually did.

That was where the military training came in. While I was far stronger than any of my troops, many of them were actually better trained than I was, and it was that expert training that I was after.

I wouldn’t learn everything I needed in a week, but it would be a good start to honing those skills. It would help the most back on Earth, but even here, knowing how to do things properly would only be a boon.

Time passed swiftly after that, and it was time to visit another ship. The Duchess had forwarded me the details and I would be off to see the most intact frigate that had been found.

We would need to travel back to Elendes and take a portal from there to the capital, where it and the cruiser were being stored at the largest spaceport on the planet. I found myself excited to see the larger spaceport and even more to see the Psi portals again.

On the morning of the trip, Linnea flew us into the city before breaking off. Brian had sent through recommendations for other veterans some time ago, and this provided a convenient window for an interview.

Even with the six months, or more, expected time frame for getting my frigate fully operational, it was important to line up crew members. Even the good ones would likely need additional training, and it was best to get that done in advance.

That didn’t mean I needed to be there for every low-level interview, however. Linnea had offered to handle the bulk of them and would forward any worthwhile candidates to me.

The portal trip was even faster than last time, with no one even asking to see my documentation. They must have worked out who I was, because they didn’t even charge us for the trip, instead just hustling us through politely.

Whereas before I’d only felt a vague sense of wonder at the sight of the portals, I could now sense the potent energies coming off them. It was an insane amount of power, far more than any person I’d ever met had produced.

They had to be powering them with something very similar to the Psi fuel my ship ran on, or potentially even the same stuff. I’d learned that the portals were reverse-engineered Arkathian technology, so it was very possible they ran it.

Being able to sense what was happening made going through a very different experience. I could feel the very moment that my body came apart. I’d experienced it as shrinking and stretching before, but I could now say for sure that it was actual disintegration and reintegration on the other side.

I wasn’t sure that I was better off for knowing that.

After that revelation, the capital spaceport was rather a disappointment. It was much like the Elendes one apart from its far larger size. It wasn’t even that much busier, though I supposed that made sense given that pirates still blockaded the space lanes.

Less than a minute after arrival, we were met by uniformed soldiers who bowed as I approached. Despite being in a different province from my lands, my title still held at least some weight here.

After greeting us, they took us through to a large hangar with the frigate sitting in the middle. We had to pass two security checkpoints just to get in the door, after which they led us to the middle floor.

A man in a lab coat met us as we arrived on the middle floor, where the most important machines were. While he was dressed as a scientist, he had several military rank insignia attached to the coat.

“Welcome, Count Hope,” he said with a bow. “It is an honor to meet the man responsible for this wondrous find,” he continued with a gesture at the surrounding walls. “I am Doctor Keller, the primary researcher involved in learning about this vessel.”

“It’s good to meet you as well,” I responded before introducing Elana. “I’m impressed with how organized you are here.”

“Of course,” he said with a nod. “As one of the three ships given into the direct control of the Navy, we treat it as our highest priority.” There was a hint of disdain in his tone at that, and I got the feeling he disapproved of what had happened to the other three ships.

It was the first I’d heard about it, but I couldn’t really be annoyed about it. With only six ancient capital ships recovered it had to rankle the Navy that they only received three of them. For one of them to be in the hands of a random Count in the smallest province had to be infuriating.

I certainly wasn’t going to give my ship up, but I could understand his annoyance. It also showcased just how important it was that I got the ship up and running in time to be of use. With the amount of resources they were throwing at this one, I was sure they would move to take it away otherwise.

“Now,” he continued. “I understand you are here to look at the shield generator and the warp drive. Her Grace, Duchess Milena, has pushed through your clearance, so you may take scans of those two devices alone.”

That was about what I expected, and I nodded as he turned and led the way. As with the earlier corridors we had passed through, this area of the ship looked new and practically spotless. Even if it had been the least damaged when found, they had to have put in a lot of work to get it in this shape so quickly.

Beyond that, I didn’t pry, even limiting my use of Technokinesis. The ability should be fairly well known by now, and it was more than possible that any Psions nearby could detect me using it.

We soon came to the shield generating, which was mercifully intact. Half of mine was missing, and this should hold the key to determining what was required. With a glance at Doctor Keller for permission, I began scanning the machine.

Elana moved around with her own devices, while I focused Technokinesis on my scanner. I’d empowered it before to detect psionic ore, and I hoped this would allow it to detect any psi-tech within the device.

It was a good thing I did as well, as it began picking up a ton of anomalous readings. It took time, and Elana’s help, to resolve them, but nearly an hour later we had enough information that we should be able to put a blueprint together.

There we would have the invaluable help of Mira, the AI living on my ship. While she might not have access to the information she used to have at the Arkathian facility, she still had incredible processing power available.

What she came up with might not one hundred percent match the old Arkathian design, but she should be able to create a blueprint that achieved the same effects. I also got a good sense of how it worked with my own senses, so I should be able to tell if it was working after we built it.

Doctor Keller watched closely the entire time, only just barely staying out of our personal space. Curiosity was stamped all over his face, and I got the feeling he would have read over our shoulders if he could have gotten away with it.

“Ah, we would greatly appreciate it if you shared any findings with the Navy,” he said once I’d told him we were done. “It would be of significant help with our attempts to reverse engineer the technology for use on more traditional vessels.”

I thought about that for a minute and even triggered Enhance Cognition for a bit more time. That’s probably fair since it is their ship, I decided at last. Keeping the information secret and potentially charging for it might be the most lucrative idea, but that didn’t consider the planet’s troubles.

If I was going to live here long term, then I needed the Navy to be strong enough to open the space lanes again. That wasn’t even taking into account my duty as one of the planet’s nobles.

“I would be happy to share the information, as long as it stays within the Navy,” I responded at last. I felt that was the best middle ground between helping the planet grow stronger, and still being able to charge any other nobles or private enterprises that wanted the information.

“That is very fair,” the doctor responded, suddenly becoming far more welcoming. “I will ensure my superiors send you a formal agreement to that effect. If the information is good, we may even want to engage your services on the rest of the ship’s technology.”

That perked me right up as he led us to the warp drive. Money was always nice, and something I could really use right now, but what I most wanted was access to more ritual chambers.

Donating critical science to the military sounded like the kind of thing that might be worth another one.

Our work on the warp drive was much the same as with the shield generator, though it was even more complicated than that had been. It took over two hours before it was done, and part way through, I started discussing part of what I was doing with the Doctor.

While I didn’t give away any secrets, I shared enough to show that I was getting insights that few others would be able to. Even another user of Technokinesis wouldn’t be getting as much as me unless they’d used all four chambers.

I was pretty sure the Duchess, and maybe a couple of her operatives, were the only other people who’d done that. My experience with the Enhance Cognition chamber showed how hard it was to get access to even one chamber in a sequence, let alone multiple.

This only ignited the doctor’s excitement even further, and I had the feeling that he was going straight to his superiors after this. I had to hide a grin at that thought. Even if I didn’t get quite what I wanted, it would be good to have a few Navy contacts.

With the two scans complete, we were escorted back off the ship and returned to the Psi portal. A quick jump later and we were back in Elendes, where Linnea met us to fly back to the ship.

Elana was pouring over the data even before we’d returned and was particularly focused on my readings of the Psi-tech components. I tried to keep up with her but found my lack of formal learning held me back.

The intrinsic sense I got of technology didn’t help with viewing data removed from the source like this, and I didn’t know enough to follow the design methodologies she was talking about.

That would be something to work on in the future, hopefully as part of my new job with her father, but I left it in her and Mira’s hands for now. I had little doubt that they would have something for me soon.

It was the second last piece of the puzzle that was putting my ship back together. All that remained was finding the missing metal I needed to repair its hull plating.