Out of Space

Chapter 151: Far Harbor

South of Seacliff Mining Complex, Goblin Coast

Two jeeps rumbled down the grassland, following a path made by worn down by dozens of vehicular traffic over the week. Captain Blake sat on the rear seat, facing a rosy-cheeked Princess Sherene who had her face to the wind, her eyes half closed in bliss as she enjoyed the ride in the uncovered top jeep.

Blake had to admit that the view in the grassland around them was beautiful in a wild untamed way. With the mountains as the backdrop, the ever blue forest in the distance and the majestic ocean spreading across their view, surrounded by gently waving stalks of yellow grass. This was something rare to see on Earth these days, only in frontier or rim worlds could such a wild beauty be seen.

The Jeep rolled up a small grass dune and they saw a sprawling complex under construction in the distance. As the vehicles drove closer, details start to appear, trucks with construction materials were being unloaded, cement was being poured, and cranes looming over the water were dangling massive concrete supports into the sea as the skeleton of a deep water pier was being constructed.

Teams of security personnel patrolled the perimeter next to freshly elected steel fences while other construction went on. Storage sheds, hangers, fuel bunkers, housing, offices and even helipads were all in the process of being built. Sherene eyed all the ongoing with a sparkle in her eyes, turning to Blake and commenting loudly over the wind, "Your hooman 'tech-no-logee' is still amazing even after seeing it again and again."

"If it was the old us trying to build a harbor city here, it would take many years and tens and thousands of workers to build, yet all these took only weeks to be laid out." She shouted over the roaring wind.

"It will still take some months before the harbor is fully constructed," Blake yelled back, "But as long as the pier is ready, we can start using it first to meet the ship that the Isles is sending over in a couple of weeks time!"

Sherene nodded, her pinkish hair tied in a long ponytail, whipping in the wind. "And what are those?" She pointed to a huge rectangular area that had been dug up, easily the size of a soccer ball field that was in the City where the hoomans had her people going crazy over the game called 'soccer'.

"Those will be the dry docks for ships to be constructed in the future," Blake replied, "Provided R&D comes out with a workable hull."

The jeeps were waved through a heavily fortified checkpoint where teams of security in black-clad leather armor with shotguns, rifles, and bayonet swords manned the bunkers. The jeeps drove on, passing by pallets and pallets of construction materials and finally rolled to a stop before the inner gate to the single almost completed pier.

Sherene took the offered hand of Blake and hopped down, she was dressed in a white blouse made from muffalo fur and tucked into a pair of khaki trousers and ending in a pair of black combat boots which would be scandalous to the court ladies in the old days. She looked up at a towering crane where it creaked as it hoisted a massive block of prefabricated concrete piece swinging it over their heads and hovered over teams of workers wearing yellow helmets and bright orange jackets.

The seeming weak looking arms of the crane were reinforced with strengthening magic runes and tethered to the ground with Earth magic, to prevent the crane from toppling over from the massive blocks of concrete weight over several tons.

The crane lowered the block gently into the arms of the workers who maneuvered it into position like a piece of a puzzle, fitting it perfectly into place and the men like ants, started to remove the cables tied to the block rapidly. A potty looking human wearing a white hard hat came jogging over as Sherene and Blake watched the ongoing work with their escorts.

"Captain! Princess!" Petty Officer Letts waved as he stopped before them and wiped the sweat off his safety helmet. "Gods, Captain, stop throwing me projects! The mining facilities are already taking up all my time already!"

Blake grinned and shook Letts hand, "Well, who asked you to be the boss of a construction company before getting drafted?"

"Yea, but a man needs some time off and not having impossible construction projects one on top of another!" Letts complained good-heartedly. "Well, enough of whining, welcome to Far Harbor!"

-----

Falledge, Town Garrison

Dante lounged leisurely over a pillow filled chair, with his mud-stained boots hitched over the glossy wooden table. The Garrison Commander face was pale with a forced smile as he grimaced inwardly as mud had stained onto the rich dark wood of his table. "Sir Hero... Let me get this straight. You want me to muster all available fighting men of the garrison to go after some runaway slaves and rebels?"

Dante nodded cheerfully, taking a swirl of a goblet of purple wine. "Yes, all your men and dragons."

"Wait, before we go into that," The Commander asked, "What happened to the two hundred soldiers and one hundred dragon cavalry I dispatched to your aid under your party member?"

"Dead?" Dante gave a nonchalant shrug, "The rebels are pretty strong."

"What? Three hundred soldiers all dead?" The blushy mustache of the Garrison Commander twitched in agitation. "Care to explain it?" The Commander's grey eyes narrowed in suppressed angry at the attitude of the Hero.

"Well, we ambushed them as they were about to set up camp," Dante explained, ignoring the glare thrown to him by the Commander, "But turns out that the small number of rebels were more than enough to fight off three hundred of your... soldiers..." Dante gave another shrug as he returned the Commander's glare with a smile.

A nerve twitched from the forehead of the Commander as he caught Dante's hidden meaning, that his troops were weak and it's their fault that they died. He suppressed the anger boiling inside. "What about the town? You destroy half of it just the other night and injured many civilians and the town's watchmen!"

"Oh, that wasn't really my fault," Dante flashed a smile, "I was flushing the rebels out, and those people just did not move away fast enough. But don't worry, their souls will be taken good care of by the Sun God!"

The Commander slammed both his clenched fisted on his table in fury, "That is not acceptable! You wantonly killed people and ran amok in the town and also wasted three hundred of his Majesty soldiers! You will not have a single more soldier from me to go on some wild goose chase!"

"Oh, you sure?" Dante did not even bat an eyebrow at the display of aggression from the Commander, "I do have the Letter from the Rock that you are to grant me all demands and requests that I make, you know?"

"I will take it up with the Emperor, but no! I will not move the troops on your word," The Commander firmly stated his stance, "Get out of my office now! You are not welcome, and you can be certain the Emperor will hear the word of this!"

"Oh, sure..." Dante stood up and turned to the door, "That is a nice sword..."

He gestured at a pair of crossed swords over a shield with a motif of a griffin hang on the side of the wall. He turned and smiled at the Commander who had his guard up and winked, before with a speed faster than the eye could follow, he snatched one of the swords off the wall and slashed horizontally at the barely reacting Commander.

"Nah, my bad, this sword is actually a piece of junk," Dante gave a flick of his finger against the blade of the sword which made it rang and he tossed it away to the side and opened the door of the office.

"Hey you," He called one of the guards stationed outside, "Who is the next in charge after the Commander?"

The guard was surprised at the question and blabbed something out, which Dante just shrugged it away, "Call him here now, it's urgent."

"Eh..." The guards looked at each other in confusion, wondering what is going on.

"Come on hurry up!" Dante gave a clap, and finally, one of the guards nodded and ran off, his armor clanging loudly down the stone hall.

"Good boy!" And Dante returned into the room, closing the door behind and sat back at the pillow lined chair, and gave a toast to the headless Commander still seated in his chair. "Cheers!"

-----

Goblin Coast, Far Harbor

"We used prefabrication techniques here," Letts explained as he led the Captain and the Princess on a tour through the harbor. "Basically we model out how we what the buildings and structures to look like in a 3D software, and we built it out in pieces, like a puzzle before putting them together."

He gestured to an open area where massive blocks of various shapes were laid out in the sun, "Those are all part of the pier that is currently going up. The workers just have to follow the numbers of the parts and put them together, really simple!"

Sherene made an impressed sound, "So you mean you just made these 'pre-fa-bee-cake-tion' here and then put them together later?"

"Yes," Letts grinned at the pronunciation, "It cuts down the workload and vastly speeds up the construction time." He pointed out to the pier, "We don't even need to hammer the supports into the seabed, we just stack tons and tons of concrete into the sea as the foundation, short of a tsunami, or a god's power, those concrete blocks won't even move. And to top it off, all of the blocks have anti-corrosion runes installed into them, so weathering from the waves will be drastically reduced at the same time!"

"Very nice!" Blake nodded, just as impressed as Sherene was with the speed and way of constructing the harbor. "What's the timeline like?"

"If the weather holds for the next week," Letts replied with a small frown, "We can finish casting all the major blocks for the pier and it will take another week to finish up installing all. Say two and a half weeks tops for the pier to commerce operations."

"For the rest of the harbor, I said, end of summer, at least three months for all necessities to be installed, and another two months to go into full operations," Letts said.

Blake nodded, "How about the construction slips? When can we start ship constructions?"

"Well, I still say three months minimum, at least," Letts replied, "But we did set up a workshop down the pier for prototyping the new wet water vessels you wanted. It should be sufficient for your needs now, as long as it's not a mass production or anything larger than a Corvette. Your team can start work on it in about a week."

Blake nodded, "I will transfer the R and D team and work crew over in a week's time then. Housing?"

"Very basic quarters, but there are hot showers and flush toilets, all solar and wind powered until we can get the new Dragonite powerplants installed," Lett reported.

"Survey teams are also mapping out the terrain from here to Seacliff Mining Complex, once most of the work here is done, we can start the next phase of construction," Letts added, "A rail line from here linking to the Mining Complex and back to the Colony."

"In the meantime, a superhighway is the only other means of transportation to Far Harbor from the Mines," Letts said.

Blake nodded, "In the future, all our manufactories and refining industries will be all sited down the south, while the agricultural industries will be along the northern quarter of the Colony." He disclosed part of his plans to Sherene who nodded.

"Alright, Letts, make sure Far Harbor is enough to be up and running within two weeks time," Blake said. "We have guests from afar coming soon..."