The factory is always humming. Regardless of which factory it is, the gears never go silent, and the belts keep moving. I watched over the production line, keeping an eye on the diagnostics. My exo-suit provided all the information I needed.
"Shekin! The boss wants to see you!" I glance over at the other intern. We were Engineers in training getting some experience from the senior engineer that made this factory. I grimaced. This likely wasn't good news.
I nodded. "Alright. Where is he?"
"Titanium C processing plant. There was a ship there. Military-grade."
I blinked. That was not normal. Typically Boss Derrick only called me when I was in trouble. How did I get in trouble with the military? I shook my head. "Wish me luck."
He nodded, before heading to the solar zone. I engaged the thrusters on my suit, heading straight for the Materials Processing Zone. It took a few minutes to get passed the massive factory lines. It's impressive that Boss Derrick built all of this from scratch only twenty years ago. Technically it was owned by Multimart. But Derrick was their employee sent to start this factory world.
It didn't take me long to find Derrick, and he was talking to some pretty important-looking military types. I hear the tail end of the conversation.
"I assure you, Shekin is one of the best apprentices in the factory, if anyone could handle it, it would be him." Pretty high praises… what is he planning?
I land down, "Greetings Boss. What are you needing." I can't tell if he's smiling or not, we are all wearing engineering and combat suits. We are never without them unless we are in the home rooms.
"Ah, Shekin! You are here! This is Sargeant Carlos and Major Nukimi. They are here to talk to you about a possible job position." Derrick said, enthusiastic as can be. What's surprising here is that I'm the Apprentice that Derrick likes the LEAST. Why would he be recommending me?
"Greetings Sargeant Carlos, Greetings Major Nukimi." I greeted both of them.
"Greetings to you as well Apprentice Shekin. We have a question, how would you like to be a Factory Engineer?" Major Nukimi dropped the bombshell first.
My eyes widened… "Are you joking?"
Sergeant Carlos spoke up. "No, we are not. We are in need of a Factory Engineer that is well trained. We can provide details on the way if you will sign." They then handed me a digital pad. I glanced over it, an NDA, Licensing, Code of Conduct, ah, I see. You can't be affiliated with an existing company. I am the only independent engineering apprentice on this side of space. If Derrick wants that shining badge showing that he is willing to cooperate with the military, I am his best shot. The problem is that if I refuse just to spite Derrick, I might as well not work here anymore. Plus I really do want to be a Factory Engineer. I wonder if I'll be assigned to an abandoned factory or if I will get to build a new factory world.
"Alright, I think I'm fine with these conditions." I signed the documents one by one, before handing the digital pad back. I get an alert on my hud as a copy of them is sent to my email.
"Good! You've got three days to pack. The G.G.H. Second Wind will pick you up. You will be instructed on the way there." Major Nukimi spoke, as they packed up the digital pad.
As they left Derrick spoke. "Congratulations Shekin! You don't have to go to work today. Get packed, enjoy the sights, and visit the orbital habitat if you want!" He then waved the air, and my final check was sent to me. I would no longer be Derricks's apprentice. Well… That's good I guess. No more yelling at me for pointless stuff.
I walked out… and avoided the numerous messy lines of conveyors and chutes. In only a few moments I was no longer an apprentice engineer, and now I was a factory engineer. I engaged my thrusters, going home.
Once in my room, I stripped off the exo-suit. I always feel strange without it on, it's basically a second skin to most people. Including myself. I normally sleep in the thing. I glanced in the mirror. My skin was deeply pale. Most of humanity not in the Sol System doesn't get exposure to the sun. So paleness was extremely common. My hair was grey, almost silver, and my eyes were a deep black. Another side effect of wearing my exo-suit constantly. I don't like looking in the mirror too much. The lights in the homerooms are normally extremely dim in order to not hurt the occupant's eyes. Years of time have caused most of humanity to change from the time they were on Earth. Heh, in the Holovods you could see people with all sorts of skin tones and eye colors. Black, brown, red, yellow, white, and pale. It was fascinating to look at compared to now.
I shrugged off my thoughts as I began to pack. I didn't have much, only a few outfits. I don't really remember my family since they shipped me off to the orbital habitat here. The robot caretakers weren't exactly conversational types. But at least I made a few friends.
I sat down on my bed after I was fully packed, leaving me only with my holopad. Then I began to look through the details of what I had signed.
Most of it was technical speak that I had a hard time understanding but I understood a good portion of it. I was going somewhere classified that I couldn't actually speak of, I would in fact be building a Factory world, I'm not sure what class of factory yet. I can't talk to my friends yet, they are still going about doing their shifts. I shrugged, and swiped the agreement to the side, before starting to play some TerraDefender 5.
—
I sighed as I looked at the ship that came to pick me up.
"Fairwell man! Good luck out there!" The other apprentices gave me encouragement as I hopped onto the transport. The transport would take me to the actual frigate in space. Once aboard the transport, I placed my luggage to the side. Then the lights in the transport dimmed as a lady walked in without an exo-suit on. Which was surprising.
I stood up and greeted her, "Greetings. I am Engineer Shekin."
She grins. "Not yet, you don't have the Exo for that." She then goes to the side, and pulls a display out of the wall, displaying a military-grade Factory Engineer Exo-suit.
I held my breath as I went and brushed over the suit… it was amazing. Everything was heavily advanced and way too expensive. A full-on MGF Exo-Suit. I laughed, "I thought I was going to get the cheap stuff."
She grinned, "Typically that would be the case if you were going to an existing Factory World, but you are going to be building one from scratch. Alone."
I froze at that, the addendum alone meant one thing. Border world. "Am I going to be positioned along the Imperial Chazin races dividing line?"
She shook her head, "Nope, tensions are too high with the Chazin race for any factories to be set up there. You will be heading to the very edge of dark space. We discovered a large rocky world there that has no sun. You will be making a Fortress World there and will be constructing the forces for the Drone Armada."
I blinked, "That is a pretty important task, why is somebody like me getting that position instead of an internal engineer?"
"Surprisingly enough, we are actually out of available engineers." She might as well just have told me that everything I know was a lie and Derrick wasn't an asshat.
"I swear I can actually feel your shock. Regardless, it is not what you think. We do have engineers in training, but none reach the mark of being capable of running a Factory World, You are one of thirteen thousand that have the capabilities, and only thirty were available. We figured we might as well expand using someone from the outer zone, as a way to foster relations and show that we are interested in the outer zone." She replied, cheerfully.
I nodded, "I'm guessing I'll probably have to talk to the press or something?"
"Nope, we got that handled. All you have to do is develop the Factory World."
I sighed, it sounds so simple, yet there had to be complexities beyond the surface that I wasn't privy to. You don't just throw a newly promoted Apprentice Engineer to build a Factory World. I took off my helm. Her eyes widened.
"You are more handsome than I thought for an outer zoner."
I raised my brow. "Racist much?"
"Ah, sorry. The media twists things a bit about the people in the outer zone. Guess I'm not as uninfluenceable as I thought," she replies, flinching.
I shrugged. "Yeah, not sure what Sol Times is on about most of the time. Seem to be determined to paint us as something other than human."
She nodded, before backing up into the doorway. "I'm going to go ahead and let you get changed."
I nodded, before starting to pull apart my Exo. After a few minutes of unbuckling and strapping I had completely changed Exos. I started to glance over what I had access to. Then I whistled. They had given me access to an engineer's dream of blueprints designs and more. I had the designs to build a Ulter Class Super Ship. A drone carrier of that size would be amazing, too bad I'll likely never have the materials for that sort of thing. Without a Solar Extractor, I'll likely never get to build any superclass structures and ships. Sadly I wasn't allowed access to the Mega Class structures or ships. Must be top secret.
"You done in there?"
I started nodding before I realized she couldn't see me. "Yeah, I'm done."
She walked back into the room and then smiled. "Looking good hot stuff. It's about time I give you the actual briefing."
I took a seat. "Figured all these toys would come with a price."
Her grin got wider. "Of course. As I said, you are going to an undeveloped world claimed by us on the edge of the galaxy. Far from the influence of corporations and other galactic powers. Once there you will be working on a Fortress Class Factory World."
Huh, I thought I was done with getting shocked. "Why are we building a Fortress Class world so far from the Inner Zones? If the Terror Groups find out they will be after it like mad, and me!"
"That's why you will have the cover as a basic Industrial World at first. You will be delivering refined materials in a space elevator to a cargo ship for the first few months, however, the number of refined materials requested will lessen and lessen. Using what you have you will be constantly turning this world into a fortress. We want the full thing, Drones, Ships, Planetary Shielding. Everything. You have the designs within the exo-suits archives." She spoke with a serious tone.
I nodded, thinking about it. They are preparing for the relations with the Imperial Chazin race to break down. Not surprising considering the Imperial Chazin are a race of slavers who see themselves as superior to humanity and constantly harass our borders despite the Imperial Family saying that they were not endorsing attacks on our border. That means I wasn't the only one making a fortress-class factory world. Our factories terrify the bordering Galactic Powers, simply because of how much output we could produce. We were an economic powerhouse, even if we didn't have the military power to back it up. Sadly we have yet to produce reliable laser weaponry like the other galactic powers, instead, we went all in on drones.
That way we outnumbered the other powers, with a single droneship that holds thousands of smaller drone fighters we could lay siege to star systems and hold out against any potential invasion. The Imperial Chazin race sees us as valuable slaves due to our industrial capabilities and often tries to attack Factory Worlds in an attempt to get at the Factory Engineers. They have yet to have been able to get an Engineer, but they have grabbed plenty of normal people. Honestly, if I had the capabilities we would have already declared war against the bird bastards.
"Alright, I understand. How long is it going to take for me to get there?"
"Should take you about six months to arrive. You'll be in stasis, so it won't seem like long to you." She replied, writing something on the holopad.
I took a deep breath. Six months? We can go up to one hundred and sixty times the speed of light depending on how long we spent in the travel stream. Six months meant at least several million lightyears away from this factory. How far into dark space were they sending me? I need to start downloading as much entertainment as possible starting right freaking now. I immediately slid over to my holopad and started to look up games.
Her eyes widen slightly "What are you doing?"
"Downloading as much entertainment as I possibly freaking can."
"Why?"
I gave her a deadpan stare, not that she could tell through my Exo. "Because how long do you think it will take for me to get an internet connection built that far in dark space."
She winced. "Oh… Good point. I'll help!" She slid beside me and started to scroll through various movies and games as well.