It had been more than a month since the exodus fleet arrived above the planet once known as Pollux V. James stood in his flagship’s observatory, gazing out to the cloudy atmosphere of Domusec. The thought that this would serve as the new home of his dynasty brought shame to him, in its current state. Water covered close to two thirds of the surface, yet much of it was in a state of perpetual frost. The land was gravel, sand and clay; no organism had evolved, and so none had died to turn the land into proper soil.

‘Soon. Soon we will have our new home.’

A gentle knock on the nearby bulkhead caught his attention. Turning around, he saw his flag lieutenant, Cory Gaines, standing at the observatory’s entrance with a tablet in his hand.

“Yes?”

“The group of ten has assembled, sir. They await your presence to begin.”

“Very well.” James nodded lightly, turning to steal one last glance at Domusec before he walked out of the observatory.

…

The ‘Group of Ten’, as many had taken to calling the most important people of the dynasty, was a refined list of all the people James had met with over the past month for important matters. From industrial planning to diplomacy, defense to diplomacy and more, these ten people filled it all.

Half of them were civilians. Business executives, to be precise: the CEOs and presidents of the major defense, construction, mining and refining corporations. Since resources were limited and manpower scarce, the normal civilian freedoms and processing had been dealt away with.

The other half were the true core of his dynasty, because while the execs were loyal…they were still businessmen. They were biased to decisions that would send more money their way, whatever the situation. No, his loyalists were better focused. Biased, yes, like every other human being in the universe since the birth of the species, but their biases conformed to his own in a way a business’s never would. They were all sons and daughters of the dynasty in the truest sense of the word, raised and educated in the Domus Pupili.

Commander Harriet Noriega’s role was…fluid. She was his right hand, acting as a diplomat and representative of his personal interests. She managed matters that didn’t require his direct input, acting as a gatekeeper and adviser. Commander Michael Smith, on the other hand, was his highest ranking man whose job was solely military in nature. He made sure to keep both officers and enlisted sharp, with frequent exercises, lessons and war games.

Olaf Hund was his constantly-tired chief engineer, running his operations from the bowels of the fleet support ship Blacksmith’s Bane, whose fab floors hadn’t stopped churning out materiel in weeks. And of course nobody could forget Doctor Alfonso Grey, who was in charge of Domusec’s terraforming.

“I’d like to begin with the terraforming team’s progress. Chief Grey, what do you have for us?”

As far as James could remember, Alfonso Grey had been a very conservative, very frail man without much of a spark in his eye. Some attributed it to a weak mind, others pointed to how late he’d received his first rejuvenat treatment: the man was barely seventy but he was looking ninety. Yet in the last few weeks, the weak old man that Grey had once been had disappeared. In his place was a fiery terraformist who took great —and obvious— pride in his work.

“Good news, Your Grace.” The doctor smiled. “To remind anybody who didn’t read the weekly reports, two weeks ago we sent teams of engineers and surveyors to scout the area of Domusec’s first settlement. In the time since then, we have begun construction of the necessary infrastructure to oxygenate the local atmosphere.”

With a wave of his gloved hand, a satellite image of the valley appeared over the table. A large river ran through the middle of it, splitting and merging a dozen times from beginning to end of the valley. At the center of it, James saw a small but organized outpost.

“Until Apogee’s engineers can deliver a new batch of fusion generators, the camp is relying on a small backup supplied by the Hephaestus.” Gray nodded to chief engineer Olaf Hund,

“The Engineer Corps lives to serve.” The lithe man replied half-jokingly.

“Yes, yes…I must say, Chief Hund and his engineers have been most helpful. As have, of course, those from the civilian sector.” Grey noted, more as an afterthought than anything. “We have completed construction of a concrete factory, which is already using local gravel, sand and clay to give us what we need to construct the oxygenation plant. If we receive the expected fusion generators from Apogee Corporation’s factory ship within the next two to three weeks, we can begin production immediately. That is all for now, Your Grace.”

James nodded, feeling satisfied. “Keep up the good work, Doctor.”

“Now, since the ball is already in engineering’s court, I would like Chief Hund to continue.” He turned to the seasoned military engineer. “What are our current projects, and how are they proceeding? I am most anxious to hear about the L1 anchorage.”

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Olaf took a sip from his tea mug, clearing his throat.

“We currently have three main projects started or due to start, Your Grace. The first is, as you noted, the station under construction between Domusec and its largest moon, Alpha. All of you ought to have noticed it, as the fleet is currently orbiting Domusec near the L1 point.”

With a few taps on his tablet, the table’s holographic projectors whirred to life. A rod-shaped structure, surrounded by habitation rings and docking areas from top to bottom.

“The simple truth is that we currently lack resources, and gravitic-plating is expensive and time-consuming to manufacture. With respect to that, the L1 Anchorage will be built with more…anachronistic features. The spire will contain zero-gee manufacturing areas, computer systems and power generation, as with most stations back in the Imperium. But the rings will rotate on magnetic bearings, substituting gravity with centrifugal force. This will save us two to three months, per ring, on just the mag-plating for a flat area, though space will be more limited. The docks, meanwhile, are simplified external docking clamps instead of internal bays. Maintenance and construction will be hampered slightly, and bad actors will know what ships are docked there…but it saves us a whole lot of time, resources and manpower.”

James nodded in understanding. “What’s the proposed capacity?”

“It’s modular, Your Grace.” Olaf shrugged. “Each section is two standard-gravity rings, two half-gravity rings and up to twenty docking areas —depending on the ship’s size—. Each standard strength gravity ring is paired with a half-strength one, after which we place half the docking areas, then the rest of the rings in a similar layout and then the rest of the docks, and so on and so forth. This way the strain is more spread out throughout the entire area of the shard. The proposed interior design makes space for up to twenty thousand people, and could allow the entire navy to dock in addition to a third of the civilian ships.”

“And the cost?”

“It’s not light.” The engineer sighed. “We’re talking about a hundred and fifty thousand tons of metal, or a third of Valeria’s production for the year. Plus fifty percent of the Blacksmith’s production in parts, plates, screws and circuitry, though I expect that to drop to twenty percent as we set up more manufacturing inside the shard. Your Grace could, of course, lengthen the time it takes to build the station and lessen the strain on the fleet’s manufacturing.”

“How long would it take, with your proposed plan?”

“Shard’s done in five months. The first ring set…by the end of the year, and another eight months until the section is fully operational. Twenty months in total. For which I would need a third of Valeria Mining’s output, and fifty percent of production on the Blacksmith for six months, dropping to twenty by the eight-month mark.”

The price was…significant, but James understood it was necessary. Without a proper orbital, they couldn’t set up space industry any further than they had by now. Sure, they had factory ships and mobile shipyards, but they were expensive, slow and inefficient.

A medium-sized shipyard could make a cruiser in a year. As it were now, Kim Industries would need eighteen to twenty months and it would have space for nothing else. A proper zero-gee factory could build fusion generators and hyperdrives in half the time it took Apogee’s tiny specialized factory-ship to do so, and with scale came a drop in the pricetag and a rise in quality.

Furthermore…there was the matter of food. The half-strength gravity rings weren’t quite good for low-gee manufacturing, but at point-five gee aeroponycs would flourish. While the expedition had enough growing capacity to feed its awake members, that would change drastically if they started waking up people left and right. Without some good farms growing bags of quno and hundreds of tilarp —grain and fish made a helluva team— he’d be limited to less than a tenth of the exodus’s true size.

“Good.” He nodded. “You have my approval; Commander Noriega will handle any details. Please, continue.”

“Very well. Our second project, and one that begun a few days ago, is the construction of two Reliance-class patrol boats for the Colonial State of Polaris. I think I ought to let Ms. Kim talk about this one.” The man turned to Kim Industries’ CEO.

“Well, Sun-hee? How is it looking?” James asked.

“Slow, as expected, Your Grace” Kim Sun-hee replied.

As part of the trade agreement between the dynasty and the colonial government of Polaris, the latter was allowed to commission the construction of up to four system patrol boats. Hardy, nimble and cheap craft that could safeguard the security of the system from most pirates and attempts at intimidation.

A week ago, Governor Polk had formally requested the construction of two ships. At the same time, a transorbital shuttle had arrived in the Domusec-Alpha L1 point carrying an entire kilogram of 24-karat rhodium, as down-payment. Sun-hee’s security almost had to beat Apogee’s technicians away with a stick: that was enough rhodium to build four cruiser-grade fusion reactorsa and hyperdrives.

“The limitations of our mobile shipyard, as well as the small output of Valeria Mining’s operations in the inner asteroid belt, mean the ships will be ready in six months. We are in the strange situation were we have the expertise to work out all the complicated stuff —wiring, weapons and propulsion— but we simply can’t build the hull any faster with our current facilities.”

“Unfortunate…but expected.” James sighed. “I don’t suppose waking up more people out of cryosleep would help?”

“We’ve nowhere to put them.” Harriet Noriega chimed in. “As it is half of the civilian ships are just containers of food and cryosleep capsules. We’ve got about sixteen thousand awake and working, and if we start waking up more the enviromental systems will begin straining. Plus…most of those asleep have families.”

Everybody understood the implicit message. The overwhelming majority of people currently awake didn’t have dependents who didn’t need to be awakened, but the opposite was true for the skilled workers still asleep. Waking up a father six months earlier than his child would be horrible for morale; after a certain length of time the rift between the ‘early birds’ and their families would become irreperable.

“Then…we will proceed as is.” James concluded.

Slow and steady progress was better than rushing ahead without caring about the future consequences. Mistakes made during the early months and years of the colony could cause issues for generations, and lead to…untenable situations.

“Ms. Kim and Chief Hund, thank you for your reports. Jean-Constantin, please tell us what your farm ships are doing to supplement our supplies, and what you need for future expansion. I would very much like to hear what the Saint-Germaine Group and Chief Grey’s department have to tell us about growing crops on Domusec…”

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Domusec is an abbreviation of Domus Secondus, meaning ‘Second Home’ in Latin.