Now as apparent as it is, NanoTec is no longer alone on the alien world, now officially named 'Sirrea'. A detachment of them, survivors of the TeraNova disaster, has emerged as the New Terran World and has officially set the foundations for a bitter war. Nobody likes wars, but nobody likes losing either. The first shots have been exchanged. That will be followed with even more to come.

Saegen was the first to hear of the attack on the GEV vessels. Sir-Caller had contacted him in the middle of the night when he was trying to sleep.

"Let me get this clear..." Saegen moaned, "You guys were assaulted and you sank the attacker?"

"Yes sir." Sir-Caller's voice came through, monotonous as usual.

"Huh, it is either our... whats his name... Elleno is really good or the enemy was as incompetent as him."

Sir-Caller snickered under his breath.

"Any thing else?"

"Yes sir, just one more thing."

"I'm listening."

"Whose bright idea was it to line the graphene boilers with silicon?"

Saegen remained silent. He looked up and thought for a second before being interrupted by Sir-Caller.

"It was yours wasn't it sir? Or was it Claev's? Either way, it melted and clogged the coal ducts with translucent white sticky stuff so suggestively that one of my crew collapsed in a fluster induced nose bleed."

"Thanks... I really didn't need to know that..."

"Sir, it is a good thing sir was on board you know. He had to remove the molten silicon with a stick and the graphene fibers of the boiler nearly frayed, which he patched with copper scraps from the previous one."

"Sorry... I... well, the scientists are working on replacing the silicon with something else. Because without it, the graphene will just clump up and be useless."

"Maybe you could try diamonds or something sir. Good night."

"Yeah... Good night."

Saegen cut the long range communications uplink via communications network and lay back on his bed.

"Diamonds huh? That seems like a great idea." Saegen thought to himself.

The next day began earlier than usual for Saegen. He was up at roughly 5am, Sirrea time. He pressed the button on his personal portable graphene coffee machine and was out of his habitat in 10 minutes with a cup of espresso in his hands.

Saegen stepped into the empty material engineering lab. Nothing stirred and it was dead quiet. Papers and reports were strewn on the floor, some of the material samples lay in a mess on the table but thankfully, the equipment were all kept in their respective places. Perhaps it was overwork? Saegen thought to himself as he walked over to the 'Aestus' experimenting area and put on a pair of Sirrea made rubber gloves. He could thank those working in the Biology/Society/Xenotech for the quick research into the Sirrean native flora.

The plants on Sirrea have been more or less, classified into tree, I mean three main categories. Arbor, Bush and Shrubbery. 'Arbor' or tree in Latin, refers to the wood bearing tall plants one would call a tree. It's wood is very flaky due to the excess carbon in the soil and its leaves are rather large and the coastal ones secret salt. The bark of many of these trees contain unknown medicinal properties, yet to be further studied after Sir-Caller, against advice of his superiors went and chewed on the bark of a coastal tree and commented it tasted like cured meat, or bacon. The Bushes, or 'Nine-Eleven' as referred to affectionately by many NanoTec staff, are soft wood, low growing plants that typically bear very sweet fruit, a few of which are poisonous. Some also exhibit 'medicinal' properties, especially those related to physiological illnesses. Lastly, the Shrubberies of Sirrea. They are the smaller variant of the bushes but many also come as inflorescent flowers, much like roses. Some NanoTec members like to refer to them as 'Ni Plants' for unknown reason. They seem to find it funny, much to Saegen's and many others' confusion.

As Saegen was thinking about Sirrean trees, Aquila strolled into the lab.

"Ah, good morning sir. You are up early today." Aquila saluted.

"At ease, relax with the formalities. I couldn't sleep."

"I see... Sorry about the mess. Everyone left for a party last night... For... a belated celebration on their discovery of graphene."

Saegen's facial expressions twitched slightly, but he was able to retain his air of formality.

"I see... Please remember to clear up your mess OK? You are humanities best and brightest, not those pricks from InterCon yeah?"

Aquila frowns slightly. "Yeah... Noted sir."

"Oh yes, one more thing Aquila..." Saegen changed the subject. "I had a dream last night that Joe called me and told me that you could back graphene with diamond nano-threads. Also made of carbon. We might want to give it a try."

"OK. I will get the scientists working on it soon. And also, I would like you to take a look at this. A new report of Aestus. Came in just yesterday. Wanna take a look?"

Aqulia sent the file over to Saegen over the lab's RIG link without even waiting for his acknowledgement. She had always been overly enthusiastic in showing off her scientific progress.

"Right..." Saegen nodded. "Aestus-343, a metallic element, beside its extremely high melting point and high latent heat capacity, which have yet to be determined, Aestus fibers have been made into sheets and has been found to be slightly stronger and flexible than average carbon steel. Very basic principals and hypothesizes have already been put into place as to how this characteristics comes about, beginning with tetrahedral arrangements of atoms within the atomic structure..."

Aquila interrupted Saegen's thoughts.

"Oh yes, sir. Remember the graphene fabricator yesterday? The one Claev-sir told you to wait for? It's ready."

"Is it? Alright. Show me."

Aquila turned around immediately and began walking briskly towards the main engineering structure. Saegen followed closely behind, all the while attempting some small talk.

"So... graphene. Are you all in the labs working on how to produce the materials faster?"

"Yup. It works well if we overclock the original setup but..."

"I'm listening."

"Well, it nearly blew out the power grid and the engineers would be really pissed if we actually did so yeah..."

"I see."

The two scientists were soon in the engineering facility. On the floor lay a flat sheet of warm graphene, approximately about 20 meters square in area and its surface had a brilliant shine. Saegen walked up to it and ran his hand across it's surface. It was a little hot to the touch but very smooth, like the surface of polished glass.

"Amazing." Saegen mumbled to himself. "With this kind of backing, I assume we would be able to heat seal this to any surface?"

"Yes that's right sir. The silicon epoxy will melt upon heating and adhere strongly to any surface. Therefore, the graphene is, regrettably, difficult to use alone but makes very good reinforcing material."

"Ever tried using a mould? I figure if you, say, made something out of compacted dirt and lay the graphene over it and heat treat it, it should take the shape of the desired object right?"

"Hmm... I might give that a go."

"Good. Now, we have managed to make use of the graphene in jet engines, boilers... I know!"

Aquila tilted her head slightly in confusion.

Saegen grinned. He gestured for Aquila to come closer. Saegen chuckled as he whispered into her ear.

A few hour later, Saegen was back in his office, looking through the new documents and reports with a smile on his face. There was a knock on his door.

"Come in."

Claev walked into the room with his RIG open, and his hand busy fiddling the data on it. He had sweat running down his flushed face and looked extremely frustrated.

"Saegen!" Claev yelled. "Are you out of your mind?!"

"... No..."

"Explain this!"

Claev opened an image of a dirt wall being erected in the middle of the colony. He cast the holographic projection onto a nearby wall, pointed at it and yelled.

"What the f-*expletive* is this?!"

Saegen sighed. He stood up and open his RIG's communications and began to establish a link with Aquila and her team of scientists.

"They took my instructions too literally."

Saegen said, half exasperated. Claev sighed and sat down on one of the chairs present in the office.

"You know Saegen, somehow I am not surprised..."

Claev let out a deep breath as he wiped a drop of sweat off his forehead a few moments before Saegen's RIG beeped. A connection was established.

"You know Aquila, when I said 'dirt mould' I was just using a figure of speech. You could have done something similar to..."

Saegen went on. Claev placed his right palm on his face and shook his head as he waited as Saegen explained slowly to the silly scientist on what she was actually supposed to do. Finally, after Saegen had finished and had cut the link, Claev began to speak, this time more seriously.

"Alright, with that out of the way, what about this?"

Claev opened another folder on his RIG and closed the previous. He cast it upon the wall and began pointing and gesturing.

"You obviously know of the presence of these people yes? This... New Terran Worlds?"

"Yes I do."

"They are refusing our communications, and when they do pick up, they are very dismissive. They believe in a democratic, free market capitalist system, which is in direct contradiction with our EarthGov ideology, Maoist communism."

Saegen rested his head on his left hand.

"That means war right? After all, they did assault our exploration fleet."

"Yes. I should assume so." Claev replied. "Now moving on, in preparation for this, we have to build a navy. As we can see, they already have one, through unknown means through which it was built. How shall we do this, or put it, how do you want to do this?"

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Saegen remained silent. His eyes shifted upwards, obviously deep in thought. Claev stood there, impatiently tapping his foot.

"Well now, you used to play all those strategy games when you were younger right? Stalleris V, Sivilization X and Stars of the Sword Reboot, you were really good at them. Don't tell me you are going to have a difficult time deciding here."

Claev teased Saegen. It did not help at all. Saegen snorted but other than that, did not respond to Claev's remark. Finally after nearly 15 minutes of waiting, Saegen finally snapped his fingers and began speaking rather quickly.

"I got it. I have kinda formulated what to do."

"Finally!" Claev gasped.

"I have factored in what the NTW might do and what we should do if they had factored in what we are going to do. I have also factored in what we should do if they had factored in that we had factored in what they are going to do and..."

"Get on with it!"

"Ugh. Fine."

Claev sighed for what seemed to be the forth time that day. Saegen cleared his throat before continuing.

"Well, my plan really balances around getting an industrial and technological advantage against them first. Graphene is one thing I suspect they haven't gotten around producing yet. A major advantage in technology."

Claev nodded his head and ushered Saegen to go on.

"But what we really need to take note of is industry. I want a decisive victory and this is how we do it."

Claev clapped softly and spoke, "Right, so one part Stalin, two parts Carl Sagan?"

"Yup."

"Shall I assume I am the first one you are going to purge?" Cleav sarcastically said.

"No, no. Of course not. I need your expertises and not only that, your pet coffee machine would miss you too."

The smirk on Claev's face immediately disappeared.

Once Claev had left the office, Saegen withdrew the window blinds. He stretched and yawned before calling Aquila on the RIG.

"Have you brought the wall down yet?"

"Yup. I thought you said..."

"It was just a figure of speech."

"Oh...Right."

Saegen got up and stared out of the window. The first thing he noticed was, in the place of the dirt monolith, was aluminium struts and bracing.

"By the way Aquila..." Saegen paused for a second. "What are you even intending to construct?"

"A spaceport sir!"

"So far ahead? ...Alright fine, I would have ordered for that to be constructed sooner or later."

"Great minds think alike huh sir?"

"Don't flatter yourself, it's more like fools rarely differ..."

Saegen cut his sentence short. Damn! I insulted myself! He cursed at his own speech. Quickly, he changed the topic.

"Um... OK, the spaceport is not your priority now. What needs to be done is more naval dockyards. At the same time, graphene fabricators. I know they are still a prototype, but we can upgrade them in the near future."

"Come again?"

"You weren't even listening were you Aquila?"

A soft giggle came through the RIG.

A few hours later, Saegen was down by the comms sector, built within the still standing bridge section of the TeraNova. Claev stood behind Saegen as they awaited the daily report from Elleno. From where they were, the sun was just setting. But due to the issue of time zones, the GEV fleet was nearly six hours ahead. Saegen nudged Claev's arm.

"Claev, how far should we let them go?"

"The poles? It seems decent but they would only be back in plus-minus, a year."

"There is still a lot of uncharted seas to our south and west, we might need them back earlier you know."

Before Claev could continue, the comms receiver began to make noise.

"Ah, here comes the report."

Saegen ushered the radio operator to step aside. He did as instructed. Saegen put on the radio headset and spoke through.

"This is GEV Petramale, report sir."

"I hear you. Any news?"

"Yes sir. We are curr... *static*"

"Report? Report!?"

The doors to the comms center opened immediately and a group of engineers on standby streamed into the room. About 20 minute passed but the static did not clear. Claev began speaking.

"Must be another solar flare. Damn this sun is really blazing annoying!"

Saegen got off the radio operator's seat and kicked the seismic/sonar operator off his. Watching the sonar receiver, he noticed that there was, although faint, more than just background noise. He narrowed down on that frequency and, sure enough, it was communication.

"Sir? Can you hear me now? Hello? Hello?"

Saegen sent a infra-sound pulse back.

"Yes I read you. Solar flare?"

There was a distinct lag time of nearly 20 seconds.

"Yes sir. I am currently at the planet's North pole. Again, probably would be extremely beneficial discovery for the late ICY Products."

Claev, who was standing behind Saegen, nudged him and whispered into his ear. Saegen nodded.

"By the way Joe, how the hell are your sound pulses reaching here so quickly? You are at the North Pole correct?"

"Correct sir."

"But by calculations, the sound waves would only arrive in two hours..."

"You forget I deploy sonar probes wherever I go sir. There is one in relative close proximity to, ahem, Ellenove. I relay the messages through radio and the probe pulses the information."

"I thought there was a solar flare in your region, you shouldn't..."

"Your area sir. It is clear out here. Sir and the others are having a party out on the Rockmage's forward deck."

"Right... So, going back to the point what news do you have, Joe? And also, where's Elleno?"

"Yes, disregarding the fact that it is what you would deem as 'cold' out here, the poles are just ice caps to a ball of water... And sir is... well, in a situation. He is 'busy'."

"As expected... Right... Also, I need you to be more specific. What exac..."

"If I told you carbon dioxide freezes here and falls as snow, what do you think?"

Saegen remained silent for a few seconds, nodded subconsciously and replied.

"OK then... anything else?"

"No sir. But I would like to casually mention that our ships are stuck in ice."

"What?!"

"Well then sir, I will contact you again soon."

The seismic detector got no further artificial readings.

Saegen got up from his seat and but his hand on his chin.

"I need to give this data some thought. Things are getting really interesting now."

With that, Saegen turned and left the room.

About twelve weeks passed without incident, back at Ellenove and the GEV fleet. However, by this time, multiple naval dock yards had become operational and vessels, exploration and military alike could be constructed at a much faster rate. A second GEV fleet, this time unarmed, was sent in the opposite direction of the first. Knowing that the area behind was clear and therefore they did not need assault weapons.

A front line was also created about 500 kilometers off the coast of the colony, defended by seven of the most recently built Omaha-class destroyers, named after a city of the late USA. The destroyer classes had minuscule amounts of silicon-graphene armor, instead, they focused on superior speed and evasion. Perfect against NTW's high caliber long range artillery. Their armaments included, but was not limited to close range 60mm auto cannons and high speed Peroxide Tim-Torpedoes.

Thanks to decentralized construction, where each newly built factory was tasked with the construction of specific parts, the parts could be brought over to a single naval dockyard where a new vessel could be assembled in an extremely short amount of time. As a result, the aforementioned seven Omaha classes could have been assembled as well as a single cruiser class which has been, as of yet, not assigned to any task group at the moment.

This cruiser, the Mirai-class, whose name literally translates to 'The Future' , had one unnamed railgun mounted at the bow, followed by an 'Iron curtain' arrangement of laser and shell flak system along the port and starboard side of the hull. There was a VLS at the aft section of the ship, right above it's extremely powerful 'Powder' engines. The VLS was designed to house tactical 2 kT nuclear warheads, but so far, the only thing that had ever filled those vast silos was air, space and nothing else. Conventional and nuclear missiles of that scale had yet to kick into production. Again, the silicon-graphene armor was not present in large quantities, this time not because of 'speed and dexterity' but due to an issue of the silicon failing to adhere to the hull if there was too much mass.

Meanwhile the engineers and scientists were working on a massive collaborative project headed by Aqulia, the previous head of the graphene project. Saegen was worried that what was planned might not even be possible by current means and therefore, had not revealed it to the general populous. It was a new warship, designed to "trump over everything thrown at it, including the wall intended to be built at the late border of the USA and Mexico." There was a problem of design, specifically weight to thrust ratio. The ship was plusable yes, but the mass of the ship would make it extremely slow, travelling at only 15 knots or 7.72 m/s. The ship would also be extremely vulnerable to flooding and eventual sinking. The idea of replacing the 'Powder' engines with Shangri-La Fusion reactors had already been put forwards and has been accepted as a possible solution but again, boils down to the problem from the very beginning. The material composition and density on Sirrea is rubbish.

Saegen looked over the colony of Ellenove. Ever since the landing on Earth date 2110, up until late 2113, the colony had grown extremely quickly. Many new buildings had sprung up and countless power plants lined the coast of the colony, spewing grey smoke high into the atmosphere. If only there was more lead in the soil, he would not have to have ordered the construction of so many barbaric and primitive generation methods. As Saegen thought.

Claev burst into Saegen's office. Before he could even begin speaking, Saegen interrupted him.

"Stop."

"Wha...?!"

"You are going to tell me something related to graphene yes?"

"But, how did you know?"

"Don't worry, I always do. So what about it?"

Claev regained his composure and gestured to Saegen to follow him.

"We have managed to stabilize graphene, by which I mean that we are able to construct independent structures entirely out of graphene. Come, you need to see it."

Saegen sprung from his seat before following Claev. That was exactly what he had hoped to hear.

"You need to see for yourself Saegen," Claev said, "I can't quite explain in detail but it involves something to do with meshing graphene with carbon nano diamonds."

Saegen nodded but remained silent. It worked, he thought to himself. And it was all thanks to a dream I had one night, or was it?

The two soon arrived at the lab, just like they had a few months ago. Except this time, the air hung slightly heavier with mild amounts of soot and un-combustive material. After passing through the blast doors, they were immediately greeted by Aquila.

"Good afternoon sir. Now I don't have much time so I will make this quick."

"Carry on."

Aquila nodded, cleared her throat and continued.

"OK, right. I have put your suggestion to the test and by Sol it works. Making nano diamonds is difficult, requiring much energy, time and precision, not ideal for mass production. Therefore we could not plate it with graphene as originally intended. Instead, we embedded small nano diamond shards in key stress points in the graphene which has finally prevented it from curling onto itself."

Saegen smiled at himself.

"What's the catch?"

Aquila appeared dumbfounded for a split second before continuing.

"U-Um, the catch is that it is still difficult to produce. The production rate of Graphene Mk2 is 5.65% of the original Silicon-Graphene mesh and I highly doubt it can be mass produced anytime soon. But it has exhibited some improved strength and hardness over the previous one despite it's more, how should I put it, 'viscous' than Mk1."

"So Saegen, we still have a problem." Claev commented. "I can reprogram the machine operation and update Windows to 10.3 to make it more accurate. Power however, is going to be an issue. Say, is that spaceport operational yet?"

Aquila did a quick check on her RIG before replying.

"Almost. It is not our priority after all."

"Well, then make it so. I have an idea... What do you say Saegen?"

Saegen shrugged his shoulders before replying.

"I don't know. Why not. Somehow I know what you are thinking."

"Which is?" Claev tested him.

"An orbital power network."

"Damn this man can read me like a book!"

Saegen snickered and said, "Well Aquila, you heard him. Ever heard of a microwave power relay?"

Aquila nodded.

"Good. Then I will see you soon enough. If you would excuse me."

Saegen turned and left, leaving Claev and Aquila standing there.

"Well, Saegen is really busy these days and so am I. I have to go too. You have your project to work on after all."

Aquila nodded and after bidding farewell, she turned and dashed off.

About another three months passed before Saegen got news from Elleno again. The GEV fleet was on its way back to Ellenove as he had decided that it was to risky to stay around enemy waters for too long. Elleno also reported that Sir-Caller had discovered the cause behind the tidal activities of the planet despite there being no moon. Apparently, Sirrea shrinks and expands at a nearly constant rate which displaces water out of the cracks in the crust of the planet. One hypothesis of this phenomena is that the heating and cooling of Sirrea's oceans due to the regular solar flares that hit the surface. But in reality, nobody actually knows. However, the tidal effects of the planet also bring about strong ocean currents, nearly ten times as strong as those found on Earth. Sir-Caller made full use of a recently discovered stream and was, last checked on by Saegen, riding the currents south back towards Ellenove at nearly 90 knots. Therefore the armed GEV fleet should be back in only four months, or they were about to arrive just as they called.

Saegen long decided beforehand that when the GEV fleets get back, the graphene refits should be ready to be mounted on the returning vessels. Not only that, he also intends to re-purpose the NNT Rockmage into a front line corvette class due to it's excellent performance in combat. A magnificent piece of engineering Claev once commented.

Saegen threw down the stack of papers in his hands onto his desk. He yawned and rubbed his eyes. Maybe it was a good idea to take a break after all he thought to himself as he got up and left the office. The air was even heavier than the last time he checked. Black soot lined the pathways and there was a distinct 'fog' of smog hanging over the colony which irritated his throat and eyes. Saegen stopped by the engineering sector to check on how things were going and also as an excuse to get out of the haze. Standing right before the new graphene fabricator was Aquila. She turned and immediately greeted Saegen.

"Good afternoon sir. Do you need something?"

"No, no. I'm just taking a walk."

"I see..."

Aquila stared up into space blankly, seemingly deep in thought. Saegen broke the silence.

"How's the machine going? These few months allowed you to fine tune it?"

Aquila seemed a little startled.

"Oh, forgive me sir, I was just... um thinking of something."

"Right."

"So, about it, well we can produce graphene Mk2 a lot faster now thanks to the recent Windows 10.3 update and it would probably be faster so after the 10.4. What I have done over the last few months however was that I was able to tweak the voltage input semiconductors with dual strand graphene cables to allow for more current to flow through without melting the cables and I also..."

Aquila was interrupted by a loud metallic clank mixed with the sound of snapping wooden boards. It resonated rather loudly and disturbingly in the direction of the port. Aquila screamed and unconsciously ducked down with her eyes shut and covered her head with both of her hands.

Saegen however, remained unfazed.

"Oh, that must be Elleno. Silly guy, forgot the docking bays were too small for anchors. Come on, shall we go and greet him?"

Aquila tucked her head and stared at Saegen.

"Well, don't just sit there we have someone to welcome back!"

Aquila puffed out her cheeks and sighed after that.

"I hope that the damage done was not to severe. My team is gonna have a hard time trying to clear up!"

"Sorry. I will inform him."

Aquila sighed again.

"I hope this is the end to all the damage and the nonsense that happens around here. Please tell me it's over sir."

"Nope, I'm afraid not. I think we are just getting started."

To be Continued.