While the rest of the players were still in the process of respawning, Apophis and Antanria finally reached and entered the Zetark underground shipyard.
Hidden inside a hollowed-out mountain, the shipyard lay in a huge cubic chamber five hundred meters in each dimension. Unfortunately, most of that space was completely unused, rather than filled with exciting technology. Apophis was disappointed. He'd hoped to find some Zetark ships here, but only found a set of elaborate machines which were completely alien to him.
The place was completely intact, however, despite the nuclear bombardment. Therefore, Apophis not only knew that he and Antanria would be safe down here, but also that he could probably find something useful in the shipyard. After all, Zetark technology was particularly resistant to the passage of time, as he'd found out on two previous occasions!
Though Apophis was overwhelmed by the Zetark technology, Antanria was eager to assist. As she'd hinted at previously, the princess was quite familiar with her people's technology. Even if she hadn't been specially educated as a princess, the Zetark put quite a lot of emphasis on educating their children. Almost any Zetark child would have been able to fully utilize the basic aspects of their devices.
Remembering what Antanria had told him about her knowledge of Zetark shipyards, Apophis turned towards her and gestured at all the machinery.
"If we're ever going to leave this planet," he said, "and survive the attack of those ships in the sky, we'll need to use this shipyard to its full potential." This was only half true, of course. He knew what the future held as far as the Federation ships were concerned, and that he and Antanria were in no real danger, so long as they acted carefully.
But he also knew that this would be the most likely way to get Antanria to cooperate and to give up the secrets of her people, which were surely hidden in the shipyard's computer systems.
In Apophis's first life, simply cloning Zetark to resurrect the race had, of course, not brought back the memories of the original race's bodies.
The language barrier between modern races and the ancient Zetark made the use of most of their technology impossible, since people could not easily interact with their computer systems.
But simply learning the language wasn't even the hardest part. Even though Apophis understood their language, the quirks of their engineering were bizarre to him. So long as she cooperated, having Antanria along was fantastic.
But the princess found herself in a difficult situation.
She'd accepted Apophis's offer to help discover why her people went extinct, but this request went far beyond that. Apophis was asking her to betray the technological secrets of her species!
Yet, even though she initially rebelled against this concept, another problem came to her mind.
Antanria knew absolutely no one in this new world except for Apophis, and he was so incredibly powerful that he could surely protect her from any danger. Despite herself, Antanria understood that she had developed an attachment to Apophis, subconsciously emotionally seeing him as a substitute father figure.
But she also knew that this attachment was not completely reciprocated. Apophis was a strange person with his own goals and motivations… and protecting her was clearly not at the top of the list. Even his words about needing to escape the planet seemed obvious lies—or at least words intended to manipulate her into helping, even if they were true.
But even if she understood this, what choice did Antanria have?
To protect herself, both physically and emotionally, Antanria had to prove herself to be absolutely indispensable to Apophis! She had to remove any possibility that he might abandon her in the future!
Upon this decision, Antanria finally spoke up. "This place is a corvette shipyard, a dormant one. Though it is empty at the moment, this machinery can automatically assemble a whole fleet! Nevertheless, only specially trained technicians from my people have the knowledge to begin such an assembly."
Apophis was impressed and regained his optimism. "Thank you," he said, and rubbed the top of her head, making Antanria blush in surprise!
But Apophis paid no attention to this reaction. He looked around at the nearly empty chamber, trying to estimate how many ships might one day fill its vast emptiness. "Fortunately," he said, "I already have a Zetark corvette blueprint, which I found at the high command base."
Antanria was surprised! A strange, eerie feeling came over her. It was uneasy and almost overwhelming. She didn't think Apophis had just lied to her again, or that he had known this was specifically a corvette shipyard to begin with. No… It seemed more and more likely that fate had ordained that Apophis be the one to find her and wake her up.
But what could that mean for the future?
However, Antanria kept her emotions under control as Apophis gave her the blueprint and asked her to begin assembly.
Having no other real option, Antanria fed the blueprint into the shipyard's main computer and then interacted with the systems, watching carefully for errors. "Good!" she said at last. "The computer recognized the plan without issue. Now we only need to find materials!"
Trade Notification: Antanria requested 300,000 GC to assemble a [Zetark Experimental Corvette (Rare)].
"Accept," Apophis said at once. It was quite handy that the computer could somehow convert raw value into the required resources.
Antanria nodded in satisfaction after the trade was completed. "Well, everything seems to be in order! According to the computer, the construction will finish in three days."
Apophis didn't care about construction delays. After all, a hostile Federation fleet was orbiting the planet! Despite what he'd said to Antanria, it would be idiocy to try flying away right now. If he did, the Federation fleet would probably shoot him down immediately!
Just as he thought this, a notification popped up.
Server Announcement: "Federation troops have landed on Era! For the duration of the war, NPCs and players will receive and reward additional EXP."
It was time for Apophis to make a lot of EXP!