Two weeks passed since the destruction of the yellow section and everyone was doing their best to contribute to the plan.
Some of the ladies from the yellow zone were healthy enough to leave the med bay and after registration they went to look at the dock's but they were not ready for what they saw.
When Tommy and the others told them everything about the plan they all agreed to help because it was way better to at least try to escape instead of just waiting for death.
They believed that everyone was helping but they never thought that they were so efficient.
Right before their eyes a fighter craft was dismantled at a record speed.
Everyone working in the dock had their roles: some dismantled the ships, others loaded the materials onto the grav carts and there were a lot of those,then the materials were transported away.
The next day some of the women went to help with the dismantling and they were in shock that no one scanned their implants.
When they asked about it they were stunned by the answer..
-We don't have to do it, since Anne wrote a program that does it for us.
Not everyone went to work in the dock, the middle aged woman turned out to be another engineer,another woman was a nurse and there was also another soldier amongst them.
Another shock awaited them a few days later when it was time to bring in the next batch of ships.
This time nobody even thought about using the harpoons,they used newly repaired tractor beams and brought in larger ships.
Dock 1 was now occupied by a medium sized cargo vessel and dock 2 had a destroyer in it.
The other two docks remeind empty.
Dock 3 was in the middle of being repaired and it looked like it would take another two weeks to bring it back to working order.
-So Anne,how much of the materials do we have right now?
Asked Tommy, they were in the control center.
-We have quite a bit but if you want to start building the ship then we need to wait for around another week at least.
She answered while looking through her logs.
-We have to wait another two weeks for the repairs in dock 3 to be completed so we have enough time.
What we need now is to design the ship and I don't know anyone here that could do it.
I found some designer software but it's not as simple as i thought.
-Well then you're in luck. I just happen to know someone who was a ship designer before she was sent to the yellow section.
Anne said with a smile and grabbed her radio.
-Jess,come in.
-What is it Anne.
-Come to the control center. I need your help with something.
-On my way.
A few minutes later there was a woman he didn't recognise standing before him.
-Tommy met Jesica, she was just released by Alice three days ago so i don't think you met before.
-Jess This is Tommy he's something like a boss of this entire operation.
-It's nice to meet you.
-Now you said that you needed my help.
Said Jess, without any more pleasantries.
-Yes we need someone to design the ship we'll be building and Anne recommended you.
Tommy explained.
-You have the right person but i need more information about what you want to build.
Jesica said and her eyes shone,it was evident that she loved to design things.
-We want to build a cruiser that is fast,has the best defense we can put in it and packs enough of a punch to either destroy or force to retreat anything that the nobles can throw at it.
Tommy shared his vision of their ship.
-That's a tall order, you basically want a fast moving space fortress.
-Well i'm not the designer so just do your best that's all i'm asking of you.
-Do we have a design program somewhere and how much time do i have?
-Yes we do and we want to start as soon as dock 3 is ready which is in around two weeks.
After hearing that Jess grabbed a tablet and turned to the exit waving Tommy to go with her.
They went to the central area to sit down.
-I will design the ship for you but I have a condition.
She said after they sat down.
-What is your condition?
-I want a free hand on the design, in other words i will put anything you want in this ship within reason but i want to design what goes where and how the ship will look like.
She states seriously.
-I can agree to that but like i said it has to be powerful, both offensively and defensively,it also needs to be fast enough to escape from anything it can't defeat.
He agreed and repeated his demands for the ship.
-Ok so let's go from the start. What exactly do you want me to put on the design?
She asked while preparing the tablet to take notes.
They spent most of the day talking about what to input on the design and Jesica's eyes shone brighter and brighter when the ship started to take shape inside her mind.
It took her two days just to ask everyone about what they wanted to add to the design.
Most people told her that they didn't know and sent her to the people that might want to add something.
In the end Alice wanted enough space for a med bay.
Paul told her to add a fuel collector,water collector and a gas collector so that they could replenish their supplies from any source.
Simon added an armory on every deck and some internal defense turrets.
Monic and Jakob wanted to add the navigation room.
Garry added some salvage drones along with a small processing plant.
And the list just went on.
Two weeks later she presented her first design. It still needed more work but it was enough for them to start the construction.
Everyone was very impressed with her work and the bags under her eyes were proof that she spent a very long time creating it and managed to do it in a very limited time.
There were some questions and she answered to the best of her ability.
Simon asked about the armaments and was shocked when she answered.
-You see when Tommy said that this ship needed to be able to destroy anything that it can't outrun i decided to put kinetic weapons on it because over the last 300 years or so every ship built for combat was designed to use and defend against the energy weapons.
So there is a very good chance that even their shields will not defend against a kinetic projectile.
That said, even with all the storage for the ammunition we should avoid any large battles.
There are also torpedo tubes ,rocket launchers,energy weapons and point defense lasers.
Paul asked about the power systems .
-There are two main and one reserve reactors so this ship has the same output as a battleship.
Tommy asked about the shields
-This bad boy has two sets of shields,when one set is depleted the other one will activate in order to buy time for the depleted set to recharge.
That is my original feature so no one else should have it.
After some more questions Tommy thanked her and sent her rest ,she protested claiming that she still had a lot of work on this design but when he told her that the frame work alone would take close to two months to complete she relented.