Jessica was in her room working on the designs of power armors and she had a problem.
She wanted those armors to have personal shields but when she added the shield generator the energy consumption was too great and that limits the operation time and she couldn't add more power cells without making the whole suit bigger which also required more power.
This frustrated her to no end and finally she decided that it was about time to ask for help.
She grabbed her radio and called in the reinforcements.
When Tommy,Paul,Martha,Sonya and Simon arrived and heard about her problem they were all speechless .
-This is a very ambitious project you have here.and i heard that the military also tried it once but had the same problem you do.and as far as i know they never solved the problem that's why the modern power armors don't have shields.
Simon was the first to speak.
-Well I want to design the best power armor I can, especially when I will be wearing one myself.
She said.
-Ok then young lady lets try to outdo the military.
Paul looked amused by this challenge.
-How long can the armor function with and without the shields?
Sonya asked.
-Without the shields it can operate for 48 hours in normal conditions and between 12 and 20 hours in combat conditions.
With the shields on it can work for around 22 hours in normal conditions and in combat conditions it depends on how many hits it takes.
Hearing that everyone was in deep thoughts.
-Can't we keep the shields off line and only activate them when we need them?
Simon asked.
Everyone looked at him for a while and then started laughing.
They weren't making fun of his idea but they laughed because this was the solution they needed and it was a simple one.
Simon was confused until Sonya explained that his idea was genius in its simplicity.
The rest agreed with her statement.
-Well now you have your solution just add a feature that allows the user to control the shield.
Jessica was elated when she got her answer ,at first she thought that it was an unsolvable problem and she just wasted everyone's time.
When everybody left only Simon stayed behind to discuss the weapons design and when he saw what she prepared he was over the moon.
Tommy and the others went back to work, there was always something to repair on this station.
The ships that they wanted were pulled into the dock's and in the process of thawing.
Everyone enjoyed a break especially with the intensity they worked at.
People had some time to rest and talk about their dreams and plans.
Some of them even thought about how to piss off the nobles after they left.
And one of such ideas caught Tommy's attention.
He was sitting in the central area with Simon and Paul when he heard someone mentioning that it would be great if they could rearm the station and set it up to attack any noble ship that approaches it.
Tommy himself had a plan to blow the station up and make it unusable after they left but the idea he just heard was even better.
Why just destroy the station when you can make your enemy do it and maybe even get him to lose some ships over it.
The man who came up with this plan was shocked when Tommy approached and thanked him for it.
-You all heard the idea so what do you think?
Tommy explained what he heard to the leaders of every team at a meeting taking place a few hours later.
-It is doable but to do that we need to activate the self repair drones and get enough materials for them to repair the defense grid and that will delay our departure.
Paul expressed his opinion.
-According to what we would need to do it would add at least a week of material gathering if you want just the cannons but if you want the shields as well then we are looking at three weeks more time.
Anne gave her estimates.
-Actually we will have the time as it will take a few days to produce enough equipment for everyone, not to mention load up the ship once it's finished.
Garry said after a moment of thinking it through.
-There is also no need for us to be here. All we have to do is to bring in ships for the drones to dismantle and we can leave the rest to the drones.
Agnes added her thoughts.
-The problem is that the moment we power up our ship everyone with a scanner will know about it,so there will be no time for the drones to do their work.
Tommy said while shaking his head.
-Actually we won't power up our ship for some time after leaving, we just need to use tractor beams to take us out of the dock and give us some momentum.
In case you didn't notice those ships outside are orbiting this system and we can use that to get out of here without alerting anyone posing as just another abandoned ship.
If we do everything right then in a few days we can get to the outer parts of the system without using our engines and that gives enough time for the drones to repair the station defenses.
Agnes proposed a solution to the problem.
Tommy thought about her proposal and it made a lot of sense.
It sure as hell was better than his own plan of just loading everyone on the ship and getting out as fast as they could.
-I like that plan but if someone has to operate a tractor beam from the dock,how will they get to the ship?
He asked about it because he didn't want to leave anyone behind.
-That's not a problem.
Jess said with confidence.
-They can use power armor, the ones that I designed are both spaceworthy and have small jet engines installed.
-So this plan is possible to execute.
Does anyone have any objections?
Tommy asked while looking at the gathered people.
No one said anything.
-Then this will be our parting gift for the nobles.
Tommy said ending this discussion.
-Next on the agenda is navigation.
Tommy pointed at Jakob.
-Thanks to the help of our pilots and all the data that we pulled from the navigational computers of salvaged ships we now have better maps and we found our destination.
Jakob said while pulling out a holographic display with a star map and a few routes marked with different colors.
-To get out of the empire we can choose only three places:Suweren Worlds Coalition,Democratic Planets Council,Independent Free Worlds.
These three are the closest to our position and none of them are allied with the empire so that's our best bet to get asylum.
We are in one of the fringe systems of the empire but it will still take us a minimum of three weeks in FTL and more if the empire decides to send someone after us.
If we are lucky and we don't get spotted by one of the border fleets then we can get out of the empire within a month.
I also approve of the plan to use the drifting method in the beginning to get some head start.
-How many supplies can we bring aboard?
Alice asked.
-We can get enough protein bars to last us for over a year and enough water to last us for two months and that's not even counting on the matter converters and water purification.
-Anne answered.
-And what about the fuel consumption?
This time it was Paul who asked the question.
-We can get there without stopping to collect any fuel and we will still have around 20% left even if we chose to go to the Council space which is the furthest.
Jakob answered after looking at his tablet.
-I think that our destination should be the Coalition space. It's the closest location to us and if we manage to get some head start then the faster we leave the empire borders the better.
Said Tommy and everyone nodded.
The meeting was over shortly after and everyone could enjoy the rest of the day off