>>6322853It had been a few days since you had been discharged from the medical station. Now you were on a shuttle returning to the Boson Halo Yard; a small ship yard recently constructed in one of the outer orbits of the Higg system.
From the view port you could see a maze of scaffolding covering the side of the shipyard where a tactical nuclear strike had assassinated your predecessor, almost killed you and nearly destroyed the yard itself. For now it would be sometime until ship building capability was restored; an acceptable delay seeing as you didn’t really have any ships to build.
Lord Yarin had charged you with developing new ship designs to aid the Pact war effort against the Imperials. Whatever you and your team came up with would be proto-typed here then sent to the Kornen system for mass production.
After disembarking the shuttle you were ushered into a hastily renovated store room to meet with your new staff. Inside a well built man and a stiff looking woman waited for you.
“Glasner,” the man said coldly while eying you with cool disdain.
“Solei,” you answer, matching his dismissive attitude.
Merik Solei was another engineer, only slightly more junior than you. The man was taciturn, and utterly devoid of imagination. In short; a total kill joy and now he was your deputy.
“I’m surprised they didn’t make you the new head of R&D, your obsession with…” simplistic, boring, uninspired? “...rugged efficiency would have no doubt produced something agreeable to the Fleet.”
Merik’s eyes narrowed at your damning praise but the woman interrupted him before he could reply.
“Lord Yarin felt we needed someone with a more innovative mindset to build the weapons that will win us the war. Sub-Director Solei will serve to keep you grounded.”
You turned to the woman, she was slightly shorter than you and dressed in a well fitted if unadorned uniform. She exuded the kind of no nonsense attitude that was typical of military types. If you weren’t terminally devoted to your craft you might have found her fetching.
“Lieutenant Ferris Gale,” she bowed slightly, no salute for you; you weren’t military. “I will be your main liaison to the Pact fleet. I will relay the Fleets requirements and update you with any relevant intelligence as it becomes available. I look forward to working with you, Acting Director Glasner.”
“Acting Director? Do the powers that be have such little faith in me?”
“You were hardly anyone’s first choice,” her tone was free of judgement, as if she was just stating a fact, but fact or no it still stung. Why couldn’t anyone truly recognise your genius!? Well you’d show them! You’d show them ALL! -”although if we need to replace you, we will likely be on the verge of losing the war, so really it’s a moot point.”
Gee thanks…
>cont 