SWORD ONE. The first ever colony in human history that is… semi-ready for human settlement.
Shaped to look like a sword, well, it doesn't have sharp edges or anything like that. The core body of this station is a line with a circular colony close to the top.
This circular section is attached to the line piece by four structural pillars; the circular piece is rotating around the centre with the four pillar pieces.
The pillar pieces function like train lines, which will take goods to the colony.
"Whoa… It's huge! Guys… how quickly did you build it?" Kallen exclaimed with a wide mouth as she saw the colony in front of her as their warships were approaching it.
"As you can see, we did build it." Marcus chuckled as his eyes went to another three SWORD being assembled not far from where the colony is. These stations lack the circular sections.
"I am not questioning the obvious!" Kallen replied with red cheeks. Instead, she complained about how absurdly quickly they built the colony! Even with a robotic labour force, this thing is kilometres big!
"I am saying that this is huge!"
"It's easy because it's big. Such objects are easy because they are simple. The hardest part was refining the metal of this size.
But because we are in space, it's easy." Marcus explained to them.
"There is no resistance from strong gravity. Now let's go, we will be docking soon." He motioned them to come with him as the warship would be docking at SWORD ONE.
By the time they arrived at the catapult deck, the warship began alignment sequences with the docks. It took a while, as the station, just like everything in this Cosmos, is constantly moving.
Eventually, the doors opened, and on the other side, they saw black armoured soldiers with rifles waiting for them. At the front were Anna and Nina, who were smiling brightly.
Not even two more girls in their circle could affect their happiness!
"Marcus, we are finally here! Amazing, isn't it! We already have thousands of people who applied to move into this Colony." Anna brightly said to him as she walked over to the edge.
The inventor immediately noticed that there is gravity in this section.
"Oh my. It would seem Gen 3 is already showing its fangs." The inventor commented as he landed in the station section and felt his momentum end. He almost stumbled forward; the same was applied to the rest, as he needed to catch his girls one by one and not make them face-plant into the colony's station floor.
"Well, installed gravity in sections that we would need and in certain parts we have left the zero gravity as it's more productive that way," Nina replied, scratching the back of her head as she forgot about the sheer change from no gravity to Earth's artificial gravity.
"I do apologise as we need to improve the transitioning." Nina apologised as she was the one who applied this.
"Don't worry. This is still new to us." Marcus smiled as he, alongside his ladies, began to look around. This was the first time that he was inside the finished product.
"Yes, I will improve on this," The girl seriously nodded as she would make it better!
He nodded as he motioned to move on.
"Let's go, it's time for the tour," Marcus said while looking at his girls and the two new girls.
"Right! Leave it to me." Anna smiled as he walked over to Leila and hugged her.
"Come, Leila! Let me show all the stuff I did!" The pinkette said with an excited tone.
"Hmm? No hug for me?" Marcus complained after seeing the hug.
Anna blushed when she heard that. But still in the end, she walked over and hugged him, though she was heavily embarrassed!
When she did, Marcus chuckled for a second before patting her.
'This girl is head over heels for the Prince… sheesh, same with that other glasses girl.' Liliana noticed that these two are even worse than the three they came with.
"These two are from my R&D team. Anna Clement is responsible for Colony development, and Nina Einstein is responsible for Fusion Reactor and Artificial Gravity development."
The pair of newbies looked surprised! These two were working on that!?
"Y-You mean to tell me… they are the ones who built this!?" Marika asked with an open mouth. Now she was really impressed!
"Hehehe. Don't think that I did all of this." Anna raised her hand in her defence. " The infrastructure was designed and built by the Prince. All I did was assist in the process."
"Same, the original blueprints were created by Prince Lelouch; we only assisted a little bit."
Both girls were super humble with their achievements, only confirming for the pair that these two have hots on the Prince.
"...If you say so."
The group walked to the super lift section that is in the centre of the superstructure.
"These lifts run all the way to the hub that leads to the colonies. It's several kilometres away." Anna explained to the girls as they walked into a wide room that would soon take them upwards.
"While we are not at the bottom of the sword, we are just above the manufacturing sections.
Military docks were designed to be in the perfect location where they could be rapidly restored in case of conflicts." The nerdy girl was explaining as the lift began to move.
Before long, they saw that they could see the Earth as they were moving upwards!?
"...Wait… how did…"
"It's direct video broadcast from cameras. It will make you think that the lifts are at the edges of the station, but you are not." Nina explained to them as the girls almost started questioning how magically they moved like that!
"...The power of artificial intelligence." Marcus nodded as he indeed liked this little touch of style. Since they are in space, why not use the natural views they get from such a location?
Watching the Earth at a far distance on its side is beautiful.
"Impressive, I do like this. I can only imagine the views on other planets." Leila commented as she looked at the Earth, she could only imagine gas giants or even Venus or Mars.
"Now you are thinking like me." Marcus joked as he was thinking the same thing.
"We added this with that in mind." Anna nodded with a smile.
"Great. We are on the same page." The Inventor Prince was pleased. His girl are slowly starting to think like him.
"First floor we will check is the garrison." Nina interrupted as she could see a 'pink' atmosphere slowly manifesting between the pink glasses girl and her crush!
"Oh, nice. I want to see how you girls designed this." The fluffy atmosphere was gone the moment the green-haired girl spoke about the military installations available in the core piece of the colony.
The lift stopped and the doors opened, revealing a mobile suit garrison. The machines were attached to the walls. It was a whole battalion of Setanta Mobile Suits.
The 'Garrison' is more like a wide hangar that stretches across the entire floor, with four exit routes, allowing troops to launch from all four sides for rapid deployment.
Marcus and the girls walked deeper into the garrison. The prince could see racks of beam rifles, anti-beam shields, and heavier weaponry, such as anti-ship rifles, which are of greater calibre.
Lastly, in the very centre of the garrison was a selection of small spaceships, there are for troop transportation.
"...Amazing… this is a huge hangar!" Marika commented.
"Yeah, just look how many machines can be deployed, this is amazing!" Kallen nodded as she was impressed.
"Not just deployment." Anna chipped in as she began to reveal the most broken part of this. " We are just a few floors below the manufacturing floor, where more mobile suits can be made in a matter of hours.
As long as there is a steady delivery of resources, this is not just a garrison but a forward base that can be used for an invasion.
Not to mention it can move as there are Ion Thrusters attached to the hull." The pinkette dropped something that made the girls stare at her in awe.
"T-Then this is not just a colony… this is a colony ship!" Leila said with shock as she looked at Marcus. He didn't look surprised! Meaning that he knew!
That made her puff her cheeks.
"You didn't say anything!"
Marcus shrugged.
"Two of five colonies will move to Mars and Venus, where work will start to colonise those worlds.
The manufacturing on infrastructure will start in these stations, which will spread around their respective worlds."
The girls who didn't know that small detail looked with realisation.
"So these are movable colonies… not only that, but people can continue to live on them even if they can't move to the world below.
Amazing!" Leila exclaimed as she wondered how the colonisation process would happen! It will be gradual!
Not only that, but more SWORD colonies can be built if people need time! They have the means to do it; all they need is raw materials, which are abundant in space.
"You look excited. I thought you already realised that WOULD HAPPEN." Marcus highlighted that he is committed to space, no matter what.
Even if he has another huge project in the form of Polar City, he found in Antarctica.
"No. I knew this would happen, but I didn't know the details." Leila smiled as she went over to cuddle with him. This caused Nina to get annoyed again.
"Now that we checked the garrison, let's move to the HUB." She said with a small frown.
'Someone is jealous~.' Marcus chuckled internally as he kept his blonde girlfriend close by, holding her hand.
The group returned to the lift, which took them to a huge railway station. The most noticeable part of this is that everyone could see moving walls at a distance.
"...T-These are the support pillars, right? They…are enormous!" Marika commented as she was looking up. Seeing something of this size to move is humbling to say the least.
Like the saying goes: in space, everything is bigger!
"Indeed! We designed the pillars to operate like railway lines that deliver goods back and forth. We stacked up so that at once 40 lines are operational." Anna fixed her glasses while dropping this information; she was proud of this achievement.
"I can assume that timing is important." Leila realised that there are stationary sections, and that one would need to aim at the right timing before moving in.
"Indeed. However, we have several steps for that, and in case of emergency, the platforms are movable." Anna explained, they have thought this through after all!
"I see. I mean it is a bit dangerous as the colony needs to move while the central piece is stationary." The blonde nodded as she looked around. It was impressive feats of engineering, regardless.
"Can we move into the colonies? Are they not ready?" Liliana asked as they were talking about living in space, which is making her all excited to see the real deal!
"They are… semi-ready. However, there is a considerable amount of land that is still dirt. The grass is still spreading; this part is something we can't rush." Anna explained to the newbies.
"Apart from that, we have moved in essential animals that will help in maintaining the ecosystem. We made sure to select specific species that don't have things like a magnetic field, like certain birds that migrate." The pinkette continued to explain with a proud tone.
"Besides, I thought that we could use colonies for preservation purposes." Anna looked at Marcus when she said that.
He smiled at her before nodding.
"If this is what you want, we can design a station just for that." The inventor nodded at her suggestion. If this is what she wants, he is more than happy to fulfil her wish.
Though this was seen by the rest, even the newbie began to feel a bit jealous!
A pet project of that scale!
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