Chapter 26

Year 3, Day 170, Endeavour, Terra Prime.

"No!" Matt said, his voice firm.

"Oh come on, it's perfect, we need the skills" Alexander whined. The pair were sitting in Alexander's office discussing his latest bright idea.

"Alex you can't go around the universe stealing historically important people just because we need them" Matt said, rubbing his forehead.

"Why not?" Alexander asked, "How do we know that any of the people on Terra Prime right now aren't historically important in some way"

"We don't" Matt said, "But there is a difference between accidently screwing up a universe by recruiting someone and deliberately doing it" the American paused, "wasn't that the exact argument you used when Buzz came up with the idea of a recruiting... what was it? An X-DOM engineering team?"

"X-COM, and that one was one of them," Alexander admitted, "but mainly I was afraid they'd dissect me"

Matt shook his head, clearly not understanding the fear XCOM inspired even in a being of Alexander's power, "It doesn't matter, it's a bad idea, and that's why you shanghaied me into this little empire of yours; to tell you when you're doing something stupid"

"But I wanted Tesla to make me a raygun!" Alexander pouted, admitting defeat.

Year 3, Day 290, Low Earth Orbit above Terra Prime.

Alexander floated gently in space as Terra Prime rotate slowly beneath him. He sucked on the last dregs of the 'nutrient solution' that passed as food inside his armour, it honestly wasn't that bad, sort of tasted like a luke warm chocolate milkshake. He could have popped back down to Endeavour or Solitude for a real meal easily, but once he got over the initial wrongness of zero-g and the endless night he really did love spacewalks.

Firing his thrusters Alexander spun around and went back to work. In front of his was Terra Prime's first spacecraft, the I.S.V Foundation. They'd had access to space before hand, but Alexander's limited carrying capacity had hampered things a great deal. It was fine for putting up comm-sats and other minor stuff, but if they wanted more they needed a better way; and that was where the Foundation came in. It looked like the bastard offspring of an X-Wing and a Space Shuttle, compared to where they'd source most of the technology used in it's construction it really was pathetic. It lacked any form of weapons, it's shields were only good for stopping micrometeorites, it didn't even have artificial gravity, and a trip to the moon would take many hours, but it was theirs, they had built it, a city state of a few thousand people, ninety percent of whom came from pre-industrial cultures had built a working spaceship.

The Foundation was a major step up in their ability to put things in orbit, it had a cargo capacity of fifty-four metric tons, almost double that of the Space Shuttles of Alexander's world, and unlike the retired vessels the Foundation didn't need the obscenely expensive and complex booster system to put it in orbit. It was a true SSTO craft, capable of taking off and landing on a normal, if very very long, airstrip.

It was the Foundation's fifth time in space, the first three times it had been flown via remote to ensure it wasn't going to blow up on everyone, and the fourth time it had only been Alexander and two pilots going up; just incase something did go wrong, Alexander had been present so he could transport them back to the ground safely.

Today was the little ship's first real mission, it was fully loaded with equipment and personal, in fact it was so full Alexander couldn't hitch a ride, he'd had to transit himself and a few other personal down from the ground up into space.

During the planning sessions for the mission he'd be tagged as the designated 'safety officer', because he was pretty much the ultimate in search and rescue. He'd already had to take one person back down, after they'd suffered a major panic attack, but that was okay, he knew how they felt, if wasn't for the utter certainty that he could leave at anytime, he thought he'd likely be in the same state.

As Alexander drifted towards the Foundation and the expanding complex around it his mind drifted towards another option that had been presented during the planning sessions. Viriathus was a smart man, but his education had been hit or miss during his time in Endeavour, so during the early stages he'd suggested that instead of building the Foundation that they should direct all the resources towards the sliding drive instead.

After all, why bother with carting things up into orbit if you could simply open a portal and send everything up at once. The reaction that had got had been legendary, almost everyone at the table had blurted out various "No" "Hell No" and "God NO". The former roman slave had been surprised at the reaction, but once everyone calmed down, they explained that space was a vacuum and as such it sucked, literally, so opening in a portal inside an atmosphere was a bad, bad, idea.

It was then that Viriathus had proven his intelligence, he'd simply nodded and asked why couldn't we build a giant airlock on the ground and open a portal there. There had been much facepalming. Alexander later asked his friend where he got the idea, and Viriathus shrugged and said he'd developed a love of submarine films.

In the end they'd decided to go ahead with the Foundation anyway, if for the experience in building their own ships as much as anything. The research into replicating and modifying the sliding drive was still in it's infancy.

As Alexander got closer to the little ship he could see in his mind's eye the shape of the finished project. It was simply easier to build in zero-g, so they had long ago decided they needed a permanent presence in space, to that end they had designed a space station that would, in time, grow to be the heart of a larger orbital complex. The 'small' station would be many times the size of the International Space Station back home, but then again they had many advantages over the natives of Alexander's homeworld.

The Foundation had carried up the start of the station's skeleton, large girders that were being cold welded together. Later they'd start on the internals, for that they were mostly using 'off the shelf' technology sourced from the Star Wars universe, artificial gravity, life support, power plant, and so on. It wouldn't be as satisfying as using their own tech, but it would be a lot easier.

They'd decided on a rhombus, or diamond, shaped design that would later become the central core for the larger complex. It was going to be 'taller', four decks, in the centre, tapering off to a single deck at the 'points' that would become the connection points.

They were looking to do six missions a month at this stage, and it would take them at least four months, at best estimates, to complete the framework and skin of the as yet unnamed Space Station.

Alexander was planning on hosting a competition for the school children, allowing them to suggest names and picking the best. He had planned on allowing them to vote, but after some consideration he decided he didn't want them getting into that habit.

"Control to Paladin..." Alexander's radio hissed to life and he went back to work.

Excerpt from Alexander Harlow's Personal Journal. Year 3, Day 315, Endeavour, Terra Prime

I knew we were having a baby boom, but this is fucking ridiculous! Almost a quarter of our female population is pregnant.

Matt dropped the latest stats on my desk this morning and I was sure it was a mistake, I might not know much about human reproduction statistics, but I'm damn sure having one in four women about to pop isn't normal.

I spoke to Eddie about it and the damn woman laughed at me! Apparently it's all my fault, I don't even remember saying it, but supposedly I made a comment during one of our monthly public meetings about how we could stand to increase our birthrate a bit more...

The ninety percent of our population that I rescued from slavery took my off-hand comment as a divinely mandated 'Go Forth and Multiply' command...

I really need to watch my mouth.