Chapter 41: Chapter 40 – Ace

It was months later when Alpha, with the other heads of Prometheus Station, were heading towards the largest moon of Saturn, Titan. Their ship was slow and cumbersome as it was not just delivering the Abyss Battery, but a whole set of it. With any tools necessary to replicate it and set up a production line on the base, called Hephaestus. Their own traveling time would take more than 3 months, sluggishly going through the planetary system, using Mars’s gravity as a slingshot to speed up as much as possible. Yet it would still take two more months to arrive than Marin’s vessel did. 

“This is unacceptable.” Alpha said, standing in a room with the five lead engineers, all listening to him like little followers. Their previous, perceived superiority was gone, replaced with the attitude of a sponge. They not just wanted to scrub his back but they also soaked up all the things he was telling them. Alpha was getting a feeling of how good it was to have a competent team under him. He was learning from Lizzy as to how to manage them and delegate work while he was also learning how to lead, something he never even thought about doing. 

“If the tests come back good enough, we can start converting the reactor to be the main drive cores of ships!” Keelan said. 

Their meeting was about the apparent dissatisfaction of his with the speed of their vessel. Even if he did not say it out loud, he was also frustrated to be apart from Marin for this long.  Knowing that their speed was that of a snail’s, he was finally pushed over the edge.

“Too slow!” He said again, standing at the end of the oval table, looking at them. “Also, building a dark matter reactor at that size would be… expensive. It wouldn’t be cost effective! It would also need not just a new generation to grow up and be educated how to operate it, work on it but a failure of an Abyss Battery could delete the unlucky passengers from reality! We can’t put that thing on commercial airlines! They are a kind of weapon in themselves! I have a better solution!” He said, bringing up a never before seen schematics from the table’s projector. 

“What is this?” Keelan asked, mused by the complex machine. As they were looking at it, they slowly realized it was a new type of generator, along with its systems and subsystems and a new kind of propulsion for ships… but it was... Amateurish. The way it was drawn up and put together had many errors in itself, typical for those who were not used to making their own schematics.

“It's just… ideas, thrown together!” Alpha said, nodding at them, trying to present himself as confident as possible. Deep down he was feeling such pressure he wanted nothing but to end this presentation and go home to hide under his blanket. It was his first time to draw up a schematic, all by himself. In the past he always modified them. It was easy; He simply saw what had to be modified to produce an image of harmony of the many, little strings. Here? He did it with his two hands, creating something out of nothing. It was filled with mistakes and when he wanted to fix one, two more popped up in their place. It was frustrating and now he had a newfound admiration towards the group. Realizing that making mistakes was part of the process… and he was making tons of mistakes! “I was thinking about the past month since we started our journey. So I just threw it together!” He said which was not a lie.

“Wait…” Keelan said, reading more and more of its descriptions. The details were unorganized, messy and haphazardly written. It was jumping around the different parts that made it up, sometimes going on completely unnecessary tangents. If he didn’t know of their newest board member’s attitude, he would think it was the ramblings of some child who was too excited or frustrated to focus on one thing. But it was starting to make sense. In a weird way. “These are the ramblings of a genius who is also a madman…” He whispered.

“Huh?” Alpha faltered, looking at him weirdly while Lizzy was holding back her laughter, knowing the truth of the matter. 

“This propulsion is… nooo… that can’t be!” Keelan exclaimed, standing up, quickly manipulating the 3D image, rearranging some of Alpha’s ramblings.

“What?” Alpha asked, a bit unsure now, thinking he made some very blatant mistakes.

“Is this… Mr. Alfonse… Is this a 100% efficient hydrogen reactor with its own propulsion system?!” Keelan asked, taking a sharp breath. 

“Uhm…” He looked at Lizzy who just tried not to laugh. “Yes?” He answered, not really finding any problem with it at first... “Oh!” But then he realized it at that moment. He took it too far, again. The current engines that the Hegemony were using were also based on burning or fusing hydrogen. The energy created was sending their ships forward, making them capable of traveling between celestial bodies. It was the most abundant element in the universe and it was easy to handle it and refill any kind of drive. But even the most efficient ones were only still at around 60% or 70% efficiency. Not at a hundred. There was no technology discovered yet that made sure they used 100% of the energy when the ships used their fuel sources. 

“This is fantastic!” Keelan laughed. “We can work this out until we arrive at Hephaestus! Hahahaha! Marvelous! Don’t worry, Leader Alfonse! We are going to iron this out!” 

“Huh…” Alpha nodded, licking his lips. “T-thanks? S-sorry if…”

“Hah! Don’t worry my Dear Leader!” Keelan laughed.

“Don’t. That is creepy.” Alpha shuddered but the others just laughed as Keelan continued.

“You just need to speak your gospel, we, your apostles are going to interpret it! Bwahahaha!”

“I want to meet Marin…” He said, shuddering as he looked into Keelan’s eyes, filled with zealous fire.

…

….

…..

When they finally arrived and docked in, just as Alpha walked off of the ship, a loud shout came from the front.

“Alfy!” 

He immediately recognized the voice and just as he opened up his arms, Marin’s body flew at him, jumping onto him like a lightning bolt. She immediately shared a deep kiss with him, rubbing her face against his, not wanting to get off at all, purring like a happy kitten. Alpha was easily holding her, slowly noticing the white and violet overall she was wearing. It was like a pilot’s jumpsuit, with weird heraldry of a sword and a shield on her shoulders. 

“Did something happen?” He asked as the rest of the team, getting off the ship were not even bothering with the duo. With Keelan’s lead, they were absorbed in discussing the new spaceship engine that they were working on in the past months. 

“A lot!” Marin said, wanting to tell him about it but then Lizzy arrived, grabbing onto her neck like a mother cat, lifting her off from Alpha.

“Let’s get to our cabins first!” She sighed.

“Mom!” She cried out, turning around after she let her go, hugging her strongly.

“Hehe…” She giggled, finally happy that her daughter remembered that she was here too. As she hugged back she raised her eyebrows. “You have grown again?”

“Hm? Ah, no, I’m just wearing a bra that pushes them up and fixes them into position!” She replied happily, grabbing onto her ample breasts, zipping her overall down to her navel, showing it to Alpha with a sly grin.

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“Ah, um! H-hey!” He stuttered, quickly zipping it up for her just to hear her happy and playful laugh, seeing his reaction. She so very much missed teasing him.

“Haaah… this didn’t fix you… It only made things worse…” Lizzy sighed, then she just waved away her troubling thoughts. “Why do you need something like that?”

“Piloting the suit of course!” She laughed as they started to walk, heading towards their new home for the foreseeable future. 

When they arrived at the relatively modest cabin, Marin was quickly getting out of her jumpsuit, wearing nothing but her bra and a tight short under it. She was explaining proudly to her mother and Alpha what she was doing since arriving here.

“At first they had a simulator for the suit that they trained their pilots with. As the base of the suit is nothing more but a loader unit, highly modified of course, it was not that hard to get the feel for it. I asked if I could try it out and guess what!” She grinned proudly, posing before her boyfriend. “It turns out that I am an ‘Ace’ material!” 

“You are?” Lizzy asked, honestly surprised.

“Of course!” Marin pouted but immediately laughed as Alpha happily rubbed her head, turning her pout into giggles. “By now I lead the scoreboards! Both in speed, accuracy, operation time and by the number of maneuvers I managed to string together!” 

“In the simulator or…” Lizzy asked, a bit worried.

“With the real thing, of course! I can’t wait to install the new powersource and see what it can bring out of the suits! The current drive is… lacking! I can feel that it hinders its capabilities! I could go faster! It just… doesn't let me!” 

“Like a real Warrior Princess, huh?” Alpha laughed as Marin winked at him.

“Exactly!” 

“I don’t really like it…” Lizzy said. “I don’t want you to be sent to some dangerous place because of it!”

“Mom…” Marin sighed, smiling at her. “I am an adult. I know you are worrying but… don’t! Even if I am sent somewhere, I won’t go without Alfy!” She said, sticking her tongue out, grabbing onto his hand, pulling it between her breasts. 

“That worries me even more…” Lizzy said, hugging the two. “Just always be careful, okay?”

“Worry not!” Marin said as she started pulling Alpha into the bathroom. “You know what, mom?”

“Hm?” 

“What if we make you a grandkid?” She laughed, making both Alpha and Lizzy flinch but… none of them found the idea that too bad… quite the opposite.

…

….

……

A few days later, Alpha was in the huge, underground hangar. It was bigger than anything he ever saw before, filled with 20, completed Suits of Ares. All of them were without any paint at the moment, showcasing their brushed, metallic surface and their folded armor platings. Many engineers and workers, like little ants were surrounding one, installing the Abyss Battery into its chest, replacing the old drive core. 

“We are going to need to modify some parts of it.” Keelan said, standing next to him. “It fits, but the connections are… not the best. It has room to move around which is not ideal. We need a new way to fix it and let it integrate into the system.”

“I am going to redesign them. I mean the suits.” Alpha nodded as in his head, he was already making the necessary modifications. “It is going to be easy to change some of my old designs.” 

“Your… old designs?” He asked, furrowing his brows. He knew about the suits as their Abyss Battery was specifically designed to be used in them. They were working on it since the first suit’s schematics were put on paper. 

“Hm? Yes.” Alpha nodded, not really understanding why he was flustered. “I designed them back then. I found too many problems with the old loaders and I ended up with these. Being a kid, I just mixed and matched available parts. Now I can design new things so I am going to do that.”

“You… made this when… you were only a kid…?” Keelan gawked.

“Yeah.” He said, nodding, not really paying attention, already used to his weird mood swings. 

“My God…” Keelan whispered, looking at him, wiping his mouth. “Can… can I be the first to see them when you are done with it?” 

“Sure. I will sketch something up for tomorrow!” He nodded as the installation of the new reactor would take up the rest of the day. “I would need your help anyway, to fix my mistakes.” He laughed, happy to rely on someone much more experienced.

On the other hand, Keelan was immensely proud and elevated. His passion was designing and making new things. Meeting Alpha was like having a walking, talking idea factory from which he could put his hands on the most advanced tech possible. This was his own little paradise, to work on something incredible and put his name into the history books. Maybe even have the chance to name something after himself and in turn, become immortal throughout human history.

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