"A ferry?" Donovan looked at the 'request' from the Holifanians, primarily the requirements. "Industrial equipment as well? Will we have the budget for this?"

  "If we need to dip into the resources intended for Trawlers, then so be it. The situation on the ground is far too dire." Arc hadn't manifested himself during Donovan's conversation with the engineers, but he had been 'present' in the tablet. The words of the engineers did not escape him, words which painted a picture much worse than they had anticipated. "Lumber aside, their inability to effectively move rge quantities of manpower and materiel will make certain objectives of ours difficult to accomplish. The concrete issue alone raises arms."

  Donovan cringed, the urge to massage his temples growing by the second. In the most simple of terms, they were fucked. All of the pns Donovan and Arc had put together, months of work and theorizing, had been swept aside in moments. They weren't useless per se, they simply didn't apply to the current situation. Too many assumptions about Holifanian capabilities had been made, particurly their ability to work without an existing industrial or supply center. Good faith or not, most of them had been wildly off base, and now they were going to pay the price. Well, Donovan wasn't really of the mind that they were being hit with some added cost, at least not yet, and more just assumed that they had incorrectly estimated the cost to begin with.

  "From the description of their situation, both Diana's conversation with Seppard and your's with the NG's, as well as the aerial imagery you took, how far behind are we?"

  "Not even at the starting line. It might take a few months to reach our anticipated baseline depending on pace, hence my desire to sacrifice Trawlers for terrestrial construction capacity." Donovan whipped the Pegasus around as fast as it could, an action spurred by growing frustration. "We may have to give up on the rail network for a time and devote that concrete to industrial applications."

  "No. We'll need the rail to keep what little industry we build at maximum efficiency."

  "I agree, but a three meter gauge is going to be too expensive in the short term. We will need to drop down to something more manageable so we can utilize lumber sleepers. I believe we should be able to manage with a meter gauge."

  "A meter gauge?" Donovan tried to remember where something that small hade been used historically, his only hit being colonial resource extraction. "You want to use a narrow gauge? For heavy industry?"

  "We would be able to y it down much quicker and cheaper than standard gauge, let alone double gauge, minimizing the amount of work needed to uproot it as well. The lighter payloads should permit sharper turns and higher average speeds across short distances." Arc had probably run the numbers on this already. He was telling Donovan what the right option was here, but phrasing it in such a way that he had a 'choice'. "Derailments would not be as disastrous either."

  "And it could provide enough construction and operation experience to reduce problems when we get our mega-rail as well." Donovan was already on board though. Even he could see that something as rge as double gauge wasn't practical yet, the resources were needed elsewhere. "Alright, switch everything to light rail . . . well, we were going to need a ferry anyways."

  "At some point, yes." They hadn't bothered designing a craft to ferry the cars for the stupidly rge train their rail-pn called for, recognizing it to be something they needed specifics of to even start. "The train cars should provide us with a clean upper bound on size and mass requirements, the double gauge cars that is. We should be able to transport heavy duty vehicles in full that way."

  "Agreed. Do you have a locomotive for the meter rail designed already?"

  "A heavily modified version of an airport passenger tender I had on file. Should I apply the integrated independent operability philosophy into these cars as well?"

  Arc was referring to a design decision made on the double gauge cars that would allow each to be operated independently, possessing batteries, generators, electric drives and a small control compartment to drive them manually. Naturally they could be controlled as a collective when linked, each car contributing their own driving and braking power to the train, as well as being remotely controlble by Arc. The end goal was, of course, to have the entire rail network centrally scheduled and controlled by him with the capacity for manual intervention in case of an emergency.

  "To a limited degree. We should split them into cars with drives and cars with batteries to cut down on volume and construction costs, as well as introduce engine cars with generators, drives, and more complex controls that are more focused around moving people. I think having a control station on each car would be a little much for a meter rail."

  "I am of the same mind. I propose a one seven two split between engine, cargo, and passenger cars. Cargo cars will have to be designed to fit the type of payload they are servicing, but the overall modifications should not be an issue. I fear the bigger problem will be railyards."

  Donovan closed his eyes and groaned. Railyards were going to be a total pain in the ass, if only because they represented a massive construction cost, one that would need to be ripped out once they switched to their desired rail size.

  "At the cost of being a bit of a waste in the moment, we could design our railyards with the intent to upgrade them ter."

  "Let's do that." Donovan jumped at the opportunity to save himself from further headaches. "We could even perform upgrades while the yard is operating."

  "I would recommend against that, but it remains a possibility. Should we move on to the other pressing transportation issue?"

  "Bridges?"

  "Indeed."

  The next most annoying issue for Donovan, after the trains and transportation network more generally, was definitely the river. The river the Holifanians had pced their settlement next to was a massive body of water, exhibiting a level of flow simir to the Mississippi River by Arc's estimation, and it was evidently far from the rgest. The river it once was had been blocked off by something like a mountain-slide, leaving only the tributaries and whatever water seeped through the rubble dam, and it showed in the geography of the 'valley'. The result was that a delta far rger than could be expected from a river of this magnitude extended far out into the sound, lobes where water used to flow leaving fertile soil with kes and ponds to act as water sources.

  To the Holifanian's credit, they recognized that this was exactly the sort of environment the Terrans and Nekh needed. It boasted easy water access for ships, plentiful construction and fuel materiel in the form of lumber, rge tracts of fertile nd to boost the agricultural sector, and a retively calm river that would permit some level of aquatic transport, pushing back the need for nd based transportation infrastructure as well as providing an easy way to expand innd. There were a few small problems, the silty soil of the drained delta meant heavier structures would compress or dispce their foundations, the location would likely experience heavier rainfall and harsher winters, and the ft grade of the area presented a serious risk of flooding, but those could be worked around or solved with sufficient engineering or pnning.

  What couldn't be solved so easily was the issue of the river itself. Rivers and streams presented natural barriers to movement, this one in particur promising to be a headache. The river was rge, in both depth and width, meaning the only ways to transport goods from one side to the other was barges or bridges.

  "We should limit most of our industry to one side of the river until a proper rail bridge can be constructed, permitting agriculture, logging, and the associated housing and amenity construction to continue on the other side." Donovan wanted to centralize as much as possible in these early stages. Reducing logistic strain was tantamount when expanding logistical capacity and capabilities. "Should we experiment with self governance on the other side?"

  "That would be a question for Diana, though I imagine it could provide some benefit." Donovan suggested it to avoid work on his end, however he didn't think there was much he could do on the other side until a bridge could be built. Arc was more interested in understanding how they would organize themselves without urgent direction, that data could be used to create models reted to popution movement and colboration.

  - - - - -

  "How much longer?" Donovan woke up from his nap to see that satellites were still being loaded into the chin turret.

  "Five minutes. This is the st one."

  "Is there anything else we need to do? Set up approach beacons or whatever for the Holifanians?"

  "When we return, or perhaps once we prepare to leave for Nekh. As discussed, they do not possess a method of docking consistent with our standards, nor will they have the ability to follow beacons. I will need to construct a series of docking arms to catch them as they pass and secure them so resources can be collected." An image of what Arc had in mind rotated on the holographic dispy. He had a propensity for efficiency over aesthetics with these things, something which was appreciated by Donovan, but he had to wonder if there was a way to make it less . . . creepy?

  "Do you think the sailors will keep calm with that thing?"

  "Probably not, but they should get used to it with time."

  A little galley appeared on the projection, evidently a demonstration of its operation. Three arms extended out towards the boat, cws fully open as they got into position. The prongs of the cws then closed in, the outer cws securing the deck and keel, while the third made sure it would not slide out. It was then pulled closer to the main apparatus, replete with a set of smaller mechanical cws and lifts to get everything off the galley. Once all of the relevant cargo had been retrieved, the big arms pushed the ship out to a safe distance and then gradually released it.

  "Is that really the most efficient we can make it?"

  "What would you propose? The design of these ships isn't exactly conducive to streamlined operation. They may possess simir traits, but are ultimately unique in yout."

  "They are being serviced one at a time, occupying the catcher at every step. Why don't we have the grabber arm bring them somewhere they can tie up themselves, then have a system that dispces them a safe distance once they are done?" Donovan wasn't really sure how to expin it, but these ships could clearly dock in space. He had seen it done while in the Sanctum.

  "The side masts would cause issues." Arc demonstrated its point in a simir mock-up.

  "Those can be retracted quite easily, if I remember correctly. They have to dock somehow, you know."

  "If this is the case, then I agree that changes can be made. Of course, we will need to develop some procedure to ensure no damage is brought to these vessels and ensure the incoming crews are familiar with it. Any decreases in efficiency at this point will be much more painful than we can handle."

  "Off to Sol." Donovan sighed, pulling away from their factory once the signal had been given. Even now he could see the it hard at work, smelting or welding together whatever resources had been stored in transit. Notably, there was now a set of four long 'whiskers' protruding in a tetrahedral fashion, though you would only be able to see them if you squinted. Now Arc would be able to communicate cleanly across pretty much any AM channel the Holifanians decided to use. It was also going to act as the waystation for communication between them and the Archbishops. "Off to home."

  - - - - -

  "What are you doing?" Donovan was shaken from his concentration by Arc's question.

  "Sorry, could you repeat that?"

  "What are you doing?"

  "Um, training my ability to use Split?" Donovan couldn't do much else at the moment, and he was tired of studying. "How did you know I wasn't asleep?"

  "Aside from your pulse not being indicative of a sleep state, the Split sensors indicated that there was some degree of movement in your vicinity." Donovan had sort of forgotten about that thing. The readings on it were much harder to interpret than his own senses. "I was slightly concerned because they were indicating changes somewhere in their immediate vicinity."

  "I'm not doing anything dangerous."

  "I wasn't accusing you." Donovan's eyes opened, slowly, to the mess of interstelr travel. They didn't have a fleet to attach to this time, so there wasn't much else besides a distorted star scape. "I was only curious."

  "About what?"

  "Split, and how it feels to use."

  Donovan frowned. This had been a touchy subject in the past, senses being something Arc wasn't equipped to comprehend. He didn't mean to say that Arc was incapable of feeling, seeing, or hearing, but there was a definitive difference between the way these senses registered. For humans, they defined the world around them. For Arc, they were just another set of data.

  "You want me to describe it to you?"

  "If possible. I have some understanding of how interactions with it can be initiated mechanically, so that won't be necessary. I desire a summary of the feelings and sensations it provokes, as well as your thoughts on it. Would you describe it as aggressive or calm? Hot or cold? Perhaps some combination? How does it respond to your provocations? And what muscles do you need to use to move it about? Those types of questions."

  "Oh." Donovan supposed that wouldn't be too hard. Arc wanted some type of visualization, or at least he wanted Donovan's visualization. "I can do that, I think."

  cakeonfrosting