The Unknowing War (Optimum Project sequel)

Chapter 19

I get stranded on an astroid, and it's all part of the plan.

So, to explain to you how awesome all the tech in the Titan is with all the surveillance equipment covering every inch of the interior hallways, I'm going to say one sentence, ready?

We couldn't find the guy who poisoned me. Miraculous isn't it?

Well, now that I was completely healthy, I decided to do lots of hanging out with my friends for the first week of my being awake. So, besides all my muscular workouts to regain the stuff that had atrophied during my coma, I basically had breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner with Sarah, Bree, or Peter for an entire week.

But, like with most things, it had to end, and we all had to go to work.

***

"Okay, so your first Shattered Zone mission is going to be... Interesting."

I sighed and looked at Pix, "What exactly do you mean by interesting?"

Pix gave me a pained look, "You're going to be placed on a sizable astroid alone to construct a supply and forward operations base."

I stared at him, "I'm mostly okay with that, only because I'm pretty sure I imagined you saying 'alone' in that sentence."

Pix grimaced, "Sorry, but you didn't imagine the 'alone' part."

I tossed my hands up in the air, "Don't we have armies of engineers that could do that? Why am I the one who has to do it?"

Pix smirks, "Well aren't you a whiny baby? We're sending you because the drones won't be able touch you, we updated Tom's hijacking matrix and now you can patch into those automated drones whenever you want."

"And if Bastion decides to send an actual pilot after me?" I countered.

"That's why you're setting up the perimeter cannons first." He sniped back, he tapped out a command on his tablet and a diagram of a defensive turret appeared. "Once these are set up they lock onto anything that has an energy signature, but not an alliance locator beacon."

I slouched back into my chair, defeated. "Okay, fine, you win." I sighed, "When and how do you intend to drop me off at the site?"

Pix smiled, "Well, we need four unmanned transports to carry all the materials and supplies you'll need, and you need to get there as well so you'll take The Dragon down."

I nodded, "Is this being built old school or do I get a Core?"

Pix rolled his eyes, "We're giving you a Core man, we actually want you to build this thing in a reasonable time frame."

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A crash course on Base Cores

So, in the early days of the Space Age (early being a relative term) planetary bases, and a few astroid bases, were built from prefabricated materials and sent to the locations in parts. Most bases didn't have a problem with that, they put it together like you would furniture at IKEA, but, like anybody else who accidentally skips a page in the directions, one or two of the engineers would find themselves with some extra screws or bolts. To put it simply, those engineers had probably really wished they had used those bolts. Then this smarty-pants engineer down on earth comes up with Base Cores, they save a lot of hassle and greatly reduce the possibility of ending up with extra screws.