NABC Chapter 70 The Melting Pot and the Waiting
Chapter 70 The Melting Pot and the Waiting
The Black Pearl remained at its berth for a month.
The crew took turns on leave. The first group to disembark went to the middle and lower nests of Fair Maxim. Some browsed the flea market, some found places to drink, and some simply stood on the observation platform in the upper nest area, staring blankly at the endless cluster of buildings of the nest capital through the armored glass.
Phyllis barely disembarked. The inventory of supplies brought back from the wrecked ship needed to be checked item by item, the equipment serial numbers of the Solar Auxiliary Army needed to be entered into the archives, and the turrets and chassis salvaged from the tanks needed to be categorized and registered. The logistics team's servitude worked day and night, moving sealed boxes from the temporary storage area to the warehouse. The parts boxes temporarily piled up to form low walls in the corridors gradually disappeared, replaced by neat stacks in the cargo holds.
Phyllis and Marcus approached Liu En and suggested that all the spoils from the salvaged ship—except for the eleven Starfortress mechs—should not be sold in Lucis, but instead be transported to Garros.
"Lucis' market can't absorb so much stuff. Just a few pieces of equipment from the Solar Auxiliary Army would cause a stir, and selling a large quantity would attract the attention of the Inquisition," Phyllis said.
Liu En agreed.
Marcus issued a gag order throughout the ship, disseminating it in writing to every department and every crew. The order was brief: No one was allowed to discuss any details of the wreckage voyage, including its internal structure, the types and quantities of salvaged materials, the types and scale of aliens encountered in combat, or the captain's specific actions within the wreckage. Violators would be subject to military law.
The veterans had no objections. Seeing the veterans' attitude, the new recruits wisely kept quiet.
On the twenty-fifth day at berth, Liu En summoned the core members of the Black Pearl to the reception room. Marcus, Phyllis, and Kara sat at one side of the long table.
"Before returning to Lucis, I mentioned to Marcus that the Black Pearl needed expansion. We're short nearly five thousand crew members, and the garrison needs to be increased from twelve hundred to over ten thousand." Liu En glanced around. "We won't recruit these men in Lucis. We'll go to Amegadoton."
Marcus frowned. "Captain, Lucis isn't short of people. There are plenty of skilled workers and professional crew members in the Foundry World willing to join us. Why go to such lengths?"
Liu En looked at him. "You'll see in a few years."
A few seconds of silence filled the meeting room. Marcus didn't press the matter. Phyllis lowered her head and continued swiping on the data panel. Kara lowered her arm and tapped her fingers lightly on the edge of the table.
"I'll handle the situation in Amigiddon," Liu En said. "When recruiting, take their families along. Once everyone is confirmed as hired, their families will board the ship directly. The same goes for the families of the garrison troops. All recruited personnel will be transferred to Garros later."
Phyllis looked up. "Are family members going too?"
"Yes. Not just the newly recruited ones. All the existing crew members, including their families, the families of the garrison—all will be moved to Garros."
Marcus paused for a moment, then slowly said, "Captain, it's not just me who trusts you. Everyone on the Black Pearl, from senior officers to ordinary sailors, knows that without you, there would be no ship."
Phyllis put down the data panel. "There's not much left in my family. It's just me. But can my friend's family take them in? Her husband went missing several years ago while working on merchant ships, and she's raising two children alone. It's very difficult for her in Lucis."
"Okay," Liu En said.
Phyllis lowered her head and picked up the data tablet again. Her fingers didn't swipe anymore, but simply pressed on the screen.
Kara straightened up. "Our garrison has over a thousand men. I'll go back and make a list—whose families are in Maxim's hive, and who's in other hives. We need to arrange for them to be picked up in batches."
"Give the list to Phyllis. She'll coordinate the transportation."
Kara nodded.
Liu En stood up. "Meeting adjourned. Everyone prepare yourselves."
Marcus walked last, stopped at the door, glanced back at Liu En, and then pushed the door open and went out.
Eleven days later, the Temple's tugboat arrived. Eleven Starfortress mechs were transported out of the armory in batches, each wrapped in anti-static shielding material and secured to a heavy flatbed transport plane, slowly towed away along the jet bridge. Vitellius personally assisted with the loading and unloading, the blue halo of his right mechanical eye repeatedly focusing through the gaps in the shielding material, his fingers recording the factory number and casting marks of each mech on the data panel. He stood by the jet bridge, watching the last mech disappear at the end of the passage, turned and nodded to Liu En, said nothing, and followed the tugboat away.
The document granting him the title of Sage hadn't arrived yet. For a month, Liu En hadn't received any news from the Temple. Vitellius had come a few times, each time in a hurry, just for a cup of coffee before leaving. He said the Temple's higher-ups were discussing it; some supported it, some opposed it, and some even proposed confiscating all the Starfortress mechs and giving them nothing. With interests entangled, there wouldn't be a result in the short term. "You're lucky you're tied to the Nazari family," he said, "otherwise, it's hard to say."
Liu En retorted that it wasn't a binding agreement, but merely an exchange of benefits. Vitellius smiled without saying a word.
“Those old guys are making a lot of noise,” Vitellius once said, holding his coffee cup, “but the Starfortress is there, and nobody can deny its value. Eleven complete combat units from the Great Crusade era—not everyone can produce that. Just wait and see.”
Liu En could only wait. This was to be expected; it was never going to be that easy.
The Resolute arrived at Lucis three days after the Black Pearl docked. Captain Hawke moored the ship in the commercial berth of the port area, slightly to the west, several passageways away from the massive Gothic-class cruiser. As he descended the gangway, the port lights made the old scars on his face particularly clear—the slashing line down his forehead, a mark left during a boarding action during his naval service, its color undiminished even after decades.
After completing the port entry formalities, he changed into a clean, dark gray uniform in the port authority's restroom, buttoning the collar tightly. He smoothed his white hair in front of the mirror, then let it down. He then crossed the jet bridge and walked towards the cruiser. He didn't know who the ship belonged to, only that a very important person's ship was docked in Lucis and had invited him to come and talk.
Someone was waiting for him at the gangway. It wasn't a servitor, but a woman in a deep red robe, hoodless, with light brown hair tied in a neat high ponytail. The badge of a second-tier technical craftsman was pinned to her collar.
Hawke stopped, clenched his right fist and placed it against his left chest, performing a standard Eagle Salute.
Vera raised her right hand and waved it, neither returning the cogwheel salute nor the eagle salute.
"Captain Hawke? Vera Nazari. Please come in."
Hawke nodded and followed her down the corridor.
The reception room was vast. A statue of the Emperor loomed overhead, while the smoke from frankincense swirled gently beneath the dome. Two sets of glasses sat on the long table; Vera had already poured herself a glass and gestured for him to sit in the chair opposite her. Without any pleasantries, the data panel was pushed directly towards her.
Liu En didn't show himself. He stood in the corridor outside the reception room, leaning against the bulkhead, listening to the sounds coming from inside. Vera spoke quickly, the tapping of the data panel intermittent. Hawke's voice was deep; he occasionally asked a question, but mostly listened. After listening for a while, Liu En turned and left. The corridor lights shone a cold white light in daytime mode, casting a long shadow on the terracotta floor.
Hawke wouldn't recognize him. Even standing face to face, the young technician who had repaired the cooling pipes in the engine room of the Resolute and the captain of this ship today were two completely different people in Hawke's mind.
Vera's father's connections within the Imperial administrative system and the Naval Logistics Department proved even more effective than anticipated. The settlement permit was granted within a week—official, legal immigration documentation stamped with the Imperial Ministry of the Interior's seal. With this document, the Resolute and other transport ships no longer needed to deal with the mafia when berthing, loading, or departing from Armageddon Port; the Ministry of Justice's patrol boats would no longer question them; and even port fees were reduced.
Vera didn't stop. Through her family's connections at the Lucis Ship Exchange, she purchased ten transport ships in one go—good condition, only a few hundred years old, and ready for service with just simple modifications. The price was negotiated very well; the seller, out of respect for the Nazari family, offered a significant discount. These ten transport ships, along with the Steadfast, formed an eleven-ship immigrant fleet.
Vera put a lot of thought into the crew configuration. About half of the ten transport ships already had their own navigators—mostly veterans who had spent most of their lives on trade routes; their abilities weren't top-tier, but their experience was invaluable. The other half, like the Resolute, had relied entirely on their captains' experience for years. Taking advantage of the refit, Vera also equipped them with navigators—all recruited from the Lucis Merchant Guild and retired personnel; their abilities were sufficient, and they were reliable. Star Speakers were also added; their skill level was generally average, but they had no problem sending and receiving daily communications.
The Resolute had already completed its personnel transport conversion, and this time at the Lucis dockyard, the main focus was on installing navigator and star-talker cabins. As the convoy's lead ship, it required a more robust configuration. The remaining transport ships were all staffed with experienced first officers and bosuns, all veteran crew members recruited from Lucis. Ten ships were docked in the Lucis spaceport's dock area, undergoing sardine-style conversions—removing unnecessary cargo hold bulkheads, adding crew living quarters, and installing redundant life support system piping. Each ship's target carrying capacity was pushed to the limit, not for comfort, but to transport the maximum number of people from Armageddon in the shortest amount of time.
Vera spent her days running around the dock area. Dressed in overalls and non-slip boots, she climbed up and down the cargo holds of the transport ships, personally calibrating the psionic shielding array in the navigation bay, adjusting the communication frequencies of the Star Speakers, and checking every pipe connection. A few strands of her hair often fell loose, and her face was greasy, but her eyes were bright. The technical supervisor in charge of the modifications privately remarked that this Tier 2 technical craftsman was extremely professional.
Liu En didn't show up. He would occasionally speak with Vera via encrypted communication to ask about the progress, and then hang up. Vera would always say a few more words—what stage of modification was being completed, how many crew members had been recruited, how well Captain Hawke and the navigator were getting along—Liu En listened, occasionally giving a soft "hmm." It wasn't indifference; it was his trust in her ability to handle things.
Enpu stood on the edge of the dome of the Great Furnace. Below him was a ten-kilometer-deep abyss.
The dome is hemispherical, with a metallic framework growing out of the rock strata to evenly distribute stress at the top to the sidewalls. The ceramic steel lining is poured layer by layer, with a smooth, polished surface. The highest point of the dome is nearly five kilometers above the ground. Looking down from the top, the artificial light source at the bottom of the furnace appears like a faint star burning in the abyss.
The design of the Great Forge didn't come from nowhere. Years ago, when Enp was still in the Midnesian Hive, he visited the Seventy-Nine Great Forge outside the hive capital. That abandoned industrial area contained massive, ruined forge wreckage, parts twisted and deformed by geothermal activity. He spent a long time among those ruins, not to scavenge—the good stuff from the Seventy-Nine Great Forge had long been taken. He went there to dismantle the forge itself.
No matter how long a furnace has been abandoned, its core structure—the geometry of the confinement chamber, the routing of the cooling pipes, and the layout of the feeding system—remains intact. Enp disassembled and analyzed it section by section, layer by layer. He dismantled the main confinement chamber of the large furnace, its secondary combustion chamber, and its waste slag discharge system. Every piece of material composition information was archived and cross-referenced with the design parameters of the Imperial standard furnace in Marcus's database to identify defects and areas for optimization.
The data had been lying dormant in the database for a long time, repeatedly deduced, revised, and reorganized. Upon arriving at Garros, he handed over the optimized design to the computing hub, allowing the Thinker's mainframe to conduct final iterative verification. The mainframe found the optimal solution among hundreds of thousands of variables and output a complete blueprint for the construction of the great furnace, from the foundation to the dome, from feeding to slag removal.
This is the origin of the furnace beneath Enpu's feet—it was dismantled from the ruins, piece by piece, and then deeply optimized by the computing power hub before finally taking shape.
The furnace has been ignited for several days. The plasma confinement chamber at the bottom keeps the temperature within a controllable range, and the brightness of the core area rises from the bottom through the confinement field, turning the inner wall of the dome a dark red. The enormous melting vessel—a refined gold crucible with a diameter of over three kilometers—contains the first batch of molten metal. The cooling pipes on the outer wall of the crucible appear as dark red streaks under thermal imaging, and the circulating pumps of the coolant emit a continuous low-frequency hum that travels through the air for several kilometers to the dome, causing the refined gold framework to tremble slightly.
The furnace's feed inlet is located in the middle section of the dome's side wall, approximately two kilometers from the bottom. Dozens of engineering machines operate giant grab buckets, dumping roughly refined metal blocks into the feed hopper. Each piece of metal originates from deep underground veins—millions of engineering machines tirelessly excavate through tunnels tens of kilometers deep, their precision-drilling claws stripping ore from the rock walls; loaders unload the ore into transport vehicles, and railcars carry the heavy ore through the tunnels to the underground refinery. The refinery's reduction furnace reduces the metal oxides in the ore into crude metal, casting it into crude metal blocks. Conveyor belts continuously feed these crude metal blocks into the furnace's feed hopper; with each opening and closing of the grab buckets, tens of tons of crude metal blocks cascade down into the hopper, pass through preheating channels, and fall into the molten pool below for final refining and alloying.
From ore to molten metal, from molten metal to castings, from castings to finished products, a complete industrial chain operates day and night on this planet forgotten by the empire.
The slag discharged from the bottom of the furnace—the silicates and metal oxides separated during the smelting process—is transported through sealed pipelines to a chemical plant and a PVC-U plant. The chemical plant extracts elements such as sulfur and phosphorus from the slag for use in industrial raw materials; the PVC-U plant mixes the remaining siliceous slag with additives, presses it at high temperatures to form PVC-U sheets for construction. The heat generated during smelting is recovered and converted into electricity via heat exchangers, powering the entire industrial area. Waste heat from the cooling system is introduced into the domed greenhouse agricultural area to maintain the ground temperature.
There was almost no real waste. Even the materials screened out before refining—low-grade ore fragments, rock fragments, gangue minerals—were not discarded. Engineering servitude loaded them into elevator cars, lifting them from underground to the surface and dumping them into specially designed silos inside the dome. The silos' outlets were connected to mixers, where the servitude added organic matter—compost recovered from the immigrants' household waste and plant residues from the agricultural areas—in precise proportions, mixing it thoroughly before spreading it onto the surface soil of the agricultural areas beneath the dome. Those who had never seen sunlight in the deep nest were growing vegetables using mineral fragments from deep within the earth's crust.
Enp turned away from the edge of the dome. The suspended platform carried him through a passageway in the side wall of the dome and into the finishing area surrounding the furnace. Conveyor belts continuously transported castings—rough blanks, ingots, and semi-finished products—from the direction of the foundry. In the finishing area, mechanics operated various machines to perform precision machining on the castings.
On the third day after the furnace was ignited, the Thinker's mainframe proactively adjusted the temperature curve of the crude refinery, increasing the ore recovery rate by several percentage points. This wasn't a pre-programmed optimization; rather, it found a better path among thousands of variables based on real-time feedback data. Although it lacked self-awareness, it could think. Enpu remained vigilant but didn't intervene. The safest solution at present was to find a Thinker with a true organic soul, extract its soul blueprints, and graft them onto the Thinker's mainframe core, making the soul the dominant entity. Liu En, as the creator, would naturally foster a sense of affinity between the soul and him.
He walked along the corridor toward the elevator shaft. Behind him, the finishing area was brightly lit, and the machines were running tirelessly. The hum of the conveyor belts, the cutting sounds of the machine tools, and the pulse of the coolant pumps intertwined in the corridor to create a deep industrial symphony.
The elevator car carried him upwards. It passed through the finishing area, the foundry, the smelting plant, and the auxiliary buildings surrounding the furnace. On each floor, a different scene unfolded through the car's observation window—on the foundry's mold platform, molten metal poured from the pouring cup into the mold cavity; in the smelting plant's reduction furnace, metal oxides in the ore were reduced to crude metal; in the chemical plant's reactor, waste reacted with acid to produce industrial salts and precipitates. Every floor was in operation.
The elevator slowly ascended from the depths of the underground, then transferred to the rail transit network, passing through the machine servant production line, the wet component incubation workshop, and the Thinker's main brain, finally transferring to another elevator that went directly to the top floor of the Governor's Mansion. The metal door slid open, and the cool white light of the top-floor study illuminated the room. Outside the window, the transparent armor of the dome spread out overhead, and sunlight filtered through the armor plates, casting bright spots of light on the building complex.
The Great Furnace is just the first step. The designed capacity of Furnace No. 1 is sufficient to meet current industrial needs, but Galos needs not just one, but countless. The location for Furnace No. 2 has been determined, and engineering automatons are digging deeper underground. The blueprints for Furnace No. 3 are still being processed within the central computing hub.
The molten metal flowing from the furnace will eventually become the skeleton of the machine gunners, the trusses of the dome, the armor of the ships, the structural components of the weapons and equipment, and the tools in the hands of the immigrants. Countless ores are mined from the depths of the earth's crust, smelted, cast, processed, and assembled into a screw, a pipe, or a piece of armor plate, and finally installed somewhere, perhaps on the water supply line under the dome, or perhaps on a Leman Rustank.