"My point is, you will need cargo space to store what you grow while it is in transit to the sell location."

I watched as she put the blueprint table back into edit mode and pulled the cargo hold towards her and began to add walls and machinery between that wall and the clone wall. She also left enough room for a small technicians' walkway. She then turned the bay around and added more machines on the other side of the room, leaving enough room between them for another technicians' walkway between the two walls that hid the machinery. The machines had piping that lead from them into the room, to keep what was inside at the optimal condition for long haul transport. Then a blast door was added into the hull for easy unloading. A second blast door was added between the room and the rest of the cargo bay, so if the hull was breached, it wouldn't decompress the entire cargo bay. She then flicked the entire thing over for my inspection.

"I suggest at least this much space, your level one eco habitat won't fill it, which means there is room for expansion, and it won't cost you or me anything, as I already have the licences to make these minor modifications. However, it will take up a quarter of your remaining cargo space."

I nodded my head as I tapped it, sending it back to its location in the ship, before letting out a sigh as I looked at the cargo space that had been halved by these new rooms.

"Alright, but no more taking up my cargo space, I am going to need it ya know."

"Yea, about that… your dad suggested I also offer you one more thing that will take up half of what's left of your cargo bay."

I glanced at the cargo bay then at Clara, and considered telling her where she could shove it, but at the last second I decided that I might as well hear what dad wanted to stick in my ship. Then I could tell her to go shove it.

"What is it?"

"It's called an internal dry dock, there are five of them that come standard on the level 1 carrier, but those are for bigger ships, like your frigate. Your dad used guild funds to purchase for this frigate, a level 1 internal small ship's dry dock licence and blueprint, it will go in here opening up to the hangars so they can fly in from there."

"Wait, wait, wait, why is all this being stuffed into my frigate? It's almost like someone is planning to turn it into a mobile construction base or something."

I almost missed Clara, suddenly glancing towards her left for a few seconds before answering me.

"Uh, well, the arc for England's clan is next door in dock two it's almost finished construction, and it was suggested while you was out cold that the frigate could fly ahead and do prep work for the England clans arrival so they could take over the Solar System and have an easier time defending it. Of course, we were offered money, resources, and a non-aggression pact, in exchange.

"They fucken what!" I screamed.

"They wanted a way to help the English clan a bit more in hopes that they would feel like we still considered them good friends and neighbours, so ya know, they send in the badass frigate with all the guns to make sure the Solar System is ready for inhabiting, and then build a base in an asteroid or something where they can start their expansion."

"How the hell, am I supposed to sell food, when… ooh, English are going to need food so they will buy what I grow then I can come back here and improve my ship some more while more crops grow before I bring them more food."

"Yea, that's one way you could get more credits into your bank account, but then they will probably want you to transport stuff back here to be sold so they can make credits of their own, so they can afford to buy that food."

"Right, they would want that, but they wouldn't have anything there to sell us other than resources, and I don't have the ship for that. Maybe another pilot could take a resource barge or something to buy that from them?"

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I let out a loud sigh as I looked over at Clara, feeling like I was being duped into something I turned slightly as I looked over my ship an idea slowly forming in my head.

"Fine, I'll do it, but I want all the licences to my ship that the guild has, I don't care if new ones are purchased for me or if they are handed over, I just want them so if I have to limp into a dry dock far from home I will have the ability to repair my ship and will only have to pay for the resources and dock time."

"Auntie Kenna!" Clara whispered as she gave me a look and pointed towards the ceiling, causing me to narrow my eyes as I tried to figure out what she was trying to tell me.

I lifted my head slightly as I smiled at Clara. "And I assume the English clan has set a budget for a negotiation with me, well I want more licences than just that, there is a lot of red in my ship still, I will want licences for as many of those as well, of course we will focus on the most important bits first, and work our way down until the money runs out, or I have the ability to repair any piece of my ship I need to."

Clara nodded her head quickly as she gave me a thumbs up. She then quickly schooled her face as she pulled her shirt down a bit to get the creases out of it.

"Of course, I will see what I can do about that, is there anything else, like maybe ammunition?"

"Right, yes of course, I want ammunition and fuel too, I can't be flying into unknown territory with no ammo!"

"Ha! They disconnected! Sorry Auntie Kenna, I wasn't allowed to let on that you were in the middle of a negotiation with the England Clan, apparently it was part of some deal they made with the council. In exchange, we get the non-aggression pact, and they get to low ball you on payment for the job, which is why I tried to steer you into high balling it. I had to get obvious for a bit, but hopefully they didn't notice, the idiot listening in was really pissed at the end just screamed, fine! And hung up."

"If I had a pencil, I would throw it at your dumb ass right now!" I hissed at her.

She just snickered at me as she pointed at bits of the ship that were now slowly being put back together.

"She is almost back together, then you will be able to head out a week ahead of the arc, grow as much food on the way as you can, take a mining barge and a pilot, make sure to bring both of them back with you, can't let the English clan have anything extra."

"How come this is getting completed so quickly? The arc has been in construction for, well I'm not sure how long, but it's more than a couple of days, and you just suggested there will be another week before it is completed."

"Oh, it's already completed, we're just running checks on it and stocking it with everything the English clan has paid us to put in it, like food, water, luxuries, even clone tanks and the resources needed for those, they also purchased a licence for a long rang communications buoy that they had us build just so they can keep in instant contact with earth."

"The English clan seems to be throwing around a lot of money, why is our clan not this rich?"

"We are, your dad is spending a lot of what he personally had on your frigate, and my auntie, your sister, who is in charge of the clans financials has been spending a lot from the clan's account, on this Orbital Station Base, I wouldn't worry though, the Aunties, and Uncles have been doing this sort of thing for a long time."

"Hang on, a thought just occurred to me, you are younger than me, how do you know so much about all this?"

"Oh, I was studying to be an engineer, building stuff fascinates me, I love it, that's why I was assigned to the docks, I have been having so much fun learning about all these new ways of building and creating, its awesome here, so anyway dad saw you was running around causing a little too much chaos in the clan, he decided everything was about to change so he came and told me everything because I was starting to pay more attention to what was going on, then you know that lightning hit the mansion, and he quickly initiated me after that. He told me, shit was about to change, and I needed to be prepared." she shrugged. "Once I got up here and was assigned to the docks, I kinda went crazy getting my hands on all this and couldn't stop myself from throwing myself into all the information I could find, learning as much as I could."

I nodded my head slowly before turning to look at the blueprints table, a frown slowly appearing on my face as I noticed it had stopped putting the ship back together.

"Uh, Clara, the hull panel from here is still missing."

"What!" she almost screamed as she quickly grabbed the hologram ship and turned it so she could see the missing panel. "Oh, that's interesting, there is a wall here that is slightly out of place. Looks like it is by design, what is going on?"

I watched her switch the table back into edit mode and began pulling it apart to discover what was going on, a few moments later she screamed "holy shit this is huge!" her head suddenly snapped from the table to the window for a moment as she let go of the hologram ship. "I have to see inside the ship" a second later she had the machinery taking the out of position wall out of the ship then quickly scrambled from the room as she ran for the ship. I glanced at Devon in confusion before following Clara. When I got outside, I saw Clara getting out of an airport looking stepladder truck after parking it next to the frigate. And quickly ran up the ladder and into the frigate's room. I was halfway up the ladder when I heard her scream and quickly ran the rest of the way up to look inside and see what had caused Clara to scream. I found her hugging a machine as she was longingly stroking it.

"It's a smugglers hold." she said when she spotted me standing in the entrance. She let go of whatever machine she was hugging to wave her hand around the room before hugging it again. "There are casks of something all around the room, and this bad boy holds all the information on how to make the alcohol that is inside them, plus there are a bunch of licences and patents for those licences on it, I know they all belong to you now, but I am in love, can I be in charge of your ships dock?"

"There must be something very big and more important on that machine than just an alcohol recipe for you to want to live on this ship… what's on there?"

"The patent to an internal dry dock for small ships that makes the one the guild purchased for this frigate look like a children's toy. I will be of course using this licence instead."

"Alright, well can you fix the wall now, and get the hull plating on?"

"Oh, yea sure, ill just move the entire room over a few inches, no problem, it will just make the captain's room a few inches smaller, doors over there into the captain's quarters by the way, in case you wanted to see your new bedroom."

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