Chapter 141 (1/2)

Chapter 141

Fleet!

It had been fourteen days since Lucas had started construction. First, he had brought out the cradle-free fabricator. Then he took out the ARD and the anti-matter generator. Next, he hooked up the power cables for the fabricator and ARD to the anti-matter generator. After that, it was time to start on the construction part.

First, Lucas ordered Chu Shen, Aslo, and Chrissa to gather together a bunch of rock and dirt. Pouring that into the ARD, Lucas gained the raw materials he needed to create more ARDs. Activating the fabricator, an ARD started to come to life. A day later it was complete. Hooking up this ARD to the generator, Lucas started building another fabricator identical to the one he had but much bigger.

This one was easily the size of a building. It was actually ten different fabricators synchronized together to construct one item. Each fabricator would focus on building one piece of the s.h.i.+p at a time, accomplis.h.i.+ng what the original fabricator could do in a fraction of the time. It could also make multiple s.h.i.+ps at once if the s.h.i.+ps were small enough.

The s.h.i.+p types that could be built with this one were expanded, allowing it to make battles.h.i.+ps, carriers, and destroyers.  The original fabricator could only make cruisers and fighters. destroyers were too big, unless the fabricator was able to move around the frame. Using the fabricators, Lucas started making more ARDs. After he had created a total of eight, he went back to the fabricators.

He made one Mega-Fabricator which could make dreadnoughts. Then he made a total of sixteen Large-Fabricators and ten fabricators the size of the original one. Finally, Lucas was done preparing for the building phase. By now, all of his devices took up as much s.p.a.ce as a small town. The time taken up by making the fabricators and ARDs was ten days. The other four days had been spent calibrating the equipment.

Pulling up s.h.i.+p designs, Lucas started to ponder over what to build. Using the combat records from the recent attack provided by the A.I., Lucas was able to find out just how advanced the invaders were. Compared to the s.h.i.+ps of Sparta, they were indeed extremely crude.

He took a while before deciding exactly what he was going to build. He also consulted with Chu Shen for a while as well. Within an hour of getting it done, Lucas had decided what direction he was going to take his fleet.

First off, the main force he was going to be using would not be the large capital s.h.i.+ps but rather small fighters. They were easier to build and a lot faster, too.

Lucas had designs for advanced fighter-craft like the sniper drone. It was a small fighter that used a Tachyon cannon. Tachyons were particles that moved faster than light. Normally, they could not interact with things in the physical universe, but with some tinkering, Sparta had found a way to do so. Because it moved instantaneously, it was only limited to line of sight.

Lucas also had designs for a s.h.i.+eld drone. It was a fighter that would be able to link up its forcefields. By synchronizing them together, the strength of them would increase over tenfold. Combining these two together would make for a lethal combination. They could pick off the entire fleet of s.h.i.+ps from a distance while s.h.i.+elding themselves from return fire.

His battles.h.i.+ps would have thick armor and powerful s.h.i.+elds. They would also be equipped with railguns and plasma turrets. Their plasma turrets had the capability to manipulate the projectiles even after they launched them, though only in a short area. Lucas predicted the railguns would throw them for a loop.

The enemy s.h.i.+ps had forcefields, but from Lucas’ a.n.a.lysis of the records, he found that they were not designed for blocking kinetic attacks. Most of their s.h.i.+ps used lasers and plasma, both of which were energy weapons. As a result, their defensive capabilities focused mostly on energy weapons and ignored kinetic weapons such as railguns.

The carriers Lucas designed to be lightly armored. Instead of being heavily plated, they would have cloaking devices to disguise themselves as asteroids, allowing them to avoid most of the fight. The carriers would store metal and miniature fabricators, allowing them to repair the fighters as soon as they flew in.

Finally, there was the destroyers. They would have multiple plasma turrets meant for destroying fighters and missiles. Their main job would be to protect the battles.h.i.+ps from being destroyed.