Saicine kept getting quieter over the next two days.
Felix’s companies worked through the remaining infected pockets while the harbor exclusion line stayed in place. Most of what remained inside the city no longer required artillery. Individual buildings were searched, smaller concentrations were destroyed as they appeared, and recovery teams moved into the cleared streets behind them.
The northern-ridge survivors continued watching from their own positions.
Felix left them alone.
By the second afternoon, the last marked concentration in the lower city disappeared from the operational map.
"Commander."
Hans looked up from the report.
Felix stood across the table with several pages tucked underneath one arm.
"Saicine is clear."
"All marked sectors?"
"All of them. Patrols are still checking buildings and underground spaces, but we don’t have an active concentration left inside the city."
Hans took the report.
"Good. Keep the patrols going."
"Already planned."
Felix placed the remaining pages on the table.
"Recovery also wants more transport."
Hans flipped through them. "Send what you don’t need south."
"Send what you don’t need south."
Felix raised a brow.
"Anything else?"
"Don’t let Recovery dismantle the port because something looks expensive."
"I’ll tell them the Commander prefers having a harbor."
"That would be for the better."
Felix left with the reports. The first consolidated conversion reached Hans’s reserve later that evening.
------
[ Industrial Storage Yards conversion bonus applied: +60% ]
[ Saicine Recovery Conversion: 9,875,675 (+5,925,405) ]
[ Gold Acquired: 15,801,080 ]
------
Hans closed the panel.
At this point, Gold had become less of a question of whether he could afford something and more of how many production queues he was willing to occupy.
...
The construction network continued moving with the operation. The War Factory finished first and went into the industrial yard Engineering had reserved for it, while the Airfield followed the next afternoon on the cleared tract farther inland. By then, the Power Plant and Barracks had already been operating for more than a day.
After that, most of his time was split between Felix’s final clearance reports, the construction sites and the updates coming south from Grefort.
The rest Kimmy somehow managed to claim.
She and Yunera explored whatever parts of Saicine had already been cleared, sometimes walking through the old commercial streets and sometimes returning to the waterfront. Hans joined them whenever nothing required his immediate attention.
Yunera came along without making much of the change between the two.
Kimmy would reach for Hans’s hand when they walked, and after the first few times neither of them bothered saying anything about it.
One afternoon, the three returned to the narrow beach north of the port.
Kimmy had removed her shoes again and walked along the edge of the water while Yunera carried them beside her.
"The sand still feels strange," Kimmy said.
"You said that yesterday."
"It still does."
Hans walked on her other side.
"Any better than the helicopter?"
"You wouldn’t understand, Hans. Why are you asking so much?"
"I just want to know if you’re comfortable."
"Is the glow on my face not enough?"
Hans looked at her.
Kimmy smiled and reached toward him.
He took her hand.
Yunera continued beside them without comment.
The three followed the shoreline for a while, with Kimmy asking about whatever remained beyond her perception whenever curiosity got the better of her. Hans attempted to describe the clouds and distant water until Yunera started correcting him again.
"That cloud is not just white."
"It is mostly white."
"There are shades."
"Gray?"
Yunera stared at him.
Kimmy laughed.
"You really are terrible at this."
"I’m describing what exists."
"You make the world sound very boring."
"The world currently has zombies, mutated fish and a super tree. I’m not sure boring is the problem."
Kimmy squeezed his hand.
"Try again."
Hans looked across the water.
The sun was already lower, and the clouds farther west had begun catching faint orange along their edges.
"Fine. White and gray, but the parts closer to the sun are turning orange."
"That’s better."
Their conversation moved on from there.
Some days Hans stayed with them for an hour. Other days only long enough to eat or walk along one cleared block before another report reached him.
The Core remained contained. Saicine remained quiet. And the Shipyard timer continued counting down.
Several days after Hans first entered Saicine, another pair of notifications appeared.
------
[ Shipyard x2 construction complete. ]
[ Structures ready for deployment. ]
------
Hans opened the construction map.
The first Shipyard footprint covered most of the western section Engineering had cleared. Its edge followed the waterfront before extending into the harbor, leaving enough room for the production basin to connect directly with deep water.
Hans shifted it slightly inland and displayed green. The second fit beside it without crossing the damaged berth farther down the waterfront, showing the same green.
"Deploy."
The deployment light covered both sections at once.
The empty waterfront changed.
Reinforced concrete spread across the cleared ground while the edges nearest the harbor widened into two enormous drydocks. Heavy seawalls formed around each basin, extending from the existing shoreline until only the gated openings toward deep water remained.
The structures behind them rose almost as quickly.
Broad fabrication halls occupied most of the inland side, followed by several industrial towers and long assembly buildings positioned around the drydocks. Gantry cranes climbed above them on heavy rails, their arms extending far enough to work over the entire width of each basin.
Hans watched another crane lock into position.
These were considerably larger than the War Factories he had been placing around Grefort.
The drydocks alone occupied enormous sections of the waterfront, and the cranes now stood above most of the surviving port buildings around them. What had looked like an open industrial shoreline several minutes earlier had turned into two complete naval construction complexes.
The last sections appeared along the water.
Reinforced docking gates sealed both basins from the harbor while internal platforms, fabrication equipment and support structures filled the space behind them. Each drydock remained empty, though Hans could already see the rails and movable assembly systems that would eventually adjust around whatever vessel entered production.
The green deployment light began fading.
Machinery came alive across both facilities.
Cranes shifted along their rails. Lights appeared inside the fabrication halls, and the two enormous drydocks settled into standby beside Saicine Harbor.
------
[ Shipyard x2 deployed. ]
[ Naval Production unlocked. ]
[ Active Naval Production Queues: 2 ]
------
Two Shipyards now occupied a section of Saicine’s waterfront that had been empty less than a minute earlier.
The available units appeared immediately afterward.
------
[ New Naval Units Available ]
[ Sentinel Destroyer - 20,000 Gold (-10%) ]
[ Wraith Stealth Submarine - 11,000 Gold (-10%) ]
[ Amphibious Assault Transport - 15,000 Gold (-10%) ]
------
Hans opened the first Shipyard.
The production interface was much simpler than he expected. One basin and one queue.
He switched to the second Shipyard and found the same thing.
"System, how does this actually work?"
------
[ Shipyard Production System ]
[ Each Shipyard operates one adaptive naval production basin. ]
[ One vessel may occupy each Shipyard production queue at a time. ]
[ Production basin dimensions automatically adjust to the selected unlocked vessel class. ]
[ Upon production completion, the basin floods and launches the completed vessel. ]
[ Vessel is deployed fully operational. ]
------
Hans looked toward the enormous basin opening into the harbor.
"So I don’t need to build separate docks for submarines and surface ships?"
------
[ Negative. ]
[ The adaptive basin supports all currently unlocked naval classes compatible with the Shipyard. ]
------
That simplified things considerably. Another question came to him.
"What about the crews?"
Naval vessels had crews larger than any unit he had produced. He wanted to know if the System would handle that as well.
------
[ Naval vessels are produced as complete System units. ]
[ Trained organic crew are generated and synchronized with the vessel before launch. ]
[ Separate Barracks training is not required. ]
------
"Maintenance?"
The next response took slightly longer.
------
[ Naval Sustainment Summary ]
[ Standard ammunition, fuel and other eligible sustainment stores refresh automatically every 24 hours. ]
[ Natural sustainment does not require the vessel to return to a Shipyard. ]
[ Battle damage is not restored by sustainment refresh. ]
[ Naval Repair Hierarchy ]
[ Onboard Damage Control: emergency stabilization and limited local restoration. ]
[ Shipyard: major repair, structural restoration, overhaul and reconstruction. ]
------
Hans read the last section again.
"So if one of them gets damaged badly enough, it has to come back here."
That was still considerably easier than supporting a conventional fleet.
The ships could remain at sea without returning every day for ammunition or fuel, while serious damage brought them back to one of the Shipyards. Everything between those two extremes depended on what the vessel itself could keep working.
Hans closed the explanation and returned to the production menu.
Two Shipyards with two queues.
He had to produce fifteen ships between them. He opened the promotion requirements again.
------
[ Combat Ships: 0 / 10 ]
[ Naval Transports: 0 / 5 ]
------
"Alright. Now, we build a navy."
------
[ Naval Production Orders ]
[ Heavy Manufacturing Complex modifiers applied. ]
[ Shipyard One ]
[ Sentinel Destroyer x3 ]
[ Wraith Stealth Submarine x5 ]
[ Cost: 103,500 Gold ]
[ Queue Completion: 17 hours, 15 minutes ]
[ Shipyard Two ]
[ Sentinel Destroyer x2 ]
[ Amphibious Assault Transport x5 ]
[ Cost: 103,500 Gold ]
[ Queue Completion: 17 hours, 15 minutes ]
[ Total Naval Units Queued: 15 ]
[ Total Cost: 207,000 Gold ]
[ Full Batch Completion: 15 hours, 31 minutes, 30 seconds ]
------
Hans closed the interface.
Seventeen hours and fifteen minutes.
He sent one order to Saicine command to keep the harbor security unchanged until the production batch finished.
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