The Martial Unity

Time passed quickly in the Kandrian Empire

Her time in the Kandrian Empire had been positive for the first time in so many years that she couldn't even remember it.

The last time she had come, she hated the very smell of the Royal Palace. The Royal Palace smelled of the kind of hygiene that was surely expensive beyond fathoming. At the same time, a faint, mild, but pleasant odor hung in the air from the flowers and the gardens that were spread across the palace estate.

She had loved the odor growing up, but once she came to learn of her status, she eventually came to hate everything about the environment of the Royal Palace. It wasn't just the environment, but also the way that people conducted themselves around her.

This time, however, she found herself being able to relax in the environment more than she had ever been able to last time.

Partly because she had something extremely exciting to look forward to. Something that filled her up with so much anticipation and enthusiasm that not even the disdainful environment of the palace could lower her spirits.

Every day, she made progress towards her goal.

Whether it was the construction of her frigate.

Whether it was the development of her newly registered company, EsoQuest Solutions, LLC. Whether it was her getting closer and closer to her ambition. But more than anything, what made it especially joyous was that she had friends and even family, as annoying as they could be sometimes, to share her goal.

More than anything, however, she missed her mother, who continued to remain absent over the span of three months. Her father refused to take her to see her mother or tell her Ria had returned, much to her disappointment.

"Your mother is attempting something extremely important and delicate," Rui had told her. "No disturbance can be tolerated."

Aside from not being able to see her mother, she enjoyed the work that she never ran out of motivation to drive herself into.

The development process, of course, was hardly easy despite all the help she got. Everyday, she and her friends were faced with numerous decisions that they had to make, review countless reports, documents, sign and fill countless forms to acquire permits, licenses, and approvals in a complex set of protocols established by the Gaian Trade Organization, which was developed by the Gaian Alliance to serve as a voluntary but common platform of broad trade regulations that created some uniformity of trade across human civilization.

They had to choose the Director of the Security Department among ten highly qualified candidates with different backgrounds and different pros and cons, presented to them by their first hire, Neera, who would serve as the general manager. They had to choose between different crews, operators, and captains that could be entrusted to handle their very ostentatious and highly complex light stealth surveyor.

They had to choose between different kinds of researchers and scientists to ensure that their specialties matched the proprietary sensory technology that they had gotten from the Esoterist to file patents for. Making a decoy research and development lab was much harder than setting up an earnest R&D enterprise.

Whether it was management, client relationship managers, finances, legal, or the many, many boring but highly necessary parts of running a business, all of them required proper consultation from the owners.

Runark and Siliscia were least involved with the details of the development of the company. The former trained in the manifold with his father while the latter chose to spend much of her time in Genora, consulting with the Mothers of Nature.

Ria, Misha, and Sternon made most of their decisions regarding the details of the company, helping it develop. Another pain in the ass was, of course, the real estate and the office.

They had ultimately made the decision to have it settled right there in Gaia Prime, outside the Kandrian Empire. Since the office didn't have as many operations as the typical company of this kind, a single office would do the trick to handle all the customers, manage finances, the logistics of the ship, and the labs that were situated elsewhere.

While infrastructure could be built extremely quickly in the Era of Expansion, with the extremely high levels of security that EsoQuest Solutions needed, three months was barely enough despite heavy financial incentives and pulling some strings.

Things began taking shape over the next few months as the business, the labs, the logistics, and the ship slowly developed.

The first to arrive was what they had been most excited for.

The ship.

"Are you ready?" The Esoterist grinned.

WHOOSH

On a frigate that zoomed towards Sol at the center of the solar system, the Esoterist stood before an excited Ria, Misha, Siliscia, and Sternon as they flew deeper and deeper towards Stellar Forge, an outer layer of rings that revolved around the highly developed star.

The Stellar Forge was initially decentralized manufacturing fabricators and shipyards that revolved around the star, staying close to the proximity to the source of energy itself to minimize the cost of energy and its distribution, before eventually being merged into concentric rings.

It was where most of the manufacturing and construction occurred.

"Where is it?!" Ria pressed herself against the window of the frigate, her face flattening in a funny manner as her amber eyes flew, trying to spot her beloved new ship.

Her enthusiasm was electric, spreading to the others who also eagerly drew to the windows, trying to find their newborn custom ship design.

They drew closer and closer to the massive Stellar Forge rings, navigating through dense space traffic as they arrived within a kilometer of the absolutely titanic rings built from a modular fabricator.

The security around the Stellar Forge was intense.

Cruisers manned the Stellar Forge in the distance while squads of MECHAs patrolled the boundaries of the rings much closer, armed with immense power.

They began slowing down, indicating their proximity to their destination much to the excitement of Ria.

"Almost there…" the Esoterist muttered as his eyes lit up with anticipation. "And… there we are!"

WHOOSH

The frigate stopped at a specific fabricator section with a hollow cuboidal space.

The space was empty.

"Where is the ship?!" Ria knitted her eyebrows.

The Esoterist grinned, turning towards the hollow fabricator space, transmitting a command for the deactivation of the stealth systems of the ship.

"Behold the Stellarch."

Immediately, something appeared out of thin air, or vacuum rather, in the hollow fabricator space.

WHOOSH

A small, sleek spaceship that was shaped like a jet has appeared out of thin air. One that stretched two hundred and fifty meters in length, and another two hundred meters in width, with fifty meters in height.

The ship was jet black with symmetric streaks of white that ran across its surface, which was checkered with hatches, lines, and a variety of intricate components spread across its surface, comprising all manner of highly delicate and powerful surveillance apparatus, including the quantum entropy sensory technology integrated into the ship. Its rear-end was composed of three distinct propulsion technologies: an antimatter thruster, an ionic engine, and two high-grade negatronic superluminal warp drives.

A gasp escaped Ria as she beheld her ship for the first time.

"It's… perfect!"

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