Beckoned by Delnivmina, Nigel was ushered down the hallways of the headquarters of the company, this time with a bit of added haste due to the demand of his presence on lands far away. The atmosphere of the building weighted on his shoulders less now that he was inside, a constant and slightly humid breeze would stroke his face and hairs every odd second or so, perhaps by design, providing a sort of feeling of natural cooling.
Along the largely empty large corridors that tapered from the base upwards into the imprint of a trapezoid, they eventually got to the office of contractual work. It is a large rectangular room that ends in a hexagon, with the walls adorned with flora that slowly tapered upwards until it hit the ceiling, about 50 meters high above. The main attraction of the room was a large pendulum made of some kind f rugged metal, it swung side-to-side completing the full arc possible in the room without making a noise, with the exception of a small "tick" at the end of each swing.
At the end of the room sat a lizardman behind a long table of chamfeured stone, Nigel sat on the chair opposite.
"I am Nehetomep, Head of Contractuations for GL&M. Every time someone asks us to do something specific, some kind of order of material, construction, weaponry, that is an exception, the responsibility, ultimately, falls on me.
Now your case is for the Her or His Majesty's Ship, Hood, we have a few plans. The hole is reasonably sizeable and a considerable ammount of material was extracted from shearing, and the surrounding area is, of course, not usable due to sudden stress microfissures and oscillations. That leaves us with, saving the specifics, a pretty big hole. Congratulations to whoever fired at you, they did a dashing job at destruction, now we must do an even better job at getting back at'em!
caham.
Nevertheless, there have been a few plans charted. But beforehand, do tell me what your demands are, so we can best see this all fit to the customer's request."
"good day to you as well, I am Nigel now, the damages of what I've heard from the ship's crews after the lancers made contact was that it punched through to the aft. reactor and the secondary shell storage for the third aft. turret, now, I would suggest we increase the bulk head's armour from 13 meters to 15 meters and the reactor's bulkhead to 16 meters."
as he said this he pointed to the locations of which he was referring to on a large piece of parchment paper with a detailed depiction of the hood,
"and I would suggest the belt armour be increased from 120 meters to 145 meters and the thickening of the deck armour to 55 meters and I would have the wattage of the third and final layers of shields to be increased to stop a kinetic projectile with a speed 0.2 light speed and a mass of 6000 tonnes along with the second layer of shields to be increased to stop a laser projectile of 150PW I hope this will doable in your shipyards."
Nehetomep stops for a few seconds with a pen on his hands, he looks away a bit, particularly, at the large pendulum that hasn't stopped swinging.
After some introspection, he behins talking again.
"That is quite the demand indeed. However, that was to be expected.
To properly change that, we'd have to swap out or update a vast majority of the shielding generators, of course. And update the reactor design, which won't be a problem since the reactor deck was blown out.
The power demand will be quite high after the update, you wouldn't like to know the astronomical ammount of energy necessary to stop anything going at fractions of c...
But it is doable, most definetly."
"good, you may take the time you need just don't rush it, ok? the last thing we want is for the sheilds to fail on us when we bring her out into combat"
As he said this he extened his arm too shake.
"if you need any thing from us do let us know we will supply, men to increase work speed, information about certian parts of the hull or ship or steel we can supply it. now, how much will the cost be?"
"Ah yes, the cost. Sorry for gushing over the mechanics of it, it's always a favourite of mine.
Nevertheless, here are the full papers of it, you may sign it after a thorough read, though signing things are just a formality nowadays."
Nehetomep slides over a small stack of papers with a pen over to Nigel.
"yeah, i don't blame you, what i was in baisic training i would run of to study the warships" Nigel after reading through the papers and finding nothing out of the ordinary signs the paper "so, i guess this is a done deal then?"
Nigel then slid the papers back over to the man along with the pen.
"Very well then, the deal is sealed."
The lizardman awkwardly grasps the hand of the man, and shakes it.
Right afterwards, he releases, bows slightly, and mechanically proceeds to do the following steps:
Firstly, he grabs the stacks of papers and voids them underneath the table, to a place Nigel doesn't know, whilst leaving a copy for Nigel.
Then, a two different stone tablets arise seamlessly from the smooth stone surface, he grabs one which appears to be a telephone of sorts, whilst the other is a computer of sorts, where he types things.
After a few seconds of typing and talking in Musavian Script - a largely unknown language -, he remembers that Nigel is there.
"Ah yes... You are dismissed for now, if we have any doubts, we'll enter contact. I have asked my crew on site to start work, and we'll be requiring a fair chunk of information of the ship in general... To a prosperous future my friend!"
He stops a bit, thinking...
"Ah yes, I was meant to do a thing... You seem to have purchased yourself some enemies, by the ammount of damage on your ship...
Are you interested now in purchasing some friends?"
"Da, if you need my input upon anything, please, do tell me"
Nigel would set a two way radio down upon the table, it was old in design but still worked and was kept in good condition is was an antique, something you'd see in a exibit about old earth tech and upon hearing the man's offer of an alliance he stops in his tracks and asks the man to elaborate upon his ideas.
"Perhaps, although, it would most likely need to be better expanded upon before i can say the final word upon the matter"
The lizardman chuckles, more politely than actually out of finding anything funny, and stops to ponder for a second, tapping his fingertips upon the smooth surface of his table like a wave.
"At least now we know that you are open to negotiations.
The future ahead may not be the most pleasant, but we try our best to prepare for what's to come, I hope you make the good decisions, like the one you just made."
He simply nods, and continues with his activities on his native language, a cue for Nigel's leave from the headquarters.
Nigel would pick up on this cue and depart from the building.
" 'ave a spiffing good day old chap"
He tipped his offier's cap and was on his way and was walking down the corridor to the shuttle that brought him there in the first place but, not before stopping to take a look at the Hood.
"отдохни, ты это заслужил" he would mutter under his breath before leaving for his home.
Looming over the departing imagery of Nigel, strapping into the luxurious ship that GL&M provided to return to whence he came, was the large image of the looming capital ship using the facilities of the company, thousands of large drones flocked around it like a swarm of birds to seeds, settling down momentarily to take their programmed part.
A lightshow of unprecedented organization displayed from organized lasers splicing the unpowered systems of the ship, backed by a symphony of drills, cutters and welders moving material to an fro, a metal goliath aided by a precise clockwork army, rising from its grave with the wonders of technology and unprecedented speed and quality.