But of course, that was impossible. A month after that conversation, Starbright Shipyards hadn’t even completed the new space structures yet, much less a hundred Long Haul DE’s.They did manage twenty, though. This was with 32 Lunar Lynxmice Clans working with dizzying swarms of drones, fully active space scaffolding and the Long Haul Galleon Yard fully functional over the last few days.That was basically all they managed. In prioritizing Long Haul production, rushing the Galleon Yard and the scaffolding before anything else, even the Drone Hub and the Lynxmice Habitat had been only half-completed. Thousands of Lynxmice had to rough it out for what amounted to 2% of their average lifespans, one entire month of the precious 50 their Lunar kind were expected to live.Those ships were sorely needed, though. By this time, the Black Fang and the White Castle, Remian’s new Quarin Galleon-equivalent, had been running non-stop flights to and from various Star Systems to haul passengers, good

A week ago, Darian’s fleet reached the site of a Distress Call identifying its sender as the Enetar Kingdom. Their home star was surprisingly near to Sorrel, being just one day’s journey by their fleet’s warp speeds.At the time, they didn’t know what to expect. Upon arrival, what greeted them was a sensor scope full of white blips, and life-sign readings of over two billion humans. At a glance, they could easily see four colonized planets and a heavily exploited gas giant.Far ahead, directly in front of them was a huge fleet, hundreds of Size 5 Galleons and Size 4 Frigates. Moments after their arrival, that huge fleet started scrambling with activity.“We better talk to them before they start shooting.” Darian grimaced.Sandy, the comms officer, tapped her console rapidly. “Enetari military, this is the Sorrelian Third Fleet, responding to a distress call. What seems to be the problem?”There was a tense silence as the fleet in front of them kept buzzing madly. At length, however, t