I came home to find Jessica a wreck. She took the news of James really hard. They had been friends for years. Hell, she had introduced him to his wife Mary. It was a hard time for all of us as we mourned our friends and colleagues. As the months passed, things started to get back into something of a routine. Jess and I threw ourselves into our work. We still saw each other, though not as much as we would have liked. We started to drift apart. I think deep down, she blamed me for James’s death. A part of me did too. When building my team, I recommended him to come along. We needed an expert in FTL communications, and he was at the top of the field.
After the events on that damned asteroid, I transferred to a recently created department at MFW. This research group was in charge of the development of new equipment, weapons, and dropsuit modules that catered to clone mercenaries and their unique needs. Jessica didn’t understand my new-found obsession as she called it with the clone soldiers. I tried explaining my views to her, but she would listen. “If they are so amazing, why is he dead!” was her response. We split up not long after that fight.
With my personal life in ruins, I dove head first into my work. As new design orders came pouring in, I found the distraction a welcome change. Jessica and I still crossed paths every now and then before she left Mannar. Working together, our teams developed a nanite injector that revives and heals a clone trooper’s body damage and 50% armor in one injection. For the most part though, I spent my time working on nanohive variants and armor repair tools. You heard of the A/7 Fractal repper? My team. We were doing such a great job that we got a call from upstairs.
We’ve had orders from governments before, but I had not seen this level of secrecy since my navy days. We were moved offsite to a new facility. Armed guards everywhere, DNA scans at every entrance to verify identity and again at the door to the lab. The background checks proved a bit of trouble for me but I got to say, I will always respect the company for backing me. In the end, the Feds relented and I was allowed to work on the project.
The Gallente Federation had charged us with finding a delivery system for a what they told us was a new type of nanohive. The nano part being figurative. The hive was as big as a blaster turret. They claimed the idea behind it was instead of small hives littering the battlefield, they would drop one of these from orbit and resupply all non hostile combatants at once. No more running around searching for ammo, or standing near a supply depot waiting for a sniper to pick you off. It seemed impractical to me but it wasn’t my money. The whole thing was being built in separate parts by an unknown number of weapon manufactures to keep the full design from being stolen. Our section was the power core. The problem was of course the containment field. They couldn’t seem to expand the field to the necessary size without it destabilizing and the nanites dispersing into the air. No field, no power to the nanite clusters. The solution came from one of the guards of all places.
It had been three months without any headway. The biggest field we got was 15 meters in diameter, and it only lasted for .0255 seconds. After that the core would deplete and then burn up. We knew our math was right, it could be done. The specs called for a field 300 MiD lasting for 1.5 minutes or longer. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about this whole thing. With the mobility of the clone soldiers, it made little sense to even attempt a hive this large. I was sitting in the lunchroom sulking when I happened to overhear some of the guards talking about this old Reaper he was tuning up as a ship for interstellar racing. He went on about the this module and that, but when he came to the power grid inspiration struck. This device would be launched from orbit and land during a fight. That means inertial dampeners. Why not use the kinetic energy from the fall to give the capacitors a boost. I set my team to work, and within a few weeks we had a working prototype.
The first few high altitude test were promising. The first field increased to 88 MiD at 1 kilometers, then 142 at 2. The final test was the orbital deployment. I was on the ground when it hit dirt. It was magnificent. 385 MiD at 4 Km above surface, lasting a total of 2.258 minutes. It was well above expectations. I made sure the guard got a bonus for his help. It was pats on the back and congratulations all around as we packed up and got the shipping orders. As per request, all schematics and details of our project were placed on a holodisk and then erased from our network. I was to accompany both the disk and the core to its final destination, The federal intelligence assembly plant on Halle VII - Moon 6
And that's where my life would be changed forever