With that renewed bit of assurance that the idea might be plausible and save them the trouble of converting technology to make a whole new type of energy use feasible and reproducible on a species wide scale, Max got his team back to work on designing the Dyson Sphere, while Nico and her duo were busy researching new possible power sources.
The construction was a slow effort, and even the precision construction of the framework that would hold the actual device together was giving them issues. It had originally been designed to surround an actual star, and then it had been redesigned and miniaturized for use in a starship.
The one that Max had come across in his youth was a retired cargo freighter. By square feet, it would put some destroyers to shame, but it was almost entirely hollow.
Which was, of course, a selling point to a young boy with dreams of getting well away from his home star system with all of his friends to party until they were pulled back by their duties. And empty cargo freighter was a fantastic spot to hold the biggest concert that anyone had ever attended.
It hadn't worked out that way, and his friends had gotten caught trying to bribe their way into orbit, so Max had made a run for it, outside the jurisdiction of the local system police.
That brought an important memory back to Max. While he was trying to keep that ancient hulk running on the compressed gas cylinder that he had brought to orbit, which ended up having the wrong gaseous mix for the Dyson Drive, as the label had called it, he had blown a number of these capacitors.
Which meant that now that he had remembered the incident, he had also remembered how to jury-rig a replacement for them.
So, he made the change to their diagram, and then kept going, adding all the changes to his own files for the construction to be done after the framework was finally completed to the painstakingly tight tolerances that the machine demanded.
It was a matter of more than down to the molecule, the molecular bonds also had to be just right, and at the right density for the frame to hold up to the stress that it was going to be under before the design became fully operational.
The existing Replicator technology wasn't sufficient for the task, so they were having to use a specialized piece of lab equipment to modify the pieces of the framework as they were assembled, dragging the process down to a crawl.
There was hope that someone on another team could be reassigned to improve the Replicators to take on the new tasks, but either there hadn't been a chance yet, or they were still busy with other projects, and the mass production requirements of this design would have to wait until they had proven that it would actually work.
That would be the reasonable thing for Uncle Lu to have done, but you never really knew with that man. Sometimes he got excited, especially about new Mecha designs.
"Let's call it for the day, that's twelve hours in the lab." Max informed his team, not wanting them to lose their touch due to overwork.
What they were doing now might be intricate, but it was repetitive, and even a small slip up could make them waste days and days trying to find and locate the reason for a failure.
"We should take a night to relax. What do people do for fun around here?" He added, looking toward the half of his team that had been on base the longest.
"Well, there's always the games centre. They've got a really nice bar and dance club, plus VR pods in the walls so that you can game instead of dancing. They even stream tournament matches on the screens in the club. It's kind of the place to be on the base." One of the human researchers suggested.
"And, it's right next to Wiggles Coffee Shop, so like, everyone is there." One of the Innu agreed.
"Someone go get Nico and her pair of sidekicks, we don't want to leave them out of the fun." Max laughed, as the researchers locked arms and began to skip toward the exit, looking forward to an evening out as a group.
The large group of excited researchers caught the attention of a lot of their former coworkers and friends who were also just getting off shift, and the walk to the games room turned into an excited procession of workers all headed the same way.
The location in question was only a few hundred metres from the main entrance to the research wing, prime territory for catching the higher paid staff, and sat within a rather fancy shopping district, lined with food stalls and clothing shops, perfect for a stroll in the evening.
"What's the event? There's an awful lot of you headed this way today." A middle-aged man in an apron that marked him as on duty at one of the food stalls asked.
"We felt like we needed a break, so we're headed to Wiggles and then the Game Centre for a night out. We made a lot of progress this week, and, we're already started on the next prototype." Max replied.
"Nice, turnover to prototype within a week. You're going to keep the refinement labs busy. I'll send any more party goers I see your way, get a proper crowd in the club tonight." The vendor laughed, then turned to walk back inside his fried chicken stall.
Nico smirked at Max and then turned to the long line of people following behind them.
"Did you hear that? Coffees at Wiggles are on Commander Max, and then I've got the first round at the Games Centre." Nico yelled back at the crowd.
"Who's the Hero of the Day? Max! Max! Who will send the blues away? Max! Max!" The Innu began to sing in time with a popular recent hit, while the humans began to laugh, much less interested in the coffee than the round of drinks at the bar.
"We heard that, and we will hold you to it." The doorman at the Games Centre door yelled at them from the end of the block.
"And there had better be a bribe involved if you are going to make me pour a hundred lattes only five minutes into my shift!" The Barista yelled from the other side of the road.
"Better start pouring, they're on their way." Nico yelled back.
