While the others split into five teams that were using drones to scan and investigate their newly arrived toys, Max took over the job of making sure that the shuttles weren't missing anything in the hull.
With [Optimize] and by borrowing Nico's [Repair] Function, he was able to identify hundreds of additional locations which were either stressed from long use, damaged in combat but still functional, or simply not picked up on the scanners.
That made for a lot more work for the shuttles patrolling the perimeter, but it gave him quite the sense of accomplishment as he saw who well the ship was coming back together.
The reconstruction of the interior was coming along better than he had expected, thanks to the foresight of the engineers who used the simplest possible materials to create the World Ship, and the availability of a large meteorite near the vessel to use as their ore supply.
There was more inside the ship, but Max didn't want to steal that yet. If he was lucky, they might be able to get more systems on the ship operational, and that material might come in handy later.
The cracked and stressed areas of the ship painted a vivid picture on the holographic images of the World Ship that Max was compiling. Each of them told the story of battle damage, a rough transition to faster than light speeds, or in a few cases, cut corners where the design simply wasn't up to the task of sustained combat deployment.
But then, how many things were?
Max made a notation every time a zone was marked clear by the shuttles, and smiled as the exterior hull began to show almost completely green surfaces.
The only remaining question was: What sort of condition were the hidden interior structural components in? The exterior had shown significant signs of battle fatigue, and that certainly hadn't stopped when the support structure left the surface of the vessel. The problem was that the scanners on the shuttles could only see so much.
He was going to have to send the drones to check the interior beams on their way past to make sure that the self-destruct sequence hadn't damaged any of the major structure.
If it had been him designing it, there would have been redundancies, so even if the Fusion Core failed to detonate, the ship would still be rendered inoperable. Surely, whoever had built this had thought of that as well, so there should be some sort of damaged or collapsed structure in the ship that would cause the ship to crumble under stress.
The plans for the destroyed region of the ship didn't have any such failsafe or crumple zone in them, so Max assumed that it must be deeper into the ship. That was further than they had searched so far, at least in most of the zones, but he had the drones double-check the structural pillars in the zone closest to them as a precaution.
The exterior shuttles had joined the team fixing the structural gap, and by the time Max was considering dinner, they were almost ready to announce that the ship was now airtight again. But that was when the drones brought news of the failsafe.
There were explosive rivets in the pillars, which were intended to detonate with the failsafe, but the ones in their region hadn't gone off.
That left Max sitting in front of the computer terminal with a frustrated mind, searching the files for something that might tell him how many of the failsafe detonations had occurred, and how many of them were still intact.
The problem was, that data was restricted to the Admiral's quarters on the bridge, and he was still in the shuttle. If he wanted to know if it was safe to pressurize the ship, he would have to go on a long walk first.
That was not within standard safety protocol, even in a Mobile Suit, but there wasn't much to fear if the ship had held together this long. Plus, he had just fixed the exterior, so that part at least wasn't going to crumble under his feet. If he just sent a repair drone ahead of him, he could be pretty certain that the hallways to the bridge would be intact.
The real question was how to break it to the crew that he was going on an adventure across the ship without them. They might be engrossed in their work on the recovered attack craft and the Emperor Mecha, but they wouldn't miss him walking away across the cargo bay where they were running their tests.
Maybe it would be better to tell them after dinner.
Max programmed in a few extra of their favourite dishes and got the table set before he called them into the dining room to eat. That alone should be enough of a warning that he had news they weren't going to like, but the team members would be too excited about the food to confront him on it right away.
Nico, on the other hand, would not be so easily swayed. When she entered and saw the feast laid out for them, she immediately gave her best suspicious glare at Max, and sent him a private message through their implanted communicators.
[Alright, spill. I'm not waiting until they're done eating for bad news.] She demanded.
[There was a failsafe, but I have no idea how many, if any, of the explosive bolts detonated, and the answer can only be accessed from the Admiral's personal console on the bridge. In person.] Max replied.
[So, you're going on a tour of the ship, alone, while we research the attack craft that were brought back?]
[And the Mecha, don't forget that there is an Emperor Class Mecha there as well.] Max agreed.
[Alright, I can give conditional approval to this plan. But you're going to have to keep us connected with a dedicated link so that we can see what's going on and not miss out on the first walk through the ship.]]
[You've got a deal.]
