Not much got done for the rest of that day, as the repair function slowly brought the ship back online, with the help of the shuttles that were rebuilding the largest portions of the missing hull. By the next morning, the ship was airtight again, but Sylvie informed them that many of the internal areas had suffered from degradation over the years, and they would need a revamp to be brought fully back up to production standards.
That was the part that would take the majority of the remaining repair time, but Max suspected that there was a fair bit that could be removed from the function without compromising the hull integrity, going by their current pace.
"Sylvie, how long will it take to get the hull completely repaired and ready for faster than light travel?" Max asked.
"If that was the exclusive goal of the repair function, seventeen more hours." She replied automatically.
"And where do the other three hundred hours of repair time come into your initial estimate?" Max asked.
"Restocking supplies, equipment, the missing portion of the hull that was repaired by your shuttles. That saved hundreds of hours, by the way, and preparations for a new crew's arrival." She explained.
"So, your goal was to bring the ship back to full readiness for a new military crew?" Max asked.
"Yes, that is correct. It is the primary purpose of this vessel, whose name is currently being redetermined."
The Innu smirked at that. They had tried to convince the AI to make the official name of the World Ship the Terminus Coffee Ship, with the interior redesigned in a scenic walking street style like the one by the coffee shop on Terminus that they all loved, but Max had vetoed that extensive of an overhaul while they were still repairing the vessel.
But he hadn't outright said no, so they had hope that they could turn the entire World Ship into a shopping destination for luxury goods and custom coffee shops. With Gravity Slides and some water parks, it would be a mobile paradise world for the Innu. The third one belonging to the Terminus Trading Company.
Max had to admit that the idea wasn't actually a bad one, but they might need to do some serious overhaul of the structure to make it work, and currently it was more important that they get the vessel fixed and on its way back to the Koleska Region so that they could establish proper communications again.
That was Max's goal for the day, to get a solid two-way communications channel established so that he could relay messages back to their home Galaxies and let everyone know that they were alright.
He had plenty of help, since everyone wanted to know what was going on in the Alliance, and it was only the one avatar of Sylvie and a single team member focusing on finishing the repairs. They had estimated that in six hours they could begin introducing atmosphere back to the ship, and after that, it would just be revamping the interior and restocking the supplies, including the military gear.
They would need that, even if they had to make androids to pilot it all. This ship might have been lost in combat, but as Max recalled, their soldiers on the ground had only almost lost to the Great Enemy's attack. That meant what they had programmed in should still be effective weaponry.
He had instructed Sylvie to pause and inform him after the first cargo bay was filled with military gear so that he could look it over and determine if it would be better to use the resources to make their own.
The Mecha that they had recovered was incredible, though simple in materials. But it was best not to waste resources if the rest of the gear wasn't going to be compatible with their pilots.
"So, if we use the World Ship's transmission array as a booster for our own signal, we should be able to send a reliable signal all the way to the front lines where the Android Armies should be fighting, possibly with the assistance of the Reavers.
They can relay the messages back home for us. We have a general direction for that, and it's close enough to get a signal through, we just need to reconfigure the communications software." Nico was explaining to the others as she pointed at spots on a diagram.
Sylvie nodded along, and made changes as Nico explained them so that the ship would be ready when they wanted to try.
"How long will it be until the message is received?" One of the team members asked as Nico finalized the plan.
"With this transmission method, which is the most stable we have over long distances, it will be seven minutes before they receive it, so fifteen minutes at a minimum before we receive a reply. If it's only received by a human crewed ship, it might be half an hour, as they won't be able to modify their systems as quickly as the Androids can."
Sylvie nodded happily. "I have analyzed your androids, and their data input speed is incredible. If you want to use them as the primary crew for the vessel, I would not object."
Nico happily patted the avatar on the head. "Yes, we are quite proud of them. They're not quite an AI system, as it would unnecessarily complicate their functions by introducing additional subroutines, but we have true AI consciousness on most of our Colony Class and World Ship class vessels now.
Most of them are like you, designed for war, but we have a few of them which were designed for research purposes and adapted to running a heavily populated vessel after being transferred."
"So I'm not alone." Sylvie whispered, celebrating the news that she would not be the only AI around.
Now, all she had to do was finish these upgrades to her communications systems, and she could find them. Then, once she found them, the humans wanted to go to them. It was perfect, absolutely perfect.
