Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 419: Industrial Base Number Two

"I have nothing! I repeat again! I have nothing already!"

The usually gentle Cheng Wen roared at the top of his lungs. However, the eight individuals who stood smilingly before him didn't move. They lowered their heads respectfully, but none of them moved an inch, forming a soundless wall to pressure him.

Cheng Wen was at his wit's end. He lowered his voice and sighed. "There is honestly nothing I can do. The second mothership was supposed to be finished 16 days ago, but it is now still sitting in the garage. The Vice-Chancellor has come to question me many times. In fact, he said that if the mothership is still unable to be finished in the remaining 10 days of the month, then I will need to hand in my resignation letter as the manager of this base and return to my government post, if they are still willing to accept me that is. So, I truly cannot help any of you."

One of the middle-aged men smiled and said, "Manager Lee, Base Manager Lee, I've been waiting here since the beginning of the month; it hasalready been 20 days that I've waited. The materials that I was promised was 20 tons per day and 70 transport hovercrafts per day, but until today, I have only received less than 200,000 tons materials and 800 hovercrafts. Do you know how long the building process of the air circulation system at Area C has been halted for? Almost 10 days! Area C has started building, but the air circulation system is non-existent. Do you how hard that is for the workers that work there every day? They have to wear a spacesuits that weigh more 10 kilograms, and if a hole appears on someone's suit, it will be fatal. Manager Lee, I'm begging you, please give me my quota first for the sake of these workers. We have to take care of their lives."

After Cheng Wen heard that, his heart twitched with annoyance. Of course, the situation was not as bad as this man made it out to be. The spacesuits used by humanity now were created by the latest electromagnetic nanobots. They wouldn't have be destroyed if shot directly by a gun, much less poked through by building materials. Furthermore, it used a double-layer sealing system, so if there truly was a leak, the material would self-recover and a warning light would appear in the system, signaling for its wearer to retreat to somewhere safe. Therefore, the whole plea was merely masking the man's desire for more materials.

Of course, if Cheng Wen had any left to give, he wouldn't have keep it for himself, but there was really nothing left. He was not a magician, he couldn't just pull stuff out of thin air.

Ever since the project of the first industrial base started, everyone had been focused on the managerial role that would overlook the whole project. The government servants, representatives, and even the engineers, they all salivated after this role. Individuals who believed they had the qualifications had started moving up and down the Hope to garner support. Of course, there weren't any bribes, they were going around asking favors. In other words, many forces were eyeing this manager post.

This was because this post carried a lot of weight, as this was the first step for building humanity's homeland. Whoever became the manager of this first industrial base would have great political standing in the future.

Initially, everyone thought Yao Yuan would take the post, and others assumed it was going to be Guang Zhen. After all, this base was instrumental to humanity, it was the heart of humanity in the New Solar System.

However, the final result surprised everyone. Neither Yao Yuan nor Guang Zhen took over the base, its managerial post was handed over to a rather unknown government worker on the Hope. It was Lee Cheng Wen.

Cheng Wen was indeed a fine choice. Ever since he took the job, the chaotic base was arranged nicely and tidily and the progress of basically all the projects had increased. He flitted through his work responsibilities expertly, managing not only the base but also the external buildings attached to it. Everyone with eyes could see that this was Cheng Wen's time to shine and that it wouldn't take long for him to move closer to the central power of the Hope.

However, everything was not as perfect as it looked on the surface. The power that came with being the manager of the first industrial base was great, but with great power came great responsibility. Currently, the base had more 10,000 workers, and setting up the work schedule alone was a headache. The worst was, of course, the materials that were dwindling by the day.

The industrial base had been producing a great amount of materials. In fact, due to the expansion of the base, the base's daily production of metals had reached 10 million tons, but the amount of material exhaustion rose at a rate that was even scarier.

Around the industrial base, five surrounding areas had started being built. They would form the foundation for the City of Light Moon. They were respectively Areas A, B, C, D, and E. The five areas encapsulated all the necessary buildings for a town and the basic amenities for a space planet with no atmosphere, like super an electromagnetic ozone layer, internal air circulation, and water vapor circulation system as well as internal waste recycling and processing systems. These required a great amount of materials, an amount that couldn't be compared to the amount needed to start a city back on Earth.

In fact, other than Area A, which was prioritized, the remaining four areas' daily exhaustion was enough to make a small country on Earth go bankrupt. These were not the extent of Cheng Wen's concern. The other headache he had to deal with was Guang Zhen's ambitious New Solar System defense plan. The first step of that plan was to build three space fleets to defend the New Solar System. Even though the size and scale of each fleet had been downsized multiple times, each of them was still large enough to cause a large country back on Earth to go bankrupt. In fact, just the materials needed for the mothership was enough to send anyone into despair. If not for the power of a peak level 2 space civilization, this plan was truly only a paper talk.

In conclusion, the first industrial base was running on negative; it was way over its workload. There were more than 6,000 mining robots underneath the base working on a discovered ore vein. The mining carried on non-stop for 24 hours and every ore was tossed into the base's several giant smelters to be processed and manufactured.

However, even so… the base had reached its limits. The giant electromagnetic smelters had been running at their maximum capacity for more than 100 days. This was already way beyond the recommended running period. If this was allowed to continue, some accidents might happen. These were equipment using energy reactor as energy sources, so if something bad happen to them, the number of fatalities would not be one or two.

Then there were the mining robots. According to the AI robot manual provided by the Workshop, the robots had to have their internal systems cleared and restarted every month. However, due to the workload, this was impossible because the process would require three to five days…

Cheng Wen had handed his report back to the Hope, but it was like dropping a stone into the sea, there was no news. The only message back from Yao Yuan was to try his best and the situation at the industrial base would be solved within this month…

While Cheng Wen was at the edge of despair, inside the Hope's captain's room, both Yao Yuan and Guang Zhen glared at each other with eyes red. They were close to fighting it out. Thankfully, neither was a rash person, so after a long time, Yao Yuan sighed. "Ol' Wong, it is not that I want to reject you, but the first industrial base really cannot support two great projects at the same time. The City of Light Moon's Area B is opening for use soon, and after that, I will be able to create more manufacturing centers for public-use supplies. Do you know how long our current supply line is? If this is allowed to continue…"

Guang Zhen cut him off immediately. "Ol' Cap'n, it is not that I want to trouble you, but I have been very clear, building a space fleet is more important than this City of Light Moon… to be frank, if we are attacked by a level 3 space civilization now, do you think we will be able to defend this City of Light Moon? But with a space fleet, all of us will be able to flee together. Survival is the most important. Furthermore, we will need the spaceship fleet to protect the City of Light Moon and the first industrial base. Any other project can be stopped, but the building of First Human Fleet cannot be stopped!"

Yao Yuan was annoyed, but he tried his best to console Guang Zhen. Then he asked Barbie to get him a document file, then he told Guang Zhen, "Ol' Wong, since you've put it that way, I cannot use orders to force you. How about this: we talk this out. I will not ask you to cut down the space fleet, but you give me one month. Just one month and I will give you back your space fleet in its most original form, the one that has not been downsized. What do you think? Take a look at this proposal."

Guang Zhen picked it up and read it. Then he gasped. "The Industrial Base Number Two Proposal? I know about this. The first industrial base has reached its capacity, that I understand, but Ol' Yao, does the Hope have enough human resources to go around? I hear the public university has already asked for their program to be cut by one year, even the new students can't wait to join the production lines, but at this moment, do you have the manpower to start a second industrial base?"

"We don't." Yao Yuan shook his head but said with a smile, "But we can build one…

"I've made my decision. The expansion of AI robot numbers will start now!"