"Thermal dampeners are active. Radar cross-section is absolute zero," Mereel reported from the co-pilot seat, his eyes locked on the telemetry screens. "To every military installation in Northern Europe, we are currently nothing more than a mild gust of wind."
I kept my hands lightly on the flight sticks of the newly printed shuttle. We had decided to call it the Taxi. It was a sleek, matte-black wedge of radar-absorbent composite, roughly the size of a private jet but without any wings or conventional engines. Powered entirely by high-density battery banks and our new standard anti-grav drives, it moved through the freezing night air in complete, eerie silence.
"Visual on the Target," I said, looking through the canopy.
Below us was a desolate, snow-dusted dirt road intersecting a dense pine forest. Standing next to a battered Volvo station wagon was a single figure wrapped in a heavy winter coat. Stacked neatly around him were at least ten heavy-duty cases.
"He didn't pack light," Mereel noted.
"Good. It means he's serious," I said.
I brought the Taxi into a smooth hover just a few meters above the dirt road. The downward thrust of the anti-grav drives flattened the tall grass, but made almost no sound. I tapped the console to lower the rear hydraulic ramp.
I unbuckled my harness and walked back into the small, brightly lit cargo hold. Mereel followed. As the ramp hit the dirt, the freezing Swedish night air rushed in.
The man standing at the bottom of the ramp looked to be in his late thirties, with messy dark hair, a beard that tried to be neat, and wire-rimmed glasses that were currently fogging up from his breath. He stared at the matte-black shuttle floating silently above the ground, then looked up at me.
"GreenThumb_88, I presume?" I asked, stepping down the ramp.
He blinked, clearly overwhelmed by the physical reality of what he had only seen on a terminal screen. He extended a gloved hand.
"Rey," he said, his voice carrying a slight Scandinavian accent. "Dr. Reynard Kjell. And you are Surgrim?"
"I am. This is Mereel," I said, shaking his hand. "Welcome to the Nomad program, Rey. Are those your bags?"
"Portable spectrometers, seed banks, soil samples, and my primary hard drives," Rey said, gesturing to the cases. "I wasn't sure what kind of equipment you had up there."
"We can print almost anything, but bringing your own data is smart," I said. "Let's get this loaded. We have a launch window to catch."
It took us three minutes to haul the heavy cases into the Taxi's cargo hold. Rey took a seat in one of the four passenger chairs, buckling himself in while looking around the minimalist, highly functional interior. There were no exposed wires, no bulky oxygen tanks. Just smooth, dark composite and glowing interface panels.
I took the pilot's seat and sealed the ramp. "Hold on, Rey," I called back. "Ascent is going to be quick."
I pushed the throttle forward. The Taxi shot straight up into the night sky. There was no rattling, no roaring jet engines, just the faint, high-pitched whine of the anti-grav drives compensating for the massive acceleration.
"Inertial dampeners are holding internal G-forces at a comfortable 1.2," Mereel noted.
I glanced back at Rey. He was gripping his armrests, looking out the side window as the curvature of the Earth rapidly appeared below us.
"I'm not a physicist," Rey said, his scientific curiosity fighting with the sheer surrealism of the situation. "But shouldn't there be fire? Or jet fuel? How are we going straight up without breaking a few laws of thermodynamics?"
"Our Tech is better," I said simply. "You'll get used to it."
Two Hours Later. L5 Anchor Station.
"Approaching the Anchor," I announced. "Dropping stealth protocols."
I heard Rey unbuckle his harness and step up right behind my chair, peering through the cockpit canopy.
Hanging in the absolute void of Lagrange Point 5 was the station. It was no longer just a skeletal frame. The massive, cylindrical Hangar Spine was complete, its blue atmospheric forcefields glowing softly against the darkness. Attached to the dorsal side was the blocky, armored Engineering Hub, and just beyond that, the newly printed Residential Ring. And parked perfectly in the center of the hangar, dwarfing everything else, was the Nomad.
Rey let out a slow, stuttering breath. "My god. The live video feed didn't do it justice." He turned to look at Mereel and me. "Are there really just... three of you running all this?"
"The three of us, and Archi," Mereel corrected.
"Who is Archi?" Rey asked.
"I am the Autonomous Assistance Program, Dr. Kjell," Archi's voice resonated through the shuttle's speakers, crisp and perfectly synthesized. "I manage the station's infrastructure, calculate telemetry, and ensure Mr. Mereel does not accidentally vent our atmosphere into space during his engineering experiments."
Rey jumped slightly, looking around for the source of the voice. "A program? Like an AI?"
"More like a System," I explained, guiding the Taxi smoothly through the blue forcefield of the main hangar. "Like the ones you see in those old sci-fi novels or Manhwa. He interfaces directly with the ship, the nanites, and reality itself. And mostly, he lives in my head. Welcome home, Rey."
The shuttle touched down on the deck plates with a solid metallic thud. When I lowered the ramp, Judy was already waiting for us in the brightly lit hangar. She was holding a tablet and wearing a comfortable station jumpsuit.
"You must be Rey," Judy smiled, extending her hand as we walked down the ramp.
I blinked, looking at her. "I haven't even told you his name yet."
Judy tapped the comm-bead in her ear and rolled her eyes at me. "The comms are open, Surgrim. Plus, I read his dossier the second he solved the puzzle. I'm Judy. I handle communications, logistics, and making sure these two actually eat their vegetables." Judy said to Rey.
"It is an absolute pleasure," Rey said, shaking her hand, his eyes still wandering up to the massive black hull of the Nomad.
"Let's get your cases," I said, grabbing two of them. Mereel took another two. "We'll get you settled in first, then we'll talk about your lab."
We led Rey toward the transit corridor that connected the hangar to the new Residential Block.
"This is incredible," Rey noted as we walked down the wide corridor. "Walking here feels completely normal. No lightheadedness, no floating. It feels exactly like walking on Earth."
Mereel grinned proudly. "Yep. Localized gravity plating. I dialed it in to exactly 1G. Saves us the structural stress of building a massive, spinning centrifuge."
We stopped in front of a door marked Quarters 04. I tapped my wrist against the lock, and the door slid open. Rey stepped inside his fifty-square-meter apartment, staring out the massive OLED window that displayed a flawless, high-resolution feed of the Earth.
"Drop your bags," I said, leaning against the doorframe. "Whenever you're ready, we'll be in the Science Block."
One Hour Later. Science Division, Module A.
Rey walked into the Science Block looking refreshed. He stopped in the doorway, looking confused. The module was massive, but completely empty. Bare gray steel floors and bright overhead lights.
"Where is the equipment?" Rey asked.
"In standard research, you wait six months for a grant, order a spectrometer, and then wait three months for delivery," I explained, walking over to the holographic interface table in the center of the room. "Here, we skip the bureaucracy. What do you need for your research?"
Rey blinked. "You mean I can just... requisition it now?"
"I mean we will print it right now," I corrected. "Tell me what you need."
Rey looked at the glowing grid on the table. "Alright. I need twelve sealed hydroponic cultivation chambers with individual, variable atmospheric controls. I need full-spectrum LED arrays capable of simulating exact solar radiation curves."
I nodded. "Archi, draw that up."
"Parameters accepted," Archi's voice echoed. On the holotable, twelve sleek, transparent cylinders materialized in the grid.
"I need automated mass spectrometers, a gas-chromatograph, and a high-speed centrifuge," Rey continued, his voice gaining confidence as he saw the hologram update. "And a sterile glovebox environment for cellular splicing."
"Add it to the schematic." I said.
Rey looked at me, testing the limits. "I also need a localized zero-G containment field inside chamber four. I want to see how roots develop without gravity-tropism, but I need the rest of the lab at 1G so I can actually work."
Mereel grinned. "Easy. Archi will isolate the gravity plating under chamber four."
"Adjusted," Archi confirmed.
"If you can actually build this, it's a multi-million dollar facility," Rey said, shaking his head.
"Stand back," I said.
From the ventilation ducts, a thick, shimmering silver mist poured into the room. Rey instinctively stepped back as the trillions of nanites swarmed. They moved with terrifying speed. The empty steel room transformed as hydroponic chambers grew from the floor up and complex circuitry was printed atom by atom. Within ninety seconds, the mist retreated, leaving behind a pristine biological research laboratory.
Rey slowly walked over to the nearest hydroponic chamber, running his hand over the flawless glass. "This is impossible."
"It's just applied engineering," I said pragmatically. "Does it work for you? I know you usually have to slice the roots open and put them under an electron microscope to check your nitrogen-fixation."
"Surgrim," Archi chimed in, speaking directly to me. "If I may offer an optimization for Dr. Kjell's workflow. The destructive sampling he uses is highly inefficient. I recommend integrating a modified version of our medical diagnostic arrays directly into the base of the hydroponic chambers."
I looked at Rey. "Archi suggests putting our medical scanners—basically an advanced MRI and ultrasound array—into the plant pots."
Rey frowned, his scientific mind rapidly connecting the dots. "Wait. You mean I wouldn't need to slice the roots? The array could provide a real-time, 3D holographic projection of the plant as it grows?"
"Essentially, yes," Archi confirmed "You could watch the bacteria interact with the root nodules live, without disturbing the organism."
Rey stared at the ceiling. "Archi... can you really show me cellular mitosis happening in real-time?"
"Yes, Dr. Kjell," Archi finally replied. "Down to the atomic binding level."
"On Earth, my research was projected to take fifteen years," Rey said, turning to look at me, completely ignoring the slight AI snub in favor of the science. "With this... I can give you a fully optimized, high-yield crop in less than three months."
"Good," I said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Because we need to be able to feed people. The nutrient paste tastes like wet cardboard."
"I can fix that," Rey said immediately, walking over to his cases and popping the latches. "Give me access to the water recyclers and the station's compost."
As the bulkhead doors hissed shut behind us, Mereel chuckled. "He didn't even say goodbye. He just wants to plant his space-potatoes. But you know... he can't come to us every time he needs a new petri dish."
"Yeah," I agreed, walking down the corridor. "It highlights a massive structural problem. Archi is tied to the Nomad and my system. If we bring fifty more researchers up here, I can't spend all day playing moderator every time someone needs a beaker printed."
Mereel nodded slowly. "We need a localized Station System. A separate, dedicated AI that handles the Anchor's daily operations and takes direct requests from the crew."
"Exactly," I said. "Let's go talk to Archi about coding himself a little sibling."