—///—
P19 — Education Center 4
Unlike the roaring gladiatorial arena or the crowded commercial districts of P19, Education Center Four carried a much quieter atmosphere.
That did not mean it was any less busy.
Hundreds of classrooms occupied the enormous complex, alongside technical workshops, lecture halls, libraries, testing rooms, and simulation chambers. Thousands of students passed through its halls every day, ranging from young children to adults old enough to have families of their own.
The influx of new inhabitants following Operation Snatcher had created one of the largest challenges the Education Division had faced in years.
Over two hundred thousand people had arrived from completely different backgrounds.
Some could read and write perfectly well.
Others had received only basic schooling.
Many of the former slaves had almost no formal education whatsoever beyond whatever skills their previous masters considered useful.
That meant there could be no single curriculum for everyone.
Inside one of the larger conference rooms, saKhan Elaina Rhys stood before several dozen senior educators while a holographic display showed the latest testing results from the newly arrived population.
Elaina slowly moved through the information before addressing the room.
Elaina: We are not going to dump twenty years of Wolverine history, politics, mathematics, and technical education onto these people in their first month and expect them to understand any of it.
Several educators nodded.
Elaina changed the display.
Different categories appeared across the holographic screen.
GENERAL EDUCATION
WOLVERINE CIVICS
LOCAL GEOGRAPHY
BASIC TECHNOLOGY
VOCATIONAL ASSESSMENT
LANGUAGE AND LITERACY
MATHEMATICS
Elaina: For now, concentrate on general knowledge. They need to understand where they are, who we are, how our government functions, what rights they possess, what is expected of them as citizens, and how to navigate everyday life on P19.
One educator raised her hand.
Educator Mira: What about history?
Elaina: Introduce it gradually.
Elaina folded her arms.
Elaina: They should know that we are Clan Wolverine. They should understand the Exodus, Aleksandr Kerensky, our origins, and why we are here. But I do not want instructors standing in front of newly arrived students and immediately spending six hours explaining every miserable decision Nicholas Kerensky ever made.
A few quiet laughs moved throughout the room.
Elaina smiled slightly.
Elaina: There will be plenty of time for that later.
The next section appeared.
PRACTICAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
Elaina: Adults will continue undergoing vocational assessments. Once we know what they already understand, we build upon it. Farmers do not need to become engineers. Experienced machinists do not need to relearn how a wrench works. Teach people what they need for the positions they are entering, then give them opportunities to learn beyond that if they choose.
Another educator looked through the information on his tablet.
Educator Tomas: We still have several thousand whose previous occupations don't correspond with anything we currently need.
Elaina: Then determine what they're good at.
Tomas: And if they're good at nothing?
Elaina raised an eyebrow.
Elaina: Everyone is good at something, Tomas. Our job is finding out what.
That ended the question.
Elaina continued through the reports.
The youngest newcomers presented an entirely different challenge.
Children were adapting far more quickly than their parents.
Many had already become fascinated with Wolverine technology, particularly the educational simulators scattered throughout the schools. Unfortunately, fascination with simulators had occasionally become more important to them than completing their actual coursework.
Elaina had decided to use that enthusiasm rather than fight against it.
She changed the hologram again.
ACADEMIC INCENTIVE PROGRAM
Educator Mira immediately smiled.
Mira: You're actually approving it?
Elaina: I am.
Tomas: I still think we're going to regret this.
Elaina: Probably.
Several educators laughed.
Elaina: Students who maintain acceptable scores receive regular simulator access. Higher scores earn additional time. Poor performance means they lose recreational simulator privileges until their grades improve.
Tomas leaned backward in his chair.
Tomas: You realize half of them are going to become mathematics prodigies just so they can spend another hour pretending to pilot a BattleMech?
Elaina: Then mathematics has achieved something generations of frustrated teachers thought impossible.
That earned considerably more laughter.
—///—
Elsewhere inside Education Center Four, a classroom filled with children stared impatiently at the clock.
Their instructor noticed immediately.
Teacher: Your mathematics examination is tomorrow.
Several children groaned.
Teacher: And anyone scoring eighty-five percent or higher receives two hours in the simulator hall this weekend.
The complaining stopped instantly.
One boy slowly raised his hand.
Boy: Any simulator?
Teacher: Within your age certification.
Girl: Does that include BattleMechs?
Teacher: Training configuration only.
The girl's eyes widened.
Girl: Mobile suits?
Teacher: Basic simulator.
Another child practically slammed open his mathematics book.
Boy: What's going to be on the test again?
The teacher struggled not to laugh.
Teacher: Fractions, percentages, basic geometry, and introductory algebra.
Several books immediately opened around the classroom.
One newly arrived girl stared at the other children before cautiously raising her hand.
New Girl: I've never used one before.
The teacher looked toward her.
Teacher: A simulator?
New Girl: Yes.
Teacher: Then I suppose you have a very good reason to study.
The girl looked down at her mathematics book.
Only eight months earlier, lessons had been something other children received.
She had spent most of her childhood working.
Reading had been limited.
Mathematics meant counting supplies.
School had never been part of her life.
Now she had her own books.
Her own desk.
And apparently, if she managed to score high enough on tomorrow's examination, someone was going to let her pilot a simulated BattleMech.
The girl grabbed her pencil.
New Girl: Teacher?
Teacher: Yes?
New Girl: Can you explain percentages again?
The teacher smiled.
Teacher: Of course.
Around her, hundreds of other children were experiencing much the same thing.
Some struggled.
Some excelled.
Some complained constantly.
Others treated every lesson as an opportunity they had never expected to receive.
For Elaina Rhys, that was precisely the point.
Clan Wolverine had acquired hundreds of thousands of new inhabitants.
Her responsibility was not merely to teach them how Clan Wolverine worked.
It was to give them the knowledge necessary to eventually help build it.
—///—-
P19 — Civil & Economic Division, Resource Planning Hall
Third Person POV
The central planning chamber of the Civil & Economic Division was filled with holographic displays showing orbital routes, cargo schedules, mining projections, refinery capacity, and population requirements.
At the center of it all stood saKhan Amelia.
Unlike the Warrior Division, her battles were fought with numbers.
Food production to keep them fed housing to keep them warm and satisfied, transportation to transport them where they need to go, getting them accustomed to currency increasing the industrial growth, increasing resource security and now.
The creation of Clan Wolverine's first large-scale off-world mining network.
Several new mining facilities had already been established throughout nearby asteroid belts and mineral-rich moons, but extracting resources was only the beginning.
Those materials had to be moved.
Ore had to reach refineries.
Refined metals had to reach factories.
Industrial chemicals had to reach manufacturing centers.
And all of it required ships.
Amelia studied the newest transport projections before rubbing her forehead.
Amelia: We have the mines.
Amelia: We have the workers.
Amelia: We have the processing facilities.
She looked toward the others gathered around the planning table.
Amelia: What we do not have is enough merchant shipping moving between all three at the rate I want.
Standing across from her was saKhan Toren Vale, commander of the Engineering Division.
Toren enlarged one of the holographic displays.
Several mining stations appeared around a rocky moon.
Toren: Engineering can increase extraction capacity another eighteen percent within six months, but there is no point expanding production if the ore spends three weeks sitting in storage waiting for transport.
Amelia: Exactly.
Another figure stood beside them.
saKhan Lira Voss of the Naval Division.
Where Amelia saw trade routes and Toren saw machinery, Lira saw tonnage, crews, fuel, maintenance cycles, and available hulls.
Lira: I can release twelve civilian cargo vessels immediately.
Amelia looked toward her.
Amelia: Twelve isn't enough.
Lira: I know.
Lira moved several icons across the holographic map.
Lira: Another eight can be transferred from secondary supply duties once replacement crews are trained. Beyond that, we either construct new merchant ships or begin pulling vessels away from military logistics.
Toren: I would prefer we don't cripple naval supply lines just because Amelia wants every rock within ten light-years delivered tomorrow.
Amelia slowly looked toward him.
Amelia: I heard that.
Toren: You were intended to.
Lira suppressed a smile.
Amelia: I don't need every rock within ten light-years.
She pointed toward the map.
Amelia: Just most of them.
Several nearby administrators chuckled quietly before returning to their work.
The main holographic display changed.
Three star systems appeared around P19.
None possessed major permanent settlements.
All three had been surveyed extensively over the previous years.
And all three had proven exceptionally valuable.
GAMMA-1
GAMMA-2
GAMMA-3
Because the systems remained largely undeveloped and existed deep within uncharted space, Clan Wolverine had assigned them simple survey classifications until permanent names were eventually chosen.
Amelia expanded Gamma-1.
Multiple asteroid fields appeared throughout the system.
Amelia: Gamma-One has the easiest resources to access. Iron, nickel, titanium, aluminum, and several useful rare-earth deposits throughout the inner asteroid belt.
Toren: Which makes it the obvious location for our first major extraction expansion.
Another system appeared.
Lira: Gamma-Two is farther out, but the survey teams identified significantly larger deposits.
Toren nodded.
Toren: Heavy metals, germanium, platinum-group elements, and several mineral concentrations useful for advanced electronics.
Amelia: More valuable.
Toren: Also more expensive to exploit.
Lira: And harder to defend.
Amelia looked toward the third system.
Gamma-3 appeared.
Its orbital map contained fewer conventional mineral markers than the others.
Instead, several gas giants dominated the display.
Toren: Gamma-Three is different.
Amelia: Volatiles.
Toren: Large quantities.
He highlighted several moons.
Toren: Hydrogen, helium-3, methane, ammonia, water ice, and multiple industrial gases. There are also several metallic moons worth developing later.
Lira crossed her arms.
Lira: Which means eventually we're going to need permanent stations in all three systems.
Amelia: Eventually?
Lira looked toward her.
Amelia smiled.
Amelia: I was thinking immediately.
Toren sighed.
Toren: Of course you were.
—///—
The three saKhans spent the next several hours dividing responsibilities.
Amelia's division would establish the merchant network.
Civilian shipping companies would receive contracts to transport raw materials from orbital mines to Wolverine-controlled refineries and industrial centers. New trade routes would be established between P19 and the Gamma systems, while incentives would encourage private merchants to invest in additional cargo vessels.
Toren's Engineering Division would expand the mining infrastructure itself.
New extraction platforms.
Automated drilling systems.
Orbital refineries.
Maintenance stations.
Storage facilities.
Worker habitats.
And eventually permanent industrial colonies.
Lira's Naval Division would provide the ships necessary to begin operations while also protecting the new routes.
The region remained largely uncharted.
No major foreign power was believed to operate nearby.
But Lira refused to assume that meant the systems were safe.
Lira: Until we know exactly what's beyond these systems, every merchant convoy travels with escort.
Amelia: Pirates?
Lira: Pirates. Unknown settlements. Lost colonies. Anyone else who happens to dislike seeing Wolverine ships harvesting resources.
Toren: We've found nothing yet.
Lira: And I'd like to keep our first discovery from being a merchant captain screaming over the radio because something is shooting at him.
Amelia nodded.
Amelia: Reasonable.
The holographic map slowly expanded.
P19 remained at its center.
Around it, Gamma-1, Gamma-2, and Gamma-3 formed the beginning of something larger.
Not merely mining sites.
Not merely economic projects.
They were the first steps toward turning Clan Wolverine's isolated territory into a genuine interstellar domain.
Amelia stared at the map for several seconds.
Amelia: We'll need more ships.
Lira: Yes.
Toren: More mining equipment.
Amelia: Yes.
Lira: More crews.
Amelia: Yes.
Toren: More orbital infrastructure.
Amelia: Obviously.
Both of them stared at her.
Amelia smiled.
Amelia: Fortunately, that's why the Khan gave us budgets.
Toren: You mean the budgets you're about to exceed.
Amelia: Those are the same thing.
Lira finally laughed.
The first mining convoys to Gamma-1 would depart within the month.
——-/////——-