A little under three hours after the naval queues started, Hans returned to the waterfront.
Both Shipyards were still working.
The production basins had been empty when he left them. They were not empty anymore.
A keel occupied most of the first drydock, stretching from the inland fabrication halls toward the closed water gate. Structural frames had risen around it while automated cranes moved completed sections into position, locking armor and internal compartments into a hull that already dwarfed most of the civilian vessels abandoned around Saicine.
The second Shipyard was building the same thing.
Hans stopped along the elevated service platform.
The System had not exaggerated when it called the basin adaptive.
Most of the fabrication equipment had moved outward to accommodate the destroyer's beam. Cranes traveled along rails built around the dock while assembly platforms shifted with the growing hull, giving each section access before moving farther along.
