Chapter 146 Tritium.
The next week was not as peaceful as Andrew hoped it would have been.
Mainly because of the stranded fleets that failed to reach their portals in time.
Without a way home, with dwindling supplies, and surrounded by enemies, the fleets turned into a new breed of pirates.
With actual warships, they had a higher chance of going against the system masters than their predecessors, however, there were not many targets weak enough for them to attack and have a chance of victory.
These new pirates were also aware that attacking merchants was a bad idea, since any disabled merchant ship, lost all its abilities to produce or summon resources.
Not to mention that it could piss off the guild, which could have repercussions for their homeland.
With no other choice, they started to attack the territories of the local system lords, but each attack was costly if not right out deadly.
Andrew's territory was attacked twice during this time, and each time the fleet wiped out the enemies, it helped that another batch of fifteen ships was added to the fleet during this time.
However, there was not much gain from these battles as the enemy ships mostly ended in pieces, leaving some materials and useful items, but it also left at least some damage on the defense fleet, which took time to repair.
Thankfully there were no casualties for now, but if things were left as they were then it would only be a matter of time before someone got unlucky.
-Andrew we can start with the extraction.
Aelita's voice brought Andrew back from his thoughts.
-Let's see if it was worth it.
He said.
During this week, they managed to research the extraction upgrade, which would allow them to get more helium 3 and now was the first time it was used.
Aelita rearranged some of the resource processing modules and gas separation modules.
They were now placed side by side, which was the only way to implement the upgrade.
Everyone in the command center waited for the results, as the drones started feeding chunks of asteroids into the machines.
The process was longer than usual, but within 5 minutes they had the answer.
-We managed to extract around 25 milliliters of helium 3, by processing these asteroid pieces, but the readings are inconsistent.
Some of the pieces had more helium than the others while some had none.
Jalina reported the moment she saw the data.
-Considering we are using only ten upgraded extractors for the test, it's a great result.
Nairin said with a smile.
Meanwhile, Aelita was running the numbers through her head, trying to figure out how much fuel they could get from this method.
-If we upgrade all the substations and all the modules we have on this station, we could potentially get about 3 to 4 tons of fuel each day.
However this is only based on the amount we got during this test, so it might be more or it might be less, depending on the amount of helium 3 in the asteroids.
-If we add that to the amount of fuel we are getting from the collectors and the AI system, it would still be at least a week before we can start filling the main tank of the shipyard.
Jalina said.
She also was running some calculations.
-It can't be helped, we need the shipyard at full power as soon as possible.
Andrew said.
-How long will it take to upgrade everything?
He then asked.
-If we delegate 60% of our drones to the task, and use our full production capabilities, it should be done within two days.
Nairin answered.
-Go for it, the sooner we do this, the better.
-I'm already working on it, but I also have other ideas about powering up the shipyard and getting more fuel.
Aelita said and sent him a design she was working on.
-This might work, but how do you plan to connect it to the shipyard?
Andrew asked once he read through the data.
-There is an external power port available at the shipyard, and I'm planning to use it.
-How long would it take to implement this?
-4 days, using our full production capability, and if I am right this should provide enough power for the shipyard.
Aelita explained.
-Alright, and what about the fuel you mentioned?
Andrew asked.
-We have found a lot of tritium in the asteroids.
It's slightly radioactive, but we can always make a special module to work on it and our power armor can protect us without a problem, or even better we can automate the whole thing to avoid any kind of exposure.
Tritium decays into helium 3 relatively fast, 12,3 of Earth's years, but by using a matter converter, we should be able to accelerate this process and produce fuel this way.
However, there is no way to know how much helium 3 we would be able to produce without running a test.
She explained, shocking everyone.
No one ever thought about using the matter converter to get fuel, as for tritium, the only use they had for it was emergency lighting in case they lost power and some lights were added to the equipment of every armor they had in case they were ever in a place they would need light but could not use electricity.
Other than that, they had a 20-ton storage tank filled with the stuff while any additional tritium was discarded since it was not worth much to the merchants and Andrew saw no use for it at the moment.
-Let's run the test.
Build the module you need as soon as possible but make it separate from the station just in case.
-It will take two hours to make the module and some additional time to prepare everything.
Aelita said before Andrew could even ask.
-Do it, if this works, then we won't need the other idea.
Andrew said while making a mental note about studying some chemistry when he had the time.
Aelita got to work immediately and three and a half hours later the module was ready to conduct the test.
It was powered by a hydrogen generator module, specially built for this purpose, and the tritium was delivered in containers covered with lead, just to be safe.
To save some time Aelita decided to use droids to transport the containers into the matter converter, instead of building a manipulator arms inside the module.
-I'm ready to start the test.
She said once everything was in place.
-Then let's do it.
Andrew gave the go-ahead.
The moment she activated the process, the two droids transported a 50-liter container of tritium into the matter converter.
As soon as it was put in, the process started.
The whole thing was unremarkable as everything was done inside the device.
It didn't take long for the converter to do its work, but it felt like days had gone by, for the spectators.
In less than five minutes, the matter converter opened and the same container was waiting to be picked up by the droids.
not even a minute later, the container was scanned and everyone gasped when the scan revealed that it contained almost 50 liters of helium 3.
-This is amazing.
Nairin said, looking at her teacher in amazement.
-Let's not jump to conclusions, for now.
Aelita said and proceeded with the second test, which produced almost identical results.
This was followed by another test and another after that.
In less than two hours, the engineer conducted 16 tests, each of which yielded the same results.
In the end, she managed to produce almost 800 liters of helium 3 in less than two hours.
Then came the final test, a 100-liter container of tritium was placed in the matter converter.
To everyone's surprise, the process was not prolonged due to the increase in the material provided for conversion, the only thing that changed was the amount of power used by the converter.
Five minutes later, they received almost a hundred liters of helium 3.
Andrew ran the numbers in his head and smiled.
-It looks like the giant power plant won't be needed.
He said.
If they left the new module working nonstop, it could provide around 20 tons of fuel each day, with additional fuel from other sources, this would allow them to fill up all remaining reserve tanks in the shipyard within three to four days.
Nairin, add some storage tanks for tritium to the production list.
Andrew said, happy that they finally managed to solve the fuel problem.
For the next three days, the whole production of helium 3 in the whole territory was directed to the shipyard, filling one tank after the other, until all of them were full.
Their wait was almost over now as everyone awaited for the last shipment of two tons of fuel to arrive and be transferred into the main tank.
With this, the fail safe would finally disengage, allowing the shipyard's AI to come online and making it possible to use the full production speed of the installation.