"I do appreciate the thoughts, Mr. D'Agincourte." Gerret said as he walked. They walked past a large room, with men and women at work tending several different varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs. A worker tossed Gerret an apple, which he caught happily.

"I agree that we could use more security, in the event of someone taking drastic measures. Out of the 250 people on this station, there are not many weapons to go around, unless you count cutting tools." He spoke, patting the side of his leg to make sure his pistol was still there.

"If we need to produce more food, there is no reason we cannot find or salvage more food production systems from other abandoned stations, or find the schematics to build more." He spoke as they walked through an atrium filled with varying kinds of trees. A bird could be heard chirping here and there as they fluttered in between the trees.

Eventually, they reached a room that was Garret's office. He passed by it to another room, where there was a built-in pond. Within it was a school of silver fish, all calmly swimming within the clear water, made slightly blue by the underwater lights.

"We're happy to provide to whoever we can, but we understand that there probably isn't enough to feed everyone and still have some left over for ourselves. My scientists calculated that if we produced at maximum rate, and gave every crop harvested equally among different people, we could only continuously support a population of around one-thousand people, give or take. It's my hope that more than that remains of humanity, but at the same time I want to do everything I can to protect what we have." He sits by the pod, in a nearby chair.

"If you would be willing to help us defend this place from anyone who would harm us, you and your people may be allotted a share of our harvests."

@Catchphrase mentioned.

Fay grinned, having guessed that Erving was going to follow. Of course, who wouldn't want access into restricted areas. "Of course I don't mind, chap," she says, slowing her pace to walk alongside Erving, and then proceeding to place her arm onto his shoulder. "We'll see all the sights, right?" One of the soldiers and the informant had broken off to do their own things, only the soldier that had accompanied Fay to the meeting staying with them. He chucked to himself, knowing that a 'sight' to Talos was an explosion. This wasn't the case now, though. They couldn't go around blowing things up, even if they did have a nuclear bomb on board.

"We could go to the command center, the armoury, maybe even to the experimenting deck if you wanted. We're trying to work on drones, some of the miners know how to rig things, but it's still a major work in progress." Fay didn't remove her arm from his shoulder as she walked.

Ervings ear pricked up when he heard they were working on drones. Epsilon made a drones before they left Earth, so he knew what to look for.

"The drones sound interesting. I know a few basics about how to make them, so I could give a few observations on whether or not they'll work properly. Unfortunately, the only one who knows everything about anything regarding drones and turrets is R&D, but I shall see if I can help a little."

"Thanks. We may have to talk about it. We don't really know what we're doing with the big stuff. We're, Talos, not the station as a whole, are more experienced making smaller drones rather than larger ones." Fay says, turning down a hall and removing her arm from Erving's shoulder to type in passcodes to get further into the station. "They're just a few more bulkheads forward of here."

When they reached the chamber for testing, there was a large room, and in it, an aircraft-looking structure with all sorts of parts everywhere, a group of ten men all walking around with greater enthusiasm than ten minutes ago, since an official had just entered the room. "There's our first test. Not very good, yet." Fay says.

Erving looked at the mess and frowned. They had the parts, but not the expertise.

"I recommend you build the inner workings first, just to see if it all will run. Then you build the body around it for protection. If you build outward in, one thing on the inside could break and it'll be harder to repair. Also, test everything individually before you put it together. That's the best I can give you sorry."

"Ah, well, that's for the help anyways. It goes a long way. Any help we can get is good." Fay gave a warm smile, before turning to talk to some engineers. The soldier that had been with them the whole time decided now would be a good time for lunch, and so left. Turning around, Fay asks, "Would you like to go to the meeting, now?"

Erving smiled and nodded, "That would be great, after you miss Fay."

Fay nods at him, her face a little pink as she turns to start walking to where the meeting would be taking place. She herself was not a proper member of the Civil Council, however she was attending this one as she had important info to share there (though she would not be sharing anything too sensitive to the civilians). "Thank you, mister Erving." Soon, they arrived at the meeting, and Fay took a seat, motioning to a seat beside her for Erving. Slowly, the room filled up with those attending the meeting. The overseer, the SPL, SPSes and SPSLs, all took their seats, all mentioned on the sheet handed to Erving earlier.

The SPL, Jason Macdonald smiled widely at Fay. "Missus Powell, have you found yourself an admirer?" He asks, jokingly. Fay laughs loudly. "No, Party Leader. This is a diplomat from Epsilon station, Erving Strand, of which we are docked with." Jason and the others at the table all looked to Erving. "Well, mister Strand, it is nice to have you here. Now, however, we must begin this meeting." Jason turned to the other council members, and begins to talk about new rules that may need to be emplaced now that other stations had been found.

@scifidude47

Godwin took a seat next to Gerret and regardless of if there was other available seating, the Nationalist officers opted to stand instead, keeping their hands behind their backs and remaining mostly still and silent. Godwin was turned slightly in his chair to face Gerret, though the beauty of the location they were in did not escape him.

"I'd be ecstatic to hold the honor of defending such an important resource. It's my hope that our stations have a long and prosperous relationship and like I mentioned earlier... maybe one day we may even be able to consider ourselves one great station". Truly, Godwin was indifferent to the needs of the other station. He was striking a deal and didn't need to use force or risk loss to get what he wanted. Besides, this made peaceful annexation at a later date that much easier.

"Now, my station also has great industrial capability. It's a factory station and has several manufacturing plants and facilities. Although the equipment is meant to be used to create military grade weapons and armor, which we could use to further build defenses around here, we could also use this machinery to build other things given a little makeshift work and parameter changes. All we need is the material. So if you and your people happen to come across anything like that through trade or scavenging, keep my station in mind and we might be able to manufacture products for both of our stations".

Godwin smirked a bit, "Although these are win - win situations we've been discussing, I want you to know that I find it of the utmost importance that we, as potentially the last of our kind, are willing to be generous in such troubling times. If there is anything your station needs, tell me, and maybe we can work something out". Of course, this was just a show of good faith. Words are wind and if any of the requests were too much work with little reward, he wouldn't dedicate himself.

Garret thought for a moment. He wasn't much of a fighting man, but watching a few battles against the Crawl take place on earth, he knew a thing or two about fighting it.

"I'm glad you have a station with that kind of ability, Godwin, if I may call you that." He looked at the fish in their indoor pond.

"If The Crawl or pieces of it ever found their way in, we'd need laser or fire weapons to kill them. Bullets and small explosions don't do much good." He spoke, remembering watching an entire squadron of soldiers with assault rifles being torn to shreds by dead flesh, whereas he survived an encounter with a small sample of The Crawl by finding a laser pistol.

"With that in mind, we need to train not only in human to human warfare, but fighting against The Crawl, too." He looked at the atrium they passed, nightmarish thoughts of crawling rot throughout the station flickering through his thoughts.

"We'll need to have the ability to fight the Crawl if we ever encounter it while scrounging in abandoned stations, as well. Pieces of it can survive the vacuum of space almost indefinitely. If we saw an outbreak of it, we'd need it crushed immediately." He stood.

"A proposition. We'll start shipping crops to your station immediately, but if you can start producing laser weapons and training my people in how to use them, perhaps we can work out something more."

@scifidude47

"I both appreciate the offer and accept it. If I can keep my people fed, we can manufacture, produce, defend, scavenge, and simply survive. We have the specifications and blueprints for the weapons, we'll just need to scrap some junk material on the station to produce a makeshift design. I won't lie, the first edition we create will be faulty, higher chance of failure, and generally weaker. Once we have the proper materials, however... the quality will be that of the finest military force. Of course, we'd keep an amount of these weapons for ourselves, not only to fight the Crawl, but because it would be easier to train your people that way as well."

Godwin knew it was a good deal. His people would have to fight off the Crawl if they were ever plagued or planned on scavenging abandoned stations. His only concern was arming the same people that he wanted to keep in a weak state and exhibit control over. He wasn't sure of what exactly they could do but they were the one manufacturing the weapons and the possibilities of gaining the upper hand were there. Besides, his people got weapons out of it too.

"Again, if you find any material that you wish to contribute, it would be greatly appreciated and your station would receive the bulk of the order. We'd only ask for a laser rifle or two for study and improvement."

Gerret smiled. They had a deal. Civilization was on its way to coming back. Commerce, science, military, agriculture. All the bits and pieces were laid out in front of them. All that was left was to put it together and make it work.

"I'm glad we're of one mind, Godwin. Tell your people that today they can expect a shipment of tomatoes, navy beans, and carrots." He smiled, stretching out his hand to offer a shake.

"Let us find a station to get laser rifles from, and we'll get them to you as soon as we can."

@Catchphrase mentioned.

After a while, the meeting came to a close, and Fay stretched out as everyone began to exit the room, giving the girliest little squeal/yawning noise as she did so. "Well, we have an hour or so before the next meeting. Want to see anything particular, Erving, buddy?" She asks, putting one leg on top of the other and glancing at him.

Erving grinned at her shook his head, "This is your home, is there anything worth seeing?"

"Nothing really that special, only the view of the stars from every window on this station. We could head to the observatory and take a look outside," the Talos Teamleader says. After a moment, she speaks once again. "In fact, if you want an even better view, we could always head to one of the airlocks and walk around the outside of the station, if you're up for it," Fay says with a grin. She most definitely was.

Erving looked at with a somewhat arrogant smile, "Please, I could do a space walk in my sleep. They don't keep me on board the station because of my pretty looks and silver tongue. Then again, even those things are enough to get me by. Come on, lead the way, we shall see who is better in zero gravity."

@Catchphrase mentioned

Fay laughed rather shyly. Pretty looks Erving was right about. "Hey, if you want a zero G challenge, you oughtta do spec ops zero G exercises. I assure you, there is no way you'd get through that, even with your pretty looks." She gave him a wink before beginning to walk to one of the airlocks dotted around the station.

Once at the airlock and suited up in a space suit, she waited for Erving to do so, and then opened the airlock to the other side, proceeding to walk out and along the hull, the boots being magnetic and allowing her to do so, a radio allowing her to also communicate with Erving.

Erving gazed at the stars outside the ship, and breathed deeply from his oxygen tank. The suit was good, far better than the ones at Epsilon. He turned on the radio and talked to Fay, "So, how often do you lot go outside the station?"

"Sometimes people like to come out here for a bit and watch the stars. Me, personally, go out a few times when I need time to think. All of this 'leader of the people' stuff gets to my head sometimes," the woman replied, sitting on the deck and staring up at the stars beyond. It really was a beautiful sight, perhaps even a romantic one. "Do you guys get to come out often?"

Erving had a sad look on his face and shook his head, "Sadly no, it is considered too dangerous since our suits are built only for emergencies, but," he looks at her and gives a grin, "some people do break the rules from time to time. It is quite the pretty, and I'm not talking about the stars." He looked over at Fray and gave a roguish smile and a wink.