"How long," Vegeta said again, not louder—closer.
The chief engineer didn't blink at the pressure. She broke the problem and stacked it in air, the way good minds did: shell, driver array, field integrity, isolation mounts, power feed, failsafes.
"One week for a ground unit," she said. "If I cannibalize the hyper-resistance rig and both centrifuge drums. It won't be pretty. It'll hold."
"And the ship," Vegeta said.
"For a proper retrofit?" She let the stylus hover. "Ten days minimum. Or we bolt a crude banded driver into a small hull and pray it doesn't shake itself apart when you sneeze."
Nappa whistled, low. "Could work. If the Prince doesn't sneeze."
Vegeta didn't smile. "Seven days," he said. "Ground chamber live in six. Ship follows on the seventh."
The engineer considered arguing. She didn't. "Then I need full authority. Materials. Crew. Night shift."
Vegeta lifted a hand without looking. The clerk fumbled a thick packet forward like an altar offering.
"These are pre-cleared authorizations—" the clerk began.
"They are dead weight until they aren't," Vegeta said. He signed the top page with a stroke that cut through three forms. "You have authority. You have Nappa."
Nappa grinned. "I'm the part that lifts."
"You're the part that makes sure no one touches what isn't theirs," Vegeta said. "And that they touch what is."
The engineer nodded once. "I'll requisition the driver cores and both drum shells. I'll need carbon lattice bracing, dual cutoffs, and every tech who isn't afraid to stand inside a room that wants to crush them."
"They'll learn not to be," Vegeta said.
The lab woke without theatrics. Orders rolled out of Bay Three like water finding gradients. Techs peeled from their corners and turned into a team. Someone killed the polite lights and brought up work light—harder, cleaner. The tank bubbled, ignored.
Vegeta turned on his heel. "Quartermaster next," he said.
The clerk tried to keep up. "Your Highness, if we lodge the R-forms—"
"We're lodging the results," Vegeta said.
Nappa fell into step. "You want me to rattle the cage or bring it down?"
"Rattle first," Vegeta said. "People show their teeth when they think the cage holds."
The supply wing sat like a grudging organ at the base of the complex—low ceilings, stacked crates, the air tasting like oil and old promises. A queue of unit reps snaked along the wall, each with a printout and an expression that wanted to be patient.
A sergeant with a ledger faced them down from behind a metal counter. He didn't flinch at uniforms. He flinched at rank. When he saw Vegeta, the ledger went straighter.
"Prince," he said. "What an honor. If you need supplies, we can schedule an appointment time—"
"Now," Vegeta said.
The sergeant tried a smile. "Now comes after these fine—"
Nappa set both hands on the counter and leaned forward until it groaned. The queue decided it had somewhere else to look.
Vegeta laid the signed authority packet down between them. "Banded gravity driver cores. Two centrifuge drums for shell strip. Carbon lattice bracing. Cutoff hardware. High-density mounts. You'll push them to Bay Three. You'll do it before you finish your next thought."
The sergeant looked at the signatures like they might bite. "Bay Three," he repeated, buying time. "That's the… lab side. We usually require—"
"Require," Vegeta said softly, "a definition."
The sergeant opened his mouth and closed it. He swallowed. "Transport in five minutes."
"Three," Nappa said, still leaning.
"Three," the sergeant agreed, discovering he loved efficiency.
Vegeta stepped back. The room breathed again. A rep halfway down the line made the mistake of speaking. "What's so urgent it needs—"
"A room that makes weak spines stand up," Nappa said, almost friendly. "You're welcome."
They took the side corridor back, faster than they'd come. The building knew their speed now; doors opened a beat earlier. Work carts rattled by with crates that looked heavier than they were. A technician in a stained smock jogged the other way with a coil of cable bigger than her torso, eyes bright and scared in the useful way.
Back in Bay Three, the engineer had pulled a drum onto a rolling cradle and was marking cut points with quick, permanent strokes. She didn't look up when Vegeta re-entered; she didn't need to.
"Mounts in three," she said.
"Two," Nappa corrected from behind Vegeta, just to keep the rhythm.
"You just got promoted to liar," she said dryly, and then the first crate slid through the door on cue. Two more followed, escorted by supply troops who tried to look invisible.
Vegeta watched the pieces arrive without softening. A dial, not a monument. He kept the picture steady in his head: a small world inside a room, gravity like a hand on the back of his neck, the survival instinct not to kneel.
"Prince," the clerk panted, arriving with a new stack of forms and a sheen of sweat. "Command wanted—wants—to speak on the secure line. Priority."
Vegeta didn't look at him. "They wanted yesterday. They can want tomorrow."
"It's flagged as urgent-urgent," the clerk said, as if stacking the word would change the shape. "There's a notation—redeployment window—"
Nappa scratched his jaw. "We can take a short run and be back before—"
Vegeta's look cut that thought off at the ankles. "We?"
Nappa cleared his throat. "They could send you alone. They'll try."
"They can try," Vegeta said.
The engineer flipped a drum section with the help of two techs and took measurements with a dull pencil on the heel of her hand. "If you leave," she said, neutral information guiding the tone, "we keep building. If you leave and break this line for me, it takes longer."
Vegeta watched her hands. Clean. Efficient. No worship. "You'll have what you need."
"I do," she said. "Right now."
A supply trooper wheeled in the lattice bracing. Nappa lifted one end without looking and set it where the engineer pointed, like a man slotting a rib back into a chest. The hum in the bay deepened as the driver cores spooled up on a diagnostic harness.
The clerk hovered, trying to be smaller than his need. "Your Highness. The secure line."
Vegeta turned at last and walked toward the wall panel. It woke as he approached, status lights stepping up as if excited to be useful. He didn't touch it. Not yet.
He looked past the panel to the room. To the drum shell cut clean into two curved plates. To the mounts lined in a row like well-behaved fists. To the driver cores resting like sleeping animals about to remember their size. To Nappa doing the heavy work without complaint. To the engineer writing a language on metal that pressure understood.
Six days, he told himself, not out loud. Seven for the ship. No worship. No wishes. Weight.
He reached toward the panel. The comm chimed once, twice—polite. The third tone leaned toward command.
"Your Highness," the clerk said carefully, already braced for the weather. "If you don't answer, they'll send a—"
"They'll send a message," Vegeta said. "They already did." He stopped a finger's breadth over the accept field.
The bay's hum folded around the moment. Nappa's breath, the scrape of a brace sliding, the tick of a stylus on metal—everything waited without asking permission.
Vegeta smiled without showing teeth.
Then his finger dropped.
And hovered.