Chapter 3424: Bridgehead One The Red Ocean. The distant collection of stars orbited the Milky Way Galaxy at a distance of approximately 350,000 light-years. Crossing this distance was unimaginable to many people, but the Big Two managed to pull it off. Not only that, the MTA and CFA pooled their resources together to construct a pair of massive greater beyonder gates! Utilizing a huge amount of phasewater as well as a dizzying array of high technology, these enormous gates formed a space tunnel between two extremely distant points of space that could temporarily connect them together! The more astute scientists figured out that beyonder gate technology was likely derived from the more modest and limited portal jumping technology that the warships of the Big Two utilized on a regular basis. The proliferation of the gate networks completely revolutionized interstellar travel. Wealthy travelers with enough credits or merits to spare could near-instantly move from one location in the Milky Way to another point. A journey that used to take decades effectively compressed into a trip that lasted just two weeks or so with all of the security measures taken into account! The greater beyonder gates were even more amazing. For the first time in people's lives, they could easily hop from one galaxy to another galaxy in a more practical and convenient manner! Of course, it wasn't as glamorous as it sounded. Unlike the Andromeda, the Red Ocean was not actually a large, independent galaxy. It was a dwarf galaxy, which was basically the equivalent of a moon but on a much larger scale. The Red Ocean was the Milky Way's lackey and literally orbited around its master like a perpetually eager puppy. With a diameter of 25,000 light-years, it was roughly 64 times smaller than the Milky Way. This was still a huge amount of territory, enough for the pioneers to plunder it for a couple of centuries, but it was quite limited in size and scope in the greater scheme of things. This turned it into an ideal colonization target for an ascendant human civilization. The indigeneous aliens of the Red Ocean were generally not as powerful as their counterparts in the Milky Way, but they presented plenty of challenges such as their clever and widespread use of phasewater to enable entirely new applications of dimensional technology that humanity never conceived of! The indigenous alien empires had taught the Big Two quite a few lessons on the frontlines! Most of it wasn't relevant to the pioneers. To newcomers such as the Golden Skull Alliance, their focus lay on the hinterland of the Red Ocean. These pacified zones had already been wrenched from the hands of the local sentient alien polities. When the CFA and MTA's overpowering warfleets left a wave of devastation behind, the ruined planets still held a lot of wealth! The incoming pioneers sought to take advantage of the bounty and ultimately found new colonies in these rich territories. "So this is the Red Ocean." Ves wondrously admired the new view as soon as he recovered from the brief moment of discomfort. "Meow…" Lucky gazed at the faint red nebulas that faintly lit up the dwarf galaxy and gave it its characteristic name. "Miaow…" Clixie didn't understand as much and pressed her body onto the gem cat's cool form for reassurance. Both Ves and Gloriana looked increasingly more jubilant, though. After so many struggles, they finally made it through! Ves activated a command that provided him with a view of the rear of his flagship. Behind the hundreds of capital ships that originated from all over human space in the old galaxy, an enormous greater beyonder gate that measured 27 kilometers from end to end briefly maintained its shimmering dark blue energy portal. Then, as the last fleet carrier belonging to the Rubarthans emerged out of the dimensional tunnel, the huge but extremely energy-intensive portal disappeared. The gateway that led straight to the Milky Way Galaxy had been closed. "So this is Bridgehead One." This was a place of great historical significance. It was also a critical strategic stronghold. When the Big Two launched their invasion over five decades ago, they started their operations at the edge of the Red Ocean dwarf galaxy. Bridgehead One was the initial base of operations of the Big Two. Though the history of the early years of the invasion was classified, Ves could easily imagine how the MTA and CFA experienced great difficulties in transporting an initial invasion fleet so far away. The initial batches must have suffered enormous difficulties to hold on to Bridgehead One while also trying to defeat the surrounding alien star nations. Without a beyonder gate, it was extremely difficult for the Big Two to supply and reinforce the first group of invaders. The mechers and fleeters had to be resourceful and fend for themselves for an extended amount of time. All of that changed as soon as they managed to plunder a huge amount of phasewater and used this critical exotic to establish better channels with the home galaxy! These days, the significance of Bridgehead One as a defensive stronghold had lessened. However, as the gateway of the pioneers of the Milky Way, this star system still functioned as a critical node. Many of the formidable, high-tech defensive systems were still intact and the Big Two still parked over a thousand warships in these extravagant star systems! With so much protection and safeguards, no one was able to mess around. It was impossible for any of the new arrivals to just turn around and activate the greater beyonder gate somehow just so that they could return home! Every pioneer and adventurer who arrived in the dwarf galaxy was stuck for the foreseeable time. While it was possible to catch a ride back to the old galaxy, hardly anyone wanted to. It cost so much to reach here and there were an endless amount of opportunities for people to make their mark and propel themselves to new heights! The only issues that frustrated the colonizers and explorers were the lack of infrastructure and low security environment. Opportunities always came paired with danger and it was not unusual for one group of pioneers to prey on other ones. The Big Two were well aware of the greedy tendencies of the pioneers, but keeping the peace was not a high priority. Their greatest concern was fighting and defeating every form of organized alien opposition in the dwarf galaxy! The life and death of the pioneers hardly mattered to the hegemons of humanity. The weak and incompetent had no place in the rich and highly-desirable new frontier. Those that ended up standing after the end of the lengthy colonization phase had the capital to exploit the territories of the Red Ocean. In these exciting but also highly dangerous times, Ves had to think carefully where he should lead his clan. He also had to put a lot of thought into developing the Golden Skull Alliance. The Larkinson Clan was too weak and limited to address every essential need, so it needed to make a lot of new friends in order to expand its options. "What are you thinking about?" Gloriana asked as she quietly cuddled her lovely little daughter. All of them were still wearing their dress uniforms as they had just passed through the greater beyonder gate. The awe and wonder that everyone exhibited when they realized that they had crossed hundreds of thousands of light-years were just starting to fade away, but no one would ever forget this pivotal day! "I'm thinking about whether we would ever return to the Milky Way in our lifetimes." Ves said. "I don't know why I'm thinking about that so soon, but the suggestion that we might never return to our home galaxy is both frightening and exhilarating?' "Why so? His wife asked. "If we don't return, then we're either in too bad of a shape to make the passage, or humanity has developed to the point where all kinds of distant frontiers have opened up. Perhaps we'll grow to a point where we don't even need to return to the Milky Way ever again." "That… would be a great future." Gloriana concurred. "The Milky Way is humanity's home, but aside from nostalgia, it has little else for us to return to. The Red Ocean is our new home base. As long as we don't fail, this is the place where we will build our foundation. Our territories, our assets, our allies and our extended social networks will all be based in this small but virgin dwarf galaxy. Even if we aren't the absolute first movers, we've entered the new frontier early enough for us to establish a presence that might one day rival the great trans-galactic enterprises of the Milky Way!" That was a rather extravagant ambition and one that did not hold much attraction to Ves. He wanted to progress his design philosophy rather than build a megacorporation. "Let's handle the arriving procedures." Entering an entirely new dwarf galaxy as a pioneering group entailed a lot of complicated steps. The new arrivals all underwent security sweeps while their leaders met with representatives of the Big Two in order to address all of the administrative chores. The hundreds of capital ships that had settled into the Red Ocean soon split into three different branches based on the class of their beyonder tickets. Each of them approached three different Lagrange points in the enormous star system. The Golden Skull Alliance was part of the second-class branch, and had been instructed to head to the central star node that was set up to best serve their own kind. None of the new entrants was allowed to linger in Bridgehead One. A star system that held a greater beyonder gate was simply too sensitive to tolerate the continued presence of any risk factors. The star systems that every pioneering group were about to travel towards would be their first true welcome into the Red Ocean. There, they could meet with other pioneers, purchase a lot of supplies, engage in lucrative trade and make all kinds of other preparations for their subsequent journeys! "The separation between the three classes is strong in the Red Ocean." Ves remarked as his fleet waited its turn to transition into FTL. "I've heard a lot about the Vulit Star Node. There are so many different second-class pioneers and adventurers in this strategic star system that we might be able to complete most of our initial objectives in this place." Gloriana possessed her own understanding of the star node where every second-rater initially converged after arriving in the Red Ocean. "We'll be able to meet second-raters who come from all over human space back in the Milky Way. It's the best place for us to recruit additional Journeymen to expand our Design Department. We can draw from a much more diverse pool of mech designers." The Larkinsons needed to take a lot of different steps now that they had arrived in this boisterous new region, but one of the more important ones was preparing for a new round of mech design projects. Expanding the clan's design capacity early on would help in so many different ways. Not only would the Design Department be able to provide new mech designs to the different mech legions a lot faster, the LMC could also release more commercial products! The latter had become a particularly important priority to Ves. After several years of neglecting the primary income source of the Larkinson Clan, the clan patriarch was finally ready to prove his chops on the mech market again. "Two mech markets, actually. I need to treat the local mech scene a lot differently than the familiar market environment of the Yeina Star Cluster." Ves reminded himself. It didn't matter. Ves welcomed this challenge to explore what he could do in two completely different markets. He wanted to show the mech industry that he hadn't lost his touch during the time he engaged in private commissions and in-house projects!