On the bridge, Captain Gloval spoke to Hayase Misa.
"Hayase, send the work boats to tow over the frozen aircraft carriers."
Hearing Captain Gloval's request, Hayase Misa asked in surprise.
"Captain, are you planning to use them to replace Arbuth No. 1 and No. 2 for the transformation?"
"Yes. The weapons on the aircraft carriers should still be usable."
"Can they connect smoothly to the Macross?"
"That will depend on the workers' efforts. Once the rescue operations at the remaining shelters are complete, we'll begin the docking work."
The Macross's work boats and VF-1 Valkyrie Fighters constantly shuttled through the ruins of South Ataria Island.
Besides the air-raid shelter where Xiao Shan had been, they rescued survivors from several more shelters.
In total, the Macross rescued more than fifty thousand civilians from South Ataria Island.
However, once that number was added to the crew already aboard the Macross, the basic living facilities originally built to accommodate just over twenty thousand people had far exceeded their capacity and were nowhere near enough for everyone's needs.
Fortunately, this warship had originally been designed for giants. Beyond the basic living facilities for those twenty thousand people, there was still a great deal of unused space.
After Captain Gloval and the mayor of South Ataria Island reached an agreement, they decided to build a large city for the refugees within the Macross's unused space.
However, due to a shortage of manpower, the city would be built entirely by the fifty thousand rescued refugees themselves.
Luckily, most of these former South Ataria Island civilians had been assigned to the island to support the Macross's construction.
There were many skilled builders among them, so constructing a city inside the Macross posed no great challenge. The work progressed in full swing.
Some relatively intact buildings from South