chapter 57
The escort ships were leaving as we had reached our destination. All of us had a bit of a weird feeling because, as it turned out, we were the only ship being escorted by three warships. Every other ship—and I do mean every other ship—was only being escorted by one.
We were all a bit worried about that. Yet it was hard to focus on it right now, as the sight of the planet and the shipyard around it was mesmerizing.
The shipyard itself wasn’t incredibly huge. At its largest, it was 4 kilometers across and 2 kilometers in height. But it was only that size in small sections, most of it was 500 meters across and 200 meters in height, with some sections still under construction.
Still, it was an incredible megastructure, just not as big as I had imagined it to be. It was also a bit difficult to wrap my head around its orientation. I had always imagined it would go around the equator, but instead, it went around the poles. With its orientation facing the sun, so it wouldn’t cover any part of the surface during daytime.
It also had two other incredible features: there were space elevators from both poles that led from the shipyard nearly to the surface. Both looked quite heavy-duty, most likely used to bring up manufactured components for shipbuilding.
It seemed that my berth—my new home for the next year and a half—was going to be near the North Pole. That meant getting to the planet would be faster, and hopefully I would be allowed to do that.
On the web, there was a website where you could order ships and even purchase some that were ready but not yet sold. It seemed that building ships was done by groups or corporations that rented individual shipyard berths, then built and sold the ships themselves.
The people who owned this system only seemed to be making warships and other vessels they needed to run the system and perhaps their other interests. Everyone else who wanted to build here could do so.
It seemed like they were more into the renting business than actually building and selling ships. Although I was sure they were getting a cut of the sales as well.
It seemed like a really good system, but something felt off here. As we got close to our berth, the communication computer forwarded me a call. Looking at it, it seemed to be the person in charge of the berth I had rented.
“Good evening. I am Berth Master Thoron. Is there some special consideration you need before I open up the hangar for you to land in? And what sort of gravity would you like? That can be changed at any time, per your wishes.”
“No special wishes. I would just like to land my ship. As to the gravity, what's the standard for the shipyard?”
“The standard is a bit more than the standard in the rest of the galaxy. It’s 1.1 G. Now, there are some areas that are lower if you need to visit the rest of the shipyard… You’re a human? That’s curious... I wonder if the translator is a bit off. Anyway, sorry about that. So yes, what gravity would you prefer?”
He seemed a bit amused at the start, but was thoroughly confused when he noticed my species.
“The station’s standard is more than good.”
“Got it. I will be opening the bay doors now, and I’ll meet you inside to go over further needs and to see where you’d like all the fabrication equipment you’ve requisitioned.”
“Thank you,” I said, and cut off the call.
Only a few moments later, we received the path we needed to follow. I could see warning lights in one section of the shipyard lighting up, and a hangar starting to open. That wasn’t some weird coincidence, that was our destination.
The hangar, our berth for the next year and a half, seemed a lot larger from the inside than I was expecting. The clank as we set down rang throughout the ship. I sent the confirmation that we had landed successfully. A moment later, the hangar doors started to close, sealing us in.
I jumped out of the pilot chair and felt the gravity as it started to kick in. Then we could hear the hiss of air entering the hangar. Just in case, I was in my regular combat kit, without the heavy weaponry. Sliding down the ladder was nice, and in just a moment, I was on the first floor, watching as Sam and Dean prepared their weaponry.
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“Yeah, you two aren’t coming. In fact, head to the second floor. Near the hydroponics there's a table you can use for your games. Stay out of sight for a while longer. Don’t want anyone to have the opportunity to see the two of you walking around and jump to conclusions.”
“You won’t have to wait too long, as I will start to make more droids similar to you. After that, there shouldn't be any problem with you guys walking about.” I finished explaining.
“Yes, captain,” they both said. At first, they seemed like they wanted to argue, but as I explained myself, they seemed to agree with my logic.
“FH, open up both of the airlocks,” I said as soon as Sam and Dean had climbed the ladder to the second floor.
The front airlock opened up, revealing the hangar. The hangar itself seemed to be colored dark grey, with copper-looking pipes running all about. That was weird. The back ramp lowered, revealing a similar coloring and also the copper-looking pipes.
Curious, I walked out. The room here was truly spacious, at least 250 meters in length, and I’d guess 200 meters in width, 125 meters in height. This was going to be plenty of space to build the Mark II.
Yet the copper pipes were truly interesting, as they seemed to run through everything, and to my enhanced sight, they were a lot hotter than the surroundings.
Near one of the corners, a large door opened up, and I could see a dwarf holding some sort of datapad, looking down at it.
“I’ll join you guys soon, I just need to finish this up,” he yelled to someone seemingly far away.
He turned and walked toward me without ever actually looking at me. He was constantly looking at his datapad, seemingly confused. I was also quite confused and taken aback.
He really did look like a dwarf. He had a long beard, an amazing mustache. His hair, however, was shorter than I expected a dwarf’s to be. All of it was dark brown.
He wasn't as short as I expected, around 5 feet in height, but still as wide as some of the widest bodybuilders I’ve seen, with thick arms and legs. In my mind, he was overlaid with the different images of dwarves I knew from popular media, and some of them matched quite directly.
He was finally near me when he looked up, stopping in his tracks. He looked back and forth between me and the datapad.
“There’s no way that translation is correct. Are you really human?”
“Are you really a dwarf?” I immediately asked back, as there was a strange recognition when I looked at him. He did smile at that.
“Humans of the ancient stories were taller scrawnier than dwarves, but not so scrawny and tall as elves. Humans in the stories lived in the plains, in their villages, towns, and cities, surrounded by endless fields of golden grains. Amongst you were the greatest of heroes and the worst of villains, yet most just tried to live their lives, amongst the strife of surviving in a harsh world.”
That made me blink, but a moment later, I answered back.
“In our stories, the dwarves were all shorter and stockier than humans. Quite the opposite of elves. The dwarves in the stories lived in mountain homes, dug deep and wide. They were the greatest of crafters and warriors, who fought the creatures of the deep, surviving in a harsher environment than humans preferred.”
Both of us looked at each other for long moments before we both said out loud, “The elves however do suck.”
Both of us were shocked that we actually said the same thing. A moment later the both of us burst into laughter.
“But they are beautiful, aren’t they?” I asked him.
He let out a sigh.
“Now that, they are. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a few of them. They are beautiful. And they are as arrogant as in the stories… well, actually, not that bad. At least not anymore. The galaxy has its ways of correcting behaviors like that.”
He then put out his right hand for me to shake. I clasped his in the way dwarves usually do—around the forearm—but it seemed like he was trying to do the same as me and greet me like a human would with a handshake. The result was a bit awkward, with both of us grasping each other's wrists. That seemed right enough.
“So how is this possible?” I asked him. He just shrugged his shoulders. My universal translator said that meant exactly the same thing as when a human did it.
“The elves joined the galaxy before we did, after their home planet was destroyed. Ever since we joined—after our planet perished—there have been scholars trying to find a connection between us. But to my knowledge, no one has deciphered it yet. Yet now you are here as well, so I assume humans, from our stories, have joined at last?”
He could see how my mood dropped as soon as I heard about their planet being destroyed.
“Don’t tell me your planet faced destruction as well?”
“It was the fault of our own hubris.” To that, he let out a defeated sigh.
“So, I assume corruption is what did it for you humans. That’s usually what brings misery and destruction to humans, at least in the ancient stories. We also stayed true to our ancient stories. We dug too deep and found a sleeping space monster. It woke up, destroying most of the planet as it left. It took us 220 years to find it and finally end its life.”
It seemed hard for him to say, and I could see he missed his world. Even though he probably never visited it. But I understood his feelings, as I myself missed the blue skies and green grass.
“What about the elves?” I asked him after we had been quiet for quite a while.
“From what I understand, they were genetically modifying their trees. As living in the tallest and biggest one was a status symbol to them. Yet one day, a surge of mana happened on their planet after some experiment went wrong, or at least that’s the story they’re telling.”
“The end result? The genetically modified trees went wild and continued to absorb more and more, getting stronger and growing in size until their very roots broke apart their planet.”
There was silence after that. It seems our three species will share that burden.
“Don’t bring that up to them whenever you might meet them. They might fight you to the death if you do. My shift is about to end, and I didn’t expect this. Would you perhaps want to come after this to a tavern, and we could share a drink and continue to talk?”
“Sure. Do you guys enjoy beer as much as in the stories?”
“You bet. And I would like to see if you guys can actually keep up. Anyway, now back to business. Here’s the layout I was thinking, and it should work with your needs.”
He showed me on the datapad where he wanted to put all the fabrication equipment, and after looking at it, it all seemed good.
“Yeah, that looks perfect. I also have a list for you. It’s for the initial materials I would need.”
“That’s great. You can… oh, you can do that? Okay, good, I’m seeing that list now. Damn, that’s a large list. But you seem to have the budget for it, so who am I to complain? Let’s see… with everything you want and the fabrication equipment, we can have it all installed in two days. Is that good enough?”
“That’s plenty good. So how about that drink?”
“Yeah, let’s go. Luckily, I just finished in time. Those management types can be really annoying, can’t even have a minute of overtime before they come and start demanding better work ethics. A bunch of annoying paper pushers.”
At that moment, it almost felt like I was back on Earth, everything feeling so familiar. Let’s just hope that the beer doesn’t suck.