Vivid Stars Online

“Sure can, Boss,” Elana responded with a nod. “I’ll walk you through it while we get all this stowed in engineering.”

“I’ve spent most of my time so far just trying to understand everything,” she continued with a shrug. “A lot of the wiring and stuff is pretty basic and not too far beyond what we have back home, but some of the actual tech is incredibly advanced.”

“And that doesn’t even start on the Psionic integrations, like the loading hook,” she gestured toward the shapeshifting crane still loading parts. “If it wasn’t for Mira’s help, I’d be completely lost.”

“You probably noticed that I’ve been working on a lot on the interior, making sure everything’s wired up properly. It’s not the most glamorous work, but it helps to ensure that each section gets the power that it needs. Plus, it cuts down on short circuits and overloads.”

“The biggest issue there is simply time,” she said with a sigh. “I’ve finished less than one percent of the work there. The ship is just so big, and there’s only one of me.”

I winced at that before nodding along with her. The ship was huge indeed, and it wasn’t fair to expect her to fix everything herself. I was about to suggest that we hire some more workers before she tilted her head and spoke again.

“We might have a solution for that now,” she said, her thoughtful look turning excited. “With the mountain of parts you’ve just brought me, along with enough intact versions to reverse engineer, I think I can develop a basic maintenance robot that the fabricator can build.”

“If we can get enough of those and link them into Mira’s network, she can do the bulk of the work. That is if you don’t mind?” She asked, turning toward thin air.

“I would be happy to assist,” Mira’s voice echoed from some hidden speaker. “I have enjoyed helping you with the limited knowledge I still have available, however, it has been trying not being able to help implement the fixes.”

“OK, that sounds good,” I said, getting into the idea. While part of me was a little cautious about giving the AI that much control in the physical world, I put it aside. Mira had done nothing to suggest that she couldn’t be trusted, so I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

If nothing else, I was confident of being able to defeat her again if I really had to. “Let's make that the highest priority then. No point in you doing the work now, if Mira can do it easier later. Get the robots ready, and then maybe look at the more complicated tech you were talking about.”

“You got it,” Elana nodded, a big grin on her face. “With the robots, we should be able to get most of the internals done, even including the cabin refits you wanted. That leaves the more complicated technology, as you say, and the holes in the hull.”

“Both are going to be significantly harder,” she continued with a deep sigh. “Let's talk about the hull first. It’s simple in theory, but we’re lacking the materials to fix it. And it’s a lot of materials.”

“Based on your observations, and what Mira and I have been able to find, the bulk of the stealth capability the ship has comes from the special alloy used in the hull. We have the blueprint for it in the fabricator, but as I said were don't have the materials.”

“That makes sense,” I responded, grimacing as I spoke. “I doubt that it’s an entirely natural effect, given that it also blocks Psi Sense. My biggest hope is that we’ll get what we need once the new mining village starts. We can chuck ore into the fabricator once it shows up to see if we have what we need.”

“Hopefully so,” Elana said. “I did a bit of digging, and while the names don’t directly match up, I found most of what we need for sale. But it would be ludicrously expensive to buy it in the quantities we need to patch the hull up.”

“There’s little chance of that then. I’m running low on spending money as it is,” I said, thinking back to all the projects I’d already set up. “I wouldn’t expect to have much money to spare for nearly a year at the least.”

“Then let’s put that side, for now, and talk about the more advanced technology,” Elana said. “Things like the shields, life support systems, reactor, warp drive, and a few others. For most of those, I’m not even sure if they’re working or broken.”

“For some of them, I can’t even turn them on due to faulty wiring or being in-atmosphere. For others, such as the reactor and life support, they look to be functioning, but I don’t know if they’re at full capacity or not.”

“For those, I was hoping you could have a look with Technokinesis and at least give me a little guidance on them,” she finished with a hopeful smile.

“I should be able to spare a little time,” I said, thinking back to my schedule. I’d already ticked off most of the items, just having the notice of investment opportunities to write. With today mostly over, I had two days left before I was due at the ritual chamber.

If I spent one day working on the notice, that would leave another day to at least look around the ship. It probably wouldn’t be enough to solve much, but I could at least make sure nothing was about to melt down or stop working.

“Day after tomorrow,” I decided with a determined nod. “I should have the whole day free to look around. After that, you’ll need to wait until we get back from the caves.”

“Those caves just keep calling you back, don’t they,” Elana responded with a laugh. “But OK, that should be enough for us to get some solid information, at least. Even if we can just work out what materials we’re going to need, then it will be helpful.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “When you get a chance, could you and Mira estimate how many materials we need to fix the internals and the hull? Even a rough guide would help once the mining starts. No rush on that though, anytime in the next few weeks would be fine.”

Elana promised she would, and I turned to head toward my cabin. Now that we were safely back home, the exhaustion of the last few weeks was setting in. It had been almost non-stop action or travel, and I was looking forward to finally having a little downtime.

Halfway there, an idea hit me and I diverted back toward the town. Eating nothing but rations for weeks had become beyond boring, and with the town so close, it seemed silly to eat them again tonight.

With that in mind, I pushed aside my tiredness, walked back over, and found a local takeout place. Given the town’s primary product, it was unsurprisingly a form of fish stew. However, some people had to be foraging in the local area, as a small selection of wild roots and vegetables was included.

A few questions led me toward the central food storage area, where I determined they were indeed local edibles, rather than imports. I was quick to organize for samples to be sent to David before I returned to pick up my food.

Despite the simplicity, it smelled amazing, and I hurried back to the ship. I arrived to find Linnea and Elana talking in one of the more complete cabins and was greeted enthusiastically.

It had been a while since all three of us had talked, and we spent the evening enjoying our meal and catching up. After a few hours of talking, Linnea and I split off for a romantic evening of our own.

While we had technically been alone together since going up the mountain, we’d been in almost constant danger the entire time. When combined with the dark, damp cave we were in, it was hardly a romantic atmosphere.

The frigate was a more comfortable locale, and Elana had even sourced, or perhaps fabricated, new beds for a few of the cabins. We greatly enjoyed that improvement before drifting off for a comfortable night’s sleep.

The next morning I spent a few hours on Earth. It had been a while since I’d logged out, but I needed to check on the progress of my passport application. I had initially intended to spend more time here but had been thrown off by finding out that VSO was actually real.

After that, I’d felt a lot less need to spend time out of the ‘game’. While I wasn’t entirely sure I was on board with leaving Earth behind, I was certainly considering the idea.

I knew it was what Linnea wanted, and I had a hard time finding good reasons not to do it. If anything, it was probably a residual reluctance to leave behind everything I had ever known.

A reluctance that was fading every day I spent more time in VSO. There, I had real responsibilities that far outweighed anything I had on Earth. I was treated far better there than I had ever been before and I could really see myself being happy there.

Getting a little ahead of yourself there, I laughed as I looked through my email. You don’t even know if it’s possible yet, or how to go about it if it is. Better wait to talk to the other members of Linnea’s group first.

My mail had a notification that my passport application had been received and had entered the processing stage. It was light on details, however, so I would just have to keep checking until it was done.

Better than nothing, I decided with a shrug, before I returned to my pod.

Back in VSO, I settled down to write up the notice I would post for investors. It was something I had little experience with, but that I wanted to at least have a crack at instead of just leaving it to the Mayor.

I would have to write up official documents in the future, so it was best that I get started now. With Linnea spending time with her sister and training, I had the whole day to work on it without distractions.

It had been a long time since I’d written papers in high school, and I’d had little reason to write any since, so I started by returning to basics. I found several resources on formal writing in the planet’s network and settled down to study them.

It was a long process of writing something, deciding it was terrible, studying more, and then rewriting it. Even once I had a decent first draft, I threw it into multiple grammar and spelling checkers before finally asking the Mayor to proofread it,

That resulted in another entire rewrite from her suggestions, leading to more checks and a last proofread. By the end of the day, I’d spent almost ten hours working on what ended up as a ten-page document.

This had better be worth it, I thought with a groan as I stood up from the holographic terminal I'd been using. With more than a hint of trepidation, I hovered my finger over the send button, before finally hitting it.

Soon after, my contact at the palace confirmed that they would distribute it among the upper class of the province. This was far from the first time they had sent out documents like this, and they assured me that everyone who might be interested would receive it.

Tired, but glad to have completed my task for the day, I went to find Linnea. This time she’d grabbed food, and we had a private dinner before settling in for the night.

The next morning I rose early and made my way to engineering. With only a day left before I was due to leave for my new Psi power, I had to make the most of the time I had left.

It was time to dig into the secrets of my ship.