We were hardly a minute into the journey before a newsfeed flickered on above me. A stormtech-related incident, of course. A woman who thought her roommate had taken her stash had stolen into his room when he was asleep. She’d stabbed him seventeen times with a serrated blade before she’d been wrestled off him, still screaming and howling.
She was only twenty. Now a murderer. Blue strands flared on her neck as she stared at the camera through ropes of matted, blood-streaked hair in paralysed disbelief. Like some mechanism in her brain had malfunctioned and refused to acknowledge what she’d done. In a way, she was correct. Her mind insisted it wasn’t her, that she didn’t have the capacity for coldblooded murder. But her stormtech-infused body told a different story. She didn’t know who she was anymore, what else she would do. The two contradictions could tear her apart.
The newslog flickered off as the chainrail slowed to a more leisurely pace to showcase the diversity of floors for newcomers and tourists. The exterior had been an indescribable blur, but now I got a glance at the levels as we looped in a slow ascent. We coasted through a tropical floor made entirely of rivers, waterways and small oceans, and home to a wide-spectrum of alien aquatic species. I could smell the briny stink of the ocean. Dark waves curled and swelled through a mass of dark, jutting rocks, spray leaping five metres high before crashing to a shingled shore. A creature with pale grey skin and a long bulbous snout surfaced, its gills glowing an eerie pale pink. It didn’t seem to have eyes, but I got the sense it was watching. Several more of its kin joined, swimming along the chainrail with cautious curiosity before diving back into the depths.
The next floor resembled a forest planet. Slabs of land masses gave way to a scattering of archipelagos, peninsulas, islands and promontories, the water a muddy green. The land was thick with dark green rainforests and towering spears of mountains wreathed in hoary mist. The trees seemed to be hundreds of metres tall, sutured with walkways, swaying bridges and huts. The onboard Rubix played a pre-recorded message, informing us that this was a recreation of the Torven homeworld, Kereov. The scattered nature of the planet’s land mass had required the species to innovate: building boats, pulleys, bridges, walkways, modes of transport, discovering easier modes of accessing resources, trading with neighbouring species. It had significantly increased their survival rate, making the Torven value innovation and business above all else, forming the backbone of their culture. This leading to the eventual flourishing of cities and industry across the planet. In the span of a few short centuries, they had achieved space flight, established colonies in neighbouring systems and eventually made contact with humans. Even today, the onboard Rubix finished as we coasted away from the floor, Torven ships and architecture drew heavily from the nature of their homeworld. The Rhivik sitting next to me made a deep scoffing sound that didn’t go unnoticed by the Torven sitting on the other side. I’d heard the two species weren’t on friendly terms, but with them cooking insults up for each other, I was starting to see exactly what that entailed.
The chainrail coasted to a polished industrial conurbation of the asteroid. Vast echoing spaces yawned out for dozens of klicks in all directions, used as construction berths for spacecraft. Glinting gantries, beams, cranes and powerlines crisscrossed the manufactory, powerful machinery scattered across the shipyard and crawling with suited mechanics of multiple species. Soot-black tubes several dozen metres wide curled through the length of the hangar like a nervous system, the overhead vanilla-grey light glinting gently off its surface.
A silvery skeletal frame of a Diver-Class Corvette hung suspended by a complication of taut silvery filaments. Interlocking clockwork mechanisms ran up and down the length of the asteroid, imbedded in the rock, indicating kilometres of dense, squirming machinery, meshed into the dermis of the asteroid like intestines. The machinery extended out, growing what looked like massive claws, reassembling to fit some sort of size dimensions. Kilometres away, from a different area of the asteroid, components of the corvette were sent tunnelling down the tubes and sprouting out the other end. Mechanics used the claws to scoop up the ship parts, the apparatus whirling down to lock them to the skeletal hull. Other mechanics in grav-harnesses scrambled over the half-assembled ship in a flurry of drilling, securing, wiring, calibrating. A robotic appendage was inscribing the name Grey Area on the starboard hull. The entire thing was one giant complex mechanism, part organic, part mechanical, with the impression of more gigantic open hangars and manufactories nestled out of sight.
The onboard Rubix chimed in again to tell us that this was an exclusive Shipyard, producing up to seventy thousand fully equipped ships of every class, model and purpose, bespoke for orders across the galaxy. I glanced at a side readout displaying the prices in disbelief. Grim was right, this part of the asteroid really was reserved for rich bastards.
We shot out of the shipyard manufactory and continued spiralling upwards, little worlds of wonder slamming past. The higher we went, the more pristine, the more ridiculously extravagant, and less populated the floors became. Until we finally docked at Cloudstern’s Travel Depot. I unstrapped from my seat and navigated past the spaceport terminal, standing on the outside boulevard.
It was like Compass knew it had one chance to make an impression on newcomers and pulled out all the stops to make it happen. Giant white latticework loomed over me, stretching for kilometres along the roof of the asteroid like an umbrella made entirely of coral. Slices of brilliant blue artificial sky appeared between the gaps. Experimental-looking chainships
