A small shuttle darted out silently from the Petrachelys' launch bay at breakneck speed. It was heading towards the Unusable Resource Storage Zone at the end of the island chain.
Using his powers as prince regent, Vimm had authorised a 'silent' route for the shuttle, to prevent other elves from noticing its trajectory. He also ordered for all entries and exits in the area to be shut and all reclamation work on the Isle of Rainbows be stopped. This was to ensure total secrecy and smoothness of their plans.
After a short space ride, the shuttle reached the desolate space junkyard and started navigating towards the Isle of Rainbows using a map supplied by Vimm.
The junkyard encompassed a considerable amount of space in the island chain, and it was close to the Deadlands. This area was filled with debris of whatever that remained of the floating islands. From a distance, they looked almost like a small asteroid belt. Most of the Deadlands were still somewhat intact, and some were even salvagable. Those in the junkyard were however shattered beyond recognition. The Aerymian elves had gathered all the rubble in one place and tried to extract any possible resource from them. Pieces of the recently destroyed Isle of Rainbows were also placed here.
The shuttle weaved through the piles of mountain-sized debris as it passed them by. Most of the floating rocks had signs of being was man-made. There was everything from rocks with smooth, shiny surfaces to the remains of metallic structures, or the various tunnels and tubes that previously ran through the island. Hao Ren even noticed that some of the rocks had twisted ruins of destroyed buildings on them. Most of them were completely destroyed but from their large interior and thick partitions, one could tell that they were probably part of a large-scale manufacturing plant. Vimm explained that most of these debris came from the industrial islands. They were the most resilient of the floating islands but once one was lost, the results were catastrophic. When Eco-Island's system shut down, it would slowly die off and become one of the Deadlands. However, most industrial islands were lost to massive explosions.
These structures had already been used for milleniums thus, they were pushed beyond their normal life expectancy by continuous cycles of patchwork repairs and replacements. A loose screw could pretty much precipitate a disastrous chain of events. Time had turned all of Aerym's proud legacies into a ticking timebomb, and they had nowhere to run. They could only buy more time by continuously repairing the structures to delay their impending doomsday. And for some, doomsday did come knocking. The debris outside the ship was the veritable, sombre proof of it.
Around the space junkyard was something peculiar. It had a smooth, shiny oval shell and was shaped like an egg. This was a facility spanning about two kilometres in length. The space structure did not seem to had suffered any damage, and surely did not look like any of the excavation crafts in the area. It appeared more like a small, advanced space shuttle. Only then did Hao Ren find out that these things were called Coronal Stations after he asked Vimm out of curiousity.
"Part of the Coronal Stations are used to directly transfer energy from space to the islands, while some of them are used to collect drifting items within the solar winds. Those need to be moved to unload their cargo. They are quite literally a special, extreme heat-resistant spacecraft." Vimm was worried about Hilda and he was trying to suppress his agitation. Nonetheless, he still managed to patiently explain the nature of the Coronal Station to his guests. "These ships use a special type of energy core, which is highly volatile. The radioactivity that they emits while in standby mode is very strong and they explode rather easily, so we had to place them away from the main islands."
Vivian was perplexed. "Why can't you use a smaller shuttle to handle the cargo?"
"We simply could not manufacture such a spacecraft." Vimm shook his head. "Perhaps, you could call the Coronal Stations themselves 'small spacecrafts'. These are the only items we managed to create that could withstand the heat of the sun. They are equipped with layers upon layers of magically infused armor and specialised force field generators. These itself require a massive core to power them and we do not have the ability to create anything smaller. A bigger craft would require almost double the power... so, the Coronal Station was designed as such."
"These Coronal Stations would be a big hit with civilisations of a lower
lower technological level, if someone were to improve their stability that is," the MDT suddenly spoke. "Perhaps we could use these to wring something out of those conniving merchants, and get more emergency material of sorts. We only promised them the floating islands and the orbital system during the negotiations. We did not mention anything about these Coronal Stations. Your people would need these materials for the coming Great Migration."
The mention of the Great Migration somewhat lifted Vimm's spirits. "Our race will remember this debt of kindness eternally. If the Great Migration is successful, I am sure that all of the Aerymian elves and their kin will be glad to treat all of you as messiahs. Just say the word if you ever need our help."
Hao Ren looked around him and saw a bat, a demon as well as a puppy. Then he recalled that he still had a big and a small fish at home alongside a mercenary whom he was not sure could go home. Pondering the burden that any of them would possibly have, Hao Ren concluded that this bunch of jokers would only be asking, "What to eat?" after helping the Aerymians relocate....
After crossing through the grim sea of debris, the shuttle finally arrived on a more"fresh" looking debris. It landed on one of the larger pieces of rocks.
"This is the remants of the Isle of Rainbows." Vimm pointed towards the desolate landscape outside. "This was where the observation tower stood. Post explosion, the foundation is only what's left of it. As for where the space-time accelerator was, that place was vaporised. Mother was at the tower when it happened.... so, if what you say about the remnants of her spirit is true, it will most likely be there."
Vimm could not survive in vacuum, but this was not a problem. The Petrachelys had some emergency equipment that were created by civilian companies in the Macro World. They were for the military, especially for races who could not survive in space without proper equipment. These equipment were called "Emergency Lifesuits" and they looked like silverish collars. (They can be easily modified using the onboard miniature manufactorum to fit other races). After putting it on, the collar would scan the wearer's body and quickly form a protective layer that shielded the user from vacuum, lost of temperature as well as radiation. At the same time, the shielding would also generate sufficient oxygen to last a long time. While this equipment was
equipment was mainly for survival, it was more than adequate. With the addition of a simple thruster (which came from the same civilian company in the Macro World), Vimm could follow the others out into space.
Due to the nature of an inspector's job, their starships usually came equipped with various equipment that could be used by the local population. Even the miniature manufactorum in the ship had plenty of production blueprints and plug-ins, which could easily solve many of the more trivial issues on the spot. Hao Ren felt that the Petrachelys was almost like a certain robot cat, except it was 600 metres longer. Who knew what you could pull out from its cargo hold. If not for the MDT's help in cataloging the items there, Hao Ren would have been totally lost.
Vivian and Lily also took a collar each as they left the shuttle. Lily even grumbled to Hao Ren through the in-built communicator, "I don't like putting this on my neck... It feels weird..."
"Heh, it'd be weird if a husky actually liked being collared." Vivian took a jab at Lily as she followed from behind. She then took off the collar out of curiosity to experience what it was like to be in a vacuum. She quickly put it back on the moment discomfort set in. "Ugh... it's really weird being in a vacuum, my whole body feels numb."
"Really? Really?" Lily also happily took off her collar to experience what the vacuum was like and after a few minutes, she put it back on. "Yucks, that feels awful. I couldn't breathe, I even felt bloated and my tongue felt like it was boiling."
Seeing the two unusual creatures being so candid about their experience in the vacuum stunned Vimm for a good while. Hao Ren could not help but wipe off the sweat that was forming on his forehead. The MDT was correct. While Lily and Vivian did not undergo the enhancement to survive in a vacuum, their unnatural physique simply allowed them to survive in space for a short time! He was pretty sure that taking off a spacesuit to see what a vacuum was like was not something one saw everyday...
Both Vivian and Lily did not even want to use the thrusters at first as they felt the bulky item on their waist was just too ugly. They felt they could get around moving in the vacuum using their own methods. Lily pulled out her claws and sunk them into the rocks, creeping up the surface as she went. Vivian was even more flashy. She released a huge swarm of bats and used their counterforce to propel her forward... Hao Ren could not stand looking at the silly duo after a while and forced them to use the thrusters. Aside from being more efficient, Vivian would be anaemic if she were to create another swarm of bats. Have you even heard of an anaemic vampire before?
Hilda was still lying in the medi-chamber. The chamber could be moved out of the starship independently and it was now using it's own propulsion system to follow the rest. Hao Ren led the fumbling crew forwards and after a moment, they finally reached the foundation of the tower. Its surrounding was a desolate plane, coated in molten metal.
The moment the group approached the tower, Hao Ren felt a surge of energy eminating from the medi-chamber, and a faint, flickering silhouette appeared in front of him not too far away.
It seemed like the power Raven 12345 had embedded in Hilda was starting to react. The remnant of Hilda's spirit was indeed wandering amid the ruins.
The lost spirit was standing quietly in front of the tower ruins, her eyes fixated on where the space-time accelerator once was (now it was nothing but a void). She did not react to the strangers around her, and it was quite clear that she was quickly fading. Even with Raven 12345's powers she was flickering, but as Raven mentioned, there was still time.
Hao Ren finally broke out in a smile as he moved towards the spirit.
"Seems like we've made it."