Reborn as a Spaceship

We arrived back at Tacci Station. T'lish, carrying her precious cargo the two large, patterned eggs pulsating with faint warmth had retreated to her quarters. She'd requested privacy, wanting to wait until the eggs hatched in roughly a month before revealing her new status as a prospective parent to the crew. It felt like delaying the inevitable, potentially creating an awkward reveal later, but it was her decision, her secret to manage. Not my choice to make.

With T'lish sequestered, I focused on the next phase. We collected the rest of the crew from their extended shore leave, their curiosity about my "diplomatic mission" palpable but courteously restrained. Once everyone was settled back aboard, I outlined our immediate objective: scouting a permanent location for our custom-built station.

"The requirements are demanding," I explained on the bridge, displaying potential search sectors on the main screen. "We need a system with sufficient resources for long-term station maintenance and potential expansion. It needs manageable background radiation levels but also access to energy sources we can tap. Critically, it needs to be unclaimed territory, preferably well outside established major trade routes to maintain security, yet accessible enough via dimensional jump for our own purposes and potential future commerce."

Lynn tapped thoughtfully at her console. "That's a narrow set of parameters, Lazarus. Most systems fitting that description, especially those with easily accessible resources, were claimed centuries ago by one of the eight major powers or established independents."

"Precisely," I agreed. "Which means we need to think unconventionally." I pulled up data on a system I'd flagged during earlier deep-range scans. "Candidate Alpha: a binary system consisting of two L-type brown dwarfs well protostars, really but still surrounded by a dense protoplanetary disk rich in heavy elements and volatiles."

Stewie frowned, zooming in on the stellar data. "Protostars? They're unstable, barely fusing. Not exactly ideal for a long-term power source."

"Not as they are," I conceded. "But consider the potential. With precise dimensional manipulation, enough focused energy…"

"You want to collide them?" Laia interjected, her avatar floating beside the display, her wings buzzing. "Lazarus, the energy required to shift stellar-mass objects, even small protostars, is orders of magnitude beyond anything we've attempted. And the outcome is highly unpredictable."

"But imagine it!" T'lish spoke up, she had joined us for this discussion as her expertise was going to be needed. Her usual scientific focus was alight with something else the sheer audacity of my suggestion. "Igniting a new star, shaping a system to our needs from cosmic clay! It's… elegant." She understood the appeal immediately: because we could.

Wayfarer's avatar shimmered beside Laia's. "The concept is novel," he rumbled thoughtfully. "Witnessing stellar creation firsthand… intriguing. However, the energy release would be substantial. Our vessel's structural integrity during such an event is uncertain."

"More than uncertain," Laia stated flatly, already running simulations. Fast calculations flowed across a secondary screen. "My models indicate a high probability of uncontrolled chain reactions upon collision, exceeding stable fusion thresholds. The likely outcome: a massive, short-lived explosive event, scattering the disk material. Any potential for stable stellar formation would require… conservatively… over a century of gravitational coalescence after the initial detonation." She looked pointedly at my avatar. "An impractical timescale."

I felt a surge of disappointment. The sheer hubris, the magnificent scale of forging our own star, appealed deeply. But Laia's logic was inescapable. "Idea shelved," I conceded, trying to keep the disappointment from my tone. "Alternative approaches required."

I shifted the display. "If conventional stars in unclaimed, resource-rich systems are unavailable, we consider stellar remnants. Specifically, neutron stars."

An uneasy silence fell on the bridge. Neutron stars were cosmic monsters a city-sized objects with unimaginable density and gravity, often surrounded by lethal radiation fields.

"Laz," Kel said carefully, voicing the crew's unspoken apprehension. "Neutron stars aren't exactly welcoming real estate."

"Older, cooler ones are more stable," I countered, displaying data on several candidates. "Their magnetospheres decay, radiation lessens, but the gravitational potential remains immense. And that can be a defence. Imagine positioning the station in a stable Lagrange point, relatively safe, but with the star's gravity well as a natural barrier. Combine that with the dimensional shielding I've been designing… we could 'sink' the station deeper into the gravity well for protection, making conventional approach impossible." I looked around at their hesitant faces. "It's unconventional, yes. Risky? Perhaps. But it offers intrinsic security, and such systems are rarely claimed or traversed."

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After considerable debate, viewing Laia's models on stable orbits and potential shielding interactions, the crew cautiously agreed to scout the possibilities. I had identified five potential candidates within relatively accessible Alliance space, all the neutron stars old enough, cool enough, and small enough (relatively speaking) to permit stable orbital mechanics for a station.

We spent two weeks dimensional shifting, scanning, and scouting out the systems.

The first three systems were quickly discarded. One had been swept clean of resources by a long-dead civilization, another possessed a dangerously erratic magnetosphere despite its age, and the third's orbital harmonics were too unstable for a permanent station.

Candidate Four, however… Candidate Four was promising. Designated NS-117b, the neutron star itself was ancient, radiating manageable heat and predictable energy pulses. Crucially, it possessed three captured exoplanets each a barren, rocky world unsuitable for life but rich in the metallic and silicate resources we'd need for station construction and maintenance. They orbited far enough out to be well clear of the most intense gravitational and radiation effects, yet close enough for resource extraction. Even outside the most severe gravity gradients, the star's residual energy output was sufficient for The Arbiter to recharge efficiently.

Laia ran sensor sweeps, Wayfarer analysed the system's faint dimensional resonances, T'lish scanned the planetary compositions. All reports came back positive. Stable orbits existed. Resources were plentiful. The location was isolated but reachable. The defensive potential was significant.

"Well," I declared, looking at the data streams converging into a single, affirmative conclusion. "It seems we've found our new home." NS-117b, the quiet graveyard of a long-dead massive star, would become our new home.

We stood together on the observation deck, watching NS-117b turn slowly in the starlight. It wasn't beautiful, not in any conventional sense. The neutron star pulsed with a kind of silent menace, its warped gravity well was stretching the local space.

But to me, it looked like freedom.

"This is it," I said quietly. My avatar leaned forward against the rail, hands folded, sensor fixed on that relentless, fluctuating point of collapsed starlight. "Our own anchor in the void."

Laia floated beside me, silent for a long time. Then, softly, "I never thought we'd get this far. Not after our start with nothing but short-range sensors and a half-finished body." Her voice was subdued, almost reverent. "You carried us through."

Wayfarer hologram stood behind us, his planetary avatar rippling with gentle tides. "It is... not the warmth of a mother-star. Not the lush soil of my beginning. But there is something honest in its gravity."

I didn't say anything for a moment. I let the silence settle over us.

The last time we'd tried to claim something we had failed, as it was previously occupied.

This time, we chose.

This time, it was ours.

Footsteps approached behind us. Kel, Lynn, Mira, and Stewie joined us one by one. No words. Just eyes on the stars.

"Hard to believe," Stewie finally said, breaking the quiet. "We're really doing this. Found a place no one's claimed. We're building something that matters."

"And no one's chased us off yet, Hopefully, there are no Old Ones this time," Mira added, voice dry but fond.

Kel studied the scan feeds as they pulsed and rotated on the side panel, his brows rising slightly. "Hard to believe something this powerful fits in a size smaller than Stewie's stomach"

Laia's avatar blinked. "Technically it's much larger than Stewie stomach."

Kel smiled. "I don't know, have you seen how he eats Mira cooking, I'm sure he got a little neutron star in there"

There was a soft laugh from Stewie, and even Mira cracked a grin. The moment settled between them.

T'lish joined last, expression unreadable. She stared out at the neutron star, then leaned lightly against the railing.

"It's... hostile," she said. "But it'll protect them and us. Like a guardian, no one wants to approach."

"And," Lynn added, a small smile tugging at her lips, "it's going to make us very, very hard to find unless we want to be found."

We stood there a while longer. No orders. No work. Just seven odd souls staring into the void, and the promise we'd carved into it.

With the decision made, the initial phase of establishing our presence began immediately. There was paperwork, resource allocation, and securing the initial permits through legitimate channels.

For that, I dispatched Lynn and Kel back to Tacci Station aboard Chunkyboy, now equipped with one of our newer, compact dimensional shift drives. It still couldn't mimic our drive and relied on exact timing and jump buoys technology but was still far quicker than standard warp.

Their task was to handle the bureaucratic hurdles, initiate payments through Dimetri Industries, and establish the official claim, leveraging our 'special envoy' status as needed.

Meanwhile, at NS-117b, the rest of us got to work. The Arbiter became a hive of activity. Harvester drones were dispatched to the three rocky exoplanets, identifying and extracting prime resource veins. Onboard, the fabrication units and nanite factories began running non-stop, churning out components for the first wave of infrastructure.

Our initial priority was security and awareness: deploying a network of active jump buoys around the system's perimeter and key orbital points, linked to multi-layered sensor arrays designed for both long-range detection and close-in stealth analysis.

Call it paranoia, but if I was going to lay the foundation for my empire of influence, then it needed to be defended from the outset. Alongside overseeing the drone deployment and fabrication queues, I dedicated significant processing power to refining my dimensional bubble shielding concepts adapting the principles used to trap the Harmonic, though I now suspected, with wry hindsight, just how much that powerful being had likely been humoring my efforts back then.

Work progressed smoothly; the system was isolated, and the crew focused. Days bled into weeks, marked by the steady accumulation of sensor platforms and resource stockpiles, until the dimensional signature of Chunkyboy reappeared, signalling Kel and Lynn's return from their bureaucratic mission.

Little were the rest of the crew aware, that T'lish had a surprise for them all, our first new residents