Fracture - Book One of the Glass Galaxy Trilogy

Part 10: Verity

April 15th

1:33 PM

It took two long weeks of grueling work to bring the pirates and the station up to an acceptable standard.

The first step was getting rid of the stench that permeated many of the pirates' presences and discarding much of their terribly torn and stained clothing. It was a long process, since the station only had two showers for almost a thousand pirates, but by the end of the first week the motley group was beginning to look somewhat more presentable. Aria patched their clothes with her silk wherever she could, but that was just a stopgap measure until we could purchase new clothing from Verity. In the meantime, she created a few surprisingly good uniform designs for me in her spare time.

With the pirates cleaned up and presentable, the next step was to rejuvenate the station. I split the pirates into groups based off which vessel they crewed, and set them to repair and maintenance tasks throughout the station. Throughout the day, the pirates laboured at their tasks, whether that was applying a new coat of pristine white paint to the station or scraping rust off the benches in the cafeteria. While there were a few unruly individuals who resisted my attempts to turn them into a respectable group, they fell in line after Reaper saw to their discipline.

Another matter altogether was the station turret that I had blown apart when we had first arrived. I had thoroughly eviscerated the installation, and there was no way to repair it, which meant that a new turret would have to be built and installed. That would take minerals that we did not have, but I happened to have a drone blueprint in my possession which would correct that deficit. That meant that the real problem then was our lack of facilities to actually build a device as large as the station turret. Dushel Station wasn't equipped with a shipyard, and the fabrication array installed in my ship was too small to create ship and station components, so I decided that the best and only course of action was to stockpile the minerals and trade them to Verity for a new turret.

Two weeks after our arrival, the station had burst into life, Teracon-design mining drones swarming in and out of the station like tireless honeybees, while cleaned-up pirates worked in well-organized teams to breathe new life into the dilapidated station. Then Verity arrived.

"Admiral Kalani to the communication room," rang out the weak voice of one of the pirates responsible for operating the station's communication systems. I stood up, stretching out my tense back. I handed my paintbrush to Reaper's second-in-command, Pete, who I had been working with to paint the newly de-rusted floorboards, and set off at a brisk jog towards the communications room. Every pirate I passed stopped and saluted me, as a good crew should, and I nodded to them approvingly before they returned their work.

I arrived at the room at the same time as Reaper and Abaddon, who were walking unusually close to each other, their shoulders touching. They stepped aside to allow me in first. "After you, Admiral," said Reaper, smirking.

"You done?" I asked as I entered the room.

"I suppose so," she replied, following me in. The communications room was a simple affair, a single room with windows on three sides and a small radio console lining the far wall. The man the earlier voice belonged to was sitting on a small chair at the console, madly tapping away at various buttons and switches. It was pretty obvious why.

About a kilometre away from the station was a vessel of a size that I had only dared dream possible. Dushel Station was actually fairly large, -over a kilometre in length when including the over-sized docking bay- but the ship in front of my eyes had to be at least five times that size. Each of the colossal ship's primary weapon batteries were larger than my entire ship, and it was visibly covered in a vast network of secondary batteries that were likely each as powerful as my ship's primary armament.