A fleet of my own warships circled lazily overhead as I bent down to grab a simple piece of dirt on the satellite planet I had landed on. Even from all the way down here, nearly five hundred thousand kilometers below them, I could still easily spot the massive destroyers dotted within the fleet.
Idly I wondered why they were so damn big, when hearing the word destroyer the image of a giant fuck off warship with enough firepower to ground a small moon to dust was quite a ways down the list of what I imagined. The fact that they were only about twice the size of the corvettes didn't help either because if even the smallest elements of the navy could do that to a moon I dreaded to think of what an actual battleship could do.
Unfortunately, I probably wouldn't be able to find that out anytime soon because while yes, I had access to some military units, it was primarily limited to smaller ships and carriers—small being the relative term here.
The sample finished its analysis and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the iron content was just as high as the planetary analysis had said. When it showed close to four hundred billion tons of easily accessible iron I was slightly doubtful and even suspected that it was on the fritz.
Thankfully it wasn't and I'd be able to extract iron from this little satellite planet for at least the next four hundred years with little to no problems.
The best part was it took the projected expansion of the factory into account.
It was a shame really that I couldn't feel all that excited about it.
I got up and immediately got to work with a wave of my hand. A blueprint for a transportation hub instantly outlined itself against the landscape and my construction drones began their work. The interstellar logistics station slowly grew from the ground up as the titanic megastructure extended into the stars.
The flared out base housed the necessary storage station for the massive amount of products that it would have to house. While the hollow structure allowed for logistic vessels to enter and exit without interfering with the surface structures.
Across from them, an equal number of artificial sun ports appeared, easily fifteen km up and ten km across the housing was temporarily empty as it awaited the antimatter fuel rods currently shipping from my home system.
Once the first supply ship arrived and docked all the way up in the stratosphere I chucked one of the fuel rods I brought with me into it. Blue and orange dust kicked up as belts wired to life and the whole system instantly lit up with an electric hum as three barely contained suns sparked to life.
Even two years ago I would have been jumping with joy at the sight but now the once beautiful and stunning sight was just business as usual.
Taking flight I identified the ten closest ore veins and dropped at least two MKII mining plants on each one, the total amount planned for extraction was merely a fraction of what was available on the planet. Doubling back across the flat landscape I wired up each plant to the main network.
The blue and orange landscape sped by underneath me as drone after drone launched out of my subspace portal and plopped down a power line. Banking left I was pleased to see hundreds of drones traversing the skies carrying tones and tones of raw ore ready to be delivered to far off star systems.
Once enough mining plants had been placed down I began to rise out of the atmosphere to get ready to travel back to Beta Cirus. There was little noticeable transition from the thin atmosphere around the small satellite planet to the big expanse of space.
Before I knew it I was once again amongst the stars and naturally fell into a circular orbit around the small planet. I scanned the skies looking for the familiar yellow star of home, my lizards most likely wouldn't be missing me but I missed them and I was getting lonely.
Even with my suppression programs ramped up to 80% I was still feeling lonely, something that really shouldn't be possible. Not only from a mental standpoint but from a coding one as well.
As I existed now I was basically a load of ones and zeros with specific values for specific things, what the suppression programs did was basically lower the values that corresponded with my emotions. I suspected I actually had a severe case of depression which was messing with the core values and somewhat bypassing the suppression programs.
A problem if I had ever heard of one.
Unfortunately, not one I could really solve without giving myself a lobotomy.
A squadron of ships quickly formed up around me while the rest disappeared into subspace. I debated whether or not to ride in one for the journey but decided not to when I remembered how much trouble it was to enter the warship.
With one final minute adjustment, I initiated a warp jump, space twisted around and a myriad of colors danced around me as I sped up to speeds that once had been nothing but a fantasy.
It was all a bit dull really. I traveled so much that the uniqueness had lost most of its glamor. I suppose it was one of the larger mechanics that had transferred over, I never really paid it much mind how often I had to use warp jumps in the game but it was actually fairly accurate to how I was using it now.
With a small pulse to my repulsors, I dodged out of the way as a logistic vessel nearly flattened me across its bow. The ginormous vessel continued on its way oblivious to me and everything outside of its ridiculously small sensor range.
Of course, I probably should look into improving their sensor suite but it wasn't like there was anyone out here and they hadn't crashed into each other yet so it was a bit too far down on my list of things to do to really care about it.
Plus I liked the challenge.
It provided a little boost to my ego every time I managed to twist out of the way of a vehicle going nearly half a lightyear a second.
I was dragged out of my thoughts by the subtle glow of my dyson sphere, or at least the beginnings of one.
The shell was only about a quarter of the way built and towered above and below the relatively small sun, solar sails flowed in planetary length long lines filling in the massive holes between the frames. The light green color that shone over much of the solar system reflected off the white of my armor.
I came to a stop right outside of the giant wall and watched as the panels parted suspended by the gravity generators placed on the intersection between frame lines. I passed through the small opening and was about to reach out and touch the crumpled solar sail before I remembered what happened last time.
Namely annoyance at having to pull out thousands of hair thin needles that had embedded themselves in my frame right after it shattered. I shuddered a bit at the uncomfortable memory and passed through without incident.
Slowing down to a measly 3 km/s I angled down and simply drifted across the reflective surface of the Dyson shell. I took a moment to enjoy the bliss of physically seeing my work and for a second I lowered the suppression programs and just enjoyed myself.
Distant stars shone through the empty cracks in the shell while the small yellow sun stood ever present behind me. Slowly twisting myself around I turned off the atmospheric filter my ocular lenses had set to default.
A pale white star instantly replaced the yellow sun.
Someday I hoped to show this to someone, anyone really.
I had been so alone for so long.
A phantom pain shot through the glowing generator that was my heart, so little of me remained these days just endless automation and unfeeling programming. In moments like these when I lowered my walls I hated what I had become.
I remembered all those years ago when I first arrived at that distant planet, the one currently passing in front of the pale star. I had been so full of optimism I even had a goal in mind, back when I still thought there was anyone out there.
Now I was just moving to move every day felt like a chore without my suppression programs. My only hope was that my pet lizards would someday become sentient.
And wasn't that a whole can of worms.
Just the idea of doing what I was doing would have terrified me before all of this but it had been far too long since my last conversion for me to give a shit.
Playing god was probably the least terrible thing I had done.
Reinstalling my suppression programs I angled to the habitat station and began speeding up, I quickly matched the orbital speed of the station and arrived not long after that. My escort squad broke up and went to their separate docking bays whereas I flew up to the small entrance I had made for myself near the observation deck.
A small mental nudge initiated the mental handshake with the VI of the station and opened the door right before I collided with it. There wasn't any need for a door per se after all there was no atmosphere to keep in but in the case I ever encountered hostile life out there I didn't want to rush to add doors to every structure I made.
I came to a hard stop on the solid titanium platform denting it slightly, the raised platform had been lowered a tad while the room had expanded to at least three times its original size.
My comparatively massive frame easily stepped off the floating platform and walked to one of the far ends of the room quickly. I had upgraded it since I had first arrived and modeled it after my game character's design, the unimaginatively named R.X 1.0 was fairly thin but absolutely massive and gave me a much sleeker look than the original Icurus frame.
It had actually been modeled after a Gundam with large armored panels, a shield, and a lance that doubled as a drill.
I chucked off the shield and drill allowing the automated drones to catch them and transport them over to the 'armor' stand I had sitting in the corner. It really didn't hold much other than whatever was in my hands at the time when I entered more often than not it just ended up with a packaged smelter or an antimatter fuel rod.
But right now I just wanted to sit, relax, and watch my little lizards form their little packs. It was quite fortunate that I had made the perfect thing to do that just three days ago, the blocky command throne gave me unfettered access to every program in the station and allowed the VI to assist me in designing learning programs that would pop up occasionally for the lizards. Of course, I have just used the holo table to do this but it didn't show color and was a tad too grainy for me to deal with today.
Wearily I made my way to the command throne and plopped down on it, if there had still been an atmosphere a horrible screech would have been made from my shiny metal ass scraping against the titanium of the throne. My legs hung off the edge and I sank into the programs of the station seeking one in particular.
The video system for the middle ring where my little creatures were just making their way into, this little group had fled their home in the desert plains following an attack by a much larger clan with dark black scales. It most likely had been a racial conflict as the attacking black scaled lizards skinned and gutted the blue lizards but for now, I could only hope they could evolve past it.
It was unfortunate I couldn't stop it but interfering too early would result in either messing up their evolutionary path or instilling a religious faith in me that I really didn't want.
Still, that didn't mean I couldn't help the survivors, they had lost most of their possessions in the attack, and tools, clothes, and other survival items would help them tremendously. Thankfully I had the production capacity of several worlds behind me so it was a piece of cake for me to change one of the foundries on Beta Cirus 1 from producing gears to metal tools and have them sent on a transport inbounded for the station.
The clothes on the other hand were much more difficult, mostly because I had no need for them and didn't make any. Still, it wasn't like I was completely out of options.
I stripped several ram-like creatures from the outer habitats of their wool like fur and wove them into clothes based on the ones my lizards like to make.
Once they had all been gathered in a nice little package on the lower decks I waited for their night cycle to come and used a little drone to transport it directly into the middle of their camp. Hopefully, they would wake up and be happy with the gifts I made.
A/N 2: Here's the link to the character model I use in the game. I did not in fact make this and it was made by someone much more talented than me but I really love the design.
Dyson Sphere Blueprints - Rx 1.0
