Blood Impulse

Part 8.2 - THE SHIPYARDS

Homebound Sector, Haven System, Ariea, Kansa

A gentle breeze blew across the wild grasslands as Amelia and Harrison made their trek across the open landscape. Years ago, this land would have been fertile farmland, tilled and planted with wheat, but no one had harvested this land in nearly forty years. In that time, the native grasses had crept back in. They were little more than calf-height, and offered no hinderance to their hike as the grass blades swayed in the wind.

Dark clouds churned to the south and Amelia kept an ear turned for thunder, knowing how quickly the Kansa weather could turn. An old battery-operated weather radio was slung over her shoulder as they made their way to the looming shipyards. It was tuned to the weather station, murmuring indecipherably under the wind noise. This region of the continent was subject to severe pop up storms. She knew better than to leave the house without a radio when there were clouds in the distance.

Additionally, the weight of a knife was bumping against her leg as they walked. She had grabbed the switchblade from her husband's nightstand drawer before they had left Lion's Den, unsure what real use it would be. Still, she was comforted by its presence as she led Harrison along the path to the shipyards.

Only neglected crop markers marked the path across the fields, but Amelia had made this trek before. She remembered spending the summers of her youth out here with her parents. Her father had always held an affection for the place, respecting the simplicity of this way of life.

Kansa was a poor nation, the infrastructure here remained decades older than Valkar's. Connections to the interplanetary cortex for communications and entertainment were unreliable and uncommon in this region. Right now, that made it an ideal place for Amelia to hide.

Little ever changed in Kansa. The medical facilities, the transportation methods and the vocational opportunities were all virtually the same as they had been before the Hydrian War, fifty years ago.

People here did not often leave. They were too poor to move elsewhere and had no chance of gaining the skills that would support them in other nations or on other worlds, so here they stayed, working the land for crops to sell at meager amounts. They were members of the worlds' lower class and it was exceptionally rare to see people with this heritage in any position of power.

Rare as it was, that was remarkably irrelevant now. Amelia was on her own, hiding in a defunct old cabin in a poor country with no help coming. That was her life now. It was all she could do to keep her son entertained with this hike, so she focused on that.

The shipyards rested in a natural dip of the landscape, and allegedly, the natural crater had been deepened considerably by the launch of the Kansa shipyards' largest build: the Singularity.

Amelia and Harrison ignored the rusty red and white warning sign. It read, 'No Trespassing. Military Property. Hazardous Conditions.' They skidded deftly down the grassy side of the caldera and ducked under the warped metal fence, abruptly finding themselves in a different world.

A gentle breeze shifted the leaves of the hidden jungle as sunlight drifted down between the gaps of the foliage. Covered in green vines, metal towers of spatial trusses shot upward, trying to scrape the sky. A long-empty fuel storage tower had a tree growing out the top of it. Saplings sprouted up on the fractured concrete landing pad below, flourishing in the shade of the towering leafy spindles.

Amelia led them onward, toward Harrison's favorite part of the shipyards: the monolithic, soaring cranes that had yet to be completely overgrown. Tattered warning flags still flew on the top of the weight bearing structures. They arched up over nothing now, but had constructed to lift massive pieces of hull plating and main armaments into place on a ship several hundred feet in height and over a mile in length.