At first, Derek believed Captain Peterson was going to give him a tour of the ship himself. When the cute red-head; who immediately was flagged as Weapons Officer Leanna Smith by his Icon; stepped over to introduce herself, he carefully kept his eyes on her face, and subvocally asked his Icon if he could shut off the kind of blushing idiot response that his overlay was currently giving.

Which, of course, turned out to be a no. He could either deal with being a human, deal with being a robot, or program a new overlay himself.

As she led him out of the current impromptu bridge; which clearly was not meant to be one, but with this sort of tech, you could set such a thing up anywhere; she looked him over; before focusing on his Icon. Her own was a snake; or perhaps a dragon; with red-gold scales, perched on her shoulder; with the overlay, it undoubtedly actually felt real, as it would in games.

"So, this is the main corridor. Its a little over a kilometer long of finished product; in front of that is a wide open space full of construction materials. We've got a nice big hollowed-out spot in the rock now." She led him forward; the more they interacted the easier it was to see her as a human woman, walking forward with easy grace, rather than a machine, clamping along, only stuck to the ground thanks to magnets.

"Mind if I ask what the story is with the Icon? You're the only person I've ever seen with one that still has the default look... but has enough underlying programming to be a low-grade AI. Percy reached that point years ago, but she's been some sort of variant of dragon from the beginning." She absently patted the creature; which rubbed itself affectionatle against her hand.

As they reached the forward airlock, Derek looked down at the tiny white orb, and touched it with one finger, bringing up the same options he had seen before. "It used to be a cat. I had this cute one, Fluffbucket. Long, grey fur, just adorable. My Icon was a kitten version of her. When she died, and my ex paid the vet to make a digital copy of the cat... I didn't want the confusion. Honestly, I probably had an unhealthy obsession with that digital furball."

When the airlock cycled open, he felt a moment of cold. His Icon warned him that the atmosphere was being removed from the chamber.. and that he had seventeen hours before the lack of airflow would cause his mechanical body to begin overheating, if he kept moving.

As the outer door opened, it revealed an enormous, cavernous space. Fabrication drones; squid-like robots with bodies dotted with reaction thrusters, and dozens of long tentacles each ending in some sort of tool; be it cutting, grasping, or welding; were everywhere. Stacks of metal plates on the rough-hewn rock floor. Storage tanks with release valves. Large metal hoppers full of what looked to be a sludge of some sort.

Leanna gave a broad wave at the surroundings. "In the beginning, all that was here was a few fabricators, the genetic samples for our cloning tank, and the hyperdrive. Broke apart a few asteroids, melted things down, and started working. Now... we've used up all the raw materials from the first rock 13 was hooked up to, and are about a third of the way through melting down this one. We've got enough metal to build a small fleet, mostly nickel-iron, and enough carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen to provide it with atmosphere and crews. Eventually, when we've got a habitable world, we'll pressurize this baby and switch to cloned bodies, let the robots just do grunt work."

Derek looked over the wide, cavernous space from the metal platform at the airlock's opening. A series of girders spread out,showing the final frame of the still-progressing vessel. He looked it all over, comparing mental notes. Hookups for extra fusion torch engines would go... there. Weapons bays in the event the ship encountered hostiles would be... here.

"The layout is a little different. But this is an Earthforge Seeder Ship. This... Do we actually have all of that tech? The kind of fuel efficiency you'd need to actually move rocks that big, or cool something off that quickly..."

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Leanna laughed, and tapped her snake on the head. After a few moments, the completed layout of the ship sprang to life. It did, in fact, look just like the ships for Earthforge. "Subtract the living crew, and you've got it. You'll notice the engines and weapons are a bit smaller... we managed to improve the design since releasing the game. We are going to be running low on iridium, so we're cutting back on the main gun so we have enough to build a couple of scoutship hyperdrives."

A disturbing notice popped up on his Icon. "You have 16 hours remaining before lack of atmosphere will cause overheating." He stared at it for a moment, then studied his internal clock... before looking at the machines. Busily moving about the vast cavern. Carving out chunks of rock. Delivering them to smelting machines. "I'm running slow. Why am I running slow?"

"We all are. Its going to take months, or years, from our perspective, to get to the edge of the red zone, reach a place where we can settle down. Actual time-wise its going to be decades, or centuries. Captain Peterson has us running about a twentienth speed right now. One hour every three minutes. These rigs can handle up to ten times, or twenty overclocked; and if an emergency comes up, we'll go on that automatically."

As Derek watched machines; both the purely AI-driven fabricators and the humanoid crew; working, he could see where the front of the ship would be when it was done. The ship was mostly finished, and most of the rock was still there. As he turned back toward the airlock, he glanced over at Leanna. "Its crazy to imagine all this is real. I can't wait to get to work once we get close enough to see our new home."

As the airlock began to repressurize, the overheating warning vanished. She glanced at him. "Well, first you'll get to spend a few months helping build systems, and learning how they work. They picked this oversized rock for a reason; we want a whole flotilla of ships by the time we drop out, and every hand helps. With that bow wave giving us all the momentum we need, some of the other ships grabbed rocks half the size of Ceres."

As they walked back down the hallway, she pointed out finished structures; doors leading to elevators that currently led nowhere. Doors that would be crew quarters for the forward deck; mostly weapons officers so they could be physically on station in seconds in the event of a network outage. Everything was brand new, and completely empty; not a single fixture or piece of furniture; only the piping for air and water flows present.

They passed the two robot bays; one full of squids, hanging from numerous ceiling racks, at various stages of completion; though a single damaged one hung close to the entrance, tentacles hanging off-center as the central body was partially crushed. The other, where he'd awoken just... well, hours before, though it didn't feel like that. Long rows of humanoid robot bodies... waiting for a passenger to bring them to life.

The fabrication bay and engineering were intimately familiar. He'd seen these in his Earthforge games, in an almost identical layout, numerous times. At this point, as he studied long-familiar equipment, one of the engineers stepped over; and offered to show him the ropes.

His tour guide would step away, leaving him to it.. as Derek began to learn the difference between real-world technology and the simplified versions he'd toyed with for years in his games. A checklist appeared over his Icon. An amusing listing, as if he were playing the tutorial of Earthforge all over again. But this one... promised to take weeks. He could already see that he'd need to learn new math just to understand how the hyperdrive worked... and he was a master of orbital mechanics but still needed a better understanding of ship's functions.

Training Checklist for Head Navigation Officer Slot:

[Learn Navigation Functions: 87%]

[Learn Hyperdrive Functions: 32%]

[Learn Fusion Torch Functions: 77%]

[Learn Basic-level functions, all positions: 88%]

[Build Own Quarters: 0%]

[Optional: Learn Terraforming Functions: 162%][Complete]

[Optional: Learn Hypercannon Functions: 18%]

[Optional: Learn Missile and Point Defense Functions: 36%]

[Optional: Learn full-level functions, all positions: 39%]

[Optional: Furnish Own Quarters: 0%]

Pausing his study of the hyperdrive for a moment, he examined the details clearly. Apparently the captain had set him a 'quest'... and if he accomplished his primary objectives, he'd be the head navigator. For the moment, he was confused; surely they had some former military who'd been uploaded to handle that job. Still. Time to get to work. He tapped his Icon, sending a request to the captain to stop underclocking him for a while.. and started reading basic Hyperdrive theory.