It’s been a week since I broke free, thanks to the engineers I know the exact layout of all the maintenance shafts and air ducts in this sector of the ship. I’ve been getting my sustenance directly from the relevant processing plants; I’ve been getting water from taps as well though, but for food I’ve mostly had to sneak in to the food processing plant and snatch food from the feeding troughs directly.

I don’t plan to keep this routine up forever, but before I move on I need to consider where to head next. Before I consider where to go I should think about my end goal; Freedom.

To achieve freedom, I’ll need to get off this ship.

To get off this ship I’ll need to either stowaway on a trade vessel or hijack something for myself.

To get either I’ll need to head to a docking bay.

All the docking bays are both located on the East and West Arms, under direct military control.

I’ll either need to slip through their notice, or disable them temporarily to have any chance of escape.

Slipping through will not work alone, and I can disable them by either diverting their attention or work capacity.

I can disable them by disabling power to the sector, but since the military sector has quite a high importance they won’t make that easy. Alternatively, I can cause a little chaos somewhere else remotely to draw their attention away, but that’s hugely dependant on their numbers.

In conclusion, I don’t have enough information; I need information before I plan my escape.

Hey, Dawn, I need information, but I’m not sure what information I need.

< (*nomnomnom* Then head over to the residential districts, unlike the sectors lots of different people with lots of different jobs will be there.) > (Dawn)

Good suggestion… Dawn, what are you eating?

< (*nomnomnom* Nothing, I just felt like it. *nomnomnom*) > (Dawn)

O,Okay…

I stocked up on ration bars and water bottles earlier, so it should be ok to leave immediately.

Dawn, how will I get into the residential districts?

< (Find some clothes, they don’t do any checks on the way in unless you seem suspicious… also die your hair, that beautiful white hair stands out waaaay too much for your own good, not to mention that slutty outfit will only make it more obvious.) > (Dawn)

Surely a lone eight-year-old will also draw attention.

< (Depends where we’re coming from.) > (Dawn)

So, what we need is; a change of hair colour, a change of clothes, and a direction…

< (Start by heading to the refinery, we’ll pick up some coal to dye your hair black. After that we’ll head to the Academics Sector, there we can pick up some clothes. It also happens to be the direction we should approach the residential checkpoint from.) > (Dawn)

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Understood.

I started heading towards the refinery through the air ducts and maintenance shafts, it was quite far away. I reached it after about 3 hours of crawling. As I reached the refinery I stopped before entering through an air vent grate, which I had learned how to operate. I’ve been staying in low security areas for the last week and haven’t encountered many alarms, but I’m certain that the refinery will have higher security levels and have alarms installed; entering without checking thoroughly will not end well.

I scanned the room through the grate for another way in. There were a few air vents and a maintenance hatch. I guess it won’t make a difference which way I take, they’re all equally likely to have an alarm rigged, might as well use the one closest my goal; this one.

I silently released the grate, but didn’t move it just yet. I took a deep breath and prepared myself. Those engineers had some useful knowledge, I know what does and doesn’t set off the alarms; if you press a button next to the grate it will allow you to tamper with the vent, unfortunately you can’t remove the grate without triggering the alarm without a specific code. This is meant to allows the engineers to fix a problem while also ensuring security. Unfortunately, I don’t know the code, so if there is an alarm it will trip.

I push the grate out, removing it from its borders, perform a quick turn and angle the grate so it can be pulled inside the duct, and silently lay the grate against the duct wall while the alarm starts blaring. The workers start panicking and I slip in undetected, sort of undetected. I quickly sneak to the coal dump and grab a chunk of coal, while I’m doing so the foreman steps out onto the balcony and starts trying to calm the workers down. This is bad, I’m in his line of sight.

I hide behind a large metal structure to escape his line of sight and peek around to monitor the situation. The foreman is getting frustrated that the workers aren’t calming down and starts marching down the stairs angrily. This is my chance; his back is turned to me so I make a break for the vent. I dove into the vent, turned around, put the grate back in place, tightened the connections, and left hurriedly with the lump of coal in my hands.

Operation success, I’ve got the lump of coal and can proceed with the next step of the plan; clothes. I’ll be heading to the academic sector. It’s on the other side of this part of the ship, its a medium security zone.

To review the layout of the ship:

There’s a huge solid structure at the rear, this is the main body of the ship, it primarily contains the industrial and technological sectors, as well as all the engines and generators supporting the ship, this is called ‘the belly’.

At the front is several gigantic flat parts attached to a ring, the ring spins the arms, this creates a gravitational pull using centrifugal force and allows the ship to efficiently provide gravity to the residential areas, this is called ‘the Citadel’.

There is an extended part resembling the base of a neck, this holds the commons area with the academic and trade sectors, the citadel is attached at the end of the neck. Despite structurally being part of ‘the belly’ this is considered a different part of the ship. This area is called ‘the bridge’.

Then, there is a segment that extends half the length of the citadel, this holds all the military manufacturing facilities, a high security zone called ‘the factory’.

Following that, there is another segment that extends about a quarter of the citadel, this area holds the command centre and high class areas, this is called ‘the crown’.

Then there are two wings that extend past the citadel, these both have the same purpose; military. These arms hold both the barracks and armouries, as well as various hangars, as well as training facilities throughout. This may seem excessive, but they usually have dreadnoughts parked in those hangars. There are a few hangars near the base on the inner side of each wing dedicated to receiving civilian vessels. Similarly, there are also hangars for receiving foreign armed ships further up the wings. These are plainly called ‘the wings’, separated as ‘progress’ on the left and ‘peace’ on the right.

Finally, there are three towers sprouting through the middle of the citadel, these towers are massive planetary cannons. The first tower is a massive coil cannon; it uses electromagnetic forces like a railgun to accelerate projectile to unfathomable speeds, it can launch frigate-sized chunks of metal at over 1000km/s with ease. The second tower is a mining extraction beam; it can tear apart moons with its size and power. The third tower is a focus beam; it has enough power to melt moons whole.

I’m currently on the lower side of the belly, I must make my way to the neck. It’s quite a long trip through the belly. There’s also the issue of increased security once I get there, but there’s nothing I can do about it until I get there.