Vivid Stars Online

The shuttle touched down so smoothly that I only noticed because I was paying attention. The new pilot was genuinely excellent, which made sense since he'd spent years training to do this.

"We're here, Sir, and I've just been informed that your greeting party is waiting outside," Andrew said as he turned from the pilot's seat.

I blinked in surprise before I got it together and thanked him. I hadn't expected to have people waiting to greet me as we landed, but I supposed it made sense.

It had been months since I'd been back, and there was no doubt a lot of important business to handle. At least, the Mayor and Captain Hendricks would want to see me as soon as possible.

"Please make sure the cargo is offloaded to the Frigate," I responded to Andrew as I stood and walked toward the exit. "And thank you again for the excellent flight."

"Of course, Sir," he said with a bow as I went past.

For once, I had to press the open button on the door to leave. It was a bit jarring after opening doors with my mind for so long, but I was going to have to get used to it.

It opened to show the side of my frigate, with dozens of people standing between the two ships. Elana, Captain Hendricks, and Mayor Kosfeld were easily recognizable, but most of the remaining sea of people were unknown.

The Mayor stepped forward as I began walking down the exit ramp. "Welcome home, My Lord," she said, bowing deeply. "It is an honor to welcome you home after your triumphant expedition."

Behind her, a half-dozen well-dressed individuals bowed with her. On the left, a large group of soldiers with the Captain saluted, and on the right, a smaller group of people with Elana did as well.

I felt the usual awkwardness at the respect but pushed it aside. This was my life now, and I had to get used to it if I was ever going to lead these people properly.

"Thank you, Mayor Kosfeld," I responded, trying to sound steady and assured. "I'm glad to be back. It's been a long time, and I have news to share on the results of my trip."

"Of course, Sir. We have a celebratory lunch organized at the town hall, followed by a meeting of all senior officials. The Captain has a small parade ready to escort you as soon as you are ready."

So that was what all the soldiers were doing here. There had to be at least twenty of them, all decked out in matching uniforms. It was quite an impressive sight and showed a level of organization we just hadn't had when I was last here.

"That sounds excellent," I said, despite really just wanting to get into the meeting. I wasn't going to turn her down after so long, though; if they wanted to make a spectacle out of my return, I'd left them.

It might even be good for the town's morale.

"I'll just check on the status of the frigate, and I'll be ready to leave," I continued as I began moving toward Elana.

She accepted gracefully and moved over toward the Captain, presumably to inform him. As she left, I turned and began walking toward what had to be the ship's crew. I wouldn't make everyone wait long, but I wanted an update on how the repairs were going.

Linnea also hadn't seen her sister in person for months, and I was sure she wanted to see her as soon as possible.

Elana saluted along with fifteen crew members behind her. They were also all in uniform, though theirs weren't as ostentatious as the parade soldiers'. I suspected it was their standard everyday outfit.

The sight reminded me of the ship repair quest I hadn't checked in a long time, but that would have to wait until I was in private.

"Welcome back, Captain," Elana said seriously before breaking out in a grin. A moment later, she was racing past to where Linnea stood just behind me. A loud grunt suggested she'd tackled my girlfriend into a hug, but I ignored that in favor of the people in front of me.

A tall young man with epaulets on his shoulders stepped forward from the group. "Welcome back, Sir. I'm Corporal Rayner, second in command of the fighter pilots aboard this ship. I guess I'm the senior officer with Miss Elana and Miss Linnea busy."

He didn't look any older than the other pilots with him, so I could only assume he'd done exceptionally well in the academy to earn his rank straight out of it. Or possibly that we'd promoted him to have someone in charge when Linnea was busy.

While Linnea and Elana were catching up, he introduced me to the rest of the crew. There were another eight pilots, which made ten, including him and Andrew, as well as five maintenance crew members and a cook.

With Elana focused on keeping the capital ship running, which was a full-time job even with her small army of robots, the maintenance crew would be tasked with keeping the fighter craft and gunboat in top shape.

I hadn't even known we'd hired them, but I was glad Elana had organized it and done the interviews. The initiative she'd shown more than validated her position as chief engineer.

She'd even gone on to hire the cook once everyone had shown up to live on the ship. The older woman was dearly needed when we had more than a dozen people there at any one time, all of whom were busy with their own jobs.

After meeting everyone, I turned my attention to the ship itself. It loomed above us, no longer looking like the wreck I'd first seen. Fresh armor panels now covered all the holes; even the previously intact panels looked clean and new.

"Looks good, doesn't it?" Elana laughed as she walked up beside me. "We've been getting regular shipments from that new mining village. Enough ore to fix all the holes and then some."

Once all the new panels went on, I had my bots pull the old ones off and chuck them back in the fabricator. With just a bit of added resources, it was able to clean them up to be as good as the new ones."

"It's amazing," I breathed in excitement. "Better than I could have hoped for. You've done an amazing job."

"Thanks," she responded, her cheeks flushing from the praise. "It's the least I can do since I can't help with the Earth thing." She said the last few words in a whisper, just loud enough for me to hear.

I winced at that and reached a hand over to squeeze her shoulder. If things went as planned, she might be free to help sooner rather than later, but I didn't want to get her hopes up too early.

If anything, getting her out was more important now. Beyond just wanting her to be free, she was the only person who might be able to build whatever device Broker gave us now that I couldn't use Technokinesis.

My technical abilities might still be decent without it, but I wasn't kidding myself that I could build unknown Arkathian technology unassisted. In contrast, Elana had been working with such tech daily for months. If anyone could pull it off, then it would be her.

She nodded at me in thanks before continuing to speak in a louder tone. "Of course, it's not finished; a lot of the more complicated tech inside is still missing parts. In particular, we need that stuff you went looking for."

I assumed she avoided naming the ore for security reasons, which I was thankful for, even if it was probably unnecessary here. "We should have it soon; we just need to finish securing the area. I'll explain more at the meeting. Are you coming?"

"Yeah, I'll be giving a briefing there," she responded with a shrug.

I'd expected as much, but I couldn't help but want to know how things were going sooner. With the Resulum located, getting the ship functioning was perhaps the most important task I had left in VSO.

With it, my noble position would be secure for years until I needed a developed city. That would be more than long enough to bring everyone over from Earth and give them somewhere to stay.

Not that I had any intention of failing to achieve that. If I was going to build my life here, I would make it as good as possible.

I thanked her and the rest of the crew for attending before turning to move over to the soldiers. Captain Hendricks stood at the front with four other officers while twenty soldiers stood to attention at the back.

He and the other four saluted again as I approached before he stepped forward to speak. "Welcome back, Lord Hope. It's an honor to greet your successful return."

Leaning forward to whisper, he continued. "I got your message and have put the strike team on notice. They will be ready to proceed whenever you wish to clear the mines."

"We have a strike team?" I responded in surprise before realizing that must be the special project he'd hinted at in his reports.

He laughed with a shake of his head, though his voice stayed quiet. "We do indeed. With you and the young lady gone, we needed something to handle the more difficult beasts. I took the liberty of assembling an elite, heavily armed squad from our best veterans."

"Excellent, amazing work," I whispered back. That was exactly what I needed right now, and I couldn't be more thankful to have the Captain working for me. I hadn't even considered that they might need more firepower to back the patrols up without us, and he'd spotted and resolved the issue.

He saluted again and walked off to organize the parade. While he was getting everyone into formation, I took a moment to look out over the town. It had grown massively since I'd last seen it,

From this angle, it looked at least twice as large as before, with much of the new construction being warehouses and large apartment buildings. Out from there was space for even more expansion before fences separated the town from the grasslands.

They were laid out in an orderly grid with roads in between them. It looked like preparation for a set of large fields, though most of the grass had yet to be cleared. Unless I was mistaken, that was where our planting would take place after the last snow had cleared.

Once everyone was ready, we began marching back to town. It was an odd experience to be at the front of such a group, but I didn't hate it.

The Mayor and the other town officials walked behind me while a column of soldiers escorted us on either side. It must have been quite a sight as people stopped to stare and point.

Many followed us to the town hall, where the Mayor announced my return. To my surprise, most of the crowd broke into cheers at that. It seemed my reputation had only grown despite my absence.

Plenty of questions were called out about where I'd been and my plans for the town, but I waved them off for now. Instead, I assured them I would hold another town meeting in the next few days.

That brought even more cheering as we moved inside for lunch. The food was nice and even better; it was all locally produced. Even the fruit and vegetables were products of the test greenhouses David had been running all winter.

They all looked and tasted normal, delicious even, and gave me a lot of hope for our spring crops. David was supposed to be here to give a presentation but had skipped the festivities beforehand.

I wasn't too surprised. As someone from Earth who still saw himself as a player, I could see him totally ignoring day-to-day life here. If his work went as well as I hoped, I might need to give him a heads-up. It would be nice to keep him around after we moved.

As expected, he showed up as we filed into the meeting room after the meal. He looked almost unchanged since I'd last seen him, except for the broad grin on his face. It looked like he'd been enjoying his research.

With everyone assembled, it was time to get down to business and find out just what I'd missed while I was gone.