Twenty minutes after leaving Sub-Bay #9, all three thousand Star-Dock Spirit Welders sat on the sunlit stern promenade of the Sovereign Aurora, slurping their third helping of Grandma Chen’s steaming shrimp wontons and crispy scallion pancakes.
“Eat slowly, boys, there’s plenty more dough in the mixer!” Grandma Chen called out happily as her twenty kitchen aunties moved down the tables refilling bowls. “Look at how thin Director Vane starved you all! Nobody picks up a welding torch until you put five pounds back on your ribs!”
Old Hammer (Goodness: 93/100) wiped a drop of golden sesame oil from his chin and looked out across the harbor toward Dock A, half a mile away.
Right on cue, forty-eight sharp POP-HISSSSS sounds echoed across the bay like a string of giant firecrackers!
Over in Dock A, forty-eight gleaming custom star-yachts belonging to the wealthiest Star-Lords of the Outer Nebula suddenly blew their unsealed pig-iron cabin gaskets all at once!
Clouds of expensive vintage moon-wine, silk cushions, and oxygen mist vented out of the split hull seams into the dockside air, triggering a chorus of forty-eight screaming red decompression sirens!
On the bridge of the Sovereign Aurora, Lin Mo took a sip of chrysanthemum tea and glanced at his watch.
