CHOO-CHOO!
The heavy black-iron whistle of Star-Train No. 4 blasted a cloud of white steam into the starry void as its golden Sword-Qi track locked onto the orbital ring of a steaming blue-green sphere.
Inside Car #1, General Tie Zhan sat on a reinforced iron bench, rubbing his thick neck with a loud crunch-crunch. Even though he was a tough Rank 7 Early Martial Commander who loved heavy gravity, spending ten straight days swinging a ten-thousand-pound sledgehammer on Black-Iron Moon had left knots the size of walnuts in his shoulder muscles.
“Agh, my lower back!” Tie Zhan groaned, reaching behind his waist and thumping his spine with a fist as big as a soup pot. “Lord Pei, are we really going to a bathhouse planet today? If I don’t soak these bones in hot water soon, my knees are going to rust shut just like Chief Shi Gang’s old elbows!”
Right across the aisle, Chief Shi Gang—the eight-foot-tall leader of the Star-Iron Golem Clan—let out a heavy metallic sigh. His iron chest plates were smudged with black volcanic soot from the forge, and a tiny curl of gray smoke was still puffing out of his left ear hinge.
“My joints are stiff too, General Tie,” Chief Shi Gang rumbled, his voice sounding like two millstones grinding together. “Five hundred thousand of my golem brothers have been hammering star-iron rails day and night. Even with the lubricating oil, the volcanic ash gets stuck inside our neck bolts. We need a big…
