CHOO-CHOO! WHOOOOOOSH!
Out in the starry void beyond Planet Canglan, a gleaming golden ring of permanent Moon-Spider Silk & Black-Iron Sky-Rails connected five worlds into a bustling, nonstop interplanetary loop!
Every five minutes, a massive black-and-gold Spirit-Furnace Star-Train glided out of the ten-mile-wide Dry-Well Central Star-Gate in the heart of the former Red-Sand Wastes, riding along a golden beam of Sword-Qi light as smoothly as a riverboat on calm water.
Inside the newly expanded Interplanetary Command & Dispatch Hall on the top floor of Dry-Well Central Station, Pei Xuan stood before a fifty-foot-wide 3D holographic star-map projected by the fused Bronze Star-Compass.
Around the long iron-wood conference table sat his core specialists, each wearing their official department uniform—well, mostly official: - Old Wei (Minister of Public Security & Station Defense) sat straight as a spear at Pei Xuan’s right hand, his broadsword resting across his knees. - Hong Ling (Minister of the Interplanetary Treasury) sat on top of three stacked cushions so she could see over the tall piles of gold-trimmed ledger books, two glowing laser-cleavers tucked into her sash and an emerald bottle of Dry-Well Healing Soda by her elbow. - Abacus Su (Director of Taxation, Auditing & Traffic Fines) wore his spectacles and a pair of star-iron cuff-protectors, his three-foot fused super-computer jade abacus floating beside his shoulder and clicking automatically as train tickets were sold across five worlds. - Old Guo (Director of the Planetary Central Kitchen & Night Markets) wore a spotless white chef’s coat with…
