The maintenance bay was even larger from the ground level.
Luca stood at the bottom, neck craned back, taking in the sheer scale of the space. Thirty, forty floors of gantries and work platforms rose above them. The structural supports stretched floor to ceiling, massive enough to cradle battleships.
And in the center of it all, broken and crumpled on those very supports, sat the Triumph of Darron.
Gravity had crushed her, wrecking not just their ship, but their home and their five-hundred-million-credit investment.
She was a total and utter wreck.
Getting Zoe and Danny out had taken an hour. Joey had squeezed through a sheared bulkhead near the cargo bay, put on his heavy power armor, and forced the bridge access corridor open from the inside. The sound of tearing metal had echoed through the bay like a scream.
Now Danny's wheelchair hummed as he maneuvered closer to the ship, Pixel curled in his lap. The kitten's bioluminescent markings pulsed a worried orange, reflecting Danny's own tension. He stared up at the damaged hull, his expression unreadable.
"Four years," Danny said quietly. "Four years of planning, saving, building. And we broke her in thirty seconds."
Emily stood beside Luca, her hand finding his. She squeezed once. "We'll fix her."
"Yeah. We will." Luca squeezed her hand back. They had to believe that. Had to maintain hope even when staring at complete failure.
Ryan moved around the ship's perimeter, staring at the structural damage in something close to awe. Chris inspected one of the support struts, his expression grim.
Joey stood at the Triumph's cargo bay entrance, or what was left of it, still in his power armor from the rescue. The servomotors whined as he braced the warped frame, holding the buckled doors open wide enough for access.
"Alright," Luca said, raising his voice to carry across the bay. "We need to unload everything. Research samples first, as we need those intact to finish the charter. Then the Centurion, the Specter, all the spare armor and weapons from all those delves, food supplies, and personal gear. Everything comes out before we attempt the upgrade."
Zoe looked up at the broken ship, her jaw tight. "The last time we upgraded a vehicle, it took us what, twenty hours? How long do you think this will take?"
"Longer," Ryan said, not looking up from his scans. "Way longer. We're not just upgrading systems here. We're rebuilding the entire ship."
"So we're living in the Centurion for a while," Chris said.
"Yeah." Luca looked at the deployable armored RV still secured in the cargo bay. "Chris, once we get it out, find us a spot to set up. Somewhere out of this main hangar."
"On it."
---
The unloading took hours.
They'd been awake for twenty hours already: clearing portals, exploring the facility, watching their ship break. Now they were hauling cargo in a wreck that sparked and groaned around them.
Joey and Emily worked together in the cargo bay, navigating collapsed ceiling panels and loose power conduits that spat orange sparks. The scientific samples, already organized into crates thanks to Emily's planning, were stacked near the entrance, ready to extract.
Danny directed operations from his wheelchair, Pixel curled in his lap watching everything with anxious orange eyes.
"Careful," he called out as Emily maneuvered a crate past a dangling wire. "Don't touch that conduit."
"I see it." Emily's voice was tight with exhaustion, but her hands stayed steady.
Joey emerged from deeper in the cargo bay, hauling a cart stacked with medical supplies. "The medical pods are still in there. Both of them. But—" He gestured back into the bay. "One's accessible. The other's pinned under a collapsed structural beam."
"Can we move the beam?" Luca asked.
"Not without heavy equipment. And even if we could, the pod might be damaged. I'd rather not risk it."
"So we take the one that's accessible," Emily said.
Joey nodded. "Yeah, best we can do."
They spent another hour extracting the medical pod: the path to it was hell: collapsed ceilings, folded-in corridor walls, sparks raining from severed power lines. Joey's power armor did most of the heavy lifting, servomotors straining as he maneuvered the pod through the wreckage.
The pod finally cleared the doors with inches to spare.
"What about furniture?" Emily asked, peering back into the cargo bay. "Some of it's still viable. The bunks in the crew quarters. The galley equipment."
Luca shook his head. "Leave it. We can sleep in the Centurion. Once the upgrade's done, we'll have brand new quarters anyway. And if the upgrade works..." He squeezed her hand. "We'll have a way home. We can worry about furniture then."
Emily's grin turned sly. "Or we could just bunk together." She winked.
"Get a room!" Ryan yelled from across the bay.
"We're trying!" Emily shot back.
Despite everything, Luca laughed. "Yeah. Nothing in there's worth risking our necks for. Let the upgrade process handle it."
---
Chris piloted the Centurion out of the cargo bay, the armored RV's hover engines humming as it glided over the debris of broken metal and hull plating that had fallen from the Triumph when she broke.
The armored RV was massive, twelve meters long and built like a tank, with enough space inside to house their entire crew comfortably. Chris maneuvered it across the maintenance bay toward one of the adjoining hangars, a smaller space branching off from the main construction area.
This whole situation was fucked. Their ship was wrecked. They were stuck in Alpha Centauri with no way home.
But they'd get through it. They always did.
Chris had seen the crew pull off impossible shit before. Hell, they'd made it this far, hadn't they? Four years of grinding portals, saving every credit, building the Triumph from nothing. They could rebuild. They would rebuild.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
And maybe if this upgrade mod worked, they'd actually get home. Back to Earth. Back to family.
He wanted that. Wanted it more than he'd admit to anyone except maybe Joey.
The Centurion's floodlights illuminated the hangar as Chris brought it through the open doors. The beams swept across the interior, revealing what lay within.
"Holy shit."
The side hangar was full.
Equipment lined the walls. Fabrication tools, hover carts, repair drones, welding rigs. And in the center of the hangar, secured to docking clamps, sat three small shuttlecraft.
They were sleek. White hulls with clean lines and compact profiles. Each one maybe fifteen meters long, built for speed and maneuverability. Personnel shuttles that were designed for ferrying passengers between larger ships and stations, not month-long voyages like the Triumph, but they were way more advanced.
"Luca," Chris said over the comms. "You need to see this."
"Kind of busy here, Chris."
"Trust me, bro. You need to see this."
A few minutes later, Luca walked into the hangar, Emily beside him. They stopped at the entrance, taking in the shuttlecraft.
For the first time since the collapse, Luca felt something loosen in his chest: a small, fragile, but real sense of hope.
The discovery of three working ships gave them a way to move, explore, and survive, a vital lifeline in case the upgrade mod failed.
Chris watched them for a second. Luca's hand already finding Emily's. The way they moved together, comfortable and easy despite everything going to hell. They looked good together.
A pang of something like jealousy hit Chris, though he'd never admit it.
Chris patted the hull of the nearest shuttle. "Personnel shuttles. Faster, better protected, more efficient than the Triumph. Built for short hops, not long voyages, but way more advanced."
He climbed up the access ladder and slipped inside, settling into the pilot's seat. The interface came alive immediately, responding to his touch.
[Vehicle Acquired: TL9 Personnel Shuttle x3]
Luca approached the shuttle Chris was in, his hand running along the hull. "Can we use them?"
"Absolutely," Chris said. "They're ready to go. System tech—fueled, maintained, waiting for us."
"Later," Luca said. "First priority is the Triumph. But Chris, deploy the Centurion. We need a place to sleep tonight. We've been up for twenty-one hours."
"On it."
Chris moved the Centurion to a clear section of the hangar floor. He activated the deployment sequence, and the vehicle began to unfold.
Stabilizer legs extended. The interior space expanded, transforming the compact RV into their mobile base.
"Home sweet home," Chris muttered.
---
By the time they'd finished unloading, everyone was exhausted. Twenty-four hours awake. Mountains of spare weapons and armor against the wall. They were sweating despite the facility's climate control, muscles aching from hours of hauling cargo.
Their movements had that slow, heavy quality that came after pushing past exhaustion into whatever came next. Chris rubbed his eyes. Joey drank from his water bottle like a man crossing a desert.
The Triumph sat relatively empty now, a hollow shell.
Luca and Ryan approached the wreck together. This was their baby. Their one and only goal for the past four years. Scraping together five hundred million credits through portal runs and salvage operations and pure stubborn determination.
And they'd broken her in thirty seconds.
Four years of work, and I'd let her die under my watch. I'd broken the only way we had to get home.
"I'm sorry," Ryan said quietly. His hand rested on the hull, fingers tracing one of the fissures. "I should have realized. Should have thought about the gravity..."
"We all should have," Luca said. "This isn't on you, Ryan. It's on all of us."
"Doesn't make it hurt less."
"No. It doesn't."
They stood there in silence, the broken ship looming above them. Around them, the rest of the crew gathered: Emily and Joey, Chris and Danny in his wheelchair with Pixel curled in his lap.
Zoe lingered farther back, arms folded, eyes avoiding the crushed section where she and Danny had been trapped. Where the bridge corridor had folded in on itself. Where she'd thought they were going to die.
The seven of them stood together, staring at the wreckage of their dreams.
Emily handed the Advanced Ship Upgrade Mod to Luca. The device felt heavier than it should, like it was weighted with possibility.
Familiar now with the devices, he clicked it and the mod split apart into four mechanical components, each one glowing with a soft internal light.
Ryan stared at the wreckage, shaking his head slowly. "This shouldn't work. Ships have structural thresholds. Integrity this low?" He gestured at the crushed hull. "The System shouldn't even see her as a valid frame anymore."
"Meaning?" Luca asked.
"Meaning the upgrade mod shouldn't be able to attach. It needs a functional hull. A functional ship." Ryan's voice was quiet. "And this is scrap."
Luca looked at the broken Triumph, then at the glowing pieces in his hands. "Only one way to find out."
"We need to move these to the four corners of the bay," he said.
They spread out. Luca took one piece to the far corner, near the support structures. Emily carried another to the opposite side. Ryan and Chris positioned the remaining two pieces, creating a large rectangle with the Triumph at its center.
When the final piece locked into position, something changed.
The air itself felt different. Charged. Like standing too close to a lightning strike. Luca didn't understand how the upgrade mods worked, though Danny had tried explaining it a dozen times with something about quantum nanites and mass appearing from nowhere, but the how didn't matter.
What mattered was that it worked.
Deep in the facility, systems activated. Control stations along the bay's edge flickered to life, screens booting up one after another.
"Luca!" Ryan called from a raised platform. "Command room's online!"
Luca jogged over, the rest of the crew following. The command room, a semicircular station lined with screens and holographic workstations, overlooked the bay. The Triumph sat below them, broken and waiting.
The central display came alive:
[ADVANCED SHIP UPGRADE PROTOCOL INITIATED]
[VESSEL IDENTIFIED: Triumph of Darron - Helios Class Mk-I - TL8]
[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: 34%]
[ANALYZING AVAILABLE MATERIALS...]
[ANALYZING FACILITY CAPABILITIES...]
[UPGRADE PATHWAYS AVAILABLE]
Three options appeared on the display, each one accompanied by detailed specifications and projected timelines.
*[OPTION 1: RESEARCH FRIGATE]*
Emphasis on scientific capabilities. Dedicated laboratory facilities, expanded sample storage bays, sensor mounting points, clean room environments, and research station infrastructure. Advanced analysis facilities built into ship architecture. Optimal for research and data collection operations.
Estimated Completion: 12 Days
*[OPTION 2: EXPLORATION FRIGATE]*
Emphasis on range and versatility. Enhanced fuel efficiency systems, improved FTL drive housing, expanded cargo bay architecture, survey station infrastructure, and planetary deployment capabilities. Long-range sensor mounting points and extended life support systems. Optimal for long-range missions and uncharted territory.
Estimated Completion: 14 Days
*[OPTION 3: COMBAT FRIGATE]*
Emphasis on defensive and offensive capabilities. Reinforced hull plating, shield generator housing, weapon hardpoints for plasma cannons and missile systems, armored bulkheads, combat bridge architecture, targeting computer infrastructure, and electronic warfare system mounts. Optimal for hostile environments and combat operations.
Estimated Completion: 22 Days
The crew gathered around the display, staring at the options.
"Research Frigate," Danny said immediately. "That's what we came here for. Scientific exploration. Finishing the charter."
"Exploration Frigate gives us more range," Zoe countered. "We're alone in Alpha Centauri. We need to be able to move fast and far."
Joey shook his head. "Combat Frigate. There's so many anomalies with full fleets now. Maybe with this, we could actually engage them."
"We're scientists," Emily said. "Not soldiers."
"Joey's right, though," Chris said. "The System's new frontier are those combat signatures. Maybe it's time we had the tools to fight back instead of just running."
Ryan was studying the specifications, his engineer's brain processing the implications. "The Combat Frigate has the longest build time. Twenty-two days. That's almost a month."
"But it's the most survivable," Joey said.
"The Research Frigate gets us operational fastest," Danny argued. "Twelve days. We can finish the charter, get paid, resupply."
Luca stared at the three options. Each one offered something they needed. Scientific capabilities. Exploration range. Combat effectiveness.
But they could only choose one.
The Triumph sat broken behind them, waiting to be reborn. Waiting for them to decide what she would become.
The choice came down to three paths, three futures for their ship and for themselves: research, exploration, or combat.
"Luca?" Emily's voice was quiet. "What do you think?"
Luca stared at the options. Each one came with interior customization menus, crew quarters, lab configurations, weapon placements. The upgrade mod would consume most of the ship schematics they had collected over the three and a half months.
But did that matter? Not really. They needed a ship that could get them home. Everything else was secondary.
He looked at his crew. At Danny, protective of his research. At Joey and Zoe, pragmatic about survival. At Ryan and Chris, already running calculations. At Emily, watching him with those green eyes that trusted him to make the right call.
The display waited, patient and implacable.
[SELECT UPGRADE PATHWAY]
Luca's hand hovered over the options.
Everything rested on a single choice that would define their ship and seal their future.
