While you could use with a good refueling... that didn't mean that you weren't also hungry in another way.

Your sensor ping revealed a few things about the star system that your world belonged to.

First, it possessed a G-type main-sequence star, around that sun was your world with its own satellite. And in a "belt" with a wider orbit than your world was a mass of asteroids and dwarf planets. Full of rich minerals and ores.

You couldn't resist... you flew in that direction, following the solar winds towards the edge of the heliosphere where the belt lay... and beyond that, a cloud of ice and assorted other gasses in solid form lay.

You were seated inside yourself, upon a chair... the captain's chair. It was soft and comfortable, as it should be. You squished yourself into it and relaxed as your alternate body moved, and within it... your repair system drones patrolled the hallways and chambers of your body.

As you entered the asteroid belt, it was clear to you that it was completely artificial. Indeed, your solar system was engineered.

A single garden world with no intelligent life on it was understandable.

A single garden world with no intelligent life on it, that orbited its sun alone. Fine, not too unexpected.

A single garden world with no intelligent life on it, that orbited its sun alone with a belt of asteroids that had just the right minerals and ores for a growing girl like you to properly arm herself and fill up her stocks of parts for repairs? That was stretching things a bit.

But the final evidence lay in the shattered bodies scattered here and there. Bodies of your sisters, shattered, they were allowed to run, that much was clear to you from the shots... but parts of their bodies lay here, dragged and placed into stable orbits for you to feast on.

Sadly... while they were useful... the parts were not revolutionary.

There were even... you had to blink... primitive fusion torch engine drives, which appeared to have come from the pets of your kin. Built for them by a dotting sister.

That evidence had you concerned... hence why you blasted with your broadside when you were surprised by an asteroid that had managed to enter your blind spot and emerged from it.

It was embarrassing, and yet... that asteroid was quickly harvested as you directed your gravity engines to drag the fragments into your cargo-hold where they were quickly broken down by your repair drones and fabbers.

It was nice having a full stock of torpedoes, as well as the components for repairing yourself if necessary.

Naturally, it was at this point that you made an about face and headed into the heart of the solar system... you had to fuel up, after all.

Bravely, you dove into the sun. The ionized gases of the solar wind licked around your shields and hull, slowly warming your body.

This was a bearable temperature, you could swim in the sun's corona without concern, your shields were durable enough for such.

Deeper, you swam... into the reddish chromosphere where hydrogen burned, as tongues of plasma reached up and provided bursts of energy, in the form of X-rays, ultraviolet radiation, electromagnetic radiation and radio waves, that was quite distracting.

And then you plunged into the plasma of the photosphere, your ram-scoops drinking deeply. Harvesting the plasma. Here you could only stay for a short period of time to prevent your shields from running dry.

Exploding out of the sun with swirls of plasma and ionized gases around you... you continue onwards and out... to park yourself on the other side of your solar system... you 'gazed' at the galaxy in the distance.

What Now?

That was a worthy question, was it not?

- - -
Dark Heavens | Space Ship Girls
003 : Om nom nom nom nom.
- - -