CHAPTER 2

A YOUNG MECHANIC WITH BIG DREAMS

Port Zomar, Kyzil Plateau
Planet Veldin
Local Time: 9:12 a.m.

A desert planet is not exactly the ideal world for everyone to make a permanent settlement in. When you think about a desert or even an entire world mainly filled with deserts, then all you will expect to see are hot and dry lands of sand and dust. Grounds where small bodies of water used to flourish are cracked, leaving gaps for desert creatures and insects to crawl into. But there may still be moisture beneath them, allowing someone to harvest what little water they can gather and make them drinkable. You can even find your fill of water in blue streams, which intersect and lead to small oceans with sandy, rocky islands in the middle.

Plateaus stand high and proud above Veldin's sandy plains. One of them, the Kyzil Plateau, is home to those who at least find this planet suitable to have settlements laid out for residency. All it took for a desert planet to be their home was establishing farming grounds where enough food was grown and available to last lifetimes on the planet, constructing neighborhoods on the mesas and homes upon homes latched tightly onto the spires, and installing long-distance water farming systems for not only irrigating crops on the mesas but also supplying everyone with enough water keep themselves hydrated through long days under the hot Veldinite sun.

In short, a planet like Veldin leaves everyone with a means of creativity.

Creativity was considered by many on this planet as an everlasting luxury that provided them with the skills of figuring out new ways to solve a problem. That's why here in the spaceport city of Port Zomar, where the liveliest of the more sparsely populated spots is found, everything of that sort of ability is welcome. It's applied to how dwellings are lived, businesses are managed, and markets are run. And with all the inhabitants have if they don't have enough money to afford what they intend to buy, they can always make up for it with the trade of what is deemed by the customer and the seller to be of good value.

Even with creativity working for all as a blessing, it also may lead to someone having so many ideas that they could get into a mess of errors if they're being too inventive. Take a certain mechanic for example.

At Grim's Workshop, some miles away from Port Zomar…

The massive starship hangar sits on the edge of a very steep cliff on the Kyzil Plateau, overlooking a desert valley in the south with rocky mountains spread out across. A sign hanging above the wide garage door at the arched middle section shows a picture of a muscular, purple-skinned Fongoid man with two huge ears hanging back behind his head, teal eyes, two tusks sticking out the bottom of his smile, and shiny black hair swept up and slicked back (That's not the inventive mechanic we're talking about, by the way). He appears to be wearing a brown mechanic's vest, holding a long red wrench on his right shoulder, showing his left thumb up, and standing in a yellow circle that covers part of a flying blue spaceship. Next to him in the sign's picture, two words in some type of language say that this place is Grim's Workshop, owned by the duly named Grimroth Razz.

The enormous yet humble workshop's garage door lifted as it opened ready for business today. Grimroth Razz is shown, but he's older than he looks on the sign. He has a round stomach while still having a reasonable amount of bulk in his arms and shoulders, his right tusk was broken, and he had no hair at all. Perhaps the sign's picture was just from the time when he was in his younger days.

Grim stared outside whilst leaning with his hand against the side of the door's entryway, breathing in the fresh morning air and sipping coffee from his mug. The space in front of his hangar was quiet and empty; this he sometimes liked almost every morning because it gave him room and time to gather all the energy he needs to muster before he starts working on a customer's starship in need of nice repairs. But at times with the occasional occurrence of remote silence and privacy, he dreads the idea of having no customers to help and maybe not enough well-received money to keep his starship repairing business flowing. He quickly puts those fearful thoughts aside and turns around, returning inside the enormous garage to sit by his workbench on the right-hand side of it.

Getting ready and prepared to begin working on any starship that comes by his workshop, Grim removes his sandals from his three-toed feet and puts on a pair of work boots outfitted with steel plates that give his toes a comfortable and protective shell. He loved those boots, for they kept anything falling to the floor from hurting his feet. After putting them on, Grim wrapped and buckled his toolbelt around his waist, grabbed his toolbox, and took it over to the levitational lift pad in the middle of the garage. That device is for keeping a starship floating still in place so he can easily look for and see what problem is causing it to not function in its proper working condition.

"Ratchet!" Grim called out in a gruff voice to someone. He looks up to the upper level of the hangar to see if he has been heard. No answer. "Hey, Ratchet! Kiddo, are ya up there?" Still no answer from the mechanic named Ratchet. Is he a fellow mechanic or his assistant at his workshop? Or maybe his son?

Grim walked over to a mobile elevating work platform that is placed right where it can vertically lift someone to the top floor. He stops for a second to see a written note paper taped on the platform's railing, then goes to grab it off the railing and get a closer look at it.

The note reads:

Just out in the desert for a morning hoverboard run.
Be back in an hour.

- Ratchet

The grizzled Fongoid mechanic sighed, folding the note in mild irritation and putting it in his pocket. "Well, he better be back here in an hour like it says, and no more than that. It's already 'bout forty minutes after he left and he's supposed to help me get everythin' ready for today's repair appointment fifteen minutes ago."

Meanwhile, in the Scorch Plains...

Reputed to be one of Veldin's most precariously hottest desert valleys, the Scorch Plains is restricted to all inhabitants from traveling through it on foot under extremely hot conditions. As the name implies, the valley is so scorching hot, people can catch heat stroke, get tremendously thirsty, and be seared with deep red sunburns all over their bodies. More the reason to always bring plenty of water to quench their thirst, rub sunscreen all over themselves, and drive only in hovercars with super-cooling air conditioners turned on at all times.

The valley is however spread wide open. And it leaves paths broad enough for even a hoverboarder to zoom across its barren landscape to his destination.

Speaking of hoverboarders, here comes one now!

ZZZOOOOOOMMM! Speeding through the Scorch Plains and into a canyon on the gravity-defying hoverboard is a gold-yellow-furred, bipedal feline teenage boy with big green eyes, thick brown eyebrows, and brown stripes on his two big pointy ears and his tufted long tail.

He is a Lombax.

The hoverboarder is wearing a rugged brown leather jacket over his tangerine-orange and teal-blue short-sleeved shirt, a pair of teal-blue pants with knee padding, and a brown leather pilot's cap, gloves, boots, belt, and chest harness. And mounted on the back of his harness is a wrench that looked very useful and fit for a mechanic.

This boy has to be the mechanic named Ratchet from whom Grim needed help with this morning's ship repair appointment (and he sure does look the inventive type—we're gonna find out why).

Upon entering the canyon, piles of rocks on the path and jagged walls on both sides come into view before Ratchet. Readying for the obstacles that lay in his way, feet firmly planted on his hoverboard's foot pads, he swiftly maneuvers himself to the right to dodge one big rock pile, then whips quickly to the left to speed past another. He sees up ahead what looks like a massive rock formed in the shape of a ramp and stomps his left heel on the back foot pad, activating the turborator that he installed in the hoverboard for turbo-boosting. Orange flames burst from the jet-boost engines in the bottom of the board, propelling the felinoid teen with twice a hoverboard's typical speed toward the ramp.

Ratchet jumps off the rock ramp on acceleration and begins to perform a trick in the air. For the first pose of this trick, while flipping front ways the entire time, he reaches down to his hoverboard with his left hand and stretches his right hand out in the air. That's called the "scratcher." Second, the "gonzo," leaning back with his right hand touching the board and left hand in the air. Thirdly, Ratchet performs the "crunchy" by reaching down forward to grab the front foot pad of his hoverboard with his left hand. He finishes the succession of poses with a fourth and final one, the "tip tweak," switching hands, touching the front foot pad again, and this time kneeling while doing so.

The young mechanic stops flipping mid-air, brings himself on the hoverboard to face forward again, and safely and effortlessly lands on the hovering level one foot above the solid ground.

"YEAH! Hahahaa!" Ratchet cheered, pumping his fist in the air at his success in performing the trick. "I finally did the Twisty McMarx! I'm so gonna go pro in hoverboarding when I get off this rock."

The "Twisty McMarx" trick is one of the near-impossible tricks that no professional hoverboarder other than Skidd McMarx himself could pull off. Not until today, Ratchet eventually did it so perfectly after months of practice, and the bruises, aches, and pains that came with them. And this time, he did it with no scratches on him.

Suddenly, a loud bang shook him out of his gleeful moment. The noise came from under the hoverboard. Smoke trailed behind. One of the jets must have broken.

"Uh-oh," Ratchet expresses in alarm and dismay as looked back at the contrails of smoke. "That can't be good."

Ratchet slows down the hoverboard and turns right to a small, rocky cave where he can be given shade from the sun's heating light. He quickly steps off the hoverboard and shuts it down; it hums as it powers down. As it did, Ratchet winced and shielded his face with his arms, bracing for an impending explosion. He parted his arms slightly away from each other to see if anything is about to happen... but nothing did.

Ratchet felt relieved. Good thing this one didn't blow up and send me rolling on the dirt with a broken arm like how the last one did two months ago, he thought to himself. He cringed at the misfortunate memory, rubbing his left arm as if it were still sore from that hoverboarding accident.

The boy turns his hoverboard upside-down to see what the problem is with it. The smoke came from one of its two mini-rocket-like turborator jets.

"Oh, c'mon, not again," Ratchet complained, slapping his palm on his forehead whilst his ears drooped behind his head. "That's the fourteenth turborator busted this month. And I only got two spare ones left now."

He begrudgingly pulls out the two spare turborators from his leather jacket's inside pocket and places them on the ground next to him. Ratchet then grabs the wrench, detaching it from the hexagonal attaching magnet found on the back of his harness, and adjusts its jaws to make it get the right grip on the two fasteners holding the broken turborator in place with the hoverboard. He begins to loosen and remove the top fastener, then the bottom fastener, proceeds to carefully extract the turborator, and replaces it with a fresh, unbroken spare turborator, installing it on the hoverboard. Ratchet flips it back on its bottom side facing the ground and turns it on. It gave out a droning sound and hovered in place above the ground; both turborators should work fine enough to get him back home.

"Okay, that outta do it... for now," said Ratchet, slightly uncertain whether or not the spare jet he just applied will last.

He places his wrench back into his harness's magnet and taps on a square touchscreen device attached to his left brown leather glove to turn it on. Swiping the screen twice to check the time, it showed... 9:23 in the morning!

"Shoot, I better get back home before Grim starts lecturing me about being late to work again!" He hurriedly steps onto the hoverboard and starts racing back home to Grim's Workshop, speeding out of the canyon with the determination to make it back without being tardy, especially when there are customers who called to have their ships repaired. Just like it's happening today.

10 minutes later…
Back at Grim's Workshop
Time: 9:33 a.m.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mooon, make it on time," Ratchet pleaded with desperation in his voice, hoping to himself that he will not be late again to help Grim repair some starships today after all the many times he's been late in the past. As he rapidly entered the garage through the front doorway, he slowed down his hoverboard, jumped off of it, and shut it down before placing it on a rack mounted on a wall.

In concurrence with a sigh that expressed gratefulness for him being on time to help his Fongoid mentor, Ratchet takes off his harness, with his wrench still attached to its mag-attach, and hooks it onto a coat rack. After that, he proceeds to remove his desert jacket, showing three brown stripes on each of his arms, and shakes and wipes the dust off it before grabbing his harness from the rack and putting his jacket in place of it.

"Glad ya could be here, Ratchet," a gruff voice startled Ratchet, who turned his head around to see Grim standing by the levitational lift pad with his arms crossed.

"Oh, Grim, good morning," Ratchet replied, innocently smiling and waving at him, then puts on his harness. "Uh, yeah, I knew I gotta help out with fixing starships today. You saw my note, right?"

"Yep," Grim pulls the note out of his pocket and unfolds it to read. "It says ya come back here in an hour."

"That's right. Sooo… did I make it this time?" Ratchet fidgeted his fingers nervously, awaiting the kind of answer he is expecting to hear.

"Yeah, you did," Grim nodded.

"Whew, good!" Ratchet felt at ease.

"But, despite bein' on time before our client gets here, you promised to help me prepare." This added response made Ratchet wince and droop his ear sheepishly. He had forgotten that he was supposed to get today's repair job ready. And Grim had already done everything at this point.

"Darn it, I forgot," he moaned embarrassedly.

"Eh, don't worry 'bout it, Ratchet," Grim shook his head and waved his hand at Ratchet to not fret over his misremembering one favor. "Now, stop mopin' around and get your tools."

"Yes, sir," Ratchet complied. He walked over to his workbench separate from Grim's and gripped the handle of his toolbox. As he walked back to the lift pad, Ratchet asks Grim, who is standing at an orange computer desk as he typed on the keyboard and observed two screens, "Do you want me to lower the mag-lift in case we need it?"

Grim took a few seconds to think about needing the magnetic lifting crane in the garage's ceiling high above the pad. His client mentioned having a starship the size of a cargo space van, and its weight might exceed the maximum weight level the lift pad can only take. The mag-lift is used only for additional hauling in case a ship that heavy cannot keep hovered in place by the pad alone.

"Uh… yeah, we could use that," Grim confirmed with a consenting nod. "But don't do that, now. We'll just see how much this lift pad can handle our client's ship's weight."

"Got it," Ratchet replied as he placed his bright orange toolbox by the pad.

The young Lombax looked at the floor, placed his hands on both sides of his waist, and let out a soft and almost sad sigh. He turned his head up to look in the direction of the open front garage doorway where he could see the path leading through the Kyzil Plateau. As he stared out from inside the garage, his mind was set on the one thing he wanted in life more than anything else: adventure.

How Ratchet longed for a journey out there in space and the further reaches across the Solana Galaxy. He knew there were many more planets in the galaxy besides Veldin, yet he had never been on one that was not a desert planet. Ratchet had only seen them with forests, cities, oceans, and lots of people living on them from watching the holovision. There are so many things he's missing out on.

And he knows he is.

Most of Ratchet's friends from the Port Zomar High School have moved out of Veldin to be their own person with places for themselves in whatever world they want to be in, working at their certain jobs, starting their own families, and exploring newer opportunities. Heck, even learn what they've never known before. Ratchet did not know if they ever cared to keep in touch and tell him about how their lives were going. He does not even know if they still remember him or just forgot about him. This made him both sad and bitter at them for drifting away from him like this.

There is only one friend, however, who still keeps in contact with him. Her name is Edwina, or 'Ed' for short. And like Ratchet, she is a young and brilliant mechanic who enjoys fixing many broken things and sometimes creating new things out of whatever she could find put together as one. Having a sweet and nurturing affection for robots, Ed is also a robot engineer who always knows what they require and how to fix them in no time, be it metal plating replacements, servo lubrication, new optics, sensor calibrations, or special upgrades just to list a few. Any customer will come to her for robotic repairs at her store on the ice and snow planet Hoven. That store is called Ed's RoboShack, which she owns and named after herself.

Despite his near-lonesome gloom, Ratchet shaped his frown into a fond smile, knowing he still has at least one friend. From off-world, of course. Whether it's for now or for good, he wasn't certain yet, but maybe once he finally leaves Veldin, the first thing he could do is fly to Hoven, where he can see snow for the first time and surprise her by simply visiting her RoboShack and spending some time with her. But even with all the fur the Lombax has to possibly keep himself warm against the cold, it will not be enough for him when being on a planet with incredibly low temperatures.

I'm definitely going to need winter clothing if I wanna walk around in a very cold and snowy place like Hoven, Ratchet thought, before snapping his finger and realizing what he wanted to do in his future adventure.

From inside the left pocket in his pants, he pulled out a pen and a folded piece of paper, unfolding it to show a long list he wrote down. It has everything he wants to do once he is out of Veldin.

The list reads in Ratchet's blue-inked handwriting:

My Bucket List

Go to other planets.

Buy awesome new gadgets.

Swing across stuff with my Swingshot.

Grind on a rail.

Walk on a wall.

Find interesting stuff in hidden places.

Learn different cultures and languages.

Look for a Raritanium crystal.

Walk around in space.

Fly a super-fast ship.

Finish my holocard collection.

Get a brand new hoverboard.

Compete in a hoverboard race.

Perform the Twisty McMarx in a race.

Take a selfie with other people.

Watch a holo-film in a movie theater.

Meet Captain Qwark.

Looking down at the last step at the bottom of his bucket list with a big smile on his face, Ratchet reminisced all the times he wanted to go out into the galaxy to do great things, much like his hero Captain Qwark. Qwark is a famous superhero revered by everyone in the Solana Galaxy as a daring champion who saved many innocent lives and did battle with a wide gallery of villains in all his prior adventures, on every planet and in space. He is an inspiration to every young child and teenager dreaming of accomplishing similar feats as he did and is a symbol of strength, bravery, courage, and all-around heroism. All of the stories about him as told in comic books, holo-films, and HV shows, even in reports on Channel 2 News, are what gave Ratchet his biggest dream.

Ratchet snaps out of his daydreaming and quickly jots down Buy winter clothes and Visit Ed on Hoven on the list with his pen.

After that, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a collectible trading card with a picture of what his idol looked like. Striking a pose with his left hand on one hip and his right arm flexed, Captain Qwark displayed possession of all that makes any hero stand out; he is a tall and strong man with blue eyes, fair skin, a large cleft chin, and a winning smile complete with a perfect set of pearly-white teeth. And like many space heroes, Qwark has a colorful costume of his unique design, mainly green tights that make up his very own iconic Q-Suit.

Qwark wears over his large and muscular upper body an open-sided vest with hexagon-pattern fabric and one black outline on either side that travels up from the front over his shoulders down to the back of it. The vest is fitted with a full mask on Qwark's face and covers his gray shirt with similar hexagon patterns, exposing only its long sleeves. His mask is ornamented with a glowing red ball-tipped gold antenna on the top. In the center of the hero's pectoral chest, his trademark logo is roughly likened to the letter 'Q' in the form of a blue and black atom with a yellow lightning bolt at the bottom and two white lines circling the atom. On both his strong three-fingered hands and rather compact but built legs, Qwark wears green gloves and a pair of green pants. His gold utility belt has a lighting bolt engraved on his circular custom-made buckle and his special brown leather boots has some gold underlapping shown between their vamps, quarters, and heel counter pockets.

Ratchet held onto this trading card with Captain Qwark on it as a sort of a good luck charm for as long as he can remember seeing him in action on the holovision for the first time when he was six years old. He would always keep it with him everywhere he went on Veldin. Whenever Ratchet would go out to some places people believe to be where he goes running errands, he only does so to practice and perform stunts of extraordinary proportions that no one believes to be possible for any ordinary individual to attain. But he does not see himself nor believe himself to be ordinary. Perhaps something more than that, and he plans to find out as soon as he is out in the galaxy.

Grim moved his head around one of the two computers to see Ratchet standing by the lift pad, holding two things in his hands, and facing the front doorway.

"You all right, Ratchet? What's on yer mind?" Grim asked.

"Eh, it's nothing, Grim," Ratchet answered, lying a little bit.

"What yer doin' over there sure doesn't look like nothing," he said as he directed his eyes precisely at the card and list Ratchet is holding at this time. "Why doncha just tell me what's goin' on? What's with ya lately?"

Ratchet sighed yieldingly, knowing Grim won't let the subject go until he knows what the young Lombax has been doing other than his job as a mechanic. He decided it was time to tell Grim before he forever bottles it up.

"It's just… I feel like I should be doing more with my life. That I'm meant to be out there instead of staying on Veldin all the time. That I'm meant to do great things."

"What great things?" Grim asked, puzzled as he walked away from the computer desk.

"Great things as in 'going on an adventure, exploring the galaxy, and experiencing exciting things on different planets besides this one,'" Ratchet replied, motioning his hands down expressively at the ground to indicate he means Veldin whilst holding his trading card and bucket list.

The gruff Fongoid breathed out through his nose, apprehensive about what Ratchet is telling him about 'doing great things.' "Ratchet, you know how I feel about yer ideas of doin' things out there. They aren't fitting for a simple mechanic."

"Yeah, I know," Ratchet said defensively. "But I don't see myself being a 'simple' mechanic," he bends two fingers up and down on both hands in air quotes, "Besides, I gotta do something awesome and impressive! Even this world just needs a little excitement for a change!"

"Like that time ya tried to impress ol' Mr. Micron with those things you call 'mind-blowing improvements' when all he wanted was his ejector seat for his ship fixed?" Grim pointed out sternly as he crossed his arms. "I don't know how many times I have to keep remindin' ya about all the refunds every single one of our previous customers demanded from us because of what you did! You're careless! You can't keep actin' out like that when I have a shop to run."

Ratchet hung his head down, discouraged by the rebuke. That did not save him from being mentally embarrassed at himself with the memory of the prior mess he made out of a ship belonging to Mr. Micron, an elderly Tharpod, either. Going beyond Mr. Micron's specific request for his ship's ejector seat to be fixed, he decided to modernize it with protolux afterburners, a full weapon package, and a high-intensity mag-booster. It all turned into a disaster when instructing Mr. Micron to toggle on the mag-booster sent everything that's made with metal flying to his ship and latching onto it at full magnetization, which ended up triggering the afterburners to burst the ship straight out of Grim's garage in maximum speed and through the plateaus while still attracting lots and lots of metal items from behind. He may have managed to fix the ship to slow down on its brakes and shut off the mag-booster before he and Mr. Micron could crash, but it all ended with Mr. Micron screaming his demand for a refund as he was involuntarily sprung into the air by his ejector seat before landing on a pile of poison ivy, resulting in getting bad rashes and needing healing ointment.

It was not a good one for Ratchet that day as Grim gave him the punishment of sweeping the floors of the entire garage and cleaning out the basement.

Seeing the boy glumly upset at being called 'careless,' a frowning Grim sighed heavily and shook his head as he placed his hand on the lift pad's control panel, seeming to feel rueful for talking him down this way. Grim looks down for a few seconds, then rubs his chin in deep thought. He then looks back up to face Ratchet to get his attention.

"Look, kid, I know things haven't been easy for ya, and that you're feelin' alone after many of yer friends from school have gone to other planets. But not everyone wants what they have to be that all excitin'. You're a great mechanic, and you're pretty smart, creative, and got a lotta heart in ya. But there are times when you just gotta put the needs of others first before yerself. If you wanna do something fun, or, as ya put it, great, then you can do that. Just know there's always time for that so long as you fill the needs of someone who wants yer help even when no one else can. That means livin' up to your responsibility. And as you do that, you'll find that yer making things great for not only yerself but everyone else."

Ratchet nodded, understanding Grim's point about helping others when he is needed. But that is something Ratchet always felt so unsure of and somewhat lost on. Every time he tries, and no matter how he tries, he wanted to do something that could make anyone's life easier by giving them a means of improving on their usual ways of living. And he still feels the urge to keep doing it.

"I get what you're saying, Grim," he said, rather glumly. "But it just now feels pretty hard to do, even when I try to live up to it."

"Why's that hard?" Grim asked in concern.

"Well…" Ratchet thought for a moment. "Actually, no, it's not that hard. I've been helping you a lot here and I'm sure you appreciate it."

Grim nodded. "I do."

"So, that being said, I think maybe it's time I finally start fulfilling my dreams as soon as I finish building my ship. Everything I want to do," he hands Grim his bucket list, "it's all right here on this paper."

Grim read the list from top to bottom, looking closely at all the tasks written in it. His eyes squinted as he studied the list precisely until they widened in slight worry. But what was it in Ratchet's list he was concerned about?

"Ratchet," he spoke a few seconds after reading. "What you wrote here do look very excitin'—in your eyes, maybe—but doncha think most of 'em are a bit too much?"

To that response, Ratchet's eyes widen in surprise at what Grim thought of his list. "Too much? Grim, it's everything I've dreamed of so far; so many big things that some people may have got their chance at doing!"

"I see that, but most of 'em sound pretty risky, even for someone of yer age! You could get hurt from doin' any of those tasks."

"Not when you put in a lot of practice before doing them," Ratchet pointed out matter-of-factly. "If you're planning on making a big dream happen, go for it with everything you got in you. Captain Qwark did a lot of that when he was out defending the galaxy from evil forces, and he never gave up on that kind of dream – not even once," he continued as he brought the Qwark trading card out in front of his mentor.

Grim grunted, giving the list back to the boy. "You want an old mechanic's advice about dreams? Dream smaller, and you'll never be disappointed."

Ratchet was agape in small shock. How could Grim say that to him, of all people?

"Dream smaller?" he repeated questioningly, mortified by the two words that came out of Grim's mouth. "Are you saying you don't want me to do what I would love to do?!" He moderately raised his voice, feeling offended.

"I didn't say that, Ratchet," Grim replied, waving his hands at him trying to calm his foster son and justify his answer. "I'm tellin' you that sometimes dreamin' big won't always turn out the way ya think."

"How would you know?!" Ratchet's anger rose a bit higher. "Do you ever wake up one morning realizing what you always wanted to do with your life? Were you young and had the energy to start getting ready to make it come true? Have you found success in accomplishing your goals even when people tell you differently?"

The Lombax's irritably asked questions put the astounded Grim into a moment of pause for contemplation over what he could remember from before he decided to be a mechanic and open his own ship repair business. He inwardly admitted to himself that Ratchet made a fair point about fulfilling a plan of lifelong aspirations that would or could make oneself happy. He thought about his memory of the last time he worked hard toward his personal goals. His mind then drifted to what possibly seemed like the depressing downside of that memory judging by his facial expression turning to one of…

… fearful distress? What memory caused him such anxiety in his younger days?

Giving in to Ratchet's urging to hear an answer, Grim gave a reluctant sigh, ready to tell him what he had never told him. It was something he did not like nor would ever like to bring up, not even once.

Grim trembled. "Well… you see, kid… I…"

"Yeah?" The calmed down, yet still firmly inquiring Ratchet focused his eyes attentively on Grim, listening closely to what he was about to say.

But suddenly, a horn blew loudly, startling both Ratchet and Grim before turning their heads to the garage doorway. Their client arrived on a large rocket-shaped starship that is undoubtedly the size of a cargo space van as described in Grim's holo-phone call with him. The two mechanics looked at the size of it; the mag-lift crane is needed for sure.

"Uh, why don't we talk about it later," Grim told Ratchet. He had hoped the client would arrive at his workshop so that he wouldn't have to tell Ratchet about his past anytime soon.

Ratchet groaned annoyedly, grabbing his wrench from his harness's mag-attach. "Fine, let's get to work. I'll get the mag-lift ready."

Watching the sulking Lombax make his way to the bolt crank, a circular platform device with a large turning hex bolt that makes the mag-lift ascend or descend, Grim took a deep breath and exhaled. He felt his body relax after tensing up from the impending beginning of his past story, which the client's ship prevented upon arrival for repairs. Notwithstanding, he felt a twinge of shame and annoyance at himself for selfishly not giving his son the chance to hear his tale, even if he had to tolerate suffering whatever inner demon he has dwelling from the troubled part of his soul resurfacing.

I gotta tell him at some point, he thought, before scolding himself in his head. But I just can't seem to find myself the right time to do it! What's wrong with me?

Shaking his head to clear his mind, Grim then proceeded over the current matter at hand, which is talking with his client and examining what ails the ship on either the exterior or interior.

Ratchet steps onto the bolt crank's platform and adjusts his wrench's jaws to fit firmly with the turning bolt's hex sides. He begins walking in a circle while turning the crank to the left, lowering the mag-lift to the ship.

Still discouraged and irked by what Grim told him about dreaming less, Ratchet tries to keep his mind at ease by focusing on his present task, but nothing feels like he was able to let the old mechanic's 'advice' leave him.

"'Dream smaller, and you'll never be disappointed,'" he muttered quietly to himself annoyedly, mimicking Grim's gruff tone, "What's that supposed to mean? Huh! Maybe he really doesn't care about what I want after all. Why the heck does he ever try to be my father? He's not!"

As he finished turning the bolt crank, Ratchet internally decided he was not going to let his life go by without him while he stays on Veldin until he grows old. If Grim was not going to give him support and wish him luck on his journey across the galaxy to other worlds, then he doesn't want them from him anymore! Nobody tells him to give up!

Ratchet's mind turns to a thought about what he mumbled about Grim not being his father. It was obvious that he and the Fongoid looked nothing alike, for Ratchet was after all adopted by him. All he knew was that Grim found him on his doorstep as a baby. There was no note and no name for the baby, only a wrench—the same wrench he is holding right now, and he's had it with him ever since he can remember. And since there was no name for the baby Lombax, Grim decided to take him under his wing and raise him as his son, naming him "Ratchet" when he caught the baby continuously playing with and teething on his ratcheting tool while he worked on repairing a ship.

That is only about as much as Ratchet can remember of his past. But now, he began to wonder where his real parents are and why they left here in a backwater world like Veldin. Did they lose him? Did they not want him? Was there any reason why he was stuck on a desert planet rather than on any other planet he could've had a much better childhood than this one? Either way, with any luck, if some sort of surprising information about where his biological parents might be, Ratchet would take the chance to find them and maybe—just maybe—reconnect with them and get to know them. He is hopeful for closure. Any kind of closure, with whatever answer he might receive from them about their decision.

There is just one matter he needed to attend to, right after he helps Grim fix starships today. He has a starship of his own made from scratch with the necessary parts and specific components needed to finish building the entire project. And once he's completed its assembly, he'll be ready to venture through the stars to meet his ever-dreamt destiny.

Ratchet didn't care if anyone, including Grim, tells him he will never be able to achieve his greatest ambitions. What only mattered to him is he would finally get out of Veldin for good and go for what he set his mind to.