It took some time, that I spent mostly, reading a book on my phone that I happened to bring with me. But I did eventually arrive at the edge of the asteroid belt, in a position that my sensors told me held the shortest distance to the farthest asteroid in the star system. No other point did. This was the spot I decided to park my frigate and soon would be the home to Blossoming Terranova's first mining station. After shutting down most of the systems in the frigate, I disconnected from the chair and turned to look at those awful stairs wishing somehow had installed an elevator instead, but I knew that stairs never malfunctioned in emergencies. I let out a sigh and quickly got to it. I slowly made my way through the ship and down to the dry docks that Clara had built inside the ship. When I walked into the dry dock command room, my mouth fell open at the sheer amount of pink that was in the room.

"What the hell, Clara?" I asked when I saw the walls and ceiling were slightly different shades of pink. It somehow worked, but it was a little overwhelming.

"What? You don't like it? I think it's warm and welcoming, besides it's my office so fuck anyone that doesn't like it, they can wait outside for all I care." she replied as she walked over to the blueprint table. And gave the side of it a slap as she grinned at me.

"Are you ready to start building the first mining barge? Once we get it going, some security officer guy whose name I didn't catch, volunteered to pilot the first one, luckily a few others volunteered to pilot too. Ya know, until the actual miners show up to take over. Anyway, once he is bringing us resources, we can use them in the fabricator upstairs to start pumping out materials for a Space Station with a foundry station attached. Once that is up, then it's onto constructing the industrial furnace. That is where things get interesting because it can turn all those resources into ingots, which our industrial fabricator loves a lot more than the rocks." she said as she grinned at me happily.

"Uh huh, and where do you plan to put this industrial furnace?" I asked curiously.

"Oh, I thought that was obvious, it goes in the foundry, that big open space where mining barges fly in one side to drop off their cargo and then freight ships fly out the other side filled to the brim with ingots.

"Right, of course." I said as I looked at the blueprint table with a bit of a frown on my face, before asking another question. "Hey, Clara, why haven't you started building the mining barge already? Do we not have the resources on board?"

"Yea, we have the resources, but the reason I haven't started building it yet is that I discovered something interesting that I want to show you first."

I waved my hand to indicated for her to please show me what she had found interesting. She stepped forwards, turning the blueprint table on and instead of the mining barge I expected to see I instead saw something completely different.

"What the hell? Is that a space truck?" I asked, feeling like I needed to pick my jaw up.

She nodded her head as she started to point to each part as she explained it to me.

"Yea it took a bit of effort but see this hull I took it from the mining barge and moulded it to this shape. There was a chunk of it left over, so I used it to form these two trailers and the belt that feeds the resources into them." She said as she proudly showed it off to me. However, I could tell she wasn't done and waited patiently as she fidgeted.

"Aah, okay, I'll tell you everything! So I had the mining barge up and was staring at it and I kinda slipped, and my hand pushed against the hull of the mining barge. At the time, I was thinking about wanting to fix a few of the details on the hull that I thought I could make more efficient. But anyway, when my hand touched the hull it moved, the entire thing Reshaped itself moving everything… A few seconds later, the table told me the ship's design was incorrect, and the shield emitters would not be able to protect a hull shape like that one. I got excited and started playing around with it. Ya know, after I regained my footing." She started laughing, causing me to smile Softly.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Anyway, I took inspiration from this truck game I played back home, which was in space and the idea was to transport stuff. I designed this ship after that game, that's why the inside of the ship is sort of one giant room. As you can see, the cockpit is here at the front, with the screen shaped like an actual truck. Then you rotate the Chair and step out of it into this nice big room, stairs in the middle here lead down to this subfloor bit. And those stairs on each side Of the room lead up to the upper subfloor. Up here you have the airlock out of the truck, but again I loved the game's idea and I wanted to have its airlock, so I worked on it. After a while, I finally came up with a way for the table to allow me to have an elevator as an airlock. How cool is that? It raises you to hip height outside this hatch on the roof, then you kinda have to step or climb the rest of the way out. There is a roller door on the wall to the right of that, I put an idiot-proof Oxygen Refill station in there. You open the roller door, then you open the stations' door, place the oxygen tank inside and close the door. The machine will then move the tank into the right position and half fill with water before filling the bottle with air, after that the station will drain the water away and a ding will sound letting you know the door is unlocked, and you can retrieve the oxygen tank."

She looked at me with sparkling stars in her eyes, and after a few moments I had to admit it was pretty cool. I guess she saw what she had been waiting for because she suddenly continued.

"But he best bit is the lower subfloor though, it has these stairs in the middle of the room that you walk down, and then you can turn around and use that button on the right to lift the stairs blocking off the room to the cockpit. The back bit of the stairs is reinforced hull glass, so it does seal the room. Ya know, in case of breaches or boarding parties. Not important, The good bit is by raising it up you get access to the engineering room that is under the cockpits floor, the engine, and power stuff is all down there, and you can go in for maintenance or whatever, life support is also under there." She stared at It for a few moments, looking like she wanted to caress it tenderly.

"Okay, but knowing you, there is more to the cargo area than that?" I asked slowly.

"Oh, right, haha, yes of course!" I saw her blush before moving her hand towards the rear of the cargo area. "Now it wouldn't be a cargo area without some shelving for cargo, but keep in mind this is a mining barge or the official designation that I have put on the blueprint, The Mining Truck. The shelving is small and compact ment for knick-knacks like photo frames or toys maybe some paper books, that sort of thing. On the left side of the stairs is this roller door, slide it up, and you have another little nifty design by yours truly, a bed! Oh, but Clara beds have been around for like ever, yes I know! But that's not my design, you see, I designed this nifty little gadget to go inside the bed allowing you to adjust the mattress to the firmness you like the most. It even has a water bed setting!" she squealed in delight as she waved her hand around the image of the bed.

I nodded my head before pointing to the opposite side, "and what's over here?" I asked curiously.

"Ooh, that's the good stuff, you see over here is a small kitchenette, with a few roller doors, please keep in mind all roller doors can be locked open or closed, on the left is the big one, hiding the fridge and next to it the smaller one hides the microwave. We will jump over the super large one in the middle because I want to circle back to that one, the small roller door on the right of that one is a recharge station for phones tablets, gizmos like that. Next to it is a roller door that hides a laundromat service station that I found the blueprint for. It has a door that you open, you hang your space suit inside it and close the door, I think it runs for five minutes and then lets out a ding letting you know your space suit is clean sterilised and ready for use."

"That one will be perfect for the long voyages, should have put a few of those in the frigate." I said as I laughed.

"Yes, well the huge one in the middle, is the uplink pod! For those moments when you're bored out of your mind, and you just want to get away. But it gets better! You see there is a small hallway to the uplink pod. In the wall on the right is a little nook tucked away with a computer from earth, a high-end gaming pc with a direct line to the buoy that is to be installed here at the mining base. So these mining trucks have an instant connection back home to earth, allowing them to keep up to date with their friends, games, or books! However, that's just inside! On the outside where the wheels should be, are thrusters, they are jutted out a little and sit on a sort of rotating platform, cutting down on the amount of thrusters the ship would normally need. Then moving on, the truck has floodlights located here wear you would expect lights on any vehicle would be, but these also have them up here on the roof. Give the pilot a small sun of light to point at what they are mining. No, I have not forgotten to include the mining lasers, they are located here in the middle of the hood, they slide out when activated and mine the rock as the tractor beam located under this bumper looking bit, holds the asteroid in place."

I nodded my head as I looked over it. I reached out and turned the image, seeing how the tractor beam sucked anything cut up into a sort of funnel that led to the trailers, slowly filling up the rear one before filling up the front trailer.

"This all looks very cool, but I am worried about the resource strain and budget for building this sort of thing" I said as I turned to look at Clara who was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"What?" I asked as I began to frown at the look on her face.

"Its cost, is a quarter of a mining barge in resources and credits! But the best part is it can mine double the cargo!" she squealed in excitement.

"Damn, now that is a game changer, let's print four of them right now!" I squealed back excitedly as I stared at the mining truck.

"Ha! I knew you would say that, and that Auntie is why I have already started constructing all four of them!"

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