Demise

[Boss]

The Reliant rested in a gargantuan drydock slung below Altair. With the constant streams of repair craft, drones, and workers, in addition to the sundered hangar pods, it resembled a massive corpse being eaten by flies. The hangars were cut open along the sides, and great chunks of interior were removed, leaving four large, equally sized and spaced shafts that opened to space at the front of the pods. One of these shafts was already filled with a cartridge containing the Riven cannon assembly, power sources, and control apparatus. A cluster of the bees were busily welding the cartridge in place. Others were connecting hoses, conduits, and cabling to ports on the outside. A number of Heavy Lifters sat with armor panels in their transport fields, ready to place them in the spaces that beckoned for them to rest and defend the ship.

As the last of the cables was connected, all of the excitement on the cartridge ceased and the cloud of workers drifted away from the hull. There was a moment of hushedness, of anticipation. The great weapon whined, capacitors loaded, regulating circuits analyzed and made corrections. A sensor-laden probe was jockeyed into position just over three kilometers from the craft, centered. The focusing eye of Riven stared at the probe and blinked it out of existence in a colossal flare of ending. The data transmitted from the probe up to the instant of its unmaking was quickly pored over, checked against calculated values and fluctuations. The consensus was reached: Riven was operational.

The other two assemblies were transported to the edge of the dock. As soon as one of the Heavy Lifters had completed its task of placing the armor, it broke off from the pack and acquired the first assembly. Carefully and skillfully, the second of four Riven cannons was gently slid into its shaft, and the cloud of workers set to their business of making it fast. The Heavy Lifters retrieved new plates and again waited for the assembly to be tested, approved, and certified, and again performed their ballet of placement.

The labs relinquished the fourth and last cannon to the control of the assemblers, and without pause, it was collected, placed, affixed, tested, and sealed. There was no fanfare. There was no ribbon-cutting ceremony. There was nothing to indicate this was anything more than an ordinary occurrence. One does not celebrate making a tool, for one will simply make a new one if it breaks.

One celebrates what one makes or does with the tool.