The patchwork on the wall was ugly, but suitable.

“So that was fairly easy. How do we fix the Dark Vessel’s Array now?”

“First we have to see the damages.”

The ship’s Array was a series of magical formations kept in the center of the ship. It held all the magical formations that were used to operate the ship and monitor its status.

Kohn was thinking it would be some kind of magical motherboard, but was surprised, worried and pissed when he came face-to-face with a gigantic rubix cube suspended by scary looking, pulsating chains.

“What. The. Hell. Is that?”

“This is the Magic Array that the Winged Order use to manipulate the ship. Each chain is made with a metal with high magic conductivity that allows nearly zero loss of mana. Mana commands travel through these chains to the specific magic formation to activate the spells.”

“All the chains interconnect. How do the ‘mana commands’ reach a specific formation?”

“Uh… don’t know. Memorization?”

“Memorization?”

“Maybe they cheat, I don’t know! Do I look like I’m in the Winged Order?”

The Armorer ignored the people that were already in the room, all of whom looked at their group with disapproving stares. He walked up to a pair of chains and gave them a quick tug. The Boxes connected to those chains followed along, cycling past.

“What the fuck? It really is a giant rubix cube.”

“What’s a rubix cube?”

“It’s a stupid puzzle from Earth. You shift the surface to match up the colors so each side of the cube has the same colors.”

“Hmm. Well the Magic Array isn’t just the surface.”

He grabbed the pair of chains on top of the box and pulled towards himself. Other cubes with formations on them cycled with the row below. Unlike Earth rubix cubes this one had an internal depth. Oh that would be a bitch to solve.

Eventually a completely burnt cube appeared.

“It’s not damaged, it’s just destroyed.”

“Well let’s just draw the formations on it and it’ll be good as new!”

“Draw it on?”

“Yeah, you know. Like how we did with training. Drawing formations just requires the precise knowledge to make it. Right?”

The assistants all shook their heads at his question. The Armorer face palmed so hard a clap echoed through the large room.

“No?”

“Magic formations can be easily drawn, but just drawing a magic formation without the proper materials would only make them a one-time use. If we just ‘drew’ them we’d have to redraw the formations every time we needed that particular formation.”

“So, what are the proper materials?”

“Well first we’d need to replace the Formation Bank, the cube. Without a new one the magic formation wouldn’t seal properly and fall off at some point. Then we’ll need a powdered catalyst and ethereal liquid to draw the formation.”

“So what’s the problem? Let’s just do that.”

“The powdered catalyst and ethereal liquid we have, but our production of prototypes has used up too much material. We don’t have enough to create another Formation Bank.”

***

“You’ve used up the material needed to replace the Formation Bank. And now you want the fleet to find a suitable planet to land and mine more?”

The Armorer was bashful when he replied. “Yes.”

High Mage Leete noticed that he was recently unable to maintain his normal calm and calculating behavior around the Dark Vessel’s Armorer and the Earthling Kohn. And these situations were happening increasingly more frequent.

Before he could yell at the fool for wasting materials that were only used in trace amounts, the Earthling spoke up.

“Why do we need to go to a planet?”

With all the calm rage of a parent teaching a child who annoyingly couldn’t understand something so simple Leete taught him.

“Planets are the only place that has air.”

“And?”

“Air is needed to survive.”

“Well yeah, but we’re not looking for air. We’re looking for materials.”

Three veins throbbed incessantly on Leete’s forehead. Rubbing them did nothing to dull the sensations. Leete always had high hopes from Kohn ever since their conversation on his home planet, but if he didn’t understand the basics of life it would have been a fools dream.

“In order to mine the materials we need air to survive. How can you not understand this?”

“I’m not stupid.” He looked a little insulted at the insinuation. “Don’t you have some kind of smaller ship that can mine or just bring an asteroid into the Bay. We’ll chop something off and then throw out the rest.”

“The only other vessels we have are designed for combat and only for short range defense. And we CAN’T bring a rock on board without killing everyone because you broke the internal shields Formation Bank! Without shields everyone will be sucked out and die or the air would get sucked out and everyone would suffocate!”

“Okay!” Kohn backed away with both hands raised in surrender.

Leete tried to calm down a little, especially in front of the Prince it wouldn’t help him to get angry. The last time he yelled at the Prince he really could have lost his position. Or life.

Kohn thought of something in the awkward silence.

“How do you launch the smaller vessels?”

“Huh?”

“How do they leave the ship? I don’t remember seeing any ports or attached ships to launch.”

“There is a bay for the small vessels. The entrance Bay is isolated from the rest of the ship with metal doors so that we don’t lose air when the Phantasms are launched.”

Kohn turned away from Leete.

“Armorer.”

“Yes?”

“Can you create a tool or something for a single person to mine and retrieve materials?”

“Of course. Easily!”

“Please do. Now, what is the closest location where we might find the materials we need?”

Leete gestured to a nearby commander. “The nearest known planet with the necessary material is weeks of travel time away.”

“That’s too far away. Not only can we not repair the Formation Bank but we also can’t keep making prototypes.” It irritated Leete to hear him only complaining about being unable to make new toys. “Outside of a planet, where else could we find the material?”

“Spells sensors indicate that there is sufficient material in the nearby asteroid road.”

The ‘asteroid road’ is pretty much an asteroid belt, but instead of circling a planet it just shoots off into space. The best researchers assume that a road is created when a planet is destroyed in such a way that it shoots off away from its original position. The further it goes the more of the planet breaks apart and falls behind.

“Then this is the perfect time to test out the space capabilities of our prototype armor suit.”