A Brass City Amid The Clouds

Posted on Wed Oct 7th, 2020 @ 2:12pm by The Narrator
Edited on on Wed Oct 7th, 2020 @ 2:34pm

396 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: S2:1: Good Will Gunboat Tour
Location: Upper atmosphere of the gas giant Resshixs
Timeline: MD27 13.45

The two Casstauilli guard ships partly escorted and towed the Traveller through the clouds of the gas giant. All the while the field emitted by them kept the Federation starship out of phase with mainstream reality. Cloud’s did not part but passed through the ship, momentarily confusing officers as they did so.

But they did not have far to go.

Whatever science had shifted them out of phase, allowed the crews to see what else was hidden behind this shroud. More of the angular dazzle striped ships began to appear, patrolling or performing manoeuvres. There were larger ships, faceted like armour-clad jewels, comparable in size to the Wayfarer class battlecruiser. But they were dwarfed by what they orbited.

The City of Brass.

Its scale was mind-boggling. Roughly spherical in proportion, it looked like a complicated brass orrery of interconnecting rings and belts, ticking with slow methodical movements. The brassy material glittered with the same radiant lustre as the field that enveloped the Traveller. And as they approached bands within the sphere soon turned out to be massive rings, each twenty kilometres wide, with the belts forming into a ring hundreds of kilometres across. On the inner surface of these belts were scenes of idyllic greenery, bright and vibrant, interwoven with kintsugi like rivers of sapphire water.

All in all, it was the size of a small moon, a minor planet made of metal and clever ingenuity.

The two guard ships guided the Traveller until it was within the bright autumnal glow of the city. Then they broke away, to retreat to the flotillas of other ships in orbit the immense structure. And onward the ship soared, drawn in by guiding mooring beams towards one of the slowly rotating rings. Their speed increased, matching the rings spin as they passed over the edge, a curtain of atmosphere buffeting the starship as it passed over.

The sky above them now was a pale, pale blue, and below them a jungle canopy thick and luscious. Guided gently over this forest, the Traveller began to descend towards a wide rectangular lake. As it neared the water line bright shimmering lights like heating coils illuminated the water directly under the starship.

And on that cushion of nullified gravity, the starship Traveller came to rest above the lakeshore within the City Of Brass.

 

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